Concerning Your Call to the Work of the Ministry
Your call is not to instruct men in the doctrine and duties of Christianity merely; but to convert them from sin to holiness. A doctrine can be of little value that does not lead to practical effect: and the duties of Christianity will be preached in vain to all who have not the principle of obedience. That this principle is not inherent in any man’s nature, and must be communicated by God alone, has all the proofs that any subject can possibly require, or receive. This is, indeed, the basis on which the necessity and importance of the Christian system rests: Jesus Christ comes to save men, not only from ignorance, by teaching them the truth, but to save them from* their sins; and this he does by enlightening the heart, purging the conscience from dead works, and transfusing the principle of righteousness and true holiness, which is the only principle of obedience. Now, all preaching is vain, where these effects are not produced; and such effects can only be produced by the immediate agency of God: but He makes the faithful preaching of His word the means of conveying this agency; and He will convey it by whom He pleases, for He is, and ever will be, Sovereign of His own ways.
It is the prerogative of God both to call and qualify a man to be a successful preacher of His word. All men are not thus called. Among the millions- ’ professing Christianity, very few are employed in the work of the Ministry in the ordinary course of Providence; and still fewer by especial call.
A regular established ministry of pure Christianity, in any country, is an ineffable blessing; for
T^y it the form at least of true religion will be preserved. Such a ministry God furnishes in the regular order of his providence; and its finiits are his ordinary work. But there is a power as well as form of godliness; a soul as well as a body of religion; and to produce this, is God’s extraordinary work; and to produce ifc, he not only communicates extraordinary influence, but employs extraordinary means. In this work God often “chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and the base things of the world, and things that are despised, and the things that are not, hath he chosen to bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh might glory in his presence.”
That there are such dispensations in Providence and Grace, the whole history of the Church proves; and every revival of religion is the proof of the dispensation of an extraordinary influence; for in such outpourings of God’s Spirit, we ever find extraordinary means and instruments used.
You are. either among these ordinary or extraordinary messengers; and you have either an ordinary or extraordinary call. But as you belong not, s a Christian Minister, to any established form of religion in the land; you axe an extraordinary messenger, or no minister at all; and you have either an extraordinary call, or you have no call whatever.
It is a matter of the utmost consequence to be thoroughly satisfied on this point. No man should engage in the work in which you are engaged, unless he verily feel, that he is inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon him this office. He must not presume that he is thus moved because he has been educated for the ministry; in cases of this kind, man may propose, but Grod must dispose. He may, indeed, be a minister in the ordinary course of God’s Providence, as has been already stated: and God may choose one thus educated, to be an extraordinary messenger, to revive his work in the earth. Thus was your founder chosen, qualified, and sent forth. But what could his single arm effect 1 God, therefore, gave him, as helpers, men called and qualified by himself, to do that extraordinary work so beneficial not only to Great Britain, but also to a great part of the civilized world, and even to heathen countries.
These men all testified that they had an extraordinary call, to do an extraordinary work, by extraordinary assistance. The immense multitudes of souls converted from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God; the general difiusion of scriptural Christianity throughout the land, producing love to God and man; due submission to all lawful authority, an4 the most cordial respect to every moral precept; were the proofs that they had not mistaken their call, and that God had not withheld his extraordinary influence. Persuaded that they had an extraordinary call to convert transgressors, to lead them to Christ Jesus that they might be justified by faith in his blood, and afterwards to build them up on their most holy faith, they constantly depended on God, sought and expected from him extraordinary assistance, and thus lived in the constant exercise of the Spirit of faith, piety and prayer. You will copy their example, and be owned of God as they were owned, if you walk by the same rule, and mind the same thing.
I hold this to be a matter of prime importance; for long experience has shown me, that he among us, who is not convinced that he has an extraordinary call to the ministry, will never seek for extraordinary help, will sink under discouragement and persecutions, and consequently, far from being a light of the world, will be as salt without savour; and, in our connexion, a slothful, if not a wicked servant, who should be cast out of the sacred fold, as an encumberer of the inheritance of the Lord.