Ministerial Solicitude.

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MI ISTERIAL SOLICITUDE. BY REV. E. M. MARVI ,

" Therefore, said I, Look away from me: I will weep bitterly; labor not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people: For it is a day cf trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord God of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains." — Isaiah xxii, 4, 5. The denunciatory prophecies of Isaiah, and some of the minor prophets, are denominated " burdens " — a most expressive title. The curse of God is heavy — it is intolerable. Isaiah, commissioned by God himself, stood upon the heights of Judea, and hurled thunderbolts here and there against the most powerful and prosperous nations in existence. Babylon, Moab, Edom, and other nations and cities, were the objects of malediction. The prophet seemed an angel of destruction, as the lightning leaped out of his terrible words, eager for its guilty prey. He stood, the agent and embodiment of vengeance, with features unrelaxed, as he saw empires overthrown by the headlong violence of the wrath which his lips pronounced. Scene after scene of national crime and its sanguinary denouement passes before his vision, and finds expression from his tongue. But ^ne weeps not, shudders not — he simply sees and denounces. The man h lost in the prophet. At last a burden comes that wakes the man. The tension, even of prophetic strength, is insufficient to support the enormous load, and it lies on e is requisite, 1st. A full, clear faith. Without this a man cannot appreciate the nature of divine claims or spiritual facts. The realities with which we have chiefly to do are unappreciated by any other means than faith. They belong to a sphere which no perception through the means of a physical organism can recognise. The soul must be raised above the conditions of its physical habitation to have a real, sensible appreciation of divine things. An account of these things God has given us in his word. To the mind in its native, carnal condition, they seem distant and unreal. To such the only real is the tangible. They are so fully occupied with the gross every-day facts that crowd upon sensation, that, becoming assimilated to their nature, there is no aptness of spiritual perception and existence. Even where there is sufficient elevation

of the reason to recognise the truth of religion, there is so much earthliness in the affections that it produces no deep impression, so that men live in the habitual acknowledgment of the claims of Christianity, and equally habitual inattention to them. There can be no more astounding inconsistency than this. It is monstrous I But the reason of it is that though there be an intellectual belief there is no realizing faith. And there never can be until the grace of God shines into the heart and renders it susceptible of a divine consciousness. Then, and not till then, spiritual things become actualities. Then they begin to take effect upon the sensibilities. *' Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It takes hold of the remote and the spiritual with a consciousness as vivid as that produced by sensation. Eternal things now begin to impress the soul in a manner corresponding to their importance.

MI ISTERIAL SOLICITUDE. 407 With such a faith as this, a faith which transports the spirit into the presence of infinite realities, a faith that sees sin and hell, that sees God and eterniiy, the minister receives his message from God to the sinner. Everything hangs on the reception or rejection of the message. Everything is poised on the volition of the sinner, and that is either oscillating, or has settled on the "wrong side. Considerations that fill eternity compress themselves into a single hour, and waken in the heart that has faith, an agony that may find some faint expression in countenance and voice, but none in words. It is too intense for language. 2d. There must be an elevated Christain experience. Indeed, faith, true faith, will secure this. The two are inseparable. He that walks by faith walks with God. His moral nature is open to holy influences, and becomes imbued with the spirit of religion. Experimental religion is very readily defined. One word expresses it all. That word is Love. " The love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given unto us," is the new birth. This is experimental religion. The man who enjoys it in its perfection loves God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself. All the pure and noble sensibilities of the soul become active. Sin becomes hateful, and virtue lovely. The one his soul abhors ; with equal fervor he rejoices in the other. Under the activ^e operation of this principle, the person of the sinner becomes dear to him. He looks upon one for whom Christ died ;

one who with the acutest sensibilities, equally alive to suffering and enjoyment, is immortal ; one who is his fellow, having the same originally noble, though fallen nature, and grappling with the same enemies. He looks upon each man with a feeling of deep personal interest — with the heart of a brother, arbiter of his own destiny, poised between contendiug motives, and uncertain of the issue. Thus his religious character gives every man a place in bis heart, and awakens alarm for every one he sees in danger. It wrings from him the agonized cry, " 3Iy brother ! my brother ! thou art staggering on the edge of the precipice, and the lake of unquenchable fire is at the bottom." He would interpose his own person, if he could, to arrest the fall. II. The nature and extent of this solicitude. The nature of it is found in the general principles of our faith ; its extent is regulated

408 MI ISTERIAL SOLICITUDE. very much by personal characteristics and circumstances, and is frequently fluctuating. 1. The nature of ministerial solicitude is indicated in what has been already said. It is the alarm of a pure nature alive to eternal things, for those who are exposed to infinite retribution. It is the feeling of responsibility in the execution of a commission from Jehovah to deathless spirits. He is the watchman on the walls, and if he allows the sword to come without warning, the blood of slain souls is upon him. It is at the same time the vibration of the Saviour's sorrow in his soul — the echo of the Saviour's death-groan in his heart. All the moving considerations connected with redemption conspire to create it. The urgencies of immortal want clamor in his ear. The breathing of earnest angel-ministries to the same great object deepens the intenseness of his anxiety. Divine expostulations of most subduing pathos are put into his mouth to raise him to the inexpressible height of their meaning. 2. Sensitive natures become agitated under it, as Habakkuk ; or melancholy, as Jeremiah ; or impetuous, as ahum. The profound spirit of Paul swells to an ocean wave of feeling — a tide of earnestness. The great soul of Isaiah bows itself; he weeps bitterly, and will hear no comforter. Whatever there is earnest in a man will be roused to its fullest measure. The preacher's calling becomes the master excitant of his nature, and concentrates it upon the one great object before him. Under its influence the strong man becomes a

Hercules, and even the languid become strong. There are times, however, when special causes produce an augmentation of the feeling, as times of revival. ot unfrequently does solicitude deepen into anguish, and the excitement become so great that any long duration of it would be fatal. It produces a tension ¦which neither body nor spirit can bear. But at all times the soul of the minister yearns for the salvation of men, and is at any moment alive to the peril of those who come to his attention in their sins and exposed to the death that dies not. He is on the alert for souls. 3. Solicitude for souls is graduated, however, by the higher or lower standard of personal piety in the subject of it. o doubt the preacher of the Gospel, himself, may live so far from God, and cultivate his faith so negligently that his religious consciousness will be very feeble. Many deplorable instances of this are given in the

MI ISTERIAL SOLICITUDE. 409 history of the Church. Entire continents and long ages have been marked by it as their leading religious characteristic. And in her best estate the Church laments the presence of more or less of this class of men at her altars. ot Sinai can alarm them nor Calvary melt them. There they stand, amid solemnities that hold angels breathless, themselves unmoved. In one whom religion has taken possession of, and who is moved by the Holy Ghost to call sinners to repentance, there is the highest exhibition of unselfish interest in the welfare of others. He lives for them, labors for them, suffers for them. He is so fully occupied for them, that self is to a very great degree lost sight of and abandoned. Fatigue, and suffering, and shame, can scarcely recall him to the demands of his own existence. When Moses stood before Jehovah, and heard him threaten the entire extinction of the rebellious race — o I he exclaimed in passionate intercession, no ! rather " blot me out of thy book !" Paul, in contemplating the case of the reprobate Jews, makes this earnest declaration : " I say the truth in Christ; I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness, in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." His "spirit was stirred within him " when he saw a " city wholly given to idolatry ;" and when he had turned men to God they were his " glory and crown of rejoicing."

When he had collected them into a church he was " jealous over them with godly jealousy," for he ^^ feared lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ," and the fruit of his labor be lost. 4. Mingled with this is a pervading feeling of unworthiness — " I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell among a people of unclean lips." How is it that God should choose such an instrument for his holy purposes ? " Who am I, and what is my father's house ?" Can / be Go(rs Ambassador to negotiate in his name with the revolted subjects of his government "? Impossible I I am a sinner saved by grace myself, and demanding fresh supplies of grace every moment. When once the fact is admitted, and the divine call recognised, still he says and feels " the heavenly treasure is in a clay vessel," and, bowing with conscious weakness under the burden, he turns continually to the promise, « Lo ! I am with vou always."

410 MI ISTERIAL SOLICITUDE. 5. " Wo is roe if I preach not the Gospel." I must preach or die. This direct accountability to God under an undoubted conviction of duty gives pungency to his concern. He is solicitous for himself as well as others. Fidelity in the discharge of his duty to them is the pivot on which his own safety vibrates. When our flaming firmament shall light the judgment scene, he expects to hear the Judge demand " Where is thy brother 1" That will be no time for the impudent infidel reply, " Am I my brother's keeper ?" Who of us in that hour will be able to stand with undisturbed composure, and respond, " Here am I, and the children thou hast given me." Let us consider, finally, III. Its results upon ministerial effort and success. 1. It incites to activity. It tolerates no sluggishness. It is a constant impulsion, urging its subject to the most strenuous exertion in the service of souls. He looks around him for a place to work and a way to work, " if by any means he may save some." He is not select as to places, nor ambitious of distinctions, but work he must. Let others scheme and wrangle for promotion — " let the potsherd strive with the potsherd of the earth " — he has loftier demands to meet. To preach the Gospel — to all — especially to the poor — is his highest aspiration.

To occupy metropolitan churches, and to see his name in newspapers and books, with flattering encomiums, is a very little thing. In highways and hedges, in forgotten lanes and alleys, in rude, uncultivated neighborhoods, he finds the fields whitening to the harvest. A soul saved out of a gutter is as good as a soul saved out of a palace. He can even afford to live on a small salary. " ot yours, but you," is his motto. He can dispense with sumptuous dinners and costly clothing. Only let him work for Christ and souls. What if he does not attract the world's eye. God sees him ! He is willing to be «' little and unknown, Loved and prized by God alone." If the force of his talents or the accidents of his position elevate him to public regard, he accepts it, not as the end of his labors, but as furnishing the means, and indicating the methods of exertion. A model preacher was the man of Tarsus. In all ho did this prin-

SH ISTERIAL SOLICITUDE 411 ciple predominated — '< the love of Christ constraineth us." From *he moment " Christ was formed within him, the hope of glory," the spirit of the. ministry wrought in him, making him a constant miracle of endurance and of toil. o distance was too great to traverse in pursuit of souls. o difficulty was too formidable to encounter. o danger too extreme to be braved. Throughout Asia and Europe, through perils, stripes and imprisonments, publicly and from house to house, night and day, to the very last, he gave himself to the work. Wesley found Paul's mantle and put it on. From the great Apostle he took the motto which became the main-spring of his over-active life, " in labors more abundant." Anywhere, in London or in the collieries, no matter where, so there were men there. These two men — Paul and Wesley — each in his day, literally stirred the world up. It is not the fortune of every man to do so large a work, but every one may work as incessantly as they in the minuter cultivation of a smaller field. There is work enough for the most vigorous body and the most active mind, in a single pastoral charge. To prepare for thorough pulpit instruction, to visit the sick and them that are

out of the way, to lenrn the wants of all and supply them, will leave a man but little rest. 2. He can do nothing else. His consuming zeal will hear of no meaner employment. This is his business, and it is of too much importance to be encroached upon by other avocations. Head, and heart, and hands must be devoted to this. He must not bring to it affections diluted by the cares of secular life. Of the Gospel he must live. 3. It infuses an inspiring animation into all his ministrations. His theology is no mere speculation. His gospel is not a system of remote and unappreciated facts. Gesture, and tone, and eye are alive with the message. The words take more than half their meaning from the utterance of a burning spirit. A sentence which from other lips means little, comes from his throbbing with vital thought. or is it from studied action. It is the soul, heated to fusion, and pouring itself out in the warnings and persuasions of the Gospel. 4. Such a ministry is always successful. The elements of success are all present. Earnest workers always reach their object. The energy of a sincere mind is a wonderful power. Faith at the same time allies itself to divine strength. In the enthusiasm of his own

412 MI ISTERIAL SOLICITUDE. spirit lie is a host, and with the luomentum of divine energy added, he is irresistible. Contemplate the results : Souls delivered out of the snare of the devil, washed from their dark defilement, relieved of their guilt, and Bavcd from the damnation of hell. Hundreds rejoice in the ministry of a single man. They turn their eyes upward. The clouds are parted. The sky is luminous. Heaven opens. Thrones, and crowns, and joys invite them. Walls and arches, palaces and domes, brilliant with precious stones, and aglow with the glory of God, welcome them. Joy, kindled to rapture, brightens every face, and pours itself in divinest melody from myriad strings. We must live in heaven before we can fully realize the spirit of this theme. If we could use the words in which the seraphim hold their high communion, we should find no audience to receive the celestial import. We must die to understand it. Let the day come. Let me see the dust of toil brushed off, and

the "fine linen, clean and white, put on." Let me see the clay chrysalis burst into the seraph. Let me hear the shout that shall go up into the ear of God, when the "great multitude, which no man can number," shall " enter in through the gates into the city :" " Unto Him that hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." AiiE .

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