Dabney on the Requirement of Christian Ministry
[T]he first great requisite for the Christian minister is fervent piety; and that to cultivate this should be the chief aim of his training; that there is no royal road to mental improvement, but the faculties are only improved by honest and diligent labor; that the doctrines, government and mode of worship of the Presbyterian Church in the United States compose the wisest and most scriptural set of religious institutions known to us; that the sacred Scriptures, interpreted according to the fair and customary sense of human language, all philosophy, all speculations, and all inferences must implicitly bend; and that the Holy Spirit, to be obtained by constant prayer and holy living, is the only sufficient interpreter of God's word.
