But some of you, perhaps, are saying to yourselves, "How will my
being changed and renewed by the Spirit of God, render the laws less
burdensome, while the crime and sin around me remain unchanged? It
is others who want to be improved as much, and perhaps more than I
do." It may be so, my friends; or, again, it may not; those who
fancy that others need God's Spirit more than they do, may be the
very persons who need it really the most; those who say they see, may
be only proving their blindness by so saying; those who fancy that
their souls are rich, and are full of all knowledge, and understand
the whole Bible, and want no further teaching, may be, as they were
in St. John's time, just the ones who are wretched, and miserable,
and poor, and blind, and naked in soul, and do not know it. But at
all events, if you think others need to be changed by God's Spirit,
PRAY that God's Spirit may change them. For believe me, unless you
pray for God's Spirit for each other, ay, for the whole world, there
is no use asking for yourselves. This, I believe, is one of the
reasons, perhaps the chief reason, why the fruits of God's Spirit are
so little seen among us in these days; why our Christianity is become
more and more dead, and hollow, and barren, while expensive and
intricate laws and taxes are becoming more and more necessary every
year; because our religion has become so selfish, because we have
been praying for God's Spirit too little for each other.
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