The Con and the Conversion, Grace and the Sincerity of the Preacher

“ The [pg 208] work of the minister is less than the work of the average laborer, and the pay of the preacher is more than the pay of the average mechanic or working-man. Here is the key to the pulpit for a lot of young men. A young man who has a taste for reading and loafing, and no genius for work, sees a chance to employ what talent he possesses by studying theology, and we venture to say that nine out of ten of the candidates for the ministry enter the profession from purely business, or, if you will, mercenary motives. The Lord does not pick out preachers. They pick themselves out. ”

“ A professional ministry is a heartless ministry. When salary plays a great part in the ministry, the heart plays little part. We may make preaching {83} our business, and not put our hearts in the business. He who puts self to the front in his preaching puts heart to the rear. He who does not sow with his heart in his study will never reap a harvest for God. The closet is the heart's study. ”

“ For the unrighteous do baptize, since those robbers are unrighteous whom Cyprian maintained to be at unity with himself. [468] But for this reason, says the Donatist, he adds "outside." Why therefore can they not baptize outside? Is it because they are worse from the very fact that they are outside? But it makes no difference, in respect of the validity of baptism, how much worse the minister may be. For there is not so much difference between bad and worse as between good and bad; and yet, when the bad baptizes, he gives the selfsame sacrament as the good. ”

“ Those then are justified with greater holiness who are baptized by undetected evil men, so as to be cleansed by God or by an angel, than those who are baptized by men who are genuinely and manifestly good, who cannot be compared with God or with the angels. But prevail upon yourselves to say what is said by Truth and by the Catholic Church, that not only when the minister of baptism is evil, but also when he is holy and good, hope is still not to be placed in man, but in Him that justifieth the ungodly, in whom if any man believe, his faith is counted for righteousness. ”

“ We can never get up a revival because the Holy Spirit brings it down, so that there has crept into the Church, times, and seasons and plans of man’s making for revival purposes, simply because the time has come for a revival and for no other purpose, the revival is had. What good can come out of such attempts? Revivals come through the operation of great spiritual laws, and these laws must be obeyed by God’s people, or there can be no revival.
The modern evangelist has done much to bring about a stereotyped condition of the Church. He has his set methods of rousing the people ”

“ He said he would not bother the old grudge directly, and that if there were sinners who wanted salvation, he was sure God could save them in spite of old, grouchy church members. He proceeded at once to plan a revival campaign. It is part of his philosophy that if a pastor’s first revival effort is a success it begets confidence on the part of the people and paves the way for other victories. It is, therefore, the part of wisdom to choose the easiest place to begin with. ”

“ It is inevitable that the ministry should become a means of livelihood, and yet it is fatal to pursue it with this in view. It is the least lucrative of the professions, and yet, in the pressure of modern life, it may tempt men to join it merely as a profession. Even if it has been entered upon from higher motives, the attrition of domestic necessities may dry up the nobler motives and convert the minister into a hireling who thinks chiefly of his wages. ”

“ Professional work is not what we want. Any man, be he minister, clergyman, Bible-reader, city missionary, who goes among our godless population with the suspicion of pay about him is the weaker for that. ”

“ I feel that we are all relying too much on money—great stone churches, fine houses, large salaries, etc., which have brought the Church to the level of the world. I see the rich, full of pride, taken up with vanity, soul all gone, thinking their gain is godliness, no sympathy, no true riches of any kind."
Again he breaks out: "I am more and more convinced that a hired ministry is a great evil. To preach honestly under such circumstances almost kills me; to preach tenderly is almost impossible. ”

“ He had greatly lost interest in the questions that had occupied him while he was yet a student, and imagined himself in preparation for what he called the ministry—never thinking how one was to minister who had not yet learned to obey, and had never sought anything but his own glorification! It was little wonder he should lose interest in a profession, where all was but profession! What pleasure could that man find in holy labour who, not indeed offered his stipend to purchase the Holy Ghost, but offered all he knew of the Holy Ghost to purchase popularity? ”

“ And if men give their whole time to the work, they must be paid for it, a circumstance which is not likely to lead to much evil in our own country so long as the great mass of ministers are paid as they presently are. It is hardly the profession which is likely to be chosen by any one who is anxious to coin his life into money. If the laity consider that covetousness is more unseemly in a Christian minister than in a Christian man, they have taken an effectual means of barring out that vice. ”

“ One of the principal reasons for the disrespect in which the preacher is often regarded by the business world lies in the shamefully unbusinesslike manner in which the preacher has been treated in regard to compensation for his work. If his work is worthless, why not say so and tell him to get out, and do something worth while? If it is worth doing, then he ought to be paid sufficient for a living without being compelled to become a cadger and a pauper. ”

“ Besides the sincerely orthodox preacher (whose religious austerity never prevents him from erring sexually) , there are thousands of ministers who live a mental or intellectual lie by remaining in the church and preaching the creeds they do not believe. And the church does not trouble itself about the minister’s doubts so long as he keeps them to himself. What can the church expect, then, from the religious hypocrite in the pulpit except that he will be a moral hypocrite out of it? Is he going to be dishonest as a preacher and honest as a man? ”

“ All, therefore, are not to be deemed to be in her which build upon the sand, that is, which hear the words of Christ and do them not, even though both among us and among you they have and transmit the sacrament of baptism. See how her hope is in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,—not in Peter or in Paul, still less in Donatus or Petilianus. What we fear, therefore, to destroy, is not yours, but Christ's; and it is holy of itself, even in sacrilegious hands. For we cannot receive those who come from you, unless we destroy in them whatsoever appertains to you. ”

“ And hence God threatens the Prophets, that steal his words from others, and declares they shall not profit this people at all; nor can unconverted, graceless preachers profit the experimental children of God. A preacher must be taught the plague of his own heart, the spirituality of God’s Law, the value of a precious Jesus, in his Person and Work, by God the Spirit, before he can be useful to the Church. We must first know, then speak what we know, as the Apostle says, We can but speak of the things which we have seen, and we are his witnesses. ”

“ He has in fact gone about as a mere isolated adventurer; and no minister would preach in a pulpit belonging to him. Yet he continued to preach, in defiance of Christian as well as moral ordinances, because he could not be silenced by any legal authority, and because he rejected all ecclesiastical government.
One character peculiar to the person we are speaking of is, that wherever he has been admitted as a preacher, he has disturbed the religious system, and upset the order of the place. ”

“ It is not for the preacher, whether of moral or religious truth, to address his fellows as outside sinners, worse than himself, and needing to be reminded of that of which he does not need to be reminded. No, the earnest preacher preaches to himself as much as to any in the congregation ”

“ In short, in calling the preacher a prophet we mean that preaching is an art and the preacher is an artist; for all great art has the prophetic quality. Many men object to this definition of the preacher as being profane. It appears to make secular or mechanicalize their profession, to rob preaching of its sacrosanctity, leave it less authority by making it more intelligible, remove it from the realm of the mystical and unique. This objection seems to me sometimes an expression of spiritual arrogance and sometimes a subtle form of skepticism. ”

“ It has become common in these days to say of preachers, ‘this is a revival preacher, and this is not.’ There is great harmfulness in the suggestion, for we tend to arrange ourselves around this point: We will be of the revival class, or not of the revival; as if any ministry dare to be anything but a revival ministry; as [240] if a man could be a minister without this power of the Holy Ghost. We must set out to make ourselves revival preachers, working preachers, that will make sinners feel the power of the truth. ”

“ When a church begins to rot instead of grow it is natural for us to do our utmost to find out some way of excusing the retrogression without admitting our failure to reach men with the gospel. There are evangelists, who in the palmy days of their power had wonderful, heaven-gladdening revivals, who have ceased to wield "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon," and, in order to cover their spiritual nakedness, are forced to resort to finger-raising, card-signing methods for stuffing and expanding "the big revival." There is no more sobbing, no more desperate praying, no more shouting ”

“ Why is it that in order to have so-called revivals, we must have outside pressure, by the reputation and sensation of some renowned evangelist? This is largely true in our larger charges and with our leading men. Why is it that the pastor is not sufficiently spiritual, holy and in communion with God, [Pg 75] that he cannot hold his own revival services, and have large outpourings of the Holy Spirit on the Church, the community and upon himself? There can be but one solution for all this state of things. We have cultivated other things to the neglect of the work of holiness. ”

“ It is not the single preaching even of an archangel, that could effect the renovation of the church when it really needs to be brought back to purity and health. All the logic of heaven would die unheeded on the ear, unless it were re-echoed from the multitude. Now if it may for a moment be assumed that a general rectification of doctrine and practice, and a revival of primitive piety is actually about to take place, what is that preliminary measure which might be anticipated as the necessary means of giving irresistible force, and universal spread to such a reformation? ”

“ The camp-meeting, at night, when all the fire-stands are ablaze, and the multitude are assembled and singing, is beyond description picturesque: when, too, some eloquent and enthusiastic preacher is stimulating to intense excitement the multitude around him with the fervor of his words, and the wild, passionate manifestations of his manner, to see the crowd swaying to and fro, to hear the groans and sobs of the half-frenzied multitude, and, not unfrequently, the maddened shriek of hysterical fear, all coming up from the half-illuminated spot, is thrillingly exciting. ”

“ We may just add, what every true man knows, and rejoices to know, that the hour which begins his peace with God necessarily begins also war with all sin in his own heart. His friendship with God implies enmity to all in himself which is opposed to God.
2. "But the whole tendency of revivals, and of this theory of sudden conversions by means of any man's preaching, is to disparage God's appointments of the Church and the family for accomplishing genuine conversion." ”

“ Of course we cannot expect much help from those who are all the time talking against revivals. I believe many young disciples are chilled through by those who condemn these special efforts. If the professed converts sometimes do not hold out, it is not always their own fault.
I was preaching in a certain city some time ago, and a minister said to me: “I hope this work will not turn out like the revival here five years ago. I took one hundred converts into the Church, and, with the exception of one or two, I do not know where they are today.” ”

“ One thing I have noticed, that some conversions don’t amount to anything; that if a man professes to be converted without conviction of sin, he is one of those stony-ground hearers who don’t bring forth much fruit. The first little wave of persecution, the first breath of opposition, and the man is back in the world again. ”

“ Instantaneous conversion, no doubt, ought to be pressed on people. But surely they ought not to be led to suppose that there is no other sort of conversion, and that unless they are suddenly and powerfully converted to God, they are not converted at all.
The duty of coming to Christ at once, "just as we are," should be pressed on all hearers. It is the very corner-stone of Gospel preaching. But surely men ought to be told to repent as well as to believe. They should be told why they are to come to Christ, and what they are to come for, and whence their need arises. ”

“ On the other hand, all who really hate sin, mourn over it, strive against it, trust in and cling to Christ as their personal Redeemer, need no conversion. No matter whether they can tell where and when and how they were converted or not. All who know by blessed experience that they now have in their hearts the elements of penitence and faith, are in a state of conversion, and if they earnestly ask God, may have the assurance that their sins are forgiven and they are accepted in the Beloved. ”

“ Conversion, amongst the Independents and other Puritan sects, is supposed to be a kind of miracle wrought in the heart by the influence of the Holy Spirit, by which the man becomes something altogether different to what he was previously. It affects, or should affect, his character; that is to say, he ought after conversion to be better in every way than he was before; but this is not considered as its main consequence. In its essence it is a change in the emotions and increased vividness of belief. ”

“ Often the preacher is so dead sure that his motive is right, that he does not stop to examine sufficiently his method. He wants to save souls, and if he can do it, as it seems to him, by crooked means more quickly than by straight ones, then he takes the crooked way. He wants to build a church—if he can build it quicker by misrepresentation, by double dealing, by beating any one, he thinks only of the church, and that overweighs any other consideration. [16]
“Take the matter of ministers (and others, too) lying in the stories and illustrations they tell. ”