BOGATZKY'S GOLDEN TREASURY FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD: CONSISTING OF Devotional and Practical Observations LONDON: SUTTABY AND CO., Amen Corner, St. Paul's. 138. d. 755 Preface. 'HAT this book may be better understood, and T prove a means of edifying every reader, let to: the following remarks be particularly attended 1. The Petitions and the Divine Answers which are to be found among several of the Scripture texts in the titles, may be of admirable use to many. The questions generally run in the complaining, inquiring strain, for information and redress, under the painful anxieties of a wounded conscience; and the answers are well calculated to relieve and inform the distressed soul. They generally consist of gracious promises of Scripture, which may easily be turned into petitions; and if relief does not immediately come, yet the soul gets ease by thus pouring out its complaints and reminding the Lord of his promises, faith in the word is hereby strengthened, and the soul is led to see that trouble and anxiety must lead the way to rejoicing and triumph. 2. The distinction that is made in several parts of the book between bare morality and true Christianity respecting the motives of actions, the principle from which they are done, and the degree and extent of them, may also be useful. Morality is not Christianity, though there can be no true Christianity without morality. Moral actions may be done from natural principles, and will certainly centre in self, in some shape or other; but a truly Christian act must proceed from a gracious principle in the heart. A moral man and a true Christian may both give something to the poor... the poor are relieved by each; but the benevolence of the one may proceed from a natural generosity of spirit, while that of the other comes from a sense of divine favour and bounty |