Pen-and-Paper Piety by Thomas Fuller

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 19, 1882

Pen-and-Paper Piety

By Thomas Fuller

How easy is pen-and-paper piety, for one to write religiously! I will not say that it costeth nothing; but it is far cheaper to work one's head than one's heart to goodness. Some, perchance, may guess me to be good by my writings, and so I shall deceive my reader. But, if I do not desire to be good, I most of all deceive myself. I can make a hundred meditations sooner than subdue the least sin in my soul. Yea, I was once in the mind never to write more for fear lest my writing at the last day prove records against me. And yet why should I not write, that, by reading my own book, the disproportion betwixt my lines and my life may make me blush myself (if not into goodness) into less badness than I would do otherwise. That so my writings may condemn myself; that so God may be moved to acquit me. — Thomas Fuller.