Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

such a frame of spirit, and thus to adorn the Gospel of Christ, and that with growing success, is what I am persuaded you are not a stranger to; and I am afraid that they who can eontent themselves with aiming at any thing short of this in their profession, are too much strangers to themselves, and to the nature of that liberty wherewith Jesus has promised to make his people free. That you may go on from strength to strength, increasing in the light and image of our Lord and Saviour, is the sincere prayer of, &c.

LETTER VII.

On the Propriety of a Ministerial Address to the Unconverted.

Sir,

IN a late conversation you desired my thoughts concerning a scriptural and consistent manner of addressing the consciences of unawakened sinners in the course of your ministry. It is a point on which many eminent ministers have been, and are not a little divided; and it therefore becomes me to propose my sentiments with modesty and caution, so far as I am constrained to differ from any from whom in general I would be glad to learn.

[ocr errors]

Some think, that it is sufficient to preach the great truths of the word of God in their hearing; to set forth the utterly ruined and helpless state of fallen man by nature, and the appointed method of salvation by grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; and then to leave the application entirely to the agency of the Holy Spirit, who alone can enlighten the dark understandings of sinners, and enable them to receive, in a due man

[ocr errors]

ner, the doctrines either of the law or the Gospel. And they apprehend, that all exhortations, arguments, and motives, addressed to those who are supposed to be still under the influence of the carnal mind, are inconsistent with the principles of free grace, and the acknowledged inability of such persons to perform any spiritual acts; and that therefore the preachers, who, avowing the doctrines of free grace, do notwithstanding plead and expostulate with sinners, usually contradict themselves, and retract in their application what they had laboured to establish in the course of their ser

mons.

There are others, who, though they would be extremely unwilling to derogate from the free grace and sovereign power of God in the great work of conversion, or in the least degree to encourage the mistaken notion which every unconverted person has of his own power; yet think it their duty to deal with sinners as rational and moral agents: and, as such, besides declaring the counsel of God in a doctrinal way, to warn them by the terrors of the Lord, and to beseech them by his tender mercies, that they receive not the grace of God, in a preached Gospel, in vain. Nor can it be denied, but that some of them, when deeply affected with the worth of souls, and the awful importance of eternal things, have sometimes, in the warmth of their hearts, dropped unguarded expressions, and such as have been justly liable to exception.

If we were to decide to which of these different methods of preaching the preference is due, by the discernible effects of each, it will perhaps appear in fact, without making any invidious comparisons, that those ministers whom the Lord has honoured with the greatest success in awakening and converting sinners, have ge

nerally been led to adopt the more popular way of exhortation and address; while they who have been studiously careful to avoid any direct application to sinners, as unnecessary and improper, if they have not been altogether without seals to their ministry, yet their labours have been more owned in building up those who have already received the knowledge of the truth, than in adding to their number. Now as "he that "winneth souls is wise," and as every faithful labourer has a warm desire of being instrumental in raising the dead in sin to a life of righteousness, this seems at least a presumptive argument in favour of those, who, besides stating the doctrines of the Gospel, endeavour, by earnest persuasions and expostulations, to impress them upon the hearts of their hearers, and entreat and warn them to consider, "how they shall escape if they ne"glect so great salvation." For it is not easy to conceive, that the Lord should most signally bear testimony in favour of that mode of preaching which is least consistent with the truth, and with itself.

But not to insist on this, nor to rest the cause on the authority or examples of men, the best of whom are imperfect and fallible, let us consult the Scriptures, which, as they furnish us with the whole subject-matter of our ministry, so they afford us perfect precepts and patterns for its due and orderly dispensation. With respect to the subject of our inquiry, the examples of our Lord Christ, and of his authorised ministers, the apostles, are both our rule and our warrant. The Lord Jesus was the great preacher of free grace, "who spake as "never man spake;" and his ministry, while it provided relief for the weary and heavy-laden, was eminently designed to stain the pride of all human glory. He knew what was in man, and declared, "that none

"could come unto him, unless drawn and taught of

66

God;" John, vi. 44-46. And yet he often speaks to sinners in terms, which, if they were not known to be his, might perhaps be censured as inconsistent and illegal; John, vi. 27.; Luke, xiii. 24-27.: John, xii. 35. It appears, both from the context and the tenor of these passages, that they were immediately spoken, not to his disciples, but to the multitude. The apostles copied from their Lord; they taught, that we have no sufficiency of ourselves, even to think a good thought, and that "it is not of him that willeth, or of him that "runneth, but of God who showeth mercy;" yet they plainly called upon sinners (and that before they had given evident signs that they were pricked to the heart, as Acts, iii. 31.), "to repent, and to turn from their “vanities to the living God;" Acts, iii. 19. and xiv. 15. and xvii. 30. Peter's advice to Simon Magus is very full and express to this point; for though he perceived him to be "in the very gall of bitterness, and in "the bond of iniquity," he exhorted him "to repent, and 66 to pray, if perhaps the thought of his heart might be forgiven." It may be presumed, that we cannot have stronger evidence, that any of our hearers are in a carnal and unconverted state, than Peter had in the case of Simon Magus; and therefore there seems no sufficient reason why we should hesitate to follow the apostle's example.

[ocr errors]

You have been told, that repentance and faith are spiritual acts, for the performance of which, a principle of spiritual life is absolutely necessary; and that therefore, to exhort an unregenerate sinner to repent or believe, must be as vain and fruitless as to call a dead person out of his grave. To this it may be answered, That we might cheerfully and confidently undertake even to

[ocr errors]

call the dead out of their graves, if we had the command and promise of God to warrant the attempt; for then we might expect his power would accompany our word. The vision of Ezekiel, chap. xxxvii. may be fitly accommodated to illustrate both the difficulties and the encouragement of a Gospel-minister. The deplorable state of many of our hearers may often remind us of the Lord's question to the prophet, "Can these dry "bones live?" Our resource, like that of the prophet, is entirely in the sovereignty, grace, and power of the Lord: "O Lord, thou knowest; impossible as it is to us, it is easy for thee to raise them unto life; there"fore we renounce our own reasonings; and though we see that they are dead, we call upon them at thy bidding, as if they were alive, and they were alive, and say, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! The means is our part, the work is thine, and to thee be all the "praise." The dry bones could not hear the prophet; but while he spoke, the Lord caused breath to enter into them, and they lived, but the word was spoken to them considered as dry and dead.

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

It is true, the Lord can, and I hope he often does, make that preaching effectual to the conversion of sinners, wherein little is said expressly to them, only the truths of the Gospel are declared in their hearing; but he who knows the frame of the human heart, has provided us with a variety of topics which have a moral suitableness to engage the faculties, affections, and consciences of sinners, so far at least as to leave themselves condemned if they persist in their sins, and by which he often effects the purposes of his grace; though none of the means of grace by which he ordinarily works, can produce a real change in the heart, unless they are accompanied with the efficacious power of his

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »