* If by a great divine, is only meant a person well skilled in critical contention, who can artfully defend a set of notions, amongst which he happened to be born and bred, such a divine, I own, may be very impatient, and much cooled in his zeal, unless he finds himself well rewarded. But if an eminent divine is to be understood in a sense suitable to the gospel, he is that particular person that must needs have the greatest contempt and dislike of every thing, that has but the appearance of the pomp and vanity of this world in it. If therefore it was urged, that this conjunction of preferments and dignifying rewards was necessary to bring ambitious scholars into the church, or to keep them in it, there would be some sense, tho’ no gospel in the pretence; but to talk of them as necessary to be the rewards of eminent piety and apostolic labour, is as absurd, as to say, that those who have truly put on Christ, who stand in the highest degree of a renewed nature, who best know and feel the blessing of a mortified, heavenly spirit, have less reason to be content with food and raiment, than those who stand in a lower degree of the Christian life; ’tis saying, that a bishop, because he has most of the spirit and office of an apostle, may well desire more of the pride and figure of this world, than the lower clergy, who have less of the apostolic spirit and perfection in them.
To want to stand in some degree of worldly figure, is the state of a babe in the Christian life, and therefore can no way become those, who are to lead others to fulness of stature in Christ Jesus.
A great divine is but a cant expression, unless it signifies a man greatly advanced in the divine life, whose own experience and example is a demonstration of the reality of all the graces of the gospel. No divine has any more of the gospel in him, than that which proves itself by the spirit, and form of his life: if therefore poverty of spirit, a disregard of worldly figure, a total self-denial is any part of the gospel, an eminent divine, can have no wish with regard to the figure, pride and pomp of life, but to be placed out of every appearance of it: and if the highest in divine knowledge are not the foremost in poverty of spirit, and the outward humility of Christ and his apostles; if they desire to have a dignity of worldly figure, to have respect by any other means than by a divine evangelical spirit and conversation, and are not content with all the contempt that such a life can expose them to, they may be great scholars, but they are little divines, and are wanting in that which is the chief part of the ministers of Jesus Christ.
The next thing I said to the young clergy, was this; “Consider yourselves merely as the messengers of God, that are sent into the world solely on his errand; and think it happiness enough that you are called to the same business for which the Son of God was born into the world.” p. 81.
Now, I thought what I have said, was as unexceptionable, as unfit to be condemned by a professor of Christian theology, as if I had only recommended the loving of God with all our heart and soul, and mind and strength; and that if any clergyman disliked it, he would be forced to keep his dislike to himself; but the Doctor is very open in his indignation at it; the same answer, he says, is to be given here, as before, viz. that it is false doctrine, tending to the scandal and reproach of the Christian religion.
Our blessed Lord, when he sent the first preachers of the gospel into the world, said unto them, As my Father hath sent me, so send I you—go ye and teach all nations—and lo I am with you to the end of the world. Now let it be supposed, that these first preachers of the gospel fully believed, that from the time of their appointment to this high office, they were to consider themselves merely as the messengers of God, sent into the world solely on his errand, and that it was happiness enough for them to be called to that business, for which the Son of God was born into the world; if they had this belief, what follows? Why, according to the Doctor, that they set out from the very first in one of the greatest errors, had mistaken the nature and intent of their mission, and had gone into the world upon a principle that was false in itself, and scandalous and reproachful to the Christian religion.
But if this belief is not to be condemned in the first clergy, I desire to know why those who claim their succession from the first, and expect the presence of Christ in and with their ministry, are not to be called upon to be of the same spirit and belief with them, or how can it be a scandal to the gospel, for the modern clergy to be as wholly devoted to the service of God, as the apostles were.
The Doctor sets it out as an extraordinary presumption in such a man as I am, to pretend to give advice to young divines, when it is so sufficiently done already by the offices of our church, the charges, instructions and exhortations of our bishops at their visitation, and so many excellent ordination and visitation sermons, p. 87. Now, granting the plenty and excellency of all these, yet I have some hope, my presumption may be found to be only like that of the poor widow, who after so many rich oblations of great people, presumed to put her little mite into the treasury. And if it be true, that the things suggested by me, are only such as have been already set forth by so many great bishops and excellent preachers, how will the Doctor come off for condemning it, as false doctrine, scandalous, and reproachful to the Christian religion?
Dr. [♦]Trapp gives a reason for his condemning this advice, which is thus expressed: “It is, says he, false to say, that clergymen ought to mind nothing, in any degree, but their profession and duty, as clergymen; they are husbands, parents, men, as well as clergymen, and must in some measure be concerned in the affairs of the world. p. 88.”
[♦] “Trap” replaced with “Trapp”