THE BAPTIST; A TRUE AND FAITHFUL MINISTER.

BY THE REV. PETER M'MORLAND,

Minister of the Scotch Church, Regent Square, London. THE ministerial character of John is well worthy of the attention and prayerful study, both of the minister of Christ, and the people of his flock. We ask, who was this John, around whom the people flocked in such vast numbers, and to whom our Lord himself came, in order to be baptized? There is something strange and marked about his character and about his position. We are curious to know something about him; who, and what was he? This same question was entertained in the Sanhedrim of old, at the time when John came forth upon his public mission. There was that about the man, which excited, from the very commencement of his course, a deep, engrossing, and rapidly extending interest. He stood forth, after so many hundred years of unbroken silence, as a messenger come direct from God; his outward appearance, and the habits of his life, were calculated to overawe the public mind; while his fearful rebukes, darted against impenitent sinners, must have fallen upon them like lightning consuming the object on which it strikes. All these, his outward appearance, his known character, his preaching, and the multitudes who came from all quarters to his baptism, very soon so contributed to make him known, that his fame extended even to the palace of the king; and in the Sanhedrim the question was mooted, "Who could he be?" for that a great prophet had arisen in Israel was plain; and they sent priests and Levites to Jerusalem, to ask him, "Who art thou?" We ask the same question, Who was John?

1. John was a minister of God, sent forth to execute a peculiar work, and placed in a very peculiar position. He was not Elias; not one of the old prophets risen from the dead, to act in the prophetic office again among his countrymen; he was not even a prophet, for with no special prophecy, like the old prophets, was he intrusted; he was sent forth to occupy a position which he holds alone, between the less excellent and the better,-between the more limited and the more VOL. II.

PRICE 1d.

diffusive dispensation; he was the predicted messenger who was to come and receive all his glory from ushering in the Lord of hosts into that temple, of which it was foretold that the glory of it would be greater than that of the former, even with all its exquisite workmanship and costly materials. But you will observe, he was "sent by God," and it was this that constituted him the minister of God. He did not intrude himself into his office, but, commissioned by God, was "sent" to do the work he had assigned him, and for which, by a long course of preparatory training, he had admirably fitted him. The fact that John the Baptist, "sent from God" as he was, was kept so long in a state of training, before he entered on his work; the fact that our blessed Lord himself delayed so long, till he arrived at the full maturity and perfection of his manhood; the fact that he kept his apostles so long in training, before he gave them their full commission, which was comprised in the last words he addressed to them, before he ascended to the throne prepared for him, even when he was about to bestow on them miraculous powers of teaching,

all these should serve to teach us, that no man should rush hastily into the-in a measure analogous office of Christ's ministry.

2. But he was not only a minister, intrusted with a service of great honour and of great importance; it is one of the most prominent and striking features of his character that he was faithful in the work that was given him to do,-faithful in his doctrine, though it must have exposed him to great hatred and opposition at the hands of men; and faithful in his testimony, though he bore it to One before whose glory his own was to fade; but he had just ideas of wherein his own true glory consisted; viz., in doing faithfully and fully the peculiar work to which he had been called; in sinking himself that he might exalt his Master. He went forth preaching a most unpalatable doctrine, the doctrine of the necessity of repentance ; which, when preached clearly and personally, men will scarcely bear, at this day, to hear. He charged them with their vices, and their guilt. He spared not even those who were highest in popular favour, and richest in worldly wealth, for when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his

baptism, he said, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" He is an example and a pattern, as far as faithful preaching and unbending integrity are concerned, to every man who goes forth, bearing the message of God to his fellow-men. Every thing else should be made to bend to the truth, but the truth itself should be made to bend to nothing. And if hypocrisy, and worldliness, and every sin that can be named, immeasurably heightened as the guilt of them all is by the virtual rejection of Christ, be as common now as they were in the days of the Baptist, it becomes those who hold the position of the sent of God, to be faithful in delivering the message of God, to every company of unrepenting sinners, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

But it was in his witness and testimony that his faithfulness to his trust was, perhaps, most remarkably displayed. Had he, in the least degree, been actuated by a spirit of an opposite kind; and had the desire of vain glory and of man's applause eaten up the spirit of ministerial fidelity in the heart of the Baptist, what ample and admirable opportunities he had for arrogating to himself his Master's honour! His countrymen put the very temptation in his way; they asked him if he was the Christ? and he confessed, and denied not, that he was not the Christ,-and he was not Elias,and he was not that prophet whom they so anxiously expected. It would have raised him high, upon the instant, in the popular estimation, for him to have said he was a prophet. It was what they thought; it was what they hoped would be his answer to their question; but he was an honest and a faithful man, ad at once disclaimed his title to the name of prophet, as it was understood in the question that they asked. Then said they unto him, "Who art thou?" They were perplexed at his denial, for they thought that surely the one or the other he must be. And what was his reply? O, there is much instruction to every private Christian, but above all, to every minister of Christ, in his reply. He was not Christ,-he was not Elias,—and he was not that prophet whom they expected; well, what was he? he was but a voice. "I am," he said, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord."

of him were wrong, honourable as they were; and that if they regarded him at all, in the light in which he should be viewed, and desired to be viewed, they must hold him to be a mere voice, preceding the entrance of one mightier than himself, and preparing for his near approach, upon the high errand of salvation. And how well he bore out his character that he was a mere voice, must be evident from the many proofs of his humility. And how well he acted as a faithful voice, preparing for his Lord, and directing men to Christ, appears from the fact that we find him once and again, on one day and another, within the short and compressed compass of a single chapter, pointing out the Lamb of God, to those who came to yield honour to himself.

And have we not this humility, and indeed the whole of the beautiful character of John, set forth to us in the recital of the baptism of our Lord, in Matthew? When Jesus came to be baptized, he forbade him, saying, "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" as if he had said, "What! shall the sun come to a glimmering taper, that it may obtain the benefit of its rays? Shall the incarnate Word,-shall the spotless Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, come to a poor, weak, and sinful man, to receive the baptism of which he is the minister? It cannot be ; it must not be. The less is blessed of the greater.' The less should be baptized of the greater. I have need to be baptized of thee.'" And when you think that that address was uttered, not in a corner, but in the very midst of John's followers and friends, it will give you a still higher idea of the true spirit and faithfulness of the man.

Now, surely the ministers of Christ have much to learn from this; it is the very spirit by which they should all be characterised; it is the very language they should all employ. And though, who is there, that, even amid the sacredness of his office, is not too justly chargeable with, in some way, seeking "his own," to the dishonour of his Master, and even to the arresting of that powerful influence, which, coming down from heaven, carries home the truth to the conscience, and bears it in upon the heart;-(for the Spirit of God will not countenance labours, amid which his own honour and glory are forgotten or despised,)—yet, still, the true spirit that every labourer in the vineyard should cultivate, is this spirit of John. And the true light in which we should ever regard ourselves, and be regarded, is that of a voice, pointing out to fainting and famishing travellers in the wilderness, that Lamb of God who is sustenance, and refreshment, and repose, to every soul that receives him.

It must be admitted that we have greatly lost among us the noble spirit of ministerial faithful

humility, and the spirit of John's simplicity, and boldness of testimony, is to be found throughout the pulpits of a Christian land. And, O, is it not the case, that there is so little of the true fear of God among our people, and so little awaken

ing among them, and so little of the operative power of true Christianity exhibited in the midst of them; because they who have it, in sacred charge, to "bear the vessels of the sanctuary," instead of cultivating the spirit of John, when he said, "I have need to be baptized of thee," or when he proclaimed himself to be but a "voice," and nothing more, seek rather, in the first place, to advance their own glory, and to arrogate honour to themselves? The Spirit of God will not so countenance or bless us, as to give us a spiritual blessing, and spiritual fruit, from labours in motive and in principle so far wrong.

But, if ministers err thus, without one syllable of palliation for them, it greatly becomes our people to see, whether error, and the encouragement of error, does not lie also with them. There is, and can be, nothing more foolish and mischievous than the way in which ministers are often looked at, and spoken of by their people. All is made to depend upon the individual man; people lose sight of the ordinance of God in the contemplation of the properties of the individual. If his natural gifts be slender, it is well if the very language of contempt be withheld from the servant of Christ; while, on the contrary, if his natural gifts be great, so that, by his power of reason he can compel assent, or, by the power of his eloquence, he can thrill the spirit, and make a listening audience hang upon his lips, no language can express the greatness of their admiration; they look to the man, not to the ordinance; they put the man too frequently in the place of Christ; and instead of regarding him, as much as possible, as a mere voice, to point them to a more giorious object, and to direct them to a better hope, they say, in spirit at least, if not in the letter, in their idolatrous admiration, "Art thou Elias? art thou that prophet? or even, art thou the Christ?" putting the vessel in the place of him that formed it, the clay in the place of the potter. If there be fault on the part of ministers, as there is in pandering to the stimulated and false appetite of their people, there is fault also on the part of the people, in cherishing that craving for stimulants, which makes the truth, -though it be the very truth of God-when presented in a plain or homely dress, insipid. It is the part of a Christian people (I magnify my office) to entertain reverence and respect for the ordinance of Christ's ministry, apart, as much as possible, from the intellectual qualifications of those who exercise it, lest, perchance, they come to love and to relish more the display of intellect than the exhibition of the truth; and it is the part of a Christian ministry, while, in accordance with our Lord's description, it brings forth from the treasury things " new and old," to see to it, that the one grand subject with which it has to do, be made to possess a prominence correspondent to its importance; and if a man can do nothing more, than this day, and the next day, standing up before his people, to follow in the steps, and to repeat the testimony of the faithful John, "Behold the Lamb of God, hat taketh away the sins of the world," our

people's minds should be so disciplined to the love of the all-important truth, that the statement would be to them, even in its daily repetition, all the variety they require, and all the eloquence they wish. What are the ornaments of the temple, to the temple itself? What are the trappings, in which human fancy may deck and decorate the truth, to the truth itself? What are the earthen vessels of the ministry, to the precious treasure they contain? "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," for this very purpose, "that the excellency of the power may be seen to be of God;" and not in the words that "man's wisdom teacheth, but in the words that the Holy Ghost teacheth," are the servants of Christ to come and declare his will," for God will bring to nought the wisdom of this world."

THE EARLY DAYS

OF

PRESIDENT EDWARDS.

JONATHAN EDWARDS was born at East Windsor, on 1703. His father was the Rev. Timothy Edwards, a the banks of the Connecticut, on the 5th day of October most diligent and exemplary pastor, and a distinguished scholar. His mother was a woman of very extensive information, of a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, and of fervent piety. The education of Jonathan was of a very superior character. Brought up " in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," under the care of parents at once strict and affectionate, he was preserved, in a great degree, from the company of bad companions, and from those "evil communications" which too often prove the ruin of the young. Even in early life, however, he seems to have been characterised by firmness and sedateness, and a sound and discriminating judgment. Blessed with enlightened parents, they taught him from childhood to exercise and strengthen his intellectual faculties by cultivating an acquaintance with all the objects of contemplation within his reach. Their faithful religious instructions, too, rendered him, while yet a child, conversant with his own character and duties, with the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, and the nature of that eternal life faithful servants of their divine Master they not only which, begun on earth, is perfected in heaven. Like pointed out the road that conducts to the mansions of bliss, but they shewed him examples of perseverance therein, and sought for him, by constant prayer, the guidance of that Great Being, who alone can lead "in the way everlasting." Their prayers for their son commenced with his very existence, and, like every prayer of faith, they were answered, and secured for him, at an early period of life, the peculiar blessing of God. When yet very young, Edwards experienced powerful religious impressions, and especially, before he went to college, during an extensive revival of religion in his father's congregation. These impressions, however, ultimately disappeared, and, in his own opinion, were followed by no permanent effects of a salutary nature. In his early years he seems to have been fond of the use of the pen, and the vigour, and the shrewd ness, and the sound judgment displayed in some pieces which he composed, before he had attained his twelfth year, are almost incredible. They display, in an astonishing degree, those very qualities which so distinguished him in after life, and shew how much truth there is in the poet's remark,

"The child is father of the man."

Mr Edwards entered Yale College in Newhaven

before he was thirteen years of age, and during his residence there he was distinguished for the uniform sobriety and correctness of his deportment, for assiduous application to his studies, and for vast progress in learning. While yet a boy at College, he manifested that love for metaphysical investigation, and that profound thought, which afterwards caused a reluctant world to bow in homage to the grand and Scriptural view of the moral government of God, which he disclosed. By continued and sustained exercise he was strengthening his reasoning powers, and gradually moulding himself into a thinking being,-a being who, instead of considering thought a labour, was never happier than when every faculty of his mind was engaged in discovering and in illustrating truth, or unravelling the inextricable labyrinths of error. To this practice we cannot but ascribe, in a great degree, the ultimate development of his mental superiority.

"

The class, of which Mr Edwards was a member, finished their regular course before he was seventeen years of age. The time of "his visitation was noW at hand, when the Holy Spirit should awake him from his sleep, and should take of the things which are God's, and shew them unto him. Of his views and feelings on the subject of religion about this time, the reader may judge from the following extracts from an account which he himself wrote about twenty years afterwards:

"God would not suffer me to go on with any quietness; I had great and violent inward struggles, till, after many conflicts with wicked inclinations, repeated resolutions, and bonds that I laid myself under by a kind of vows to God, I was brought wholly to break off all former wicked ways, and all ways of known outward sin; and to apply myself to seek salvation, and practise many religious duties; but without that kind of affection and delight which I had formerly experienced. My concern now wrought more by inward struggles, and conflicts, and self-reflections. I made seeking my salvation, the main business of my life. But yet, it seems to me, I sought it after a miserable manner; which has made me sometimes since to question, whether ever it issued in that which was saving; being ready to doubt, whether such miserable seeking ever succeeded. I was indeed brought to seek salvation, in a manner that I never was before; I felt a spirit to part with all things in the world, for an interest in Christ. My concern continued and prevailed, with many exercising thoughts and inward struggles; but yet it never seemed to be proper to express that concern by the name of terror.

"The first instance, that I remember, of that sort of inward sweet delight in God and divine things, that I have lived much in since, was on reading those words, 1 Tim. i. 17, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen." As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever! I kept saying, and as it were singing, over these words of Scripture to myself; and went to pray to God that I might enjoy him, and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do; with a new sort of affection. But it never came into my thought, that there was any thing spiritual or of a saving nature in this.

"Not long after I first began to experience these things, I gave an account to my father of some things that had passed in my mind. I was pretty much affected by the discourse we had together, and when the

discourse was ended, I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my father's pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walking there, and looking upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, as I know not how to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction; majesty and meekness joined together: it was a sweet, and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness."

From this time Mr Edwards began to have clearer views of the work of redemption, and the glorious scheme of salvation, through the merits of Jesus Christ. It was now his delight to read and meditate on divine things, and books which treated of sacred subjects were peculiarly dear to him. The book of Canticles, according to his own account, afforded him peculiar pleasure, and these words, Cant. ii. 1. "I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys," were often the subject of delightful meditation. To his eye the appearance of every thing was changed; he beheld new beauties in every object of contemplation, and in every scene he beheld the glory, and goodness, and greatness of the God of nature. "God's excellence," says he, "his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in every thing; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, and trees; in the water, and all nature, which used greatly to fire my mind." He now began to experience a pleasure in beholding the works of nature, to which the "natural man" is an utter stranger. Nothing now was so delightful to him as to hear the awful and majestic voice of God in the thunder storm, and to behold in it the glory of Him whose lightnings lighten the world, and whose voice is powerful and full of majesty, shaking the wilderness, and moving "the foundations of the hills." Formerly, such scenes filled him with terror; now, they were pregnant with the most exalted enjoyment; and the cause of this change is obvious. Once, the voice of God in the storm spoke to him in wrath, for he was at enmity with his Maker; now, it proclaimed the majesty and power of its Author, and disturbed not his calm serenity, for his confidence reposed on the Most High, and he was kept "in perfect peace," his mind being stayed on that great Being,

"Who plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm."

In June or July 1722, when not yet nineteen years of age, Mr Edwards was licensed to preach the Gospel. For some time he laboured among the Presbyterians in New York, who several times besought him to remain with them for life. This, however, painful as it was to his feelings, he declined, for, owing to the smallness of the congregation, and some peculiar circumstances connected with it, he did not think there was any prospect of answering fully the great end which he had in view, in devoting himself to the work of the ministry. In no period of his life, perhaps, did he possess greater advantages for spiritual contemplation and enjoyment, than during the period here alluded to. He went to New York in a happy frame of mind; he found there a little flock devoted to the service of their cominon Master; he resided in a family, the daily intercourse with whom served only to refresh and to sanctify; and in addition to all this, he had much leisure for reading, meditation, and prayer, and seems to have daily realised the presence of the Comforter. In the narrative of his religious history, he thus writes :—

My sense of divine things seemed gradually to increase, till I went to preach at New York, which was about a year and a-half after they began; and while I was there, I felt them very sensibly, in a much higher degree than I had done before. My longings after God and holiness were much increased. Pure and humble, holy and heavenly Christianity appeared ex

ceedingly amiable to me. I felt a burning desire to be, in everything, a complete Christian, and conformed to the blessed image of Christ; and that I might live, in all things, according to the pure, sweet, and blessed rules of the Gospel. I had an eager thirsting after progress in these things, which put me upon pursuing and pressing after them. It was my continual strife day and night, and constant inquiry, how I should be more holy, and live more holily, and more becoming a child of God, and a disciple of Christ. I now sought an increase of grace and holiness, and a holy life, with much more earnestness than ever I sought grace before I had it. I used to be continually examining myself, and studying and contriving for likely ways and means, how I should live holily, with far greater diligence and earnestness than ever I pursued anything in my life, but yet with too great a dependence on my own strength, which afterwards proved a great damage to me. My experience had not then taught me, as it has done since, my extreme feebleness and impotence every manner of way, and the bottomless depths of secret corruption and deceit there were in my heart. However, I went on with my eager pursuit after more holiness and conformity to Christ.

Holiness, as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it, appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature, which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, and ravishment to the soul. In other words, that it made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant flowers, enjoying a sweet calm, and the gently vivifying beams of the sun. The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations, appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing, as it were, in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrance; standing peacefully and lovingly, in the midst of other flowers round about, all, in like manner, opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun. There was no part of creatureholiness that I had so great a part of its loveliness, as humility, brokenness of heart, and poverty of spirit; and there was nothing that I so earnestly longed for. My heart panted after this,-to lie low before God, as in the dust, that I might be nothing, and that God might be all, that I might become as a little child.

"While at New York, I sometimes was much affected with reflections on my past life, considering how late it was before I began to be truly religious, and how wickedly I had lived till then, and once so as to weep abundantly, and for a considerable time together."

Often during his residence at New York, he retired to some solitary spot on the banks of the Hudson, and there, amid the stillness of nature, unseen by human eye, he held sweet communion with his "Father who seeth in secret."

"Wisdom's self

Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,
Where with her best nurse, contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

66

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired." On the 12th of January 1723, he made a solemn dedication of himself to God, vowing to take God for his whole portion and felicity," and "to fight with all his might, against the world, the flesh, and the devil, to the end of his life." In the same year he left New York and returned to his father's house at Windsor. During the time in which he was preparing for the ministry, his residence at New York, and afterwards at his father's house, he framed a series of resolutions to the number of seventy, which "evince a moral strength of determination, a sublime elevation of character far removed above the feeble, undecided, and

irregular purposes of ordinary philosophic minds." As specimens of these, we quote the following :

"That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

"To be continually endeavouring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the forementioned things.

"To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.

"Never to do anything, of which I so much ques tion the lawfulness, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards whether it be lawful or not, unless I as much question the lawfulness of the omission.

"To ask myself, at the end of every day, week, month, and year, wherein I could possibly, in any respect, have done better."

These resolutions," says his biographer, Mr Dwight, are perhaps to persons of every age, but especially to the young, the best uninspired summary of Christian duty, the best directory to high attainments in evange lical virtue, which the mind of man has been able to form." These resolutions, too, throw great light on Mr Edwards' character; and no one can wonder that the youth, who, in his nineteenth year, formed, as in the presence of God, such resolutions as those which we have quoted, attained, in more matured years, to a degree of grace and of virtue, but rarely equalled by any individual.

Mr Edwards in his nineteenth year commenced keeping a diary, at least the diary which he left extends no farther back, although, as his biographer remarks, the beginning of it being lost, it is not improbable that it may have reached back at least to the period of his preparation for the ministry. It was evidently intended for his own private use, and would probably have been destroyed had it been in his possession at his death. Many passages of it are written in short-hand, and on one occasion he adds this remark, "Remember to act according to Prov. xii. 23,A prudent man concealeth knowledge."" While the diaries of many consist chiefly in mere expressions of feeling, that of Edwards consists of facts, and of solid thought, dictated, no doubt, by deep religious feeling. In January 1723, he thus writes in his diary, concerning the vital importance of the influences of the Holy Spirit :

"I find, by experience, that, let me make resolutions, and do what I will, with never so many inventions, it is all nothing, and to no purpose at all, without the motions of the Spirit of God; for if the Spirit of God should be as much withdrawn from me always, as for the week past, notwithstanding all I do, I should not grow, but should languish, and miserably fade away. I perceive, if God should withdraw his Spirit a little more, I should not hesitate to break my resolutions, and should soon arrive at my old state. There is no dependence on myself. Our resolutions may be at the highest one day, and yet, the next day, we may be in a miserable dead condition, not at all like the same person who resolved. So that it is to no purpose to resolve, except we depend on the grace of God. For, if it were not for his mere grace, one might be a very good man one day, and a very wicked one the next,'