Good words from a godly woman, who labored for the abolition of slavery, women’s rights, and the common good of all:
“Christianity bears all the marks of a divine original; it came down from heaven, and its gracious purpose is to carry us up thither. Its author is God. It was foretold from the beginning, by prophecies, which grew clearer and brighter as they approached the period of their accomplishment. It was confirmed by miracles, which continued till the religion they illustrated was established. It was ratified by the blood of its Author. Its doctrines are pure, sublime, consistent. Its precepts just and holy. Its worship is spiritual. Its service reasonable, and rendered practicable by the offers of Divine aid to human weaknesses. It is sanctioned by the promise of eternal happiness to the faithful, and the threat of everlasting misery to the disobedient. It had no collusion with power, for power sought to crush it. It should not be in any league with the world, for it set out by declaring itself the enemy of the world;—it reprobated its maxims, it showed the vanity of its glories, the danger of its riches, the emptiness of its pleasures.
“Christianity, though the most perfect rule of life that ever was devised, is far from being barely a rule of life . . . . This religion does not consist in an external conformity to practices which, though right in themselves, may be adopted from human motives, and to answer secular purposes. It is not a religion of forms, and modes, and decencies. It is being transformed into the image of God. It is being like-minded with Christ. It is considering Him as our sanctification [how we change], as well as our redemption [the way we are rescued]. It is endeavoring to live to Him here, that we may live with Him herafter. It is desiring earnestly to surrender our will to His, our heart to the conduct of His Spirit, our live to the guidance of His Word.
“The change in the human heart, which the Scriptures declare to be necessary, they represent to be not so much an old principle improved, as a new one created; not educed out of the former character, but implanted in the new one.”
—Hannah More (1745-1833), Practical Piety: or the Influence of the Religion of the Heart on the Conduct of Life (New York: The American Tract Society, 1811), pp. 11-12, emphasis added.
