This week Spring insists that the minister must be an example to others: 'In order to give the pulpit power, ministers themselves must enforce its instructions by a life and conversation in keeping with their high vocation.'
In relation to the subject, Spring speaks of:
(i) natural temperaments;
(ii) unsocial behaviour;
(iii) the Bible as a rule of conduct;
(iv) worldliness;
(v) love for enemies;
(vi) decorum and proprieties.
I appreciated Spring's realism about the faults of ministers: 'A minister may have some good qualities, and be deficient in others. He may be distinguished for prudence, and not for zeal ; or if distinguished for zeal, be exposed to imprudencies. He may be unsocial, but studious ; or if not studious, he may make some amends for this deficiency, by the familiar acquaintance he cultivates with his fellow-men. He may be heedless of his secular affairs, and you may reproach him for making perpetual exactions upon the bounty of his people ; or he may be careful of them, and you may accuse him of worldliness. The man will find enough to do who sets himself to search and hunt out a minister's imperfections ; he will find them in plenty. He may triumph in them, and live upon them, as those do who " eat up the sins of God's people ; but he will not, I am thinking, on that account, enjoy a more thriving spirituality. A happy man he cannot be ; how holy he is, must be left to the decisions of his own conscience, and of another day. But it would not be surprising, if his humility, and his contrition, and his self-diffidence and meekness were somewhat questionable, and if he were not exposed by his own spiritual pride to fall into the snare of the devil. I am acquainted with men, who are in the habit of sitting in severe judgment upon the character of ministers; but they are suspicious men, rash men, and men whose word would be taken with some grains of allowance in a court of justice. It would certainly seem to be a more pleasant and profitable employment, and would savor more of Christian equity in forming an estimate of the ministerial character, to give its acknowledged excellencies their due weight.'
If you want to find fault with a minister, you will.
After all, that's what people did with Christ - despite the fact that he was faultless!
R
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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