Thomas Murphy

Having spoken of the hinderances, we would now enumerate some of the helps, to a deeper spirituality which this office furnishes. It carries with it certain advantages for the promotion of personal piety advantages which are not possessed by any other calling in life. These should receive the closest attention by him who holds the sacred office. He should also improve them to the uttermost. His piety should be of a more elevated type than that of other Christians, because he has many things to help him upward which they have not. He will be unfaithful to his God, to his office and to himself if he does not lay these things to heart and derive from them their fullest benefits.

1. From the nature of their office and studies ministers must have the clearest knowledge of the way in which eminent piety may be reached. This very thing is the great study of their lives. It is at once their duty and their privilege to know as fully as men can know what are the most important means of grace, what are the advantages of devoted piety, how the Spirit ordinarily sanctifies the hearts of men, and how great is the weight of the motives urging on to godliness. God’s ordained method of reaching that desirable end lies plainly before them, so that they cannot well mistake or wander from it. This knowledge is always fresh with them, because the duties of their office require that it should be constantly in their thoughts. Indeed, the subject can never escape from their notice, but presses home upon them with all its weight in everything they do.

2. The pastor has every possible motive for cultivating the graces of the Spirit. Pie is urged forward to it by his love to Jesus and desire for the glory of God, by pity for poor dying souls, by anxiety for his own happiness and by all his affection for the Church of Christ, especially for his own particular branch of it. He has all the motives of ordinary Christians for seeking after devoted godliness, but he has also peculiar motives of his own. His personal reputation is at stake. With him success in life s calling depends upon the measure of his sanctity. Fidelity to the charge entrusted to him requires that he should ever be actuated by the highest spiritual motives. The pressure of responsibility calls upon him to become more and more holy. Every conceivable motive urges him urges him constantly upward and onward to a fuller experience of the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost,

3. His sense of the importance of consistency must act as a peculiarly healthful restraint upon the pastor. He is conscious that in consequence of his solemn ordination vows it becometh him to be eminently holy; that far more is expected of him than of other men; that he is an ambassador for God, a minister of the Lord Jesus and a pastor of a portion of the redeemed flock; that he, with other ministers of the gospel, is “made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men;” and that because of his sacred profession his failings or crimes would do unspeakable harm to religion. All these considerations are like a hedge around him. He cannot break through them without a struggle, without shame and without doing sore violence to his conscience. The restraint may sometimes seem a painful one, and perhaps for the moment he would wish it removed, but it is most salutary in the end. Many a time the consciousness of what he is keeps back the minister from indulgences that would injure his soul and grieve his Saviour. Many a time it constrains him to discharge duties from which he would otherwise be tempted to shrink. Many a time it impels him forward toward higher attainments in grace and greater conformity to the pattern of his divine Lord.

4. The mind of the minister is constantly engaged on holy things, and it is almost inevitable that it should become more and more spiritual. His daily study pertains to the word of God, the nature of Christ, the mind of the Spirit, the importance of salvation, the conversion of souls, the spread of the gospel, the edification of believers and other kindred subjects; and how can he be constantly busied about these sacred things without his soul being made more sacred by them? In studying, in preaching, in prayer, in the Sabbath-school, every day, if not every hour, his thoughts are bent upon eternal things, arid it is natural that what is so much thought of should appear in ever-increasing magnitude. And these things are too momentous to lose their impressiveness because of familiarity. The heart cannot help taking the hue of that upon which it is constantly fixed. Just as the views, the gait, the tones and the manners of one whom we admire and with whom we associate imperceptibly become impressed upon us, so it is that the mind grows gradually like that with which it is most steadily engaged. Thus it is that ministers must almost necessarily become spiritual from their constant intercourse with spiritual things.

This advantage of the minister is clearly presented by Dr. Shedd: “Not only does the ministerial calling and profession require eminent piety, but it tends to produce it. By his position the clergyman is greatly assisted in attaining to a superior grade of Christian character. For, so far as his active life is concerned, his proper professional business is religious. The daily labor of the clergyman is as truly and exclusively religious as that of the farmer is agricultural or that of the merchant is mercantile. This is highly favorable to spirituality. Ought not one to grow in grace whose daily avocations bring him into communication with the anxious, the thoughtful, the convicted soul, the rejoicing heart, the bereaved, the sick and the dying? Ought not that man to advance in the love and knowledge of God whose regular occupation from day to day is to become acquainted with the strictly religious wants and condition of the community, and to minister to them? If the daily avocations of the mechanic have a tendency to make him ingenious and inventive, if the daily avocations of the merchant tend to make him enterprising and adventurous, do not the daily avocations of the clergyman tend to make him devout? The influence of active life upon character is in its own place and manner as great as that of contemplative life. A man is unconsciously moulded and formed by his daily routine of duties as really as by the books he reads or the sciences he studies. Hence a faithful performance of clerical duties contributes directly to spirituality.”

5. The minister is continually in the midst of scenes which must keep fresh the impression of the importance of true godliness. He is called to visit the dying, the suffering, the sorrowing, the hoping, the rejoicing. The nature and results of sin in their horrors and of piety in all its blessedness he sees exhibited in living reality. Sometimes he almost beholds the woes of the lost; sometimes almost the joys of the ransomed. Such scenes are passing before his eyes nearly every day. He sees them in all their various aspects. He is admitted to the confidence of hearts that are almost breaking. His soul would need to be of adamant if these things did not move it deeply. As no other person he has opportunities of witnessing the transcendent value of the gospel of Christ for assuaging the woes of men. The earnestness of life and the nearness of eternity must impress him with the thought that there is nothing but the religion of which he is a minister that is of real importance to the world. And this is the school in which he is ever learning the value of eminent godliness.

6. The prayers of his godly people are ever going up for the pastor. As a power for promoting his piety this cannot be overestimated. These prayers are offered in public and in private. Often when he little dreams of it they are ascending to the throne. They are very constant from one and another or many of his congregation, and the pastor should seek for them most anxiously. Such supplications cannot be offered up so frequently and so earnestly and yet be in vain. Undoubtedly they are among the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous which avail much. Though he may not recognize them at the time, they do bring down the power of the Spirit upon him when he is studying, when he is preaching, when he is visiting the sick and in other of the solemn duties of his office. These prayers are deeply important for the piety of the minister and for the prosecution of a work the most solemn that can be committed to the hands of man.

Such are some of the peculiar advantages which the pastor can rely upon in striving for that eminent degree of piety which becomes him. Great are his trials, but greater far are his blessings. These things compensate, and more than compensate, for all the sacrifices he may have to make. Happy, happy man is he in being privileged to hold such a noble office under Jesus the King! How high it is possible for him to rise in the attainment of holiness and of happiness! How devoted may be his godliness! How much of the spirit of heaven he may attain even here! How much of the very character of Christ the Son of God it is his privilege now to manifest before the world!