origin of many of those evils which attend the ministry of but too many in the present day. They are performing the duties of an office, to which they were never divinely appointed, or called in a scriptural way. In other situations they might, perhaps, have done well, and become useful members of society. -In this they are out of place. They were never designed by God for the work, and were, therefore, never qualified by him for it. What wonder, then, if they act inconsistently? To the want of a due consideration of the importance and extensive obligations of the Christian ministry—of that devotedness of heart and life, which it requires, may we attribute much of that prevailing laxity which, it is to be feared, is but too prevalent in our day, and even among those ministers avowedly evangelical. It were well if their minds were more deeply imbued with the requirements of the gospel ministry previous to their entering upon its sacred functions. Did men weigh and consider this subject more than they do, and wait patiently for clear indications of the will of God in calling them to the work, it would make them more cautious, and would tend, in a great measure, to check those unworthy motives which lead many to rush into the office of the Christian ministry with hands unprepared, and hearts unsanctified. Perhaps, were we fairly to estimate the legitimate claims of many, who at this moment are occupying conspicuous places in the church of Christ, and filling situations, the consistent discharge of the duties of which is of the greatest consequence, we should be obliged, after exercising the judgment of charity to its full extent, to pronounce them lamentably deficient. How have the friends of Jesus been distressed, and how have the enemies of his cross triumphed at the awful miscarriages of Some who, professing themselves true disciples and advocates of Christ, (many of whom have, perhaps, for years, preached the doctrines of Christianity in a correct and evangelical strain,) when they have found these men at last, to have been all the while corrupt in heart, and all their round of duties performed, the more securely to conceal and here we perceive at once, the latent purposes of their hypocritical and deceitful mind. Often, from characters such as these, have we witnessed the marked contempt which their exposure has brought upon true religion; and in men such as these, we always perceive a kind of studied depravity, and a calosity of heart kept up, and continually increasing by repetition. What a mighty engine of moral evil is such a man in the hands of Satan, to whom he seems given up, and whose influence always attends him; and to such a pitch does he carry his daring impiety, that it is a question whether such a man has not arrived at the very acme of depravity, of which our fallen nature is capable? What can be greater, than for a man to make the cross of Christ the instrument of his wicked designs, and wholly subservient to his carnal propensities. Another character presents himself to our view, a character of much interest to the church of Christ; the questionable state of whose mind, and its ultimate bias, are considerations which press upon the minds of Christian friends and ministers with much solicitude. This is the youthful preacher, who too inconsiderately enters upon this office. A desire of doing good might have been the original motive, mingled perhaps with a latent wish for popularity-the desire of literary fame, &c. And, as he is brought forward, these principles begin to operate. He is perhaps taken from the church after a very short standing in it, and before his fellow-members have had sufficient time to judge of his sincerity and quali fications, he is perhaps pushed on by the indiscreet zeal of one or more of his brethren. Some encomiums are passed upon him, tending to feed his vanity. It is judged necessary that such talents which they suppose him to possess, should not be lost a moment for want of due cultivation, and he is accordingly sent to one of the regular seminaries. A few months, or it may be two or three years of academical tuition often obliterates that apparent sincerity and humility, which Christian friends had hoped were the genuine fruits of the Spirit, and he acquires a degree of confi *No reflection is here intended upon those pious ministers and tutors who conduct the different academies in the dissenting interest; nor have we at present any thing to do with the mode of teaching. The evil here consisted in the church, in recommending im proper objects; and this is often done. Where dence in himself, that makes older all his duties should begin and end Christians tremble for him. How there. often, in the sermons of characters such as these, have we lamented the absence of true evangelical principle! We have seen the cross of Christ-the glories of his person and work, cast into the shade, to make room for the youthful preacher's display of his own literary acquirements, and metaphysical subtilties, purposely selected for the preacher's ingenuity; and we have retired from the house of God, lamenting the absence of the God of the House! feeling the want of that food of the soul which only the cross of Christ can supply, we have retired, exclaiming "Tis Athen's owl, and not Mount Zion's Dove:The bird of knowledge-not the Bird of Love!"* There is one character more, whose inconsistencies are, perhaps, the most baneful of all to the church. I mean the minister who, we trust, has been Tawfully called, and sent into the church, and in whose heart we have reason to believe that Christ is formed the hope of Glory; but whose deportment is still not marked by that serious and habitual piety which should attend the minister of the gospel; but who gives in, and conforms too much, to the maxims of worldly men, who wastes too much of his time in the company of carnal professors, and whose conversation savours too much of this world, and the things that belong to it. There appears a kind of desire to assimilate with them. He can even condescend to joke and trifle with them, and perhaps pass away an hour at the chess or draft-board! How does all this look? Does it not look as though his Master's yoke was at times too heavy to be borne, and that he was glad occasionally to slip out of it? It looks so much like accommodation; as though the preacher, on the Sunday, and during the week days, in the pulpit, and in the parlour, were two different men. As though the pulpit was the only place of teaching; and as though Here the cause of Christ is most materially injured in the house of his friends. It is here we see sin put on its most formidable appearance. the minister of Christ is thus throwing such impediments in his own way, against his own success, destroying during the week, what he had been labouring to build up on the Sabbath. The mischief of this lax, declining, aud indifferent spirit, in the real servants of Christ, and ministers of his word, is incalculable; and the experience of many of them can testify, what bitter reflec tions, and what anguish of mind, when brought to a deep sense of its evil, have been the consequence of it. Perhaps they have witnessed the fruit of their labours cut off and destroyed by their own imprudent conduct. Should not a minister be led to serious self-examina tion, when he perceives a hopeful youth, one who, perhaps, has been roused from his sins, and appears somewhat alive to the powers of the world to come—his mind deeply impressed with convictions of sin, and this produced through the instrumentality of a sermon preached by himself: should he perceive this youth retiring back into the world, and this owing, in a great measure, to that disunion of principle and practice which he noticed in the minister-in the very man whom he considered as the means of his conversion, and the very ap proach to whom he regarded with '8 kind of veneration. How was he surprised, upon a closer view, to find so little difference between him and other men, as well as between the people who formed the church committed to his care, and the world? Where shall he find that unction of divine things, and that savour of spirituality which he had anticipated in their conversation! He expected to find among them what would tend to instruct his mind, to invigorate his purposes, and lead his soul forward in the divine life. Instead of which, he finds, however, that they can A few Lord's days ago, one of these Tyros from a dissenting academy in the metropolis, was invited to supply a destitute pulpit in the neighbourhood, where the congrega tion consists of seven or eight hundred persons. The object and avowed design of the preacher was, to disprove the doctrine of Christ's substitution in the room of his guilty people; in order to which, he went into a subtle and elaborate metaphysical disquisition to the disgust of all who had capacity enough to perceive his drift. On being remon strated with afterwards, his apology was, 66 found in the writings of Mr. F." I have given you nothing which is not to be [Editor's Note.} pass away the hour in idle frivolous | cially is this effect hastened, if he have conversation upon the passing occur- an opportunity afterwards, of noticing rences of the day! The minister, in- the difference between the avowed senstead of cherishing these precious seeds, timents of the minister, and his practiand watering them, and carefully en- cal habits. Thus, instead of these condeavouring to rear up the tender plant, victions being deepened, they serve leaves the work of his own hands, and rather to strengthen his old habits, and then the temptations of the enemy, and to fix him the more securely in his foran ensnaring world, soon root it out. mer ways. He begins to think that the Perhaps many churches experience minister was to be understood from the more losses than can well be estimated, pulpit with certain limitations and quafrom these inconsistencies; and yet, all | lífications. It is reported of the late this while, the minister does not appear Dr. Young, that, to a young convert, indifferent to his character, nor can he who applied to him under serious imbe charged with any gross improprie-pressions, he said, "Go more into the ties. But there exists a diminution of that ardour of mind which constantly pervades the man who lives under an habitual sense of the worth of immortal souls, and the importance of their eternal destination. No sooner does the minister decline, than the church begins to grow sickly; the members are lax in their attendance, and cold and formal in their manner; and it will manifestly appear, that the Holy Spirit withholds from them his gracious influences, and leaves them dry and barren. His corrective hand will be most surely and severely felt before their comforts be restored to them. The inconsistencies of ministers will be found to have a peculiarly baneful effect upon young converts, when we consider the powerful influence of example. Let it be considered, in addition to what we observed above, in the case of the young enquirer, that such generally seek for a time to hide and conceal the emotions of their mind; and if under convictions of sin, they often, partly through pride, and partly from shame and conscious guilt, will keep the matter locked up in their own breast. How encouraging to such persons are the affectionate regards and kind invitations of their minister to unburthen their minds; and when induced to venture upon an interview, how much seems to depend upon his deportinent towards them. If, instead of probing the wound to the bottom, and faithfully applying the only remedy for a wounded spirit, he soothe it over, and seem but little interested about the matter, what wonder if serious impressions wear off, and the subject of them begin to think, that it was all imaginary, and that he had been guided by his own mere imagination, rather than by the dictates of sober judgment; and espe world!" and the conduct of such ministers as we have been describing vir tually is, Go back into the world!! Wherever we see vital godliness flourish, and a church in a thriving state, we always perceive it to be in conse quence of the simple, unadulterated truths of the gospel being preached with simplicity, zeal, and affection, aided by the savour of practical holiness. When the doctrines of Christianity are thus seen transcribed in the life and conversation of the preacher, they come with a double energy to the hearts of the people. If to this be added, that principle of holy love to the souls of men, so essential to true usefulness in the church, it will complete the character of the true, Christian minister. As this principle pervades his mind, and governs his actions, the constant prayer of his heart, and the scope of his exertions will be, "THY KINGDOM COME." Two as eminent instances of the predominating power of this principle, as any with whose history I am acquainted, were the celebrated George Whitfield, and the late Samuel Pearce, of Birming ham; whatever difference existed be tween these two holy men in other re spects, in this they resembled each other; in an ardent thirst for the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom. This was the governing principle of their lives. That more such may be raised up, and sent into the vineyard, is the fervent prayer of, C. N. I. TO THE PROTESTANT. We have more than once drawn the attention of our readers to a periodical work of very superior merit, which has been carried on during the last four years, in Glasgow, under the title of "THE PROTESTANT." (See New Evangelical Maga zine, vol. v. p. 407, and vol. viii. p 44, &c.) Having received its termination, the following letter, addressed to the respectable gentleman who so ably conduct ed it, has been handed us for insertion in our columns, and it deserves the attention of the religious public. We under stand that Mr. M'Gavin, the editor of "The Protestant," has read it, and promised a reply to it. SIR, EDITOR. shortly answer: That the assertion requires more proof than what can be produced from "their public creeds and formularies"-the oneness of sentiment, which may appear in the letters of a few individuals scattered up and down among them, or from the set off which the subject receives from the introduction of the text, that, among all the churches, "the Lord knoweth them that are his," p. 306. Not that I dispute the truth of the assertion contained in the text;-what I deny is, that it is any proof of the Protestant churches As it does not appear that any having but one Lord, and one faith; other person has noticed the subject, to and if this was not the thing intended, which I mean to advert, I shall now, in I see no use for the introduction of this pursuance of a former intimation, ad- scripture in the connection in which it dress you respecting some things con- stands; for the Lord knoweth them tained in No. cxcv. of "The Protestant." that are his, in Babylon the Great, the In p. 305, when contrasting the union mother of harlots, &c. as well as in the of Protestants, with that of Papists, and purest Protestant church. But the deshowing the higher attainment in union | ficiency of evidence on the side of Proof the former to the latter, a Protestant testants, will be further evident when may, for any thing I know, have done it is considered, that religion is a perthe subject justice; but when he pro- sonal thing, and must be made the subceeds to compare the union which ex- ject of individual belief and confession. ists among Protestants, with that of The having but one Lord, and one faith, the primitive churches, as recorded in therefore, in the sense and manner in the New Testament, there is such a which they existed in the first Christian manifest misrepresentation of circum-churches, can never be satisfactorily asstances, that I am quite at a loss to certained by public creeds and formuconceive how it has escaped his other-laries, or representative assemblies; on wise cautious pen. He says, "A de- the contrary, the evidence must be congree of union pervades all Protestant siderably darkened by the introduction churches: I mean union in the acknow- of these, as people may thus pass unledgement of the divine truth, and the observed in a crowd, who could not observance of divine ordinances. This stand the test of individual examination. union is not dependent on the organiza- This, however, was not the case with tion and connection of any number of the first Christian churches; they were congregations in one representative all taught of God to know Him from assembly, or under one patriarch or the least to the greatest-at least appope. In the New Testament, we read peared to be so. And this a Protestant of many churches which were not so clearly admits, where he says, “So far united; and yet they were united in the as appears, none were received, or al sense in which church union ought allowed to continue members, who did not ways to exist. There was, throughout them all, but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and this is the case in most Protestant churches at this day.-I should say, in all who have any right to the name of Protestant." give credible evidence of their being such;" that is, of being united to the Lord, and to one another, by the belief of the truth, p. 306. Permit me, therefore, to ask a Protestant, and let him not feel prejudiced at the question, is In the above extract, a Protestant" this the case in most Protestant roundly asserts, that all the Protestant churches have but one Lord, and one faith; and that this oneness is to be understood as existing among them, in the same sense and manner, that it did in the churchesdescribed in the New Testament or he is surely misleading his readers. And to this view of the matter I shall churches at this day?" If this cannot in truth be affirmed, as I think it cannot, it is surely too much to assert, that they have "all but one Lord, and one faith," either among themselves, or in the sense and manner in which they existed in the primitive churches. But it is added, that the Protestant churches at this day, have also but one baptism. | ing aside every previous prejudice, opiThis assertion is, perhaps, a more dis- nion, and prepossession, which stands cernible misrepresentation of circum- opposed to such a meeting, as might stances than the former, although of have been expected, he appears to plead the former, it is equally true, and stands for all the different denominations, the in need of correction. By baptism I right, or privilege, of meeting just as understand, a Protestant as intending they are, encumbered, as some of them the ordinance of baptism, or baptism must be, for they cannot all be right, with water; and in the list of Protestant with the rubbish of human opinion, the churches, I understand him as includ- laws and institutions of men. It is ing the established church in England true he says, page 306. "I believe the and Ireland, the church of Scotland, principal reason why Protestants are Presbyterian dissenters of all denomi- not all of one communion is, because nations, Independents and Baptists, and, they have not followed out their own for any thing I know, that large body fundamental principle of the Bible, and of dissenters who take the designation the Bible alone, as the religion of Proof Friends, but who are better known testants;" and then adds, "When they by the name of Quakers. Now, it is have all done this; they will be all of well known, that the Pædobaptists of one communion, as Christians were at all denominations, differ from, and are first, without the necessity of being all opposed to, the Baptists, both as it re- of one mind about every thing, or all spects the subjects and the mode of bap- observing precisely the same thingstism; and that the Baptists equally dif- when things indifferent are left, as the fer from, and are opposed to, the Pædo- apostles left these things, in which the baptists in these respects, while the kingdom of heaven does not consist. communion of Friends differs materially The best way to attain union on these from both. To assert, therefore, as a points is, to let their comparative unProtestant does, in the face of such importance be on all hand's admitted." facts, which must be known to him, Now the first part of this extract seems that they have all but one baptism, is a to reduce all to the Bible, and the Bible thing which appears to me to be rather alone as the standard of the Protestant unaccountable, and inexplicable. I say religion, while the latter part of it leaves this, upon the footing, that it is quite the things that are called indifferent, impossible for all the powers of oratory &c. so extremely vague, that people are. to unite the different views and prac- left at liberty to make them whatever tices, and to make out that they are all things they please; the commandone, and but one. In this, therefore, the ments and institutions of men, or those Protestant churches differ from one of universal majesty, or perhaps what in this they are not one may be considered the more equitable among themselves; neither can they, method of including part of both, as in this respect, compare with the one- exigencies may require. If the first of ness of the first Christian churches. these is intended, the terms, things indifferent, are terms too soft and delicate for the description of them. The Scripture never treats the laws and institutions of men, when introduced into the worship and service of God, as things indifferent, but with the most decided reprobation and rejection. "In vain do they worship me," saith Jehovaḥ, another; In p. 308, a Protestant infers, from the fact of having received letters of approval from individuals of the different denominations mentioned, "that, if serious Christians, of all denominations, were to meet on the neutral ground of the Bible alone, they would find that there was scarcely any difference of sentiment among them." This teaching for doctrines, the commandwould no doubt be the case; but the ments of men, or whose fear towards great difficulty is, to make them meet me is taught by the precepts of men," on this neutral ground. Even a Pro- &c. If the second, or last of these testant, with all his apparent readiness, things are intended, by things indifferent, does not seem prepared to submit to it. the ascription of such a phrase to them, Instead of showing the necessity of lay-is paying no great reverence to the wis 66 *By meeting on the neutral ground of the Bible alone, I understand to mean, That the Bible is to be admitted, the alone standard of faith, and the alone rule of practice, and that nothing is to be added to it, or taken from it, in these respects. |
