CHAPTER XIV.

THE PASTORAL OFFICE.

I MUST, I must incur the hatred of my parish and hearers, in love to them, and for Christ's sake; but let me be infamous, so I may but do good.

Ruling slothfulness in a minister of the gospel, is a certain mark of infidelity, or an unregenerate state.

Let no man think he is qualified to seek and to save that which is lost, as an agent under Christ, till he has first found himself.

A clergyman, if in truth he is a follower of Christ, must not expect to have any friends in his parish but his converts; the rest will despise, envy, and traduce him, more than they do other men.

How much better would it be if, instead of censuring and bitterly inveighing against the ignorance, perverseness, and corruption of my neighbours, I exerted myself in good earnest, according to the duty of my station, and the talents which God has given me, to instruct and reform them! Perhaps, many an one has long been waiting at the pool of Bethesda for some friendly hand to help them in, and I pass by them with a stupid unconcern, and leave them groaning under their misery.

There is but one right way of preaching, which is to speak the plain truths of the gospel plainly. But

then, this way is the hardest of all others, for it supposes conversion in the preacher.

It is the business of a minister of the gospel to preach faith and live morality.

I find it very difficult, if not impossible, through my selfishness, to sink myself into the common mass of mankind, so as to take my full share of their guilt, to sympathize, to pity, to have a fellow-feeling of their wants, joys, and sorrows, and be truly concerned for the temporal and spiritual welfare of all.

How glorious a distinction for any man to be employed, as an agent under Christ, in the recovery of souls; and what guilt not to attend on it out of love to him, with the same ardour and assiduity that other physicians do for their fees!

How can those preachers be supposed to bring others to Christ, who never came to him themselves? We are greatly deceived in fancying that discernment, or approbation of moral excellence, is possession, or ability to possess ourselves of it. The Christian religion goes another way to work with us; and those preachers wretchedly mistake their office, and abuse their hearers, who spend all their discourses in recommending virtue to their notice and esteem; without leading them to the root of their disorder, and pointing out the cure.

What would a physician, who had a sovereign cure for all diseases, be accounted, if he kept it a secret, or was slothful in dispensing it, or mixed poison with it? How much more criminal is a minister of the gospel, who thinks himself entrusted with an infallible medicine for all the disorders of the soul, if he adulterates it, or is unfaithful and inactive in applying it?

I may conscientiously take the wages for the work, when I have a distinct consciousness that I would do the work without the wages.

To relinquish or intermit parochial labour, because it is not attended with success, would be terribly in

excusable. Labour on; commit the matter to God; wait patiently; get a feeling of the bowels of Christ; and die praying, " Lord, pity the people!"

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The declarations of scripture concerning the guilt of sin and the damnation of sinners, may be assented to; but are fully and efficaciously believed by few. Hence faintness of endeavour to snatch others out of the fire; cold prayer; speaking, preaching, and writing, without real pity and heart-felt concern.

"But we will give ourselves unto prayer, and the ministry of the word." Remember this, O my soul, it is for eternity.

A poor country parson fighting against the devil in his parish, has nobler ideas than Alexander had. As a minister of the gospel, I must either be despised or hated. I choose the latter.

Am I a minister of Jesus, with his bowels for souls? called? willing to be spent? regardless of worldly preferment? owned of God? hated of men? happy in myself?

Intrusion into the ministry for worldly ends and with absolute unfitness for it, in great ignorance of Christ, great unconcern for the salvation of souls, consequent sloth and remissness, squandering a large income in sensual pleasure, and when I was something awakened, doing what I did in self-dependence and self-seeking,-how awful!

Dreamed that J. M. and S. E. were under soulconcern. I interpreted it as a call to go and speak with them. But what shall I say to J. for not speaking more to him and to all others, without a dream?

CHAPTER XV.

HEAVEN.

My heaven on earth is communion with God; and therefore nothing else would be my heaven in heaven.

We shall never know any degree of happiness in this life, till we are settled in a clear conviction of judgment, that it is chiefly hereafter, and that we are in the way to it. God forbid I should ever think myself at home till I am in heaven.

Per

Heaven is not a place or state of idleness. haps the highest angels have a task and work assigned them, which keeps them continually employed. What is considered as greatness and happiness on earth is, having nothing to do.

Happiness will be the necessary result of gospel holiness, when external impediments are removed; but heaven itself would lose its nature, if the inward disposition were wanting.

Our future existence will be the same kind of life, or state of being continued, which we are fixed in here. Death makes no alteration in our condition: it only clears up our mistakes about it.

Thankfulness and happiness imply each other: we must be thankful to be happy, and happy to be thankful. God's house is an hospital at one end, and a palace at the other. In the hospital end are Christ's members upon earth, conflicting with various

diseases, and confined to a strict regimen of his appointing. What sort of a patient must he be, who would be sorry to be told that the hour is come for his dismission from the hospital, and to see the doors thrown wide open for his admission into the king's presence?

Nothing can be our happiness in this life, but what is to be the foundation of it in the next. If I cannot serve God and my Saviour with delight, and make a kind of heaven of it here, they have no other heaven for me hereafter.

We shall never know the thousandth part of our mercies, deliverances, and protections, temporal and spiritual, till we come to another world.

In heaven, sin known and pardoned is the song of praise; sin known and unpardoned is hell.

If ever I thank Christ as I ought, it must be in heaven; it is in vain to think of doing it here.

Heaven is heaven rather as a state of exemption from sin than suffering. We must die for perfect conformity to the will of God; and it is worth dying for.

Delight in the will of God is the perfection of all intelligent beings, the essence of happiness, the joy of angels, heaven on earth, and the heaven of heaven. Heaven is wherever God is, in my heart, if I desire it, and delight in his presence.

Ten thousand years in this world would not complete my happiness; I should never be wise and good, have an absolute command of my will, passions, and affections, without one irregular thought, vain wish or spot of sin. If we are really aiming at and longing for this perfection, how desirable is death, which alone can put us in possession of it! By death we do not go out of life, but into life.

The Christian's hope of heaven is the sweetness of prosperity, and the support of adversity, and cures us at once of all attachment to the world, or expectation of rest in it.