Thomas Murphy

This is a point of vital importance to every pastor. No subject should receive from him more anxious thought. There is none to which he should give closer attention from the beginning of his ministry to its close. The following suggestions may be of use to those who are earnestly set on higher attainments in this first qualification for their sacred office:

(a) This piety to be cultivated by constant prayer.

We have written fully of the attainment of a high type of piety by the pastor, because we feel profoundly its importance. And now the very momentous question comes up, How can it be reached? By what means can the heart be so cultivated as to arrive at this blessed experience? That such elevated piety is attain able should be laid down as a maxim at the very beginning. And that every pastor should set his heart upon it, and never rest until it is experienced, we would press home as our first and most important advice. Then the most effectual method for reaching it we would emphatically declare to be constant prayer. It is hardly necessary to mention this to those who have themselves been called into the ministry, but it may be wise to stir up their minds to a vivid sense of the great practical truth. If we can say anything that will awaken more earnest attention to it, the effort will not be misdirected.

It is well known that every degree of piety in the heart must be the work of the Holy Ghost. By him it is that piety is first implanted through the renewing of the nature that was once all corruption. That nature needs to be sanctified more and more, the obstacles in the heart and in the world have to be overcome, the motives drawn from Christ and his gospel have to be brought home with such power as to impress the mind. But to do all this is the special office of the Holy Spirit, and by no other power in the world excepting by him can it be effected. By the death of Christ his power was secured, and he was sent into the world for the express purpose of sanctifying redeemed men and producing in them the holy likeness of Christ.

He effects this change by taking Christ and the things of Christ, and impressing them vividly upon the hearts of those who are the subjects of renewing grace. He shows Christ as our personal Saviour, and opens the eye of faith so that he can be seen and trusted in.

Then, by this operation, the conscience becomes pacified through atoning blood, and that blood he applies day by day, so that the soul is kept in peace and animated to aspire after higher degrees of holiness. Besides, the work is carried on with the greatest success by the Spirit holding up Christ as our model after whom we are to copy in heart and life. Nor is he presented as our pattern only, but as our motive also as the glorious object of our love, the worthy object to which our whole being ought to be consecrated. Thus through Christ the Spirit sanctifies. He takes men hour by hour to the cross by which sin was once effectually conquered, and by which it is yet to be utterly banished from the hearts and the habitations of men.

Then the encouraging thing for us, and the point we would now urge, is that this Spirit is given in answer to prayer. He is with his Church and with his people already, but the larger measure of his sanctifying power which ministers especially need is that which we are now considering. This undoubtedly may be obtained by earnest and persevering prayer. The most emphatic promise in the whole Bible is given in reference to this very thing:

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your chilren, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him!”

According to Luke, who records the same promise, the blessing desired is the gift of the Holy Ghost. Let us linger for a moment on this promise. Observe, he does not simply say, “Ask and ye shall receive;” that, coming from the lips of perfect Truth, would be enough. But to make the promise more impressive, he repeats it three times: “ye shall receive,” “ye shall find,” “it shall be opened unto you.” Nor is that all. To make it still more emphatic, he repeats it three times again: “every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” In the very acts of asking, seeking, knocking, the blessing is received. Nor is even this all, though the promise has been repeated six times. That it may sink the more deeply into every heart, he uses one of the most touching arguments: “Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give the Holy Spirit (as Luke has it) to them that ask him!” Was there ever such a promise as this? Was ever any engagement of God so positively ratified? If prayer, to be successful, must be for things agreeable to the will of God, can there be any question about this prayer for the Holy Spirit? Is not his whole heart set upon granting us this?

Not a day, then, should pass without the pastor carrying this petition before the throne, and wrestling for the Holy Spirit to come and baptize him afresh, and baptize him thoroughly, with his sanctifying influences. In urging this petition he should never become weary or discouraged or satiated, or so familiar with the request that it will lose its fervency. When he is praying for the influences of the Holy Spirit, he is praying for more holiness of life, for more of the mind of Christ, for more of the image of God, for more power with men, for everything which as a Christian and Christian minister he should desire.

The importance of prayer in the ministry is so very, very great that we will strive to impress it by showing how it lay before the minds of men whose own eminent godliness enabled them to understand it as others could not. This is not the opinion of one or two, but of the many, and that of those who had most of the mind of Christ. We would repeat their testimony over and over again, that the great truth may be fixed the more indelibly. It has been tersely said, that “a ministry of prayer must be a ministry of power,” and all experience goes to prove the truth of this saying. It has been reasoned in this way: “Above all things, prayer must blend itself with all ministerial labors. Nothing makes a thought derived from others more certainly our own than the attempt to make it the subject of serious and earnest prayer. This gives a new and somewhat original cast to the thought itself, and it flows from the mind and the tongue with a mild yet winning force which few hearts are able to resist. To a preacher who thus combines study and devotion, though he may give no signs of extraordinary genius, the hearers listen, they know not why, and are impressed by his preaching in a manner they can scarcely understand. The secret of his influence is that God is with him and makes whatever he does prosper.”

The great Welsh preacher, Mr. Williams of Wern one of the princely trio of that land of great preachers. John Elias, William Williams, and Christmas Evan? left this testimony: “The old ministers were not much better preachers than we are, and in many respects they were inferior, but there was an unction about their ministry, and success attended upon it now but seldom witnessed. And what was the cause of the difference? They prayed more than we do. If we would prevail and have power with men, we must first prevail and have power with God. It was on his knees that Jacob became a prince, and if we would become princes we must be oftener and more importunate upon our knees.” Dr. Griffin remarked of a young man, a pupil of his who had just commenced preaching, “He has an active mind and superior talents. The only question I have about him is, whether he will pray down the Holy Spirit while he preaches.” The probability of any minister’s success is in the question, “Will he pray down the Holy Spirit?” Very valuable was the dying testimony of the great and godly Andrew Fuller: ” I wish I had prayed more for the assistance of the Holy Spirit in studying and preaching my sermons.” The exhortation of the noble French preacher, Massillon, cannot be too attentively studied: “Accompany your labors with your prayers. Speak of the disorders of your people more frequently to God than to them. Complain to him of the obstacles put in the way of their conversion by your unfaithfulness more frequently than of those which their obstinacy may present. Blame yourself alone at his feet for the small fruit of your ministry. As a tender father apologize to him for the faults of your children, and accuse only yourself.” Innumerable other such declarations could easily be cited from the writings of the most devoted and successful of ministers. The transcendent importance of prayer is the voice of the best, the greatest, the most highly blest of those who have labored in the cause of Christ.

Above all other Christians, the pastor must be a man of prayer. All others need to be daily at the throne of grace, but he more. He has to do with such purely spiritual things that nothing but the Spirit can qualify him for his exalted work. In the cause committed to him such tremendous interests are involved that he needs constant guidance from on high. Of himself how can he reach such hard and impenitent hearts as he has to do with? His vocation requires him to stand so near to God that he must have the purifying of the Holy Spirit for that awful presence. It is his to intercede for others as well as to pray for himself, and how can he do that unless he has the aid of that Intercessor who inspires groanings that cannot be uttered? Eminently is he to be a temple of the Holy Ghost; oh how holy, how holy doth it become him to be! Even Christ, the divine Shepherd, spent whole nights in prayer; how much more do those who are mere men, though in the most sacred office, need to tarry long, long in that exercise! Among other ends he had in view in praying so often, and in causing that fact to be recorded, did he not intend to set an example to his under-shepherds in all time? Ah, prayer should be their daily breath. Emphatically should it be true of them that they “pray always.”

Every one of their ministerial acts yes, all that they do should be consecrated by prayer. They are liable to err and make grievous mistakes; how can they be safe without the guidance of the Spirit? All that they do and say may be so momentous in its results that they should not rely upon their own understanding, but hold constant fellowship with God. It was this dwelling with God that made Whitefield so great. “So close was his communion with God before preaching that it was said he used to come down to the people as if there were a rainbow about his head.” Constant praying will make the whole work of the minister safe and happy. He will then be preparing for the pulpit and other duties every day and hour. Quaintly has it been said, “They who have been made fishers of men mind their business both when they are fishing and when they are mending their nets.” In everything should the minister wrestle in prayer, because God is so willing to hear and to help him, because it is so safe to rely always on the infinite understanding and infinite power, and because this carrying every act before the throne will turn the whole life into an unbroken service of God.