Gospel, with increasing acceptance and application. Not, however, that any of these abilities are communicated by an extraordinary or sudden afflatus, or that they necessarily in all cases accompany in an equal measure the efforts of diligence.* The diligence of faith will never be without its present encouragement and recompense in the growth, increase, and improvement of Ministerial gifts. Yet we must not entrench upon the exercise of the Divine sovereignty, remembering that "all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will."+

6

'It is not to be supposed,' therefore, to use the words of a sensible writer, that such an office can be easily filled. It demands not merely some but many, nay, all excellencies, in happy combination. A person may, in a general way, be said to be qualified for the Ministry, who has talents for preaching, though not fitted for profitable private intercourse, or the affairs of Church Government. But this is evidently not a complete adaptation to the work. It is, on the contrary, a very imperfect one, and one with which no man should be content. For all the aspects of Ministerial labour are, if not equally, yet highly important; every one of them far too important to be

* Bishop Sanderson observes-'It was Simon Magus's error to think that the gifts of God might be purchased with money; and it has a spice of his sin, and so may go for a kind of simony, to think that spiritual gifts may be purchased with labour. You may rise up early and go to bed late, and study hard, and read much, and devour the marrow of the best authors; and when you have done all, unless God give a blessing to your endeavours, be as lean and meagre in regard of true and useful learning, as Pharaoh's lean kine, were, after they had eaten the fat ones. It is God, that both ministereth the seed to the sower, and multiplieth the seed sown: the principal and the increase are both his."

1 Cor. xii. 11.

trifled with. The right performance of each affords facilities for the rest, and gives additional beauty and efficacy to all. To be fit for only one department, cannot but greatly impede our activity, and diminish our success. To fill the ministerial office with a degree of satisfaction and benefit commensurate with its capabilities, or with the desire of a heart awake to its importance, we must be all that it demands-men of God, perfect, completely furnished to every good work."*

CHAPTER VII.

PREPARATION FOR THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.

We have already partially seen that the weight and importance of Ministerial responsibilities render the work apparently more fitting to the shoulders of angels than of men.t It is therefore a matter of the deepest regret, that there should be found those who will rush

* Hinton on Completeness of Ministerial Qualification, pp. 11, 12. It will not fail to be objected,' remarks Mr. Ostervald, 'that 'If none were to be admitted into holy orders, except those who are possessed of every necessary qualification, there could not possibly be procured a sufficient number of Pastors for the supply of our Churches.' To which I answer, that a small number of chosen Pastors is preferable to a multitude of unqualified teachers. At all hazards we must adhere to the command of God, and leave the event to Providence. But in reality the dearth of pastors is not so generally to be apprehended. To reject those candidates for holy orders, whose labours in the Church would be wholly fruitless, is undoubtedly a work of piety. Others on the contrary, who are qualified to fulfil the duties of the sacred office, would take encouragement from this exactness and severity, and the Ministry would every day be rendered more respectable in the world.' Ostervald on Sources of Corruption.

Onus Angelicus humeris formidandum. Augustine.

upon it, equally unquallified for its duties, and unimpressed with its obligations. 'Fools will rush in where angels fear to tread.'* The influence of selfish or secular motives is awfully successful in blinding the conscience to the sense of the present necessity, and to the anticipation of the day of account; and thus talents are either hid in the earth, or prostituted for the service of another master. On the other hand, young men of ardent feelings and promising talents, but with unfurnished minds, are thrust forward by the persuasion of injudicious friends, or by the excitement of some momentary bias, into the sacred office. The Church of God has severely suffered from this woeful inconsideration, and the victims of this ill-directed impetus have felt to their cost the bitter fruits in the disappointment of their own Ministry, and the want of establishment and support in their own souls. In other cases, however, an interval abundantly sufficient has been allotted for Ministerial preparation with no better success. The precious time for gathering in the store has been either wasted in feebleness and sloth, or it has been more actively misapplied in studies, which have no direct tendency to form a solid, judicious, and experimental Ministry; so that with every advantage of deliberation, but a slender stock of spiritual or intellectual furniture is ready to meet the successive and daily increasing demands. A considerate calculation of the momentous costs affords the only well-grounded hope of an efficient Ministry. Because it is then that the work will be contemplated,-not in the colouring

* Nulla ars doceri præsumitur, nisi intenta prius meditatione discitur. Ab imperitis ergo pastoribus magisterium pastorale suscipitur in magna temeritate, quoniam ars est artium regimen animarum. Greg. de Cura Pastor. cap. 1.

self-indulgent anticipation, but in its true Scriptural light, as warranted by the experience of every faithful labourer,—a work not of ease, but of selfdenial-not of hasty effort, but of patient endurance -not of feeling and impulse, but of faith, prayer, and determination.

The beneficial influence of a well-improved season of preparation may be felt throughout the course of a protracted Ministry. Time employed in storing the mind with Scripture doctrine, and the best mode of directing it to devotional and practical purposes--in habits of self-communion and converse with God, and in the exercise of active godliness, will turn to most profitable account. A few suggestions therefore will now be offered on Ministerial preparation under the divisions of Habits of General Study-The Special Study of the Scriptures-Habits of Prayer-and Employment in every thing relating to the welfare of souls.

SECTION 1.

HABITS OF GENERAL STUDY.

"GIVE attendance to reading,"* is the Scripture rule for Ministerial study. It is obviously of a general character, nor is there any reason for restricting its "Paul the aged" application to the Sacred volume.

which,

in sending for his "books and parchments," it may be presumed, he wanted for perusal, thus exemplified the comprehensive extent of his own rule. Indeed experience amply warrants the assertion, that the Church of God is built up by the Ministry of the

* 1 Tim. iv. 13.

† 2 Tim. iv. 13.

pen as well as of the mouth, and that in both ways "the manifestation of the Spirit is given unto every one to profit withal.”* It is not to be supposed, that God would suffer the labours of his servants, in communicating the results of exercised, deep, and devotional study, to be in vain. The experience of men of God, like that of diligent travellers, is a public benefit; and the fruit of it in successive ages is preserved as a most valuable store of important knowledge to the Church.

The Apostle's rule just referred to, may again be explained by his own practice--to embrace the wide field of General study.† We occasionally mark in his writings the introduction of heathen aphorisms in the illustration or application of sacred truth,' which he surely never would have countenanced, had he apprehended that the purity of the Christian system of instruction would necessarily suffer from an intermixture of human learning. Stephen mentions it to

* 1 Cor. xii. 7.

Thus Mr. Scott explains it, as referring to the study of the Scriptures, or of any other books which could add to his fund of profitable knowledge.' In an earlier period of life, he candidly confesses that his notions on these subjects were too contracted. Mature consideration, however, formed his studious life upon more enlarged principles, which he never failed strongly to inculcate upon young men under his care and influence, marking, however, at the same time, the importance of a due subordination to the main end. The object of all your studies,' he writes in one of his letters, 'should be, neither celebrity, advantage, nor knowledge for its own sake, but furniture to enable you to serve God in your generation.' Life, pp. 102, 103, 330. A minister of the present day said once to a friend, who, on calling upon him, found him reading Gibbon's History, that he read every thing with a particular view to his Ministry, that he collected some materials for the pulpit from books of almost every description, and that he made all his readings contribute something towards what was needful for the Sunday.' Christian Observer, Oct. 1828, p. 608. † Such as Acts xvii. 28. 1 Cor. xv. 33. Titus i. 12.