"There is a manifest want of spiritual influence on the ministry of the present day. I feel it in my own case and I see it in that of others. I am afraid there is too much of a low, managing, contriving, maneuvering temper of mind among us. We are laying ourselves out more than is expedient to meet one man's taste and another man's prejudices. The ministry is a grand and holy affair, and it should find in us a simple habit of spirit and a holy but humble indifference to all consequences. The leading defect in Christian ministers is want of a devotional habit." - Richard Cecil |
NEVER was there greater
need for saintly men and women;
more imperative still is the call for saintly, God-devoted preachers. The world
moves with gigantic strides. Satan has his hold and rule on the world, and labors
to make all its movements subserve his ends. Religion must do its best work,
present its most attractive and perfect models. By every means, modern sainthood
must be inspired by the loftiest ideals and by the largest possibilities through
the Spirit. Paul lived on his knees, that the Ephesian Church might measure
the heights, breadths, and depths of an unmeasurable saintliness, and "be
filled with all the fullness of God." Epaphras laid himself out with the
exhaustive toil and strenuous conflict of fervent prayer, that the Colossian
Church might "stand perfect and complete in all the will of God."
Everywhere, everything in apostolic times was on the stretch that the people
of God might each and "all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge
of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ." No premium was given to dwarfs; no encouragement to
an old babyhood. The babies were to grow; the old, instead of feebleness and
infirmities, were to bear fruit in old age, and be fat and flourishing. The
divinest thing in religion is holy men and holy women.
No amount of money, genius, or culture can move things for God. Holiness energizing
the soul, the whole man aflame with love, with desire for more faith, more prayer,
more zeal, more consecration -- this is the secret of power. These we need and
must have, and men must be the incarnation of this God-inflamed devotedness.
God's advance has been stayed, his cause crippled: his name dishonored for their
lack. Genius (though the loftiest and most gifted), education (though the most
learned and refined), position, dignity, place, honored names, high ecclesiastics
cannot move this chariot of our God. It is a fiery one, and fiery forces only
can move it. The genius of a Milton fails. The imperial strength of a Leo fails.
Brainerd's spirit can move it. Brainerd's spirit was on fire for God, on fire
for souls. Nothing earthly, worldly, selfish came in to abate in the least the
intensity of this all-impelling and all-consuming force and flame.
Prayer is the creator as well as the channel of devotion. The spirit of devotion
is the spirit of prayer. Prayer and devotion are united as soul and body are
united, as life and the heart are united. There is no real prayer without devotion,
no devotion without prayer. The preacher must be surrendered to God in the holiest
devotion. He is not a professional man, his ministry is not a profession; it
is a divine institution, a divine devotion. He is devoted to God. His aim, aspirations,
ambition are for God and to God, and to such prayer is as essential as food
is to life.
The preacher, above everything else, must be devoted to God. The preacher's
relations to God are the insignia and credentials of his ministry. These must
be clear, conclusive, unmistakable. No common, surface type of piety must be
his. If he does not excel in grace, he does not excel at all. If he does not
preach by life, character, conduct, he does not preach at all. If his piety
be light, his preaching may be as soft and as sweet as music, as gifted as Apollo,
yet its weight will be a feather's weight, visionary, fleeting as the morning
cloud or the early dew. Devotion to God -- there is no substitute for this in
the preacher's character and conduct. Devotion to a Church, to opinions, to
an organization, to orthodoxy -- these are paltry, misleading, and vain when
they become the source of inspiration, the animus of a call. God must be the
mainspring of the preacher's effort, the fountain and crown of all his toil.
The name and honor of Jesus Christ, the advance of his cause, must be all in
all. The preacher must have no inspiration but the name of Jesus Christ, no
ambition but to have him glorified, no toil but for him. Then prayer will be
a source of his illuminations, the means of perpetual advance, the gauge of
his success. The perpetual aim, the only ambition, the preacher can cherish
is to have God with him.
Never did the cause of God need perfect illustrations of the possibilities of
prayer more than in this age. No age, no person, will be ensamples of the gospel
power except the ages or persons of deep and earnest prayer. A prayerless age
will have but scant models of divine power. Prayerless hearts will never rise
to these Alpine heights. The age may be a better age than the past, but there
is an infinite distance between the betterment of an age by the force of an
advancing civilization and its betterment by the increase of holiness and Christlikeness
by the energy of prayer. The Jews were much better when Christ came than in
the ages before. It was the golden age of their Pharisaic religion. Their golden
religious age crucified Christ. Never more praying, never less praying; never
more sacrifices, never less sacrifice; never less idolatry, never more idolatry;
never more of temple worship, never less of God worship; never more of lip service,
never less of heart service (God worshiped by lips whose hearts and hands crucified
God's Son!); never more of churchgoers, never less of saints.
It is prayer-force which makes saints. Holy characters are formed by the power
of real praying. The more of true saints, the more of praying; the more of praying,
the more of true saints.