The Christian Ministry

by Charles Bridges

The genuine spirit of humiliation is not the separate work of the law, but of the law preparatory to, and combined with, the Gospel—the sense of sin and misery connected with the hope of mercy.

Here, therefore, believing and doing, though opposed as light and darkness in the matter of Justification, yet agree in the life and conduct of the justified sinner.

Even sincere Christians sometimes look for their comfort more from obedience to the law than from the righteousness of the Gospel;

Our commission directs us to preach the Gospel under the solemn sanctions of law, and to preach the law under the gracious encouragements of the Gospel.

The law is the forerunner, that makes room, and prepares welcome in the soul for Christ.'

Some men think, that they preach Christ gloriously, because they name him every ten minutes in their sermons. But this is 'not (necessarily) preaching Christ.'

We might as well speak of a village that has no road to the metropolis, as of a point of Christian doctrine, privilege, or practice, that has no reference to Christ crucified.

skilfully to accommodate all our various topics to this one point, is a lesson we must be learning all our lives.

So true is it, that we must preach the Gospel, in order to reform the world.

Nothing but the truth of the Gospel can be instrumental to the conversion of souls.

Ministers, are mourning over the palpable unfruitfulness of their work; without at all suspecting, that the root of the evil lies within themselves.

We must therefore maintain the spiritual inefficacy of mere lectures on morality, irrespective of the Gospel.

No man ever preached more morality than St. Paul; but it was always upon the basis of Evangelical doctrine.

our preaching of this doctrine should be full and explicit.

Learning, wisdom, eloquence, gifts, make not a minister. " It is required of stewards, that a man be found faithful"'

In displaying the riches of grace, we must not forget to trace them to the sovereign pleasure of God.

we are bound to explain to our people, according to the light afforded us, every part of that book, which was designed for general instruction, and of which we are the ordained interpreters.

Judicious preaching therefore implies a clear display of every Doctrine of the Gospel—in the statement, in the order, according to the proportion, and for the ends, in which we conceive it to be set forth in Scripture.

Let it therefore be our aim, study, and prayer, so to " grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ," that our preaching may not only be true, but the truth—the whole truth—" the truth as it is in Jesus."

Let us ever stop' (as Professor Campbell reminds us,) ' where revelation stops; and not pretend to move one inch beyond it.'

We can only gain the confidence of our people, by embodying all the statements of their own Scriptures in our public Ministrations.

however mean and illiterate the congregation may be, in which you exercise your sacred functions, fear not to set before them the whole counsel of God. Open the whole of your message without reservation,

We are not to commence with the outskirts of the Gospel, and so reason on step by step till we come to Christ—thus keeping the sinner waiting in the dark. He wants to see the king. There needs no long ceremonial of approach from a distance.

The sinner is dying, he is in instant, urgent, need of the physician and the remedy.

No sermon can give the whole Gospel in detail. Yet it should give its subject, as a part of a connected whole, and in distinct relation to the whole system.

Misplacing of the truths of the Gospel, like confusion in the machinery of clock-work, makes the whole system go wrong. Disconnecting the operation of the Gospel from its principles, paralyzes all quickening influence.

It is possible therefore to preach much valuable truth essentially belonging to the Gospel, and yet not to preach the Gospel— to preach about Christ, yet not to preach Christ.

But we must not mutilate, suppress, or disconnect truth, because others have perverted it.

We forget that opposition to error, may be error; that (as has been wisely observed) ' heresy is not to be cured by heresy, but by truth;'

attempting to embrace the whole Scripture, and to aim at Bible preaching, it is extremely difficult to escape the bias of some theological system.

Christian integrity, therefore, will labour to state the doctrines of the Gospel, as they lie unfettered, though not unconnected, in the sacred volume.

The system of Scripture (for doubtless there is a system of scriptural truth) embraces the sovereignty of God in perfect consistency with his universal equity, and the free agency of man untouched by his total depravity.

Man is addressed as a rational agent. Though paralytic, he is commanded to walk. Though dead, he is called to " rise from the dead."? He may come to Christ. He is invited to come. He is bound to come; and it is his sin, if he does not come;

To accommodate our statement to the philosophy of the human mind in the hope of conciliating regard, is to forget the native enmity of the heart to the Gospel, and the determined opposition manifested to the Ministry of the wisest and most attractive of all preachers.

Indefinite and indecisive statements may quiet the enmity of the heart, and may even bring our people to a certain stage of conviction; but they will never carry them to the main point, and will be dependent upon human energy alone for their success.

Our statements may be full and simple, connected and unfettered; but without an application of the didactic system to the sympathies of the heart, they will impart only a cold and uninfluential knowledge.

Christian experience is the influence of doctrinal truth upon the affections.

It is experience alone that qualifies the Minister for usefulness, by enabling him to touch the tender strings of the heart, and to suit his instruction to the different cases, trials, and circumstances of his people.

The way-post directs the traveller, but itself remains unmoved: but the living guide becomes a companion to sympathize with, enliven, and uphold his fellow.

As the features of the human countenance, (though so varied, that each may be considered an original) in all leading particulars are invariably the same; so in Christian experience identity of character is preserved in the midst of an endless diversity of feature.

The young and the more advanced will be alike profited by the detailed sketch of the ways and means, in which the principles of the heavenly life are implanted, cherished, and maintained.

It is more easy to deal with a darkened understanding, and with excitable feelings, than with a corrupt will.

The connection of practical with doctrinal preaching is of the utmost importance.

it is the great duty of a preacher of the Gospel to press the practice of its precepts upon the consciences of men.

We must show Christian privilege to be a principle not of inactive indulgence—but of habitual devotedness to God.

Scriptural preaching will expound doctrines practically, and practice doctrinally; omitting neither, but stating neither independent of the other, or unconnected with experimental religion.

The wholesome doctrine of Christ includes the path as well as the hope—the fruit-fullness as well as the consolations—of the Gospel; so that the separation of the doctrine from the holiness of the Gospel is as defective a statement, as the disunion of holiness from the doctrine of the cross.

So unnatural is this habit of personal application, that most will fit the doctrine to anyone but themselves; and their general and unmeaning commendation too plainly bespeaks the absence of personal interest and concern.

That tone of preaching, that smoothes down or qualifies revolting truths—that does not cause the hearers some uneasiness—that does not bear directly upon them as individuals, but feebly illustrates the living power of the word; nor will it ever " compel sinners to come in" to the Gospel.

Even the hardest heart—the most stubborn sinner—is made to smart under the point of the two-edged sword.