2

LECTURES TO MY STUDENTS

VOLUME 1

A SELECTION FROM

ADDRESSES DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS

OF

METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE.

BY

C. H. SPURGEON.

PRESIDENT.

3

CONTENTS.

LECTURE 1. — The Minister’s Self-watch

LECTURE 2. — The Call to the Ministry

LECTURE 3. — The Preacher’s Private Prayer

LECTURE 4. — Our Public Prayer

LECTURE 5. — Sermons — their Matter

LECTURE 6. — On the Choice of a Text

LECTURE 7. — On Spiritualizing

LECTURE 8. — On the Voice

LECTURE 9. — Attention

LECTURE 10. — The Faculty of Impromptu Speech

LECTURE 11. — The Minister’s Fainting Fits

LECTURE 12. — The Minister’s Ordinary Conversation

LECTURE 13. — To Workers with Slender Apparatus

5

this master of the pulpit were recorded on the printed page. Spurgeon’s

sermons are filled with the necessary ingredients of good preaching and

have set standard rarely reached in today’s pulpits it is indeed gratifying

that this incomparable series of sermons is being made available once

again.”

Sword of the Lord: “We are glad that Pilgrim Publications, in Pasadena,

Texas, is now reprinting Spurgeon’s sermons. Previously, a selection of

twenty volumes of Spurgeon’s sermons was published widely, they are

now out of print. However, these were only selected sermons from the

whole. We are glad that all of Spurgeon’s sermons will now be reproduced

just as originally published by Spurgeon in Spurgeon’s day.”

Australian Baptist: “Above all else we commend Spurgeon because of the

Biblical content of his sermons. Here is sound doctrine, the doctrines of

grace. Here is white-hot evangelism, and at the same time evidence of the

heart of a loving pastor. Preachers and evangelists will find inspiration for

their ministry in these volumes.”

New Life (Australia): “The republication of these volumes could prove to

be a powerful preservative for evangelical Christianity. These volumes

complete and unabridged contain some of the finest preaching this world

has ever heard. How much one would like to say! The best thing is that

you procure a copy and delve into its heart-warming and inspiring

contents.”

Evangelical Baptist (Canada): “Charles H. Spurgeon, by general

agreement, was one of the great preachers of the ages. His weekly sermons

were avidly read as they came from the publisher. Then, each year, the

annual volume appeared under the title, ‘Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.’

Those volumes are to be printed now just as they appeared from the

presses in former time. A well illustrated brochure, The Pictorial Life of C.

H. Spurgeon, is worth more than the fifty cents which it will cost you.”

Prairie Overcomer: “Pilgrim Publications has launched what must be one

of the most ambitious reprint projects of the twentieth century. We refer to

the republication of C. H. Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit

sermons in their original form, completely unabridged.”

6

PUBLISHER’S FORWORD

The Pastor’s College began with one student, Mr. T. W. Medhurst, who

first contacted Spurgeon about the matter of salvation. After his

conversion, Medhurst wanted to study for the ministry under Spurgeon.

Spurgeon first assigned him to Mr. C. H. Hosken as his teacher, then later

Mr. George Rogers became the tutor and the small beginning developed

into a college for ministerial students. More and more students enrolled,

and the Pastor’s College became widely known. With the help of

Spurgeon, its library became a great asset to the student body.

The early tutors of the college included James Spurgeon, David Gracey,

Archibald Ferguson, and W. R. Selway.

A later staff was composed of Fergusson, Rogers, Gracey, and F. G.

Merchant.

Lectures were of course given in class rooms, but there was also “the

Question Oak” a large tree at Mr. Spurgeon’s residence. Often the students

would gather under the tree and ask questions of Spurgeon, and he would

give the answers.

On Friday afternoon, the students were usually asked to exhibit their own

ability as preachers and that without prior knowledge of the subject matter.

Spurgeon called upon a student to give a message on Zaccheus. The

student arose and said: “Zaccheus was little of stature, so am I. Zaccheus

was up a tree, so am I. Zaccheus came down, so will I.” The students, as

well as Mr. Spurgeon, applauded the “ingenious” performance.

The College had an annual conference at which time many of the former

students would gather for fellowship and preaching.

7

THE PASTOR’S COLLEGE.

THE Pastors’ College was commenced upon a very small scale in the year

1856. Since that date it has educated and sent forth into the ministry not

less than three hundred and fifty men, of whom, after deductions by death

and other causes, about three hundred remain in the Baptist denomination,

preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. In addition to this, a far larger number

of men receive gratuitous education in the evening, such as may fit them to

be city missionaries, colporteurs, or useful private Christians.

The institution receives no man in order to make him a preacher, but it is

established to help in the further education of brethren who have been

preaching with some measure of success for two years at the least. Many

men of earnest spirit and established Christian character are hindered in

their efforts to do good by the slenderness of their knowledge. Conscious

of their own defects, they endeavor to improve themselves, but the absence

of a guide, their need of books, and their scanty time, all prevent their

making progress. These are the men whom the Pastors’ College welcomes.

Men in whom piety, zeal, and the indwelling Spirit are to be found need

not fear refusal at our doors on account of poverty, if they possess those

gifts of utterance which are essential to the preacher.

The College aims at training preachers rather than scholars. To develop the

faculty of ready speech, to help them to understand the word of God, and

to foster the spirit of consecration, courage, and confidence in God, are

objects so important that we put all other matters into a secondary

position. If a student should learn a thousand things, and yet fail to preach

the gospel acceptably, his College course will have missed its true design.

Should the pursuit of literary prizes and the ambition for classical honors

so occupy his mind as to divert his attention from his life work, they are

perilous rather than beneficial. To be wise to win souls is the wisdom

ministers should possess.

In the Pastors’ College definite doctrines are held and taught. We hold by

the doctrines of grace and the old orthodox faith, and have no sympathy

with the countless theological novelties of the present day, which are

novelties only in outward form: in substance they are repetitions of errors

exploded long ago. Our standing in doctrinal matters is well known, and

we make no profession of latitudinarian charity, yet we find no failure in

8

the number of earnest spirits who rally to our standard, believing that in

truth alone, can true freedom be found.

The support of the College is derived from the free-will offerings of the

Lord’s people. We have no roll of subscribers, although many friends send

us aid at regular intervals. Our confidence is that God will supply all our

means, and he has always done so hitherto. The President has never

derived a farthing from the work for himself in any shape, but on the

contrary delights to give to the work all that he can, both of money and

gratis service; and therefore he the more confidently appeals to others to

assist him in maintaining the Institution. No work can possibly confer a

greater benefit upon mankind than the training of ministers whom God has

chosen, for around them spring up churches, schools, and all the agencies

of religion and philanthropy. As we are commanded to pray for laborers in

the Lord’s harvest, so are we bound to prove the honesty of our prayers by

our actions.

At least £100 is required every week to carry on the work.

C. H. SPURGEON,

Nightingale Lane ,

Clapham, Surrey.

9

INTRODUCTION AND APOLOGY.

IN reply to many requests from those ministers who in their student days

listened to my lectures, I submit a selection to the press. This, however, I

cannot do without an apology, for these addresses were not originally

prepared for the public eye, and are scarcely presentable for criticism.

My College lectures are colloquial, familiar, full of anecdote, and often

humorous: they are purposely made so, to suit the occasion. At the end of

the week I meet the students, and find them weary with sterner studies, and

I judge it best to be as lively and interesting in my prelections as I well can

be. They have had their fill of classics, mathematics, and divinity, and are

only in a condition to receive something which will attract and secure their

attention, and fire their hearts. Our reverend tutor, Mr. Rogers, compares

my Friday work to the sharpening of the pin: the fashioning of the head,

the straightening, the laying on of the metal and the polishing have been

done during the week, and then the process concludes with an effort to

give point and sharpness. To succeed in this the lecturer must not be dull

himself, nor demand any great effort from his audience.

I am as much at home with my young brethren as in the bosom of my

family, and therefore speak without restraint. Generous minds will take this

into account in reading these lectures, and I shall hope that all who favor

me with their criticisms will be of that noble order.

Possibly caustic remarks may be made upon my frequent references to

myself, my own methods of procedure, and personal reminiscences. These

also were intentional. I have purposely given an almost autobiographical

tinge to the whole, because my own experience, such as it is, is the most

original contribution which I can offer, and, with my own students, quite as

weighty as any other within my reach. It would have been impossible for

me to quote the experiences of other men if they had not been bold enough

to record them, and I make an honest attempt to acknowledge my debt to

my greater predecessors by writing down my own. Whether this arises

from egotism or not, each reader shall decide according to the sweetness

or acidity of his own disposition. A father is excused when he tells his sons

his own life-story and finds it the readiest way to enforce his maxims; the

old soldier is forgiven when he “shoulders his crutch, and shows how fields

10

were won;” I beg that the license which tolerates these may, on this

occasion, be extended to me.

It would have saved me much labor had I reserved these lectures for redelivery

to new companies of freshmen, and I am conscious of no motive in

printing them but that of desiring to keep my counsels alive in the

memories of those who heard them years ago, and impressing them upon

others who dwell beyond the precincts of our class-room. The age has

become intensely practical, and needs a ministry not only orthodox and

spiritual, but also natural in utterance, and practically shrewd. Officialism is

sick unto death; life is the true heir to success, and is coming to its

heritage. Mannerisms, pomposity’s, and proprieties, once so potent in the

religious world, are becoming as obsolete in the reverence of men as those

gods of high Olympus for whom in past ages poets tuned their lyres, and

sculptors quickened marble into beauty. Truth and life must conquer, and

their victory is nearest when they cease to be encumbered with the grave

clothes of conventionalism and pretense. It is delicious to put one’s foot

through the lath and plaster of old affectations, to make room for the

granite walls of reality. This has been a main design with me, and may God

send success to the effort.

The solemn work with which the Christian ministry concerns itself

demands a man’s all, and that all at its best. To engage in it half-heartedly

is an insult to God and man. Slumber must forsake our eyelids sooner than

men shall be allowed to perish. Yet we, are all prone to sleep as do others,

and students, among the rest, are apt to act the part of the foolish virgins;

therefore have I sought to speak out my whole soul, in the hope that I

might not create or foster dullness in others. May He in whose hand are the

churches and their pastors bless these words to younger brethren in the

ministry, and if so I shall count it more than a full reward, and shall

gratefully praise the Lord.

Should this publication succeed, I hope very soon to issue in similar form a

work upon Commenting, containing a full catalogue of Commentaries, and

also a second set of lectures. I shall be obliged by any assistance rendered

to the sale, for the price is unremunerative, and persons interested in our

subjects are not numerous enough to secure a very large circulation; hence

it is only by the kind aid of all appreciating friends that I shall be able to

publish the rest of the contemplated series.

11

LECTURE 1.

THE MINISTER’S SELF-WATCH.

“Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine.” —

1 Timothy 4:16.

EVERY workman knows the necessity of keeping his tools in a good state

of repair, for “if the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must

he put to more strength.” If the workman lose the edge from his adz, he

knows that there will be a greater draught upon his energies, or his work

will be badly done. Michael Angelo, the elect of the fine arts, understood

so well the importance of his tools, that he always made his own brushes

with his own hands, and in this he gives us an illustration of the God of

grace, who with special care fashions for himself all true ministers. It is true

that the Lord, like Quintin Matsys in the story of the Antwerp well-cover,

can work with the faultiest kind of instrumentality, as he does when he

occasionally makes very foolish preaching to be useful in conversion; and

he can even work without agents, as he does when he saves men without a

preacher at all, applying the word directly by his Holy Spirit; but we cannot

regard God’s absolutely sovereign acts as a rule for our action. He may, in

his own absoluteness, do as pleases him best, but we must act as his plainer

dispensations instruct us; and one of the facts which is clear enough is this,

that the Lord usually adapts means to ends, from which the plain lesson is,

that we shall be likely to accomplish most when we are in the best spiritual

condition; or in other words, we shall usually do our Lord’s work best

when our gifts and graces are in good order, and we shall do worst when

they are most out of trim. This is a practical truth for our guidance, when

the Lord makes exceptions, they do but prove the rule.

We are, in a certain sense, our own tools, and therefore must keep

ourselves in order. If I want to preach the gospel, I can only use my own

voice; therefore I must train my vocal powers. I can only think with my

own brains, and feel with my own heart, and therefore I must educate my

intellectual and emotional faculties. I can only weep and agonize for souls

in my own renewed nature, therefore must I watchfully maintain the

tenderness which was in Christ Jesus. It will be in vain for me to stock my

12

library, or organize societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of

myself; for books, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely the

instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my

nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner

life, are my battle ax and weapons of war. M’Cheyne, writing to a

ministerial friend, who was traveling with a view to perfecting himself in

the German tongue, used language identical with our own: — “I know you

will apply hard to German, but do not forget the culture of the inner man

— I mean of the heart. How diligently the cavalry officer keeps his saber

clean and sharp; every stain he rubs off with the greatest care. Remember

you are God’s sword, his instrument — I trust, a chosen vessel unto him to

bear his name. In great measure, according to the purity and perfection of

the instrument, will be the success. It is not great talents God blesses so

much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand

of God.”

For the herald of the gospel to be spiritually out of order in his own proper

person is, both to himself and to his work, a most serious calamity; and yet,

my brethren, how easily is such an evil produced, and with what

watchfulness must it be guarded against! Traveling one day by express

from Perth to Edinburgh, on a sudden we came to a dead stop, because a

very small screw in one of the engines — every railway locomotive

consisting virtually of two engines — had been broken, and when we

started again we were obliged to crawl along with one piston-rod at work

instead of two. Only a small screw was gone, if that had been right the train

would have rushed along its iron road, but the absence of that insignificant

piece of iron disarranged the whole. A train is said to have been stopped on

one of the United States’ railways by flies in the grease-boxes of the

carriage wheels. The analogy is perfect; a man in all other respects fitted to

be useful, may by some small defect be exceedingly hindered, or even

rendered utterly useless. Such a result is all the more grievous, because it is

associated with the gospel, which in the highest sense is adapted to effect

the grandest results. It is a terrible thing when the healing balm loses its

efficacy through the blunderer who administers it. You all know the

injurious effects frequently produced upon water through flowing along

leaden pipes; even so the gospel itself, in flowing through men who are

spiritually unhealthy, may be debased until it grows injurious to their

hearers. It is to be feared that Calvinistic doctrine becomes most evil

teaching when it is set forth by men of ungodly lives, and exhibited as if it

13

were a cloak for licentiousness; and Arminianism, on the other hand, with

its wide sweep of the offer of mercy, may do most serious damage to the

souls of men, if the careless tone of the preacher leads his hearers to

believe that they can repent whenever they please; and that, therefore, no

urgency surrounds the gospel message. Moreover, when a preacher is poor

in grace, any lasting good which may be the result of his ministry, will

usually be feeble and utterly out of proportion with what might have been

expected. Much sowing will be followed by little reaping; the interest upon

the talents will be in-appreciably small. In two or three of the battles which

were lost in the late American war, the result is said to have been due to

the bad gunpowder which was served out by certain “shoddy” contractors

to the army, so that the due effect of a cannonade was not produced. So it

may be with us. We may miss our mark, lose our end and aim, and waste

our time, through not possessing true vital force within ourselves, or not

possessing it in such a degree that God could consistently bless us. Beware

of being “shoddy” preachers.

IT SHOULD BE ONE OF OUR FIRST CARES THAT WE OURSELVES BE SAVED

MEN.

That a teacher of the gospel should first be a partaker of it is a simple truth,

but at the same time a rule of the most weighty importance. We are not

among those who accept the apostolical succession of young men simply

because they assume it; if their college experience has been rather vivacious

than spiritual, if their honors have been connected rather with athletic

exercises than with labors for Christ, we demand evidence of another kind

than they are able to present to us. No amount of fees paid to learned

doctors, and no amount of classics received in return, appear to us to be

evidences of a call from above. True and genuine piety is necessary as the

first indispensable requisite; whatever “call” a man may pretend to have, if

he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the

ministry.

“First be trimmed thyself, and then adorn thy brother,” say the rabbins.

“The hand,” saith Gregory, “that means to make another clean, must not

itself be dirty.” If your salt be unsavory how can you season others?

Conversion is a sine qua non in a minister. Ye aspirants to our pulpits, “ye

must be born again.” Nor is the possession of this first qualification a thing

to be taken for granted by any man, for there is very great possibility of our

being mistaken as to whether we are converted or not. Believe me, it is no

14

child’s play to “make your calling and election sure.” The world is full of

counterfeits, and swarms with panderers to carnal self-conceit, who gather

around a minister as vultures around a carcass. Our own hearts are

deceitful, so that truth lies not on the surface, but must be drawn up from

the deepest well. We must search ourselves very anxiously and very

thoroughly, lest by any means after having preached to others we ourselves

should be castaways.

How horrible to be a preacher of the gospel and yet to be un-converted!

Let each man here whisper to his own inmost soul, “What a dreadful thing

it will be for me if I should be ignorant of the power of the truth which I

am preparing to proclaim!” Unconverted ministry involves the most

unnatural relationships. A graceless pastor is a blind man elected to a

professorship of optics, philosophizing upon light and vision, discoursing

upon and distinguishing to others the nice shades and delicate blendings of

the prismatic colors, while he himself is absolutely in the dark! He is a

dumb man elevated to the chair of music; a deaf man fluent upon

symphonies and harmonies! He is a mole professing to educate eaglets; a

limpet elected to preside over angels. To such a relationship one might

apply the most absurd and grotesque metaphors, except that the subject is

too solemn. It is a dreadful position for a man to stand in, for he has

undertaken a work for which he is totally, wholly, and altogether

unqualified, but from the responsibilities of which this unfitness will not

screen him, because he willfully incurred them. Whatever his natural gifts,

whatever his mental powers may be, he is utterly out of court for spiritual

work if he has no spiritual life; and it is his duty to cease the ministerial

office till he has received this first and simplest of qualifications for it.

Unconverted ministry must be equally dreadful in another respect. If the

man has no commission, what a very unhappy position for him to occupy!

What can he see in the experience of his people to give him comfort? How

must he feel when he hears the cries of penitents; or listens to their anxious

doubts and solemn fears? He must be astonished to think that his words

should be owned to that end! The word of an unconverted man may be

blessed to the conversion of souls, since the Lord, while he disowns the

man, will still honor his own truth. How perplexed such a man must be

when he is consulted concerning the difficulties of mature Christians! In the

pathway of experience, in which his own regenerate hearers are led, he

must feel himself quite at a loss. How can he listen to their deathbed joys,

or join in their rapturous fellowships around the table of their Lord?

15

In many instances of young men put to a trade which they cannot endure,

they have run away to sea sooner than follow an irksome business; but

where shall that man flee who is apprenticed for life to this holy calling,

and yet is a total stranger to the power of godliness? How can he daily bid

men come to Christ, while he himself is a stranger to his dying love? O sirs,

surely this must be perpetual slavery. Such a man must hate the sight of a

pulpit as much as a galley-slave hates the oar.

And how unserviceable such a man must be. He has to guide travelers

along a road which he has never trodden, to navigate a vessel along a coast

of which he knows none of the landmarks! He is called to instruct others,

being himself a fool. What can he be but a cloud without rain, a tree with

leaves only. As when the caravan in the wilderness, all athirst and ready to

die beneath the broiling sun, comes to the long desired well, and, horror of

horrors! finds it without a drop of water; so when souls thirsting after God

come to a graceless ministry, they are ready to perish because the water of

life is not be found. Better abolish pulpits than fill them with men who have

no experimental knowledge of what they teach.

Alas! the unregenerate pastor becomes terribly mischievous too, for of all

the causes which create infidelity, ungodly ministers must be ranked among

the first. I read the other day, that no phase of evil presented so marvelous

a power for destruction, as the unconverted minister of a parish, with a

£1200 organ, a choir of ungodly singers, and an aristocratic congregation.

It was the opinion of the writer, that there could be no greater instrument

for damnation out of hell than that. People go to their place of worship and

sit down comfortably, and think they must be Christians, when all the time

all that their religion consists in, is listening to an orator, having their ears

tickled with music, and perhaps their eyes amused with graceful action and

fashionable manners; the whole being no better than what they hear and see

at the opera — not so good, perhaps, in point of aesthetic beauty, and not

an atom more spiritual. Thousands are congratulating themselves, and even

blessing God that they are devout worshippers, when at the same time they

are living in an unregenerate Christless state, having the form of godliness,

but denying the power thereof. He who presides over a system which aims

at nothing higher than formalism, is far more a servant of the devil than a

minister of God.

A formal preacher is mischievous while he preserves his outward

equilibrium, but as he is without the preserving balance of godliness,

16

sooner or later he is almost, sure to make a trip in his moral character, and

what a position is he in then! How is God blasphemed, and the gospel

abused!

Terrible is it to consider what a death must await such a man! and what

must be his after-condition! The prophet pictures the king of Babylon

going down to hell, and all the kings and princes whom he had destroyed,

and whose capitals he had laid waste, rising up from their places in

Pandemonium, and saluting the fallen tyrant with the cutting sarcasm, “Art

thou become like unto us?” And cannot you suppose a man who has been a

minister, but who has lived without Christ in his heart, going down to hell,

and all the imprisoned spirits who used to hear him, and all the ungodly of

his parish rising up and saying to him in bitter tones, “Art thou also become

as we are? Physician, didst thou not heal thyself? Art thou who claimed to

be a shining light cast down into the darkness for ever?” Oh! if one must be

lost, let it not be in this fashion! To be lost under the shadow of a pulpit is

dreadful, but how much more so to perish from the pulpit itself

There is an awful passage in John Bunyan’s treatise, entitled “Sighs from

Hell,” which full often rings in my ears: — “How many souls have blind

priests been the means of destroying by their ignorance? Preaching that

was no better for their souls than rats-bane to the body. Many of them, it is

to be feared, have whole towns to answer for. Ah! friend, I tell thee, thou

that hast taken in hand to preach to the people, it may be thou hast taken in

hand thou canst not tell what. Will it not grieve thee to see thy whole

parish come bellowing after time into hell? crying out, ‘This we have to

thank thee for, thou wast afraid to tell us of our sins, lest we should not put

meat fast enough into thy mouth. O cursed wretch, who wast not content,

blind guide as thou wast, to fall into the ditch thyself, but hast also led us

thither with thee.’”

Richard Baxter, in his “Reformed Pastor,” amid much other solemn matter,

writes as follows: “Take heed to yourselves lest you should be void of that

saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the

effectual working of that gospel which you preach; and lest, while you

proclaim the necessity of a Savior to the world, your hearts should neglect

him, and you should miss of an interest in him and his saving benefits. Take

heed to yourselves, lest you perish while you call upon others to take heed

of perishing, and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare their food.

Though there be a promise of shining as stars to those that turn many to

17

righteousness (Daniel 12:3), this is but on supposition that they be first

turned to it. themselves: such promises are made casteris paribus, et

suppositis supponendis. Their own sincerity in the faith is the condition of

their glory simply considered, though their great ministerial labors may be a

condition of the promise of their greater glory. Many men have warned

others that they come not to that place of torment, which yet they hasted to

themselves; many a preacher is now in hell, that hath an hundred times

called upon his hearers to use the utmost care and diligence to escape it.

Can any reasonable man imagine that God should save men for offering

salvation to others, while they refused it themselves, and for telling others

those truths which they themselves neglected and abused? Many a tailor

goes in rags that maketh costly clothes for others; and many a cook scarce

licks his fingers, when he hath dressed for others the most costly dishes.

Believe it, brethren, God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor

because he was an able preacher; but because he was a justified, sanctified

man, and consequently faithful in his Master’s work. Take heed, therefore,

to yourselves first, that you be that which you persuade others to be, and

believe that which you persuade them daily to believe, and have heartily

entertained that Christ and Spirit which you offer unto others. He that bade

you love your neighbors as yourselves, did imply that you should love

yourselves and not hate and destroy both yourselves and them.”

My brethren, let these weighty sentences have due effect upon you. Surely

there can be no need to add more; but let me pray you to examine

yourselves, and so make good use of what has been addressed to you.

I. This first matter of true religion being settled, IT IS OF THE NEXT

IMPORTANCE TO THE MINISTER THAT HIS PIETY BE VIGOROUS.

He is not to be content with being equal to the rank and file of Christians,

he must be a mature and advanced believer; for the ministry of Christ has

been truly called “the choicest of his choice, the elect of his election, a

church picked out of the church.” If he were called to an ordinary position,

and to common work, common grace might perhaps satisfy him, though

even then it would be an indolent satisfaction; but being elect to

extraordinary labors, and called to a place of unusual peril, he should be

anxious to possess that superior strength which alone is adequate to his

station. His pulse of vital godliness must beat strongly and regularly; his

eye of faith must be bright; his foot of resolution must be firm; his hand of

activity must be quick; his whole inner man must be in the highest degree

18

of sanity. It is said of the Egyptians that they chose their priests from the

most learned of their philosophers, and then they esteemed their priests so

highly, that they chose their kings from them. We require to have for God’s

ministers the pick of all the Christian host; such men indeed, that if the

nation wanted kings they could not do better than elevate them to the

throne. Our weakest-minded, most timid, most carnal, and most illbalanced

men are not suitable candidates for the pulpit. There are some

works which we should never allot to the invalid or deformed. A man may

not be qualified for climbing lofty buildings, his brain may be too weak, and

elevated work might place him in great danger; by all means let him keep

on the ground and find useful occupation where a steady brain is less

important: there are brethren who have analogous spiritual deficiencies,

they cannot be called to service which is conspicuous and elevated,

because their heads are too weak. If they were permitted a little success

they would be intoxicated with vanity — a vice all too common among

ministers, and of all things the least becoming in them, and the most certain

to secure them a fall. Should we as a nation be called to defend our hearths

and homes, we should not send out our boys and girls with swords and

guns to meet the foe, neither may the church send out every fluent novice

or inexperienced zealot to plead for the faith. The fear of the Lord must

teach the young man wisdom, or he is barred from the pastorate; the grace

of God must mature his spirit, or he had better tarry till power be given him

from on high.

The highest moral character must be sedulously maintained. Many are

disqualified for office in the church who are well enough as simple

members. I hold very stern opinions with regard to Christian men who have

fallen into gross sin; I rejoice that they may be truly convened, and may be

with mingled hope and caution received into the church; but I question,

gravely question whether a man who has grossly sinned should be very

readily restored to the pulpit. As John Angell James remarks, “When a

preacher of righteousness has stood in the way of sinners, he should never

again open his lips in the great congregation until his repentance is as

notorious as his sin.” Let those who have been shorn by the sons of

Ammon tarry at Jericho till their beards be grown; this has often been used

as a taunt to beardless boys to whom it is evidently inapplicable, it is an

accurate enough metaphor for dishonored and characterless men, let their

age be what it may. Alas! the beard of reputation once shorn is hard to

grow again. Open immorality, in most cases, however deep the repentance,

19

is a fatal sign that ministerial graces were never in the man’s character.

Caesar’s wife must be beyond suspicion, and there must be no ugly rumors

as to ministerial inconsistency in the past, or the hope of usefulness will be

slender. Into the church such fallen ones are to be received as penitents,

and into the ministry they may be received if God puts them there; my

doubt is not about that, but as to whether God ever did place them there;

and my belief is that we should be very slow to help back to the pulpit men,

who having been once tried, have proved themselves to have too little

grace to stand the crucial test of ministerial life.

For some work we choose none but the strong; and when God calls us to

ministerial labor we should endeavor to get grace that we may be

strengthened into fitness for our position, and not be mere novices carried

away by the temptations of Satan, to the injury of the church and our own

ruin. We are to stand equipped with the whole armor of God, ready for

feats of valor not expected of others: to us self-denial, self-forgetfulness,

patience, perseverance, longsuffering, must be every-day virtues, and who

is sufficient for these things? We had need live very near to God, if we

would approve ourselves in our vocation.

Recollect, as ministers, that your whole life, your whole pastoral life

especially, will be affected by the vigor of your piety. If your zeal grows

dull, you will not pray well in the pulpit; you will pray worse in the family,

and worst in the study alone. When your soul becomes lean, your hearers,

without knowing how or why, will find that your prayers in public have

little savor for them; they will feel your barrenness, perhaps, before you

perceive it yourself. Your discourses will next betray your declension. You

may utter as well-chosen words, and as fitly-ordered sentences, as

aforetime; but there will be a perceptible loss of spiritual force. You will

shake yourselves as at other times, even as Samson did, but you will find

that your great strength has departed. In your daily communion with your

people, they will not be slow to mark the all-pervading decline of your

graces. Sharp eyes will see the gray hairs here and there long before you

do. Let a man be afflicted with a disease of the heart, and all evils are

wrapped up in that one — stomach, lungs, viscera, muscles, and nerves

will all suffer; and so let a man have his heart weakened in spiritual things,

and very soon his entire life will feel the withering influence. Moreover, as

the result of your own decline, everyone of your hearers will suffer more or

less; the vigorous amongst them will overcome the depressing tendency,

but the weaker sort will be seriously damaged. It is with us and our hearers

20

as it is with watches and the public clock; if our watch be wrong, very few

will be misled by it but ourselves; but if the Horse Guards or Greenwich

Observatory should go amiss, half London would lose its reckoning. So is

it with the minister; he is the parish-clock, many take their time from him,

and if he be incorrect, then they all go wrongly, more or less, and he is in a

great measure accountable for all the sin which he occasions. This we

cannot endure to think of, my brethren. It will not bear a moment’s

comfortable consideration, and yet it must be looked at that we may guard

against it.

You must remember, too, that we have need of very vigorous piety,

because our danger is so much greater than that of others. Upon the

whole, no place is so assailed with temptation as the ministry. Despite the

popular idea that ours is a snug retreat from temptation, it is no less true

that our dangers are more numerous and more insidious than those of

ordinary Christians. Ours may be a vantage-ground for height, but that

height is perilous, and to many the ministry has proved a Tarpeian rock. If

you ask what these temptations are, time might fail us to particularize

them; but among them are both the courser and the more refined; the

courser are such temptations as self-indulgence at the table, enticements to

which are superabundant among a hospitable people; the temptations of the

flesh, which are incessant with young unmarried men set on high among an

admiring throng of young women: but enough of this, your own

observation will soon reveal to you a thousand snares, unless indeed your

eyes are blinded. There are more secret snares than these, from which we

can less easily escape; and of these the worst is the temptation to

ministerialism — the tendency to read our Bibles as ministers, to pray as

ministers, to get into doing the whole of our religion as not ourselves

personally, but only relatively, concerned in it. To lose the personality of

repentance and faith is a loss indeed. “No man,” says John Owen,

“preaches his sermon well to others if he doth not first preach it to his own

heart.” Brethren, it is eminently hard to keep to this. Our office, instead of

helping our piety, as some assert, is through the evil of our natures turned

into one of its most serious hindrances; at least, I find it so. How one kicks

and struggles against officialism, and yet how easily doth it beset us, like a

long garment which twists around the racer’s feet and impedes his running!

Beware, dear brethren, of this and all the other seductions of your calling;

and if you have done so until now, continue still to watch till life’s latest

hour.

21

We have noted but one of the perils, but indeed they are legion. The great

enemy of souls takes care to leave no stone unturned for the preacher’s

rain. “Take heed to yourselves,” says Baxter, “because the tempter will

make his first and sharpest onset upon you. If you will be the leaders

against him, he will spare you no further than God restraineth him. He

beareth you the greatest malice that are engaged to do him the greatest

mischief. As he hateth Christ more than any of us, because he is the

General of the field, and the ‘Captain of our salvation,’ and doth more than

all the world besides against the kingdom of darkness; so doth he note the

leaders under him more than the common soldiers, on the like account, in

their proportion. He knows what a rout he may make among the rest, if the

leaders fall before their eyes. He hath long tried that way of fighting,

‘neither with small nor great,’ comparatively, but these; and of ‘smiting the

shepherds, that he may scatter the flock.’ And so great has been his success

this way, that he will follow it on as far as he is able. Take heed, therefore,

brethren, for the enemy hath a special eye upon you. You shall have his

most subtle insinuations, and incessant solicitations, and violent assaults.

As wise and learned as you are, take heed to yourselves lest he overwit

you. The devil is a greater scholar than you, and a nimbler disputant; he

can ‘transform himself into an angel of light’ to deceive, he will get within

you and trip up your heels before you are aware; he will play the juggler

with you undiscerned, and cheat you of your faith or innocency, and you

shall not know that you have lost it: nay, he will make you believe it is

multiplied or increased when it is lost. You shall see neither hook nor line,

much less the subtle angler himself, while he is offering you his bait. And

his baits shall be so fitted to your temper and disposition, that he will be

sure to find advantages within you, and make your own principles and

inclinations to betray you; and whenever he ruineth you, he will make you

the instrument of your own ruin. Oh, what a conquest will he think he hath

got, if he can make a minister lazy and unfaithful; if he can tempt a minister

into covetousness or scandal! He will glory against the church, and say,

‘These are your holy preachers: you see what their preciseness is, and

whither it will bring them.” He will glory against Jesus Christ himself, and

say, ‘These are thy champions! I can make thy chiefest servants to abuse

thee; I can make the stewards of thy house unfaithful.’ If he did so insult

against God upon a false surmise, and tell him he could make Job to curse

him to his face (Job 1:2), what would he do if he should indeed prevail

against us? And at last he will insult as much over you that ever he could

draw you to be false to your great trust, and to blemish your holy

22

profession, and to do him so much service that was your enemy. O do not

so far gratify Satan; do not make him so much sport: suffer him not to use

you as the Philistines did Samson — first to deprive you of your strength,

and then to put out your eyes, and so to make you the matter of his

triumph and derision.”

II. Once more. We must cultivate the highest degree of godliness because

our work imperatively requires it. The labor of the Christian ministry is

well performed in exact proportion to the vigor of our renewed nature. Our

work is only well done when it is well with ourselves. As is the workman,

such will the work be. To face the enemies of truth, to defend the bulwarks

of the faith, to rule well in the house of God, to comfort all that mourn, to

edify the saints, to guide the perplexed, to bear with the froward, to win

and nurse souls — all these and a thousand other works beside are not for

a Feeble-mind or a Ready-to-halt, but are reserved for Great-heart whom

the Lord has made strong for himself. Seek then strength from the Strong

One, wisdom from the Wise One, in fact, all from the God of all.

III. Thirdly, let the minister take care THAT HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER

AGREES IN ALL RESPECTS WITH HIS MINISTRY.

We have all heard the story of the man who preached so well and lived so

badly, that when he was in the pulpit everybody said he ought never to

come out again, and when he was out of it they all declared he never ought

to enter it again. From the imitation of such a Janus may the Lord deliver

us. May we never be priests of God at the altar, and sons of Belial outside

the tabernacle door; but on the contrary, may we, as Nazianzen says of

Basil, “thunder in our doctrine, and lighten in our conversation.” We do

not trust those persons who have two faces, nor will men believe in those

whose verbal and practical testimonies are contradictory. As actions,

according to the proverb, speak louder than words, so an ill life will

effectually drown the voice of the most eloquent ministry. After all, our

truest building must be performed with our hands; our characters must be

more persuasive than our speech. Here I would not alone warn you of sins

of commission, but of sins of omission. Too many preachers forget to serve

God when they are out of the pulpit, their lives are negatively inconsistent.

Abhor, dear brethren, the thought of being clockwork ministers who are

not alive by abiding grace within, but are wound up by temporary

influences; men who are only ministers for the time being, under the stress

of the hour of ministering, but cease to be ministers when they descend the

23

pulpit stairs. True ministers are always ministers. Too many preachers are

like those sand-toys we buy for our children; you turn the box upside

down, and the little acrobat revolves and revolves till the sand is all run

down, and then he hangs motionless; so there are some who persevere in

the ministrations of truth as long as there is an official necessity for their

work, but after that, no pay, no paternoster; no salary, no sermon.

It is a horrible thing to be an inconsistent minister. Our Lord is said to have

been like Moses, for this reason, that he was “a prophet mighty in word

and in deed.” The man of God should imitate his Master in this; he should

be mighty both in the word of his doctrine and in the deed of his example,

and mightiest, if possible, in the second. It is remarkable that the only

church history we have is, “The Acts of the apostles.” The Holy Spirit has

not preserved their sermons. They were very good ones, better than we

shall ever preach, but still the Holy Spirit has only taken care of their

“acts.” We have no books of the resolutions of the apostles; when we hold

our church-meetings we record our minutes and resolutions, but the Holy

Spirit only puts down the “acts.” Our acts should be such as to bear

recording, for recorded they will be. We must live as under the more

immediate eye of God, and as in the blaze of the great all-revealing day.

Holiness in a minister is at once his chief necessity and his goodliest

ornament. Mere moral excellence is not enough, there must be the higher

virtue; a consistent character there must be, but this must be anointed with

the sacred consecrating oil, or that which makes us most fragrant to God

and man will be wanting. Old John Stoughton, in his treatise entitled “The

Preacher’s Dignity and Duty,” insists upon the minister’s holiness in

sentences full of weight “If Uzzah must die but for touching the ark of

God, and that to stay it when it was like to fall; if the men of Beth-shemesh

for looking into it; if the very beasts that do but come near the holy mount

be threatened; then what manner of persons ought they to be who shall be

admitted to talk with God familiarly, to ‘stand before him,’ as the angels

do, and ‘behold his face continually;’ ‘to bear the ark upon their shoulders,’

‘to bear his name before the Gentiles;’ in a word, to be his ambassadors?

‘Holiness becometh thy house, O Lord;’ and were it not a ridiculous thing

to imagine, that the vessels must be holy, the vestures must be holy, all

must be holy, but only he upon whose very garments must be written

‘holiness to the Lord,’ might be unholy; that the bells of the horses should

have an inscription of holiness upon them, in Zechariah, and the saints’

bells, the bells of Aaron, should be unhallowed? No, they must be ‘burning

24

and shining lights,’ or else their influence will dart some malignant quality;

they must ‘chew the cud and divide the hoof,’ or else they are unclean;

they must ‘divide the word aright,’ and walk uprightly in their life, and so

join life to learning. If holiness be wanting, the ambassadors dishonor the

country from whence they come, and the prince from whom they come;

and this dead Amasa, this dead doctrine not quickened with a good life,

lying in the way, stops the people of the Lord, that they cannot go on

cheerfully in their spiritual warfare.”

The life of the preacher should be a magnet to draw men to Christ, and it is

sad indeed when it keeps them from him. Sanctity in ministers is a loud call

to sinners to repent, and when allied with holy cheerfulness it becomes

wondrously attractive. Jeremy Taylor in his own rich language tell us,

“Herod’s doves could never have invited so many strangers to their dovecotes,

if they had not been besmeared with opobalsamum: but,

said Didymus; ‘make your pigeons smell sweet, and they will allure whole

flocks;’ and if your life be excellent, if your virtues be like a precious

ointment, you will soon invite your charges to run ‘in odorem

unguentorum,’ ‘after your precious odors:’ but you must be excellent, not

‘tanquam unus de populo,’ but ‘tanguam homo Dei;’ you must be a man

of God, not after the common manner of men, but ‘after God’s own heart;’

and men will strive to be like you, if you be like to God: but when you only

stand at the door of virtue, for nothing but to keep sin out, you will draw

into the folds of Christ none but such as fear drives in. ‘Ad majorem Dei

gloriam’ To do what will most glorify God,’ that is the line you must walk

by: for to do no more than all men needs must is servility, not so much as

the affection of sons; much less can you be fathers to the people, when you

go not so far as the sons of God: for a dark lantern, though there be a

weak brightness on one side, will scarce enlighten one, much less will it

conduct a multitude, or allure many followers by the brightness of its

flame.”

Another equally admirable episcopal divine f1 has well and pithily said,

“The star which led the wise men unto Christ, the pillar of fire which led

the children unto Canaan, did not only shine, but go before them.

(Matthew 2:9; Exodus 13:21.) The voice of Jacob will do little good if the

hands be the hands of Esau. In the law, no person who had any blemish

was to offer the oblations of the Lord (Leviticus 21:17-20); the Lord

thereby teaching us what graces ought to be in his ministers. The priest was

to have in his robes bells and pomegranates; the one a figure of sound

25

doctrine, and the other of a fruitful life. (Exodus 28:33, 34.) The Lord will

be sanctified in all those that draw near unto him (Isaiah 52:11); for the

sins of the priests make the people abhor the offering of the Lord (1

Samuel 2:17); their wicked lives do shame their doctrine; Passionem

Christi annunciant profitendo, male agendo exhonorant, as St. Austin

speaks: with their doctrine they build, and with their lives they destroy. I

conclude this point with that wholesome passage of Hierom ad

Nepotianum. Let not, saith he, thy works shame thy doctrine, lest they who

hear thee in the church tacitly answer, Why doest thou not thyself what

thou teachest to others? He is too delicate a teacher who persuadeth others

to fast with a full belly. A robber may accuse covetousness. Sacerdotis

Christi os, mens, manusque concordent; a minister of Christ should have

his tongue, and his heart, and his hand agree.”

Very quaint also is the language of Thomas Playfere In his “Say Well, Do

Well.” “There was a ridiculous actor in the city of Smyrna, who,

pronouncing O coelum! O heaven! pointed with his finger towards the

ground; which when Polemo, the chiefest man in the place, saw, he could

abide to stay no longer, but went from the company in a great chafe, saying

‘This fool hath made a solecism with his hand, he has spoken false Latin

with his finger.’ And such are they who teach well and do ill; that however

they have heaven at their tongue’s end, yet the earth is at their finger’s

end; such as do not only speak false Latin with their tongue, but false

divinity with their hands; such as live not according to their preaching. But

he that sits in the heaven will laugh them to scorn, and hiss them off the

stage, if they do not mend their action.”

Even in little things the minister should take care that his life is consistent

with his ministry. He should be especially careful never to fall short of his

word. This should be pushed even to scrupulosity; We cannot be too

careful; truth must not only be in us, but shine from us. A celebrated doctor

of divinity in London, who is now in heaven I have no doubt — a very

excellent and godly man — gave notice one Sunday that he intended to

visit all his people, and said, that in order to be able to get round and visit

them and their families once in the year, he should take all the seatholders

in order. A person well known to me, who was then a poor man, was

delighted with the idea that the minister was coming to his house to see

him, and about a week or two before he conceived it would be his turn, his

wife was very careful to sweep the hearth and keep the house tidy, and the

man ran home early from work, hoping each night to find the doctor there.

26

This went on for a considerable time. He either forgot his promise, or grew

weary in performing it, or for some other reason never went to this poor

man’s house, and the result was this, the man lost confidence in all

preachers, and said, “They care for the rich, but they do not care for us

who are poor.” That man never settled down to any one place of worship

for many years, till at last he dropped into Exeter Hall and remained my

hearer for years till providence removed him. It was no small task to make

him believe that any minister could be an honest man, and could impartially

love both rich and poor. Let us avoid doing such mischief, by being very

particular as to our word.

We must remember that we are very much looked at. Men hardly have the

impudence to break the law in the open sight of their fellows, yet in such

publicity we live and move. We are watched by a thousand eagle eyes; let

us so act that we shall never need to care if all heaven, and earth, and hell,

swelled the list of spectators. Our public position is a great gain if we are

enabled to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit in our lives; take heed, brethren,

that you throw not away the advantage.

When we say to you, my dear brethren, take care of your life, we mean be

careful of even the minutiae of your character. Avoid little debts,

unpunctuality, gossipping, nicknaming, petty quarrels, and all other of

those little vices which fill the ointment with flies. The self-indulgences

which have lowered the repute of many must not be tolerated by us. The

familiarities which have laid others under suspicion, we must chastely

avoid. The roughnesses which have rendered some obnoxious, and the

fopperies which have made others contemptible, we must put away. We

cannot afford to run great risks through little things. Our care must be to

act on the rule, “giving no offence in anything, that the ministry be not

blamed.”

By this is not intended that we are to hold ourselves bound by every whim

or fashion of the society in which we move. As a general rule I hate the

fashions of society, and detest conventionalities, and if I conceived it best

to put my foot through a law of etiquette, I should feel gratified in having it

to do. No, we are men, not slaves; and are not to relinquish our manly

freedom, to be the lacqueys of those who affect gentility or boast

refinement. Yet, brethren, anything that verges upon the coarseness which

is akin to sin, we must shun as we would a viper. The rules of Chesterfield

27

are ridiculous to us, but not the example of Christ; and he was never

coarse, low, discourteous, or indelicate.

Even in your recreations, remember that you are ministers. When you are

off the parade you are still officers in the army of Christ, and as such

demean yourselves. But if the lesser things must be looked after, how

careful should you be in the great matters of morality, honesty, and

integrity! Here the minister must not fail. His private life must ever keep

good tune with his ministry, or his day will soon set with him, and the

sooner he retires the better, for his continuance in his office will only

dishonor the cause of God and ruin himself.

Brethren, the limits of a lecture are reached, and we must adjourn.

28

LECTURE 2.

THE CALL TO THE MINISTRY.

ANY Christian has a right to disseminate the gospel who has the ability to

do so; and more, he not only has the right, but it is his duty so to do as

long as he lives. (Revelation 22:17.) The propagation of the gospel is left,

not to a few, but to all the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ: according to

the measure of grace entrusted to him by the Holy Spirit, each man is

bound to minister in his day and generation, both to the church and among

unbelievers. Indeed, this question goes beyond men, and even includes the

whole of the other sex; whether believers are male or female, they are all

bound, when enabled by divine grace, to exert themselves to the utmost to

extend the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our service, however, need

not take the particular form of preaching — certainly, in some cases it must

not, as for instance in the case of females, whose public teaching is

expressly prohibited: (1 Timothy 2:12); (1 Corinthians 14:34.) But yet if

we have the ability to preach, we are bound to exercise it. I do not,

however, in this lecture allude to occasional preaching, or any other form

of ministry common to all the saints, but to the work and office of the

bishopric, in which is included both teaching and bearing rule in the

Church, which requires the dedication of a man’s entire life to spiritual

work, and separation from every secular calling, (2 Timothy 2:4); and

entitles the man to cast himself for temporal supplies upon the church of

God, since he gives up all his time, energies, and endeavors, for the good

of those over whom he presides. (1 Corinthians 9:11); (1 Timothy 5:18.)

Such a man is addressed by Peter in the words, “Feed the flock of God

which is among you, taking the oversight thereof.” (1 Peter 5:2.) Now, all

in a church cannot oversee, or rule — there must he some to be overseen

and ruled; and we believe that the Holy Ghost appoints in the church of

God some to act as overseers, while others are made willing to be watched

over for their good. All are not called to labor in word and doctrine, or to

be elders, or to exercise the office of a bishop; nor should all aspire to such

works, since the gifts necessary are nowhere promised to all; but those

should addict themselves to such important engagements who feel, like the

apostle, that they have “received this ministry.” (2 Corinthians 4:1.) No

29

man may intrude into the sheepfold as an under-shepherd; he must have an

eye to the chief Shepherd, and wait his beck and command. Or ever a man

stands forth as God’s ambassador, he must wait for the call from above;

and if he does not so, but rushes into the sacred office, the Lord will say of

him and others like him, “I sent them not, neither commanded them;

therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord.” (Jeremiah

23:32.)

By reference to the Old Testament, you will find the messengers of God in

the old dispensation claiming to hold commissions from Jehovah. Isaiah

tells us that one of the seraphim touched his lips with a live coal from off

the altar, and the voice of the Lord said, “Whom shall I send, and who will

go for us?” (Isaiah 6:8.) Then said the prophet, “Here am I, send me.” He

ran not before he had been thus especially visited of the Lord and qualified

for his mission. “How shall they preach, except they be sent?” were words

as yet unuttered, but their solemn meaning was well understood. Jeremiah

details his call in his first chapter: “Then the word of the Lord came unto

me saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou

camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified time, and I ordained thee a

prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot

speak: for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child:

for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command

thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to

deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched

my mouth; and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy

mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the

kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw

down, and to build, and to plant.” (Jeremiah 1:4-10.) Varying in its

outward form, but to the same purport, was the commission of Ezekiel; it

runs thus in his own words: “And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon

thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. And the Spirit entered into me when he

spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto

me. And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel,

to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers

have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.” (Ezekiel 2:1-3.)

“Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll,

and go speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he

caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy

belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat

30

it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. And he said unto me,

Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my

words unto them.” (Ezekiel 3:1-4.) Daniel’s call to prophesy, although not

recorded, is abundantly attested by the visions granted to him, and the

exceeding favor which he had with the Lord, both in his solitary

meditations and public acts. It is not needful to pass all the other prophets

in review, for they all claimed to speak with “thus saith the Lord.” In the

present dispensation, the priesthood is common to all the saints; but to

prophesy, or what is analogous thereto, namely, to be moved by the Holy

Ghost to give oneself up wholly to the proclamation of the gospel, is, as a

matter of fact, the gift and calling of only a comparatively small number;

and surely these need to be as sure of the rightfulness of their position as

were the prophets; and yet how can they justify their office, except by a

similar call?

Nor need any imagine that such calls are a mere delusion, and that none are

in this age separated for the peculiar work of teaching and overseeing the

church, for the very names given to ministers in the New Testament imply

a previous call to their work. The apostle says, “Now then we are

ambassadors for God;” but does not the very soul of the ambassadorial

office lie in the appointment which is made by the monarch represented?

An ambassador unsent would be a laughing-stock. Men who dare to avow

themselves ambassadors for Christ, must feel most solemnly that the Lord

has “committed” to them the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18,

19.) If it be said that this is restricted to the apostles, I answer that the

epistle is written not in the name of Paul only, but of Timothy also, and

hence includes other ministry besides apostleship. In the first epistle to the

Corinthians we read, “Let a man so account of us [the us here meaning

Paul and Sosthenes, (1 Corinthians 1:1)], as of the ministers of Christ, and

stewards of the mysteries of God.” (1 Corinthians 4:1.) Surely a steward

must hold his office from the Master. He cannot be a steward merely

because he chooses to be so, or is so regarded by others. If any of us

should elect ourselves stewards to the Marquis of Westminster, and

proceed to deal with his property, we should have our mistake very

speedily pointed out to us in the most convincing manner. There must

evidently be authority ere a man can legally become a bishop, “the steward

of God,” (Titus 1:7.)

The Apocalyptic title of Angel (Revelation 2:1) means a messenger; and

how shall men be Christ’s heralds, unless by his election and ordination? If

31

the reference of the word Angel to the minister be questioned, we should

be glad to have it shown that it can relate to any one else. To whom would

the Spirit write in the church as its representative, but to some one in a

position analogous to that of the presiding elder?

Titus was bidden to make full proof of his ministry — there was surely

something to prove. Some are “vessels unto honor, sanctified and meet for

the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” (2 Timothy 2:21.)

The Master is not to be denied the choice of the vessels which he uses, he

will still say of certain men as he did of Saul of Tarsus, “He is a chosen

vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles.” (Acts 9:15.) When

our Lord ascended on high he gave gifts unto men, and it is noteworthy

that these gifts were men set apart for various works: “He gave some,

apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and

teachers” (Ephesians 4:11); from which it is evident that certain individuals

are, as the result of our Lord’s ascension, bestowed upon the churches as

pastors; they are given of God, and consequently not self-elevated to their

position. Brethren, I trust you may be able one day to speak of the flock

over whom “the Holy Ghost has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28), and I

pray that every one of you may be able to say with the apostle of the

Gentiles, that your ministry is not of man, neither by man, but that you

have received it of the Lord. (Galaltians 1:1.) In you may that ancient

promise be fulfilled, “I will give them pastors according to mine heart.”

(Jeremiah 3:15.) “I will set up shepherds over them, which shall feed

them.” (Jeremiah 23:4.) May the Lord himself fulfil in your several persons

his own declaration: “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem,

which shall never hold their peace day nor night.” May you take forth the

precious from the vile, and so be as God’s mouth. (Jeremiah 15:19.) May

the Lord make manifest by you the savor of the knowledge of Jesus in

every place, and make you “unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that

are saved, and in them that perish.” (2 Corinthians 2:15.) Having a

priceless treasure in earthen vessels, may the excellency of the divine

power rest upon you, and so may you both glorify God and clear

yourselves from the blood of all men. As the Lord Jesus went up to the

Mount and called to him whom he would, and then sent them forth to

preach (Mark 3:13), even so may he select you, call you upward to

commune with himself, and send you forth as his elect servants to bless

both the church and the world.

32

How may a young man know whether he is called or not? That is a

weighty inquiry, and I desire to treat it most solemnly. O for divine

guidance in so doing! That hundreds have missed their way, and stumbled

against a pulpit is sorrowfully evident from the fruitless ministries and

decaying churches which surround us. It is a fearful calamity to a man to

miss his calling, and to the church upon whom he imposes himself, his

mistake involves an affliction of the most grievous kind. It would be a

curious and painful subject for reflection — the frequency with which men

in the possession of reason mistake the end of their existence, and aim at

objects which they were never intended to pursue. The writer who penned

the following lines must surely have had his eye upon many ill-occupied

pulpits: —

“Declare, ye sages, if ye find

‘Mongst animals of every kind,

Of each condition, sort, and size,

From whales and elephants to flies,

A creature that mistakes his plan,

And errs so constantly as man!

Each kind pursues its proper good,

And seeks enjoyment, rest and food,

As nature points, and never errs

In what it chooses or prefers;

Man only blunders, though possessed

Of reason far above the rest.

Descend to instances and try:

An ox will not attempt to fly,

Or leave his pasture in the wood

With fishes to explore the flood.

Man only acts of every creature

In opposition to his nature.”

When I think upon the all but infinite mischief which may result from a

mistake as in our vocation for the Christian pastorate, I feel overwhelmed

with fear lest any of us should be slack in examining our credentials; and I

had rather that we stood too much in doubt, and examined too frequently,

than that we should become cumberers of the ground. There are not

lacking many exact methods by which a man may test his call to the

ministry if he earnestly desires to do so. It is imperative upon him not to

enter the ministry until he has made solemn quest and trial of himself as to

33

this point. His own personal salvation being secure, he must investigate as

to the further matter of this call to office; the first is vital to himself as a

Christian, the second equally vital to him as a pastor. As well be a

professor without conversion, as a pastor without calling. In both cases

there is a name and nothing more.

1. The first sign of the heavenly call is an intense, all-absorbing desire for

the work. In order to a true call to the ministry there must be an irresistible,

overwhelming craving and raging thirst for telling to others What God has

done to our own souls; what if I call it a kind of <GREEK> such as birds

have for rearing their young when the season is come; when the motherbird

would sooner die than leave her nest. It was said of Alleine by one

who knew him intimately, that “he was infinitely and insatiably greedy of

the conversion of souls.” When he might have had a fellowship at his

university, he preferred a chaplaincy, because he was “inspired with an

impatience to be occupied in direct ministerial work.” “Do not enter the

ministry if you can help it,” was the deeply sage advice of a divine to one

who sought his judgment. If any student in this room could be content to

be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer or a doctor, or a lawyer, or

a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he

is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fulness, for a man so

filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his

inmost soul pants. If on the other hand, you can say that for all the wealth

of both the Indies you could not and dare not espouse any other calling so

as to be put aside from preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, then, depend

upon it, if other things be equally satisfactory, you have the signs of this

apostleship. We must feel that woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel;

the word of God must be unto us as fire in our bones, otherwise, if we

undertake the ministry, we shall be unhappy in it, shall be unable to bear

the self-denials incident to it, and shall be of little service to those among

whom we minister. I speak of self-denials, and well I may; for the true

pastor’s work is full of them, and without a love to his calling he will soon

succumb, and either leave the drudgery, or move on in discontent,

burdened with a monotony as tiresome as that of a blind horse in a mill.

“There is a comfort in the strength of love;

Twill make a thing endurable which else

Would break the heart.”

34

Girt with that love, you will be undaunted; divested of that more than

magic-belt of irresistible vocation, you will pine away in wretchedness.

This desire must be a thoughtful one. It should not be a sudden impulse

unattended by anxious consideration. It should be the outgrowth of our

heart in its best moments, the object of our reverent aspirations, the subject

of our most fervent prayers. It must continue with us when tempting offers

of wealth and comfort come into conflict with it, and remain as a calm,

clear-headed resolve after everything has been estimated at its right figure,

and the cost thoroughly counted. When living as a child at my

grandfather’s in the country, I saw a company of huntsmen in their red

coats riding through his fields after a fox. I was delighted! My little heart

was excited; I was ready to follow the hounds over hedge and ditch. I have

always felt a natural taste for that sort of business, and, as a child, when

asked what I would be I usually said I was going to be a huntsman. A fine

profession, truly! Many young men have the same idea of being parsons as

I had of being a huntsman — a mere childish notion that they would like

the coat and the horn-blowing; the honor, the respect, the ease; and they

are probably even fools enough to think, the riches of the ministry.

(Ignorant beings they must be if they look for wealth in connection with

the Baptist ministry.) The fascination of the preacher’s office is very great

to weak minds, and hence I earnestly caution all young men not to mistake

whim for inspiration, and a childish preference for a call of the Holy Spirit.

Mark well, that the desire I have spoken of must be thoroughly

disinterested. If a man can detect, after the most earnest self-examination,

any other motive than the glory of God and the good of souls in his seeking

the bishopric, he had better turn aside from it at once; for the Lord will

abhor the bringing of buyers and sellers into his temple: the introduction of

anything mercenary, even in the smallest degree, will be like the fly in the

pot of ointment, and will spoil it all.

This desire should be one which continues with us, a passion which bears

the test of trial, a longing from which it is quite impossible for us to escape,

though we may have tried to do so; a desire, in fact, which grows more

intense by the lapse of years, until it becomes a yearning, a pining, a

famishing to proclaim the Word. This intense desire is so noble and

beautiful a thing, that whenever I perceive it glowing in any young man’s

bosom, I am always slow to discourage him, even though I may have my

doubts as to his abilities. It may be needful, for reasons to be given you

35

further on, to repress the flame, but it should always be reluctantly and

wisely done. I have such a profound respect for this “fire in the bones” that

if I did not feel it myself, I must leave the ministry at once. If you do not

feel the consecrated glow, I beseech you return to your homes and serve

God in your proper spheres; but if assuredly the coals of juniper blaze

within, do not stifle them, unless, indeed, other considerations of great

moment should prove to you that the desire is not a fire of heavenly origin.

2. In the second place, combined with the earnest desire to become a

pastor, there must be aptness to teach and some measure of the other

qualities needful for the office of a public instructor. A man to prove his

call must make a successful trial of these. I do not claim that the first time a

man rises to speak he must preach as well as Robert Hall did in his later

days. If he preaches no worse than that great man did at the first, he must

not be condemned. You are aware that Robert Hall broke down altogether

three times, and cried, “If this does not humble me nothing will.” Some of

the noblest speakers were not in their early days the most fluent. Even

Cicero at first suffered from a weak voice and a difficulty of utterance.

Still, a man must not consider that he is called to preach until he has

proved that he can speak. God certainly has not created behemoth to fly;

and should leviathan have a strong desire to ascend with the lark, it would

evidently be an unwise aspiration, since he is not furnished with wings. If a

man be called to preach, he will be endowed with a degree of speaking

ability, which he will cultivate and increase. If the gift of utterance be not

there in a measure at the first, it is not likely that it will ever be developed.

I have heard of a gentleman who had a most intense desire to preach, and

pressed his suit upon his minister, until after a multitude of rebuffs he

obtained leave to preach a trial sermon. That opportunity was the end of

his importunity, for upon announcing his text he found himself bereft of

every idea but one, which he delivered feelingly, and then descended the

rostrum. “My brethren,” said he, “if any of you think it an easy thing to

preach, I advise you to come up here and have all the conceit taken out of

you.” The trial of your powers will go far to reveal to you your deficiency,

if you have not the needed ability. I know of nothing better. We must give

ourselves a fair trial in this matter, or we cannot assuredly know whether

God has called us or not; and during the probation we must often ask

ourselves whether, upon the whole, we can hope to edify others with such

discourses.

36

We must, however, do much more than put it to our own conscience and

judgment, for we are poor judges. A certain class of brethren have a great

facility for discovering that they have been very wonderfully and divinely

helped in their declamations; I should envy them their glorious liberty and

self-complacency if there were any ground for it; for alas! I very frequently

have to bemoan and mourn over my non-success and shortcomings as a

speaker. There is not much dependence to be placed upon our own

opinion, but much may be learned from judicious, spiritual-minded persons.

It is by no means a law which ought to bind all persons, but still it is a good

old custom in many of our country churches for the young man who

aspires to the ministry to preach before the church. It can hardly ever be a

very pleasant ordeal for the youthful aspirant, and, in many cases, it will

scarcely be a very edifying exercise for the people; but still it; may prove a

most salutary piece of discipline, and save the public exposure of rampant

ignorance. The church book at Arnsby contains the following entry: —

A short account of the Call of Robert Hall, Junior, to the work of

the Ministry, by the Church at Arnsby, August 13th, 1780.

“The said Robert Hall was born at Arnsby, May 2nd, 1764; and

was, even from his childhood, not only serious, and given to secret

prayer before he could speak plain, but was always wholly inclined

to the work of the ministry. He began to compose hymns before he

was quite seven years old, and therein discovered marks of piety,

deep thought, and genius. Between eight and nine years he made

several hymns, which were much admired by many, one of which

was printed in the Gospel Magazine about that time. He wrote his

thoughts on various religious subjects, and select portions of

Scripture. He was likewise possessed of an intense inclination for

learning, and made such progress that the country master under

whom he was could not instruct him any further. He was then sent

to Northampton boarding school, under the care of the Rev. John

Ryland, where he continued about a year and a-half, and made

great progress in Latin and Greek. In October, 1778, he went to the

Academy at Bristol, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Evans; and on

August 13th, 1780, was sent out to the ministry by this church,

being sixteen years and three months old. The manner in which the

church obtained satisfaction with his abilities for the great work,

was his speaking in his turn at conference meetings from various

portions of Scripture; in which, and in prayer, he had borne a part

37

for upwards of four years before; and having when at home, at their

request, frequently preached on Lord’s-day mornings, to their great

satisfaction. They therefore earnestly and unanimously requested

his being in a solemn manner set apart to public employ.

Accordingly, on the day aforesaid, he was examined by his father

before the church, respecting his inclination, motives, and end, in

reference to the ministry, and was likewise desired to make a

declaration of his religious sentiments. All which being done, to the

entire satisfaction of the church, they therefore set him apart by

lifting up their right hands, and by solemn prayer. His father then

delivered a discourse to him from 2 Timothy 2:1, ‘Thou therefore,

my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.’ Being thus

sent forth, he preached in the afternoon from 2 Thessalonians 1:7,

8. ‘May the Lord bless him, and grant him great success!’” f2

Considerable weight is to be given to the judgment of men and women

who live near to God, and in most instances their verdict will not be a

mistaken one. Yet this appeal is not final nor infallible, and is only to be

estimated in proportion to the intelligence and piety of those consulted. I

remember well how earnestly I was dissuaded from preaching by as godly a

Christian matron as ever breathed; the value of her opinion I endeavored to

estimate with candor and patience — but it was outweighed by the

judgment of persons of wider experience. Young men in doubt will do well

to take with them their wisest friends when next they go out to the country

chapel or village meeting-room and essay to deliver the Word. I have noted

— and our venerable friend, Mr. Rogers, has observed the same — that

you, gentlemen, students, as a body, in your judgment of one another, are

seldom if ever wrong. There has hardly ever been an instance, take the

whole house through, where the general opinion of the entire college

concerning a brother has been erroneous. Men are not quite so unable to

form an opinion of each other as they are sometimes supposed to be.

Meeting as you do in class, in prayer-meeting, in conversation, and in

various religious engagements, you gauge each other; and a wise man will

be slow to set aside the verdict of the house.

I should not complete this point if I did not add, that mere ability to edify,

and aptness to teach is not enough, there must be other talents to complete

the pastoral character. Sound judgment and solid experience must instruct

you; gentle manners and loving affections must sway you; firmness and

courage must be manifest; and tenderness and sympathy must not be

38

lacking. Gifts administrative in ruling well will be as requisite as gifts

instructive in teaching well. You must be fitted to lead, prepared to endure,

and able to persevere. In grace, you should be head and shoulders above

the rest of the people, able to be their father and counselor. Read, carefully

the qualifications of a bishop, given in 1 Timothy 3:2-7, and in Titus 1:6-9.

If such gifts and graces be not in you and abound, it may be possible for

you to succeed as an evangelist, but as a pastor you will be of no account.

3. In order further to prove a man s call, after a little exercise of his gifts,

such as I have already spoken of, he must see a measure of conversionwork

going on under his efforts, or he may conclude that he has made a

mistake, and, therefore, may go back by the best way he can. It is not to be

expected that upon the first or even twentieth effort in public we shall be

apprised of success; and a man may even give himself a life trial of

preaching if he feels called to do so, but it seems to me that as a man to be

set apart to the ministry, his commission is without seals until souls are

won by his instrumentality to the knowledge of Jesus. As a worker, he is to

work on whether he succeeds or no, but as a minister he cannot be sure of

his vocation till results are apparent. How my heart leaped for joy when I

heard tidings of my first convert! I could never be satisfied with a full

congregation, and the kind expressions of friends; I longed to hear that

hearts had been broken, that tears had been seen streaming from the eyes

of penitents. How did I rejoice, as one that findeth great spoil, over one

poor laborer’s wife who confessed that she felt the guilt of sin, and had

found the Savior under my discourse on Sunday afternoon: I have the

cottage in which she lived in my eye now; believe me, it always appears

picturesque. I remember well her being received into the church, and her

dying, and her going home to heaven. She was the first seal to my ministry,

and, I can assure you, a very precious one indeed. No mother was ever

more full of happiness at the sight of her first-born son. Then could I have

sung the song of the Virgin Mary, for my soul did magnify the Lord for

remembering my low estate, and giving me the great honor to do a work

for which all generations should call me blessed, for so I counted the

conversion of one soul. There must be some measure of conversion-work

in your irregular labors before you can believe that preaching is to be your

life-work. Remember the Lord’s words by the prophet Jeremiah; they are

very much to the point, and should alarm all fruitless preachers. “I have not

sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they

prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people

39

to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way,

and from the evil of their doings.” Jeremiah 23 21, 22. It is a marvel to me

how men continue at ease in preaching year after year without conversions.

Have they no bowels of compassion for others? no sense of responsibility

upon themselves? Dare they, by a vain misrepresentation of divine

sovereignty, cast the blame on their Master? Or is it their belief that Paul

plants and Apollos waters, and that God gives no increase? Vain are their

talents, their philosophy, their rhetoric, and even their orthodoxy, without

the signs following. How are they sent of God who bring no men to God?

Prophets whose words are powerless, sowers whose seed all withers,

fishers who take no fish, soldiers who give no wounds — are these God’s

men? Surely it were better to be a mud-raker, or a chimney-sweep, than to

stand in the ministry as an utterly barren tree. The meanest occupation

confers some benefit upon mankind, but the wretched man who occupies a

pulpit and never glorifies his God by conversions is a blank, a blot, an

eyesore, a mischief. He is not worth the salt he eats, much less his bread;

and if he writes to newspapers to complain of the smallness of his salary,

his conscience, if he has any, might well reply, “And what you have is

undeserved.” Times of drought there may be; ay, and years of leanness may

consume the former years of usefulness, but still there will be fruit in the

main, and fruit to the glory of God; and meanwhile the transient barrenness

will fill the soul with unutterable anguish. Brethren, if the Lord gives you

no zeal for souls, keep to the lapstone or the trowel, but avoid the pulpit as

you value your heart’s peace and your future salvation.

4. A step beyond all this is however needful in our inquiry. The will of the

Lord concerning pastors is made known through the prayerful judgment of

his church. It is needful as a proof of your vocation that your preaching

should be acceptable to the people of God. God usually opens doors of

utterance for those whom he calls to speak in his name. Impatience would

push open or break down the door, but faith waits upon the Lord, and in

due season her opportunity is awarded her. When the opportunity comes

then comes our trial. Standing up to preach, our spirit will be judged of the

assembly, and if it be condemned, or if, as a general rule, the church is not

edified, the conclusion may not be disputed, that we are not sent of God.

The signs and marks of a true bishop are laid down in the Word for the

guidance of the church; and if in following such guidance the brethren see

not in us the qualifications, and do not elect us to office, it is plain enough

that however well we may evangelize, the office of the pastor is not for us.

40

Churches are not all wise, neither do they all judge in the power of the

Holy Ghost, but many of them judge after the flesh; yet I had sooner accept

the opinion of a company of the Lord’s people than my own upon so

personal a subject as my own gifts and graces. At any rate, whether you

value the verdict of the church or no, one thing is certain, that none of you

can be pastors without the loving consent of the flock; and therefore this

will be to you a practical indicator if not a correct one. If your call from the

Lord be a real one you will not long be silent. As surely as the man wants

his hour, so surely the hour wants its man. The church of God is always

urgently in need of living ministers; to her a man is always more precious

than the gold of Ophir. Formal officials do lack and suffer hunger, but the

anointed of the Lord need never be without a charge, for there are quick

ears which will know them by their speech, and ready hearts to welcome

them to their appointed place. Be fit for your work, and you will never be

out of it. Do not run about inviting yourselves to preach here and there; be

more concerned about your ability than your opportunity, and more earnest

about your walk with God than about either. The sheep will know the

God-sent shepherd; the porter of the fold will open to you, and the flock

will know your voice.

At the time of my first delivery of this lecture, I had not read John

Newton’s admirable letter to a friend on this subject; it so nearly tallies

with my own thoughts, that at the risk of being thought to be a copyist,

which I certainly am not in this instance, I will read you the letter: —

“Your case reminds me of my own; my first desires towards the ministry

were attended with great uncertainties and difficulties, and the perplexity of

my own mind was heightened by the various and opposite judgments of my

friends. The advice I have to offer is the result of painful experience and

exercise, and for this reason, perhaps, may not be unacceptable to you. I

pray our gracious Lord to make it useful.

“I was long distressed, as you are, about what was or was not a proper call

to the ministry. It now seems to me an easy point to solve; but, perhaps, it

will not be so to you, till the Lord shall make it clear to yourself in your

own case. I have not room to say so much as I could. In brief, I think it

principally includes three things: —

“1. A warm and earnest desire to be employed in this service. I apprehend

the man who is once moved by the Spirit of God to this work, will prefer

it, if attainable, to thousands of gold and silver; so that, though he is at

41

times intimidated by a sense of its importance and difficulty, compared with

his own great insufficiency (for it is to be presumed a call of this sort, if

indeed from God, will be accompanied with humility and self-abasement),

yet he cannot give it up. I hold it a good rule to inquire in this point,

whether the desire to preach is most fervent in our most lively and spiritual

frames, and when we are most laid in the dust before the Lord? If so, it is a

good sign. But if, as is sometimes the case, a person is very earnest to be a

preacher to others, when he finds but little hungerings and thirstings after

grace in his own soul, it is then to be feared his zeal springs rather from a

selfish principle than from the Spirit of God.

“2. Besides this affectionate desire and readiness to preach, there must in

due season appear some competent sufficiency as to gifts, knowledge, and

utterance. Surely, if the Lord sends a man to teach others, he will furnish

him with the means. I believe many have intended well in setting up for

preachers, who yet went beyond or before their call in so doing. The main

difference between a minister and a private Christian, seems to consist in

those ministerial gifts, which are imparted to him, not for his own sake, but

for the edification of others. But then I say these are to appear in due

season; they are not to be expected instantaneously, but gradually, in the

use of proper means. They are necessary for the discharge of the ministry,

but not necessary as pre-requisites to warrant our desires after it. In your

case, you are young, and have time before you; therefore, I think you need

not as yet perplex yourself with inquiring if you have these gifts already. It

is sufficient if your desire is fixed, and you are willing, in the way of prayer

and diligence, to wait upon the Lord for them; as yet you need them not? F3

“3. That which finally evidences a proper call, is a correspondent opening

in providence, by a gradual train of circumstances pointing out the means,

the time, the place of actually entering upon the work. And until this

coincidence arrives, you must not expect to be always clear from hesitation

in your own mind. The principal caution on this head is, not to be too hasty

in catching at first appearances. If it be the Lord’s will to bring you into his

ministry, he has already appointed your place and service, and though you

know it not at present, you shall at a proper time. If you had the talents of

an angel, you could do no good with them till his hour is come, and till he

leads you to the people whom he has determined to bless by your means. It

is very difficult to restrain ourselves within the bounds of prudence here,

when our zeal is warm: a sense of the love of Christ upon our hearts, and a

tender compassion for poor sinners, is ready to prompt us to break out too

42

soon; but he that believeth shall not make haste. I was about five years

under this constraint; sometimes I thought I must preach, though it was in

the streets. I listened to everything that seemed plausible, and to many

things which were not so. But the Lord graciously, and as it were

insensibly, hedged up my way with thorns; otherwise, if I had been left to

my own spirit, I should have put it quite out of my power to have been

brought into such a sphere of usefulness, as he in his good time has been

pleased to lead me to. And I can now see clearly, that at the time I would

first have gone out, though my intention was, I hope, good in the main, yet

I overrated myself, and had not that spiritual judgment and experience

which are requisite for so great a service.”

Thus much may suffice, but the same subject will be before you if I detail a

little of my experience in dealing with aspirants for the ministry. I have

constantly to fulfill the duty which fell to the lot of Cromwell’s Triers. I

have to form an opinion as to the advisability of aiding certain men in their

attempts to become pastors. This is a most responsible duty, and one which

requires no ordinary care. Of course, I do not set myself up to judge

whether a man shall enter the ministry or not, but my examination merely

aims at answering the question whether this institution shall help him, or

leave him to his own resources. Certain of our charitable neighbors accuse

us of having “a parson manufactory” here, but the charge is not true at all.

We never tried to make a minister, and should fail if we did; we receive

none into the College but those who profess to be ministers already. It

would be nearer the truth if they called me a parson killer, for a goodly

number of beginners have received their quietus from me; and I have the

fullest ease of conscience in reflecting upon what I have so done. It has

always been a hard task for me to discourage a hopeful young brother who

has applied for admission to the College. My heart has always leaned to the

kindest side, but duty to the churches has compelled me to judge with

severe discrimination. After hearing what the candidate has had to say,

having read his testimonials and seen his replies to questions, when I have

felt convinced that the Lord had not called him, I have been obliged to tell

him so. Certain of the cases are types of all. Young brethren apply who

earnestly desire to enter the ministry, but it is painfully apparent that their

main motive is an ambitious desire to shine among men. These men are

from a common point of view to be commended for aspiring, but then the

pulpit is never to be the ladder by which ambition is to climb. Had such

men entered the army they would never have been satisfied till they had

43

reached the front rank, for they are determined to push their way up — all

very laudable and very proper so far; but they have embraced the idea that

if they entered the ministry they would be greatly distinguished; they have

felt the buddings of genius, and have regarded themselves as greater than

ordinary persons, and, therefore, they have looked upon the ministry as a

platform upon which to display their supposed abilities. Whenever this has

been visible I have felt bound to leave the man “to gang his ain gate,” as

the Scotch say; believing that such spirits always come to nought if they

enter the Lord’s service. We find that we have nothing whereof to glory,

and if we had, the very worst place in which to hang it out would be a

pulpit; for there we are brought daily to feel our own insignificance and

nothingness.

Men who since conversion have betrayed great feebleness of mind and are

readily led to embrace strange doctrines, or to fall into evil company and

gross sin, I never can find it in my heart to encourage to enter the ministry,

let their professions be what they may. Let them, if truly penitent, keep in

the rear ranks. Unstable as water they will not excel.

So, too, those who cannot endure hardness, but are of the kid-gloved

order, I refer elsewhere. We want soldiers, not fops, earnest laborers, not

genteel loiterers. Men who have done nothing up to their time of

application to the college, are told to earn their spurs before they are

publicly dubbed as knights. Fervent lovers of souls do not wait till they are

trained, they serve their Lord at once.

Certain good men appeal to me who are distinguished by enormous

vehemence and zeal, and a conspicuous absence of brains; brethren who

would talk for ever and ever upon nothing — who would stamp and thump

the Bible, and get nothing out of it all; earnest, awfully earnest, mountains

in labor of the most painful kind; but nothing comes of it all, not even the

ridiculus mus. There are zealots abroad who are not capable of conceiving

or uttering five consecutive thoughts, whose capacity is most narrow and

their conceit most broad, and these can hammer, and bawl, and rave, and

tear, and rage, but the noise all arises from the hollowness of the drum. I

conceive that these brethren will do quite as well without education as with

it, and therefore I have usually declined their applications.

Another exceedingly large class of men seek the pulpit they know not why.

They cannot teach and will not learn, and yet must fain be ministers. Like

the man who slept on Parnassus, and ever after imagined himself a poet,

44

they have had impudence enough once to thrust a sermon upon an

audience, and now nothing will do but preaching. They are so hasty to

leave off sewing garments, that they will make a rent in the church of

which they are members to accomplish their design. The counter is

distasteful, and a pulpit cushion is coveted; the scales and weights they are

weary of, and must needs try their hands at the balances of the sanctuary.

Such men, like raging waves of the sea usually foam forth their own shame,

and we are happy when we bid them adieu.

Physical infirmities raise a question about the call of some excellent men. I

would not, like Eusthenes, judge men by their features, but their general

physique is no small criterion. That narrow chest does not indicate a man

formed for public speech. You may think it odd, but still I feel very well

assured, that when a man has a contracted chest, with no distance between

his shoulders, the all-wise Creator did not intend him habitually to preach.

If he had meant him to speak he would have given him in some measure

breadth of chest, sufficient to yield a reasonable amount of lung force.

When the Lord means a creature to run, he gives it nimble legs, and if he

means another creature to preach, it will give it suitable lungs. A brother

who has to pause in the middle of a sentence and work his air-pump,

should ask himself whether there is not some other occupation for which

he is better adapted. A man who can scarcely get through a sentence

without pain, can hardly be called to “Cry aloud and spare not?” There may

be exceptions, but is there not weight in the general rule? Brethren with

defective mouths and imperfect articulation are not usually called to preach

the gospel. The same applies to brethren with no palate, or an imperfect

one.

Application was received some short time ago from a young man who had

a sort of rotary action of his jaw of the most painful sort to the beholder.

His pastor commended him as a very holy young man, who had been the

means of bringing some to Christ, and he expressed the hope that I would

receive him, but I could not see the propriety of it. I could not have looked

at him while preaching without laughter if all the gold of Tarshish had been

my reward, and in all probability nine out of ten of his hearers would have

been more sensitive than myself. A man with a big tongue which filled up

his mouth and caused indistinctness, another without teeth, another who

stammered, another who could not pronounce all the alphabet, I have had

the pain of declining on the ground that God had not given them those

45

physical appliances, which are as the prayer-book would put it, “generally

necessary.”

One brother I have encountered — one did I say? I have met ten, twenty, a

hundred brethren, who have pleaded that they were sure, quite sure that

they were called to the ministry — they were quite certain of it, because

they had failed in everything else. This is a sort of model story: — “Sir, I

was put into a lawyer’s office, but I never could bear the confinement, and

I could not feel at home in studying law; Providence clearly stopped up my

road, for I lost my situation.” “And what did you do then?” “Why sir, I was

induced to open a grocer’s shop.” “And did you prosper?” “Well I do not

think, Sir, I was ever meant for trade, and the Lord seemed quite to shut

my way up there, for I failed and was in great difficulties. Since then I have

done a little in life-assurance agency, and tried to get up a school, besides

selling tea; but my path is hedged up, and something within me makes me

feel that I ought to be a minister.” My answer generally is, “Yes, I see; you

have failed, in everything else, and therefore you think the Lord has

especially endowed you for his service; but I fear you have forgotten that

the ministry needs the very best of men, and not those who cannot do

anything else.” A man who would succeed as a preacher would probably

do right well either as a grocer, or a lawyer, or anything else. A really

valuable minister would have excelled at anything. There is scarcely

anything impossible to a man who can keep a congregation together for

years, and be the means of edifying them for hundreds of consecutive

Sabbaths; he must be possessed of some abilities, and be by no means a

fool or ne’er-do-well. Jesus Christ deserves the best men to preach his

cross, and not the empty-headed and the shiftless.

One young gentleman with whose presence I was once honored, has left on

my mind the photograph of his exquisite self. That same face of his looked

like the title-page to a whole volume of conceit and deceit, He sent word

into my vestry one Sabbath morning that he must see me at once. His

audacity admitted him; and when he was before me he said, “Sir, I want to

enter your College, and should like to enter it at once.” “Well, Sir,” said I,

“I fear we have no room for you at present, but your case shall be

considered.” “But mine is a very remarkable case, Sir; you have probably

never received such an application as mine before.” “Very good, we’ll see

about it; the secretary will give you one of the application papers, and you

can see me on Monday.’ He came on the Monday bringing with him the

questions, answered in a most extraordinary manner. As to books, he

46

claimed to have read all ancient and modern literature, and after giving an

immense list he added, “this is but a selection; I have read most extensively

in all departments.” As to his preaching, he could produce the highest

testimonials, but hardly thought they would be needed, as a personal

interview would convince me of his ability at once. His surprise was great

when I said, “Sir, I am obliged to tell you that I cannot receive you.” “Why

not, Sir?” “I will tell you plainly. You are so dreadfully clever that I could

not insult you by receiving you into our College, where we have none but

rather ordinary men; the president, tutors, and students, are all men of

moderate attainments, and you would have to condescend too much in

coming among us.” He looked at me very severely, and said with dignity,

“Do you mean to say, that because I have an unusual genius, and have

produced in myself a gigantic mind such as is rarely seen, I am refused

admittance into your College?” “Yes,” I replied, as calmly as I could,,

considering the overpowering awe which his genius inspired, “for that very

reason.” “Then, Sir, you ought to allow me a trial of my preaching abilities;

select me any text you like, or suggest any subject you please, and here in

this very room I will speak upon it, or preach upon it without deliberation,

and you will be surprised.” “No, thank you, I would rather not have the

trouble of listening to you.” “Trouble, Sir! I assure you it would be the

greatest possible pleasure you could have.” I said it might be, but I felt

myself unworthy of the privilege, and so bade him a long farewell. The

gentleman was unknown to me at the time, but he has since figured in the

police court as too clever by half.

We have occasionally had applications at which, perhaps, you would be

amazed, from men who are evidently fluent enough, and who answer all

our questions very well, except those upon their doctrinal views, to which

repeatedly we have had this answer: “Mr. So-and-so is prepared to receive

the doctrines of the College whatever they may be!” In all such cases we

never deliberate a moment, the instantaneous negative is given. I mention

it, because it illustrates our conviction that men are not called to the

ministry who have no knowledge and no definite belief. When young

fellows say that they have not made up their minds upon theology, they

ought to go back to the Sunday-school until they have. For a man to come

shuffling into a College, pretending that he holds his mind open to any

form of truth, and that he is eminently receptive, but has not settled in his

mind such things as whether God has an election of grace, or whether he

loves his people to the end, seems to me to be a perfect monstrosity. “Not

47

a novice,” says the apostle; yet a man who has not made up his mind on

such points as these, is confessedly and egregiously a novice, and ought to

be relegated to the catechism-class till he has learned the first truths of the

gospel.

After all, gentlemen, we shall have to prove our call by the practical proof

of our ministry in after life, and it will be a lamentable thing for us to start

in our course without due examination, for if so, we may have to leave it in

disgrace. On the whole, experience is our surest test, and if God upholds us

from year to year, and gives us his blessing, we need make no other trial of

our vocation. Our moral and spiritual fitnesses will be tried by the labor of

our ministry, and this is the most trustworthy of all tests. From some one

or other I heard in conversation of a plan adopted by Matthew Wilks, for

examining a young man who wanted to be a missionary; the drift, if not the

detail of the test, commends itself to my judgment though not to my taste.

The young man desired to go to India as a missionary in connection with

the London Missionary Society. Mr. Wilks was appointed to consider his

fitness for such a post. He wrote to the young man, and told him to call

upon him at six o’clock the next morning. The brother lived many miles off

but he was at the house at six o’clock punctually. Mr. Wilks did not,

however, enter the room till hours after. The brother waited wonderingly,

but patiently. At last, Mr. Wilks arrived, and addressed the candidate thus,

in his usual nasal tones, “Well, young man, so you want to be a

missionary?” “Yes, Sir,” “Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?” “Yes, Sir, I

hope I do.” “And have you had any education?” “Yes, Sir, a little.” “Well,

now, we’ll try you; can you spell ‘cat’?” The young man looked confused,

and hardly knew how to answer so preposterous a question. His mind

evidently halted between indignation and submission, but in a moment he

replied steadily, “C, a, t, cat.” “Very good,” said Mr. Wilks; “now, can you

spell ‘dog’?” Our young martyr hesitated, but Mr. Wilks said in his coolest

manner, “Oh, never mind; don’t be bashful; you spelt the other word so

well that I should think you will be able to spell this: high as the attainment

is, it is not so elevated but what you might do it without blushing.” The

youthful Job replied, “D, o, g, dog.” “Well, that is right; I see you will do

in your spelling, and now for your arithmetic; how many are twice two?” It

is a wonder that Mr. Wilks did not receive “twice two” after the fashion of

muscular Christianity, but the patient youth gave the right reply and was

dismissed. Matthew Wilks at the committee meeting said, “I cordially

recommend that young man; his testimonials and character I have duly

48

examined, and besides that, I have given him a rare personal trial such as

few could bear. I tried his self-denial, he was up in the morning early; I

tried his temper, and I tried his humility; he can spell ‘cat’ and ‘dog,’ and

can tell that ‘twice two make four,’ and he will do for a missionary

exceedingly well.” Now, what the old gentleman is thus said to have done

with exceedingly bad taste, we may with much propriety do with ourselves.

We must try whether we can endure brow-beating, weariness, slander,

jeering, and hardship; and whether we can be made the off-scouring of all

things, and be treated as nothing for Christ’s sake. If we can endure all

these, we have some of those points which indicate the possession of the

rare qualities which should meet in a true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I gravely question whether some of us will find our vessels, when far out at

sea, to be quite so seaworthy as we think them. O my brethren, make sure

work of it while you are yet in this retreat; and diligently labor to fit

yourselves for your high calling. You will have trials enough, and woe to

you if you do not go forth armed from head to foot with armor of proof.

You will have to run with horsemen, let not the footmen weary you while

in your preliminary studies. The devil is abroad, and with him are many.

Prove your own selves, and may the Lord prepare you for the crucible and

the furnace which assuredly await you. Your tribulation may not in all

respects be so severe as that of Paul and his companions, but you must be

ready for a like ordeal. Let me read you his memorable words, and let me

entreat you to pray, while you hear them, that the Holy Ghost may

strengthen you for all that lies before you. “Giving no offence in anything,

that the ministry be not blamed: but in all things approving ourselves as the

ministers of God, in much patience, in affliction, in necessities, in distresses

in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;

by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy

Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by

the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and

dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as

unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened,

and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making

many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”

49

LECTURE 3.

THE PREACHER’S PRIVATE PRAYER.

OF course the preacher is above all others distinguished as a man of prayer.

He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite. He prays more

than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office which he

has undertaken. “It would be wholly monstrous,” says Bernard, “for a man

to be highest in office and lowest in soul; first in station and last in life.”

Over all his other relationships the pre-eminence of the pastor’s

responsibility casts a halo, and if true to his Master, he becomes

distinguished for his prayerfulness in them all. As a citizen, his country has

the advantage of his intercession; as a neighbor those under his shadow are

remembered in supplication. He prays as a husband and as a father; he

strives to make his family devotions a model for his flock; and if the fire on

the altar of God should burn low anywhere else, it is well tended in the

house of the Lord’s chosen servant — for he takes care that the morning

and evening sacrifice shall sanctify his dwelling. But there are some of his

prayers which concern his office, and of those our plan in these lectures

leads us to speak most. He offers peculiar supplications as a minister, and

he draws near to God in this respect, over and above all his approaches in

his other relationships.

I take it that as a minister he is always praying. Whenever his mind turns

to his work, whether he is in it or out of it, he ejaculates a petition, sending

up his holy desires as well-directed arrows to the skies. He is not always in

the act of prayer, but he lives in the spirit of it. If his heart be in his work,

he cannot eat or drink, or take recreation, or go to his bed, or rise in the

morning, without evermore feeling a fervency of desire, a weight of

anxiety, and a simplicity of dependence upon God; thus, in one form or

other he continues in prayer. If there be any man under heaven, who is

compelled to carry out the precept — “Pray without ceasing,” surely it is

the Christian minister. He has peculiar temptations, special trials, singular

difficulties, and remarkable duties, he has to deal with God in awful

relationships, and with men in mysterious interests; he therefore needs

much more grace than common men, and as he knows this, he is led

50

constantly to cry to the strong for strength, and say, “I will lift up mine

eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Alleine once wrote to a

dear friend, “Though I am apt to be unsettled and quickly set off the

hinges, yet, methinks, I am like a bird out of the nest, I am never quiet till I

am in my old way of communion with God; like the needle in the compass,

that is restless till it be turned towards the pole. I can say, through grace,

with the church, ‘With my soul have I desired thee in the night and with my

spirit within me have I sought thee early.’ My heart is early and late with

God; ‘tis the business and delight of my life to seek him.” Such must be the

even tenor of your way, O men of God. If you as ministers are not very

prayerful, you are much to be pitied. If, in the future, you shall be called to

sustain pastorates, large or small, if you become lax in secret devotion, not

only will you need to be pitied, but your people also; and, in addition to

that, you shall be blamed, and the day cometh in which you shall be

ashamed and confounded.

It may scarcely be needful to commend to you the sweet uses of private

devotion, and yet I cannot forbear. To you, as the ambassadors of God, the

mercy-seat has a virtue beyond all estimate; the more familiar you are with

the court of heaven the better shall you discharge your heavenly trust.

Among all the formative influences which go to make up a man honored of

God in the ministry, I know of none more mighty than his own familiarity

with the mercy-seat. All that a college course can do, for a student is

coarse and external compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement

obtained by communion with God. While the unformed minister is

revolving upon the wheel of preparation, prayer is the tool of the great

potter by which he molds the vessel. All our libraries and studies are mere

emptiness compared with our closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we

prevail in private-prayer.

Your prayers will be your ablest assistants while your discourses are yet

upon the anvil. While other men, like Esau, are hunting for their portion,

you, by the aid of prayer, will find the savory meat near at home, and may

say in truth what Jacob said so falsely, “The Lord brought it to me.” If you

can dip your pens into your hearts, appealing in earnestness to the Lord,

you will write well; and if you can gather your matter on your knees at the

gate of heaven, you will not fail to speak well. Prayer, as a mental exercise,

will bring many subjects before the mind, and so help in the selection of a

topic, while as a high spiritual engagement it will cleanse your inner eye

that you may see truth in the light of God. Texts will often refuse to reveal

51

their treasures till you open them with the key of prayer. How wonderfully

were the books opened to Daniel when he was in supplication! How much

Peter learned upon the housetop! The closet is the best study. The

commentators are good instructors, but the Author himself is far better,

and prayer makes a direct appeal to him and enlists him in our cause. It is a

great thing to pray one’s self into the spirit and marrow of a text; working

into it by sacred feeding thereon, even as the worm bores its way into the

kernel of the nut. Prayer supplies a leverage for the uplifting of ponderous

truths. One marvels how the stones of Stonehenge could have been set in

their places; it is even more to be inquired after whence some men obtained

such admirable knowledge of mysterious doctrines: was not prayer the

potent machinery which wrought the wonder? Waiting upon God often

turns darkness into light. Persevering inquiry at the sacred oracle uplifts the

veil and gives grace to look into the deep things of God. A certain Puritan

divine at a debate was observed frequently to write upon the paper before

him; upon others curiously seeking to read his notes, they found nothing

upon the page but the words, “More light, Lord,” “More light, Lord,”

repeated scores of times: a most suitable prayer for the student of the

Word when preparing his discourse.

You will frequently find fresh streams of thought leaping up from the

passage before you, as if the rock had been struck by Moses’ rod; new

veins of precious ore will be revealed to your astonished gaze as you

quarry God’s Word and use diligently the hammer of prayer. You will

sometimes feel as if you were entirely shut up, and then suddenly a new

road will open before you. He who hath the key of David openeth, and no

man shutteth. If you have ever sailed down the Rhine, the water scenery of

that majestic river will have struck you as being very like in effect to a

series of lakes. Before and behind the vessel appears to be enclosed in

massive walls of rock, or circles of vine-clad terraces, till on a sudden you

turn a corner, and before you the rejoicing and abounding river flows

onward in its strength. So the laborious student often finds it with a text; it

appears to be fast closed against you, but prayer propels your vessel, and

turns its prow into fresh waters, and you behold, the broad and deep

stream of sacred truth flowing in its fulness, and bearing you with it. Is not

this a convincing reason for abiding in supplication? Use prayer as a boring

rod, and wells of living water will leap up from the bowels of the Word.

Who will be content to thirst when living waters are so readily to be

obtained!

52

The best and holiest men have ever made prayer the most important part of

pulpit preparation. It is said of M’Cheyne, f4 “Anxious to give his people on

the Sabbath what had cost him somewhat, he never, without an urgent

reason, went before them without much previous meditation and prayer.

His principle on this subject was embodied in a remark he made to some of

us who were conversing on the matter. Being asked his view of diligent

preparation for the pulpit, he reminded us of Exodus 27:20. ‘Beaten oil —

beaten oil for the lamps of the sanctuary.’ And yet his prayerfulness was

greater still. Indeed, he could not neglect fellowship with God before

entering the congregation. He needed to be bathed in the love of God. His

ministry was so much a bringing out of views that had first sanctified his

own soul, that the healthiness of his soul was absolutely needful to the

vigor and power of his ministrations.” “With him the commencement of all

labor invariably consisted in the preparation of his own soul. The walls of

his chamber were witnesses of his prayerfulness and of his tears, as well as

of his cries.”

Prayer will singularly assist you in the delivery of your sermon; in fact,

nothing can so gloriously fit you to preach as descending fresh from the

mount of communion with God to speak with men. None are so able to

plead with men as those who have been wrestling with God on their behalf.

It is said of Alleine, “He poured out his very heart in prayer and preaching.

His supplications and his exhortations were so affectionate, so full of holy

zeal, life and vigor, that they quite overcame his hearers; he melted over

them, so that he thawed and mollified, and sometimes dissolved the hardest

hearts.” There could have been none of this sacred dissolving of heart if his

mind had not been previously exposed to the tropical rays of the Sun of

Righteousness by private fellowship with the risen Lord. A truly pathetic

delivery, in which there is no affectation, but much affection, can only be

the offspring of prayer. There is no rhetoric like that of the heart, and no

school for learning it but the foot of the cross. It were better that you never

learned a rule of human oratory, but were full of the power of heavenborn

love, than that you should master Quintilian, Cicero, and Aristotle, and

remain without the apostolic anointing.

Prayer may not make you eloquent after the human mode, but it will make

you truly so, for you will speak out of the heart; and is not that the

meaning of the word eloquence? It will bring fire from heaven upon your

sacrifice, and thus prove it to be accepted of the Lord.

53

As fresh springs of thought will frequently break up during preparation in

answer to prayer, so will it be in the delivery of the sermon. Most

preachers who depend upon God’s Spirit will tell you that their freshest

and best thoughts are not those which were premeditated, but ideas which

come to them, flying as on the wings of angels; unexpected treasures

brought on a sudden by celestial hands, seeds of the flowers of paradise,

wafted from the mountains of myrrh. Often and often when I have felt

hampered, both in thought and expression, my secret groaning of heart has

brought me relief, and I have enjoyed more than usual liberty. But how

dare we pray in the battle if we have never cried to the Lord while buckling

on the harness! The remembrance of his wrestlings at home comforts the

fettered preacher when in the pulpit: God will not desert us unless we have

deserted him. You, brethren, will find that prayer will ensure you strength

equal to your day.

As the tongues of fire came upon the apostles, when they sat watching and

praying, even so will they come upon you. You will find yourselves, when

you might perhaps have flagged, suddenly upborne, as by a seraph’s

power. Wheels of fire will be fastened to your chariot, which had begun to

drag right heavily, and steeds angelic will be in a moment harnessed to

your fiery car, till you climb the heavens like Elijah, in a rapture of flaming

inspiration.

After the sermon, how would a conscientious preacher give vent to his

feelings and find solace for his soul if access to the mercy-seat were denied

him? Elevated to the highest pitch of excitement, how can we relieve our

souls but in importunate pleadings. Or depressed by a fear of failure, how

shall we be comforted but in moaning out our complaint before our God.

How often have some of us tossed to and fro upon our couch half the night

because of conscious shortcomings in our testimony! How frequently have

we longed to rush back to the pulpit again to say over again more

vehemently, what we have uttered in so cold a manner! Where could we

find rest for our spirits but in confession of sin, and passionate entreaty that

our infirmity or folly might in no way hinder the Spirit of God! It is not

possible in a public assembly to pour out all our heart’s love to our flock.

Like Joseph, the affectionate minister will seek where to weep; his

emotions, however freely he may express himself, will be pent up in the

pulpit, and only in private prayer can he draw up the sluices and bid them

flow forth. If we cannot prevail with men for God, we will, at least,

endeavor to prevail with God for men. We cannot save them, or even

54

persuade them to be saved, but we can at least bewail their madness and

entreat the interference of the Lord. Like Jeremiah, we can make it our

resolve, “If ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your

pride, and mine eye shall weep sore and run down with tears.” To such

pathetic appeals the Lord’s heart can never be indifferent; in due time the

weeping intercessor will become the rejoicing winner of souls. There is a

distinct connection between importunate agonizing and true success, even

as between the travail and the birth, the sowing in fears and the reaping in

joy. “How is it that your seed comes up so soon?” said one gardener to

another. “Because I steep it,” was the reply. We must steep all our

teachings in tears, “when none but God is nigh,” and their growth will

surprise and delight us. Could any one wonder at Brainerd’s success, when

his diary contains such notes as this: “Lord’s Day, April 25th — This

morning spent about two hours in sacred duties, and was enabled, more

than ordinarily, to agonize for immortal souls; though it was early in the

morning, and the sun scarcely shone at all, yet my body was quite wet with

sweat.” The secret of Luther’s power lay in the same direction. Theodorus

said of him: “I overheard him in prayer, but, good God, with what life and

spirit did he pray! It was with so much reverence, as if he were speaking to

God, yet with so much confidence as if he were speaking to his friend.” My

brethren, let me beseech you to be men of prayer. Great talents you may

never have, but you will do well enough without them if you abound in

intercession. If you do not pray over what you have sown, God’s

sovereignty may possibly determine to give a blessing, but you have no

right to expect it, and if it comes it will bring no comfort to your own

heart.I was reading yesterday a book by Father Faber, late of the Oratory,

at Brompton, a marvelous compound of truth and error In it he relates a

legend to this effect. A certain preacher, whose sermons converted men by

scores, received a revelation from heaven that not one of the conversions

was owing to his talents or eloquence, but all to the prayers of an illiterate

lay-brother, who sat on the pulpit steps, pleading all the time for the

success of the sermon. It may in the all-revealing day be so with us. We

may discover, after having labored long and wearily in preaching, that all

the honor belongs to another builder, whose prayers were gold, silver, and

precious stones, while our sermonizing, being apart from prayer, were but

hay and stubble.

When we have done with preaching, we shall not, if we are true ministers

of God, have done with praying, because the whole church, with many

55

tongues, will be crying, in the language of the Macedonian, “Come over

and help us” in prayer. If you are enabled to prevail in prayer you will have

many requests to offer for others who will flock to you, and beg a share in

your intercessions, and so you will find yourselves commissioned with

errands to the mercy-seat for friends and hearers. Such is always my lot,

and I feel it a pleasure to have such requests to present before my Lord.

Never can you be short of themes for prayer, even if no one should suggest

them to you. Look at your congregation. There are always sick folk among

them, and many more who are soul sick. Some are unsaved, others are

seeking and cannot find. Many are desponding, and not a few believers are

backsliding or mourning. There are widows’ tears and orphans’ sighs to be

put into our bottle, and poured out before the Lord. If you are a genuine

minister of God you will stand as a priest before the Lord, spiritually

wearing the ephod and the breast-plate whereon you bear the names of the

children of Israel, pleading for them within the veil. I have known brethren

who have kept a list of persons for whom they felt bound especially to

pray, and I doubt not such a record often reminded them of what might

otherwise have slipped their memory. Nor will your people wholly engross

you; the nation and the world will claim their share. The man who is

mighty in prayer may be a wall of fire around his country, her guardian

angel and her shield. We have all heard how the enemies of the Protestant

cause dreaded the prayers of Knox more than they feared armies of ten

thousand men. The famous Welch was also a great intercessor for his

country; he used to say “he wondered how a Christian could lie in his bed

all night and not rise to pray.” When his wife fearing that he would take

cold, followed him into the room to which he had withdrawn, she heard

him pleading in broken sentences, “Lord, wilt thou not grant me

Scotland?” O that we were thus wrestling at midnight, crying, “Lord, wilt

thou not grant us our hearers’ souls?”

The minister who does not earnestly pray over his work must surely be a

vain and conceited man. He acts as if he thought himself sufficient of

himself, and therefore needed not to appeal to God. Yet what a baseless

pride to conceive that our preaching can ever be in itself so powerful that it

can turn men from their sins, and bring them to God without the working

of the Holy Ghost. If we are truly humble-minded we shall not venture

down to the fight until the Lord of Hosts has clothed us with all power,

and said to us, “Go in this thy might.” The preacher who neglects to pray

much must be very careless about his ministry. He cannot have

56

comprehended his calling. He cannot have computed the value of a soul, or

estimated the meaning of eternity. He must be a mere official, tempted into

a pulpit because the piece of bread which belongs to the priest’s office is

very necessary to him, or a detestable hypocrite who loves the praise of

men, and cares not for the praise of God. He will surely become a mere

superficial talker, best approved where grace is least valued and a vain

show most admired. He cannot be one of those who plough deep and reap

abundant harvests. He is a mere loiterer, not a laborer. As a preacher he

has a name to live and is dead. He limps in his life like the lame man in the

Proverbs, whose legs were not equal, for his praying is shorter than his

preaching.

I am afraid that, more or less, most of us need self-examination as to this

matter. If any man here should venture to say that he prays as much as he

ought, as a student, I should gravely question; his statement; and if there be

a minister, deacon, or elder present who can say that he believes he is

occupied with God in prayer to the full extent to which he might be, I

should be pleased to know him. I can only say, that if he can claim this

excellence, he leaves me far behind, for I can make no such claim: I wish I

could; and I make the confession with no small degree of shame-facedness

and confusion, but I am obliged to make it. If we are not more negligent

than others, this is no consolation to us; the shortcomings of others are no

excuses for us. How few of us could compare ourselves with Mr. Joseph

Alleine, whose character I have mentioned before? “At the time of his

health,” writes his wife, “he did rise constantly at or before four of the

clock, and would be much troubled if he heard smiths or other craftsmen at

their trades before he was at communion with God; saying to me often,

‘How this noise shames me. Does not my Master deserve more than

theirs?’ From four till eight he spent in prayer, holy contemplation, and

singing of psalms, in which he much delighted and did daily practice alone,

as well as in the family. Sometimes he would suspend the routine of

parochial engagements, and devote whole days to these secret exercises, in

order to which, he would contrive to be alone in some void house, or else

in some sequestered spot in the open valley. Here there would be much

prayer and meditation on God and heaven.” F5 Could we read Jonathan

Edwards’ description of David Brainerd and not blush? “His life,” says

Edwards, “shows the right way to success in the works of the ministry. He

sought it as a resolute soldier seeks victory in a siege or battle; or as a man

that runs a race for a great prize. Animated with love to Christ and souls,

57

how did he labor always fervently, not only in word and doctrine, in public

and private, but in prayers day and night, ‘wrestling with God’ in secret,

and ‘travailing in birth,’ with unutterable groans and agonies! ‘until Christ

were formed’ in the hearts of the people to whom he was sent! How did he

thirst for a blessing upon his ministry, ‘and watch for souls as one that

must give account!’ How did he ‘go forth in the strength of the Lord God,

seeking and depending on the special influence of the Spirit to assist and

succeed him! And what was the happy fruit at last, after long waiting and

many dark and discouraging appearances: like a true son of Jacob, he

persevered in wrestling through all the darkness of the night, until the

breaking of the day.” F6

Might not Henry Martyn’s journal shame us, where we find such entries; as

these; “Sept. 24th — The determination with which I went to bed last

night, of devoting this day to prayer and fasting, I was enabled to put into

execution. In my first prayer for deliverance from worldly thoughts,

depending on the power and promises of God, for fixing my soul while I

prayed, I was helped to enjoy much abstinence from the world for nearly

an hour. Then read the history of Abraham, to see how familiarly God had

revealed himself to mortal men of old. Afterwards, in prayer for my own

sanctification, my soul breathed freely and ardently after the holiness of

God, and this was the best season of the day.” F7 We might perhaps more

truly join with him in his lament after the first year of his ministry that “he

judged he had dedicated too much time to public ministrations, and too

little to private communion with God.”

How much of blessing we may have missed through remissness in

supplication we can scarcely guess, and none of us can know how poor we

are in comparison with what we might have been if we had lived habitually

nearer to God in prayer. Vain regrets and surmises are useless, but an

earnest determination to amend will be far more useful. We not only ought

to pray more, but we must. The fact is, the secret of all ministerial success

lies in prevalence at the mercy-seat.

One bright benison which private prayer brings down upon the ministry is

an indescribable and inimitable something, better understood than named; it

is a dew from the Lord, a divine presence which you will recognize at once

when I say it is “an unction from the holy One.” What is it? I wonder how

long we might beat our brains before we could plainly put into words what

is meant by preaching with unction; yet he who preaches knows its

58

presence, and he who hears soon detects its absence; Samaria, in famine,

typifies a discourse without it; Jerusalem, with her feasts of fat things full

of marrow, may represent a sermon enriched with it. Every one knows

what the freshness of the morning is when orient pearls abound on every

blade of grass, but who can describe it, much less produce it of itself? Such

is the mystery of spiritual anointing; we know, but we cannot tell to others

what it is. It is as easy as it is foolish to counterfeit it, as some do who use

expressions which are meant to betoken fervent love, but oftener indicate

sickly sentimentalism or mere cant. “Dear Lord!” “Sweet Jesus!” “Precious

Christ!” are by them poured out wholesale, till one is nauseated. These

familiarities may have been not only tolerable, but even beautiful when they

first fell from a saint of God, speaking, as it were out of the excellent glory,

but when repeated flippantly they are not only intolerable, but indecent, if

not profane. Some have tried to imitate unction by unnatural tones and

whines; by turning up the whites of their eyes, and lifting their hands in a

most ridiculous manner. M’Cheyne’s tone and rhythm one hears from

Scotchmen continually: we much prefer his spirit to his mannerism; and all

mere mannerism without power is as foul carrion of all life bereft,

obnoxious, mischievous. Certain brethren aim at inspiration through

exertion and loud shouting; but it does not come: some we have known to

stop the discourse, and exclaim, “God bless you,” and others gesticulate

wildly, and drive their finger nails into the palms of their hands as if they

were in convulsions of celestial ardor. Bah! The whole thing smells of the

green-room and the stage. The getting up of fervor in hearers by the

simulation of it in the preacher is a loathsome deceit to be scorned by

honest men. “To affect feeling,” says Richard Cecil, “is nauseous and soon

detected, but to feel is the readiest way to the hearts of others.” Unction is

a thing which you cannot manufacture, and its counterfeits are worse than

worthless; yet it is in itself priceless, and beyond measure needful if you

would edify believers and bring sinners to Jesus. To the secret pleader with

God this secret is committed; upon him rests the dew of the Lord, about

him is the perfume which makes glad the heart. If the anointing which we

bear come not from the Lord of hosts we are deceivers, and since only in

prayer can we obtain it, let us continue instant, constant, fervent in

supplication. Let your fleece lie on the threshing-floor of supplication till it

is wet with the dew of heaven. Go not to minister in the temple till you

have washed in the laver. Think not to be a messenger of grace to others

till you have seen the God of grace for yourselves, and had the word from

his mouth.

59

Time spent in quiet prostration of soul before the Lord is most

invigorating. David “sat before the Lord;” it is a great thing to hold these

sacred sittings; the mind being receptive, like an open flower drinking in

the sunbeams, or the sensitive photographic plate accepting the image

before it. Quietude, which some men cannot abide, because it reveals their

inward poverty, is as a palace of cedar to the wise, for along its hallowed

courts the King in his beauty deigns to walk.

“Sacred silence! thou that art

Floodgate of the deeper heart,

Offspring of a heavenly kind;

Frost o’ the mouth, and thaw o’ the mind.” f8

Priceless as the gift of utterance may be, the practice of silence in some

aspects far excels it. Do you think me a Quaker? Well, be it so. Herein I

follow George Fox most lovingly; for I am persuaded that we most of us

think too much of speech, which after all is but the shell of thought. Quiet

contemplation, still worship, unuttered rapture, these are mine when my

best jewels are before me. Brethren, rob not your heart of the deep sea

joys; miss not the far-down life, by for ever babbling among the broken

shells and foaming surges of the shore.

I would seriously recommend to you, when settled in the ministry, the

celebration of extraordinary seasons of devotion. If your ordinary prayers

do not keep up the freshness and vigor of your souls, and you feel that you

are flagging, get alone for a week, or even a month if possible. We have

occasional holidays, why not frequent holy days? We hear of our richer

brethren finding time for a journey to Jerusalem; could we not spare time

for the less difficult and far more profitable journey to the heavenly city?

Isaac Ambrose, once pastor at Preston, who wrote that famous book,,

“Looking unto Jesus,” always set apart one month in the year for seclusion

in a hut in a wood at Garstang. No wonder that he was so mighty a divine,

when he could regularly spend so long a time in the mount with God. I

notice that the Romanists are accustomed to secure what they call

“Retreats,” where a number of priests will retire for a time into perfect

quietude, to spend the whole of the time in fasting and prayer, so as to

inflame their souls with ardor. We may learn from our adversaries. It

would be a great thing every now and then for a band of truly spiritual

brethren to spend a day or two with each other in real burning agony of

prayer. Pastors alone could use much more freedom than in a mixed

company. Times of humiliation and supplication for the whole church will

60

also benefit us if we enter into them heartily. Our seasons of fasting and

prayer at the Tabernacle have been high days indeed; never has heavengate

stood wider; never have our hearts been nearer the central glory. I

look forward to our month of special devotion, as mariners reckon upon

reaching land. Even if our public work were laid aside to give us space for

special prayer, it might be a great gain to our churches. A voyage to the

golden rivers of fellowship and meditation would be well repaid by a

freight of sanctified feeling and elevated thought. Our silence might be

better than our voices if our solitude were spent with God. That was a

grand action of old Jerome, when he laid all his pressing engagements aside

to achieve a purpose to which he felt a call from heaven. He had a large

congregation, as large a one as any of us need want; but he said to his

people, “Now it is of necessity that the New Testament should be

translated, you must find another preacher: the translation must be made; I

am bound for the wilderness, and shall not return till my task is finished.”

Away he went with his manuscripts, and prayed and labored, and produced

a work — the Latin-Vulgate — which will last as long as the world stands;

on the whole a most wonderful translation of Holy Scripture. As learning

and prayerful retirement together could thus produce an immortal work, if

we were sometimes to say to our people when we felt moved to do so,

“Dear friends, we really must be gone for a little while to refresh our souls

in solitude,” our profiting would soon be apparent, and if we did not write

Latin Vulgates, yet we should do immortal work, such as would abide the

fire.

61

LECTURE 4.

OUR PUBLIC PRAYER.

IT has sometimes been the boast of Episcopalians that Churchmen go to

their churches to pray and worship God, but that Dissenters merely

assemble to hear sermons. Our reply to this is, that albeit there may be

some professors who are guilty of this evil, it is not true of the people of

God among us, and these are the only persons who ever will in any church

really enjoy devotion. Our congregations gather together to worship God,

and we assert, and feel no hesitation in so asserting, that there is as much

true and acceptable prayer offered in our ordinary Nonconformist services

as in the best and most pompous performances of the Church of England.

Moreover, if the observation be meant to imply that the hearing of sermons

is not worshipping God, it is founded on a gross mistake, for rightly to

listen to the gospel is one of the noblest parts of the adoration of the Most

High. It is a mental exercise, when rightly performed, in which all the

faculties of the spiritual man are called into devotional action. Reverently

hearing the word exercises our humility, instructs our faith, irradiates us

with joy, inflames us with love, inspires us with zeal, and lifts us up

towards heaven. Many a time a sermon has been a kind of Jacob’s ladder

upon which we have seen the angels of God ascending and descending, and

the covenant God himself at the top thereof. We have often felt when God

has spoken through his servants into our souls, “This is none other than the

house of God, and the very gate of heaven.” We have magnified the name

of the Lord and praised him with all our heart while he has spoken to us by

his Spirit which he has given unto men. Hence there is not the wide

distinction to be drawn between preaching and prayer that some would

have us admit; for the one part of the service softly blends into the other,

and the sermon frequently inspires the prayer and the hymn. True

preaching is an acceptable adoration of God by the manifestation of his

gracious attributes: the testimony of his gospel, which pre-eminently

glorifies him, and the obedient hearing of revealed truth, are an acceptable

form of worship to the Most High, and perhaps one of the most spiritual in

which the human mind can be engaged. Nevertheless, as the old Roman

62

poet tells us, it is right to learn from our enemies, and therefore it may be

possible that our liturgical opponents have pointed out to us what is in

some instances a weak place in our public services. It is to be feared that

our exercises are not in every case molded into the best form, or presented

in the most commendable fashion. There are meeting-houses in which the

supplications are neither so devout nor so earnest as we desire; in other

places the earnestness is so allied with ignorance, and the devotion so

marred with rant, that no intelligent believer can enter into the service with

pleasure. Praying in the Holy Ghost is not universal among us, neither do

all pray with the understanding as well as with the heart. There is room for

improvement, and in some quarters there is an imperative demand for it.

Let me, therefore, very earnestly caution you, beloved brethren, against

spoiling your services by your prayers: make it your solemn resolve that all.

the engagements of the sanctuary shall be of the best kind.

Be assured that free prayer is the most scriptural, and should be the most

excellent form of public supplication. If you lose faith in what you are

doing you will never do it well; settle it in your minds therefore, that before

the Lord you are worshipping in a manner which is warranted by the word

of God, and accepted of the Lord. The expression, “reading prayers,” to

which we are now so accustomed, is not to be found in Holy Scripture,

rich as it is in words for conveying religious thought; and the phrase is not

there because the thing itself had no existence. Where in the writings of the

apostles meet we with the bare idea of a liturgy? Prayer in the assemblies

of the early Christians was unrestricted to any form of words. Tertullian

writes, “we pray without a prompter because from the heart.” F9 Justin

Martyr describes the presiding minister as praying “according to his

ability.” F10 It would be difficult to discover when and where liturgies

began; their introduction was gradual, and as we believe, co-extensive with

the decline of purity in the church; the introduction of them among

Nonconformists would mark the era of our decline and fall. The subject

tempts me to linger, but it is not the point in hand, and therefore I pass on,

only remarking that you will find the matter of liturgies ably handled by Dr.

John Owen, whom you will do well to consult. F11

Be it ours to prove the superiority of extempore prayer by making it more

spiritual and earnest than liturgical devotion. It is a great pity when the

observation is forced from the hearer, our minister preaches far better than

he prays: this is not after the model of our Lord; he spake as never man

spake — and as for his prayers, they so impressed his disciples that they

63

said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” All our faculties should concentrate their

energy, and the whole man should be elevated to his highest point of vigor

while in public prayer, the Holy Ghost meanwhile baptizing soul and spirit

with his sacred influence; but slovenly, careless, lifeless talk in the guise of

prayer, made to fill up a certain space in the service, is a weariness to man,

and an abomination to God. Had free prayer been universally of a higher

order a liturgy would never have been thought of, and to-day forms of

prayer have no better apology than the feebleness of extemporaneous

devotions. The secret is that we are not so really devout at heart as we

should be. Habitual communion with God must be maintained, or our

public prayers will be vapid or formal. If there be no melting of the glacier

high up in the ravines of the mountain, there will be no descending rivulets

to cheer the plain. Private prayer is the drill ground for our more public

exercises, neither can we long neglect it without being out of order when

before the people.

Our prayers must never grovel, they must soar and mount. We need a

heavenly frame of mind. Our addresses to the throne of grace must be

solemn and humble, not flippant and loud, or formal and careless. The

colloquial form of speech is out of place before the Lord; we must bow

reverently and with deepest awe. We may speak boldly with God, but still

he is in heaven and we are upon earth, and we are to avoid presumption. In

supplication we are peculiarly before the throne of the Infinite, and as the

courtier in the king’s palace puts on another mien and another manner than

that which he exhibits to his fellow courtiers, so should it be with us. We

have noticed in the churches of Holland, that as soon as the minister begins

to preach every man puts his hat on, but the instant he turns to pray

everybody takes his hat off: this was the custom in the older Puritanic

congregations of England, and it lingered long among the Baptists; they

wore their caps during those parts of the service which they conceived

were not direct worship, but put them off as soon as there was a direct

approach to God, either in song or in prayer. I think the practice unseemly,

and the reason for it erroneous. I have urged that the distinction between

prayer and hearing is not great, and I feel sure no one would propose to

return to the old custom or the opinion of which it was the index; but still

there is a difference, and inasmuch as in prayer we are more directly talking

with God rather than seeking the edification of our fellow men, we must

put our shoes from off our feet, for the place whereon we stand is holy

ground.

64

Let the Lord alone be the object of your prayers. Beware of having an eye

to the auditors; beware of becoming rhetorical to please the listeners.

Prayer must not be transformed into “an oblique sermon.” It is little short

of blasphemy to make devotion an occasion for display. Fine prayers are

generally very wicked prayers. In the presence of the Lord of hosts it ill

becomes a sinner to parade the feathers and finery of tawdry speech with

the view of winning applause from his fellow mortals. Hypocrites who dare

to do this have their reward, but it is one to be dreaded. A heavy sentence

of condemnation was passed upon a minister when it was flatteringly said

that his prayer was the most eloquent ever offered to a Boston

congregation. We may aim at exciting the yearnings and aspirations of

those who hear us in prayer; but every word and thought must be

Godward, and only so far touching upon the people as may be needful to

bring them and their wants before the Lord. Remember the people in your

prayers, but do not mold your supplications to win their esteem: look up,

look up with both eyes.

Avoid all vulgarities in prayer. I must acknowledge to having heard some,

but it would be unprofitable to recount them; the more especially as they

become less frequent every day. We seldom now meet with the vulgarities

of prayer which were once so common in Methodist prayer-meetings,

much commoner probably by report than in reality. Uneducated people

must, when in earnest, pray in their own way, and their language will

frequently shock, the fastidious if not the devout; but for this allowance

must be made, and if the spirit is evidently sincere we may forgive

uncomely expressions. I once; at a prayer-meeting, heard a poor man pray

thus: “Lord, watch over these young people during the feast time, for thou

knowest, Lord, how their enemies watch for them as a cat watches for

mice.” Some ridiculed the expression, but it appeared to me to be natural

and expressive, considering the person using it. A little gentle instruction

and a hint or two will usually prevent a repetition of anything objectionable

in such cases, but we, who occupy the pulpit, must be careful to be quite

clear ourselves. The biographer of that remarkable American Methodist

preacher Jacob Gruber, mentions as an instance of his ready wit, that after

having heard a young Calvinistic minister violently attack his creed, he was

asked to conclude with prayer, and among other petitions, prayed that the,

Lord would bless the young man who had been preaching, and grant him

much grace, “that his heart might become as soft as his head.” To say

nothing of the bad taste of such public animadversion upon a fellow

65

minister, every right-minded man will see that the throne of the Most High

is not the place for uttering such vulgar witticisms. Most probably the

young orator deserved a castigation for his offence against charity, but the

older one sinned ten times more in his want of reverence. Choice words are

for the King of kings, not such as ribald tongues have defiled.

Another fault equally to be avoided in prayer is an unhallowed and

sickening superabundance of endearing words. When “Dear Lord,” and

“Blessed Lord,” and “Sweet Lord,” come over and over again, as vain

repetitions, they are among the worst of blots. I must confess I should feel

no revulsion in my mind to the words, “Dear Jesus,” if they fell from the

lips of a Rutherford, or a Hawker, or a Herbert; but when I hear fond and

familiar expressions hackneyed by persons not at all remarkable for

spirituality, I am inclined to wish that they could, in some way or other,

come to a better understanding of the true relation existing between man

and God. The word “dear” has come from daily use to be so common, and

so small, and in some cases so silly and affected a monosyllable, that

interlarding one’s prayers with it is not to edification.

The strongest objection exists to the constant repetition of the word

“Lord,” which occurs in the early prayers of young converts, and even

among students. The words, “O Lord! O Lord! O Lord!” grieve us when

we hear them so perpetually repeated. “Thou shalt not take the name of the

Lord thy God in vain,” is a great commandment, and although the law may

be broken un-wittingly yet its breach is still a sin and a very solemn one.

God’s name is not to be a stop-gap to make up for our want of words.

Take care to use most reverently the name of the infinite Jehovah. The

Jews in their sacred writings either leave a space for the word “Jehovah,”

or else write the word, “Adonai,” because they conceive that holy name to

be too sacred for common use: we need not be so superstitious, but it were

well to be scrupulously reverent. A profusion of “ohs!” and other

interjections may be well dispensed with; young speakers are often at fault

here.

Avoid that kind of prayer which may be called — though the subject is one

on which language has not given us many terms — a sort of peremptory

demanding of God. It is delightful to hear a man wrestle with God, and

say, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me,” but that must be said

softly, and not in a hectoring spirit, as though we could command and

exact blessings from the Lord of all. Remember, it is still a man wrestling,

66

even though permitted to wrestle with the eternal I AM. Jacob halted on

his thigh after that night’s holy conflict, to let him see that God is terrible,

and that his prevailing power did not lie in himself. We are taught to say,

“Our Father,” but still it is, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Familiarity

there may be, but holy familiarity; boldness, but the boldness which springs

from grace and is the work of the Spirit; not the boldness of the rebel who

carries a brazen front in the presence of his offended king, but the boldness

of the child who fears because he loves, and loves because he fears. Never

fall into a vainglorious style of impertinent address to God; he is not to be

assailed as an antagonist, but entreated with as our Lord and God. Humble

and lowly let us be in spirit, and so let us pray.

Pray when you profess to pray, and don’t talk about it. Business men say,

“A place for everything and everything in its place;” preach in the sermon

and pray in the prayer. Disquisitions upon our need of help in prayer are

not prayer. Why do not men go at once to prayer — why stand beating

about the bush; instead of saying what they ought to do and want to do,

why not set to work in God’s name and do it? In downright earnestness,

address yourself to intercession, and set your face towards the Lord. Plead

for the supply of the great and constant needs of the church, and do not fail

to urge, with devout fervor, the special requirements of the present time

and audience. Let the sick, the poor, the dying, the heathen, the Jew, and

all forgotten classes of people, be mentioned as they press upon your heart.

Pray for your people as saints and sinners — not as if they were all saints.

Mention the young and the aged; the impressed and the careless; the

devout and the backsliding. Never turn to the right hand or to the left, but

plough on in the furrow of real prayer. Let your confessions of sin and

your thanksgivings be truthful and to the point; and let your petitions be

presented as if you believed in God and had no doubt as to the efficacy of

prayer: I say this, because so many pray in such a formal manner as to lead

observers to conclude that they thought it a very decent thing to pray, but,

after all, a very poor and doubtful business as to any practical result. Pray

as one who has tried and proved his God, and therefore comes with

undoubting confidence to renew his pleadings: and do remember to pray to

God right through the prayer, and never fall to talking or preaching —

much less, as some do, to scolding and grumbling.

As a rule, if called upon to preach, conduct the prayer yourself; and if you

should be highly esteemed in the ministry, as I trust you may be, make a

point, with great courtesy, but equal firmness, to resist the practice of

67

choosing men to pray with the idea of honoring them by giving them

something to do. Our public devotions ought never to be degraded into

opportunities for compliment. I have heard prayer and singing now and

then called “the preliminary services,” as if they were but a preface to the

sermon; this is rare I hope among us — if it were common it would be to

our deep disgrace. I endeavor invariably to take all the service myself for

my own sake, and I think also for the people’s. I do not believe that

“anybody will do for the praying.” No, sirs, it is my solemn conviction that

the prayer is one of the most weighty, useful, and honorable parts of the

service, and that it ought to be even more considered than the sermon.

There must be no putting up of anybodies and nobodies to pray, and then

the selection of the abler man to preach. It may happen through weakness,

or upon a specific occasion, that it may be a relief to the minister to have

some one to offer prayer for him; but if the Lord has made you love your

work you will not often or readily fulfill this part of it by proxy. If you

delegate the service at all, let it be to one in whose spirituality and present

preparedness you have the fullest confidence; but to pitch on a giftless

brother unawares, and put him forward to get through the devotions is

shameful.

“Shall we serve heaven with less respect

Than we do minister to our gross selves?”

Appoint the ablest man to pray, and let the sermon be slurred sooner than

the approach to heaven. Let the Infinite Jehovah be served with our best;

let prayer addressed to the Divine Majesty be carefully weighed, and

presented with all the powers of an awakened heart and a spiritual

understanding. He who has been by communion with God prepared to

minister to the people, is usually of all men present the most fit to engage

in prayer; to lay out a program which puts up another brother in his place,

is to mar the harmony of the service, to rob the preacher of an exercise

which would brace him for his sermon, and in many instances to suggest

comparisons between one part of the service and the other which ought

never to be tolerated. If unprepared brethren are to be sent into the pulpit

to do my praying for me when I am engaged to preach, I do not see why I

might not be allowed to pray, and then retire to let these brethren do the

sermonizing. I am not able to see any reason for depriving me of the

holiest, sweetest, and most profitable exercise which my Lord has allotted

me; if I may have my choice, I will sooner yield up the sermon than the

prayer. Thus much I have said in order to impress upon you that you must

68

highly esteem public prayer, and seek of the Lord for the gifts and graces

necessary to its right discharge.

Those who despise all extempore prayer will probably catch at these

remarks and use them against it, but I can assure them that the faults

adverted to are not common among us, and are indeed almost extinct;

while the scandal caused by them never was, at the worst, so great as that

caused by the way in which the liturgical service is often performed. Far

too often is the church service hurried through in a manner as indevout as

if it were a ballad-singer’s ditty. The words are parroted without the

slightest appreciation of their meaning; not sometimes, but very frequently,

in the places set apart for Episcopal worship, you may see the eyes of the

people, and the eyes of the choristers, and the eyes of the parson himself,

wandering about in all directions, while evidently from the very tone of the

reading there is no feeling of sympathy with what is being read. F12 I have

been at funerals when the burial service of the church of England has been

galloped through so indecorously that it has taken all the grace I had to

prevent my throwing a hassock at the creature’s head. I have felt so

indignant that I have not known what to do, to hear, in the presence of

mourners whose hearts were bleeding, a man rattling through the service as

if he were paid by the piece, and had more work to follow, and therefore

desired to get it through as quickly as possible. What effect he could think

he was producing, or what good result could come from words jerked

forth and hurled out with vengeance and vehemence, I cannot imagine. It is

really shocking to think of how that very wonderful burial service is

murdered, and made into an abomination by the mode in which it is

frequently read, I merely mention this because, if they criticize our prayers

too severely, we can bring a formidable countercharge to silence them.

Better far, however, for us to amend our own blunders than find fault with

others.

In order to make our public prayer what it should be, the first necessary is,

that it must be a matter of the heart. A man must be really in earnest in

supplication. It must be true prayer, and if it be such, it will, like love,

cover a multitude of sins. You can pardon a man’s familiarities and his

vulgarities too, when you clearly see that his inmost heart is speaking to his

Maker, and that it is only the man’s defects of education which create his

faults, and not any moral or spiritual vices of his heart. The pleader in

public must be in earnest; for a sleepy prayer — what can be a worse

preparation for a sermon? A sleepy prayer — what can make people more

69

dislike going up to the house of God at all? Cast your whole soul into the

exercise. If ever your whole manhood was engaged in anything., let it be in

drawing near unto God in public. So pray, that by a divine attraction, you

draw the whole congregation with you up to the throne of God. So pray,

that by the power of the Holy Spirit resting on you, you express the desires

and thoughts of every one present, and stand as the one voice for the

hundreds of beating hearts which are glowing with fervor before the throne

of God.

Next to this, our prayers must be appropriate. I do not say go into every

minute detail of the circumstances of the congregation. As I have said

before, there is no need to make the public prayer a gazette of the week’s

events, or a register of the births, deaths, and marriages of your people, but

the general movements that have taken place in the congregation should be

noted by the minister’s careful heart. He should bring the joys and sorrows

of his people alike before the throne of grace, and ask that the divine

benediction may rest upon his flock in all their movements, their exercises,

engagements, and holy enterprises, and that the forgiveness of God may be

extended to their shortcomings and innumerable sins.

Then, by way of negative canon, I should say, do not let your prayer be,

long. I think it was John Macdonald who used to say, “If you are in the

spirit of prayer, do not be long, because other people will not be able to

keep pace with you in such unusual spirituality; and if you are not in the

spirit of prayer, do not be long, because you will then be sure to weary the

listeners.” Livingstone says of Robert Bruce, of Edinburgh, the famous

contemporary of Andrew Melville, “No man in his time spoke with such

evidence and power of the Spirit. No man had so many seals of conversion;

yea, many of his hearers thought no man, since the apostles, spake with

such power ....... He was very short in prayer when others were present,

but every sentence was like a strong bolt shot up to heaven. I have heard

him say that he wearied when others were long in prayer; but, being alone,

he spent much time in wrestling and prayer.” A man may, on special

occasions, if he be unusually moved and carried out of himself pray for

twenty minutes in the long morning prayer, but this should not often

happen. My friend, Dr. Charles Brown, of Edinburgh, lays it down, as a

result of his deliberate judgment, that ten minutes is the limit to which

public prayer ought to be prolonged. Our Puritanic forefathers used to pray

for three-quarters of an hour, or more, but then you must recollect that

they did not know that they would ever have the opportunity of praying

70

again before an assembly, and therefore, took their fill of it; and besides,

people were not inclined in those days to quarrel with the length of prayers

or of sermons so much as they do nowadays. You cannot pray too long in

private. We do not limit you to ten minutes there, or ten hours, or ten

weeks if you like. The more you are on your knees alone the better. We are

now speaking of those public prayers which come before or after the

sermon, and for these ten minutes is a better limit than fifteen. Only one in

a thousand would complain of you for being too short, while scores will

murmur at your being wearisome in length. “He prayed me into a good

frame of mind,” George Whitfield once said of a certain preacher, “and if

he had stopped there, it would have been very well; but he prayed me out

of it again by keeping on.” The abundant longsuffering of God has been

exemplified in his sparing some preachers, who have been great sinners in

this direction; they have done much injury to the piety of God’s people by

their long-winded orations, and yet God, in his mercy, has permitted them

still to officiate in the sanctuary. Alas! for those who have to listen to

pastors who pray in public for five-and-twenty minutes, and then ask God

to forgive their “shortcomings”! Do not be too long, for several reasons.

First, because you weary yourselves and the people; and secondly,

because being too long in prayer, puts your people out of heart for hearing

the sermon. All those dry, dull, prolix talkifications in prayer, do but blunt

the attention, and the ear gets, as it were, choked up. Nobody would think

of blocking up Ear-gate with mud or stones when he meant to storm the

gate. No, let the portal be cleared that the battering-ram of the gospel may

tell upon it when the time comes to use it. Long prayers either consist of

repetitions, or else of unnecessary explanations which God does not

require; or else they degenerate into downright preachings, so that there is

no difference between the praying and the preaching, except that in the one

the minister has his eyes shut, and in the other he keeps them open. It is not

necessary in prayer to rehearse the Westminster Assembly’s Catechism. It

is not necessary in prayer to relate the experience of all the people who are

present, or even your own. It is not necessary in prayer to string a selection

of texts of Scripture together, and quote David, and Daniel, and Job, and

Paul, and Peter, and every other body, under the title of “thy servant of

old.” It is necessary in prayer to draw near unto God, but it is not required

of you to prolong your speech till everyone is longing to hear the word

“Amen.”

71

One little hint I cannot withhold — never appear to be closing, and then

start off again for another five minutes. When friends make up their minds

that you are about to conclude, they cannot with a jerk proceed again in a

devout spirit. I have known men tantalize us with the hope that they were

drawing to a close, and then take a fresh lease two or three times; this is

most unwise and unpleasant.

Another canon is — do not use cant phrases. My brethren, have done with

those vile things altogether; they have had their day, and let them die.

These pieces of spiritual fustian cannot be too much reprobated. Some of

them are pure inventions; others are passages takes from the Apocrypha;

others are texts fathered upon Scripture, but which have been fearfully

mangled since they came from the Author of the Bible. In the Baptist

Magazine for 1861 I made the following remarks upon the common

vulgarities of prayer-meetings. “Cant phrases are a great evil. Who can

justify such expressions as the following? ‘We would not rush into thy

presence as the unthinking (!!) horse into the battle.’ As if horses ever did

think, and as if it were not better to exhibit the spirit and energy of the

horse than the sluggishness and stupidity of the ass! As the verse from

which we imagine this fine sentence to be derived has more to do with

sinning than with praying, we are glad that the phrase is on its last legs.

‘Go from heart to heart, as oil from vessel to vessel,’ is probably a

quotation from the nursery romance of ‘Ali Baba, and the Forty Thieves,’

but as destitute of sense, Scripture, and poetry, as ever sentence could be

conceived to be. We are not aware that oil runs from one vessel to another

in any very mysterious or wonderful manner; it is true it is rather slow in

coming out, and is therefore an apt symbol of some people’s earnestness;

but surely it would be better to have the grace direct from heaven than to

have it out of another vessel, — a Popish idea which the metaphor seems

to insinuate, if indeed it has any meaning at all. ‘Thy poor unworthy dust,’

an epithet generally applied to themselves by the proudest men in the

congregation, and not seldom by the most moneyed and groveling, in

which case the last two words are not so very inappropriate. We have

heard of a good man who, in pleading for his children and grandchildren,

was so completely beclouded in the blinding influence of this expression,

that he exclaimed, ‘O Lord, save thy dust, and thy dust’s dust, and thy

dust’s dust’s dust.’ When Abraham said, ‘I have taken upon me to speak

unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes,’ the utterance was forcible

and expressive; but in its misquoted, perverted, and abused form, the

72

sooner it is consigned to its own element the better. A miserable

conglomeration of perversions of Scripture, uncouth similes, and ridiculous

metaphors, constitute a sort of spiritual slang, the offspring of unholy

ignorance, unmanly imitation, or graceless hypocrisy; they are at once a

dishonor to those who constantly repeat them, and an intolerable nuisance

to those whose ears are jaded with them.”

Dr. Charles Brown, of Edinburgh, in an admirable address at a meeting of

the New College Missionary Association, gives instances of current

misquotations indigenous to Scotland, which sometimes, however, find

their way across the Tweed. By his permission, I shall quote at length.

“There is what might be called an unhappy, sometimes, quite grotesque,

mingling of Scripture texts. Who is not familiar with the following words

addressed to God in prayer, ‘Thou art the high and lofty One that

inhabiteth eternity, and the praises thereof’! which is but a jumble of two

glorious texts, each glorious taken by itself — -both marred, and one

altogether lost indeed, when thus combined and mingled. The one is Isaiah

57:15, ‘Thus saith the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose

name is Holy.’ The other is, Psalm 22:3, ‘Thou art holy, O thou that

inhabitest the praises of Israel.’ The inhabiting of the praises of eternity,

to say the least, is meager; there were no praises in the past eternity to

inhabit. But what a glory is there in God’s condescending to inhabit, take

up his very abode, in the praises of Israel, of the ransomed church. Then

there is an example nothing less than grotesque under this head, and yet

one in such frequent use that I suspect it is very generally regarded as

having the sanction of Scripture. Here it is, ‘We would put our hand on our

mouth, and our mouth in the dust, and cry out, Unclean, unclean; God be

merciful to us sinners.’ This is no fewer than four texts joined, each

beautiful by itself. First, Job 40:4, ‘Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer

thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.’ Second, Lamentations 3:29, ‘He

putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.’ Third, Leviticus

13:45, Where the leper is directed to put a covering upon his upper lip, and

to cry, Unclean, unclean. And fourth, the publican’s prayer. But how

incongruous a man’s first putting his hand on his mouth, then putting his

mouth in the dust, and, last of all, crying out, etc.! The only other example

I give is an expression nearly universal among us, and, I suspect, almost

universally thought to be in Scripture, ‘In thy favor is life, and thy

lovingkindness is better than life.’ The fact is, that this also is just an

unhappy combination of two passages, in which the term life is used in

73

altogether different, and even incompatible senses, namely, Psalm 63:3,

‘Thy lovingkindness is better than life,’ where, evidently, life means the

present temporal life.

“A second class may be described as unhappy alterations of Scripture

language. Need I say that the 130th Psalm, ‘Out of the depths,’ etc., is one

of the most precious in the whole book of the Psalms? Why must we have

the words of David and of the Holy Ghost thus given in public prayer, and

so constantly that our pious people come all to adopt it into their social and

family prayers, ‘There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared,

and plenteous redemption that thou mayest be sought after,’ or ‘unto’?

How precious the simple words as they stand in the Psalm (Psalm 130:4)

‘There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared’ (Psalm 130:7,

8); ‘With the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption;

and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities!’ Again, in this blessed

Psalm, the words of the third verse, ‘If thou, Lord, shouldest mark

iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?’ too seldom are left us in their naked

simplicity, but must undergo the following change, ‘If thou wert strict to

mark iniquity,’ etc. I remember in my old college days, we used to have it

in a much more offensive shape, ‘If thou wert strict to mark and rigorous

to punish!’ Another favorite change is the following, ‘Thou art in heaven,

and we upon earth; therefore let our words be few and well ordered.’

Solomon’s simple and sublime utterance (full of instruction, surely, on the

whole theme I am dealing with) is, ‘God is in heaven, and thou upon earth;

therefore let thy words be few.’ Ecclesiastes 5:2. For another example

under this class see how Habakkuk’s sublime words are tortured, ‘Thou art

of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on sin without

abhorrence.’ The words of the Holy’ Ghost are (Hebrews 1:13), ‘Thou art

of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.’ Need I

say that the power of the figure, ‘canst not look on iniquity’ is nearly lost

when you add that God can look on it, only not without abhorrence?

“A third class is made up of meaningless pleonasms, vulgar, common-place

redundancies of expression, in quoting from the Scriptures. One of these

has become so universal, that I venture to say you seldom miss it, when the

passage referred to comes up at all. ‘Be in the midst of us’ (or, as some

prefer to express it, somewhat unfortunately, as I think, ‘in our midst’), ‘to

bless us, and to do us good.’ What additional idea is there in the last

expression ‘and to do us good’? The passage referred to is Exodus 20:24,

‘In all places where I record my name, I will come unto you, and I will

74

bless you.’ Such is the simplicity of Scripture. Our addition is, ‘Bless us,

and do us good.’ In Daniel 4:35, we read the noble words, ‘None can stay

his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?’ The favorite change is, ‘None

can stay thy hand from working.’ ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither

have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for

them that love him!’ This is changed, ‘Neither hath it entered into the heart

of man to conceive the things.’ Constantly we hear God addressed as ‘the

hearer and answerer of prayer,’ a mere vulgar and useless pleonasm, for

the Scripture idea of God’s hearing prayer is just his answering it — ‘O

thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come;’ “Hear my prayer O

Lord;’ ‘I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my

supplications.’ Whence, again, that common-place of public prayer, ‘Thy

consolations are neither few nor small’? The reference, I suppose, is to

those words of Job, ‘Are the consolations of God small with thee?’ So one

scarce ever hears that prayer of the seventy-fourth Psalm, ‘Have respect to

the covenant, for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of

cruelty’ without the addition, ‘horrid cruelty;’ nor the call to prayer in

Isaiah, ‘Keep not silence and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he

make Jerusalem a praise in the earth,’ without the addition, ‘the whole

earth;’ nor that appeal of the Psalmist, ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee

and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee’ without the addition,

‘none in all the earth.’ These last may seem small matters, indeed. And so

they are, nor were worth finding fault with, did they occur but

occasionally. But viewed as stereotyped common-places, weak enough in

themselves, and occurring so often as to give an impression of their having

Scripture authority, I humbly think they ought to be discountenanced and

discarded — banished wholly from our Presbyterian worship. It will,

perhaps, surprise you to learn that the only Scripture authority for that

favorite and somewhat peculiar expression, about the ‘wicked rolling sin as

a sweet morsel under their tongue’ is the following words in the book of

Job (20:12), ‘Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it

under his tongue.’“

But enough of this. I am only sorry to have felt bound in conscience to be

so long upon so unhappy a subject. I cannot, however, leave the point

without urging upon you literal accuracy in all quotations from the word of

God.

It ought to be a point of honor among ministers always to quote Scripture

correctly. It is difficult to be always correct, and because it is difficult, it

75

should be all the more the object of our care. In the halls of Oxford or

Cambridge it would be considered almost treason or felony for a fellow to

misquote Tacitus, or Virgil, or Homer; but for a preacher to misquote Paul,

or Moses, or David, is a far more serious matter, and quite as worthy of

the severest censure. Mark, I said a “fellow,” not a freshman, and from a.

pastor we expect, at least, equal accuracy in his own department as from

the holder of a fellowship. You who so unwaveringly believe in the verbalinspiration

theory (to my intense satisfaction), ought never to quote at all

until you can give the precise words, because, according to your own

showing, by the alteration of a single word you may miss altogether God’s

sense of the passage. If you cannot make extracts front Scripture correctly,

why quote it at all in your petitions? Make use of an expression fresh from

your own mind, and it will be quite as acceptable to God as a scriptural

phrase defaced or clipped. Vehemently strive against garblings and

perversions of Scripture, and renounce for ever all cant phrases, for they

are the disfigurement of free prayer.

I have noticed a habit among some — I hope you have not fallen into it —

of praying with their eyes open. It is unnatural, unbecoming, and

disgusting. Occasionally the opened eye uplifted to heaven may be suitable

and impressive, but to be gazing about while professing to address the

unseen God is detestable. In the earliest ages of the church the fathers

denounced this unseemly practice. Action in prayer should be very little

used, if at all. It is scarcely comely to lift and move the arm, as if in

preaching; the outstretched arms however, or the clasped hands, are

natural and suggestive when under strong holy excitement. The voice

should accord with the matter, and should never be boisterous, or selfasserting:

humble and reverent let those tones be in which man talketh with

his God. Doth not even nature itself teach you this? If grace does not I

despair.

With special regard to your prayers in the Sabbath services, a few

sentences may be useful. In order to prevent custom and routine from

being enthroned among us, it will be well to vary the order of service as

much as possible. Whatever the free Spirit moves us to do, that let us do at

once. I was not till lately aware of the extent to which the control of

deacons has been allowed to intrude itself upon ministers in certain

benighted churches. I have always been accustomed to conduct religious

services in the way I have thought most suitable and edifying, and I never

have heard so much as a word of objection, although I trust I can say I live

76

on the dearest intimacy with my officers; but a brother minister told me this

morning, that on one occasion, he prayed in the morning service at the

commencement instead of giving out a hymn, and when he retired into the

vestry, after service, the deacons informed him that they would have no

innovations. We hitherto understood that Baptist churches are not under

bondage to traditions and fixed rules as to modes of worship, and yet these

poor creatures, these would-be lords, who cry out loudly enough against a

liturgy, would bind their minister with rubrics made by custom. It is time

that such nonsense were for ever silenced. We claim to conduct service as

the Holy Spirit moves us, and as we judge best. We will not be bound to

sing here and pray there, but will vary the order of service to prevent

monotony. Mr. Hinton, I have heard, once preached the sermon at the

commencement of the service, so that those who came late might at any

rate have an opportunity to pray. And why not? Irregularities would do

good, monotony works weariness. It will frequently be a most profitable

thing to let the people sit quite still in profound silence for two or five

minutes. Solemn silence makes noble worship.

True prayer is not the noisy sound

That clamorous lips repeat,

But the deep silence of a soul

That clasps Jehovah’s feet.

Vary the order of your prayers, then, for the sake of maintaining attention,

and preventing people going through the whole thing as a clock runs on till

the weights are down.

Vary the length of your public prayers. Do you not think it would be much

better if sometimes instead of giving three minutes to the first prayer and

fifteen minutes to the second, you gave nine minutes to each? Would it not

be better sometimes to be longer in the first, and not so long in the second

prayer? Would not two prayers of tolerable length be better than one

extremely long and one extremely short? Would it not be as well to have a

hymn after reading the chapter, or a verse or two before the prayer? Why

not sing four times, occasionally? Why not be content with two hymns, or

only one, occasionally? Why sing after sermon? Why, on the other hand,

do some never sing at the close of the service? Is a prayer after sermon

always, or even often, advisable? Is it not sometimes most impressive?

Would not the Holy Spirit’s guidance secure us a variety at present

unknown? Let us have anything so that our people do not come to regard

77

any form of service as being appointed, and so relapse into the superstition

from which they have escaped.

Vary the current of your prayers in intercession. There are many topics

which require your attention; the church in its weakness, its backslidings,

its sorrows, and its comforts; the outside world, the neighborhood,

unconverted hearers, the young people, the nation. Do not pray for all

these every time, or otherwise your prayers will be long and probably

uninteresting. Whatever topic shall come uppermost to your heart, let that

be uppermost in your supplications. There is a way of taking a line of

prayer, if the Holy Spirit; shall guide you therein, which will make the

service all of a piece, and harmonize with the hymns and discourse. It is

very useful to maintain unity in the service where you can; not slavishly,

but wisely, so that the effect is one. Certain brethren do not even manage

to keep unity in the sermon, but wander from Britain to Japan, and bring in

all imaginable subjects: but you who have attained to the preservation of

unity in the sermon might go a little farther, and exhibit a degree of unity in

the service, being careful in both the hymn, and the prayer, and the chapter,

to keep the same subject prominent. Hardly commendable is the practice,

common with some preachers, of rehearsing the sermon in the last prayer.

It may be instructive to the audience, but that is an object altogether

foreign to prayer. It is stilted, scholastic, and unsuitable; do not imitate the

practice.

As you would avoid a viper, keep from all attempts to work up spurious

fervor in public devotion. Do not labor to seem earnest. Pray as your heart

dictates, under the leading of the Spirit of God, and if you are dull and

heavy tell the Lord so. It will be no ill thing to confess your deadness, and

bewail it, and cry for quickening; it will be real and acceptable prayer; but

simulated ardor is a shameful form of lying. Never imitate those who are

earnest. You know a good man who groans, and another whose voice

grows shrill when he is carried away with zeal, but do not therefore moan

or squeak in order to appear as zealous as they are. Just be natural the

whole way through, and ask of God to be guided in it all.

Lastly — this is a word I utter in confidence to yourselves — prepare your

prayer. You say with astonishment, “Whatever can you mean by that?”

Well, I mean what some do not mean. The question was once discussed in

a society of ministers, “Was it right for the minister to prepare his prayer

beforehand?” It was earnestly asserted by some that it was wrong; and very

78

properly so. It was with equal earnestness maintained by others that it was

right; and they were not to be gainsayed. I believe both parties to have

been right. The first brethren understood by preparing the prayer, the

studying of expressions, and the putting together of a train of thought,

which they all said was altogether opposed to spiritual worship, in which

we ought to leave ourselves in the hand of God’s Spirit to be taught of him

both as to matter and words. In these remarks we altogether agree; for if a

man writes his prayers and studies his petitions, let him use a liturgy at

once. But the brethren in opposition, meant by preparation quite another

thing, not the preparation of the head, but of the heart, which consists in

the solemn consideration beforehand of the importance of prayer,

meditation upon the needs of men’s souls, and a remembrance of the

promises which we are to plead; and thus coming before the Lord with a

petition written upon the fleshy tables of the heart. This is surely better

than coming to God at random, rushing before the throne at haphazard,

without a definite errand or desire. “I never am tired of praying,” said one

man. “because I always have a definite errand when I pray.” Brethren, are

your prayers of this sort? Do you strive to be in a fit frame to lead the

supplications of your people? Do you order your cause in coming before

the Lord? I feel, my brethren, that, we ought to prepare ourselves by

private prayer for public praying. By living near to God we ought to

maintain prayerfulness of spirit, and then we shall not fail in our vocal

pleadings. If anything beyond this is to be tolerated, it would be the

commitment to memory of the Psalms and parts of Scripture containing

promises, supplications, praises, and confessions, such as may be helpful in

the act of prayer. It is said of Chrysostom, that he had learned his Bible by

heart, so as to be able to repeat it at his pleasure: no wonder that he was

called golden-mouthed. Now, in our converse with God, no speech can be

more appropriate than the words of the Holy Ghost —”Do as thou hast

said,” will always prevail with the Most High. We counsel, therefore, the

committing to memory of the inspired devotional exercises of the word of

truth, and then your continued reading of the Scriptures will keep you

always furnished with fresh supplications, which will be as ointment poured

forth, filling the whole house of God with its fragrance, when you present

your petitions in public before the Lord. Seeds of prayer thus sown in the

memory will yield a constant golden harvest, as the Spirit shall warm your

soul with hallowed fire in the hour of congregational prayer. As David used

the sword of Goliath for after victories, so may we at times employ a

petition already answered, and find ourselves able to say with the son of

79

Jesse, “There is none like unto it,” as God shall yet again fulfill it in our

experience.

Let your prayers be earnest, full of fire, vehemence, prevalence. I pray the

Holy Ghost to instruct every student of this College so to offer public

prayer, that God shall always be served of his best. Let your petitions be

plain and heart-felt; and while your people may sometimes feel that the

sermon was below the mark, may they also feel that the prayer

compensated for all.

Much more might be said, perhaps should be said, but time and strength

both fail us, and so we draw to a close.

80

LECTURE 5.

SERMONS — THEIR MATTER.

SERMONS should have real teaching in them, and their doctrine should be

solid, substantial, and abundant. We do not enter the pulpit to talk for

talk’s sake; we have instructions to convey important to the last degree,

and we cannot afford to utter pretty nothings. Our range of subjects is all

but boundless, and we cannot, therefore, be excused if our discourses are

threadbare and devoid of substance. If we speak as ambassadors for God,

we need never complain of want of matter, for our message is full to

overflowing. The entire gospel must be presented from the pulpit; the

whole faith once delivered to the saints must be proclaimed by us. The

truth as it is in Jesus must be instructively declared, so that the people may

not merely hear, but know, the joyful sound. We serve not at the altar of

“the unknown God,” but we speak to the worshippers of him of whom it is

written, “they that know thy name will put their trust in thee.” To divide a

sermon well may be a very useful art, but how if there is nothing to divide?

A mere division maker is like an excellent carver with an empty dish before

him, To be able to deliver an exordium which shall be appropriate and

attractive, to be at ease in speaking with propriety during the time allotted

for the discourse, and to wind up with a respectable peroration, may

appear to mere religious performers to be all that is requisite; but the true

minister of Christ knows that the true value of a sermon must lie, not in its

fashion and manner, but in the truth which it contains. Nothing can

compensate for the absence of teaching; all the rhetoric in the world is but

as chaff to the wheat in contrast to the gospel of our salvation. However

beautiful the sower’s basket it is a miserable mockery if it be without seed.

The grandest discourse ever delivered is an ostentatious failure if the

doctrine of the grace of God be absent from it; it sweeps over men’s heads

like a cloud, but it distributes no rain upon the thirsty earth; and therefore

the remembrance of it to souls taught wisdom by an experience of pressing

need is one of disappointment, or worse. A man’s style may be as

fascinating as that of the authoress of whom one said, “that she should

write with a crystal pen dipped in dew upon silver paper, and use for

pounce the dust of a butterfly’s wing”; but to an audience whose souls are

81

in instant jeopardy, what will mere elegance be but “altogether lighter than

vanity”?

Horses are not to be judged by their bells or their trappings, but by limb

and bone and blood; and sermons, when criticized by judicious hearers, are

largely measured by the amount of gospel truth and force of gospel spirit

which they contain. Brethren, weigh your sermons. Do not retail them by

the yard, but deal them out by the pound. Set no store by the quantity of

words which you utter, but strive to be esteemed for the quality of your

matter. It is foolish to be lavish in words and niggardly in truth. He must be

very destitute of wit who would be pleased to hear himself described after

the manner of the world’s great poet, who says, “Gratiano speaks an

infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice: his reasons are as

two grains of wheat hidden in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day

ere you find them; and when you have them they are not worth the search.”

Rousing appeals to the affections are excellent, but if they are not backed

up by instruction they are a mere flash in the pan, powder consumed and

no shot sent home. Rest assured that the most fervid revivalism will wear

itself out in mere smoke, if it be not maintained by the fuel of teaching. The

divine method is to put the law in the mind, and then write it on the heart;

the judgment is enlightened, and then the passions subdued. Read Hebrews

8:10, and follow the model of the covenant of grace. Gouge’s note on that

place may with fitness be quoted here: — “Ministers are herein to imitate

God, and, to their best endeavor, to instruct people in the mysteries of

godliness, and to teach them what to believe and practice, and then to stir

them up in act and deed, to do what they are instructed to do. Their labor

otherwise is like to be in vain. Neglect of this course is a main cause that

men fall into many errors as they do in these days.” I may add that this last

remark has gained more force in our times; it is among uninstructed flocks

that the wolves of popery make havoc; sound teaching is the best

protection from the heresies which ravage right and left among us.

Sound information upon scriptural subjects your hearers crave for, and

must have. Accurate explanations of Holy Scripture they are entitled to,

and if you are “an interpreter, one of a thousand,” a real messenger of

heaven, you will yield them plenteously. Whatever else may be present, the

absence of edifying, instructive truth, like the absence of flour from bread,

will be fatal. Estimated by their solid contents rather than their superficial

area, many sermons are very poor specimens of godly discourse. I believe

82

the remark is too well grounded that if you attend to a lecturer on

astronomy or geology, during a short course you will obtain a tolerably

clear view of his system; but if you listen, not only for twelve months, but

for twelve years, to the common run of preachers, you will not arrive at

anything like an idea of their system of theology. If it be so, it; is a grievous

fault, which cannot be too much deplored. Alas! the indistinct utterances of

many concerning the grandest of eternal realities, and the dimness of

thought in others with regard to fundamental truths, have given too much

occasion for the criticism! Brethren, if you are not theologians you are in

your pastorates just nothing at all. You may be fine rhetoricians, and be

rich in polished sentences; but without knowledge of the gospel, and

aptness to teach it, you are but a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.

Verbiage is too often the fig-leaf which does duty as a covering for

theological ignorance. Sounding periods are offered instead of sound

doctrine, and rhetorical flourishes in the place of robust thought. Such

things ought not to be. The abounding of empty declamation, and the

absence of food for the soul, will turn a pulpit into a box of bombast, and

inspire contempt instead of reverence. Unless we are instructive preachers,

and really feed the people, we may be great quoters of elegant poetry, and

mighty retailers of second-hand windbags, but we shall be like Nero of old,

fiddling while Rome was burning, and sending vessels to Alexandria to

fetch sand for the arena while the populace starved for want of corn.

We insist upon it, that there must be abundance of matter in sermons, and

next, that this matter must be congruous to the text. The discourse should

spring out of the text as a rule, and the more evidently it does so the better;

but at all times, to say the least, it should have a very close relationship

thereto. In the matter of spiritualising and accommodation very large

latitude is to be allowed; but liberty must not degenerate into license, and

there must always be a connection, and something more than a remote

connection — a real relationship between the sermon and its text. I heard

the other day of a remarkable text, which was appropriate or inappropriate,

as you may think. A squire of a parish had given away a number of flaming

scarlet cloaks to the oldest matrons of the parish. These resplendent beings

were required to attend the parish church on the following Sunday, and to

sit in front of the pulpit, from which one of the avowed successors of the

apostles edified the saints from the words, “Solomon in all his glory was

not arrayed like one of these.” It is reported that on a subsequent occasion,

when the same benefactor of the parish had given a bushel of potatoes to

83

every man who had a family, the topic on the following Sunday was, “And

they said, It is manna.” I cannot tell whether the matter in that case was

congruous to the selection of the text; I suppose it may have been, for the

probabilities are that the whole performance was foolish throughout. Some

brethren have done with their text as soon as they have read it. Having paid

all due honor to that particular passage by announcing it, they feel no

necessity further to refer to it. They touch their hats, as it were, to that part

of Scripture, and pass on to fresh fields and pastures new. Why do such

men take a text at all? Why limit their own glorious liberty? Why make

Scripture a horsing-block by which to mount upon their unbridled

Pegasus? Surely the words of inspiration were never meant to be

boothooks to help a Talkative to draw on his seven-leagued boots in which

to leap from pole to pole.

The surest way to maintain variety is to keep to the mind of the Holy Spirit

in the particular passage under consideration. No two texts are exactly

similar; something in the connection or drift of the passage gives to each

apparently identical text a shade of difference. Keep to the Spirit’s track

and you will never repeat yourself or be short of matter: his paths drop

fatness. A sermon, moreover, comes with far greater power to the

consciences of the hearers when it is plainly the very word of God — not a

lecture about the Scripture, but Scripture itself opened up and enforced. It

is due to the majesty of inspiration that when you profess to be preaching

from a verse you do not thrust it out of sight to make room for your own

thinkings.

Brethren, if you are in the habit of keeping to the precise sense of the

Scripture before you, I will further recommend you to hold to the ipsissima

verba, the very words of the Holy Ghost; for, although in many cases

topical sermons are not only allowable, but very proper, those sermons

which expound the exact words of the Holy Spirit are the most useful and

the most agreeable to the major part of our congregations. They love to

have the words themselves explained and expounded. The many are not

always sufficiently capable of grasping the sense apart from the language

— of gazing, so to speak, upon the truth disembodied; but when they hear

the precise words reiterated again and again, and each expression dwelt

upon after the manner of such preachers as Mr. Jay, of Bath, they are more

edified, and the truth fixes itself more firmly upon their memories. Let your

matter, then, be copious, and let it grow out of the inspired word, as

84

violets and primroses spring up naturally from the sod, or as the virgin

honey drops from the comb.

Take care that your deliverances are always weighty, and full of really

important teaching. Build not with wood, hay, and stubble, but with gold,

silver, and precious stones. It is scarcely needful to warn you against the

grosser degradations of pulpit eloquence, or the example of the notorious

orator Henley might be instanced. That loquacious adventurer, whom Pope

has immortalized in his “Dunciad,” was wont to make the passing events of

the week the themes of his buffoonery on week days, and theological

topics suffered the same fate on Sundays. His forte lay in his low wit and in

tuning his voice and balancing his hands. The satirist says of him, “How

fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue.” Gentlemen, it were better never

to have been born, than to have the like truthfully said of us; we are on

peril of our souls bound to deal with the solemnities of eternity and with no

earth-born topics. There are, however, other and more inviting methods of

wood and hay-building, and it behooves you not to be duped by them. This

remark is necessary, especially to those gentlemen who mistake highflying

sentences for eloquence, and Latinized utterances for great depth of

thought. Certain homiletical instructors, by their example, if not by their

precepts, encourage rodomontade and great swelling words, and,

therefore, are most perilous to young preachers. Think of a discourse

commencing with such an amazing and stupendous assertion as the

following, which by its native grandeur will strike you at once with a sense

of the sublime and beautiful: “MAN IS MORAL.” This genius might have

added, “A cat has four feet.” There would have been as much novelty in

the one information as the other. I remember a sermon by a would-be

profound writer which quite stunned the reader with grenadier words of

six-feet length, but which, when properly boiled down, came to as much

essence of meat as this — Man has a soul, his soul will live in another

world, and therefore he should take care that it occupies a happy place. No

one can object to the teaching, but it is not so novel as to need a blast of

trumpets and a procession of bedizened phrases to introduce it to public

attention. The art of saying commonplace things elegantly, pompously,

grandiloquently, bombastically, is not lost among us, although its utter

extinction were “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Sermons of this

sort have been held up as models, and yet they are mere bits of bladder

which would lie on your finger-nail, blown out until they remind you of

those colored balloons which itinerant dealers carry about the streets to sell

85

at a halfpenny a-piece for the delectation of the extremely juvenile; the

parallel, I am sorry to say, holding good a little further, for in some cases

these discourses contain just a tinge of poison by way of coloring, which

some of the weaker sort have found out to their cost. It is infamous to

ascend your pulpit and pour over your people rivers of language, cataracts

of words, in which mere platitudes are held in solution like infinitesimal

grains of homeopathic medicine in an Atlantic of utterance. Better far give

the people masses of unprepared truth in the rough, like pieces of meat

from a butcher’s block, chopped off anyhow, bone and all, and even

dropped down in the sawdust, than ostentatiously and delicately hand them

out upon a china dish a delicious slice of nothing at all, decorated with the

parsley of poetry, and flavored with the sauce of affectation.

It will be, a happy circumstance if you are so guided by the Holy Spirit as

to give a clear testimony to all the doctrines which constitute or lie around

the gospel. No truth is to be kept back. The doctrine of reserve, so

detestable in the mouths of Jesuits, is not one whit the less villainous when

accepted by Protestants. It is not true that some doctrines are only for the

initiated; there is nothing in the Bible which is ashamed of the light. The

sublimest views of divine sovereignty have a practical bearing, and are not,

as some think, mere metaphysical subtleties; the distinctive utterances of

Calvinism have their bearing upon every-day life and ordinary experience,

and if you hold such views, or the opposite, you have no dispensation

permitting you to conceal your beliefs. Cautious reticence is, in nine cases

out of ten, cowardly betrayal. The best policy is never to be politic, but to

proclaim every atom of the truth so far as God has taught it to you.

Harmony requires that the voice of one doctrine shall not drown the rest,

and it also demands that the gentler notes shall not be omitted because of

the greater volume of other sounds. Every note appointed by the great

minstrel must be sounded; each note having its own proportionate power

and emphasis, the passage marked with forte must not be softened, and

those with piano must not be rolled out like thunder, but each must have

its due hearing. All revealed truth in harmonious proportion must be your

theme.

Brethren, if you resolve in your pulpit utterances to deal with important

verities, you must not for ever hover around the mere angles of truth.

Those doctrines which are not vital to the soul’s salvation, nor even

essential to practical Christianity, are not to be considered upon every

occasion of worship. Bring in all the features of truth in due proportion, for

86

every part of Scripture is profitable, and you are not only to preach the

truth, but the whole truth. Do not insist perpetually upon one truth alone.

A nose is an important feature in the human countenance, but to paint a

man’s nose alone is not a satisfactory method of taking his likeness: a

doctrine may be very important, but an exaggerated estimate of it may be

fatal to an harmonious and complete ministry. Do not make minor

doctrines main points. Do not paint the details of the background of the

gospel picture with the same heavy brush as the great objects in the

foreground of it. For instance, the great problems of sublapsarianism and

supralapsarianism, the trenchant debates concerning eternal filiation, the

earnest dispute concerning the double procession, and the pre or post

millenarian schemes, however important some may deem them, are

practically of very little concern to that godly widow woman, with seven

children to support by her needle, who wants far more to hear of the

loving-kindness of the God of providence than of these mysteries

profound; if you preach to her on the faithfulness of God to his people, she

will be cheered and helped in the battle of life; but difficult questions will

perplex her or send her to sleep. She is, however, the type of hundreds of

those who most require your care. Our great master theme is the good

news from heaven; the tidings of mercy through the atoning death of Jesus,

mercy to the chief of sinners upon their believing in Jesus.

We must throw all our strength of judgment, memory, imagination, and

eloquence into the delivery of the gospel; and not give to the preaching of

the cross our random thoughts while wayside topics engross our deeper

meditations. Depend upon it, if we brought the intellect of a Locke or a

Newton, and the eloquence of a Cicero, to bear upon the simple doctrine

of “believe and live,” we should find no surplus strength. Brethren, first

and above all things, keep to plain evangelical doctrines; whatever else you

do or do not preach, be sure incessantly to bring forth the soul-saving truth

of Christ and him crucified. I know a minister whose shoe-latchet I am

unworthy to unloose, whose preaching is often little better than sacred

miniature painting — I might almost say holy trifling. He is great upon the

ten toes of the beast, the four faces of the cherubim, the mystical meaning

of badgers’ skins, and the typical bearings of the staves of the ark, and the

windows of Solomon’s temple: but the sins of business men, the

temptations of the times, and the needs of the age, he scarcely ever touches

upon. Such preaching reminds me of a lion engaged in mouse-hunting, or a

man-of-war cruising after a lost water-butt. Topics scarcely in importance

87

equal to what Peter calls “old wives’ fables,” are made great matters of by

those microscopic divines to whom the nicety of a point is more attractive

than the saving of souls. You will have read in Todd’s “Student’s Manual”

that Harcatius, king of Persia, was a notable mole-catcher; and Briantes,

king of Lydia, was equally au fait at filing needles; but these trivialities by

no means prove them to have been great kings: it is much the same in the

ministry, there is such a thing as meanness of mental occupation

unbecoming the rank of an ambassador of heaven.

Among a certain order of minds at this time the Athenian desire of telling

or hearing some new thing appears to be predominant. They boast of new

light, and claim a species of inspiration which warrants them in condemning

all who are out of their brotherhood, and yet their grand revelation relates

to a mere circumstantial of worship, or to an obscure interpretation of

prophecy; so that, at sight of their great fuss and loud cry concerning so

little, we are reminded of

“Ocean into tempest toss’d

To waft a feather or to drown a fly.”

Worse still are those who waste time in insinuating doubts concerning the

authenticity of texts, or the correctness of Biblical statements concerning

natural phenomena. Painfully do I call to mind hearing one Sabbath evening

a deliverance called a sermon, of which the theme was a clever inquiry as

to whether an angel did actually descend, and stir the pool at Bethesda, or

whether it was an intermitting spring, concerning which Jewish superstition

had invented a legend. Dying men and women were assembled to hear the

way of salvation, and they were put off with such vanity as this! They came

for bread, and received a stone; the sheep looked up to the shepherd, and

were not fed. Seldom do I hear a sermon, and when I do I am grievously

unfortunate, for one of the last I was entertained with was intended to be a

justification of Joshua for destroying the Canaanites, and another went to

prove that it was not good for man to be alone. How many souls were

converted in answer to the prayers before these sermons I have never been

able to ascertain, but I shrewdly suspect that no unusual rejoicing disturbed

the serenity of the golden streets.

Believing my next remark to be almost universally unneeded, I bring it

forward with diffidence — do not overload a sermon with too much

matter. All truth is not to be comprised in one discourse. Sermons are not

to be bodies of divinity. There is such a thing as having too much to say,

88

and saying it till hearers are sent home loathing rather than longing. An old

minister walking with a young preacher, pointed to a cornfield, and

observed, “Your last sermon had too much in it, and it was not clear

enough, or sufficiently well-arranged; it was like that field of wheat, it conrained

much crude food, but none fit for use. You should make your

sermons like a loaf of bread, fit for eating, and in convenient form.” It is to

be feared that human heads (speaking phrenologically) are not so capacious

for theology as they once were, for our forefathers rejoiced in sixteen

ounces of divinity, undiluted and unadorned, and could continue receiving

it for three or four hours at a stretch, but our more degenerate, or perhaps

more busy, generation requires about an ounce of doctrine at a time, and

that must be the concentrated extract or essential oil, rather than the entire

substance of divinity. We must in these times say a great deal in a few

words, but not too much, nor with too much amplification. One thought

fixed on the mind will be better than fifty thoughts made to flit across the

ear. One tenpenny nail driven home and clenched will be more useful than a

score of tin-tacks loosely fixed, to be pulled out again in an hour.

Our matter should be well arranged according to the true rules of mental

architecture. Not practical inferences at the basis and doctrines as the

topstones; not metaphors in the foundations, and propositions at the

summit; not the more important truths first and the minor teachings last,

after the manner of an anticlimax; but the thought must climb and ascend;

one stair of teaching leading to another; one door of reasoning conducting

to another, and the whole elevating the hearer to a chamber from whose

windows truth is seen gleaming in the light of God. In preaching, have a

place for everything, and everything in its place. Never suffer truths to fall

from you pell-mell. Do not let your thoughts rush as a mob, but make them

march as a troop of soldiery. Order, which is heaven’s first law, must not

be neglected by heaven’s ambassadors.

Your doctrinal teaching should be clear and unmistakable. To be so it

must first of all be clear to yourself. Some men think in smoke and preach

in a cloud. Your people do not want a luminous haze, but the solid terra

firma of truth. Philosophical speculations put certain minds into a semiintoxicated

condition, in which they either see everything double, or see

nothing at all. The head of a certain college in Oxford was years ago asked

by a stranger what was the motto of the arms of that university. He told

him that it was “Dominus illuminatio mea.” But he also candidly informed

the stranger that, in his private opinion, a motto more appropriate might

89

be, “Aristoteles meoe tenebroe.” Sensational writers have half crazed

many honest men who have conscientiously read their lucubrations out of a

notion that they ought to be abreast of the age, as if such a necessity might

not also require us to attend the theaters in order to be able to judge the

new plays, or frequent the turf that we might not be too bigoted in our

opinions upon racing and gambling. For my part, I believe that the chief

readers of heterodox books are ministers, and that if they would not notice

them they would fall still-born from the press. Let a minister keep clear of

mystifying himself, and then he is on the road to becoming intelligible to his

people. No man can hope to be felt who cannot make himself understood.

If we give our people refined truth, pure Scriptural doctrine, and all so

worded as to have no needless obscurity about it, we shall be true

shepherds of the Sheep, and the profiting of our people will soon be

apparent.

Endeavor to keep the matter of your sermonizing as fresh as you can. Do

not rehearse five or six doctrines with unvarying monotony of repetition.

Buy a theological barrel-organ, brethren, with five tunes accurately

adjusted, and you will be qualified to practice as an ultra-Calvinistic

preacher at Zoar and Jireh, if you also purchase at some vinegar factory a

good supply of bitter, acrid abuse of Arminians, and duty-faith men. Brains

and grace are optional, but the organ and the wormwood are indispensable.

It is ours to perceive and rejoice in a wider range of truth. All that these

good men hold of grace and sovereignty we maintain as firmly and boldly

as they; but, we dare not shut our eyes to other teachings of the word, and

we feel bound to make full proof of our ministry, by declaring the whole

counsel of God. With abundant themes diligently illustrated by fresh

metaphors and experiences, we shall not weary, but, under God’s hand,

shall win our hearers’ ears and hearts.

Let your teachings grow and advance ; let them deepen with your

experience, and rise with your soul-progress. I do not mean preach new

truths; for, on the contrary, I hold that man happy who is so well taught

from the first that, after fifty years of ministry, he has never had to recant a

doctrine or to mourn an important omission; but I mean, let our depth and

insight continually increase, and where there is spiritual advance it will be

so. Timothy could not preach like Paul. Our earlier productions must be

surpassed by those of our riper years; we must never make these our

models; they will be best burned, or only preserved to be mourned over

because of their superficial character. It were ill, indeed, if we knew no

90

more after being many years in Christ’s school; our progress may be slow

but progress there must be, or there will be cause to suspect that the inner

life is lacking or sadly unhealthy. Set it before you as most certain that you

have not yet attained, and may grace be given you to press forward

towards that which is yet beyond. May you all become able ministers of the

New Testament, and not a whit behind the very chief of preachers, though

in yourselves you will still be nothing.

The word “sermon” is said to signify a thrust, and, therefore, in

sermonizing it must be our aim to use the subject in hand with energy and

effect, and the subject must be capable of such employment. To choose

mere moral themes will be to use a wooden dagger; but the great truths of

revelation are as sharp swords. Keep to doctrines which stir the conscience

and the heart. Remain unwaveringly the champions of a soul-winning

gospel. God’s truth is adapted to man, and God’s grace adapts man to it.

There is a key which, under God, can wind up the musical box of man’s

nature; get it, and use it daily. Hence I urge you to keep to the oldfashioned

gospel, and to that only, for assuredly it is the power of God

unto salvation.

Of all I would wish to say this is the sum; my brethren, preach CHRIST,

always and evermore. He is the whole gospel. His person, offices, and

work must be our one great, all-comprehending theme. The world needs

still to be told of its Savior, and of the way to reach him. Justification by

faith should be far more than it is the daily testimony of Protestant pulpits;

and if with this master-truth there should be more generally associated the

other great doctrines of grace, the better for our churches and our age. If

with the zeal of Methodists we can preach the doctrine of Puritans a great;

future is before us. The fire of Wesley, and the fuel of Whitfield, will cause

a burning which shall set the forests of error on fire, and warm the very

soul of this cold earth. We are not called to proclaim philosophy and

metaphysics, but the simple gospel. Man’s fall, his need of a new birth,

forgiveness through an atonement, and salvation as the result of faith, these

are our battle-ax and weapons of war. We have enough to do to learn and

teach these great truths, and accursed be that learning which shall divert us

from our mission, or that willful ignorance which shall cripple us in its

pursuit. More and more am I jealous lest any views upon prophecy, church

government, politics, or even systematic theology, should withdraw one of

us from glorying in the cross of Christ. Salvation is a theme for which I

would fain enlist every holy tongue. I am greedy after witnesses for the

91

glorious gospel of the blessed God. O that Christ crucified were the

universal burden of men of God. Your guess at the number of the beast,

your Napoleonic speculations, your conjectures concerning a personal

Antichrist — forgive me, I count them but mere bones for dogs, while men

are dying, and hell is filling, it seems to me the veriest drivel to be

muttering about an Armageddon at Sebastopol or Sadowa or Sedan, and

peeping between the folded leaves of destiny to discover the fate of

Germany. Blessed are they who read and hear the words of the prophecy

of the Revelation, but the like blessing has evidently not fallen on those

who pretend to expound it; for generation after generation of them have

been proved to be in error by the mere lapse of time, and the present race

will follow to the same inglorious sepulcher. I would sooner pluck one

single brand from the burning than explain all mysteries. To win a soul

from going down into the pit is a more glorious achievement than to be

crowned in the arena of theological controversy as Doctor

Sufficientissimus; to have faithfully unveiled the glory of God in the face of

Jesus Christ will be in the final judgment accounted worthier service than

to have solved the problems of the religious Sphinx, or to have cut the

Gordian knot of apocalyptic difficulty. Blessed is that ministry of which

CHRIST IS ALL.

92

LECTURE 6.

ON THE CHOICE OF THE TEXT.

I TRUST, my brethren, that we all feel very deeply the importance of

conducting every part of divine worship with the utmost possible

efficiency. When we remember that the salvation of a soul may hang,

instrumentally, upon the choice of a hymn, we should not consider so small

a matter as the selection of the psalms and hymns to be a trifle. An ungodly

stranger, stepping into one of our services at Exeter Hall, was brought to

the cross by the work of Wesley’s verse. — “Jesu, lover of my soul.”

“Does Jesus love me?” said he: “then why should I live in enmity to him?”

When we reflect, too, that God may very especially bless an expression in

our prayer to the conversion of a wanderer; and that prayer in the unction

of the Holy Spirit, may minister greatly to the edification of God’s people,

and bring unnumbered blessings down upon them, we shall endeavor to

pray with the best gift and the highest grace within our reach. Since, also,

in the reading of the Scriptures comfort and instruction may be plenteously

distributed, we shall pause over our opened Bibles, and devoutly seek to be

guided to that portion of Holy Writ which shall be most likely to be made

useful.

With regard to the sermon, we shall be most anxious, first of all, respecting

the selection of the text. No one amongst us looks upon the sermon in so

careless a light as to conceive that a text picked up at random will be

suitable for every, or indeed, for any occasion. We are not all of Sydney

Smith’s mind, when he recommended a brother at a loss for a text, to

preach from “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamires, and the dwellers in

Mesopotamia;” as though anything would do for a sermon. I hope we all

make it a matter of very earnest and serious consideration, every week,

what shall be the subjects upon which we shall address our people on the

Sabbath morning and evening; for, although all Scripture is good and

profitable, yet it is. not all equally appropriate for every occasion? F13 To

everything there is a season; and everything is the better for being

seasonable. A wise householder labors to give to each one of the family his

portion of meat in due season; he does not serve out rations

93

indiscriminately, but suits the viands to the needs of the guests. Only a

mere official, the slave of routine, the lifeless automaton of formalism, will

be content to snatch at the first subject which comes to hand. The man who

plucks topics as children in the meadows gather buttercups and daisies, just

as they offer themselves, may act in accordance with his position in a

church into which a patron may have thrust him, and out of which the

people cannot eject him; but those who profess to be called of God, and

selected to their positions by the free choice of believers, will need to make

fuller proof of their ministry than can be found in such carelessness. Among

many gems we have to select the jewel most appropriate for the setting of

the occasion. We dare not rush into the King’s banquet hall with a

confusion of provisions as though the entertainment were to be a vulgar

scramble, but as well-mannered servitors we pause and ask the great

Master of the feast, “Lord, what wouldst thou have us set upon thy table

this day?”

Some texts have struck us as most unhappily chosen. We wonder what Mr.

Disraeli’s rector did with the words, “In my flesh shall I see God,” when

lately preaching at a village harvest home! Exceedingly unfortunate was the

funeral text for a murdered clergyman (Mr. Plow), from, “So he giveth his

beloved sleep.” Most manifestly idiotic was he who selected “Judge not,

that ye be not judged,” for a sermon before the judges at an assize.

Do not be misled by the sound and seeming fitness of scriptural words. M.

Athanase Coquerel confesses to having preached on a third visit to

Amsterdam, from the words, “This is the third time I am coming to you,” 2

Corinthians 13:1 — well may he add, that he “found great difficulty in

afterwards putting into this discourse what was fitting to the occasion.” A

parallel case was that of one of the sermons on the death of the Princess

Charlotte from, “She was sick and died.” It is still worse to select words

out of a miserable facetiousness, as in the case of a recent sermon on the

death of Abraham Lincoln, from the sentence, “Abraham is dead.” It is said

that a student, who it is to be hoped never emerged from the shell,

preached a sermon in public, before his tutor, Dr. Philip Doddridge. Now

the good man was accustomed to place himself immediately in front of the

student, and look him full in the face, judge therefore of his surprise, if not

indignation, when the text announced ran in these words, “Have I been so

long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?” Gentlemen,

fools sometimes become students, let us hope none of that order may

dishonor our Alma Mater. I pardon the man who preached before that

94

drunken Solomon, James I of England and 6 of Scotland, from James 1:6,

the temptation was too great to be resisted; but let the wretch be for ever

execrated, if such a man ever lived, who celebrated, the decease of a

deacon by a tirade from, “It came to pass that the beggar died.” I forgive

the liar who attributed such an outrage to me, but I hope he will not try his

infamous arts upon any one else.

As we would avoid a careless accidental pitching upon topics, so would we

equally avoid a monotonous regularity. I have heard of a divine who had

fifty-two Sunday sermons, and a few extra ones for holy days, from which

he was wont to preach in regular order, year after year. In his case, there

would be no need that the people should entreat that the same things

should be spoken to them on the next Sabbath-day, nor would there be

much wonder if imitators of Eutychus should be found in other places

beside the third loft. It is not very long ago since a clergyman said to a

farmer friend of mine, “Do you know, Mr. D — I was turning over my

sermons the other day, and really the parsonage is so damp, especially in

my study, that my sermons have become quite musty.” My friend, who

although he was churchwarden, attended a Dissenting place of worship,

was not so rude as to say that he thought it very likely; but as the village

venerables had frequently heard the aforesaid discourses, it is possible they

were musty in more senses than one. There are persons in the ministry

who, having accumulated a little stock of sermons, repeat them ad

nauseam, with horrible regularity. Itinerating brethren must be far more

subject to this temptation than those who are stationed for several years in

one place. If they fall victims to the habit, it must surely be the end of their

usefulness, and send an intolerable death-chill into their hearts, of which

their people must soon be conscious while they hear them parroting forth

their time-worn productions. The very best invention for promoting

spiritual idleness must be the plan of acquiring a two or three years’ stock

of sermons, and repeating them in order again and again. As we, my

brethren, hope to live for many years, if not for life in one place, rooted to

the spot by the mutual affection which will grow up between ourselves and

our people, we have need of a far different method from that which may

suit a sluggard or an itinerant evangelist.

It must be burdensome to some, and very easy to others, I should imagine,

to find their subject, as they do whose lot is cast in the Episcopal

establishment, where the preacher usually refers to the gospel or the

epistle, or the lesson for the day, and feels himself bound — not by any

95

law, but by a sort of precedent — to preach from a verse in either the one

or the other. When Advent and Epiphany, and Lent and Whitsuntide, bring

their stereotyped round, no man needs to agonize at heart over the

question, “What shall I say unto this people?” The voice of the church is

clear and distinct, “Master, say on; there is your work, give yourself wholly

to it.” There may be some advantages connected with this prearrangement,

but the Episcopalian public do not appear to have been made

partakers of them, for their public writers are always groaning over the

dreariness of sermons, and bemoaning the sad condition of a longsuffering

laity who are compelled to listen to them. The slavish habit of following the

course of the sun and the revolution of the months, instead of waiting upon

the Holy Spirit is, to my mind, quite enough to account for the fact that in

many churches, their own writers being judges, the sermons are nothing

better than specimens of “that decent debility which alike guards their

authors from ludicrous errors, and precludes them from striking beauties.”

Be it then taken for granted, that we all feel it to be most important, not

only to preach the truth, but to preach the right truth for each particular

occasion; our effort will be to descant upon such subjects as shall be best

adapted to our people’s wants, and most likely to prove a channel of grace

to their hearts.

Is there any difficulty in obtaining texts? I remember, in my earlier days,

reading somewhere in a volume of lectures upon Homiletics, a statement

which considerably alarmed me at the time; it was something to this effect:

“If any man shall find a difficulty in selecting a text, he had better at once

go back to the grocer’s shop, or to the plough, for he evidently has not the

capacity required for a minister.” Now, as such had been very frequently

my cross and burden, I inquired within myself whether I should resort to

some form of secular labor, and leave the ministry; but I have not done so,

for I still have the conviction that, although condemned by the sweeping

judgment of the lecturer, I follow a call to which God has manifestly set his

seal. I was so much in trouble of conscience through the aforesaid severe

remark, that I asked my grandfather, who had been in the ministry some

fifty years, whether he was ever perplexed in choosing his theme. He told

me frankly that this had always been his greatest trouble, compared with

which, preaching in itself was no anxiety at all. I remember the venerable

man’s remark, “The difficulty is not because there are not enough texts, but

because there are so many, that I am in a strait betwixt them.” Brethren,

we are sometimes like the lover of choice flowers, who finds himself

96

surrounded by all the beauties of the garden, with permission to select but

one. How long he lingers between the rose and the lily, and how great the

difficulty to prefer one among ten thousand blooming lovelinesses! To me

still, I must confess, my text selection is a very great embarrassment —

embarras de richesses, as the French say — an embarrassment of riches,

very different from the bewilderment of poverty — the anxiety of attending

to the most pressing of so many truths, all clamoring for a hearing, so many

duties all needing enforcing, and so many spiritual needs of the people all

demanding supply. I confess that I frequently sit hour after hour praying

and waiting for a subject, and that this is the main part of my study; much

hard labor have I spent in manipulating topics, ruminating upon points of

doctrine, making skeletons out of verses and then burying every bone of

them in the catacombs of oblivion, sailing on and on over leagues of

broken water, till I see the red lights and make sail direct to the desired

haven. I believe that almost any Saturday in my life I make enough outlines

of sermons, if I felt at liberty to preach them, to last me for a month, but I

no more dare to use them than an honest mariner would run to shore a

cargo of contraband goods. Themes flit before the mind one after another,

like images passing across the photographer’s lens, but until the mind is

like the sensitive plate, which retains the picture, the subjects are valueless

to us.

What is the right text? How do you know it? We know it by the signs of a

friend. When a verse gives your mind a hearty grip, from which you cannot

release yourself, you will need no further direction as to your proper

theme. Like the fish, you nibble at many baits, but when the hook has fairly

pierced you, you will wander no more. When the text gets a hold of us, we

may be sure that we have a hold of it, and may safely deliver our souls

upon it. To use another simile: you get a number of texts in your hand, and

try to break them up; you hammer at them with might and main, but your

labor is lost; at last you find one which crumbles at the first blow, and

sparkles as it falls in pieces, and you perceive jewels of the rarest radiance

flashing from within. It grows before your eye like the fabled seed which

developed into a tree while the observer watched it. It charms and

fascinates you, or it weighs you to your knees and loads you with the

burden of the Lord. Know then that this is the message which the Lord

would have you deliver; and, feeling this, you will become so bound by that

scripture that you will never feel at rest until you have yielded your whole

mind to its power, and have spoken upon it as the Lord shall give you

97

utterance. Wait for that elect word, even if you wait till within an hour of

the service. This may not be understood by cool, calculating men, who are

not moved by impulses as we are, but to some of us these things are a law

in our hearts against which we dare not offend. We tarry at Jerusalem till

power is given.

“I believe in the Holy Ghost.” This is one of the articles of the creed, but it

is scarcely believed among professors so as to be acted on. Many ministers

appear to think that they are to choose the text; they are to discover its

teaching; they are to find a discourse in it. We do not think so. We are to

use our own volitions, of course, as well as our understandings and

affections, for we do not pretend that the Holy Ghost will compel us to

preach from a text against our wills. He does not deal with us as though we

were musical boxes, to be wound up and set to a certain tune; but that

glorious inspirer of all truth deals with us as with rational intelligences,

who are swayed by spiritual forces congruous to our natures: still, devout

minds evermore desire that the choice of the text should rest with the allwise

Spirit of God, and not with their own fallible understandings, and

therefore they humbly put themselves into his hand, asking him to

condescend to direct them to the portion of meat in due season which he

has ordained for his people. Gurnal says, “Ministers have no ability of their

own for their work. Oh! how long may they sit tumbling their books over,

and puzzling their brains, until God comes to their help, and then — as

Jacob’s venison — it is brought to their hand. If God drop not down his

assistance, we write with a pen that hath no ink: if any one need walk

dependently upon God more than another, the minister is he.”

If any one inquire of me, “How shall I obtain the most proper text?” I

should answer, “Cry to God for it.” Harrington Evans, in his “Rules for

Sermons,” lay’s down as the first, “Seek God in prayer for choice of a

passage. Inquire why such a passage is decided upon. Let the question be

fairly answered. Sometimes the answer may be such as ought to decide the

mind against the choice.” If prayer alone should not guide you to the

desired treasure, it will in any case be a profitable exercise to you to have

prayed. The difficulty of settling upon a topic, if it makes you pray more

than usual, will be a very great blessing to you. Praying is the best

studying. Luther said so of old — “Bene orasse est bene studuisse,” and

the well-worn proverb will bear repeating. Pray over the Scripture; it is as

the treading of grapes in the wine-vat, the threshing of corn on the barn

floor, the melting of gold from the ore. Prayer is twice blest; it blesseth the

98

pleading preacher, and the people to whom he ministers. When your text

comes in answer to prayer, it will be all the dearer to you; it will come with

a divine savor and unction altogether unknown to the formal orator to

whom one theme is as another.

After prayer, we are bound with much earnestness to use fitting means for

concentrating our thoughts, and directing them in the best channel.

Consider the condition of your hearers. Reflect upon their spiritual state as

a whole and as individuals, and prescribe the medicine adapted to the

current disease, or prepare the food suitable for the prevailing necessity.

Let me caution you, however, against considering the whims of your

hearers, or the peculiarities of the wealthy and influential. Do not give too

much weight to the gentleman and lady who sit in the green pew, if you are

so unfortunate as to possess such an abominable place of distinction in a

house where all are on a level. Let the large contributor be considered by

all means as much as others, and let not his spiritual infirmities be

neglected; but he is not everybody, and you will grieve the Holy Spirit if

you think him to be so. Look at the poor in the aisles with equal interest,

and select topics which are within their range of thought, and which may

cheer them in their many sorrows. Do not suffer your heads to be turned by

respect to those one-sided members of the congregation, who have a sweet

tooth for one portion of the gospel, and turn a deaf ear to other parts of

truth; never go out of your way either to give them a feast or a scolding. It

may be satisfactory to think that they are pleased, if they are good people,

and one respects their predilections, but faithfulness demands that we

should not become mere pipers to our hearers, playing such tunes as they

may demand of us, but should remain as the Lord’s mouth to declare all his

counsels. I return to the remark, think over what your people really want

for their edification and let that be your theme. That famous apostle of the

north of Scotland, Dr. Macdonald, gives an instance to the point in his

“Diary of Work in St. Kilda:” — “Friday, May 27. At our morning exercise

this day, I read and gave some illustrations of Romans 12, which afforded

me an opportunity of stating the connection between faith and practice, and

that the doctrines of grace are according to godliness, and lead to holiness

in heart and life. This I deemed necessary, as from the high ground I had

occupied for some days past, I was afraid the people might veer towards

Antinomianism, an extreme as dangerous as Arminianism, if not more so.”

Consider what sins appear to be most rife in the church and congregation

— worldliness, covetousness, prayerlessness, wrath, pride, want of

99

brotherly love, slander, and such like evils. Take into account,

affectionately, the trials of your people, and seek for a balm for their

wounds. It is not necessary to go into minute details, either in the prayer or

in the sermon, as to all these trials of your congregation, although this was

the custom of a venerable minister who was once a great bishop in this

neighborhood, and has now gone to heaven. He was wont, in his abundant

love to his people, to give such hints as to births, deaths, and marriages, in

his flock, that one of the Sunday afternoon’s enjoyments of his constant

hearers must have consisted in finding out to whom the minister referred in

the various parts of his prayer and sermon. This was tolerated, and even

admired from him — from us it would be ridiculous: a patriarch may do

with propriety what a young man must scrupulously avoid. The venerable

divine whom I have just mentioned, had learned this particularizing from

the example of his father, for he was one of a family in which the children,

having observed that something particular had occurred during the day,

would say to each other, “We must wait till family prayer, when we shall

know all about it.” But I digress; this instance shows how an excellent

habit may degenerate into a fault, but the rule which I have laid down is not

affected by it. Certain trials will occur, at particular junctures, to many in

the congregation, and as these afflictions will invite your mind into new

fields of thought, you will do ill to be deaf to their call. Again, we must

watch the spiritual state of our people, and if we notice that they are falling

into a backsliding condition; if we fear that they are likely to be inoculated

by any mischievous heresy or perverse imagining; if anything, in fact, in the

whole physiological character of the church should strike our mind, we

must hasten to prepare a sermon which, by God’s grace, may stay the

plague. These are the indications among his hearers which the Spirit of

God gives to the careful, observant pastor as to his line of action. The

careful shepherd often examines his flock, and governs his mode of

treatment by the state in which he finds it. He will be likely to supply one

sort of food but sparingly, and another in greater abundance, and medicine

in its due quantity, according as his practiced judgment finds the one or the

other necessary.. We shall be rightly directed if we do but associate

ourselves with “that great Shepherd of the sheep.”

Do not, however, let us allow our preaching right home to our people to

degenerate into scolding them. They call the pulpit “Coward’s Castle,” and

it is a very proper name for it in some respects, especially when fools

mount the platform and impudently insult their hearers by holding up their

100

faults or infirmities to public derision. There is a personality — an

offensive, wanton, unjustifiable personality — which is to be studiously

avoided; it is of the earth, earthy, and is to be condemned in unmeasured

terms; while there is another personality, wise, spiritual, heavenly, which is

to be aimed at unceasingly. The word of God is sharper than any twoedged

sword, and therefore you can leave the word of God to wound and

kill, and need not be yourselves cutting in phrase and manner. God’s truth

is searching: leave it to search the hearts of men without offensive

additions from yourself. He is a mere bungler in portrait painting who

needs to write the name under the picture when it is hung up in the family

parlor where the person himself is sitting. Compel your hearers to perceive

that you speak of them, though you have not even in the remotest degree

named them, or pointed them out. Occasions may possibly occur when you

may be bound to go as far as Hugh Latimer, when speaking upon bribery

— he said, “He that took the silver basin and ewer for a bribe, thinketh that

it will never come out. But he may not know that I know it, and I know it

not alone; there be more beside me that know it. Oh, briber and bribery! He

was never a good man that will so take bribes; nor can I believe that he that

is a briber will be a good justice.” Here was as much prudent reticence as

bold disclosure; and if you go no further than this, no man dare, for shame

sake, accuse you of too great personality.

In the next place, the minister in looking after his text, should consider

what his previous topics have been. It would be unwise to insist

perpetually upon one doctrine to the neglect of others. Some of our

profounder brethren may be able to deal with the same subject in a series of

discourses, and may be able, by a turn of the kaleidoscope, to present new

forms of beauty with no change of subject, but the most of us, who are of

less fertile abilities, will find it best, to study variety, and deliver ourselves

upon a wide range of truth. I think it well frequently to look over the list of

my sermons, and see whether any doctrine has escaped my attention, or

any Christian grace has been neglected in my ministrations. It is well to

inquire whether we have been too doctrinal lately, or too barely practical,

or too exclusively experimental. We do not desire to degenerate into

Antinomians, nor, on the other hand, to descend to be mere teachers of a

cold morality, but our ambition is to make full proof of our ministry. We

would give every portion of Scripture its fair share in our heart and head.

Doctrine, precept, history, type, psalm, proverb, experience, warning,

promise, invitation, threatening, or rebuke — we would include the whole

101

of inspired truth within the circle of our teachings. Let us abhor all onesidedness,

all exaggeration of one truth and disparagement of another, and

let us endeavor to paint the portrait of truth with balanced features and

blended colors, lest we dishonor her by presenting distortion instead of

symmetry, and a caricature for a faithful copy.

Supposing, however, that you have prayed in that little room of yours,

have wrestled hard and supplicated long, and have thought over your

people and their wants, and still you cannot meet with the text — well, do

not fret about it, nor give way to despair. If you were about to go a

warfare at your own charges, it would be a very miserable thing to be short

of powder, and the battle so near; but as your Captain has to provide, there

is no doubt that all in good time he will serve out the ammunition. If you

trust in God, he will not, he cannot, fail you. Continue pleading and

watching, for to the industrious student heavenly help is certain. If you had

gone up and down idly all the week, and given no heed to proper

preparation, you could not expect divine aid; but if you have done your

best, and are now waiting to know your Lord’s message, your face shall

never be ashamed.

Two or three incidents have occurred to me which may seem rather odd to

you, but then I am an odd man. When I lived at Cambridge, I had, as usual,

to preach in the evening at a neighboring village, to which I had to walk.

After reading and meditating all day, I could not meet with the right text.

Do what I would, no response came from the sacred oracle, no light

flashed from the Urim and Thummim; I prayed, I meditated, I turned from

one verse to another, but the mind would not take hold, or I was, as

Bunyan would say, “much tumbled up and down in my thoughts.” Just then

I walked to the window and looked out. On the other side of the narrow

street in which I lived, I saw a poor solitary canary bird upon the slates,

surrounded by a crowd of sparrows, who were all pecking at it as if they

would tear it to pieces. At that moment the verse came to my mind —

“Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are

against her.” I walked off with the greatest possible composure, considered

the passage during my long and lonely walk, and preached upon the

peculiar people, and the persecutions of their enemies, with freedom and

ease to myself, and I believe with comfort to my rustic audience. The text

was sent to me, and if the ravens did not bring it, certainly the sparrows

did. At another time, while laboring at Waterbeach, I had preached on the

Sunday morning, and gone home to dinner, as was my wont, with one of

102

the congregation. Unfortunately, there were three services, and the

afternoon sermon came so close upon the back of the morning, that it was

difficult to prepare the soul, especially as the dinner is a necessary but

serious inconvenience where a clear brain is required. Alas! for those

afternoon services in our English villages, they are usually a doleful waste

of effort. Roast beef and pudding lie heavy on the hearers’ souls, and the

preacher himself is deadened in his mental processes while digestion claims

the mastery of the hour. By a careful measuring of diet, I remained, on that

occasion, in an earnest, lively condition, but to my dismay, I found that the

pre-arranged line of thought was gone from me. I could not find the trail of

my prepared sermon, and press my forehead as I might, the missing topic

would not come. Time was brief, the hour was striking, and in some alarm

I told the honest farmer that I could not for rite life of me recollect what I

had intended to preach about. “Oh!” he said, “never mind; you will be sure

to have a good word for us.” Just at that moment a blazing block of wood

fell out of the fire upon the hearth at my feet, smoking into one’s eyes and

nose at a great rate. “There,” said the farmer, “there’s a text for you sir —

‘Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’” No, I thought, it was not

plucked out, for it fell out of itself. Here was a text, an illustration, and a

leading thought as a nest egg for more. Further light came, and the sermon

was certainly not worse than my more prepared effusions; it was better in

the best sense, for one or two came forward declaring themselves to have

been aroused and converted through that afternoon’s sermon. I have

always considered that it was a happy circumstance that I had forgotten the

text from which I had intended to preach. At New Park Street, I once

passed through a very singular experience, of which witnesses are present

in this room. I had passed happily through all the early parts of divine

service in the evening of the Sabbath, and was giving out the hymn before

sermon. I opened the Bible to find the text, which I had carefully studied as

the topic of discourse, when on the opposite page another passage of

Scripture sprang upon me like a lion from a thicket, with vastly more

power than I had felt when considering the text which I had chosen. The

people were singing and I was sighing. I was in a strait betwixt two, and

my mind hung as in the balances. I was naturally desirous to run in the

track which I had carefully planned, but the other text would take no

refusal, and seemed to tug at my skirts, crying, “No, no, you must preach

from me. God would have you follow me.” I deliberated within myself as

to my duty, for I would neither be fanatical nor unbelieving, and at last I

thought within myself, “Well, I should like to preach the sermon which I

103

have prepared, and it is a great risk to run to strike out a new line of

thought, but still as this text constrains me, it may be of the Lord, and

therefore I will venture upon it, come what may.” I almost always

announce my divisions very soon after the exordium, but on this occasion,

contrary to my usual custom, I did not do so, for a reason which some of

you may probably guess. I passed through the first head with considerable

liberty, speaking perfectly extemporaneously both as to thought and word.

The second point was dwelt upon with a consciousness of unusual quiet

efficient power, but I had no idea what the third would or could be, for the

text yielded no more matter just then, nor can I tell even now what I could

have done had not an event occurred upon which I had never calculated. I

had brought myself into great difficulty by obeying what I thought to be a

divine impulse, and I felt comparatively easy about it, believing that God

would help me, and knowing that I could at least close the service should

there be nothing more to be said. I had no need to deliberate, for in one

moment we were in total darkness — the gas had gone out, and as the

aisles were choked with people, and the place everywhere crowded, it was

a great peril, but a great blessing. What was I to do then? The people were

a little frightened, but I quieted them instantly by telling them not to be at

all alarmed, though the gas was out, for it would soon be re-lighted; and as

for myself, having no manuscript, I could speak just as well in the dark as

in the light, if they would be so good as to sit and listen. Had my discourse

been ever so elaborate, it would have been absurd to have continued it, and

so as my plight was, I was all the less embarrassed. I turned at once

mentally to the well-known text which speaks of the child of light walking

in darkness, and the child of darkness walking in the light, and found

appropriate remarks and illustrations pouring in upon me, and when the

lamps were again lit, I saw before me an audience as rapt and subdued as

ever a man beheld in his life. The odd thing of all was, that some few

church-meetings afterwards, two persons came forward to make

confession of their faith, who professed to have been converted that

evening; but the first owed her conversion to the former part of the

discourse, which was on the new text that came to me and the other traced

his awakening to the latter part, which was occasioned by the sudden

darkness. Thus, you see, Providence befriended me. I cast myself upon

God, and his arrangements quenched the light at the proper time for me.

Some may ridicule, but I adore; others may even censure, but I rejoice.

Anything is better than mechanical sermonizing, in which the direction of

the Spirit is practically ignored. Every Holy Ghost preacher, I have no

104

doubt, will have such recollections clustering around his ministry. I say,

therefore, watch the course of Providence; cast yourselves upon the Lord’s

guidance and help. If you have solemnly done your best to get a text, and

the subject does not start up before you, go up into the pulpit firmly

convinced that you will receive a message when the time comes, even

though you have not a word at that moment.

In the life of Samuel Drew, a famous Methodist preacher, we read, “Whilst

stopping at a friend’s house, in Cornwall, after preaching, a person who

had attended the service, observing to him, that he had, on that occasion,

surpassed his usual ability; and other individuals concurring in the opinion,

Mr. Drew said, ‘If it be true, it is the more singular, because my sermon

was entirely unpremeditated. I went into the pulpit designing to address

you from another text, but looking upon the Bible, which lay open, that

passage from which you heard me speak just now, ‘Prepare to meet thy

God, O Israel,’ arrested my attention so forcibly as to put to flight my

former ideas; and though I had never considered the passage before, I

resolved instantly to make it the subject of my discourse.” Mr. Drew did

well to be obedient to the heavenly direction.

Under certain circumstances you will be absolutely compelled to cast away

the well-studied discourse, and rely upon the present help of the Holy

Spirit, using purely extempore speech. You may find yourself in the

position of the late Kingman Nott, when preaching in the National Theater,

New York. In one of his letters, he: says, “The building was filled full, and

mostly with young men and boys of the roughest type. I went with a

sermon in my mind, but; as soon as I came upon the stage, greeted with a

‘Hi! hi!’ and saw the motley and uproarious crowd I had to do with, I let

all thoughts of the sermon go, and catching up the parable of the Prodigal

Son, tried to interest them in that, and succeeded in keeping most of them

inside the house, and tolerably attentive.” What a simpleton would he have

been had he persevered in his unsuitable prelection! Brethren, I beseech

you, believe in the Holy Ghost, and practically carry out your faith.

As a further assistance to a poor stranded preacher, who cannot launch his

mind for want of a wave or two of thought, I recommend him in such a

case, to turn again and again to the Word of God itself, and read a

chapter, and ponder over its verses one by one; or let him select a single

verse, and get his mind fully exercised upon it. It may be that he will not

find his text in the verse or chapter which he reads, but the right word will

105

come to him through his mind being actively engaged upon holy subjects.

According to the relation of thoughts to each other, one thought will

suggest another, and another, until a long procession will have passed

before the mind, out of which one or other will be the predestined theme.

Read also good suggestive books, and get your mind aroused by them. If

men wish to get water out of a pump which has not been lately used, they