Pastoral Claims Stated 6

4. Your love should be MINUTE and delicate in its attentions. There are a thousand ways of manifesting regard, too varying and minute to be specified. Love is a virtue which adapts itself to the occasion, whether it be great or small; it can rise to the sublimity of martyrdom for its object, or it can descend to extract the thorn from the foot, or the speck from the eye. And as the occasions for its more gigantic efforts occur but rarely, while those for its more minute attentions are of daily recurrence, you should be more concerned about the latter than the former. A minister would be but ill-qualified for the exercise of those tender sensibilities which his office calls for, if he had not a heart alive to the value of even the most delicate expressions of his people's attachment.

5. Your love should be CONSTANT. There is a fickleness in the human character which frequently finds its way into the church of God. The victims of inconstancy are not a few, and great is the torture which attends the process of a broken heart slowly dying. Many a lovely and worthy woman has lived long enough to have her mind tormented by contrasting the vast difference between the 'bride' and the 'wife'—and to measure by the extent of her misery the wide extremes of 'idolatrous attention' and 'unconcealed hatred'. And a similar remark may be made of some excellent ministers, who by turns have become the 'idols of affection' and the 'martyrs of inconstancy'. At this we are not to be surprised, when even the illustrious Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, uninspired divine that ever lived, was driven from a church in which he had been made extensively useful, and where he had been once remarkably happy, for no other reason than because he had wounded parental pride, by rebuking, (perhaps in an injudicious manner,) some of his young people for immoral conduct. Yes, even the great apostle tells us of some, who at one time would have plucked out their eyes for him—but had become his enemies because he had told them the truth!

Sometimes, I am aware, a change of affection is the result of a hasty and ill-advised choice of a pastor. But if a minister continues to be all that he was when he was chosen, the people, like a man who has formed an unsuitable connection in marriage, should abide by their choice, and suffer the punishment of their folly, as a warning to others. In those cases where a pastor becomes indolent, and by the neglect both of his private and public duties, gives his flock just reason to complain of the miserable poverty of his discourses, as well as of the frivolity of his general conduct, he should be reminded first by the senior brethren or deacons, in a candid, respectful, and affectionate manner of his omissions. And then, if he does not alter and become more diligent, should be told by the united voice of the people, that as he was chosen to be a laborer and not a loiterer, he had violated his engagement, and was at liberty to depart. If a minister become unholy, or so imprudent as to injure his reputation, destroy his usefulness, or interrupt all pleasant fellowship between him and his people, in such cases the hearts of his flock must and ought to be alienated from him. And I have no doubt that often times, perhaps most frequently, the fault of a disagreement is to be traced up almost exclusively to the bad temper, imprudence, or suspected morality of the pastor.

Still, however, instances do occur of the most censurable instability on the part of congregations, which, when the freshness of novelty has faded from the labors of their pastor, grow tired of him, and want a change. Be upon your guard, then, against everything which would alienate your heart from your minister. Extinguish the first risings of disaffection, for nothing grows so fast as dislike; and if at any time circumstances should arise, which, though they do not affect the character of your pastor, or his fitness for the situation he occupies, render it impossible for any individual to remain any longer under his ministry—let such person go quietly away. It is an honorable step in your pious career to remove to the communion of another church, compared with the conduct of those who remain to spread disaffection, and to excite rebellion.

V. Your minister has a just claim upon you for your respectful attention to the instructions, counsels, and reproofs, which he may feel it to be his duty to deliver to you in private.

If he feels as he ought, the weight of your soul's affairs, pressing upon his own, he will visit you in your habitations, not merely to receive the rites of hospitality—but to "watch for your souls as one who must give account," and to admonish you on the subjects that relate to your everlasting welfare. I am sure you will not think it necessary to provide for him a feast of fat things, or suppose that the only lure that can draw him to your house is a well spread table. You will rather "receive him as a prophet, in the name of a prophet;" and instead of saying, "here is the minister coming, we shall now be amused by jokes and stories, or entertained by news," will joyfully exclaim, "here is the man of God approaching, we shall now have a word in season, on the great themes of eternity." If it be a convenient time, and the business of the day should be over, lay the Bible upon the table, and gather round him your family, that he might instruct them, admonish them, and pray with them. Consider him, not indeed as your confessor, in the Popish sense of the term—but still as your divinely commissioned instructor, the resolver of your doubts, the guide and comforter of your soul, amidst all her perplexities and anxieties.

Treat him on such occasions with the confidence that is due both to his office and to his affection; lay open to him the state of your mind; acknowledge to him your difficulties, your feelings, your fears, and seek at his lips the words of instruction or of consolation. There is not enough of this hallowed confidential fellowship between the shepherd and the flock in the present age. How edifying would it be, if the families of a congregation, were, separately, if their number were not too great; or, if it were so, in unions of two or three families together, to invite the pastor to spend an hour occasionally with them, for the express purpose of counselling and addressing them on religious matters. How much more consistent would this be, than an imitation of the expensive feasts of the men of the world. It is an insult to the ministerial character to suppose that it is a necessary compliment to those who bear it, to set before them the dainties of the epicure.

And if, at any time, your minister, in the exercise of what must ever be considered to be the most delicate and self-denying part of his duty, should come to you in the character of a reprover, and should find it necessary even to "rebuke sharply," I admonish you, that instead of treating his reproofs with silent contempt, careless indifference, or angry resentment, you bow down to them with a spirit of ingenuous and dignified submission.

Instead of saying, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" imitate the Psalmist and exclaim, "Let the righteous smite me, and it shall be a kindness; it shall be as excellent oil that will not break my head." And if in the perplexity of determining the precise degree of sharpness that the rebuke should contain, he should give to it more severity than you may imagine the offence calls for, still acquiesce in a spirit of meekness, remembering that it is a mercy to be healed, though by a somewhat unnecessary degree of probing; and that it is better to be plucked with violence from ruin, than to be allowed to go softly to perdition. Do not account him your enemy, nor become his, because in faithful love he has reproved you. This part of his duty is truly distressing to him.

VI. Your minister has a claim upon you for your cooperation in all his judicious schemes of usefulness, whether they respect your own church, the town in which you live, or the world at large.

It is not sufficiently considered, that Christian churches are formed and set up to be the lights of the earth. Beautiful and instructive is the language of God, speaking by the prophet. "And I will make them, and the places round about my hill, a blessing—and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessings." Now, although this language refers primarily to the Jews, as settled again in their native land, yet it may be applied with great propriety to every Christian church, as descriptive of its duty to exert a local and beneficial influence on all around it, so as to become a foreign and a home missionary society within itself. Of course its own interests are its first—but not its exclusive, concern.

In all schemes of public utility, the pastor must be expected to take the lead. Often will his anxious mind revolve the question, "What more can I do for my vineyard, that I have not yet done for it?" Sunday schools, congregational libraries, societies for visiting the sick, tract societies, home Bible studies, benefit societies—will all be viewed by him, as means of associating the energies, and calling forth the exertions of his people for the public good. To such plans and efforts, as well as to the cause of foreign missions, he will often call your attention.

Frequently will he lay before you, either in your smaller circles, or at your church meetings, some benevolent scheme which he has devised, some object of mercy which he is anxious to accomplish—but in which he cannot proceed without your zealous cooperation. On such occasions do not let him perceive cold, calculating, repulsive looks; nor hear frivolous and caviling objections, which sound more like the pleas of covetousness, than the suggestions of prudence—do not let your own torpor benumb his energies, nor the frosty atmosphere of your souls chill the ardor of his heart. You are of course to examine the schemes of his benevolence, no less than the doctrine of his sermons; you are not expected to support any wild and visionary schemes of an unrealistic zeal. Scrutinize everything with impartiality, in order that you may give him the support of your judgment, as well as of your heart, and of your purse. A minister cannot be happy with a people whom he does not respect; and how can he respect those, whose apathy or avarice in reference to public spirit, leads him to exclaim, "no man stood by me, and of the people there was none with me."

And then, there is another piece of advice I would give you, and that is, not to engage yourselves to schemes and adventurers in the field of benevolence, from which he holds back; at least until you have asked and heard his reasons for declining. He will not wish to make his views your law; but he may have reasons for not acting, which you would, perhaps, approve, if you knew them, and which you might know by asking for them.

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