What minister having any regard for conscience could sign this list of errors, after swearing the Covenant? Would he not immediately feel his spiritual life sink below zero? Would not his heart chide him bitterly for the degradation of his office and manhood? And God is greater than the heart.
David Dickson was one of the ministers who had strength to endure, rather than bend. He was a young man full of fire and holy power. He had charge of a flourishing congregation at Irvine. His preaching swayed the people. They crowded the church to hear him. His appeals melted the heart and watered the cheeks. He was bold to denounce the Articles of Perth. The authorities called him up and commanded him to retract; he refused. A sad farewell to his flock followed. Rather than support error, however popular and profitable, he would sacrifice the dearest ties on earth and journey to parts unknown. And this he did.
Alexander Henderson, another minister, encountered the displeasure of the men in power and suffered much at their hands. In his early life he accepted the Prelatic creed and entered the ministry in favor with the party. He was sent to a church which, a short time previous, had experienced the violent removal of their beloved pastor. The people were indignant at Henderson's coming. They barricaded the door of the church. The delegates that had come to ordain him, not being able to effect an entrance through the door, entered by a window. Henderson was that day settled as the pastor of an absent congregation. In the lapse of time he won the people. He was faithful and powerful as a preacher of the Word, and the Lord Jesus honored him in the eyes of large audiences.
One day Henderson went to hear a Covenanted minister, Robert Bruce, at a communion. He was shy and concealed himself in a dark corner of the church. Mr. Bruce took for his text, "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." The minister having read his text paused, and in dignified posture, with head erect, scanned his congregation with eyes that gleamed with holy fire. Such was his custom before beginning his sermon. Henderson felt the blaze of those eyes. He seemed to be the very man for whom they were searching. The recollection of having entered upon his ministry by climbing through a window horrified him. He went from that meeting determined to investigate Prelacy in the light of the Scriptures. The result was conviction of the truth and conversion to the Covenanted cause. Deportation from his devoted flock quickly followed. He was thereafter found in the forefront of the fight against the supremacy of the king over the Church, and against Prelacy that upheld the king in his arrogant assumption of the royal prerogative of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The minister of Christ is the watchman of the Church. He is placed upon Zion's walls to sound an alarm at the approach of danger. He is charged with responsibility for the people. If they perish through his neglect to give warning of dangers, his life for theirs. Faithful preaching may not be pleasant or profitable to the minister. Declaring the whole counsel of God may involve the pastor in trouble, demand sacrifices, result in hardships, controversies, separations; yet the Lord requires it, the people need it, no safety without it for either the flock or the shepherd. Without fidelity no power with God, no comfort of the Spirit, no approval from Christ. Are they who serve as ministers of Christ willing to sacrifice ministerial support, relationship, popularity, applause—everything temporal, rather than one jot or one tittle of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
POINTS FOR THE CLASS.
1. Why does God send trials upon His Church?
2. Mention some of the fluctuations in the Church's condition.
3. What class of ministers then had the ascendancy?