Thomas Murphy

The nature of the office of the gospel ministry is such that its duties cannot be too thoughtfully regarded. It is an office which was established by Christ himself, the great Head of the Church. Its commission is held from the authority of Heaven, and its duties are connected with the kingdom of God. Would it have been ordained by this special appointment of our Lord for any other than the most important ends? What dignity it receives from the consideration that it has not come from the contrivance of human wisdom, but that it emanated directly from Jehovah! Do we know of any other office, held by mortals, that can be compared with it in grandeur?

Then the objects for which it was established are such as to claim for it the highest consideration. Its grand aims are to exalt Jehovah, the Creator, Redeemer and Judge of the world; to overthrow the power of Satan, the prince of all evil; to save mankind from sin and hell; to banish vice and all other evil from the earth; to bring true happiness to the lost children of Adam; to build up a glorious Church amidst the ruins which sin has wrought; and to prepare citizens for the heavenly world who shall behold and share the infinite blessedness of the Son of God. Surely it must be a calling of no ordinary importance which God has appointed for such ends. Who can describe its solemn grandeur?

The interests committed, in a most important sense, to this office are such as may well lead him who holds it to seek every possible help in the discharge of its duties. These interests are unspeakably momentous. They pertain to Christ’s kingdom and to the honor of Christ himself. They have to do with human destiny and with the eternity of human souls. They involve time and eternity, earth and heaven.

The fact that God has committed these interests preeminently to the Christian ministry clothes the office with an importance and responsibility that are most solemn. He does not conduct them directly by his own omnipotence. He has not seen fit to commit them to the hands of angels. He does not chiefly prosecute them by any supernatural agencies, but by the ministry of men whom he has ordained to that office. He has appointed men to be his heralds to their fellow-men. Then what overwhelming importance does this give to the thorough training of ministers for their great work! What emphasis is there in the startling assertion of the devoted McCheyne: “A word to a minister is worth a word to three or four thousand souls some times”! How unbecoming to undertake such an office as this without all the assistance that can be derived from the word of God and from the wisdom and experience of the most devoted of men!

Who is sufficient for such a work as this? This question must become the more solemn to the minister when he considers the many defects that are found within himself. His unbelief, his infirmities, his ignorance, his sloth, his cold-heartedness, his many temptations, all rise up as hindrances in the way of his progress in the spiritual work of Christ. These demand of him the most diligent preparation and the most efficient aids.

Then we must also consider the obstacles that he will meet with from the world, and from those whom he has been appointed to influence by the self-denying truths of the gospel. How shall he be prepared to meet them? He will have to do with hearts that are hard, and cold, and blind, and utterly insensible. In the exercise of his ministry he will have to encounter sweeping currents of worldliness. He will be surprised in his work by meeting with stupidity of heart, the deep enmity of sin, dark Satanic influences, and with the most desperate opposition to God and everything pertaining to God. Would it not be foolhardy to enter into such encounters without the most careful training? For all this need there not to be weapons drawn from the armory of God, weapons brightly polished?

This work is too urgent for each pastor, as he enters it, to be under the necessity of going through a long process of experimenting for himself. It is too great and arduous for any one to undertake it without all the help that may be gathered from the teachings of those who have gone before. It is too momentous not to awaken a desire for all the assistance that may be obtained from men, from experience, from the past, from Scripture, and, above all, from the Divine Spirit of all wisdom and strength.

A very high appreciation of his office is one of the first qualifications for him who would be an efficient pastor. Without this there will not be that thorough practical preparation for its duties that is requisite. And it may be safely said that it is not possible to over-estimate the grandeur of this calling. It is an office that may be little thought of among men, but it is highly esteemed by God and by angels, and its results extend away into everlasting brightness. It is the highest and grandest office in the world. It is an office which an angel could not hold a calling which constitutes man a helper with God. It is an office the faithful discharge of which is, of a truth, to be followed by the brightest crown, and which has a sure promise of a place near the throne of the glorified Immanuel. As the minister appreciates the work to which he is called, so will he fall down before God for help in its duties, and so will it call forth all his energies, and so will he strive to equip himself for the undertaking. As he prizes it, so will he become imbued with its spirit, and love it, and find its avocations growing into his greatest pleasure. A man who has but a low estimate of the work of the ministry, or who looks upon it as a mere profession, should never enter the holy office, or, if he be already in it, should leave it. A high estimate of the importance of this calling is a necessary qualification for holding it. Whoever has this will strive to be thoroughly skilled in every department of the work which he considers the most exalted of all human vocations.

It may be added that this subject demands special attention in this practical and active age of the world. The present is emphatically an age of restless energy. Men are not satisfied to rest in mere theorizing, but everywhere the tendency is to carry out ideas into operation. The whole tendency of human thought and energy is to advance, to add to the conveniences of life, to awaken every power into activity. There probably never was such an age of energetic progress. Everything indicates it. All are awake to it. In arts, manufactures, mechanism, government, science, agriculture in everything there is intense motion. There is no standing still. It requires wakeful observation merely to keep up a knowledge of what is going on in the world.

A similar activity exists in the Church. It is one of the most hopeful signs of the times that the people of God are becoming more and more alive and diligent in the work of Christ. Denominations seem to be emulating each other in active zeal for the progress of the kingdom. In enterprises of benevolence, in reforms, in missions, in plans of evangelistic work arid in efforts to spread knowledge and save souls, there is more and more vigor.

Now, this active spirit of the age must be carried into the work of the gospel ministry. The pastor must partake of it in order that he may keep up with the grand movements that are in progress, that he may be successful in his office, and that all his powers and influence may be exerted in keeping that restless activity leavened with the truth of Christ. He must work hard, and work with the advantage that all possible helps can give him. Amid the keen rivalries and activities of the age he must know how to work, and how to keep up with the rapid currents of human life.

And all the more need is there for thoughtful attention to this subject at the present time, when young men are trained for the work of the ministry, not amidst the activities of pastoral life, but in the retirement of the theological seminary. Very loud is the call for the seminary to redouble its efforts in this part of the training of its young men. It must not allow them to go out unfurnished in this respect into a world seething with motion. It must see to it that no part of their training be more thorough than that which prepares them to meet an intensely practical age. In the seminary students should be prepared to exercise great skill, not only in the Book of God and the book of the human heart, but also in the pages of a living world. The more fully the work of training is in the hands of seminaries, and the more stirring the times and fierce the battle for the kingdom, the more diligently should such institutions apply themselves to the work of fit ting their students for immediate and intense activity corresponding with the spirit of the age and of the Church.