Speak the truth

5. Hence it is that to this day the Scribes and Pharisees, the men who have the form but not the power of religion, and who are generally wise in their own eyes, and righteous in their own conceits; hearing these things are offended: are deeply offended, when we speak of the religion of the heart, and particularly when we shew, that without this, were we to give all our goods to feed the poor, it would profit us nothing. But offended they must be: for we cannot but speak the truth as it is in Jesus. It is our part, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, to deliver our own soul. All that is written in the book of God we are to declare, not as pleasing men, but the Lord. We are to declare not only all the promises, but all the threatnings too which we find therein. At the same time that we proclaim all the blessings and privileges, which God hath prepared for his children, we are likewise to teach all the things, whatsoever he hath commanded. And we know, that all these have their use; either for the awakening those that sleep, the instructing the ignorant, the comforting the feeble-minded, or the building up and perfecting of the saints. We know that all scripture, given by inspiration of God, is profitable either for doctrine, or for reproof, either for correction or for instruction in righteousness: and that the man of God, in the process of the work of God in his soul, has need of every part thereof, that he may at length be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.