I. There is a singular analogy between the present state of knowledge and of piety; in this age literature and religion fare much alike. In the Dark Ages literature was the monopoly of the few; gross ignorance was the condition of the many. Now every one knows a little, few know much, and fewer still know profoundly. Is it not the same with piety? The tendency of modern times has been to diffuse among the many the piety which was once concentrated in the few. The public are religious as a public, but in individuals the salt has lost its savour. If any remedy is to be applied to this state of things, we must first set ourselves to inquire into its causes.
II. Is there any flaw in our ministry which may in some measure account for the low standard of personal religion prevalent among us? We fear there is. We believe that the Christian ministry having by God's design and constitution two arms wherewith to do its work, one of these arms has become paralysed by inactivity. The office of the ministry as regards the word of God is twofold, to rouse consciences and to guide them, and for a long time past ministers have contented themselves with rousing, while they have scarcely done anything to guide, them. The sermon is thrown every Sunday into the midst of the people, very much as the arrow which found out King Ahab was darted into the host of Israel, to take its chance amid the thousand arrows which on that day were winging their flight to and fro. There is in our exercise of the ministry no systematic plan on which people are taught and brought on gradually towards "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." The Apostolical Epistles are the great model of what Christian teaching in a Christian country should be. Our Lord bids His disciples "teach" first as a preliminary to baptism, teach with a view of making disciples, and subsequently to baptism "teach" the converts so made to "observe all things, whatsoever He had commanded." The object of the one was to arouse the conscience of the heathen; the object of the other was to direct the conscience of the Christian.
E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion,p. 1.
Reference: G. Moberly, Sermons in Winchester College,2nd series, p. 63.