Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

depending on his providence for the necessaries of life. If God have sent
him, he is bound to support him, and will do it: anxiety, therefore, in him,
is a double crime; as it insinuates a bad opinion of the Master who has
employed him. Every missionary should make himself master of this
subject.
Augustine, archbishop of Tarragon, was one of the most learned men
of the age: he gave literally all he had to the poor; so that when he died,
in 1586, there was not found sufficient cash in his coffers to procure him
a decent burial. To any of his archiepiscopal brethren, "Go thou and do
likewise," might be esteemed a hard saying.
Let a minister of Christ but impair his health by his pastoral labours;
presently "he is distracted; he has not the least conduct nor discretion."
But let a man forget his soul, let him destroy his health by debaucheries,
let him expose his life through ambition, and he may, notwithstanding,
pass for a very prudent and sensible man!
Men who have laboured to bring the mass of the common people from
ignorance, irreligion, and general profligacy of manners, to an
acquaintance with themselves and God, and to a proper knowledge of
their duty to him and to each other, have been often branded as being
disaffected to the state, and as movers of sedition among the people!
A minister's trials and comforts are permitted and sent, for the benefit
of the church. What a miserable preacher must he be who has all his
divinity by study and learning, and nothing by experience! If his soul
have not gone through all the travail of regeneration, if his heart have not
felt the love of God shed abroad in it by the Holy Ghost, he can neither
instruct the ignorant nor comfort the distressed.
A minister of Christ is represented as a day labourer: he comes into the
harvest, not to become lord of it, not to live on the labour of others, but
to work, and to labour his day. Though the work may be very severe, yet,