This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 edition. Excerpt: ...to do more: I have tried to show that he has influenced the whole spirit of theology and the whole attitude of Christian thought. Calvin's name is identified with the doctrine of Sovereignty, Luther's with the doctrine of Justification, Wesley's with the doctrine of Sanctification. You will never be able to ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 edition. Excerpt: ...to do more: I have tried to show that he has influenced the whole spirit of theology and the whole attitude of Christian thought. Calvin's name is identified with the doctrine of Sovereignty, Luther's with the doctrine of Justification, Wesley's with the doctrine of Sanctification. You will never be able to identify the name of Beecher with any one single doctrine. But this we do in England--this I trust and believe you do in America: we feel that this man held so much of God in him, and recognized so clearly the grace that had saved him, as to bring into the whole realm of theologic thought a new spirit, a new outlook, which broke down ancient superstitions, and made the way clear for men to work in new constructions, solid and beautiful, of Christian truth and Christian hope. His was the influence of leaven in the meal. Sometimes it is the fate--shall I not say it is the glory?--of such workers as he, soon to be lost on the page of history as a mere name, and to live, as he often longed to live in life, obscure, unnoticed of men, with his work for his joy and his Master for his reward. But whether the name of Beecher goes down on the page of history as one of the creative personalities or not, of this I am assured: his spirit will go down, and it will be a spirit making for peace, breadth, charity, yea, a spirit making for the recognition of Christ, the love of Christ, the surrender of the heart to Christ, and issuing through that surrender into emancipation and enlargement of thought, of service, of personal and sacred experience. Accept, then, my friends, these fragmentary utterances of one who knew and loved your pastor, and who knew and loved him well enough to know that, as he is here with us to-day, he is well content at the absence of...
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