Reformed Wisdom

"If I should climb up into the pulpit without having deigned to look at a book and frivolously imagine, 'Ah well!  When I get there God will give me enough to talk about,' and I do not condescend to read, or think about what I ought to declare, and I come here without carefully pondering how I must apply the Holy Scripture to the edification of the people -- well, then I should be a cock-sure charlatan and God would put me to confusion in my audaciousness." -- John Calvin in Ash, The Priority of Preaching, 41.