The Christian Ministry

by Charles Bridges

We cease to fear the face of man, when we realize the presence and power of God.

a formal preaching even of Evangelical truth, being without faith, is wholly unproductive.

The use of means honours the work of the Spirit. But dependence upon means obscures his glory, and therefore issues in unprofitableness.

surely dependance upon the promise of heavenly wisdom would obtain a competent measure to meet the demand.

The shortest way to peace will be found in casting ourselves upon God for daily pardon of deficiencies and supplies of grace, without looking too eagerly for present fruit.

the grand secret is habitually to have our eye upon Christ.

Our Blessed Master will make us sensible of our weakness; but he will not suffer us to faint under it.

the power of unbelief will be matter of daily conflict to the end. We shall probably find it our chief hindrance.

The main secret of success doubtless is, to bring the spirit and unction of the Gospel into our public and private Ministrations.

THE Public Ministry of the word is the most responsible part of our work—the

For the instruction therefore of all sorts of men unto eternal life it is necessary, that the sacred and saving truth of God be openly published unto them.

Of all methods for diffusing religion, preaching is the most efficient.

The Minister is then in the very height of his dignity, when from the pulpit he feeds the Lord's flock with sacred doctrines

to maintain a constant recollection of the specific necessities of our people; to decide upon the most suitable course of Scriptural doctrine, exhortation, and comfort; to select the most appropriate vehicles for the presentment of the truth—these are exercises of laborious and persevering diligence.

No powers of imagination, natural eloquence, or vehement excitement, can compensate for the want of substantial matter.

there is no characteristic of Scripture more striking, than the diversified aspects and relations, in which it presents the same truths, fraught with fresh interest and important instruction.

It is indeed a " neglect of the gift of God that is in us," to trifle either in the study or in the pulpit.

The materials drawn from intellectual sources, or from a lowered standard of orthodox theology, only bring into the outer courts of the sanctuary. We must take a coal from the altar, that the u hearts" of our people may " burn within them."

Many young Ministers have crippled their effectiveness, by a vain attempt to exercise the higher qualifications of their more favoured brethren; instead of improving the more humble, but perhaps equally useful capabilities, which had been distributed to them.

The pulpit is the ordinary distribution of the bread of life; and much wisdom indeed is required, " rightly to divide the word of truth,"

The meaning and object of a text is a definite passage from the word of God, as the ground-work of some statement of truth, drawn from the word.

The use of commentators is well, before we compose our sermons, but not before we have considered and arranged them.

There is no greater hindrance to solid learning, than to make such use of other men's resources, as to neglect our own.

Had he said all that he could have said, it would have been infinitely more than they would have been able to have received; and consequently the grand end of his instruction would have been lost.

it requires as much reflection to know what is not to be put into a sermon, as what is. It is not, how much can be said; but what can best be said.

The clearness of the discussion materially depends upon ' having no more heads than can be sufficiently amplified within the bounds of the discourse, so as to be rendered sensible to the hearers.

Some of the best pulpit talents—such as fluency of utterance, richness and variety of illustration—without an orderly distribution, fail in arresting the attention, or fixing permanent impression.

The Scripture is the inexhaustible storehouse of our most valuable materials—whether of clear instruction; convincing argument; powerful or melting address; or even the higher strokes of eloquence—'

a distinct reference to the authority of Scripture, confirms our statements with the stamp of God, and brings our hearers, like the camp at Sinai, prostrate before his awful majesty.

It is not enough that the sermon should contain striking or good thoughts. The materials must be arranged so as to produce an effect upon the whole—a growing interest, conducting to a clear and powerful conclusion.

Young writers and speakers are apt to fall into a style of pompous verbosity, from an idea that they are adding both perspicuity and force to what is said, when they are only encumbering the sense with a needless load of words.

There is no book so intelligible as the book of God; no book that so clearly reveals man to himself; or that has such inexpressible power over his heart; or that connects itself so naturally with his popular feelings and interests.

No merely passive agent can make a solid or useful Minister.

this animadversion on the slavish use of foreign resources does not imply that every sentiment or sentence of our sermon must be (strictly speaking) original.

while we learn from all, we may almost be said to borrow from none.

At all events the weakest effort of our own mind is more acceptable, than the indolent use of the most talented exercises of another.

The minister's life must, to the end, be a life of holy meditation and study.

the preacher ' must not merely have been a man of reading; he must read still; or his sermons will be trite and barren of thought.'

Composition, therefore, without a meditative mind, will present only what has been tersely called ' a mob of ideas.'

Meditation is essential to intellectual vigour. Without it, we may indeed acquire a foreign store of knowledge, but we shall never make it our own.

Preacher should think as a Preacher—marking every thing (like any other man of business) with the...

Without the discipline of patient and accurate thinking, words are applied in an unmeaning and faulty arrangement.

No part of pulpit preparation ought to be merely intellectual employ. The habit of meditation (to which we now refer) is the exercise of the mind on spiritual objects for spiritual purposes, fixing a clear and permanent impression of truth.

Let the substance of our text be first beaten out from the pure word of God, and then digested in meditation and prayer—let our matter gather clearness of arrangement, force and spirit, from human resources.

give yourself to prayer, to reading, and meditation on Divine truths; strive to penetrate to the bottom of them, and never be content with a superficial knowledge.

To study and meditate much, and to pray little, paralyses all.

The most valuable results of meditative study are essentially defective without prayer.

However important it may be, that the preacher's head should be well furnished; it is of far higher moment that his heart should be deeply affected.

Our object is not to set off our talents or eloquence; but to excite and strengthen an habit of holy sensibility.

Direction in the choice of texts and topics should be sought from above.