Ministerial Duties Stated & Enforced 4
Back to John Angell James
Next Part Ministerial Duties Stated & Enforced 5
B. By the prosperous state of your PERSONAL PIETY. Take heed to the state of your own heart. Accustomed as we are to treat religion as a science to be theoretically investigated, and an object of controversy to be polemically defended, we are in danger without great watchfulness, of merging the Christian in the 'professional teacher'. And he makes but a poor teacher, as to any practical effect, who is but a lukewarm Christian. "The heart of the wise teaches his mouth and adds learning to his lips." "It is from the pastor's defects considered in the light of a disciple, that his principal difficulties and dangers arise." Do not, my dear brother, as many have done, mistake gifts for grace, and judge of the real state of your own personal piety, by your readiness in thinking and speaking upon holy things. No man is in greater danger of self deception, as to the real state of his own heart, than he who has to deal officially with the hearts of others. This will require the exercise of incessant vigilance, close inspection and keen discrimination in the closet, where I hope you will spend no inconsiderable portion of your time.
Here I cannot conceal my apprehension, that as in many other respects, so especially in vital godliness and a devotional spirit, the present race of Christian ministers come far behind their predecessors. It has occurred to other and older men than myself, that in many who of late years have entered into the pastoral office, a very considerable defect of serious and spiritual feeling, is lamentably obvious. There is a frivolity of deportment which, though far removed from immorality, appears as if they wished to conciliate the affections of their people rather as cheerful companions in the parlor, than as faithful preachers in the pulpit; and as if they sought to render themselves more attractive, by displacing the holy seriousness of the ministerial character, in order to make way for a little nearer approximation to the man of fashion and the world. It would be a circumstance to be deplored in tears of blood, if our ministers should extensively lose the spirit of vital piety! For as they give the tone to their congregations, it would soon be followed by a general resemblance of our flocks to the palsied church at Laodicea.
The principles of dissent, although they have no indirect connection with a spirit of enquiry, and the cause of genuine liberty, derive their chief value from the influence which they exert upon the interests of experimental religion; and when they cease by any cause to exert that influence, their value is depreciated, their importance diminished, their glory is departed. Let us look to the fathers of dissent, to the illustrious nonconformists, not as authorities to bind our conscience, but as examples to stimulate our diligence, and especially our diligence as men of God. The ponderous volumes of their learning and divinity do not contain so much to confound us, as the diaries of their religious experience. One page of Philip Henry's life makes me blush more than all the folios of his son Matthew's peerless exposition.
Attend then, my brother, to the state of religion in your own heart. Seek to have all your intellectual attainments consecrated by a proportionate growth in grace. Let not your knowledge spread over the upper regions of the soul like the aurora borealis over the face of a wintry sky, while the world spreads out below—cold, cheerless, and dark. But let it resemble the orb of day, which warms and quickens the earth at the time he gilds and glorifies the heaven. Endeavor to feel more yourself of all that is involved in genuine religion. Feel more—and you will speak better. All men are orators when they feel. And the language of a heart feeling adequately for the glory of God and the salvation of men, would have an unction and an energy more resistless than the thunders of Demosthenes, and the vivid lightnings that flashed in the invectives of Cicero.
C. By exemplary DILIGENCE. You are of course to be diligent in all the public duties of your office. You are always to look like a man that has much to do, and whose heart is set on doing it. You must always act with the diligence of one who feels the care of immortal souls giving speed to his feet, and strategies to his thoughts. Indolence never appears in the full display of its ugly form, nor in the exact dimensions of its guilt, until it is seen in the garb of the minister. Apply all the energies of your soul to the duties of your office. Catechize the young; visit the sick; search out the people whom your sermons have impressed, and deepen the impression by private conversation; encourage the confused to bring to you their perplexities; guide the young enquirer; hasten to console the aged pilgrim; go any where, and at any time to do good; in short, watch for souls as one "who must give account."
Be diligent in the private duties of your study. I enjoin this upon you with peculiar earnestness. You cannot preach so as to edify your people and secure their esteem, except you devote much time to private intellectual toil. Whatever you may be in the social circle, you never can long secure their respect without appearing respectable as a preacher. If you fail in the pulpit, not the sweetness, no, nor the piety of an angel would keep you from sinking in their opinion. Congregations in the metropolis, where the private fellowship between a pastor and his flock must necessarily be restricted by the distance of their abodes, are raised and retained by the force of pulpit attractions. Surrounded as you are by men of popular talents, unless you preach the word with ability, "the ways of your Zion will soon mourn because none come to her solemn feasts, and in the time of her affliction she will remember all the pleasant things she had in the days of old."
It is greatly to be regretted that very many young men, who, during the early part of their preparatory studies, appear the fairest blossoms in all the academic grove, disappoint the hopes they had excited, and yield but ordinary fruit. Two reasons may be assigned for this. The first is, they are sometimes plucked too soon;* and the second, that, even when gathered in a state of academic maturity, instead of improving, as they should do, by time and industry—they become corrupted by indolence, and then sink in the public estimation as rapidly as they seemed at one time likely to ascend. Many young men, unfortunately, cease to be students when they begin to be ministers. They enter upon their office with a stock of ideas, which would be a sufficient capital for attaining to intellectual wealth, if properly improved by industry; but unfortunately, flattered by the foolish, and caressed perhaps for a season by the wise, they act like people who, coming suddenly into possession of a small fortune, begin to live immediately upon the principal, abandon themselves to idleness, and sink to contempt.
During the greater part of the week they may be found anywhere but in their study; running all over the city or country to public meetings; sauntering about the houses of their flock in everybody's way; debating upon the conduct of the government with every gossiping politician they can pick up; or else idly reading the fashionable and, much of it, worthless poetry of the age, in their own parlors. Saturday arrives, and with it all the tremors and dread produced by the recollection that it is to be followed by the Sunday. A volume is taken from the shelf, a text selected, perhaps a sermon committed to memory, or else a few meager thoughts resembling Pharaoh's thin and blighted ears of corn, are gleaned from the stubble of a mind whose scanty crop has long since been carried off. Thus equipped, the preacher goes to his pulpit and his people, with no higher ambition than to get through without actually stopping. "The hungry sheep look up and are not fed," until at length they are literally compelled, in order to save themselves from starvation, to break the fences of their field, and roam in quest of pasture more suited to their taste and more adequate to their needs.
- Here I cannot reprobate in terms sufficiently strong, the impatience of some churches to induce young men to leave the advantages of the academy, before the term of education is expired; and the inconsiderate folly of those students, who hearken to such seductive solicitations. This practice is a deadly blow aimed, certainly at the respectability, if not at the very existence of the dissenting interest. The Independent body, unsupported by any general combination of strength and talent, rests for its permanence, in the order of means at least, upon the individual character and talent of its ministers. Even ignorance, when it has the stay of consolidated numbers, may present an imposing aspect, and promise continuance; but when left to struggle insulated and unsupported, it cannot long continue to maintain its ground. May we not trace up to this practice, many of those instances which so frequently occur of ministerial inefficiency and moral failure. In most cases, the term of education is already too short for the present state of the world; and therefore to curtail it is an injury done, not only to the individual church and pastor concerned, but to the cause at large.
Should this pamphlet be read by any who are still enjoying advantages of academic instruction, I would recommend the subject to their most serious attention. Never were college years so important as now. The age in which we live is characterized by unprecedented activity for the diffusion of religious truth. Societies embracing in their members all classes of people, and in their design all kinds of objects, are in beneficial operation. To these a minister is expected to give his labor and influence. Much of his time must necessarily be employed in this way. The hours spent in committee meetings alone, in any large town, are incalculable. All this must be taken from the study. How important then is it, that before a minister plunge into this active routine, a good store of useful knowledge be laid up in the academy. And I therefore exhort every student to remain, except in very extraordinary cases, to the last hour of the allotted term, at his preparatory studies, and to make the most of every hour.
If anything more need be said to enforce this duty, I might remind you of the present state of society at large in regard to education. An ignorant minister might have done very well in an age when all knowledge was confined to the priesthood, when "darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the peoples;" but science and literature are now so widely diffused, even among the middling classes, that no small measure of information is requisite to enable a minister to converse advantageously with his flock.
Unless, therefore, you intend to devote eight hours a day to your study, I have no very strong expectation that you will long retain this pulpit. To secure such a portion of time as this, it will be necessary to guard against the temptations to neglect, with which a ministerial station in this mighty city must ever be attended. You will of course be expected to use your influence in cherishing that public spirit, which, like the holy fire, now burns upon the altar of the Lord Still you must not suffer foreign duties to interfere with those to be discharged at home. Public meetings and public speeches are become very common, and are certainly very useful. I am not by any means reprobating them, but only reminding you that they should not be suffered to draw a young minister too much from his study and his flock. Guard against all unnecessary party visits. Never, never, become a political partisan; this may render you popular with a certain class, but it will consume your time, embitter your spirit, diminish the weight of your ministerial character, and considerably obstruct the success of your labors.
Next Part Ministerial Duties Stated & Enforced 5
Back to John Angell James