They
effect works, the greatness of which it will remain for posterity to
discern. The greatest works of God in the kingdom of grace, like his
majestic movements in nature, are marked by stillness in the doing of
them, and reveal themselves by their effects. They come up like the sun,
and show themselves by their own light. The kingdom of God cometh not
with observation. Luther simply followed the leadings of the Holy Spirit
in the struggles of his own soul. He wrought out what the inward
impulses of his own breast prompted him to work, and behold, before he
was aware, he was in the midst of the Reformation. So, too, it was with
the Plymouth pilgrims, with their sermons three times a day on board the
_Mayflower._ Without thinking of founding an empire, they obeyed the
sublime teachings of the Spirit, the promptings of duty and the
spiritual life. God working mightily in the human heart is the spring of
all abiding spiritual power; and it is only as men follow out the
sublime promptings of the inward spiritual life, that they do great
things for God.
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