The Ministry Needed by the Churches, and Measures for Providing It by C. H. Spurgeon From the April 1871 Sword and Trowel

ITH novel theories of ministry we will not deal: we assume that we address those who believe that pastors and teachers are officers in the Christian church, recognised by Scripture. While we recognise that every believer has a ministry committed to him, we also see that certain individuals are more richly endowed with gifts and grace that they may be the instructors and helpers of others. This being taken for granted, we proceed.
No one can doubt that the spiritual condition of the Christian church is very much affected by the character of its ministry. For good or for evil, the leaders do actually lead to a very large extent. Doubtless the hearers influence the preacher, but for the most part the stronger current runs the other way. "Like priest, like people" is a well-known and truthful proverb, applicable with undiminished force to those who scorn the priestly title. Under a drowsy preacher the spirit of the people becomes lethargic; a minister absorbed in politics leads his hearers into party strifes; a would-be-intellectual essayist breeds a discipleship marked by affectation of superior culture; and an unsound thinker and uncertain talker promotes heresy in his congregation. Satan knows full well the power of the ministry, and therefore he labours abundantly to pervert the minds of the Lord's servants, and also to raise up false teachers who may do his evil cause great service. It is clear, therefore, that if it be at all in our power to bless the church of our own day with sounder doctrine and more vital godliness, our first efforts, whatever they may be, should strike at once at the root of the matter, and begin with the ministry. For manifest reasons, it is difficult to do much in moulding the ministry which is already in the field. Men who have for years been teachers of others, have become stereotyped in their spirit and modes of action and thought; and although they in a measure feel the influence of others, yet it is too late in the day to do much in fostering what has been neglected, or producing what is absent in them. In any case, prevention is better than cure. To effect much in shaping a preacher's life, the moulding influences must surround him in his student days, while he is as yet like clay on the potter's wheel, or malleable iron upon the blacksmith's anvil. It appears to us that the maintenance of a truly spiritual College is probably the readiest way in which to bless the churches. Granting the possibility of planting such an institution, you are no longer in doubt as to the simplest mode of influencing for good the church and the world. We are certainly not singular in this opinion, for to successful workers in all times the same method has occurred. Without citing the abundant incidents of earlier times, let us remember the importance which John Calvin attached to the College at Geneva. Not by any one of the Reformers personally could the Reformation have been achieved, but they multiplied themselves in their students, and so fresh centres of light were created. In modern times, it is significant that the labours of Carey and Marshman necessitated the founding of Serampore College; while the gracious work in Jamaica called for a somewhat similar institution at Calabar. Wherever a great principle is to be advanced, prudence suggests the necessity of training the men who are to become advancers of it. Our Lord and Saviour did just the same when he elected twelve to be always with him, in order that, by superior instruction, they might become leaders of the church.
In the formation of a college, the design of which is to bless the church through the ministry, the question arises, What sort of men do the churches need? The answer to that question will largely shape our action. That enquiry being answered, one other remains: What will be the best means of procuring and instructing such men?
In replying to the first question, we shall not venture into speculations, or follow our own prejudices, but shall seek to give a reply consistent with Scripture and observation.
The men whom God will honour must be gracious men, full of the Holy Ghost, called of God to their work, anointed, qualified, and divinely sustained. We cannot hope to see God glorified by men of doubtful piety or questionable experience. On this we are all agreed, and we will not dwell longer upon it.
We have remarked that great revivals of religion have been connected always with a revival of sound doctrine. That great religious excitements have occurred apart from gospel truth, we admit; but anything which we, as believers in Christ, would call a genuine revival of religion, has always been attended with clear, evangelical instruction upon cardinal points of truth. What was the sinew and backbone of the Reformation? Was it not the clear enunciation of gospel truths which the priesthood had withheld from the people? Justification by faith, starting like a giant from its sleep, called to its slumbering fellows; and together these great doctrines wrought marvels. The Reformation was due not so much to the fact that Luther was earnest, Calvin learned, Zuingle brave, and Knox indefatigable, as to this—that the old truth was brought to the front, and to the poor the gospel was preached. Had it not been for the doctrines which they taught, their zeal for holiness, and their self-sacrifice, their "ecclesiastical" improvements would have been of no avail. The power lay not in Luther's hammer and nails, but in the truth of those theses which he fastened up in the sight of all men. The world to-day feels but little the power which Calvin wielded in the Senate of Geneva; but thousands of minds are swayed by the theology which he so forcibly promulgated. One instance in history might not suffice to prove a point, but there are many others. The great modern Reformation in England under Whitfield and Wesley was accomplished by the old orthodox doctrines. I grant you that we, as Calvinists, gravely question the accuracy of much that the Wesleyan Methodists zealously advocated; yet we do not feel that we are exercising any charity but merely speaking the honest truth, when we say that the disciples of Wesley, as well as the followers of Whitfield, brought out very clearly and distinctly the vital truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Their views upon predestination and kindred points we could not endorse; but the three great R's were in the teaching of every Methodist, whether Calvinist or Arminian: Ruin, Redemption, Regeneration rung out with no uncertain sound. You could not hear a sermon from any of them, without hearing man described as a sinner, fallen and ruined, Christ alone lifted up as the Saviour, and the need of the Holy Spirit's work insisted upon in plain, unmistakable language. "Ye must be born again" was thundered over the land. If we wish to promote the good of the churches, we must pray for ministers who are well instructed in the doctrines of the gospel and firmly established in the belief of them. Whatever else they may not be able to explain, they must hold forth the great truth that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and show the way in which he saves them. We want men whose doctrines are distinct, who hold firmly with all their hearts the truths which they are chosen to defend, men who upon fundamental points dare not equivocate and are never obscure; we require preachers whose whole business here below shall be to promulgate a gospel dear to them as their lives, because they have experienced its saving power in their own souls. They must not only be sound in the faith, but clear in their testimony. To waver upon the atonement, or the work of the Holy Spirit, or salvation by grace, is not merely dangerous but fatal to a preacher's usefulness. Let those who doubt be silent; to others it is given to say, "I believed, therefore have I spoken." No church can be benefited by untruthful teaching. The world's true hope lies in the direction of revealed truth, not in the region of intellectual speculations and dubious philosophies.
The next thing we need in the ministry, now and in all time, is men of plain speech. The preacher's language must not be that of the classroom, but of all classes; not of the university, but of the universe. Men who have learned to speak from books are of small worth compared with those who learned from their mothers their mother tongue—the language spoken by men around the fireside, in the workshop, and in the parlour. "I use market language," said Whitfield, and we know the result. I rejoice in the Latinity and Germanic jargon of certain schools of pedantic and pretentious intellectualism, because their learned clatter renders them powerless with the masses; but I mourn when similar hideousnesses of speech are adopted by evangelic divines, for it assuredly weakens their testimony. Anglo-Saxon speech, homely, plain, bold, nervous, forcible, never fails to move the English heart. At the same time we do not desire a race of coarse men, who regard slang as being plain speech, which it certainly is not. Admitted that a coarse man may have his sphere, it is equally certain that he is unfitted for many other spheres of equal importance. If it be granted that a spice of vulgarity may adapt a man for special service among navvies and costermongers, we question whether even with them there may not be a more excellent way, and there are other people in the world to be considered besides these. We are confident that, ordinarily, coarseness is weakness, and ought to be avoided; and we should no more think of preaching the gospel in the slang of the thieves' kitchen, than in the jargon of the Neologists. The gospel's apples of gold are worthy to be carried in baskets of silver. Language should be fitted to the dignity of the subject. The most truly dignified language is, however, the simplest; simplicity and sublimity are next of kin. Gospel simplicity is equally removed from childishness and coarseness. Bunyan's English is as pure as it is plain. Our grand old authorised version is a model of speech; though marred here and there by an antique indelicacy, it is, as a whole, perfection itself, both for grandeur and simplicity of style. We need men who not only speak so that they can be understood, but so that they cannot be misunderstood. The plodding multitudes will never be benefited by preaching which requires them to bring a dictionary with them to the house of God. Why should they be called to work on the day of rest in order to get at the minister's meaning? Of what use is it to them to listen to spread-eagle talk, which conveys to them no clear sense? The Reformation banished an unknown tongue from the reading desk; we need another to banish it from the pulpit. I speak for English people, and demand English preaching. If there be mystery, let it be in the truth itself, not in the obscurity of the preacher. We must have plain preachers. Yet plain speech is not common in the pulpit. Judging from many printed sermons, we might conclude that many preachers have forgotten their mother tongue. The language of half our pulpits ought to be bound hand and foot, and with a millstone about its neck, cast into the sea: it is poisoning the "wells of English undefiled." and worse still, it is alienating the working classes from public worship.
It is a very proper thing in expressing one's sentiments among students and scholars, to use those technical phrases which have been collected from all languages, and generally accepted among the educated. The Latin, the Greek, the German, the French, and other tongues have all given us words which convey to the learned shades of meaning which the less plastic Saxon cannot compass; but to the mass of the people such speech is to all intents and purposes a foreign language. The Latinity of some preachers reminds us of the old fable of the boy thief perched in the apple tree. The owner of the orchard tells him to come down, but his words are laughed at. He then tries turf, the rogue is not dislodged. At last he throws stones at him, and the boy is soon at his feet. Now the devil does not care for your dialectics, and eclectic homiletics, or Germanic objectives and subjectives; but pelt him with Anglo-Saxon in the name of God, and he will shift his quarters.
Supposing, therefore, the matter and the speech to be correct, we next need men who, as to the order of their intelligence, rather come under the denomination of common sense men, than of schoolmen and rhetoricians. A gentleman who nowadays wins the repute in clerical circles of being highly intellectual, is generally a sort of spiritual Beau Brummel. The famous Beau was asked if he had ever eaten a vegetable? and replied, that he thought he had once tasted a pea. So our modern high-flyers have heard that there are such persons as "sinners," and believe they may be met with in the Haymarket and in the slums. They have no idea of the fall of man, but have read about the "lapsed condition of humanity." These gentlemen, whose mouths could by no contortion pronounce the word "Damnation," and who have considerable sympathy for that being of whom they might correctly say, "Oh, no! we never mention him," are very attractive to the idiotic classes, but to men they are loathsome. The style of sermonizing of those who affect to be "thinking men," is elevated, very elevated, as elevated as the manner of Lord Dundreary would have been, if that distinguished nobleman had become a clergyman. "Thinking men" of this superfine order consider anything orthodox quite beneath them; and in the pulpit they affect obscurity, quote Strauss, frequently speak of Goethe (careful as to the pronunciation of the name), and cannot get through a discourse unless they mention Comte, or Renan, or some of our home-bred heresy-spinners, such as Maurice and Huxley. They are very great at anything metaphysical, geological, anthopological, or any other ology, except theology. They know a little of everything, except vital godliness and Puritanic divinity; the first is usually too rigid a thing for them, and the second they sniff at as consisting of mere platitudes. When a "thinking man" has reached so sublime a condition of self-conceit that he can sneer at such giants in mind and learning as John Owen, Goodwin, Charnock, and Manton, and talk of them as teaching mere common-places, in a heavy manner, not at all adapted to the advanced thought of the nineteenth century, we may safely leave him and his thinking to the oblivion which assuredly awaits all windy nothings. For the present we may observe that England requires no further supply of these eminent personages, and there is certainly no need to establish any more colleges for their production. There are circles where such ministries are appreciated; here and there a suburban congregation of very respectable do-nothings will cluster around such a man and account him a prodigy; but among the working population, the real sinew, and blood and bone of England, there is no further space for the superficial intellectualism which has vaunted itself for its little hour, and is gradually writing its own doom. Our churches call for men whose thoughts are worth thinking; whose thoughts follow in the wake of the revealed word of God, who feel that they are not dishonoured by treading in the track of the Infinite. We must have ministers whose education has taught them their own ignorance, whose learning has made them revere the Scriptures; men whose minds are capable of clear reasoning, brilliant imagination, and deep thought; but who, like the apostle Paul, who was all this, are content to say, and feel themselves honoured in saying, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Such a man is more precious than the gold of Ophir. In him the Lord finds an instrument which he can consistently employ. He is a man among men, a practical, working, thoughtful teacher. Eschewing all flighty notions, specious novelties, mental eccentricities and philosophisings, he determines to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and him crucified. He is not one of those who follow after butterflies, but knowing that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, he goes to work, rough-handed it may be, but nevertheless in downright earnest, to do practical work in seeking to win souls.
Another point must also be noted if we would see great success attending the ministry. We require men of popular sympathies; men of the people, who feel with them. We are not prepared to subscribe to any political creed, except this: "God hath made of one blood all nations of men." All forms of government turn out bad or good as the case may be; but this much is certain, that unless a man is a lover of the people in his inmost soul he will never be greatly useful to them. The people do not require more of those gentlemen who condescend to instruct the lower orders, being authorised by the State to assume airs of dignity because they are our rectors, towards whom we ought to walk with lowly reverence. The squires admire this, and the peasantry unwillingly submit to it for awhile; but the end of this business is at hand. Our dissenting churches call for other treatment. The Nonconformists of England are a race of freemen; their forefathers found it inconvenient to be slaves in the days of Charles the First, and the sons of the Ironsides do not intend to be priestridden now. As we do not bow before the parish priests, we certainly do not intend to pay homage to the aristocratic airs of a pompous youngster fresh from college. London's millions spurn the foppery of caste, they yearn for great hearts to sympathise with their sorrows; such may rebuke their sins and lead their minds, but no others may lecture them. The working classes of England are made of redeemable material after all; those who believe in them can lead them. A minister should welcome both rich and poor. Far be it from any servant of God to despise the godly because their hands are hard with honest toil. Be it ours to honour worth rather than wealth; and to esteem men for their spirituality, and grace, and holiness, rather than for their purses and mansions. We do not desire to see preachers of the gospel rudely and lawlessly democratic in politics, ready to have a fling at different ranks and classes; we want no Red Republicans in the pulpit, but we rejoice when we see that a man is thoroughly, heartily, lovingly with the people. Such was John Knox, and such were Whitfield, Rowland Hill, Jonathan Edwards, and others, famous in pulpit annals. We must be men of themselves if we wish ever to move them. We must be advanced beyond them in knowledge, spirituality, and grace, for we are leaders; but, like our Lord, we must be "chosen out of the people." While our government is set upon abolishing the system of purchasing commissions in the army, in order that there may be more sympathy between the officer and the ranks, we must labour for the promotion of the same feeling in the church militant. The more our hearts beat in unison with the masses, the more likely will they be to receive the gospel kindly from our lips.
The church of God calls for men whose one object is to save souls. The final result of some ministries appears to be a Gothic chapel in the place of the less ornamental but more serviceable old meeting-house. The good man feels that he has ministered to edification as a wise master-builder, when he hears passers-by say of his new edifice, "What a gem of a place!" We have known gentlemen of the cloth, whose hearts have been mainly set upon getting up a well-performed service, going as far as they dare in vestments and ornaments, and aping our Anglican Papacy in almost every aspect. As if we did not know when the chapter was finished, we are told, "Here endeth the first lesson." or "Here endeth the second lesson"! and much is thought to be attained when that piece of mimicry is allowed; anthems and chants are greedily sought after; an organ, of course; a stone pulpit stuck in a corner; and then nothing will do but the brother must introduce at least a fragment of liturgy. Let but the poor creature have his way in all this, and his little heart overflows with joy, and he feels, "I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain." Such gentlemen have mistaken their vocation: they would make capital conductors of concerts, masters of the ceremonies, man-milliners, or arrangers of shop-windows, but their talents are thrown away among Dissenters.
Among a certain order of divines the one aim evidently is the collection of what they are pleased to call highly intelligent audiences. It has been admitted of certain preachers that their hearers were certainly very few; but then it was claimed that the quality made up for the quantity! And what quality, think you, is that of which they boast? Eminent piety? Deep experience? Great usefulness? Not a bit of it! The rich and rare excellence of the slender audience lay in this, that not above one man in ten of them honestly believed the Bible to be inspired; not a fiftieth part could unhesitatingly have asserted their faith in the atonement, and probably not above one soul among them knew anything savingly of the grace of God, and that lonely individual was uneasy under the ministry. After this mode some gentlemen estimate congregations, and if they can succeed in collecting a synagogue of Arians, deists, semi-infidels, and heretics of various orders, then their fellows of the same clique exclaim, with intense delight, "A deeply thoughtful ministry has gathered around it all the intellect of the district." It has been usual to find little wool where there has been great cry, and the proverb is very applicable in this case. Those superficial beings, the Puritans, and those unintelligent persons of the type of Jonathan Edwards and Andrew Fuller, are, to our mind, far better models than the intellectual dandies who have been in fashion.
The education of the intellect is not our cardinal work; our teaching should be full of wisdom, but not the wisdom of metaphysics and speculations; we are not apostles of Plato and Aristotle, but ministers of Christ. As he was, so are we also in this world: he came to seek and to save that which was lost, and our errand is the same. Accepting the revelation of Christ as the highest wisdom of God, we go forth with no other philosophy than that of Christ crucified. To turn from darkness to light the bewildered multitudes, to rescue from the destroyer the deluded crowd, to lead to Jesus as many as he has chosen? this is our life-work, from which nothing shall tempt us.
Soul-winners can never be too numerous; but it is a question whether the church is not sufficiently stocked with prophetical brethren, to whom what is to happen in the next twelve years is as plain as the sun at noonday. In some cases the time expended in fashioning and expounding a system of history to fit in with the vials and trumpets has seriously interfered with turning sinners from the error of their ways. Nothing should be the preacher's aim but the glory of God through the preaching of the gospel of salvation. Only let the ministry be supplied with men who drive at the conscience, and in the Spirit's power convince men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come; men who strike at the heart, and are not satisfied until their hearers have laid hold on eternal life and closed in with the divine proclamation of mercy—let such, I say, abound among us, and again the church will be "terrible as an army with banners."
For the rest, it is desirable that brethren of varying abilities be forthcoming; we want the profound, and the eloquent of the first rank; we need also the earnest and godly of ordinary capacity, for there is work for the very zealous and devout whose attainments are but small. Usefulness has been vouchsafed to holy men of all grades of talent. Infinite wisdom has ordained variety in gifts and degrees in ability for ends most gracious. No man can be too educated or too gifted for any position in the Christian church; yet some forms of culture while they fit a man for one position may somewhat disqualify him for usefulness in others. Work among our London poor needs the very ablest men; yet we could mention very gifted brethren who would be miserable to the last degree, if they were compelled to labour in the Golden Lane Mission, or in Seven Dials, and certainly they would not be more wretched than they would be inefficient. They would drive away rather than attract the poor fallen masses around them. Yet they are men of undoubted ability, and in their own positions they wield a powerful influence for good. The very education which adapts a man to labour among the more refined, may make him too sensitive to be able to cope with the roughness of certain classes among whom others work with great success. I say again, I do not think that the loftiest talent is too great for work among the most sunken classes, and that in fact those who can deal with them are men of genius of a rare order; but it is certain that there are grades of talent, and that all of these are needed to complete the circle of the church's demands. A man whose gifts entitle him to address thousands becomes restless in a hamlet; another brother, whose voice and ability would never compass more than two or three hundred, finds that very hamlet a place of happy labour. Men of all orders are sent us by the Holy Spirit; all are not apostles, nor are all apostles equal to Paul. Each man after his own order, and for his own place; all are members of the one body, but they fulfil divers offices. If the church is to be well served, we must secure men who can speak to the educated of the West end, and we must not reject those who from their culture find themselves at home in Bethnal Green. We want men who will stir our large towns where intellect is quick and sharp, and men who will move the less volatile but perhaps more stable minds of the country villages. No man may say, "Here is my model for a minister, and every man should be framed upon that shape." He would leave half the church, if not more, unsupplied, even if there were an unlimited upgrowth of the model men whom he desires.
We want ministers who, however various their talents, have but one spirit, and that one spirit must be the Spirit of God; they must be filled with love, love to the church and to those yet to be ingathered out of the world; brethren of deep humility, who feel their need of divine help, but men of triumphant faith, who feel assured that the Lord works with them. We want men of self-sacrifice, willing to put up with all sorts of inconveniences. and even sufferings, to attain their end; men of dogged resolution, who mean to be successful, and cannot be put off the track; men who nave given themselves up to God wholly, spirit, soul, and body, without reserve, doing one thing only, preaching among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, that God may be glorified in their mortal bodies, whether they live or die. Give us such men as these, and their attainments may not be all we could wish, but this one spirit filling them, the Holy Ghost descending upon them, they shall bring back to the church the apostolic era, and we shall see the work of God revived.
Surely we command the agreement of most Christian people in the opinions we have stated; if it be not so, we are bold enough to say that we ought to do so, for all along through history it can be confirmed that the men who have been most precious to the church have been such as we have described. Find us a revival the whole world's history through, produced by a gentleman whose speech could not be understood, or whose sympathies were not with the people. Great evangelists have never been philosophical essayists, but men of simple gospel views. The Reformers and true fathers of the church have been men of practical common-sense habits, who went to the business of soul-winning in an earnest downright way, disdaining the little conventionalities and prettinesses which charm the weaker sort. They all without exception aimed at conversions. They did not hit on soul-winning by chance; they were not aiming at something else, and by accident managed to bring a great many to the Saviour: they flew towards this one object, like an arrow to its target. There were great distinctions between Calvin and Luther, Whitfield and Wesley, Jonathan Edwards and Rowland Hill: their culture, talents, and position differed greatly, but they were all of one spirit, and God blessed them all.
We will now push on to our second point—the means of procuring such men. The first and best means is for the church to value the ascension gifts of her Lord, which were men ordained by himself for her edification and increase. Prayer for the sending of fit men must be continuous and fervent. Our Saviour himself bade us pray the Lord of the harvest to send more labourers into the harvest; but perhaps throughout Christendom no prayer is more seldom offered: indeed, we hear from some quarters complaints that there are too many labourers already. A murmur monstrous, to say the least.
But honest prayer leads to action. It has led us to it. We believe that the Pastors' College has been one among other means used of God to promote the end we have been describing; and without intending, even by implication, in any degree or manner to criticise other institutions, we mean to show how our own effort seems to us adapted to its work.
The design being to discover earnest men, men of differing talents and abilities, suited for various places, one thing is very clear, namely, that the church should make the area from which she draws her supplies as wide as herself. To many excellent men the lack of pecuniary means has been a serious barrier. The number of young preachers in a denomination like the Baptists—which is one of the poorer branches of the Nonconforming family—who can afford to pay even a small sum for their own education and maintenance during three, four, five, or six years, at a training institution, must necessarily be small. They are earning nothing at the time, and the sacrifice of what would have been their income is all that most of them can afford. A large number of men of real ability could not even clothe themselves during a college course, for they have no store, and their friends are poor. Why should the churches lose their services from our pulpits, or receive them in a raw, half-developed state? Should not every vestige of difficulty on this score be swept away, prudently and wisely, but effectually? Where the selection is carefully made, it is a great pleasure to feel that the wealth or poverty of the applicant does not sway the judgment' one single iota, but higher qualifications are alone considered. There should be a clear way for any gracious and qualified man into the place where he may be taught the way of God more perfectly; no lack of money should block up his path. A great number of excellent brethren enter our ministry without education; all honour to them for what they accomplish; but while these worthy brethren do well, who shall say that they might not have achieved more if they had been better equipped for their work? Now it ought to be the object of the denomination to get these men who will become preachers, whether they are educated or not, to submit themselves to a preliminary instruction which will make them more efficient, if such instruction there be. The College ought to be so arranged that none of them should say by way of excuse for not entering it, "We could not afford it." Their case should be wholly and entirely met. A number of gifted men are at this moment useful in the Sunday School and in occasional addresses, who would develop into notable preachers if they were encouraged to exercise their gifts by the knowledge that, if found qualified, there would be an opportunity for them to multiply their talents. We know that the spirit of preaching the gospel has been largely poured out upon our own church, and fostered by the presence of our school of the prophets; and we doubt not that other congregations have been influenced in the same way. At any rate, our College is open to the poorest. We constantly receive men whose food and raiment, as well as lodging and education, are furnished for them as a free gift from the institution; and though we are glad when they can help themselves (and some few not only help, but bear all their own charges), yet we never mean to set up a golden, silver, or even a copper gate to the Pastors' College, but to the poorest man, whom we believe the Lord has called, the porter opens cheerfully the door.
Another matter calls for attention. The degree of scholarship required upon entering College should be so arranged as to exclude none solely on its own account. Many a preacher who has come to us and succeeded best, would not, when he entered, have passed an examination at an ordinary dame school. It is sad that any man of twenty years should be in such a state of ignorance; but when the Lord converts a youth of the most ignorant class, and puts the living fire into him, shall we leave him unaided? As things have been until now, the unlettered condition of many a peasant and labourer has been well nigh inevitable. England has been far behind Scotland in this respect, and it is to be hoped that matters will now improve. At least for the present distress, I have been unable to see why a man who has the gift to speak earnestly and to move human hearts, should be denied an education because he is so terribly in need of it. What if he does not know the rudiments of English grammar? Let us take the blundering Apollos, and begin at the beginning with him. Because he laboured under disadvantages in his childhood of poverty, and perhaps of sin, is he for ever to be crushed down? Must ho achieve the impossible before we help him over the difficult? Let the man who has some education fight his way alone, rather than leave the other unhelped. I would assist both. Let the church, when the Lord sends her a man of rough but great natural ability, and of much grace, meet him all the way, take him up where he is, and help him even to the end. This we daily seek to do.
But there needs the opposite balancing principle of restriction. There must be always in every institution a most earnest, determined resolution that none shall be received but such as are confidently believed to be deeply gracious, whose piety is beyond reasonable dispute, testified to by many who have known them, manifested by the fruits of their labours, certified in all ways that are possible. Even then we fear some will thrust themselves in unawares, but no vigilance must be spared. Those only should be received who have given indisputable proofs, as far as human judgment can ever go, that they love the gospel, that they seek only the glory of God, and all because they feel how much they owe to him who has redeemed their souls from going down into the pit. Certain denominations make a small matter of grace, and look alone to other qualities: we know a church where a man would be nearly as eligible for the ministry being graceless as if he were perfect; but it must not be so among us. It would be almost impossible to be too stringent in this respect. As C'sar's wife must be not only blameless but beyond suspicion, so must the Christian minister be spotless—yea, more, he must be full of good works to the glory of God. That we have sought to separate between the precious and the vile our Master knows full well.
If we would have the right men, again, they should not be untried, but should have preached sufficiently long to have tested their aptness to teach. No education can give a man ability if he has none. Amongst the first of ordinary gifts for the ministry is the gift of utterance;—that cannot be produced by training. I do not know of what value elocutionary classes may be. I suppose they are of some use; the existence of professors of elocution leads us to hope that they may be of some utility; but he would be an extraordinary elocution master who could teach a man to speak who had no aptness for it; in fact, it cannot be done. Now, no one can prove his fitness to impress others except by trial; it is, therefore, a wise regulation that the preacher should be asked, "Have you for a sufficient time—say two years or thereabout—exercised your gift, and have you in the judgment of persons qualified to speak been somewhat successful? We do not ask you whether you have already achieved anything remarkable, for then you would not want college help, but have you brought souls to Jesus, and been generally acceptable to believers?" To my mind, it it is clear that no others ought to be admitted under any pretence whatever. If a college receives students because they know so much Greek, or so much mathematics, or can write a theme, it has no more facts before it from which to form a judgment as to the men's eligibility for the Christian ministry, than if they were asked, "Could you stand on your head?" or, "Are you six feet high?"
So far we have looked only towards the students, but we have already said that men who will be a blessing to the church, must plainly preach gospel truths. Very well; then it is of the utmost importance that the College should teach those truths, and teach them plainly. But no books will spread orthodox doctrine unless they are in the hands of sound men. It is imperative that the tutors should be not only believed to be sound, but they should be known to have a determined predilection for the old theology, to be saturated with it through and through; to be, in fact, Puritans themselves, and not mere teachers of puritanic theology; men who love the gospel, defend it, and are ready to die for it. We cannot expect to have the right men sent out unless the tutors who exercise so very potent a part in the training of their minds are valiant for the truth themselves. Our joy is that in this respect the Lord has favoured us very greatly. Our dear friend, Mr. Rogers, who is at our head, is a John Owen for erudition, with a rare spice of motherwit. He is so venerable in years that we venture to say this much of him; as to the rest of us who form the staff, wherever we fail, we are certainly not less stanch in the old-fashioned theology.
In addition to biblical instruction, without limit, it is important that each man should receive as much education as he is able to bear. There should not be one cast-iron rule, so that a brother who would reach his best condition if he acquired a common English education, should be obliged to muddle his poor head with Hebrew. There should be different courses of instruction for different men. We have always endeavoured to carry out this idea, but with varying success; for many brethren who need urging further are content to pause, while others who had better halt clamour to go forward, and our wish is to yield to their desires as far as we dare. We have always from the very first tried to see what a brother could learn, and to let him learn what he could.
It has appeared to us that the chief aim should be to train preachers and pastors rather than scholars and masters of arts. Let them be scholars if they can, but preachers first of all, and scholars only in order to become preachers. The Universities are the fit places for producing classical scholars, let them do it; our work is to open up the Scriptures, and help men to impress their fellows' hearts. It is certain that the man who has sacrificed everything to mathematical and classical eminence is not one whit the better esteemed by our churches, because experience has taught them that he is not superior as an instructor or exhorter. Our one aim is to assist men to be efficient preachers. If we miss this, we think ourselves to have failed, whatever else we attain.
In order to achieve all these things, it is a very grand assistance to our College that it is connected with an earnest Christian Church. If union to such a church does not quicken his spiritual pulse it is the student's own fault. It is a serious strain upon a man's spirituality to be dissociated during his student-life from actual Christian work, and from fellowship with more experienced believers. At the Pastors' College our brethren can not only meet, as they do every day, for prayer by themselves, but they can unite daily in the prayer-meetings of the church, and can assist in earnest efforts of all sorts. Through living in the midst of a church which, despite its faults, is a truly living, intensely earnest, working organisation, they gain enlarged ideas, and form practical habits. Even to see church management and church work upon a large scale, and to share in the prayers and sympathies of a large community of Christian people, must be a stimulus to right-minded men. Our circumstances are peculiarly helpful, and we are grateful to have our institution so happily surrounded by them. The College is recognised by the Tabernacle church as an integral part of its operations, and supported and loved as such. We have the incalculable benefit of its prayers, and the consolation of its sympathies.
We think it a fit thing that students who are to become ministers in sympathy with the people, should continue in association with ordinary humanity. To abstract them altogether from family life, and collect them under one roof, may have its advantages, but it has counterbalancing dangers. It is artificial, and is apt to breed artificialness. It may be objected, that residing, as our men do, with our friends around, they may be disturbed by the various family incidents. But why should they not? In future life the same difficulties will occur, for they are not likely to be Lord Bishops, whose studies will be out of the reach of a babe's cry or the street noise. Recluse life or collegiate life is not the life of the many, and much of it soon puts a man out of harmony with the everyday affairs of life. It is dangerous to engender tastes and habits which in afterlife cannot be gratified, and especially habits which, if they could be abiding, would tend to weakness. Besides, the association of a number of young men has great perils about it, which we need not now rehearse; we will only mention the tendency to levity. Buoyant spirits are not to be condemned, but they usually find vent enough without the encouragement of constant companionship with their like. To keep fourscore young men constantly under the same roof, and so to direct them that they shall remain as earnest and gracious as when they came to you, is a feat which some may have accomplished, but which we shall not attempt. Let the men meet at their studies, form suitable friendships, and go home at night to staid orderly households of much the same class as they may hope their own to be in future years.
Above all, if we are to discover the right sort of men, we must have an institution in which spiritual life is highly esteemed and carefully fostered. Watching as we do with anxious heart, we feel we can honestly bless God for the gracious spirit which rests upon the College just now. The most of the brethren have been rich partakers in the influence of our Special Services. We have heard with great joy of their earnestness and prayerfulness. It did us good to hear one say that he had been warned against losing his spirituality by going to College, but he now felt that he could live nearer to God than ever. Nor is this our occasional experience, it is more or less prevailingly our constant element. There have been seasons when it has been a very profitable means of grace to the president to attend his class, and associate with his young friends; for though they were students, eagerly looking after ordinary knowledge, yet they evidently walked with God in all they did. We desire to have it so at all times. There has never been among us any undervaluing of faith and enthusiasm because associated with educational defects, or any treatment of prayer as a needless formality; but on the contrary, a very earnest coveting of spiritual gifts has been the rule. We try to realise how mighty a thing is nearness to God, and how grand it is to live under the divine influence of his Spirit.
Under God, the College has Been the instrument of extending the Saviour's kingdom, by founding new churches, and we hope to do far more in future years, if the Lord shall send us means. We do not so much care to build on other men's foundations, by sending ministers to old-established churches, our wish is to found new interests and break up fresh ground. In this aim we have had much fraternal co-operation from the Associations and denominational societies. Oar design is the same as theirs, and mutual and is the way to success, under God's blessing. Hundreds of towns and large villages are yet without the pure gospel ministry, and friends on the spot, by working with us, can find the way to form a church and evangelize the district.
There is little fear of our driving older ministers out of the field; we would rather enlarge the area for their cultivation. We point to London, where we have planted a number of strong, healthy, vigorous churches, which cause us great joy, and we can devoutly say, "What hath God wrought!" Let the kind reader observe how few of the old metropolitan pulpits we have touched, and how many new places we have helped to create. We believe there are some forty churches in the metropolitan district alone which have arisen from our College work, with the aid of friends and the Association. We gravely question whether the advance of religion in any denomination has been more solidly rapid than it has been with the Baptists in London, and in that we have had an honourable share. We have seen great things, but very little compared with what we hope yet to see, God helping us. We lift up our hearts and hands to the Most High, and bless the Eternal for all his mercies, craving still for more.
As to the actual success of the Institution, we thank God that we have most hopeful signs. The churches of Great Britain gladly receive our young brethren as soon as they are ready; indeed, our great difficulty is to retain them for the whole of our short period. But above this fact our joy is that we can report actual results of soul-winning. The gross increase of the churches under the pastorates of our brethren during the six years in which we have gathered their statistics, is 16,455, and the clear increase is 11,177. This does not include the churches abroad, nor does it represent all those at home, since we have never yet succeeded in inducing all the churches to report. Surely it is no small matter that sixteen thousand souls have been ingathered from the world. It makes our heart glad when we thus see the boundaries of Messiah's kingdom increased.
America welcomes our men; many have gone, and more will go. As the people of England remove to swell the great Republic, it is but fitting that a fair quota of the shepherds should go with the flock. No work can be more important than that of supplying the spiritual needs of newly-settled regions.
Our highest wish has not yet been fully realized. We long to receive the missionary call, but it has come only to one or two. We pray the Holy Ghost to separate some of our number to work among the heathen, and we ask our brethren to unite with us in the same petition.
Our funds come to us without lists of annual subscriptions. When the Lord's stewards receive intimations from him, they send us a portion of their goods, and up to this hour we have known no lack. As for the future we have no doubt or anxiety. The Lord is our Treasurer. For all we lean upon him. We wish every kindred institution Godspeed, and believingly commit our own dear life-work to the Lord our helper who cannot fail us.