Trait 21.

TRAIT 21.

His charity toward sinners in offering them every spiritual assistance. TO solicit alms for those who are destitute of food and raiment, and at the same time to withhold the word of God from those “who hunger and thirst after righteousness,” is to manifest an unhappy inconsistency of character. Such inconsistencies, however, are frequently discoverable even among pastors, who pique themselves upon their disposition to works of benevolence and charity.

Man has an immortal soul. This soul, which is properly himself, is rendered, by disobedience, so totally ignorant and completely miserable, that she seeks to enrich herself with the vanities of the world, and to gratify her inclinations with the pollutions of sin. In pity to the soul in this state of wretchedness, the truths of the Gospel are proposed by a compassionate God, as a sacred remedy, adapted to the nature of her innumerable wants: they illumine the blind with spiritual light and knowledge; they clothe the naked with the robe of righteousness; they feed the hungry; they heal the sick; they burst the captive’s bands; they give eternal life to those who are dead in trespasses and sin: in a word, they make us partakers of the great salvation of God, To publish this Gospel, then, or to procure the preaching of it to sinners, is undoubtedly to give them an important proof of the most excellent charity; while, on the other hand, to refuse them the word of God, or to avoid any occasion of administering it, is absolutely or occasionally to deny them those spiritual alms and assistances which the Saviour of the world has appointed for their daily relief. The pastor who acts in this unbecoming manner resembles a physician, or an almoner, who, having received a charge from his prince to supply the poor with food, or the sick with medicine, not only refuses to acquit himself with his acknowledged duty with diligence and impartiality, but strenuously opposes those who endeavour to supply his lack of service. Such a minister seems to maintain a system as absurd and cruel as would be that of either of those characters just alluded to, who should pretend that no one had authority to administer alms to the poor, or medicine to the sick, except such as received pensions from the prince for that purpose; and that even these would act in a disorderly manner, if they should dare to distribute alms or remedies except on the Sabbath day, and then only during particular hours.

So long as any pastor seeks his own glory, so long he will be subject to some degree of that contemptible jealousy, which will not suffer him to behold with pleasure the more abundant and successful labours of his brethren. But the faithful minister of Christ, whose chief desire is the prosperity of the Church, is actuated by a totally different spirit. Though he has a peculiar satisfaction in beholding the success of his own spiritual labours; yet when he hears the Gospel published by others, and even by such as are apparently influenced by unworthy motives, he greatly rejoices in their success. His charity, which neither envies another’s prosperity, nor seeks his own particular advantage, expresses itself; upon so delicate a subject, in the language of St. Paul: “Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, supposing to add affliction to my bonds. What then? notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and I will rejoice,” Philippians 1:15-18.

Influenced by envy, or rendered insensible by their lukewarmness, worldly ministers are absolute strangers to the generous pleasure here mentioned by the apostle; nor have they the least idea of acting in a criminal manner, when they will not permit the truths of the Gospel to be freely declared by all who are disposed to announce them.

The good pastor, by whatever name he may be distinguished, lives only to publish the Gospel, and to convert the souls committed to his charge: to restrain him then from attending to these important labours, is to force him aside from the true end of his calling, and must appear to every enlightened mind a greater act of cruelty, than to withhold the rich from giving alms, or to detain an expert swimmer from saving his drowning brethren. If such a pastor, in any period of his life, has acted like a monopolist of the Gospel, and, by denying to the “poor in spirit,” what was freely given for their support, has caused in any place a “famine of the word;” he believes himself abundantly more culpable than those avaricious merchants, who, by forming a monopoly of grain in the East Indies, caused a grievous famine in that country, by which an innumerable multitude of its inhabitants perished. Those covetous men denied to the bodies of their neighbours a perishable nourishment; but he has withheld from the souls of his brethren that precious manna, which might have preserved them to everlasting life. Such was the crime of those whom our Lord addressed in the following words: “Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them, that are entering, to go in,” Matthew 23:13. Observe St. Paul’s sentiments of such characters. With respect to those Jews, “who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; they please not God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they might be saved,” filling up by this means the measure of their sin: “for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost,” 1 Thessalonians 2:15, 16.

If the character which the apostle here describes was odious in a Jew, without doubt it is more so in a Christian, and still doubly detestable in a minister of the Gospel, whose heart should continually be animated with a fervent desire for the conversion of sinners, and the salvation of all mankind. Were it possible for those who are distinguished by this trait of the character of Antichrist to discover the turpitude of their own conduct, they would acknowledge themselves abundantly more guilty than the robber, who should force away from a famished pauper the morsel of bread he had begged in his distress. They would pronounce, without hesitation, that the foster-mother who neglects the infant she has undertaken to cherish, and prevents her charitable neighbours from affording it any nourishment, is still more excusable than the pastor, who, not content with refusing to feed the flock of Christ, endeavours to scatter his sheep wherever they are found feeding, seeking out accusations against those who have led them to a refreshing pasture, and studying, by every mean, to withdraw the Gospel from those penitent sinners, who, “as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word. that they may grow thereby,” 1 Peter 2:2.

Happy will be the age in which Christian pastors shall no longer be found, like the scribes in the days of St. Paul, labouring to fill up the measure of their iniquities! Then truth and piety shall no longer be restrained by the fetters of prejudice and bigotry! Then the faithful shall worship God, and publish the Gospel, with as much freedom as the dissipated indulge themselves in the sports of the age, or the malevolent in slandering their neighbours!