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temporizing spirit, that aims to please God and man together, will meet with disappointment from both. Where God is not honoured, he will not honour. And in defect of that Christian boldness that becomes our Master's cause, our people under the influence of our example will sink into the same benumbed spirit, while their confidence in us will be materially weakened by the manifest evidence of our Ministerial inefficiency and unfruitfulness..

CHAPTER IV.

THE WANT OF CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL.

Ir may be generally remarked, that unless the Ministry exhibit the self-denying character of the cross of Christ, it is the Christian Ministry in the letter only, not in the spirit; it is not the work that God has engaged to bless. The motives to this Ministerial principle are indeed in themselves so operative, that, were it not for the strong current of counteracting influence, they would be found irresistible. The impressive solemnity of Ordination-in which we voluntarily bound ourselves to lay aside the study of the world and the flesh'* --might be thought to give at the very outset an impulse, sufficiently powerful to carry us on through a course

* Exhortation in the Ordination of Priests: that is, as Archbishop Secker expounds it-'not making either gross pleasures, or more refined amusements-even literary ones unconnected with your profession-or power, or profit, or advancement, or applause, your great aim in life; but labouring chiefly to qualify yourselves for doing good to the souls of men, and applying care fully to that purpose whatever qualifications you attain.'-Instructions to Candidates for Orders, appended to his Charges.

of habitual and necessary self-denial in the consecration of ourselves to the service of God. But the Christian principle has a continual struggle to maintain with natural self-indulgence-the influence of old habitsperhaps the habits of our former unconverted state-all combining to lower the standard of exertion from the Scriptural mark. The cultivation, therefore, and renewal of the habit of self-denial are the springs of the most beneficial Ministerial activity; and the want, or the enervation of this habit will ever be found to relax the whole system of our motives and encouragements. Archbishop Leighton admirably sets forth John the Baptist as an example of the spirit and temper of Ministers of the gospel-' to live as much as may be I in their condition and station disengaged from the world-not following the vain delights and ways of it— not bathing in the solaces and pleasures of earth, and entangling themselves in the care of it; but sober and modest, and mortified in their way of living; making it their main business not to please the flesh, but to do service to their Lord, to walk in his ways, and prepare his way for him in the hearts of his people.* The Apostle sets before us the habitual temperance of the wrestler, as the illustration of his own Mintsterial exercises, and as the appointed mean of preserving his Christian stedfastness;† the necessity for which was in no respect diminished by his high attaiments in the Christian life. The missionary Eliot is said to have 6 become so nailed to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the grandeurs of this world were unto him just what they would be to a dying man. He persecuted the lust of the flesh with a continual antipathy; and

* Lectures on Matt. iii. Works, vol. iii. 25.
† 1 Cor. ix. 25-27.

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when he has thought that a minister had made much of himself, he has gone to him with that speech- Study mortification, brother, study mortification."* His biographer, in the same spirit, on his entrance on the Ministry, having met with the important remark-that the want of mortification in a Minister is very often the cause of the unsuccessfulness of his Ministry,? resolved to read over Dr. Owen's valuable Treatise on Mortification, with some other books for instruction and direction on the same subject.† Henry Martyn appears to have deeply felt the incalculable value of Christian self-denial in the work of the Ministry-- A despicable indulgence in lying in bed,' he writes soon after his Ordination, gave me such a view of the softness of my character, that I resolved on my knees to lead a life of more self-denial; the tone and vigour of my mind rose rapidly; all those duties, from which I usually shrink, seemed recreations. I collected all the passages from the four gospels that had any reference to this subject. It is one on which I need to preach to myself, and mean to preach to others.' We might indeed apply the apostle's remark on a subject not wholly dissimilar-" If a man know not how to rule his own" self, "how shall he take care of the church of God ?"§ The fidelity he owes to God requires the abridgment or relinquishment of whatever is inconsistent with his double obligation of "giving himself continually to prayer and to the Ministry of the word." He may

* Mather's Life of Eliot.

tLife of Cotton Mather, by his son. An excellent abridgment of which may be found among a valuable system of Christian Biography, now publishing by the Religious Tract Society. See some valuable hints on the subject of Christian Mortification, in the Life of Owen Stockton, republished in the same series. § 1 Tim. iii, 5.

Martyn's Life, p. 68.

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escape" indeed, "the pollutions that are in the world through lust," but the subtle operation of indolence, the indulgence of levity in manners or conversation, still besets him, even in the society of religious professors, with an influence as injurious as worldly dissipation. It was a most important remark of Ecolampadius, animadverting, in his celebrated Epistle to the Waldenses, upon the injunction of the celibacy of priests : It is not marriage that spoils priests, but sloth, selfindulgence, and the fear of the cross.'*-But the general habit of self-denial in its application to the wide subject of the Ministry will admit of more detailed illustration.

It should be visible in our manners and communication with our people. The ordinary remove of a young Minister from the University to a country parish brings him into a new world. His intercourse, hitherto conducted with men on his own level-men of good breeding, education, and intelligence, must now bet exchanged for contact with the lower department of society, unfurnished in their minds, and engaged in pursuits utterly uncongenial with taste and refinement. Nor is he at liberty (as in the common walks of life) to decline their intercourse. He has bound himself to them by the deepest responsibility to live for them and with them, on terms not only of consideration and respect, but of mutual confidence and love. Now his obvious duty of "condescending to men of low estate" must be formed upon the basis of self-denial. He must

* Scott's Continuation of Milner, vol. i. 147. Dr. Watts's caution will explain this remark with valuable minuteness: 'Guard,' says he to his young Minister, 'against a love of pleasure, a sensual temper, an indulgence of appetite, an excessive relish of wine or dainties; this carnalizes the soul, and gives occasion to the world to reproach but too justly.-Humble Attempt, pp. 30, 81.

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acquaint himself with their manners, their modes of thinking and expression, and their connexions with one another, in order to bring them under the direct and immediate influence of an effective Ministration. The dignified condescension of our Divine Master's Ministry furnishes the best pattern for his servants. He "spake the words unto" the people, not as in his infinite wisdom he was able to speak it, but as they in their infantine state of intelligence "were able to hear it:"* and he invited them to "learn of him,” in the assurance, that he was "meek and lowly in heart." The want of conformity to this pattern shuts up the avenues of confidence, and consequently prospects of success. It gives a force of repulsion rather than of attraction to Ministerial intercourse. The "rough places," instead of being “made smooth,” are made more rough and impervious.

The exercise of Christian self-denial will be called for in the duties of the Ministry. Our labour will be often demanded with considerable sacrifice of personal inconvenience. Thus it was with our Master. His food and rest was even foregone or forgotten in the immediate pressure. Seasons of necessary retirement were interrupted without an upbraiding word. §. Hunger, thirst, cold, or fatigue set no bounds to the determined forgetfulness of himself in his Father's work. But should we be ready for the exercise of self-denial in giving up our ease, convenience, or comfort, for our people's sake-when called, for instance, from an hour of legitimate indulgence to the visitations of the sick? It was said of Mr. Grimshawe, (could it be said of many of us?)

*Mark iv. 33.

† Matt. xi. 29.
Compare John iv. 6, 31-34.
§ Compare Mark i. 35–38. vi. 31—34.

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