Dislike to Ministerial Faithfulness

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DISLIKE TO MINISTERIAL FAITHFULNESS STATED AND EXPLAINED

By John Angell James, originally published
in the "The Monthly Preacher"

They are a rebellious people, deceptive children, children who do not obey the Lord's instruction. They say to the seers, "Do not see," and to the prophets, "Do not prophesy the truth to us. Tell us flattering things. Prophesy illusions. Get out of the way! Leave the pathway. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel." (Isaiah 30:9-11)

A wish to be deceived is a state of mind by no means uncommon. Many have made truth their enemy, and it is not to be wondered at that they are then in love with falsehood. They who have everything to fear from the light, will retire from its beams, even in those cases where darkness will only yield them a little present relief, at the dreadful expense of future happiness. The moral courage which can calmly look danger in the face, and patiently listen to the alarming report which is made by some faithful expositor of the whole affair, is what few possess. Even in reference to their temporal concerns, how prone are men when they have a lurking suspicion that things are not right, to wish to be deceived; how eagerly do they look to the bright side of their fortunes; how anxiously do they cover or diminish every unfavorable symptom; and how petulantly do they rebuke or contradict the individual who has sagacity to foresee, and fidelity to predict, the gathering storm! Had they the fortitude to look steadily at the approaching ruin, had they the hardihood to endure the present distress, which a perfect knowledge of their perplexed circumstances would bring with it, they might perhaps be extricated from these difficulties. But shrinking with fatal cowardice from the painful disclosure, they court deception for the sake of a little present ease.

This was the case with the Jews at the time when this prophecy was delivered. Their national crimes were bringing destruction nearer and nearer. Their political horizon was perpetually becoming darker, and signs of the accumulating vengeance of Heaven were multiplying around them. The prophets, bearing the burden of the Lord, represented him as a holy Being, whom their transgressions insulted, and whose justice must necessarily be roused to avenge wrong. One denunciation followed another, until the people, alike unwilling to be reformed and to hear of the punishment which would come upon them for their impenitence, were anxious to change the tone of the prophets' ministrations. They could not bear the pungent warnings of those holy men; they trembled under the solemn and impassioned appeals of Isaiah and his fellow-prophets, and endeavored, either by threats to silence, or by bribes to corrupt, the prophets from heaven. The holiness of God was a subject peculiarly offensive to them—hence the exclamation, "Rid us of the Holy One of Israel!"

They wanted to hear only of his mercy. They would have disrobed him of his garments of light, and silenced, if they could, the song of the seraphim, uttered in praise of his unsullied purity. The deity they wanted to hear of, was an indulgent being, who would overlook sin, and never punish the transgressor. They wished to hear no more of the rigid and strict requirements of the law—but to listen only to the soothing sounds of promise; they were anxious that the terrible thunders of justice should die away midst the soft whispers of mercy. They were determined to go on in sin, and therefore desired, whatever might be "right things," to hear only smooth things, and to be left to go on unmolested in their career of iniquity.

Happy would it be for multitudes, if this love of deception had been confined to the Jews, if this demand for "smooth things" had been made only by them. But, alas! they have many, very many followers under the present dispensation. The faithful ministers of Jesus Christ meet with the same reception from many of their hearers, as did the prophets of the older economy.

There are not lacking in our age many who are anxious to save their own souls and those that hear them; who, in their solicitude to be clear from the blood of all men, shun not to declare "the whole counsel of God." Their aim is not to please men—but to profit their hearers; not to satisfy their taste, or amuse their fancy, or lull them into a false peace, or wrap them up in unfounded security—but to save them from the wrath to come. Hence, they are anxious to convince them of sin, and by "the terrors of the Lord to persuade" them to urge the all-important enquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" They know that without previous conviction, alarm, and penitence, there can be no true comfort and therefore their aim is, like that of the skillful surgeon, to probe the wound before they attempt to heal it. This many of their hearers cannot endure; they want smooth things, not right things; they cannot bear to have their consciences roused, their fears alarmed, and their minds rendered uneasy. They wish the preacher to avoid all harsh themes, and confine himself to more agreeable and palatable topics. The people to whom I here allude, are those people in our congregations, who, though they attend an evangelical ministry, have never yet been converted by the grace of God—but are still living either in open sin, or predominant worldly-mindedness; who know that if religion is indeed what they hear it often described, they can make no pretensions to it; who have no intention of altering their course, and who wish, therefore, to be left to pursue it, without being disturbed by the voice of ministerial faithfulness.

I. I shall state the TRUTHS which are usually obnoxious to such people. There are many doctrines to which every faithful preacher of God's word feels bound to give ample room in his stated ministry, that are by no means welcome to many of his hearers; such, for instance, as the spirituality and unbending strictness of the divine law, the deep depravity of human nature, the exceeding sinfulness of man's conduct, the universal necessity of regeneration, the inefficacy of works for justification, and the indispensable obligation to a separation from the world—but as long as these truths are not enforced by the solemn denunciations of Divine vengeance, many will tolerate them who still would more willingly listen to other topics. But it is especially the holiness of the Divine nature, which, when scripturally explained, breaks in upon the quietude, and disturbs the peace of the unconverted sinner. It is the splendor of this glorious attribute of God, which, like the beams of the sun falling upon the diseased and tender eye, offends and irritates. "Remove from our sight the Holy One of Israel!" is the demand of multitudes.

Not, however, that the purity of the Divine nature, when abstracted from the Divine government, is so peculiarly offensive to sinners. As long as the Holy One will let them alone, and not cause his purity to bear upon their interests, or interfere with their pursuits, they feel perhaps no revulsion from it; as an object of mere intellectual contemplation, or of poetic taste, it is agreeable enough; they can admire the sublimity of the seraphic anthem, and feel no alarm as they sing the celestial chorus, "Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty." As long as Jehovah will retire from the affairs of men into the mysterious abyss of his own perfections, they care not how holy he is; nor how much the preacher descants upon so lofty an abstraction as infinite purity. But when holiness is made the very basis of the Divine administration; when it is made to appear in the purity of the law, in the tremendous penalties by which that law is sanctioned, in the irreconcileable hatred of God to all sin, and in his irrevocable purpose to punish it; when, in fact, that holiness is set forth in all the terrors of the retributive justice of the Governor and Judge of the universe—then it is that it wounds, and offends, and irritates the minds of many who hear the solemn theme. The punitive justice of God, or his determination to visit the sins of transgressors upon themselves—is the holiness of the Divine nature in action. He could not be holy if he did not punish sin, and he could not be God if he were not holy. But, Oh! with what aversion and disgust; with what indignation and ill-will; with what clamor and defamation, is many a faithful minister of the word followed through his course, because he asserts the claims of God, and denounces the threatenings of a holy God!

The Scriptures, not only of the Old Testament—but of the New Testament, abound with the most appalling descriptions of the Divine displeasure against sin. Not only prophets—but apostles, have revealed the wrath of God against all ungodliness of men. Yes, it is a striking fact, that He who was love incarnate; who was mercy's messenger to our lost world; who was named Jesus, because he was to be the Savior of his people; who was the manifestation and commendation of God's love to man; delivered, during the course of his personal ministry, more fearful descriptions of Divine justice and the punishment of the wicked, than are to be found in any other part of the word of God. In some of his parables there are tremendous instances of this. What can exceed the solemn scenery of the parable of the rich man in torments? Hell and destruction are there set open before us without a covering.

No man can fulfill his ministry, therefore, without frequently alluding to the justice of God in the punishment of sin. No man can preach as Paul did, who made Felix tremble upon the bench, as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come; and who gave it as a description of his ordinary preaching, that he persuaded men by the terrors of the Lord—unless he seeks to alarm the fears of the unconverted by a representation of the consequences that will follow a state of final impenitence—nor without this can any one be an imitator of the preaching of Christ. But such a subject frequently calls up all the enmity of the carnal mind. To be told, not only that they are sinners, which all will admit in general terms--but that their sins are such as to deserve the wrath of God, such as to expose them to the torments of hell, and such as will infallibly bring them to the bottomless pit, unless they truly repent; to be told again and again that they are hastening to perdition; to have the rod of Divine vengeance shaken over their heads—to have all the dreadful curses of the violated law analyzed, ascertained and announced; to have this done in their hearing, and done frequently; to be made to sit and hear their future eternal doom, and thus to be tormented before their time; is what they cannot, and will not endure!

Sometimes they will content themselves with railing at the preacher, and accusing him as taking a cruel delight in harrowing up their feelings and disturbing their peace; they will condemn him as unfit to preach to any but the profligate inmates of a prison; until, at length, unable to bear any longer his pointed addresses to the conscience, they will leave his ministry—for the flesh-pleasing pulpit opiates of some flatterer of men's souls, who is too cowardly to trouble the minds, or alarm the consciences of his flock.

But many, whose habits or whose connections allow them not to forsake the faithful servant of God, still most fervently wish that he would not come before them clothed with terrors, and armed with the thunders of a righteous God. He is too searching, too pungent, too discriminating. He allows no loop-hole of retreat for their conscience. They too often feel the iron grasp of his hand arresting their spirits. He leaves them not at ease in Zion. They want to hear more of poetic genius; more of the painting of eloquence; more formal discourse; more logical dissection of error; or, in reference to divinity, they would have the evidences and doctrines of the Gospel treated in an abstract, systematic, theological manner; or the benevolence of God and his goodness set forth; or the duties of practical religion enforced in a general form; or the consolations of religion dispensed indiscriminately. Or they could even bear an occasional sermon on the punishment of the wicked, provided the description of the wicked man's character were so vague as to leave them an opportunity of escaping; but to hear sin so described, and character so delineated, as to perceive that they are shut up to condemnation; and then, in that situation, to have the very prison doors shaken with only the distant sound of the approaching curse; this renders them uneasy, and leads them again and again to express their wish that their minister would prophesy smooth, flattering things, and utter deceit.

II. I shall now consider the CAUSES to which we must trace this dislike of ministerial fidelity—and this love of smooth, flattering and delusive preaching.

In some cases it is occasioned by absolute unbelief. Many who attend at places of public worship are infidels, although they do not assume the name. Whoever withholds his assent from any portion of acknowledged Scripture, merely because it is opposed to his taste, and unfriendly to his peace, is unquestionably an unbeliever. Multitudes who admit in general the authority of the Bible, deny it in detail. This is very strikingly exemplified in reference to the subject of future punishment. It is the cant of disguised infidelity to affirm that God is too merciful to punish any of his creatures, and that all the circumstances of his vengeance contained in the Scripture, are intended only for the very worst of guilty characters; and perhaps not even for them. Such a spirit is, indeed, scarcely a disguised infidelity—but rather unbelief without a mask. The man who can either doubt or ridicule the torments of hell is, whatever he may think, or say—an infidel; and will one day be convinced, amidst the torments of the bottomless pit, that such torments do really exist! No wonder, then, that those who have brought themselves to believe that the threatenings of divine vengeance, written in Scripture, are figurative, the poetry or prophesy of a terrific scenery—ask for smooth things, and feel offended when these solemn topics are introduced into the pulpit, and made to bear with the force of realities upon the heart and conscience.

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