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ART. II.-DIVERSITIES IN MINISTERIAL CHARACTER.

AN EXPOSITION.

"But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children."-MATTHEW xi. 16-19.

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S the last clause in this paragraph is a sort of key to the meaning of the whole passage, we will deal with it first. By a fine personification abstract wisdom or rectitude, as developed in the divine economy, is set forth as the matron of a well-ordered family, every member of which is a credit to her. The children of a house are a reflection of the mother, their appearance and behaviour telling whether she is thrifty and judicious, or whether she is idle and thoughtless. When they appear abroad in decent attire, and drop respectful, wise answers to those who interrogate them, a blessing is pronounced on their mother as being notable and painstaking. It is right that she should have the honour in such a case, for families can hardly be exemplary and distinguished independently of maternal influence. The mother is a normal point in a house. How important that her character should be high, and her education thorough! This by the way. It is necessary to inquire. -Who are the children of wisdom, whose speech and behaviour justify her? All virtuous characters whose lives are based on religious principle are entitled to be considered such. But we are disposed to think that Jesus meant himself and his fore-runner, who, though of different habits, were both serviceable to the age they lived in. If such was his meaning, then all public instructors are the offspring of wisdom as well, in virtue of their office. They are par excellence the children of wisdom. As, however, there is no monopoly in the communication of useful knowledge, and as genuine character operates for good, even without a teaching voice, we may include in wisdom's family those who receive instruction as well as those who retail it. All who are of a gracious disposition, and live by the rules of wisdom, make good their pedigree. Whether they are of a silent, contemplative nature, or of an active, pragmatic constitution, they vindicate and justify their parent. Whether they be of a free and genial nature, or more reserved and sober, they tend to rectitude, and contribute to the common stock of good; you cannot make them exactly of one face and feature, even in persons of right principles there will be characteristic diversities. It is well. Diversity is good. "Wisdom is justified of all her children”—Luke vii. 35. The sum total of the meaning is:

THE MEASURES WHICH GOD USES FOR THE SALVATION OF MANKIND, THOUGH MANIFOLD AND VARIOUS, ARE ADAPTED TO DO GOOD NOTWITHSTANDING THEIR VARIETY, YEA, EVEN IN CONSEQUENCE OF THEIR VARIETY.

The inefficacy of those means with some is no evidence of their unsuitableness so long as their force and corrective power are shown upon others. It is not to be expected that moral means will operate with the uniformity and regularity of natural causes. Having to operate on moral beings their success is dependent on the manner in which they are received; it has always been that some believed and some believed not. What help is there for it? Even in a state of celestial perfection some did amiss; their defection did no discredit to him that made them and appointed their mode of trial. Such of the angels as stood in their integrity were the Almighty's vindicators, and the reprovers of their fallen companions. Wisdom was justified of her children, and just so in our sphere of things, wisdom is vindicated by a class of characters whose moral bearing stands out in decided superiority to that of others. Every child of wisdom justifies God, and condemns men who live contrary to the rule of religion. See Matt. xii. 41, 42, and Heb. xi. 7. Agreeably to our general proposition we remark that wisdom is justified by the appointment of

I. MEN OF VARIOUS QUALIFICATIONS TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. -Our remarks will turn upon John the Baptist and Christ as public instructors, particularly upon the contrast manifest in their spirit and bearing. What an excellent thing is public instruction as conveyed to us through the medium of the human voice! It is better than instruction direct from heaven. God might have taught us by his own voice or by angelic messengers and monitors. It would have been to our disadvantage either way; direct communication from him would have been overpowering. The majesty of his person and the purity of his character forbid such directness of contact-" For he is not a man as I am that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment"-Job. ix. 32. Angelic teachers would have been unsuitable, also, on account of the gap there is between their nature and ours. There would have been much alarm and excitement and unnatural strain put upon us by an established system of angelic tutorship. In earlier dispensation it was tried upon a small scale, and as a preparatory discipline to the riper system we enjoy; it fostered fear and contributed to a meaner type of character than we have to exhibit in this age of love. Direct communication with God was tried at Sinai, and the people deprecated it as too terrific and exciting. In the Divine goodness, the adjuncts that have hung about religion, in the shape of supernatural voices and visitations, and miracle and prodigy, have all fallen off. Wind, and fire, and earthquake, have had their

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turn, and now we have the still small voice of man, the last and best device. Thanks be to God for an order of things so worthy of him, and so good for us. Then the appointment is select; individuals are raised up in the church gifted with various endowments for usefulness. Them the church recognises and approves; they exercise their gifts for the public benefit. It is written : All are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas"-1 Cor. iii. 22. The individual men are not intended in this statement, but men of the same type and mould. The veritable men were under the law of mortality. Paul is dead, except as he survives in his writings; the eloquent tongue of Apollos is long since silenced; the impulsive, hardy Cephas, whose heart was firm as stone, has long ago ceased to fish for men; but the office survives. The church still has its classical scholars, its men of logical minds and broad research like Paul, its famous orators of fluent, ready speech like Apollos, and its daring Peters, home-spun, ardent, active men, who dare go to prison and to death for Jesus. This variety is healthy and natural. Whatever any public teacher has, of talent, eccentricity, knowledge, eloquence or ardour, it is all laid under contribution to the good of hearers; and whatever be the necessities, or even the tastes of hearers, they may find in some department of the ministry a corresponding adaptation thereto, unless their tastes be perversely critical and peculiar. The first lights of the Christian church had all their respective shades and hues; you see amongst them a reasoning Paul, a vehement Peter, a winning John, and a reforming James, who pleads the claims of a high Christian morality. There are now, also, sons of light whose ministry is edifying, sons of thunder whose discourses are awakening, and sons of consolation whose words are as balm to the wounded and the weary. Every man hath his proper gift of God; some excel in doctrinal preaching, some in practical, and some combine both. There are those who are specially adapted to awaken sinners, and those who are more suitable for the nursing and rearing of children, and edifying of advanced believers. Some love the minacious parts of the word, and some the merciful, and deal accordingly with texts of these respective qualities, and some have a happy combination of several of these good properties; but no one has them all in balance and fulness. This is well; except for this variety some hearers might go without a blessing; the variety takes away all grounds of complaint. The men sent to speak to us are such men as are suitable either one way or another. Having several in the ministry whose compass of talent is of manifest variety, that circumstance cuts off all serious objection, and obliges us to profit by some of them, and possibly by every one. The passage before us bears in it the idea that each public instructor, whatever his mental habitudes, carries some good about him for all who hear him; those who do not profit

are culpable. This is particularly evident when there is a change of ministry, when there are two ministers, or two kinds of ministers, and neither the one nor the other is savoured. Let us weave in the case of our text. Here are two public persons of unexceptionable character and undeniable talent for usefulness; they were co-temporaries and colleagues; there was concert between them, though not the closest; their labours were partly co-temporary and partly successive. But there was an evident unity and connection, and an important relationship, as they both bore good testimony to each other, which it is pleasant to see ministers do; yet in their habits they were wide of each other. John was austere, abstemious, and Nazaritish, shunning festivity and avoiding wine, dry grapes, and generous fare. In dress and diet he was singular and severe. Notwithstanding his severity, and perhaps in consequence of it, his ministry was to several a decided blessing; but to others, and those chiefly persons of office and standing, he was a great offence; though he was a man sent from God, they would not hear him, nor obey his instructions; they said that he had a devil. Had he cherished the social element, and softened down the rigorous features of his character, how happy they would have been to receive him, and to hail his ministry as a boon. It was a great pity that he spoiled his usefulness by his retiring and repulsive turn of mind. Well, this barrier shall be removed to save those mal-contents. Another person appears on the stage, a freer man, free from Nazaritish bonds and from repulsive sternness, and of more open habits. The want of sociality which so marred John's ministry was supplied in Christ's. His character was more cheerful, and left him free to attend weddings and parties, which he could do without overstepping the limits of sobriety, as he had the fullest command over appetite. Those men will surely receive with open arms so sweet a teacher, and be docile and submissive. No, nothing of the kind; that very feature of his character, the lack of which was their ground of exception to John, was the thing they objected against Jesus. John was wrong because he would not eat and drink with them, and Jesus was wrong because he did eat and drink. John's retiringness was aggravated into a charge of monkish seclusion, and the sociality of his Principal was mis-named drunkenness and gluttony. Our Lord, knowing the ground of their objection to his noble fore-runner, and finding them no more tractable under his milder regimen, told them to their teeth that they were bad men and incorrigible; they were like sulky children whom their playmates could not please. "But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you and ye have not danced, &c."

The application of this is easy; the men of that generation were

the sulky children that would neither dance nor lament when their comrades tried to draw them out. The other children who wished to engage their companions in some mimic scene of real life, but could not, represent John and Jesus. It is as if Jesus had said to the men of that age-"You do not know what you would be at. Nothing suits your perverseness. You will neither attend a wedding nor a funeral. Grave and gay are equally offensive to you; my fore-runner was severe, but his severity was wholesome; am social, but my freedoms are subject to rule; we are right, but you are wrong." This is very edifying. The similitude is sweet. and simple, and yet it cuts like a razor. Between the similitude and the application of it there is an inversion of the order that we cannot account for. In the similitude the piping comes first, and the mourning follows; whereas, in the application the mourning takes precedence of the piping, as John came before Jesus and called the people to penitence and reformation, which is the only true basis of an abiding happiness. The way in which Jesus makes the application agreed to the matter of fact, and is suggestive of a great truth-the mournful song very rightly precedes the joyful piping; the tears of penitence fore-run the joyful assurance of Divine favour. Who then shall say that the harsh voice and hard habits of John were wrong? He was in the spirit of his office. And who shall say that the cheerful, free habits of Jesus were wrong? He came to make people happy and to bid them be "of good cheer," and he was in the spirit of his office too, and exemplified what he wished to produce in society. In both of them wisdom was justified of her children, if we understand these two illustrious persons to be her children; or if those who received benefit from their instructions be taken for wisdom's children, the same justification follows. Haughty Scribes and Pharisees stood out to their own condemnation, while simple, humble inquirers after the Divine will received light and grace. People in elevated position and in office are in danger of being blinded by pride; undistinguished common people are nearer to the kingdom, and likelier to exercise the dispositions that bring them into contact with Christ. For lack of moral honesty some will neither be converted under one kind of ministration nor another; they keep crossing and cavilling, instead of receiving the word to their salvation. When they sit for a given time under a minister without saving profit, they suppose there may be something in the voice, or manner, or diction, or gesture of another that will do better for them; then when that other is forthcoming with the very qualities which his predecessor was blamed for not having, behold, those self-same qualities which were a deplorable lack in the other are in him a fault. Such blowing hot and cold-out upon it! A thousand shames on such men! God cannot please them. In the mean

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