Words to Winners of Souls

Words to Winners of Souls by Horatius Bonar Forward by Roger Greenway Published by Baker Bookhouse Company Forward The pastor of a large church in California on a freeway was a visiting missionary from overseas. New housing developments stretch for miles along both sides of the road. I wonder how many unsaved people live in those houses, remarked the missionary. I'd sure like to get in there and find out. That's where you and I differ, replied the pastor. If someone told me there were Christians in those houses who needed pastoral attention, I'd be glad to help. But the thought of going in there to reach unchurched people leaves me cold. Because this attitude of indifference toward the lost is such a universal problem in the church, the reappearance of Horatius Bonar's book, Words to Winners of Souls, is most heartily welcome. The apathy of Christians toward the lost is the greatest hindrance to world evangelization, and the problem is by no means restricted to one geographical area of the world. In Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the same indifference is found, and it explains why the world is still lost, even 2,000 years after Christ gave the Great Commission. In religious churches today, we have all kinds of evangelistic schemes, missionary programs, and fundraising devices. But we aren't accomplishing half of what we should. What we need are men and women with a Christlike passion for the salvation of souls. The church has more than enough scholars, management experts, fundraisers, and media-attractive personalities. What it needs is people aglow with the soul-winning power and presence of God. It will interest readers to know that Bonar was a Presbyterian, a denominational leader in his day. His theology was historic Calvinism, and he believed firmly in the sovereignty of God over all things. Bonar defines the object of Christian ministry as converting sinners and edifying saints. He insists that the pastor's aim in every sermon and in every visit must be to save the lost and guide the saved. He places the primary responsibility for evangelism with the individual Christian, particularly the pastors. If the leaders are people endowed with converting power, whose source of strength is the life of holiness and communion with God, the church will grow and sinners will be saved. But if the main focus of their ministry is in some other direction, neither orthodoxy, nor education, nor eloquence, nor zeal can serve as a substitute and cause the church to be evangelistic. Books on evangelism and soul-winning have never been more numerous than today, but few come close to the power and quality of Bonar's Words to Winners of Souls. Bonar is different because he brings us to our knees. He shows us where the heart of our failure lies, and he points out the way to recovery. At a time when even missions and evangelism are capitulating to secularizing pressures, Christian leaders need to hear Horatius Bonar again and reflect deeply on his message. As a former missionary and pastor who has served the church in southern Asia, in several parts of Latin America, and now in North America, I am keenly aware of church leaders' overwhelming preoccupation with the internal affairs of the church. If only every pastor, missionary, and lay leader in the church could hear Horatius Bonar's timely reminder, he that saved our souls taught us to weep over the unsaved. Roger S. Greenway PREFACE It is not difficult to write a preface to this classic treasure of the Christian ministry written by a Scottish Presbyterian divine who was born in Edinburgh on December 19, 1808, and died there on July 31, 1889. He belongs to a previous generation, but his little manual is timeless, for it fits into the needs of our day almost as accurately as it did into the needs of the parish of Kelso in 1866, and later in Edinburgh. Horatius Bonar was first of all a winner of souls, although he was also a great preacher and a writer of some of our best hymns. He became moderator of the General Assembly of his church. When we read his manual on how to win men for Christ, we are reminded page after page of his three best hymns, although he was the author of many. He could say himself, I heard the voice of Jesus say, and therefore he could write the hymn beginning with those words. How many have been led to Christ by this invitation to accept Him as their Savior, and how many Christians have rededicated themselves to their Lord and Master, and have recalled the day when they first loved Him, when they have sung at the Holy Communion, Hear, O my Lord, I see thee face to face. Not only are his counsels to the winners of souls spiritual, divine, and searching, but the keynote of it all is that of urgency, as he himself expressed it in his third great hymn, Go, labor on, spend, and be spent. The third stanza of that hymn ought to be written as a motto on the desk of every pastor. Go, labor on while it is day, The work's dark night is hastening on, Speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away, It is not thus that souls are won. This is a book for winners of souls, not for loiterers on the highway, or for slothful servants of our Master. It is a heart-searching book, but also one that gives new courage to continue the daily task. I recall as a boy one little book that used to lie on my father's desk, that is, sixty years ago, in his pastoral study in Michigan. It was his constant companion, and was marked almost on every page. This little volume, bound in leather with gilt edges, had on the cover, Words to Winners of Souls Samuel M. Zwemmer, D.D., 1867-1952 March 3, 1950, New York City Contents Forward Preface Chapter 1. Importance of a Living Ministry Chapter 2. The Minister's True Life and Walk Chapter 3. Past Defects Chapter 4. Ministerial Confession Chapter 5. Revival in the Ministry Tis not for man to trifle. Life is brief, and sin is here. Our age is but the falling of a leaf, a dropping tear. We have no time to sport away the hours. All must be earnest in a world like ours. Not many lives, but only one, have we. One, only one. How sacred should that one life ever be, that narrow span? Day after day filled up with blessed toil, hour after hour still bringing in new spoil. Chapter 1. Importance of a Living Ministry How much more would a few good and fervent men effect in the ministry than a multitude of lukewarm ones, said O. Columpadius, the Swiss Reformer, a man who had been taught by experience, and who has recorded that experience for the benefit of other churches and other days? The mere multiplying of men calling themselves ministers of Christ will avail little. They may be but cumbers of the ground. They may be like Achan troubling the camp, or perhaps Jonah raising the tempest. Even when sound in the faith, through unbelief, lukewarmness, and slothful formality, they may do irreparable injury to the cause of Christ, freezing and withering up all spiritual life around them. The lukewarm ministry of one who is theoretically orthodox is often more extensively and fatally ruinous to souls than that of one grossly inconsistent or flagrantly heretical. What man on earth is so pernicious a drone as an idle minister, said Cecil? And Fletcher remarked well that lukewarm pastors made careless Christians. Can the multiplication of such ministers, to whatever amount, be counted a blessing to a people? When the Church of Christ, in all her denominations, returns to primitive example, and walking in apostolical footsteps, seeks to be conformed more closely to inspired models, allowing nothing that pertains to worth to come between her and her living head, then she will give more careful heed to see that the men to whom she entrusts the care of souls, however learned and able, should be yet more distinguished by their spirituality, zeal, faith, and love. In comparing Baxter and Orton, the biographer of the former remarks that Baxter would have set the world on fire while Orton was lighting a match. How true! Yet not true alone of Baxter or of Orton. These two individuals are representatives of two classes in the Church of Christ in every age and of every denomination. The latter class are far the more numerous, the Ortons you may count by hundreds, the Baxters by tens. Yet who would not prefer a solitary specimen of the one to a thousand of the other? Baxter's burning sincerity. When he spoke of weighty soul concerns, says one of his contemporaries of Baxter, you might find his very spirit drenched therein. No wonder that he was blessed with such amazing success. Men felt that in listening to him they were in contact with one who was dealing with realities of infinite moment. This is one of the secrets of ministerial strength and ministerial success. And who can say how much of the overflowing infidelity of the present day is owing not only to the lack of spiritual instructors, not merely to the existence of grossly unfaithful and inconsistent ones, but to the coldness of many who are reputed, sound, and faithful. Men cannot but feel that if religion is worth anything, it is worth everything. That if it calls for any measure of zeal and warmth, it will justify the utmost degrees of these. And that there is no consistent medium between reckless atheism and the intensest warmth of religious zeal. Men may dislike, detest, scoff at, persecute the latter, yet their consciences are all the while silently reminding them that if there be a God and a Savior, a heaven and a hell, anything short of such life and love is hypocrisy, dishonesty, perjury. And thus the lesson they learn from the lifeless discourses of the class we are alluding to is that since these men do not believe the doctrines they are preaching, there is no need of their hearers believing them. If ministers only believe them because they make their living by them, why should those who make nothing by them scruple about denying them? Rash preaching, said Roland Hill, disgusts. Timid preaching leaves poor souls fast asleep. Bold preaching is the only preaching that is owned of God. It is not merely unsoundness in faith, nor negligence in duty, nor open inconsistency of life that mars the ministerial work and ruin souls. A man may be free from all scandal, either in creed or conduct, and yet may be a most grievous obstruction in the way of all spiritual good to his people. He may be a dry and empty cistern, notwithstanding his orthodoxy. He may be freezing or blasting life at the very time he is speaking of the way of life. He may be repelling men from the cross even when he is in words proclaiming it. He may be standing between his flock and the blessing even when he is in outward form lifting up his hand to bless them. The same words that from warm lips would drop as the rain or distill as the dew fall from his lips as the snow or hail, chilling all spiritual warmth and blighting all spiritual life. How many souls have been lost for want of earnestness, want of solemnity, want of love in the preacher even when the words uttered were precious and true? Our one object, to win souls. We take for granted that the object of the Christian ministry is to convert sinners and to edify the body of Christ. No faithful minister can possibly rest short of this. Applause, fame, popularity, honor, wealth, all these are vain. If souls are not won, if saints are not matured, our ministry itself is vain. The question, therefore, which each of us has to answer to his own conscience is, has it been the end of my ministry? Has it been the desire of my heart to save the lost and guide the saved? Is this my aim in every sermon I preach, in every visit I pay? Is it under the influence of this feeling that I continually live and walk and speak? Is it for this I pray and toil and fast and weep? Is it for this I spend and am spent, counting it next to the salvation of my own soul, my chiefest joy, to be the instrument of saving others? Is it for this that I exist, to accomplish this would I gladly die? Have I seen the pleasure of the Lord prospering in my hand? Have I seen souls converted under my ministry? Have God's people found refreshment from my lips and gone upon their way rejoicing? Or have I seen no fruit of my labors and yet content to remain unblessed? Am I satisfied to preach and yet not know of one saving impression made, one sinner awakened? Nothing short of positive success can satisfy a true minister of Christ. His plans may proceed smoothly and His external machinery may work steadily, but without actual fruit in the saving of souls He counts all these as nothing. His feeling is, My little children, of whom I travail and birth again until Christ be formed in you. Galatians 4.19 And it is this feeling which makes Him successful. Ministers, said Owen, are seldom honored with success unless they are continually aiming at the conversion of sinners. The resolution that in the strength and with the blessing of God He will never rest without success will ensure it. It is the man who has made up his mind to confront every difficulty, who has counted the cost and, fixing his eye upon the prize, has determined to fight his way to it. It is such a man that conquers. The dull apathy of other days is gone. Satan has taken the field actively and it is best to meet him front to front. Besides, men's consciences are really on edge. God seems extensively striving with them as before the flood. A breath of the Divine Spirit has passed over the earth and hence the momentous character of the time as well as the necessity for improving it so long as it lasts. The one true goal or resting place where doubt and weariness, the stings of a pricking conscience and the longings of an unsatisfied soul would all be quieted is Christ Himself. Not the church, but Christ. Not doctrine, but Christ. Not forms, but Christ. Not ceremonies, but Christ. Christ, the God-man, giving His life for ours, sealing the everlasting covenant and making peace for us through the blood of His cross. Christ, the Divine storehouse of all light and truth, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Colossians 2, 3. Christ, the infinite vessel, filled with the Holy Spirit, the Enlightener, the Teacher, the Quickener, the Comforter, so that of His fullness have all we received and grace for grace. John 1, 16. This alone is the vexed soul's refuge, its rock to build on, its home to abide in till the great tempter be bound and every conflict ended in victory. Meet opinion with the truth. Let us then meet this earnestness, which is now the boast but may ere long be the bane of the age with that which alone can bring down its feverish pulse and soothe it into blessed calm, the gospel of the grace of God. All other things are but opiates, drugs, quackeries. This is the divine medicine. This is the soul, the speedy, the eternal cure. It is not by opinion that we are to meet opinion. It is the truth of God that we are to wield and applying the edge of the sword of the Spirit to the theories of man, which he proudly calls his opinions, make him feel what a web of sophistry and folly he has been weaving for his own entanglement and ruin. It is not opinions that man needs. It is truth. It is not theology. It is God. It is not religion. It is Christ. It is not literature and science but the knowledge of the free love of God and the gift of His only begotten Son. I know not, says Richard Baxter, what others think, but for my own part I am ashamed of my stupidity and wonder at myself that I deal not with my own and others' souls as one that looks for the great day of the Lord and that I can have room for almost any other thoughts and words and that such astonishing matters do not wholly absorb my mind. I marvel how I can preach of them slightly and coldly and how I can let men alone in their sins and that I do not go to them and beseech them for the Lord's sake to repent however they may take it and whatever pain and trouble it should cost me. I seldom come out of the pulpit but my conscience smiteth me that I have been no more serious and fervent. It accuseth me not so much for want of ornaments and elegancy nor for letting fall an unhandsome word but it asketh me how couldst thou speak of life and death with such a heart? How couldst thou preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, sleepy manner? Dost thou believe what thou sayest? Art thou in earnest or in jest? How canst thou tell people that sin is such a thing and that so much misery is upon them and before them and be no more affected with it? Shouldst thou not weep over such a people and should not thy tears interrupt thy words? Shouldst thou not cry aloud and show them their transgressions and entreat and beseech them as for life and death? Truly this is the peel that conscience doth ring in my ears and yet my drowsy soul will not be awakened. O what a thing is an insensible hardened heart! O Lord, save us from the plague of infidelity and hardheartedness ourselves or else how shall we be fit instruments of saving others from it? O do that on our souls which thou wouldst use us to do on the souls of others. Chapter 2 The Minister's True Life and Walk The true minister must be a true Christian. He must be called by God before he can call others to God. The Apostle Paul thus states the matter, God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5.18 They were first reconciled and then they had given to them the ministry of reconciliation. Are we ministers reconciled? It is but reasonable that a man who is to act as a spiritual guide to others should himself know the way of salvation. It has been frequently said that the way to heaven is blocked up with dead professors. But is it not true also that the melancholy obstruction is not composed of members of churches only? Let us take heed unto ourselves. As the minister's life is in more than one respect the life of a ministrate, let us speak a few words on ministerial holy living. Let us seek the Lord early. If my heart be early seasoned with his presence, it will savor of him all day after. Let us see God before man every day. I ought to pray before seeing anyone. Often when I sleep long or meet with others early and then have family prayer and breakfast and four noon callers, it is eleven or twelve o'clock before I begin secret prayer. This is a wretched system. It is unscriptural. Christ rose before day and went into a solitary place. Family prayer loses much of power and sweetness and I can do no good to those who come to seek for me. The conscience feels guilty, the soul unfed, the lamp not trimmed. Then, when secret prayer comes, the soul is often out of tune. I feel it far better to begin with God, to see his face first, to get my soul near him before it is near another. It is best to have at least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else. At the same time, I must be careful not to reckon communion with God by minutes or hours or by solitude. McShane Hear this true servant of Christ exhorting a beloved brother. Take heed to thyself. Your own soul is your first and greatest care. You know a sound body alone can work with power, much more a healthy soul. Keep a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep a close communion with God. Study likeness to him in all things. Read the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people. With him, says his biographer, the commencement of all labor invariably consisted in the preparation of his own soul. The forerunner of each day's visitations was a calm season of private devotion during morning hours. The walls of his chamber were witnesses of his prayerfulness, I believe of his tears as well as of his cries. The pleasant sound of psalms often issued from his room at an early hour then followed the reading of the word for his own sanctification, and few have so fully realized the blessing of the first psalm. Would that it were so with us all. Devotion, said Bishop Hall, is the life of religion, the very soul of piety, the highest employment of grace. It is much to be feared that we are weak in the pulpit because we are weak in the closet. Working with God. To restore a commonplace truth, writes Mr. Coleridge, to its first uncommon luster, you need only translate it into action. Walking with God is a very commonplace truth. Translate this truth into action, how lustrous it becomes, the phrase, how hackneyed, the thing, how rare. It is such a walk, not an abstract ideal, but a personality, a life, which the reader is invited to contemplate. Oh, that we would only set ourselves in right earnest to this rare work of translation. It is said of the energetic, pious and successful John Berridge that communion with God was what he enforced in the latter stages of his ministry. It was indeed his own meat and drink and the banquet from which he never appeared to rise. This shows us the source of his great strength. If we were always sitting at this banquet, then it might be recorded of us ere long, as of him, he was in the first year visited by about a thousand persons under serious impression. Study the speakers, not the sermon. To the men, even more than to their doctrine, we would point the eye of the inquirer who asks, whence came their success? Why may not the same success be ours? We may take the sermons of Whitefield or Berridge or Edwards for our study or our pattern, but it is the individuals themselves that we must mainly set before us. It is with the spirit of the men, more than of their works, that we are to be imbued, if we are emulous of a ministry as powerful, as victorious as theirs. They were spiritual men and walked with God. It is living fellowship with the living Savior which transforming us into his image fits us for being able and successful ministers of the gospel. Without this, nothing else will avail. Neither orthodoxy, nor learning, nor eloquence, nor power of argument, nor zeal, nor fervor, will accomplish ought without this. It is this that gives power to our words and persuasiveness to our arguments, making them either as the balm of Gilead to the wounded spirit or as sharp arrows of the mighty to the conscience of the stout-hearted rebel. From them that walk with him in holy, happy intercourse, a virtue seems to go forth, a blessed fragrance seems to compass them whithersoever they go. Nearness to him, intimacy with him, assimilation to his character, these are the elements of a ministry of power. When we can tell our people, we beheld his glory, and therefore we speak of it. It is not from report we speak, but we have seen the king and his beauty, how lofty the position we occupy. Our power in drawing men to Christ springs chiefly from the fullness of our personal joy in him and the nearness of our personal communion with him. The countenance that reflects most of Christ and shines most with his love and grace is most fitted to attract the gaze of a careless, giddy world and win restless souls from the fascinations of creature love and creature beauty. A ministry of power must be the fruit of a holy, peaceful, loving intimacy with the Lord. Faithfulness essential to success. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. Malachi 2.6 Let us observe the connection here declared to subsist between faithfulness and success in the work of the ministry, between a godly life and the turning away many from iniquity. The end for which we first took office as we declared at ordination was the saving of souls. The end for which we still live and labor is the same. The means to this end are a holy life and a faithful fulfillment of our ministry. The connection between these two things is close and sure. We are entitled to calculate upon it. We are called upon to pray and labor with a confident expectation of its being realized, and where it is not, to examine ourselves with all diligence, lest the cause of the failure be found in ourselves, in our want of faith, love, prayer, zeal, and warmth, spirituality, and holiness of life. For it is by these that the Holy Spirit is grieved away. Success is attainable, success is desirable, success is promised by God, and nothing on earth can be more bitter to the soul of a faithful minister than the want of it. To walk with God and to be faithful to our trust is declared to be the certain way of attaining it. Oh, how much depends on the holiness of our life, the consistency of our character, the heavenliness of our walk and conversation. Our position is such that we cannot remain neutral. Our life cannot be one of harmless obscurity. We must either repel or attract, save or ruin souls. How loud then the call, how strong the motive to spirituality of soul and circumspectness of life. How solemn the warning against worldly mindedness and vanity, against levity and frivolity, against negligence, sloth, and cold formality. Of all men, a minister of Christ is especially called to walk with God. Everything depends on this, his own peace and joy, his own future reward at the coming of the Lord. But especially does God point to this as the true and sure way of securing the blessing. This is the grand secret of ministerial success. One who walks with God reflects the light of his countenance upon a benighted world. And the closer he walks, the more of this light does he reflect. One who walks with God carries in his very air and countenance a sweet serenity and holy joy that diffuses tranquility around. One who walks with God receives and imparts life whithersoever he goes. As it is written, out of him shall flow rivers of living water. John 7.38 He is not merely the world's light, but the world's fountain, dispensing the water of life on every side and making the barren waste of blossom as the rose. He waters the world's wilderness as he moves along his peaceful course. His life is blessed. His example is blessed. His intercourse is blessed. His words are blessed. His ministry is blessed. Souls are saved. Sinners are converted. And many are turned from their iniquity. Chapter 3 Past Defects O my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift up my face to thee, my God. O our God, what shall we say after this? Ezra 9.6-10 To deliver sermons on each returning Lord's Day, to administer the Lord's Supper statedly, to pay an occasional visit to those who request it, to attend religious meetings. This, we fear, sums up the ministerial life of multitudes who are, by profession, overseers of the flock of Christ. An incumbency of thirty, forty, or fifty years often yields no more than this. So many sermons, so many baptisms, so many sacraments, so many visits, so many meetings of various kinds. These are all the pastoral annals, the parish records, the all of a lifetime's ministry to many. Of souls that have been saved, such a record could make no mention. Multitudes have perished under such a ministry. Only the judgment will disclose whether so much as one has been saved. There might be learning, but there was no tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to him that is weary. There might be wisdom, but it certainly was not the wisdom that winneth souls. There might even be the sound of the gospel, but it seemed to contain no glad tidings at all. It was not sounded forth from warm lips into startled ears as the message of eternal life, the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Men lived, and it was never asked of them by their minister whether they were born again. Men sickened, sent to the minister, and received a prayer upon their deathbeds as their passport into heaven. Men died and were buried where all their fathers had been laid. There was a prayer at their funeral, and decent respects to their remains, but their souls went up to the judgment seat unthought of, uncared for. No man, not even the minister who had vowed to watch for them, having said to them, Are you ready? or warned them to flee from the wrath to come. Is not this description too true of many a district, and many a minister? We do not speak in anger. We do not speak in scorn. We ask the question solemnly and earnestly. It needs an answer. If ever there was a time when there should be great searching of heart and frank acknowledgment of unfaithfulness, it is now when God is visiting us, visiting us both in judgment and mercy. We speak in brotherly kindness. Surely the answer should not be of wrath and bitterness. And if this description be true, what sin must there be in ministers and people? How great must be the spiritual desolation that prevails? Surely there is something in such a case grievously wrong, something which calls for solemn self-examination in every minister, something which requires deep repentance, the tragedy of a barren ministry. Fields plowed and sown, yet yielding no fruit. Machinery constantly in motion, yet all without one particle of produce. Nets cast into the sea and spread wide, yet no fishes enclosed. All this for years, for a lifetime. How strange! Yet it is true. There is neither fancy nor exaggeration in the matter. Question some ministers and what other account can they give? They can tell you of sermons preached, but of sermons blessed they can say nothing. They can speak of discourses that were admired and praised, but of discourses that have been made effectual by the Holy Spirit they cannot speak. They can tell you how many have been baptized, how many communicants admitted, but of souls awakened, converted, ripening in grace they can give no account. They can enumerate the sacraments they have dispensed, but as to whether any of them have been times of refreshing or times of awakening, they cannot say. They can tell you what and how many cases of discipline have passed through their hands, but whether any of these have issued in godly sorrow for sin, whether the professed penitents who were absolved by them gave evidence of being washed and sanctified and justified, they can give no information. They never thought of such an issue. They can tell what is the attendance at Sunday school, and what are the abilities of the teacher, but how many of these precious little ones whom they have vowed to feed are seeking the Lord they know not, or whether their teacher be a man of prayer and piety, they cannot say. They can tell you the population of their parish, the number of their congregation, or the temporal condition of their flocks, but as to their spiritual state, how many have been awakened from the sleep of death, how many are followers of God as dear children, they cannot pretend to say. Perhaps they would deem it rashness and presumption, if not fanaticism, to inquire. And yet they have sworn before men and angels to watch for their souls as they that must give account. But oh, of what use are sermons, sacraments, schools, if souls are left to perish, if living religion be lost sight of, if the Holy Spirit be not sought, if men are left to grow up and die unpitied, unprayed for, unwarned, for God's glory and man's good. It was not so in other days. Our fathers really watched and preached for souls. They asked and they expected a blessing. Nor were they denied it. They were blessed in turning many to righteousness. Their lives record their successful labors. How refreshing the lives of those who lived only for the glory of God and the good of souls. There is something in their history that compels us to feel that they were ministers of Christ, true watchmen. How cheering to read of Baxter and his labors at Kitterminster. How solemn to hear of Ben and his preaching, in regard to which it is said that men fell before him like slaked lime. And in the much-blessed labors of that man of God, the apostolic Whitefield, is there not much to humble us as well as to stimulate? Of Tanner, who was himself awakened under Whitefield, we read that he seldom preached one sermon in vain. Of Berridge and Hicks, we are told that, in their missionary tours throughout England, they were blessed in one year to awaken four thousand souls. Oh, for these days again! Oh, for one day of Whitefield again! Thus one has written. The language we have been accustomed to adopt is this. We must use the means and leave the event to God. We can do no more than employ the means. This is our duty, and having done this, we must leave the rest to Him who is the disposer of all things. Such language sounds well, for it seems to be an acknowledgement of our own nothingness, and to savor of submission to God's sovereignty. But it is only sound. It has not really any substance in it, for though there is truth stamped on the face of it, there is falsehood at the root of it. To talk of submission to God's sovereignty is one thing, but really to submit to it is another and quite different thing. Submission involves renunciation. Really to submit to God's sovereign disposal does always necessarily involve the deep renunciation of our own will in the matter concerned, and such a renunciation of the will can never be effected without a soul being brought through very severe and trying exercises of an inward and most humbling nature. Therefore, whilst we are quietly satisfied in using the means without obtaining the end, and this costs us no such painful inward exercise and deep humbling as that alluded to, if we think that we are leaving the affair to God's disposal, we deceive ourselves, and the truth in this matter is not in us. No, really to give anything to God implies that the will, which is emphatically the heart, has been set on that thing, and if the heart has indeed been set on the salvation of sinners as the end to be answered by the means we use, we cannot possibly give up that end without, as was before observed, the heart being severely exercised and deeply pained by the renunciation of the will involved in it. When, therefore, we can be quietly content to use the means for saving souls without seeing them saved thereby, it is because there is no renunciation of the will, that is, no real giving up to God in the affair. The fact is, the will, that is, the heart, had never really been set upon this end. If it had, it could not possibly give up such an end without being broken by the sacrifice. When we can thus be satisfied to use the means without obtaining the end, and speak of it as though we were submitting to the Lord's disposal, we use a truth to hide a falsehood, exactly in the same way that those formalists in religion do who continue in forms and duties without going beyond them, though they know they will not save them, and who, when they are warned of their danger and earnestly entreated to seek the Lord with all the heart, reply by telling us they know they must repent and believe, but that they cannot do either of the one or the other of themselves, and that they must wait till God gives them grace to do so. Now, this is a truth absolutely considered, yet most of us can see that they are using it as a falsehood to cover and excuse a great insincerity of heart. We can readily perceive that if their hearts were really set upon salvation, they could not rest satisfied without it. Their contentedness is the result not of heart submission to God, but in reality of heart indifference to the salvation of their own souls, covering falsehood with truth. Exactly so it is with us as ministers, when we can rest satisfied with using the means for saving souls without seeing them really saved, or we ourselves being brokenhearted by it, and at the same time quietly talk of leaving the event to God's disposal, we make use of a truth to cover and excuse a falsehood. For our ability to leave the matter thus is not, as we imagine, the result of heart submission to God, but of heart indifference to the salvation of the souls we deal with. No, truly, if the heart is really set on such an end, it must gain that end, or break in losing it. He that saved our souls has taught us to weep over the unsaved. Lord, let that mind be in us that was in thee. Give us thy tears to weep, for, Lord, our hearts are hard toward our fellows. We can see thousands perish around us, and our sleep never be disturbed. No vision of their awful doom ever scaring us, no cry from their lost souls ever turning our peace into bitterness. Our families, our schools, our congregations, not to speak of our cities at large, our land, our world, might well send us daily to our knees, for the loss of even one soul is terrible beyond conception. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered the heart of man what a soul in hell must suffer forever. Lord, give us bowels of mercies. What a mystery! The soul and eternity of one man depends upon the voice of another. Chapter 4 Ministerial Confession Remember, therefore, from when thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. Revelation 2 In the year 1651, the Church of Scotland, feeling, in regard to her ministers, how deep their hand was in the transgression, and that ministers had no small accession to the drawing on of the judgments that were upon the land, drew up what they called a humble acknowledgment of the sins of the ministry. This document is a striking and searching one. It is perhaps one of the fullest, most faithful, and most impartial confessions of ministerial sin ever made. A few extracts from it will suitably introduce this chapter on ministerial confession. It begins with confessing sins before entrance on the ministry. Lightness and profanity in conversation unsuitable to that holy calling which they did intend, not thoroughly repented of. Not studying to be in Christ before they be in the ministry, nor to have the practical knowledge and experience of the mystery of the gospel in themselves before they preach it to others. Neglecting to fit themselves for the work of the ministry, and not improving prayer and fellowship with God, opportunities of a lively ministry and other means, and not mourning for these neglects. Not studying self-denial, nor resolving to take up the cross of Christ. Negligence to entertain a sight and sense of sin and misery, not wrestling against corruption, nor studying mortification and subduedness of spirit. Of entrance on the ministry it thus speaks, entering to the ministry without respect to a commission from Jesus Christ, by which it hath come to pass that many have run unsent. Entering to the ministry not from the love of Christ, nor from a desire to honor God in gaining of souls, but for a name and for a livelihood in the world, notwithstanding a solemn declaration to the contrary at admission. Of the sins after entrance on the ministry it thus searchingly enumerates, ignorance of God, want of nearness with Him, and taking up little of God in reading, meditating, and speaking of Him. Exceeding great selfishness in all that we do, acting from ourselves, for ourselves, and to ourselves. Not caring how unfaithful and negligent others were, so being it might contribute a testimony to our faithfulness and diligence, but being rather content, if not rejoicing, at their faults. Least delight in those things wherein lieth our nearest communion with God, great inconstancy in our walk with God, and negligent of acknowledging Him in all our ways, and going about duties least careful of those things which are most remote from the eyes of men. Seldom in secret prayer with God, except to fit for public performance, and even that much neglected, or gone about very superficially.