Character & Reward of the Faithful Minister 2

Next Part Character & Reward of the Faithful Minister 3

PROTECTION of his flock is also the duty of a shepherd. In eastern countries, where wild beasts abound, it often requires no small share of courage and resolution to defend the sheep against their attacks. David informs us that in the course of his pastoral duties he slew a lion and a bear which came to assail his fleecy charge. And are there no enemies prowling round the fold of Christ, against which it is necessary for the Christian shepherd to guard his flock? Is not SATAN perpetually going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour? Is not the spirit of the WORLD ever watching for an opportunity to enter and devastate the interests of piety in our churches? Are there not HERESIES ever lurking about the pastures of truth? Against all these it is incumbent on the ministers of the gospel to employ the eye of vigilance and the arm of authority.

Our Savior himself warned his first ministers against some, who though inwardly they were ravenous wolves, yet, under the guise of sheep's clothing, would gain access to the flock. There are cases in which it requires no ordinary courage to arrest and expel these mischievous intruders. To stop the progress of the antinomian heresy which in modern times has desolated so many churches; to resist the influence of some powerful or worldly-minded professor; or to curb the ambition of some rising Diotrephes, who is perpetually making encroachments on the liberty both of the pastor and people, requires a degree of boldness not always possessed by the ministers of the gospel. A temporizing policy has sometimes been resorted to for the sake of peace, but it has only given the mischief more time and more scope for operation. I admit that great prudence and mildness are necessary in such cases, but they should be combined with great firmness.

Affectionate tenderness is generally associated with the character of a shepherd. The description of our great Redeemer given by the evangelical prophet has always been admired. "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." And this, in measure, is the character of every consistent minister of Christ. It is but a very small part of the minister's character which you see in the pulpit.

You may there behold the beamings of holy affection in his eye, and hear the breathings of tenderness from his lips; but the solicitude which oppresses his heart, and the love that glows in his bosom, which neither time can diminish nor injury destroy; which lead him to weep over your failings, and smile upon the budding excellences of your character; and which, could he serve you in no other way, would render him willing to be offered upon the service and sacrifice of your faith; these you cannot know. He bears upon his heart the burden of all your interests, and is indifferent to nothing that concerns you. Even in temporal affairs he sympathizes with all your joys and sorrows—but he concentrates his solicitude in what relates to your souls. His ear is ever open to the voice of your enquiries and complaints; he will try to soothe your sorrows, hush your alarms, scatter your fears, guide your feet, and "being affectionately desirous of you, he will be gentle among you even as a nurse cherishes her children."

A faithful minister will enforce all his instructions by his EXAMPLE. In eastern countries shepherds do not drive the flock before them as ours do—but go before the sheep, and allure them onward by their well-known voice. Hence the Psalmist says in that beautiful pastoral ode, the twenty-third Psalm, "He leads me," not drives me, "beside the still waters." What force and beauty does this fact give to our Lord's own language, "The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out; and when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice."

The necessity of a holy example in the teacher of religion is strongly implied even in the negative part of the injunction, "neither as being lords over God's heritage." To enjoin others to do what we refuse to do ourselves would be to treat our people as slaves or servants, who are commanded to perform services from which their masters are exempt. To submit to the same obligations both in faith and practice which we enforce upon the people, to mind the same thing, to walk by the same rule as we lay down for them—is the only way in which we can come up to the spirit of this injunction. We are to be "examples to the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." Instead of lagging behind in these things, our proper place is before the flock.

We should not be satisfied with the same religious attainments as our hearers—but should strive to excel them. Defects and failings which would be unnoticed in them, will be instantly observed in us. If obscurity is a privilege, we have disenfranchised ourselves of this. Our congregations treat our excellences and our failings with a different measure; having surveyed the latter by a magnifying power, they look at the former through a lens which diminishes the object; and for this reason, because they expect from us more good and less evil than from the rest of the world. They expect to see our descriptions of piety copied into our own conduct, and happy the man who having set forth true godliness in his discourses, in all its beautiful proportions and all its glowing colors, shall constrain the audience to exclaim, "The painter has delineated his own likeness." Happy the man who, when the people shall ask, "What is religion?" shall be not only able to reply in reference to his pulpit, "Come and hear," but in reference to his life, "Come and see."

He alone is an honor to his pastoral office, or is honored by it, who lives the gospel which he preaches, and adorns by his conduct the doctrines which he believes. But the unholy minister of religion is a disgrace to Christianity and the worst enemy of mankind. He is the most powerful abettor of infidelity, and does more to wither the eternal interests of mankind than the most malignant and pestiferous treatises that ever issued from the press. If he perished alone in his sins, our feelings might be those of unmingled pity; but when we view him ruining the souls of others by his example, we unite abhorrence with our compassion, just as we would at the conduct of the shepherd who first drove his flock over a precipice and then dashed himself upon the rocks below.

And even where the misconduct does not amount to vice, how many hinder the salutary effect of their preaching by inconsistencies unworthy of the Christian, much more of the Christian minister. Such men resemble not the lighthouse, which hangs out its beaming signal to warn the tempest-tossed sailor of his danger and guide him in safety on his course; but the wandering and delusive fires, which mislead the unwary traveler to engulf him in the marsh.

We are too apt to lose sight of moral blemishes when they are accompanied by the splendor of brilliant powers of mind; beholding some men, like the angel standing in the sun, enveloped in the blaze of their talents, we feel inclined to make or admit on their behalf excuses which would not be entertained in behalf of people of inferior abilities. I know of nothing more dangerous to the interests of true piety than that idolatry of talent which resembles the superstitions of the old heathens who worshiped gods suited to their own tastes or pursuits without any heed of the vices ascribed to them.

In the present day, when the active virtues of Christianity are called forth into such constant and vigorous exercise, and when a minister is thought, and justly thought, behind the spirit of his time, if he stands aloof from schemes of public usefulness, it is very probable that the value of the pure, and mild, and passive graces may be underrated. If the former are necessary for converting the heathen abroad, the latter are equally necessary for rebuking the spirit of infidelity at home. I contend that these two classes of excellence are by no means incompatible with each other; so far from it, the grandest elevation of human character to which any man can attain, is to unite the ardor of zeal with the purity of holiness, and public spirit with personal religion; and he is the first of his species, because most like the Redeemer of the world, who causes his zeal to rise upon mankind with the blaze and benefits of the sun, and at the same time makes the influence of his holy example to descend upon them, silent, pure, and penetrating as the dew.

2. The apostle states in a negative form the manner in which the duties of the pastoral office are to be entered upon and discharged. A minister is not to take upon him the oversight of a flock under constraint—but with a willing mind. This had a particular reference to the state of things during the apostolic age. The demon of persecution had recently risen from the bottomless pit like the beast in the apocalypse ascending from the sea, "to whom it was given to make war with the saints, and to overcome them." At such a time the pastors of the churches were the first objects of attack, in order that the shepherds being seized, the flocks might be scattered with greater ease. Under these circumstances it was difficult to persuade some who were eminently qualified for the pastoral office to undertake its duties, and when prevailed upon to accept the charge of souls, they would do so with reluctant and unwilling minds. To check this spirit of cowardice the apostle admonished them not to shrink from the post of danger, nor to occupy it upon compulsion—but cheerfully to undertake its arduous functions.

At the present day the danger is not the same in reference to entrance upon the pastoral office; many are now too ready, and run before they are sent; but many, having entered the office, perform its duties unwillingly. They go to their studies as men who are dragged to prison; the work of preparing for the pulpit is disgusting drudgery, and even the high employment of preaching the Gospel is a weariness of which they constantly complain. They are in office, and they must remain there, and they act only under the compulsion of this necessity. Everything withers under their hands; they benumb every interest which they touch. The flock wander from a shepherd who does nothing for them except by constraint, until he can almost say, "I alone am left." Oh for more of that ready mind, that being willing in season and out of season to preach the word, to visit the sick, to instruct the ignorant, which shall look as if we felt the value of souls, were anticipating the approach of eternity, and had our eye fixed on the solemnities of the judgment day.

We are forbidden to take the oversight of the flock for the sake of filthy lucre. The love of money will impel men to do all things which are evil; it has led to the neglect of every duty, and the perpetration of every crime—it has steeled the heart against all the claims of humanity, and gratitude, and justice, and affection; it has transformed men into beasts and fiends. But the very climax of its guilt, its mischief, and its punishment, will be found in that man who undertakes the ministry of the word and the care of souls from no higher motive than financial advantage. And yet what crowds, with hands unclean, and hearts unsanctified, rush to the altar, merely "to eat the fat and drink the sweet," unawed by the voice which is ever crying, "Off, off, you profane!"

It is true that the candidates for dissenting pulpits, who see no splendid dignities, no rich emoluments, no ecclesiastical distinctions to which they can attain, and have no possibility of advancement sufficient to gratify avarice or ambition, are far less in danger of this evil than those who labor within a communion where a graduated scale of rank and emolument, extending from the arch-episcopal palace down to the vicarage, is presented to the eye of everyone who looks towards the church; still, among us there are some, it is to be feared, who, having tasted the 'bread of idleness' love it so well as to exclaim, "Evermore give us this bread." Such a man, too indolent to work, and foolishly considering that the ministry is an easy mode of life, steals into the priest's office for a morsel of bread. Contemptible creature! Considerate men esteem him a dead weight on the community. His God despises him, and throws him his morsel by the hands of an ignorant people. The night comes on, and all is dark and dismal. He has had his reward; it is all spent, and not a drop of water remains for a vast eternity. Unhappy man! he took upon him the care of other men's souls, when he knew not how to take care of his own!

A Christian minister is not to lord it over God's heritage.* He has no dominion over the conscience; no power resides in him to enjoin anything in the way of faith or practice. He is a ruler—but it is for Christ; he is to enjoin—but it is in the name of Jesus. His power in the church is ministerial, not legislatorial. He is to assume no haughty airs, no official pride—but to conduct himself amidst the people of his charge with all humility, deriving all his dignity from the purity of his character, and the sublimity of his employment. Such is the view Peter gives of the office and duties of a Christian pastor. (* The original term is cleros, or clergy. Nothing can be more indisputable than that Peter here applies it to the flock. The people are here called God's clergy, that is, his lot, portion, or inheritance, in allusion to the division of the land of Canaan among the children of Israel by lot. Moses, in an address to God, uses this language, "They are your people and your inheritance." Deut. 9:29. The same people are in the same sentence called both clergy and laity. So also Peter calls the church in one verse the flock, and in another the clergy.)

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