The Example of Ministers

We need not stop to introduce the subject of the present chapter by any exordium. In order to give the pulpit power, ininisters themselves must enforce its instructions, hi, a life and conversation in keeping ivitli their high vocation. This is so obvious a truth that any illustration of it would seem to be needless; yet are there some things in relation to it, which have been too frequently suppressed, and which, perhaps, may subject him who utters them to obloquy. It were no more than the sober truth, were the writer to say, that in expressing his thoughts on this topic, he does so in the deliberate expectation of rebuke from some of those whom he highly respects, but who, in his judgment, have mistaken views.

It is too much to expect that the ministers of Christ should be perfect men; defects in their character are what the Church and the world must always look for. We have no objection to perfect ministers, if we could find tlicm; but all whom we have ever yet seen, had something to confess and be forgiven, and much need to grow better. “There is no man that liveth and sinneth not;” there is no living minister, and none who ever did live, but those who knew him best, were able to detect some discernible blemish, some weak spot in his personal character. We are not apologists for human imperfection; yet do we pity the man who, in this fallen world, expects to find every thing in his minister, to gratify either his piety or his pride. He can have little knowledge of himself, and little of that charity which hopeth all things, and covereth a multitude of sins, if he cannot appreciate true excellence because it has blemishes. It were a rare combination, to find any one man possessing all the personal qualifications that are to be desired, in those who minister at the altar. The heau-ideal may be a very agreeable picture to the imagination; but it will never be realized. It was, indeed, once realized; but it was too unearthly for this low world, too pure for men to look upon; they defiled it, yea they spit upon it, and smote it with their hands, and exclaimed, “Let him be crucified!”

There are two ways of estimating the character of God’s ministers; the one is by making their imperfections prominent, the other by giving prominence to their excellencies. A minister may have some good qualities, and be deficient in others. He may be distinguished for prudence, and not for zeal; or if distinguished for zeal, be exposed to imprudencies. He may be unsocial, but studious; or if not studious, he may make some amends for this deficiency, by the familiar acquaintance he cultivates with his fellow-men. He may be heedless of his secular affairs, and you may reproach him for making perpetual exactions upon the bounty of his people; or he may be careful of them, and you may accuse him of worldliness. The man will fmd enough to do who sets himself to search and hunt out a minister’s imperfections; he will find them in plenty. He may triumph in them, and live upon them, as those do who “eat up the sins of God’s people;” but he will not, I am thinking, on that account, enjoy a more thriving spirituality. A happy man he cannot be; how holy he is, must be left to the decisions of his own conscience, and of another day. But it would not be surprising, if his humility, and his contrition, and his self-diffidence and meekness were somewhat questionable, and if he were not exposed by his own spiritual pride to fall into the snare of the devil. I am acquainted with men, who are in the habit of sitting in severe judgment upon the character of ministers; but they are suspicious men, rash men, and men whose word would be taken with some grains of allowance in a court of justice. It would certainly seem to be a more pleasant and profitable employment, and would savor more of Christian equity, in forming an estimate of the ministerial character, to give its acknowledged excellencies their due weight.

Not a few of the moral defects of ministers depend upon their natural temperament. Those who have the fewest imperfections, are not always the best men; and for the obvious reasons that they may have the fewest excellencies. They may not be capable, from their natural temperament, of possessing strong and striking excellencies; and on this account, their imperfections may be comparatively few. It may be difficult to detect them in an imprudent, or an idle word; because their disposition is naturally retiring and taciturn, and they rarely speak at all, except in the pulpit. You may not be able to reproach them with rash, or imprudent conduct; because they are men of shrinking diffidence, and instead of throwing themselves amid scenes of exciting interest, they leave such scenes to men of a different spirit. Well do I remember a minister in this community, now gathered to his fathers, who, if judged by his imperfections, would meet a severe verdict; but who, when estimated by his excellencies, has scarcely left his equal behind him. I loved and honored him.

because, whoever else was backward, he was always ready, with his hand, his heart, his time and his money, for every good word and work. There may be quite as much of the power of godliness in the more animated, as in the more tame; while there may be, and ordinarily are, more visible imperfections in the former, than in the latter. Men there have been, who have deeply mourned over these constitutional exposures; while it is quite obvious they would not have possessed the manly and vigorous piety for which they were distinguished, nor have achieved that which they were raised up to achieve, without them. There were natural traits in the character of the Apostle Peter, which rendered him rash and presumptuous, and which led to his fall; yet had he been more phlegmatic and cold, while he would have avoided the infamy of denying his Master, he never would have so proved himself his self-denying and enthusiastic disciple. Imperfections there were in the character of Martin Luther; and they were imperfections which a certain class of men in our own day would have severely rebuked; nay, some modern churches would have called him to account for them. But without the natural temperament to which they are obviously to be attributed, he never would have been the distinguished Reformer. We forget his errors when we read his commentary oii the Epistle to the Giilatians, and see him before the Diet at the city of Worms. He mm:ht have been as mild and circumspect as Melancthon, and Protestantism might have been strangled in its cradle. There is a buoyancy of mind and heart which God has given to some of his ministers, for great and important ends; and though it may expose them to indiscretions, they ought to be thankful for the gift, and instead of abusing it, only labor to devote it to his glory. Their Heavenly Father has a work for them to do for which he has fitted them; he lays burdens upon them which men of a different temperament are not able to bear; and in his own time and wav, he will make it his care, that while his gifts promote their usefulness, they do not ensnare their souls.

We are no believers in an unsocial Christianity; nor do we desire to see its ministers unsocial and cheerless. This might be in keeping w itli the dark ages of Rome, but it has no alliance with the cheered spirit of the Gospel. Cheerlessness is not piety; gloom and depression are not piety. They are precisely that artful counterfeit of piety which the devil imposes upon many a minister of the Gospel, for the purpose of blasting those fruits of the Spirit, which are “not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” There is a worldly joy, a joy that is found only in the world and from the world; but it is “like the crackling of thorns under a pot.” But there is too a “joy of the Lord,” which is the strength of God’s ministers, as well as the strength of his people; it is joy in God, and joy from God, through Jesus Christ. Some of the best, and most devoted, and most successful ministers I have ever known, have been distinguished for their attractive cheerfulness.

There are not wanting those who impugn the character of the Christian ministry, because they do not carry the solemnity of the pulpit into ail the scenes of social life. Many indeed are the scenes of social life where the solemnity of the pulpit is called for; nor in any of them are the dignity and proprieties of the ministerial character unfitting. But as well misfht secular time be transformed into the Sabbath, and the busy scenes of the world into the formal services of the sanctuary, as the emotions of the pulpit pervade the uniform intercourse of a minister, either with the people of God, or the men of the world. Levity and worldliness are sufficiently out of place in him who is an ambassador of God to guilty men; but affected solemnity is even worse. Ministers there are who are so solemn that you never see a smile, or a pleasant expression upon their countenances; they arc absolutely fear-

300 THE POWER OP TH PULPIT.

ful. There is no piety in this. Were an angel from heaven to dwell with men, his spirit and example would he a perpetual rehuke to such ministers. Christianity, though of divine origin, is not the religion of angels; it is ingrafted on the human nature. Angels would delight to be its preachers; hut the treasure is committed to men; the whole arrangement is adapted to what is human; and while its great object is to purify and elevate, it is no part of its design to terrify. It is not a sort of personified apathy, nor is it some ghostly messenger that lives only among the tombs; it moves among men as the messenger of heaven’s tenderest mercy; and though wherever it goes, it rebukes iniquity, its footsteps are radiant with light and love. It multiplies the joys of men, and only admonishes them that they may not be sinful joys.

“Wisdom is justified of her children.” John the Baptist was accused of unsocial severity even to madness; while Jesus Christ himself was called a glutton and a wine-bibber. Let ministers, in their intercourse with the world, have a conscience void of offence. They are human; nor is there any generosity in denying them the relief of those occasional relaxations from toil, amid the interchanges of cheered thought and chastened feeling, w hich the better fit them for their appropriate work. We need not fear the influence of such men, but rather stand in fear of those who slander them, and whose severer piety expresses itself most spontaneously in the dark jealousies of a suspicious mind. Who would not prefer to stand in the place of Robert Hall, than in the place of some of his fastidious accusers? Much as the pulpit was indebted to the intellectual superiority of this wonderful man, it was not less indebted to his moral superiority. He was, by the universal consent of the devout and godly, himself an eminently devout and godly man. He had his faults. He was censorious, and sometimes abusive; — he was occasionally so, even to excess, and witty and sarcastic almost beyond endurance.*

But we should do great injustice to ourselves and our subject, were these animadversions all we have to say on the subject of ministerial example. While we do not look for faultless conduct in the character of ministers, yet do we look for traits of character which carry conviction to the public mind, that they are men of God. The Apostle Paul, in enumerating the qualifications of a bishop, says,” Moreover,

* On being very gravely reproved for his faults by one of his brethren, and in a manner not a little dictatorial and solemn, he sat for a while in perfect silence. At length he replied, “I suppose, brother W., it is just as you say. There is a difference between you and me. And it is just this: I let off all my nonsense in the parlor, and you keep yours for the pulpit.”

he must Imve a good report o them that are without.” While he may not be the slave of popular opiuiou, he slioukl commend religion by Ihe iiilluence of that “good name,” which is “rather to be chosen than great riches.” We have seen him in the closet, in the study, in the pulpit, at the bed-side of the sick and dying, and at the grave of the departed; but there are other scenes where his Christian graces and moral virtues ought to honor the sacred name by which he is called. His family has claims upon him, and so has the social circle; nor unless he go out of the world, can he be wholly unmindful of the responsibilities of business. In all these spheres, he ought to maintain a reputable character in the view of the world; every part of his conduct ought to be truly estimable; so that every beholder shall be constrained to acknowledge, not only the sincerity of his profession as a Christian, but his superior practical influence as a minister of the Gospel. His oflice demands this; it is worthy of it; if he has habits, or practices that bring it into disrepute, his preaching loses much of its power, and the pulpit sometimes receives a dangerous wound.

The Bible is given to men to be the rule of their conduct. This important truth every minister preaches, and insists upon; he is constantly calling upon men to acknowledge its authority, and to pay to it that practical deference which its supremacy requires. But what if, in the sight of all the world, he fails to make it the rule of his own deportment; — may he persuade himself that men have not discernment enough to perceive his inconsistency? What if he is remiss in the observance of the Sabbath; — what if he is not strictly moral, temperate, pure, and honest; — what if he is not punctual in his pecuniary engagements; — what if his promises are violated, and it is understood that he is not always true to his word; — what if he is extravagant in his statements, and habitually allows his imagination to give such a coloring to facts, that he cannot be confided in; — are these things no reproach to the pulpit? Far otherwise. If the imperfections of his character are such, that they are continually rising up to the remembrance of his hearers, he preaches almost in vain. He may indeed be accused of wickedness of which he was never guilty; but if he has failed even in that circumspection which would have protected him from the imputation, or suspicion of evil; or if there is any thing in his deportment which is obnoxious to misconception; his character may have received a dangerous wound. But i he is a wicked and immoral man, though he speak with the tongue of an angel, men revolt from his teaching. Or if he is a good man, and lias hern betrayed into secret sin, how are the difliculties and trials of his work auii:mented! His own soul beconfies estranged from God; his bosom is agitated by the thought that he is a suspected man; he trembles before “the shaking of a leaf,” and a “fire not blown consumes him.” In the midst of laughter his heart is sorrowful: God hides his face, and he is troubled; he loses his relish for his sacred employment; clouds settle on his path, storms gather; — he has lost his courage, and feels that he has no shelter from their fury. And if his sin be not secret, and amount to some gross immorality; though he may be a good man, and a true penitent, men feel that he has unfitted himself for a preacher of the Gospel; — he feels so himself; and the greatest honor he can do his office is to put off its robes. There is great weight in Paul’s injunction to Timothy, — “Take heed to thyself;’’ be thou “an example to the believers, in conversation, in faith, in purity.” A bishop “must be blameless as the stew ard of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, not greedy of filthy lucre; but sober, just, holy, temperate.” He must furnish living convictions of the importance and power of a virtuous life, of an example that will bear inspection, and disciplined by care and watchfulness.

But there must be a great advance upon all this, in order to give the example of ministers its due influence. There are distorted exhibitions of the religion they preach, as well as those distinctive influences to which we have just referred. There are foibles which discredit and degrade the pulpit; there are minor immoralities which scarcely have a name, which have a bad aspect in a Christian minister, which stain his name, and make it of bad odor in the world. There are babits also, which have been long indulged in defiance of the convictions of judgment, the reproofs of conscience, and the settled persuasion that they are a barrier to usefulness. There are worldly indulgencies which are justified by the example of some ministers, which are highly injurious to the cause of Christ. While they preach faithfully, they live as though they were slaves of the world; — slaves to its fashions, its example and influence. They court its smiles, they imitate its manners, and they meanly cringe to its dictation. They rob God, in order to save the means of indulging in the pomp and glitter of worldly pride. They expend more upon the decoration of their own persons, and the persons of their families, and upon splendid furniture and paintings, than their profession of supreme love to Jesus Christ will justify. The scenes of worldly pleasure often echo to their voice, and are graced with their stately step. Nothing is more obvious than tlmt they wish to be on “rood terms with the workl, and to be well spoken of by the rich and the fashionable, even though at some occasional sacrifices of principle, and a good conscience. But the world itself does not honor them for these things; it often despises them, and if they themselves are not despised, the contempt due to them visits the cause they dishonor. We have known ministers who, if they were to be judged by their preaching only, would rank high as men of rare attainments; but who, if followed elsewhere, would be found, in more respects than one, to be very different men. We ask for the pulpit greater consistency than this. We ask for it the upright and delicate judgment of a well-informed mind, and a sound conscience; we ask for it the verdict of a cultivated sense of propriety and consistency; we ask for it the qualities that are in estimation with men of probity and honor. Things there are that are somewhat beyond the rigid Christian virtues, that never fail to adorn it. There is a transparent simplicity of character, a freedom from dissimulation, a superiority to the meanness of artifice and management, — a command of the temper, and a command of the tongue, and a determined adherence to the principles of honorable intercourse, which, because they are possessed by so many who make no pretensions to religion, when neglected by Christian ministers, throw the pulpit into the shade. The ministers of the Gospel ought to surpass the best specimens of morality and honor among mere worldly men; and when they do so, obloquy will close her lips, and a thousand tongues will move in their defence.

Nor is this all which they ought to exemplify. It was to his ministers that the Saviour uttered the thought, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear Qnuch fruit.” Hurtful indulgencies may be restrained, and the more moral and honorable virtues may be cultivated, where there are none of the rare and peculiar excellencies of the Christian character. Ministers of the Gospel, of all other men, ought to live to do good. The pulpit always has power, when, in addition to a full and faithful exhibition of God’s truth, those who occupy it, like their Divine Lord, “go about doing good.” It is a delightful view, when, through every opening channel, they send forth the expressions of Christian benevolence upon this world of sin; when, in their plans and efforts, they comprehend all the evils of suffering humanity, sympathizing with its griefs, and not overlooking its perplexities and cares. Their character should shine in works of love. These give them a passport to the confidence of men; they commend the reliofion they preach as something beyond a mere system of doctrine, or mere professions of good will. An ostentations display of active goodness is not what they should seek; while they need affect no studied concealment of it, and may be willing to be known as the friends of their race. It is characteristic of the religion they preach, to do good “unto all men, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” But it stops not here. If we look into our own hearts, we shall find it is no easy matter to “love our enemies,” to “bless those who curse us,” to “do good unto those that hate us,” and to “pray for those who despitefully use us.” How easy it is to shut our hearts against them! Yet this is not the part of those who preach his Gospel, who loved us when we were dead in sin, and when enemies, died for us. The man who harbors resentment, treasures up the remembrance of wrong, and refuses to forgive, reflects no honor upon the Gospel of Jesus; men may be pardoned for refusing to confide in it on his testimony alone, who furnishes so uninviting an illustration of its practical influence. Ministers must exhibit more of the Spirit of Christ; when they do so, men will see and mark it, and not withhold from it their respect and confidence. Nor should they always wait for opportunities of doing good, but go in search of them. They must ascend in order to reach those who are above them; they must descend to those who are below them; they must seek to do good to all. They ought to be careful how they erect a wall of separation between themselves and any man, or any class of men to whom they may be of any service for this life, or that which is to come. Nor should we ever feel that we have done enough, until the means and opportunity of doing are exhausted.

There is also another topic which relates to the example of ministers, on which I will venture to make a few suggestions: I allude to a due attention to the decorum and proprieties of their social intercourse. It was not beneath the Apostle to instruct the Corinthians, that “charity doth not behave itself unseemly.” If ministers were more mindful than they sometimes are, of the demands of courtesy and kindness; if, while they rise above the formalities of frivolous and unmeaning etiquette, they were solicitous also to avoid the imputation of a rugged and unfeeling barbarism; if, in their treatment of one another, and their treatment of other men, they were influenced by the spirit of mild forbearance, and the charity which “thinketh no evil;” the pulpit would be not a little the gainer by the change. They should be “of gentle blood.” If in all their deportment they were gentle, as Christ was gentle; if they were accommodiitiniTf without weakness, amiable and iiidiilgcnt without crime, and dignified without constrained and artificial ceremony; their influence as preachers woirid be increased many fold. The reputation of the pulpit has often suffered by the coarse disregard of the thousand nameless proprieties of social life, which are far more truly the natural fruit of Christianity, than the product of any conventional impulse, or restraint. Ministers need not be rude in order to be faithful; rather do they need to be kind. Christ is our great model. He was all that was courteous. Let any well-bred and observing man read the narratives of his life, as given by the four Evangelists, and he will mark the perfectness of good-breeding; there is not a single action in all the vicissitudes of his course, that was not in perfect good taste. He was never distant and cold; nor rude and obtrusive; he was never terrible, save to wickedness. The minister who possesses most of his spirit, comes nearest to a genuine philanthropist and a true gentleman. If there were more of this spirit among those of us who preach his Gospel, many things, not perhaps positively sinful, but nowise honorable to ])iety, ould be restrained. There would be less contention, less of the bitterness of party strife, less chilling alienation and neglect, fewer local and sectional difliculties, less freedom with one another’s reputation, less meddling with the private concerns of others, and more regard to their feelings in matters that are unimportant. Our ecclesiastical judicatories would present different scenes; we should have less occasion to congratulate ourselves that the laws of duelling and private combat are unknown in the Church of God.

But we need enlarge on such a topic. Whether so serious a cause of complaint or not, as we have supposed, it is certain that the disregard of Christian decorum has impeded and impaired the influence of Christian ministers, and brought the name of the pulpit into any thing but good report.

We shall with difficulty be persuaded, that we have given too much importance to these thoughts on the subject of ministerial example. It is in vain to talk about piety where there is not sterling value, and an example that is worthy of the Gospel we preach. I would allow a minister every indulgence that is not sinful, and that is not hurtful to the souls of men. I would be bound by the code of a high morality, and hold myself responsible for every breach of it; but I would not be bound by the caprices of men. We should be watchful, even in things that are lawful, not to throw a stumbling block in the way of others. “All things are la ful for me,” says Paul, “but all tliin«?s arc not expedient.” He would not eat the llesli, nor drink llie wine ofl’ered in obhition on heathen altars, no, not “while the world standeth,” if “it caused his brother to offend.” There is no part of a minister’s example that may be deemed unimportant, which seriously affects the interests of religion in the world. We may think little of these things abstractly; but they are of great moment in their bearing upon the cause of God. Men may be fatally led astray by the wrong impressions they receive from the heedless and untender walk of Christian ministers. We may sometimes complain of restricted influence, when the fault is our own. If all the disciples of Christ ought to be “living epistles, known and read of all men,” much more his ministers. We depreciate this method of teaching. Men are not to be instructed by records and proofs merely; they reject the divine testimony even when it is spread before their minds. But there is one species of evidence which they find it hard to resist; it is the consistent example of its ministers. There is no preaching like a holy life. It is a death-blow to the Church of Rome, that fio many of its ministers are ungodly and wicked men. No church can prosper without an exemplary ministry. Mitred heads and apostolical succession, are little matters compared with “the things that are of good report.”

We are humbled in view of some of the thoughts we have suggested, and therefore dwell on them perhaps to the weariness of our readers. It is not enough for ministers to be men of piety; it must be a piety that lives, and acts itself out. Preaching is not piety. Men will not give the pulpit credit for a religion which it does not exemplify; — nor ought they to do so. It is not the eloquence of the pulpit alone that they look for. It is the silent eloquence of a heavenly example. The short epitaph inscribed by Nazianzen on the tomb of Basil, was, “His words were thunder, his life lightning.” Where the life of a minister is conformed to the law of God, and illustrates the power of his Gospel; — where the truth of Christ shines out in the walk and conversation; — where the whole testimony which a minister bears is in favor of the Gospel he preaches, and no part of it is arra.yed against another part, but all bears the same witness; — it is not easily denied. The pulpit needs no more efficiency than that which, under the favor of its great Author, it possesses the means of exerting. Let it faithfully apply itself to these, and it lives only to bless the world. Its light is destined to shine not more in acts of splendid brilliancy, than in that steady uniform brightness, whith is lighted at the altar whicl)

is within the veil.