There is no satisfactory way of accounting for the universal belief in the existence of God, except that such belief is founded on the very constitution of our nature.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, 198.

It is evident from the entire passage in Matthew 23 that the note of denunciation mingles with that of lamentation, and the note of wrath and judgement mingles with that of tenderness, sorrow, and weeping. This fact should serve as a salutary reminder to the preacher that this prophetic note of denunciation, if it is employed at all, must be employed with great caution, and then only if those intense spiritual emotions, which are clearly present in the soul of Christ, are also, in a measure, present in the soul of the preacher as he pleads with men ‘in Christ’s stead’.

John Carrick, The Imperative of Preaching, 39.

In each historical covenantal administration, the shared faith of God’s people has attached to the particularities of each successive covenant.

STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 166.

True preaching always involves explicatio et applicatio verbi Dei (the explication and application of the Word of God).

John Carrick, The Imperative of Preaching, 29.