No truth can do us any personal good, but as
it influences and purifies our heart and life.
What can we think of those professors, who, while
they appear saints abroad, are fiends at home?
Can it be a matter of surprise, that they should feel
no real satisfaction either in religion or in the world?
They profess so much religion, as to render them
the objects of the world's derision; and yet, they
possess too little of its power to enable them to
taste the sweets of genuine piety.
Hence, they grow morose in their temper, and
uncharitable in their spirit. They are quick sighted
in discovering the mote in a brother's eye, while
utter strangers to the beam in their own.
They are spots and blemishes in the visible church!
- edited from Thomas Reade's, "Following the Lord Fully"