Gifts and Grace: Great pastoral counsel for preachers

From John Newton:

"Beware, my friend, of mistaking the ready exercise of gifts for the exercise of grace.

The minister may be assisted in public for the sake of his hearers; and there is something in the nature of our public work, when surrounded by a concourse of people, that is suited to draw forth the exertion of our abilities, and to engage our attention in outward services, when the frame of the heart may be far from right in the sight of the Lord."

Quoted in Man Overboard! The Story of Jonah, p. 30