Dear Gentlemen,
A dead ministry will always make a dead people. Whereas, if ministers are warmed with the love of God themselves, they cannot but be instruments of diffusing that love among others. This, this is the best preparation for the work whereunto you are to be called. Learning without piety, will only make you more capable of promoting the kingdom of Satan. Henceforward, therefore, I hope you will enter into your studies not to get a parish, nor to be polite preachers, but to be great saints. This, indeed, is the most compendious way to true learning; for an understanding enlightened by the Spirit of God is more susceptible of divine truths, and I am certain will prove most useful to mankind. The more holy you are, the more will God delight to honour you. He loves to make use of instruments, which are like himself.
– in Michael A. G. Haykin, The revived Puritan: the spirituality of George Whitefield
HT: (Adam Embry)