Dislike to Ministerial Faithfulness 4

Next Part Dislike to Ministerial Faithfulness 5

APPLICATION

How great are the importance, responsibility, and difficulty, which attach to the ministerial office; and how concerned those who sustain it should be, to discharge its duties with uncompromising fidelity. As to those wicked and miserable men who have taken up the ministerial office as a mere profession to live by, without any spiritual qualifications for its duties, their guilt now, and their punishment hereafter, exceed the powers of language to describe, and of imagination to conceive! They are the most sinful beings on earth, and will be the most wretched creatures in eternity! A pretend lawyer, who undertakes to conduct men's cases or to prepare their title deeds without a knowledge of law; or a person professing to be a physician, and undertaking to cure dangerous diseases, without the least knowledge of medicine; a pilot, taking the helm of a ship without any acquaintance with navigation; or a general, leading an army into battle without any experience in military tactics—are modest and harmless characters—compared with the man who professes to be a minister of religion without a personal acquaintance with the subject! The others only destroy men's bodies or properties—but the false minister is accessory to the ruin of their souls! Upon him will rest the blood of all those whom he has guided to destruction!

That such should prophesy smooth things is, of course, to be looked for; they know nothing else; they prophesy those things to themselves, and will declare them to others. Melancholy, most melancholy, is it to reflect how many of the public teachers of religion, even in this Protestant country, are perpetually employed in the 'ministry of deceit'—assiduously laboring to hide men's spiritual condition from their view; zealously endeavoring to suppress the concern produced in the souls of their neighbors, by men more faithful than themselves; exerting all their influence to keep mankind 'asleep in sin'—thus busying themselves in the work of perdition—and, like their master Satan—whom they serve and imitate, going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom they may devour. They are mere pulpit agents of the devil, receiving the wages of the sanctuary while they do his fatal work; keeping all still and quiet among his slaves, preventing all attempts to throw off his hateful yoke, by flattering them with the idea that they are the servants of God.

But I would address myself to those ministers who profess to be experimentally acquainted with true religion, and to declare with fidelity the whole counsel of God. To them I would, with great deference, suggest two things.

1. The conversion of sinners should be the chief object of every minister of Christ. By listening to the habitual strain of some good men's preaching, we would be led to conclude, either that they had no unconverted hearers in their congregation, or they had nothing to do with their conversion. Almost everything which they utter is addressed to believers, or if an occasional appeal be made to the impenitent, it is so formal, so cold, and so general, that it is not likely it should produce much effect. When we consider that, in most congregations, the majority, it is to be feared, is composed of unregenerate people, surely, surely, they ought to be viewed as the first object of ministerial solicitude—they will soon be gone beyond the reach of salvation; almost every Sabbath some one or other of them retires from beneath the minister's voice, to return no more. Besides, the means that are calculated to impress, convince, and convert them, are adapted to keep up in the minds of believers, a deep and impressive sense of eternal realities. Is not this justified by the parable of the Shepherd leaving the ninety and nine sheep in the fold, to go into the wilderness after the solitary wanderer? Here I will quote the language of Baxter—"The work of conversion is the great thing we must drive at—after this we must labor with all our might. Alas! the misery of the unconverted is so great, that it calls loudest to us for compassion. If a truly converted sinner does fall, it will be but into sin which will be pardoned, and he is not in that hazard of damnation by it as others are. Not but that God hates their sins as well as others, or that he will bring them to heaven, let them live ever so wickedly—but the Spirit who is within them will not allow them to live wickedly, or to sin as the ungodly do. But with the unconverted it is far otherwise. They are in the 'gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity,' and have yet no part nor fellowship in the pardon of their sins, or the hope of glory. We have, therefore, a work of greater necessity to do for them, even 'to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among those who are sanctified.' He that sees one man sick of a mortal disease, and another only pained with the tooth-ache, will be moved more to compassionate the former than the latter; and will surely make more haste to help him, though he were a stranger, or the other a brother or a son. It is so sad a case to see men in a state of damnation, wherein, if they should die, they are lost for ever, that methinks we should not be able to let them alone, either in public or private, whatever other work we have to do. I confess I am frequently forced to neglect that which should tend to the further increase of knowledge in the godly, because of the lamentable necessity of the unconverted. Who is able to talk of controversies, or of nice unnecessary points, or even of truths of a lower degree of necessity, however excellent, while he sees a company of ignorant, carnal, miserable sinners before his eyes, who must be changed or damned? Methinks I even see them entering upon their final woe. Methinks I hear them crying out for help, for speediest help! Their misery speaks the louder, because they have not hearts to ask for help themselves. Many a time have I known that I had some hearers of higher fancies, that looked for rarities, and were addicted to despise the ministry, if I told them not something more than ordinary; and yet I could not find in my heart to turn from the necessities of the impenitent—for the humouring of them; nor even to leave speaking to miserable sinners for their salvation, in order to speak as much as should otherwise be done to weak saints for their confirmation and increase in grace. Methinks, as Paul's 'spirit was stirred within him, when he saw the Athenians wholly given to idolatry,' so it should cast us into one of his paroxysms to see so many men in the greatest danger of being everlastingly undone. Methinks, if by faith we did indeed look upon them as within a step of hell, it would more effectually untie our tongues. He that will let a sinner go down to hell for lack of speaking to him, sets less value on souls than did the Redeemer of souls; and less by his neighbor than common charity will allow him to do by his greatest enemy. O, therefore, brethren, whoever you neglect, neglect not the most miserable! Whatever you pass over, forget not poor souls that are under the condemnation and curse of the Law, and who may look every hour for the infernal execution, if a speedy change does not prevent it. O call after the impenitent, and ply this great work of converting souls, whatever else you leave undone."

2. If, then, the conversion of the impenitent be the first object of ministerial solicitude, this must be sought by suitable means. The means for awakening the unconverted are of course various; some are wrought upon by one truth in the hand of the Spirit, and some by another; and, perhaps, most ministers have sometimes been surprised by finding that discourses have been rendered beneficial for the rousing of the careless, which, in their purpose at the time, were neither specially adapted nor intended for this object. But I am speaking now of the means which, to our view, appear generally most adapted to awaken attention, produce impression, and lead to conversion. On this subject I do not hesitate for a moment to give it, as my opinion, that what may be called the 'alarming style of preaching' is most adapted to convert the impenitent. I do not mean gross and revolting descriptions of eternal torment, nor the carrying out into minute detail what may be called the material and corporal representations of the punishment of the wicked. This is offensive and disgusting, and generally defeats its own purpose; especially when done, as is often the case, in a harsh, cold, and unfeeling manner.

What I mean by alarming preaching is an exhibition of the purity and unbending strictness of the law, together with such a method of applying this strict rule to the heart and conduct of the individual sinner, as is calculated to awaken and startle his conscience; a faithful portraiture of the heinousness of sin, stripped of all the excuses which our deceitful nature is so skillful in framing for its defense; a careful discrimination between mere reformation and a renewed heart; the indispensable necessity of regeneration, and the absolute certainty that every man will perish who dies without it; a solemn manifestation of the immaculate holiness of God, and of his retributive justice in the punishment of the wicked; an impressive description of the solemnities of judgment, together with a chastened but awakening account of the torments of those who reject the sacrifice of Christ, and refuse the offer of mercy. These are the subjects, explained and enforced in suitable language, with close application to the heart, pungent appeals to the conscience, and with an affectionate, earnest, solemn manner, that are likely to arouse the careless and convert the sinner. I do not mean, of course, that we should make such topics the incessant subjects of our ministerial addresses. A perpetual denunciatory strain would at length render those for whom it was intended, carelessly familiar with the terrors of the Lord. The timid would come at length to listen to the most appalling tempest without alarm, if it always thundered.

But what I mean is, that while a minister's habitual strain of preaching should be so discriminating as to leave no unconverted sinner at a loss with whom to class himself, whether with believers or with unbelievers. It should frequently contain those allusions to, and descriptions of, the wrath of God, which like the distant rumblings of the gathering and approaching storm, should drive men to the refuge provided by infinite mercy in the cross of Christ. No one will flee for shelter who does not see a tempest at hand; and then only will the shelter be valued when the storm is believed to be coming. Hence the necessity of a minister's raising the warning voice to announce the approach of that storm of divine vengeance which is coming upon the wicked, and which, as it cannot be seen by the eye of sense, should be the more vividly described and more earnestly represented to the mind. That this style of preaching has been the most useful, could be easily proved by an appeal to the history of the church. Who have been the most successful ministers of the world? Certainly those who have been most pungent and alarming.

(Let any one read the discourses of Baxter, who seemed to speak as between heaven and hell, with the glories of one and the torments of the other open before him—and remember his success. Or let him peruse the discourses of Whitfield, which were followed with a measure of success unparalleled since the days of the apostles; what a pungent and alarming strain do we find running through them! Equally in point are the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, which were the means of an astonishing revival of religion in his town and neighborhood. The preaching of that great man appears to have been more alarming than any which we are ever accustomed to hear. And, as to modern times, may it not be asked whether the most alarming preachers have not been the most successful ones. In further confirmation of this view of the subject, I might appeal to those popular tracts and treatises which have been so signally blessed for the conversion of sinners, such as "Alleine's Alarm," "Baxter's Call," "Doddridge's Rise and Progress," etc. If the reading of these has been so useful, surely it may be expected that preaching in a similar strain would be still more so.)

But ministers, notwithstanding this, are under a great temptation to preach smooth things, and to shrink from what may emphatically be called the burden of the Lord. A false charity leads them, in some instances, to be unwilling to disturb the peace or distress the feelings of their hearers; or, perhaps, there are some in their congregation who may feel an objection to what they contemptuously call the harrowing style. But most of all are those in danger of compromising their duty, who are appointed to minister to well educated and wealthy audiences. We all, perhaps, feel it more difficult, even in private conversation, to deal plainly and faithfully with a rich man than a poor one; and we carry too much of this sinful respect of people with us into the pulpit. We do not like to offend the delicacy of people of refined sentiments and well-informed minds. Even the most pious ministers, the men not usually lacking in fidelity, are too susceptible of impressions of this nature, and are in some peril of softening the terms of their message, and, out of compliment to rank, wealth, or intelligence, merging the terrors of the Lord in elegances of style or the ornaments of eloquence. They will not, perhaps, dare to withhold the substance of truth—but in their attempts to render it palatable to people of education, property, or talent, they will so dilute it with foreign admixtures as to deprive it of its efficacy. They will relate a parable and leave the rich man to discover and make the application to himself, instead of boldly saying, like the prophet to the monarch of Israel, "You are the man!" Away, away, with this false, this ruinous deference to the rich and the learned; it is treachery to God and their souls. At our peril is it that we soften down the terrors of the Lord to please any man; we must not shun to declare the whole counsel of God to nobles or to monarchs, if we were to preach to them; we must stand clear of the blood of the rich as well as of the poor. Did Paul regard the feelings of Felix? No! he made him tremble upon his seat, with the themes of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.

Nor must we allow ourselves to be drawn away from our duty in these things by any in our congregation, whose nervous temperaments or mistaken notions may set them against a faithful and impressive exhibition of the justice of God in the punishment of the wicked. We must not, in compassion to the weak, or in compliment to the erroneous, keep back those truths which are ordained by God for the conversion of men's souls. Nor must we listen to the seductive insinuations, the selfish policy, or the spiritual covetousness of those, who would intimate that we are robbing the children to benefit the stranger. We have a message from God unto sinners, which all the saints on earth, were they assembled, must not allow us to suppress in silence.

Sin is raging all around us! Satan is busy in the work of destruction! Men are dying! Souls are every moment departing into eternity! Hell is enlarging her mouth, and multitudes are continually descending to torments which knows no mitigation and no end! Is this a state of things in which any who believe its reality can allow themselves to be flatterers? Alas! such flattery ends in eternal death! How important and incumbent is it that all who hear the Word of God, should be willing to hear it fully and faithfully delivered.

Next Part Dislike to Ministerial Faithfulness 5

Back to John Angell James