The Preacher’s Garment of Salvation

John Leland (1754-1841), a Baptist preacher in Virginia and New England:

It is of primary importance that the preacher should be clothed with the garment of salvation; that he should be filled with a sense of the immense worth of the truth, the guilt, depravity and danger man is in; the unsearchable love of Christ in the bloody purchase, and his ability and willingness to save redeemed penitents. Without this robe, he will preach a distant Jesus, by an unfeeling gospel, and with an unhallowed tongue. (The Writings of Elder John Leland)