Chapter 2.

CHAPTER 2.

The portrait of false apostles.

BETWEEN the state of careless ministers, and that of false apostles, there is not, in reality, so vast a difference as many are apt to imagine. An unworthy labourer in the spiritual vineyard gives speedy proofs of a lukewarm temper in the service of his Lord; shortly after his heart becomes entirely cold with respect to piety; and what is still more lamentable, he frequently manifests as warm a zeal for error and vice as the true minister can possibly discover in the cause of truth and virtue. Such is the state of those who may properly be termed preachers of the third class, and who are spoken of by St. Paul under the title of “false apostles,” 2 Corinthians 11:13.

These unworthy ministers are known by their works. Like many of St. Paul’s unfaithful fellow labourers, 2 Timothy 1:15, they prefer the repose and pleasure of the world before the service and reproach of Christ. Like Judas and Simon the sorcerer, they love the honours and revenues of ministers, while they abhor the crosses and labours of the ministry. Like Hophni and Phinehas, they are sons of Belial, and know not the Lord. Their sin is very great before the Lord. For, on their account, many “abhor the offering of the Lord,” 1 Samuel 2:12, 17. Like the wicked servant, described by their reputed Master, instead of providing “meat for his household in due season, they begin to smite,” or to persecute those of their fellow servants who are intent upon discharging their several duties; while they pass away their time in mirth and festivity with the riotous and the drunken, Matthew 24:48, 49. They may justly be compared to lamps extinguished in the temple of God. “Instead of shining there to his praise,” says Bishop Massilion, “they emit black clouds of smoke which obscure every object about them, and become a savour of death to those who perish. They are pillars of the sanctuary, which, being overthrown and scattered in public places, become stones of stumbling to every heedless passenger. They are the salt of the earth, and were appointed to preserve souls from corruption But having lost all their savour, they begin to corrupt what they were intended to preserve.” They are physicians who carry to their patients infection instead of health. From the spiritually diseased they withhold the healing word of God, Psalm 107:20, while they distribute among them the dangerous poison of a lax morality, setting before them an example of bitter zeal against the truth, puffing them up with that wisdom which is “earthly, sensual, and devilish,” James 3:14, 15.

“A false pastor,” says Mons. Roques, or a false apostle, “is a minister whose heart is not right before God, and who lives not in such a manner as to edify his flock. He knows the holy course of life to which Christians in general, and ministers in particular, are called; but in spite of all his knowledge and his apparent zeal, he fears not to trample under foot those very maxims of the Gospel which he has publicly established and preached with the utmost energy. Every day he performs acts of the most detestable hypocrisy. Every time he preaches and censures, he bears open testimony against his own conduct. But he publicly accuses, without ever intending to correct himself. He is a constant declaimer against vice in the pulpit; but a peculiar protector of it while he is engaged in the common concerns of life. While he exhorts his hearers to repentance, he either imagines himself above those laws which he proposes to others on the part of God; or he believes himself under no other necessity of holding them forth, except his own engagements to such a work, and the salary he receives for the performance of it.”

Mons. Ostervald, in a work already referred to, makes mention of these pastors in the following terms: “How many do we see who regard their holy vocation in no other light than the means of procuring for them a comfortable maintenance. Are there not many who bring a scandal upon their profession by the licentiousness of their manners? Do we not see them hasty and outrageous? Do we not observe in them an extreme attachment to their own interests? Are they careful to rule their families well? Has it not been a subject of complaint, that they are puffed up with pride, and are implacable in their hatred? I say nothing of many other vices and defects which are equally scandalous in the clergy, such as vain and loose conversation, an attachment to diversion and pleasure, a worldly disposition, slothfulness, craft, injustice, and slander.” “It is impossible to find a person,” adds Mons. Ostervald, “surrounded with more powerful motives to piety, than a man whose ordinary occupation is to meditate upon religious things, to discourse of them among others, to reprove vice and hypocrisy, to perform Divine service, to administer the holy sacraments, to visit the afflicted and the dying; and who must one day render to God an account of the souls committed to his charge. I know not whether it be possible to find any stronger marks of impiety and hypocrisy than those which may be discovered in the character of a person, who, in the midst of all these favourable circumstances, is, nevertheless, an unrighteous man. Such a one may be said to divert himself with the most sacred things of religion, and to spend the whole of his life in performing the part of an impostor. And this he does to his cost; since there is no profession in the world that will more effectually secure a sentence of condemnation than that of the priesthood, when exercised in so unfaithful a manner.”

But it is chiefly in the Holy Scriptures where these unworthy pastors are portrayed in so strong a point of view, that every attentive inquirer may readily discern their distinguishing features. “Son of man,” saith the Lord, “prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, and say unto them: Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed; but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost: but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand,” Ezekiel 34:2, 10. “As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith,” 2 Timothy 3:8. “Wo unto them; for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gain-saying of Korah. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever,” Jude 1:11, 12.

St. John has not only drawn the character; but has likewise given us the name of a certain tyrannical teacher, who began to disturb the peace of the primitive church: “I wrote unto the Church,” saith he to Gaius, concerning the reception of stranger evangelists; but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not. If I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words. And not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the Church,” 3 John. Behold a striking description of proud and persecuting ecclesiastics! But, perhaps, the most complete description of these is given by our Lord himself, where he treats of worthless pastors in general, under the particular names of scribes and Pharisees. Here a Divine and impartial hand delineates the jealousy, the pride, the feigned morality, the malice, and the persecuting spirit which characterize this class of men in every age of the world. “Do not ye,” saith Christ, “after their works, for they say, and do not. All their works they do to be seen of men. They love the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. Wo unto you, hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Ye neglect judgment, mercy, and faith. Ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Because ye garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,” ye vainly imagine yourselves free from a persecuting spirit, while in other matters, as “the children of them which killed the prophets,” ye are labouring to “fill up the measure of your fathers. Behold, I send unto you prophets” and zealous preachers of the word, “and some of them ye shall kill, and some of them ye shall persecute from city to city,” Matthew 23:3, 34.

We need take but a cursory view of the New Testament, for sufficient proof that these worldly-minded scribes and these furious bigots above represented, were the very persons who pursued the first evangelists with such deadly rancour. Nay, had it not been for Annas and Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate would silently have permitted the preaching of Jesus himself. These, who were the chief men of the state, after refusing to embrace the word of God, on their own part, would most probably have contented themselves with denying its truths, and ridiculing its followers. But they would never have passed a sentence of death upon persons of so admirable a character as Christ and his forerunner.

The peculiar opposers of Jesus and his disciples were powerfully influenced by jealous pride; and with the same malignant disposition every false apostle in the Christian Church is deeply infected. The prelate, whose pen we have already borrowed, gives the following lively description of this unhappy temper: “This despicable jealousy not only dishonours zeal, but supposes it extinguished in the heart. It is an infamous disposition which afflicts itself even for the conversion of sinners, and for the progress of the Gospel, when it is through the ministry of others that God is pleased to work these miracles. The glory of God seldom interests us so much as when our own glory appears to be mingled with his. We endure, with some kind of regret, that God should be glorified: and I will dare to add, that some of us could behold our brethren perishing, with pleasure, rather than see them rescued from death by other labours, and other talents than our own. St. Paul rejoiced to see the Gospel spread abroad, though it were by the ministry of those who sought to disgrace him among the faithful; and Moses desired that all his brethren might receive the gift of prophecy. But we are anxious to stand alone, and to share with no person the glory and success of the holy ministry. Every thing that eclipses our own brightness, or shines too near us, becomes insupportable, and we appear to regard the gifts of God in others, merely as a shame and reproach to ourselves.” Observe here the true source of those specious pretexts, which are professedly drawn from the order, the customs, and even from the prejudices of the world. Pretexts under which we dare oppose the zeal of our brethren, to withstand the word of God in its course, and to render the cross of the ministry more burthensome to those who carry it farther than we are disposed to do. One distinguishing mark of these turbulent evangelists, is that of being thorns in the sides of true ministers, whom they never fail to represent as deceivers or novices, causing the truest piety to wear the semblance of enthusiasm and folly. “They speak evil of the things they understand not,” 2 Peter 2:12; and by the most malicious discourses, which have always an appearance of zeal for religion and order, they are gradually rousing anew that spirit of persecution, by which the name of Christ has been so universally disgraced in the world. In the earliest age of the Christian Church, these false apostles, swelling with envy at the success of more faithful ministers, made use of every effort to render them contemptible, by giving false representations of their holy zeal, and their exemplary actions. Thus they accused St. Paul of walking “according to the flesh;” and asserted, that though “his letters were weighty and powerful,” yet “his bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible,” 2 Corinthians 10:2, 10. Nay, so anxious were they in seeking occasions for offence in the conduct of this apostle, that he believed himself obliged in the end publicly to expose them. “These are false apostles,” says he, “deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed, as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works,” 2 Corinthians 11:13-15. As our Lord foresaw that these strenuous opposers of real religion would bring his Church to the very brink of ruin, he exhorted his disciples continually to stand upon their guard against them, Matthew 7:15. And the apostles, after steadily following their Master’s important advice, were diligent in transmitting it to the latest of their followers, Acts 20:28, 30; 2 Peter 2:1.

One necessary remark shall conclude this chapter. In the Portrait of St. Paul we have seen that of an evangelical pastor. In the preceding chapter we have marked the character of a careless minister; and in this we behold the faithful representation of a false apostle. Let us remember, that one of these three portraits must agree, more or less, with every preacher of the Gospel. I say more or less, because the various traits here marked out may be varied to an almost inconceivable degree. Moreover, so inconstant is man, that a minister, who to-day is possessed of zeal sufficient to rank him with preachers of the first class, may, to-morrow, by an unhappy remissness, sink into the second, as once did John, whose surname was Mark; or even into the third, as Hymeneus and Philetus, Diotrephes and Demas. On the contrary, a man, who now discovers many of those traits by which Saul the Pharisee was once distinguished, may, ere long, become an humble imitator of the zeal and charity of Paul the apostle.