INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

ON THE

DIGNITY AND IMPORTANCE OF THE PREACHER'S WORK.

THE remark has been often made, that a scholar of but moderate powers can be more certain of a livelihood in the profession of divinity, than in that of law or physic. It is said that men are more willing to entrust the care of their souls, than of their bodies or estates to incompetent pretenders. In order to attain eminence at the bar, a man must analyze with great care the principles of ethics and jurisprudence, must be familiar with the intricate windings of the human heart, must be well versed in the history of nations as well as individuals, must retain in his memory a multitude of statutes and precedents, must be capable of intense mental application to an individual case for a long time, must be calm amid the excitement of all around him, must think amid noise and confusion, must be ready for emergencies, for sudden rejoinder and repartee, for extemporaneous analysis and invention, as well as unpremeditated speech. But in order to succeed in the ministry, it is said, no more intellectual effort is required than to understand a number of truths in which the wayfaring man though a fool need not err, to pen homilies in the retirement of the study, to read them without the perils of being interrupted and confused or perhaps refuted by antagonists, to go from house to house uttering mild and sweet words to men, women and children. Thus has an opinion gone abroad that the clerical profession makes a less imperative demand than the legal upon the energies of the mind and will. It is recorded of certain men, that "being of a weakly habit" they were set apart for the church. Some eminent politicians have entered upon active life as clergymen, but have abandoned their sacred vocation because they deemed its sphere of activity too low and small. Young men

of promise often turn away from the ministry, because it seems to demand of them a sacrifice of mental excellence. “Marrying and christening machines" have the clergymen of certain churches been called, not without some coloring of truth. There is reason to fear that many candidates for the sacred office undervalue its inherent dignity, and hope to enjoy the kindnesses of their parishioners, without any strong impulse toward personal improvement. And perhaps there are men who have begun to preach, and rest contented with the routine of common observances, and never feel that the kingdom of truth, as well as of religion, is to suffer violence, and the violent are to take it by force. But a minister cannot live in the healthful discharge of his duties, without feeling the need of his unceasing movement upward; nor will he perceive this necessity, unless he form a high idea of the work which is given him to do. A livelihood, and even a kind of eminence in his calling, may sometimes be secured by the minister who shrinks from that severity of mental toil which is needed for distinguished usefulness in the other professions. But his livelihood is not a true "living," and his eminence is productive of but little good, unless he be, in the full meaning of the term, a laborer, unless his standard of ministerial excellence be such as to exalt his whole character. What constitutes a call to preach the gospel; what kind of mental discipline should the pastor adopt; what books should he read; what subjects should he investigate; how much time should he devote to social interviews with his people; what, how, how often and how long should he preach; all such questions can be answered most fitly by him who has the deepest reverence for the pulpit.1 "The moment we permit ourselves," says Robert Hall, "to think lightly of the Christian ministry, our right arm is withered; nothing but imbecility and relaxation remains. For no man ever excelled in a profession to which he did not feel an attachment bordering on enthusiasm; though what in other professions is enthusiasm, is in ours the dictate of sobriety and truth."

1 Erasmus, mourning over the deficiencies of the ministry in his age, said, Verùm ad conciones sacras admittuntur, interdum etiam assiliunt, quilibet adolescentes leves, indocti, quasi nihil sit facilius quàm apud populum exponere divinam scripturam, et abundè sufficiat perfricuisse faciem, et absterso pudore linguam volvere. Hoc malum ex eo fonte manat, quòd non perpenditur quid sit ecclesiastici concionatoris, tum dignitas, tum difficultas, tum utilitas.

As it is thus important for the clergyman to entertain high views of his office, in order to learn its appropriate duties and feel the proper stimulus to perform them, it cannot be amiss to call his attention, for a few moments, to the dignity and importance of his work, and, in a special manner, of that branch of it which consists in the public ministration of the word.

In order to estimate the greatness of the preacher's calling,. we must consider the nature of the themes which he is to study and discuss. The character of his office receives its hue from the character of the subjects that he is to master. All truths are important; all are religious in their tendency; yet there is a gradation among them, and one rises above another like the stones of the pyramid. Though it is neither scholar-like nor Christian to depreciate any of the sciences, there is yet no harm in saying that the glory of the_celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. Entomology is not an idle study; for the minutest insect is an illustration of the greatness of God's care and the cunning of his workmanship. But we commonly feel that we have made some advance, when we come to mineralogy and geology, and inspect those monuments of Jehovah's love and strength that are curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. And certainly we are rising higher still, when we expatiate on the truths with which astronomy expands and ennobles the soul. As the intellect is of more value than a whole system of worlds, we owe a profounder homage to the science of intellect than to that of all matter; yet even this is subordinate to its sister science, that of the heart; of the affections, the will. Man's moral nature is nobler than his mental, as the architrave is above the pedestal. For his moral nature all his other powers were made; they are the framework for this; his knowledge of them was meant to be subservient to his knowledge of duty and moral retribution. But from the mind and heart of a man we can make an ascent to the mind and heart of an angel; and higher still to that incomprehensible Spirit, our first idea of whom is a specimen of sublimity. Now the preacher of the gospel should go up all the steps of science; nothing of truth comes amiss to him; everything is of use. In the language of an acute divine," he must know something of everything, although he can know everything of nothing." What Napoleon said of

France may be accommodated to the Christian ministry, and "its true power may lie in not allowing a single new idea to exist without making it a part of the property" of the

office.

But although the minister should acquaint himself with all the sciences, so that he may illustrate the truths of religion by the facts of nature, so that he may find "sermons in stones and good in everything," there are some investigations with which he should be peculiarly conversant. As a man, as a scholar, he must be able to draw analogies to moral truth from the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms; but as a Christian orator he should be at home in the philosophy of the human intellect. His appropriate work begins with those studies, which were the end of many of the labors of such men as Descartes, Stewart and Brown. He is to answer some of the fundamental questions in theology by a reference to the analyses of intellectual operations. He must search out the laws of mind as they are developed in the structure of language, and must learn to interpret the Bible from the principles of mental suggestion. He must investigate the nature of the intellectual powers as he is to use them, and the susceptibilities as he is to address them in the pulpit. He must learn how to instruct, to convince, to enchain attention, to keep fast hold upon the memory. Not satisfied with the bare rules of rhetoric, he must seek for the reason of these rules in the nature of man. Nor is he to linger too long upon our intellectual faculties. His higher theme is our moral constitution. He must learn how to touch the secret springs of the heart; how to evoke that volition which will be followed by an eternity of reward; how to check the indulgence of that feeling which brings in its train an eternity of punishment. The exalted and impressive designation of his office is "the care of souls." Immortality, free agency, interminable joy and pain, such are the themes of his prolonged attention. Thus is the philosophy which transcends the knowledge of planets and suns, nothing more than an elementary branch of the preacher's great science.

But he does not confine himself to the spiritual phenomena of men. He is to discuss the doctrine of those superior intelligences who come from above or below on ministries of good or evil to our race. He is to analyze the intellectual

1 Bourrienne's Memoirs, Vol. 1. p. 126.

character of God; for he is to inquire into the divine omniscience, immutability, foreknowledge, decrees. He is to enlarge still more freely on what is still more exalted, the moral nature of him who is defined with more than logical preciseness, "God is love." Rising above the physical and psychological workmanship of the great Architect, above the government of the material and sentient universe, the preacher arrives at his mind's home and resting-place, when he comes to the crowning excellence of the adorable One, and portrays the atoning mercy of him who " so loved the world." If, then, the acme of the Creator's glories is to be the most familiar of the preacher's themes; if all human sciences are but ancillary to that revealed system which the minister is to explain and enforce, if eternity and the resurrection, and God and Christ, the Sovereign, the Judge, the Saviour, are to be the great objects on which his mind is to dilate, then it is well to require of him that he be not a novice, but a man of greatness of spirit, of high aims and large compass of thought. If a vigorous intellect be needed for the study of human jurisprudence, it is doubly requisite for the examination of that law according to which all our wise codes of legislation are framed; which is illustrated by precedents more numerous and complicated than are contained in all our juridical reports; which has such relations to man as call for a close scrutiny into his nature and character; and such relations to God as demand a comprehensive view of his rectitude on the one hand, and his grace on the other, and of that signal invention by which he can even honor the law by remitting its penalties. The proper study of the Bible, involving the investigation of ethical and metaphysical truth, of politics, history, geology, and astronomy; and requiring the highest exercise of the judgment and imagination, the inventive genius and the memory, is not the work of a sciolist who enters the sacred office because he is unfit for any other.

The effects produced by a preacher illustrate the dignity and importance of his work. It is often said that his influence affords no argument in favor of his office, for every man and every event produce effects which no finite mind can comprehend. The genius of Robert Hall received no inconsiderable aid from the conversation of a tailor. A single leaf from Boston's Fourfold State, found and perused by an individual in Virginia, led to the small gathering at "Morris's Reading House," and to the preaching of Robinson in that