Our Sins at the Seminary 2
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February 27, 1812.
My dear brother,
Few days have passed during the last month from which I have not parted with regret that they afforded me no opportunity of renewing the subject of my last letter. If it be a fact worth knowing, I can assure you, that my prayers are not so infrequent as my epistles. Having prescribed a path for my thoughts by what I said in my last letter, it will become me now to walk in my own road. What I intend at present is, not to prove the self-evident truth—that to teach religion we must first know it ourselves—but to insist on the infinite importance of endeavoring to maintain the vigor and life of godliness, in the midst of academic pursuits.
Whatever be the cause of such a circumstance, it is a fact which innumerable instances will verify—that many candidates for the ministerial office lose in personal piety while at a seminary, more than they gain in mental improvement. What I have seen and heard and felt on this subject, induces on your behalf, my dear brother, a degree of trembling solicitude in my mind, which only the Searcher of hearts can estimate. What I design, therefore, in this letter is,
First, To state the vast importance of your vigilant endeavors to maintain a spiritual and holy frame of mind, during the pursuit of your preparatory studies. To see this in its true light, and feel it in its full force, consider,
1. That except you cultivate such a disposition while a student, you are not likely to excel in it as a minister. I have no need to show you how necessary it is that a Christian teacher should be a spiritually-minded Christian. Much more than knowledge is surely requisite for one whose business it is to proclaim incessantly, "though we have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not love, we are nothing." Talents may make us shine—but piety alone can make us glow. Without the unction which spirituality of mind alone can impart, our most elaborate sermons will be like the cold beams of a wintry moon, falling upon the icy bosom of the frozen lake. If, then, such a frame of mind be of any significance to you in future, the importance of cultivating it now, exceeds all expression. Such as you are in the academy now—such you will be hereafter found within the circle of pastoral engagements. I speak now not only from the dictates of abstract reasoning—but also from observation and experience. In looking round upon those who were the companions of my studies, I observe that they are the most spiritual ministers—who were the most devotional students.
2. Without eminent spirituality of mind, your studies will be in great danger of acquiring a wrong bias. This is the only channel through which yourmind will or can voluntarily propel the stream of its own vigor, to the ocean of Jehovah's glory. Without this frame of heart—it is impossible either to understand the nature, perceive the design, or feel the importance of your present engagements. The object I endeavored to hold up to your view in my last letter, can be distinctly seen through no other medium than a spiritual mind. In the absence of this, you will sink into a mere self-seeking orator; or into a dull, uninteresting, philosophic lecturer; or, what is still worse, into a teacher of damnable heresies.
Perhaps it would be the first of these, for when the fervor of religion is gone from the soul, what other object can you propose to yourself in your preparatory studies, but as a qualification to enable you to become a successful candidate for popular applause? That zeal for the Divine glory, and compassion for immortal spirits—which should be the very soul of every minister's exertions—are the offspring of glowing piety, and must cease with the cause that produced them. The power of God and the spiritual welfare of man will be present to the eye, and objects of pursuit—only so long as they are present with the heart as subjects of experience. Lose from the mind the spirituality which it ought to possess, and which, I hope, yours does possess—and that moment your study is converted into the temple of a false deity. Self becomes the idol—vanity the priest—and all the attainments which your vigilance enables you to make, become so many sacrifices and acts of self-worship; while piety, like Jeremiah anticipating the desolation of the Jewish temple—stands weeping at a distance, exclaiming, "How is the gold changed—the fine gold become dim!"
Perhaps you would sink, without spirituality, into a cold, dull, uninteresting stiffness. Whatever attainments you might make, if during the process of acquiring them, devotion should evaporate—they will remain behind a mere useless sediment. Science and literature, to be useful to a minister of Jesus Christ, must be held in solution by eminent piety. Without this they will be very likely to lead us beyond dullness, and conduct us to the regions where the most pernicious errors dwell. This brings me to the third probable result of a decay of spiritual religion in a theological student, that is, an apostasy from scriptural truth. You will soon learn, my dear brother, if you have not already discovered, that during the revolution excited in the human mind by the influence of sin, its faculties were displaced; and the will and the affections, formerly the servants of the understanding, became to a very considerable extent its governors. Hence, many of the intellectual errors of mankind have resulted from the depraved state of their hearts. In ten thousand instances, a lukewarm state of the affections, has been the cause of the most pernicious errors of the judgment! The truth of God is given to us as the instrument of holiness, and when we become indifferent to the end, it is no matter of surprise that we become regardless about the means. Biblical truth is the food of spiritual religion, which, when the appetite is lost—is first disrelished, and then loathed. Were it possible for us to trace the history of their apostasy, we would certainly find that of those who have wandered into the darkest religious errors—by far the greater part commenced their dreadful career from a lukewarm heart!
3. Spirituality of mind would be likely to ensure the blessing of God upon your studies, by urging you to constant and earnest prayer. Let it be remembered that intellectual as well as moral improvement, is dependent on Divine assistance. God is the creator, the preserver, and the benefactor of the human faculties. It is in Him they live, and move, and have their being. It is God alone who can expand the judgment, invigorate the imagination, strengthen the memory, sharpen the penetration. One very considerable cause that produced the vast superiority of mind in the early Nonconformist divines above their successors, was the vast proficiency they made in personal religion.
These ideas, and many others which your own judgment will readily suggest, will tend to unfold and enforce the importance of eminent piety, to a candidate for ministerial employment.
Secondly, I will now, my dear brother, point out those circumstances in your present situation, in which the vigor of personal piety is in danger of being relaxed. It is certainly a melancholy reflection that there should be any circumstance likely to be injurious to piety, in that very situation where it sojourns for a while for the purpose of being better qualified to teach its own nature and enforce its own practice. Yet so it is. Not, however, that there is anything in academic institutions naturally and essentially unfavorable to it; if there were, the prejudices which many have imbibed against them would be too well founded to be easily overthrown. Still there are circumstances which, through the imperfections of the best men, are likely, unless constantly watched, to issue in this baneful consequence. What these are I will now specify, that being apprised of the source from whence danger may be expected—you may be incited to incessant watchfulness.
1. The first source of danger I shall notice, is in the NATURE of your studies. These will of course be multiform, and by examination it will be found that each, without great watchfulness, may become injurious to piety. Let it be remembered that in an academy, divinity is studied as a science—a hallowed one, it is true, but still a science. Its evidences are canvassed, its terms are categorized, its parts are analyzed, its doctrines are classed. What till now has been treated as a system of facts and maxims—will be treated as a theory of doctrines and sentiments. Instead of listening to the holy converse of Christian friends comparing their experience with the Scriptures of truth, and mutually helping each other forward through all the difficulties of the path to Zion—you will frequently think and speak and read of religion as merely an intellectual study.
The Bible, which you had never read but as a Christian, you will peruse as a student. You will pray—to learn to conduct public prayer with decorum and edification. You will compose sermons, and listen to the composition of others, that you may learn to preach. You will hear the most solemn, the most melting truths of the Word of God mentioned and conversed on, without any of that feeling or that reverence with which you had ever been accustomed to listen to them. You will hear sermons in the academy for the sake of exercising your analytical talents, until you find it difficult to lay aside the academics in the most solemn and serious engagements. Where, without some exceedingly strong counteracting force, all this tends—you have perhaps, my dear brother, felt before now, to your no small distress and humiliation. Where, without incessant vigilance, will such a state of things lead us—but to the most frigid, barren, deathlike regions of lukewarmness itself!
2. The CLOSE APPLICATION which it will be found necessary to pay to your studies, will frequently endanger the prospects of your personal piety. Goaded by the reproofs of your tutors, or impelled by the rivalry of the students—you will carry on your pursuits with a closeness of attention that will sometimes render you deaf to the call of that hour that summons you to the closet of devotion and the mercy-seat of God. In this particular, my dear brother, your danger will be found peculiarly imminent; indeed, still greater by the suggestions of a deceitful heart, that the neglect is excused by the cause of it.
3. The NOVELTY of a great part of your studies will also open a source of danger. Your mind is traveling through a country almost new to you; objects before unseen will be perpetually starting up before you, not only soliciting your attention, but highly deserving of it; and as new situations are always a trial of piety—you will need all the care which it is possible your soul can exercise, to prevent your mind being so occupied with the novelties of your present situation, as to neglect those important concerns—which nothing should be so bright as to eclipse, or so great as to obscure.
4. The COMPANIONS of your studies will render great caution absolutely necessary. Those who ought to be helpmates, will frequently become snares. Some of them, it may be feared, entered the academy with but little personal piety—and have been gradually losing what little they had, since they have been there. Others, with dispositions far more jocular and volatile than is consistent with much seriousness and spirituality, are apt, in unbending the mind after the rigors of a close application to study—to run into an excess of levity and unsanctified hilarity. Amidst such circumstances, it is easy to perceive that fervent piety is endangered. The student, I acknowledge, must have occasional relaxation from intellectual labor. His health, his spirits, require it; but then even his recreations ought to be those of a man of God—such as fit him for his future work, and not such as disqualify him. Incessant joking, laughter, sarcasm—which I lament to say form the substance of that conversation which is generally maintained within the walls of a seminary—totally unfit the mind of the students for spiritual fellowship with God or each other. I beseech you, my dear brother, be upon your guard! There is something bewitching in the character of a merry fellow, even though it is united with that of a candidate for the pulpit. We love too much to be amused, to be sufficiently alarmed at the danger arising to piety from a jocular and witty disposition.
Thirdly, I will now proceed to give you a few directions to guard you against the danger which your experience will testify I have not exaggerated.
1. Endeavor to acquire a deep conviction of the necessity of spiritual religion, as an important part of your present and future character. Do, my dear brother, survey the subject on every side; consider it in every point of view; trace it in all its bearings, all its connections. Let no suggestion of Satan, no insinuation of your own depravity—lessen in your estimation the importance of this ministerial qualification. Look at the ministers who most excel—and those who are the most deficient. Think of the glowing ministrations of that great man whose public and private services you found so profitable and delightful during your stay at Romsey. What unction attends all his labors; and oh, what success! I can assure you, there is much truth in Abraham Booth's remark—that it is from a pastor's defects in piety, that his principal deficiencies and his chief dangers arise. For there is no reason to fear, that if tolerably furnished with gifts—that he will be remarkably deficient or negligent in any known branch of pastoral obligation, while his heart is alive to the enjoyments and duties of piety.
2. Impress your mind with the danger arising to personal piety, from the causes I have already specified. Of this object never for a moment lose sight; never think yourself beyond the necessity of caution and watchfulness. Let a holy trembling take possession of your soul. Consider that you have a treasure to preserve among thieves. Exercise an incessant jealousy over your own heart.
3. Consider the guilt of such a defect—yes, the guilt, the guilt! For if it is sinful in a Christian to be lukewarm, how much criminality attaches to such a frame of soul when found in a student or a pastor! The deceitfulness of your own heart will frequently suggest, by way of apology, that it is impossible in such a situation to avoid it, that the rigor of your studies requires relaxation.
My dear brother, nothing can justify the decay of real religion in the soul of anyone, least of all in a student or minister! I do assure you, I can never look back without pain upon my academic years; for though I then endeavored to justify myself under a too considerable declension of piety, now I exclaim "O Lord, you make me to possess the sins of my youth." It is impossible for us to say how many of the trials of our future ministry, are retributive visitations for our sins at the seminary.
4. Be exceedingly strict and conscientious in observing the times, and maintaining the spirit, of personal devotion. In whatever danger a Christian is placed, I have no great apprehension of his safety, when he continues constant in secret prayer. In having separate studies, you posses every advantage for the performance of this momentous duty. Let nothing ever induce you to give up the time, whatever it be that solicits it, which is allotted to this sacred exercise. Be exceedingly careful so to arrange your studies, as to have sufficient time for your visits to the throne of grace. Rather than part with the opportunity for this, and thus incur the frown of God—carry an imperfect lesson to your tutor, though it may bring upon you his censure and the laughter of your fellow-students. And let your prayers ever embrace the subject which I now am endeavoring to impress upon your heart. Your petitions will bind you to fresh watchfulness—and your watchfulness will impel you to fresh prayer.
5. It will greatly assist you to set apart occasional extraordinary seasons of devotion—say one afternoon every month. There is no one circumstance which I find so adapted to check the progress of lukewarmness, and to promote an opposite frame—as this very edifying practice. During the common routine of stated duties, the soul is apt to be lulled into a lethargy from which nothing is so likely to rouse it as a season of extraordinary devotion. On such occasions call your spirit to a reckoning, examine its accounts, reprove it for negligence, and stimulate it to greater diligence. Not one direction which I have yet given deserves so well your serious regard as this. I speak from experience, and do therefore urge it upon you with the utmost importunity.
6. Occasionally select the most holy of your fellow-students for a time of spiritual conversation and prayer. Never mind what their talents are—just so long as they have much piety. Choose such a one for a bosom friend. Converse and pray over your difficulties and dangers.
I must now, my dear brother, leave to your devout attention these few hints. If you needed an admonition to attend to the subject of this letter, I could upon my bended knees beseech you at your very feet—as you valued your own comfort and usefulness, the salvation of sinners, the glory and favor of God—to take the most earnest heed to the piety of your own heart. Happy indeed will your unworthy brother feel, if his loving effort, weak as it is, should contribute to a purpose so important and so desirable.
Commending you to God and the word of his grace, I remain your affectionate brother,
J. A. James.
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