Dr. Porter affirmed, "Vigorous piety is never maintained without systematic attention to reading of the Scriptures and sacred prayer." The preceding chapter takes it for granted that the man called of God to preach studies and prays, prays and studies. In so doing, he is becoming established, rooted and grounded, sinking down into God. Prayer will make the preacher a man of piety, and piety will make him a man of prayer. People have a right to expect more than ordinary piety in a minister of the Gospel, because he is a representative of Jesus Christ and should be "an ensample to the flock." The great object of preaching the Gospel is to form godly character, and therefore the preacher himself should strive to exhibit a character of the highest possible type. The Apostles were not only preachers, they were witnesses, having in themselves an experimental knowledge of the power of the Gospel they preached. A hearer once remarked, "My pastor's discourses are not brilliant, but his daily life is a sermon all the week." The "living epistle" is as eloquent and convincing as any words that may be uttered. It exemplifies the sermon. "Like priest, like people."
John Wesley said in one of his Conferences, "Why are not the people more holy? Because we are not more holy." If the standard is lower today than formerly, it is because the pulpit has lowered it. As vital piety decreases in the occupant of the pulpit, the utterances will be uncertain. Paul, whose logic was set on fire of the Holy Ghost, wrote to Timothy, "Keep thyself pure," "Let no man despise thee." Be true to all convictions founded upon God's Word and live what you preach. This implies that the preacher is to be like his message. If so, then he must obey the injunction, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." The heart life hid with Christ in God insures the integrity of the outward life. THE GREATER YOUR PIETY THE GREATER WILL BE YOUR POWER. Scholarship, eloquence, great sermons, so called, are no substitutes for holiness of heart and life. The deeper you live in the heart of Christ, the deeper will you go into the hearts of your hearers. An ordinary man becomes extraordinary when he is a temple of the Holy Ghost. Bishop Quayle says, "The preacher must be like Christ all the day long, and all the night through. He must be a rock. He must be a voice. He must be a torch. Always going about doing good, always wanting to be a helper of mankind, always wanting to know things from God to tell man." To do this he must keep in communion with the Infinite One.
A man of God, called to preach, and keeping step with God, which implies walking with Him, will be led to preach much to his own soul. In so doing he will save himself and be enabled to win others. Melancthon said, "I feel sure that I have not otherwise handled theology than that I might derive profit myself. Another said, "I have prayed, I have talked, I have preached, but now I should perish if I did not feed on the bread I have broken to others." Henry Martyn wrote, "My first great business on earth is the sanctification of my own soul." Vinet adds, "Our first business is to be our own pastors," and every true preacher knows before we preach a sermon to others we derive good from it ourselves. We must not only commend holiness, but WE must practice it.
The unction that attends the ministry comes from being "apart often with God." Living piety prays and plans, weeps and rejoices, looking for the extension of Christ's kingdom and His glorious appearance. Rutherford, that sweet saint of old Scotland, assured his flock they were the object of his tears, cares, fears and daily prayers, and "My witness is above that your heaven would be two heavens for me, and the salvation of you all as two salvations to me." Alleine, the author of the "Alarm to the Unconverted," was infinitely and insatiably greedy of the conversion of souls, and to this end "he poured out his very heart." Doddridge, writing to a friend, remarked, "I long for the conversion of souls more sensibly than anything beside. I think I could not only labor but die for it with pleasure." President Edwards wrote, "My heart has been much on the advancement of Christ's kingdom in the world; the histories of the advancement of His kingdom in the past have been much to me. When I have read histories of past ages, the pleasant thing in all my reading has been to read of the kingdom of Christ being promoted." Men without piety never felt, or thought, or planned, as these men did.
The energies of the minister of the Gospel should be spent on things having connection with his work. An idle life, or an easy life is to be deplored. How can a man of God "take things easy," when all around him are thousands of blood-bought souls who are going rapidly toward eternal rum, and more heathen are being born into the world every year than there are converts to Christianity from among them? Real genuine piety will beget and foster a generous love for perishing men, without which the most sacred duties will be dull, and seem a task instead of a delight. Blessed is he who is joyfully ready to spend and be spent for Christ and perishing men.
