PART IV. THE PUBLIC WORK OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. THE Public Ministry of the word is the most responsible part of our work-the grand momentum of Divine agencythe most extensive engine of Ministerial operation-actingnot, like parochial visitations, upon individual cases-but with equal power of application to large numbers at the same moment. Baxter therefore justly remarks it to be a work, that requireth greater skill, and especially greater life and zeal, than any of us bring to it.' It well deserves therefore a prominent and detailed consideration in passing over the Ministerial field, though a full discussion of its several particulars would furnish ample materials for a volume. We need hardly remark, that this description is more than ever important at the present time, when this Divine ordinance has been degraded from what we shall see to be its true Scriptural elevation. 1 Reformed Pastor. CHAPTER I. THE INSTITUTION AND IMPORTANCE OF THE ORDINANCE OF PREACHING. 'BECAUSE therefore want of the knowledge of God is the cause of all iniquity amongst men, as contrariwise the ground of all our happiness, and the seed of whatsoever perfect virtue groweth from us, is a right opinion touching things Divine; this kind of knowledge we may justly set down for the first and chiefest thing, which God imparteth unto his people; and our duty of receiving this at his merciful hands, for the first of those religious offices, wherewith we publicly honour him on earth. For the instruction therefore of all sorts of men unto eternal life it is necessary, that the sacred and saving truth of God be openly published unto them. Which open publication of heavenly mysteries is by an excellency termed preaching.' 1 1 The incidental notices of Enoch and Noah connect this institution even with the Ante-diluvian era. In the Patriarchal ages public instruction was probably vested in the Heads of families. In the Jewish economy Moses received his commission immediately from God; subsequently assisted by seventy elders associated with him. Often did Joshua, like his predecessor, collect the people to hear the message of God. Lower down the history-we read of the schools of the Prophets-the repositories of public teaching for the land. After the captivity, the ordinance seems to have been received nearly according to the present simple, solemn, well-conducted ceremonial: with an established course of exposition and interpretation.7 Our Lord the Great Preacher of righteousness-was anointed to this office, and constantly employed in it.9 He ordained his Apostles as his successors in office,10 and sealed their commission with the gift of his own Spirit." Invested with this authority they stretched their efforts, publicly and privately, to preach the Hooker, Book v. 18. Gen. xiv. 14. marg. xviii. 19. 2 Exod. xiv. 15. 2 Peter ii. 5. Comp. whole Book of Deuteronomy, with Josh. xxii-xxiv. 1 Sam. x. 5, 6. Scott in loco. 7 Comp. Neh. viii. 4-8. with Acts xiii. 14, 15. xv. 21. a Isa. Ixi. 1, 2, with Luke iv. 16, 21, 43. 9 Ps. xl. 9, 10, with Luke xix. 47. Mark xvi. 15, with Luke xxiv. 47-49. Gospel to the utmost compass of their commission-"unto every creature which is under heaven." 1 No congregation in the Primitive Church separated without being 'fed' (as Tertullian writes) with holy sermons.' And though for ages the preaching office was suspended in the papal, as indeed it is still in some branches of the Greek Church; yet it is now generally acknowledged to be the primary instrument in the Divine appointment for the conversion of the world." An able writer of our day admirably illustrates the power of this grand institution- Of all methods for diffusing religion, preaching is the most efficient. It is to preaching that Christianity owes its origin, its continuance, and its progress and it is to itinerating preaching (however the ignorant may undervalue it) that we owe the conversion of the Roman world from Paganism to primitive Christianity; our own freedom from the thraldom of Popery, in the success of the Reformation; and the revival of Christianity at the present day from the depression which it had undergone, owing to the prevalence of infidelity and of indifference. Books, however excellent, require at least some previous interest on the part of the person, who is to open and to peruse them. But the preacher arrests that attention, which the written record only invites; and the living voice, and the listening numbers heighten the impression by the sympathy and enthusiasm which they excite; the reality, which the truths spoken possess in the mind of the speaker, is communicated to the 1 Acts v. 20, 21, 42. xx. 20, 21, with Rom. xv. 19; Col. i. 23. * The Homilies (or popular discourses-dμiλia, from duλos, a multitude) of the ancient fathers twice occasionally if not frequently-three times on the Sabbath, are sufficient evidence on this point. Comp. Bingham and Cave. Mosheim marks the simplicity of preaching in the second century, and its subsequent declension in the time of Origen. In later ages, the corruption assumed another form not less darkening to the light of God-when the public instructions were drawn not from the Scriptures, but from the writings of the fathers; and the Church sunk into darkness by her implicit faith in these most fallible guides. Comp. 1 Cor. i. 17, 18, 21. Rom. x. 14-17. Prædicatio verbi est medium gratiæ divinitus institutum, quo res regni Dei publice et explicantur et applicantur populo ad salutem et ædificationem.' Bowles' Past. Evang. Lib. ii. c. i. Archbishop Grindal in his celebrated remonstrance to Queen Elizabeth, upon her restraint upon his preaching exercises, well points out the supremacy of preaching in the Christian Ministry Public and continual preaching of God's word is the ordinary means and instrument of the salvation of mankind. St. Paul calls it "the Ministry of reconciliation" of man unto God. By preaching of God's word, the glory of God is enlarged, faith is nourished, and charity is increased. By it the ignorant is instructed, the negligent exhorted and incited, the stubborn rebuked, the weak conscience comforted, and to all those that sin of malicious wickedness, the wrath of God is threatened.' The whole of this admirable letter is given in Fuller's Church History, Book ix. and in Strype's Life of Grindal. |