Chapter 7.

CHAPTER 7.

The same subject continued.

1. WERE it even certain, that professing Christians in general walk according to their holy vocation, would it be commendable in pastors to show less concern for the salvation of Christ’s apparent disciples, than was anciently discovered by St. Paul for the conversion of persecuting heathens? Christians are our brethren. The Church, our common mother, has nourished us with the same spiritual milk, and calls us to a participation of the same heavenly inheritance. Christians are no more strangers; and even those who are bad citizens, and unfaithful domestics, are, nevertheless, in some sense citizens of the same city with ourselves, and “of the household of God,” Ephesians 2:19. Hence, as we compose but one household, so whenever we are disposed to neglect any part of this family, we may apply to ourselves the following words of the apostle: “If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel,” 1 Timothy 5:8. Let ministers, then, be placed in the happiest imaginable circumstances, and it will still become them to cry out, with the pious benevolence of St. Paul, “As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith,” Galatians 5:10.

2. We may here pursue the idea which Christ himself has given us, by comparing his Church to a vineyard. If it be necessary to graft those stocks which are naturally wild, is it less necessary to cultivate those which have been already grafted? We see the husbandmen bestowing most culture upon those vines which produce the most excellent fruit. Let ministers attend to this general rule: and since they only can be fruitful in the sacred vineyard, who receive the word of God in faith, let them study to train up believers to the highest state of maturity. Thus the heavenly husbandman is represented as purging every fruitful branch, “that it may bring forth more fruit,” John 15:2.

3. The word of God must be offered to sinners as a remedy suited to the disease of their souls: but to the faithful it must be administered as nourishing food. Hence, as the order of grace resembles that of nature, it is necessary, in a spiritual sense, to minister nutriment to the healthy in much greater quantities, than medicine to those who are diseased. Thus believers, who constantly hunger and thirst after greater degrees of grace, should more frequently receive the living word, that they “may abound yet more and more in knowledge,” till they are “filled with the fruits of righteousness,” Philippians 1:9-11.

4. We find the following expressions in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans: “I am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to admonish one another. Nevertheless, I have written the more boldly unto you, as putting you in mind. And I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established,” Romans 15:14, 15; 1:11. Now, if St. Paul could express so earnest a desire to instruct those Christians, who were perfect strangers to him, and who were already so Divinely enlightened; far from being imitators of this great apostle, do we not forfeit all pretensions to charity, while we suffer those ignorant Christians to perish “for lack of knowledge,” Hosea 4:6, who are not only of our neighbourhood, but probably of our very parish?

5. Though St. Paul was assisted with miraculous endowments, yet how anxiously did he endeavour to fill up the twofold duties of a believer in Christ, and a minister of his Gospel! And shall we refuse to labour with equal earnestness, whose gifts are so mean, and whose graces are so inconsiderable? Appointed, like the primitive preachers of Christianity, to be “fishers of men,” is it not perfectly reasonable that we should manifest as great activity with our feeble lines, as St. Paul was accustomed to discover in the use of his capacious net? If that apostle, filled with holy zeal, was enabled to convert more sinners by a single discourse, than many pastors are known to convert in a thousand sermons, should we not, by our uncommon assiduity, supply, as much as possible, the want of that incomprehensible energy which accompanied his ministerial labours?

6. Ministers are compared to labourers, who go forth to cultivate the lands of their master. Now St. Paul, as the foremost of these labourers, wrought night and day with an extraordinary instrument, which marked out furrows of an uncommon depth, and ploughed up entire provinces on a sudden. He made the fullest proof of his ministry, and by the most astonishing efforts spread the seed of the Gospel “from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum,” Romans 15:19. How vast a difference between the former and latter pastors of the Christian Church! Many of us are content to stand altogether idle, till “the night cometh, in which no man can work,” John 9:4; while others, who are disposed to some little occupation, employ themselves as workmen who have need to be utterly ashamed of their insignificant labours, 2 Timothy 2:15. At best, we hold but a tardy instrument; an instrument which, with immense toil, will but barely graze the earth we are called to cultivate. And shall we, thus unhappily circumstanced, permit our ploughshares to gather rust during six successive days, and then leisurely employ them by an hour upon the seventh? Surely such a mode of conduct is as contrary to common sense as to the example St. Paul has left us.

7. So astonishing is the inconstancy, the weakness, and the depravity of the human heart, that in spite of all the persevering industry of this apostle in the vineyard of his Lord, it still brought forth briers and thorns, to the anguish of his soul. “Behold,” saith he to the Corinthians, “the third time I am ready to come unto you for your edifying. For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: and lest when I come my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented,” Romans 12:14-21. We shall close this chapter by proposing the following queries, which may be reasonably grounded upon the preceding passage. If the natural and supernatural talents of St. Paul; if his zeal, his diligence, and his apostolic authority, were insufficient to engage his flock to conduct themselves as followers of Christ; if their want of piety drew from him tears of lamentation, and obliged him to renew his painful efforts with redoubled solicitude; can those pastors be said to possess the spirit of the Gospel, who behold with indifference the disorders of that falling Church which Christ has purchased with his own blood? And if the extraordinary labours of St. Paul were not sufficient fully to answer the design of the sacred ministry, is it not presumption indeed to imagine, that our trivial services are sufficiently complete?