The sovereignty of God and the piety of the minister in preaching

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Truths, found in Scripture, and affecting my own mind, freshly, strongly, and as it were newly, I mean coming to me, after frequent perusals, as living words of God, verifying themselves in my experience, are those which, when simply spoken or preached, seem to reach other people.

...my growing judgment is, that the utterance of such truths will accomplish God's end on his elect: 'for they know his voice'. Surely in our craving for effect, we lose the value of such remarkable passages as John 10:27; 2 Cor. 4:2; 2 Thess. 2:10. Simplicity, in following Christ as a teacher, is worthy of our consideration.

James W. Alexander, quoted in James M. Garretson, Princeton and Preaching, p. 1