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the more immediate^ we depend for our sufficiency upon God Him- self— the more direct is our progress towards its fulfilment. If even a converted man act merely by a will of his own, if he vainly ima- gine it is himself that must support the ark of God, he mars his undertaking at once.”
His appointment to the prelacy of Herbrechtingen brought with it a change from a life of incessant toil and action, inter- course with students and scholars, to a life of ease and compara- tive quiet. His literary labours were almost completed : the Gnomon had received its imprimatur on the very day of his new appointment. However, he soon found in his new sphere fresh fields of usefulness. He commenced regular meetings for edification, like those which he had held at Denkendorf, and he now expounded throughout the four Gospels, and subsequently the Apocalypse : and it was from notes of his expositions of the latter, taken by his hearers, and afterwards corrected by himself, that his well-known “ Sixty Practical Addresses” on Revelation were put together. In 1749 he was elected Councillor of Consistory and Prelate of Alpirsbach, which obliged him to leave Herbrechtingen, and reside at Stuttgart. u I enter on my new and unsought office,” said he, 66 trusting in the Divine mercy. My call to it gives me joy in one respect, but shames me in another, as knowing what I am in my- self, and how hard it is to answer even the moderate expectations which men may form of me. However I shall thus become less and less in my own eyes, and more desirous of attaining the ever- lasting rest.” Henceforth it became his official business to assist in directing the public affairs of the Church.
“ To form a proper notion of the Church (says he), we must not set before us the primitive Church as a model. The apostles, in speaking of the Church, intend not so much the Church as it then existed, but rather the Church in the abstract, or what it was de- signed of God to become hereafter. Christianity has never yet attained that perfect form which it is to have by virtue of the Old Testament promises.” 66 The Israelites, with all their corruption, were still the people of God, and were called such, because God had His own ordinances among them. We must not then be too eager to adopt every objection brought against our mother Church, worldly as her children so generally are ; neither must we forget the privileges we retain in those common public prayers and songs of praise, which she gives us so many opportunities of enjoying. It is to her, under God, that we owe the preservation of the Scrip- tures, and our familiarity with their contents : without her, the whole history of Christ would long ago have been regarded as fabulous.”
On forms of prayer he observes, u Good forms are valuable ; but when the heart has been put in tune by them, it is better they should give place to extemporaneous petition. Still prescribed