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202 WHAT WILL DISAPPEAR UNDER PURER LIGHT.

Christian charity, many things now deemed of vital importance will sink into comparative insignificance, or utterly disappear under the bright light of a purer Christianity.

THE CLERGY OF ALL CHURCHES-THEIR MISTAKES, DIFFICULTIES, AND DUTIES IN REFERENCE TO THIS SUBJECT.

WE cannot dismiss this topic without invoking to it the earnest attention of the clergy of all denominations, as well those who claim to be the successors of the apostles, as those who merely profess to be ministers of Christ. We are not of those who entertain any prejudices against them as a class. Like other classes, their history shows they have embraced in their ranks some of the best and some of the worst of men. It is plain they have their peculiarities as a class, and these are mainly what circumstances have created

and continued. The frailties of human nature have been as apparent among them as others: they have shown themselves as susceptible to temptation. The developments of their weaknesses have been more striking and more painful from the sacredness of their calling. The time has arrived when their influence for evil has sensibly diminished, and when, we may trust, their labours for good must be more successful. The great error of the ministers of Christ in the early ages of Christianity, as already remarked, was in supposing that the more power and influence they had, the more useful they could be. This was a feeling very natural to human weakness, and the continuance and increase of it built up the рарасу, the spirit of which is, to claim and exercise power, spiritual and temporal. No doubt thousands. upon thousands of these early clergy honestly believed they could better promote their Master's cause if they were armed with a continual increase of power. They imagined in like manner that

204 CHRIST WORKED NOT BY POWER, BUT BY LOVE.

if they could maintain a watch over the inner man, while they had power to control his outward movements, they could efficiently serve their Master, and promote the interests of his kingdom in this world. They were daily encountering obstacles in the heathen world by which they were surrounded, and in the perverseness or stubborn independence of nominal Christians, which tended to confirm in them the conviction of the necessity of this priestly power. They were regarding the subject as men; they forgot their Master's example, who had all power, both temporal and spiritual, and yet worked only by love: who did not even avail himself of power, or wealth, or high office, or social position. He took the lowest place in society, that he might reach the multitudes who were more accessible to the truth, and nearer to the kingdom of God, because less wedded to this life than the rich and great. They were not receiving the good things of this world. He went among them to carry them glad tidings of the world to

ERROR OF GRASPING POWER STILL PREVAILS. 205

come. They were suffering in this world; he appeared among them to carry succour, consolation, and hope. This should have been to this day the conduct of his ministers; who, by adopting the scheme of converting the world to God by the power of the church over mind and body, have committed an amount of wickedness beyond any human estimate.

We thus notice this great mistake, as it prevails to this day, more or less, among those denominations of Christians, or rather among their clergy, who regard the church of Christ as a great mysterious, spiritual corporation. The temptation of magnifying their office overmuch assails the ministers of Christ continually, and they seek to magnify it, not by the good they do, but by the power to do good. But since the days of Christ, it has ever been seen that power, temporal or spiritual, was a dangerous possession to priests or ministers. These have always been corrupt in proportion to the power they wielded. All the power they can employ successfully, is that of truth

and love. It is a mistake to suppose that this grasping after control has come to an end, or that it is confined to those who claim to have the only true priesthood. Many of the reformed churches are its victims. Those in the north of Europe have thus had all spiritual life extinguished others have suffered more in this way than we can pause to tell. But this notion of the church, with power to do good, haunts the minds of many ministers all around us in a way that has produced, and still produces much mischief. Instead of bending all their energies to commend the truth to their hearers, and to back it by that kindness and love which is the seal of its genuineness, they struggle to build up the church, that is, their particular denomination; to bring their people to a strict adhesion to their peculiar tenets, to strict attendance upon their public worship, and to a general outward compliance. with all its requirements. In this way, a hedge is carried round the people which is intended to secure submission to the discipline of the

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