The Fact Illustrated, That the Pulpit Has Power
It may not be deemed the most modest service in one who ministers at the altar, to select as the topic of somewhat discursive remark, The Power of the Christian Pidjnt. “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.” The light of the pulpit ought so to shine before men, as to need no other commendation, save its strong and steady radiance.
Yet it was not egotism in Paul, to “magnify his office.” The work of the Christian Ministry is one which possesses strong pecviliarities, and one which has strong claims. There is nothing that resembles it in the ordinary employments of men. While it has its full share of toil, it has solicitudes and discouragements, dependencies and disabilities, that are peculiarly its own. It has too its successes, its expectations, its honors and its rewards. It knows its own bitterness, and ‘’ a stranger does not intermeddle with its joy.”
For the purpose of presenting our subject in as practical a light as I am able, I propose to advert to the fact itself that the pulpit has power; to show what are the constituent elements which invest it with this moral influence; to point out the duties of ministers themselves in order to malxc full ‘proof of the power with which it is invested; and to specify the ohligations which rest on the church of God to give it its due place and importance. It is to the first of these thoughts that we shall devote the first three chapters, — the fact itself that the pulpit has power.
Our first remark, on this branch of the subject, is, that the institution of such an order as religious teachers is deeply imbedded in the common principles, and common wants of man, as fallen by his iniquity. Such is his intellectual and moral nature, that he imperatively demands religious teaching. The necessity is perfectly absolute. Teachers of religion are indispensahle to the existence of religion in the world. No matter what the religion is; so long as natural conscience has a dwelling in the human bosom, there must be a class of men devoted to its services. So far as my information extends, there is no nation, nor tribe, nor any age of the world, that ever has been utterly destitute of an order of men separated to sacred purposes. Paganism, in its more degraded, as well as its more enlightened and polished forms, down to the “Medicine man” of our own wilderness, has its shrines, its oficrings, its sacrifices, and its priests. If man is not a religious, he is a superstitious heing. In the most degenerate tribes, the priests have been found even divided into different and distinct orders, and distinguished by their costume, as they have been simple soothsayers, or astrologers, or familiar with the arts of magic.
The Sacred Order constitutes one of the essential elements of the social state. Society can no more exist without it, than without some form of civil government. Men must have some religious ritual; the form must exist, where the reality is dead; and even where the reality itself is death, there must be a ritual to preserve the death-like reality. All religion is, to a certain extent, the religion of form; even that revealed from Heaven is so far a religion of form, that its spirit is expressed in outward and instituted observances. Men will not consent to occupy a place in associated communities without the recognized dispensers of these religious rites. Conscience demands them for the living and the dead. Be it but necromancy, or some strange form of “black art” conjuration; the mother demands them for her new-born child, and the child demands them at the obsequies of its parent. There is no stoicism, no sullen apathy, so strongly intrenched within its philosophic indifference, but that it is sometimes bathed in tears. Human wisdom never erects her temple so high as to be above the tempest. A voice that is oracular must speak to men in the day of their calamity, even though the oracle be unheeded in the elevation of their pride. A hand that is allied to what is unseen and unearthly is looked for to wipe away the tears from the face of sorroAV, even though it be unsought amid the sunshine of joy.
This voice of nature is strong — in this respect is stronger than the “strong man armed.” The infidel Hume was no friend to the pulpit, yet has he left the lesson to the world, “Look out for a people entirely void of religion; and if you find them at all, be assured they are but few degrees removed from thjB brutes.” Infidelity itself could not live without religion. Were every class and order of religious teachers now abolished, and every man of them exiled from the earth, not only, in some form or other, would the office be resuscitated and restored, but their most violent opposers would be clamorous for their restoration.
And what are these but indications that the institution of such a class of men as religious teachers has its foundations too deeply laid in the nature of man ever to he powerless? If it has power where its only aliment is the grossest darkness, and the most degrading superstition, it is no arrogance to say, that power belongs to it where it is nurtured by God’s truth. If it has power because man wills it, it is not too much to affirm, that it has power because God wills it, and it rests upon his authority. If conscience demands it, and it is created by the wants of man, then in its best and truest form, is it no institution of mere arbitrary appointment, but one which abundantly indicates the wisdom and bene violence of its Divine Author.
But we pass from these regions of mere Theism and pagan darkness, instructive as they are. There is a negative influence which the pulpit exerts, which is not always appreciated. The importance of suppresnng the vicious habits of men can be estimated only by the intrinsic turpitude of their vices, and the devastation and ruin which they spread over the world. It were no easy matter to calculate the vast sum of wretchedness suppressed, and misery prevented, by the influence of the Gospel. It is a thought of some interest, that the well springs of overt and public iniquity are broken up just in the measure in which the pulpit has power over the minds of men. So absolutely is it at war with immorality and vice, that the vicious and immoral almost uniformly shun its instruction. Such persons are rarely found in the house of God, The atmosphere is one they cannot live in; and the honest, faithful preacher of the Gospel, to his honor be it spoken, one whose presence and influence they cannot abide. Plant a pulpit in the hot-bed of crime, and the atmosphere becomes gradually more pure; the fearful activity of wickedness is restrained, and low vices and black crime skulk away, and seek a shadow under some deadly Upas, rather than regale themselves beneath the Tree of Life. Men are not found worshipping a golden image, or a block of marble, or a crawling reptile, in lands where the Christian pulpit has a place. Those depraved passions and stupid and degraded vices, everywhere the attendants on the debasing sytems of idolatry, prevail only in lands where this divine institution is not kno n, or where it just begins to be recognized. If the land in which we dwell is not as debased as ancient Egypt, or Phenicia, or Babylon, or modern India, and if our sacred rites are not such as to shock every mind that is touched with the least sense of decency and virtue; it is because the pulpit guards it by purer influences. Go to lands where there are no pulpits, or to those portions of the world where they are “few and far between,” and what do you hear, if not the most awful profanation of the name of the great God, even from the lips of lisping childhood and hoary age? and what do you see, if not the most mournful desecration of that Day of rest which the King of the universe claims for his own; which the God of life has given for the physical, intellectual, and moral benefit of man; and without which no hounds can he found that set a limit to the grossest ignorance and the grossest crimes? Who can tell the amount of wickedness which would be found in the various relations of human life, if the strong bonds of social organization were not inwoven with the uttered truths of God, and watched over and fortified by his ministers? Where would be the subordination of subjects to rulers, of children to their parents? and what would become of those ties of affection and delicacy which now bind so many thousand hearts, and which keep Christian lands from presenting the most dreadful scenes of anarchy and confusion, of contention and hatred? How many terrible convulsions has the warning voice of the pulpit suppressed or restrained? Men would be well nigh fiends without it; spectacles of horror would be spread around them; “their hand would be against every man, and every man’s hand against them;” the sword would be bathed in blood, and their history would be written in “mourning, lamentation, and woe.” And has the pulpit checked no licentiousness, imposed no restriction upon dissoluteness and profliaacy of manners, prevented no libertinism, and kept no unhappy female, and no reckless man, from going down to the chambers of death? Has it set no bounds to idleness and prodigality, to iniquity, dishonesty, and fraud, to plunder and pillage?
Has it not done more to keep men from this whole class of crimes than all the circumspection and vigilance of the civil law,’ and the strong arm of physical power? Has it made no liar tremble, no slanderer silent, no revengeful man peaceable, no deceiver ashamed, no compact sacred, no oath binding, no tribunal of justice more pure? Has it done nothing to repress that unhallowed spirit of covetousness which would gratify its insatiable cravings by wrong-doing; which would corrupt magistrates and legislators, and enrich itself by trading in the souls of men? Has ambition never cowered before it? and has it effected no diminution in the struggles and contests, the sufferings and sorrows, of mankind?
You may tell me that this prevention and diminution of crime and suffering are to be attributed to the influence oi Christianity; but I would also have you tell me what the true influence of Christianity is without the pulpit. Bring the case home, by transplanting yourself beyond the reach of the pulpit, for the little remnant of your own short life. We cannot well conceive the evils that are diminished, or wholly prevented, by this humble instrumentality. Few know how much they are, in this respect, vmder obligations to the pulpit. They boast of other influences, but overlook this simple institution of heavenly wisdom. But for this sinale institution, what a world would this earth of ours have been! Blessed are the people that “know the joyful sound.” Favored is the man who bears even nothing more than the mark of the pulpit upon his conscience, exciting his fears, restraining his vices, and reaching forth its hand to keep him from the gulf of perdition before the time! If his heart is not the veriest sink of pollution, and his history the black record of the most loathsome vices and the foulest crimes, while he is thankful for other influences, let him lift his heart in gratitude to the “Father of lights,” that his kind and gracious Providence has determined his residence under the droppings of the sanctuary!
But we stop not with this negative influence of the pulpit; it exerts a positive influence which is still more important, and not less observable. The world in ,which we dwell is ignorant of God, and must become acquainted with him; it is an irreligious world, and must become religious; it is an ungodly world, and must become godly, — like God, consecrated to God, and rendering a sincere and habitual obedience to his will; it is a lost world, and must become sanctified and saved, through God’s grace, and the redemption of his Son. Our next thought therefore is, that the power of the pulpit is indicated by those immediate and direct influences, which it exerts in producing and sustaining the interests of truth and godliness among men, and fitting them for a higher and nobler state of being. We may not, at first view, be aware of the extent to which these results are to be attributed to the instrumentality of the pulpit. The sober fact is, that the history of true religion is substantially a history of its teachers. Its free course and peaceful progress, or its conflicts and low estate, are indicative of a corresponding career, and an alternate elevation and depression of those who minister in its sanctuaries. Its waxing and its waning, its trials and its triumphs, its errors and its truth, as well as the varied lights and shadows that fall upon its path, are but the varying phases of the pulpit, as clouds obscure it, or as it is darkened by an eclipse, or as the light of it breaks forth in noonday splendor. Its course has been far from uniform; while its legitimate and immediate object is the advancement of truth and holiness. This is its appropriate work; it is God’s cause in which it is embarked; and its object and aim are a radical transformation oi the characters of men, and the salvation of the soul.
God himself was the first religious teacher. Never was there such a theological school as that in Paradise, where the “Father of lights” was the instructor, and our first parents the eaofer and docile listeners. Never have such intellectual endowments been since known among men; nor such a resemblance to the intelligence of the Deity; nor such rapid progress in knowledge and holiness, as during the period between their creation and their apostasy.
Among men, the first religious teacher was the first man. He once enjoyed unrestrained intercourse with his Maker; miraculous aid was imparted to him in his intellectual attainments; and though by his melancholy fall his understanding was darkened, and to human view he was ruined and lost, he was still rational and accountable. Intellect no longer maintained its supremacy; reason did indeed totter on her throne, and in her fall carried with her the marks of her subjection; yet was she reason still, though in chains of darkness. Our first father was the depository of the first promise; a promise which he could not fail assiduously to make known to his descendants; a promise which wrapt ^^■ithill its celestial covering the sum and substance of all future revelations. To ^vllat extent that great promise was understood in these earlier periods of the world, we are not informed; it is enough for us to know that it was the religious directory of the patriarchal age, the great beacon-light on the shores of this shipwrecked world; the torch of hea^en, held forth by holy men, to light succeeding generations on their way to eternity.
As soon as men were sufficiently multiplied to form religious assemblies, there were accredited religious teachers. Such was “Enoch, the seventh from Adam;” such was Noah, a “preacher of righteousness;” and such were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who received direct communications from heaven for the instruction of their fellow-men, and peculiar marks of God’s favor, as his faithful servants.
Of the religious instruction and ritual of the nations that synchronized with the descendants of Abraham before the giving of the law, we have been able to learn little, save what may be deduced from the institution of sacrifices; and from the fact, that over that vast region of growing darkness there was at least one priest of the Most High God, so pre-eminent ill dignity, that he gave his official blessing to Abraham “as the less is blessed of the greater;” and that he is distinguished as the prefiguration of our “Great High Priest, who is passed into the heavens.” If at the calling of Abraham, the world was “given over to a reprobate mind,” it seems hardly probable that there remained no traces whatever of the true religion. Jetliro, Moses’ father-in-law, was a priest of Midian, yet was he a worshipper of the true God, a “light shining in a dark place.” There was piety in the Patriarchal age; piety of a choice character, a piety that was not sustained by written communications from heaven. Men began early to associate, and to “call upon the name of the Lord.” There were those who “walked with God,” like Enoch. There were men of faith like Abel, and Noah, and Joseph, and those fathers of the Church — a “cloud of witnesses,” who, “though not having received the promises, saw them afar off.” They were not untaught and undisciplined men, but were schooled in the knowledge of God, and furnish, even to subsequent and more favored generations, proofs of the power of religious teachers in a most unpromising age. “God spake in times past to the fathers by the prophets.” Blind eyes were opened, deaf ears were unstopped, and vassals long enslaved by the prince of darkness, were rescued and set free, as the first fruits of the early promise, and the earnest of the harvest which this barren earth was to yield from this spiritual husbandry.
The office of the priesthood under the Jewish economy, formed no unimportant feature of that wonderful dispensation. It comprised no insignificant part of the nation itself, and received for their support one-tenth of the fruits of the land. It was a sacred office; and any encroachment upon it was punished with death. The employment of the priests was not only that of serving at the altar, and offering the gifts and sacrifices of the people, — an employment in itself replete with instruction, and more especially that of the High Priest on the great day of Atonement, — they conducted their devotions, and were their religious instructors. The ‘Prophets constituted a distinct class of men, both in the wilderness, in Canaan, and during and after the captivity. We know who they were; and that they were distinguished for their piety, their faithfulness, and their power over the minds of kings and the people. Such was the power of both classes of these religious teachers, that during the entire history of the Jewish church, the interests of vital piety were mainly dependent on their instrumentality. With the exception of those godly princes, whose names live on the page of sacred history, no class of men occupied so important a station, or accomplished so much for the interests of vital piety.
The office of religious teachers among the Jews was a noble office. Without them, the Hebrew state had been an irreligious, ignorant, disjointed community. If men w ere converted to God; if, after seasons of deep declension, the interests of true relig’ion were revived, and Zion, that had been long in mourning, put on her beautiful garments; and harps that had hung upon the willows, again sung the Lord’s song; their religious teachers were prominent in these seasons of refreshing, and their priests the first to blow the silver clarion of glad tidings. The nation was exalted or debased, as their religious teachers were honored or dishonored, and as they exerted or failed to exert their appropriate influence. For fifteen hundred years they maintained this pre-eminence; and although their power was doubtless augmented by the exterior impressiveness and splendor of their economy, the right arm of their strength was their religious influence. So long as the nation was in its glory, its religious teachers were the glory and strength of the nation. Its darkest period, the four hundred years between Malachi and John the Baptist, was a period when the voice of their prophets was not heard. Yet even in this degenerate and afilicting period, there were not wanting
God’s consecrated priests among them, -some of whom were like the salt that retained its savor, the lights and guardians of the chiircli, and the adornment of their race. “Salvation is of the Jews.” If there be piety in the world; if there be precious hopes and glorious prospects; if there be churches and Christian lands which live to honor God and bless his people; they are to be traced up to those schools of the prophets where Samuel and Elijah taught, and to those holy men who caught their falling mantle.