John Newton's Letters
The snares and difficulties attending the ministry of the
gospel
Dear Sir,
I am glad to hear that the Lord is about to fix you in a place where there
is a prospect of your being greatly useful. He has given you the desire of
your heart; and I hope he has given you likewise a heart to devote
yourself, without reserve, to his service, and the service of souls for his
sake. I willingly comply with your request; and shall without ceremony,
offer you such thoughts as occur to me upon this occasion.
You have, doubtless, often anticipated in your mind the
nature of the service to which you are now called, and made it the subject
of much consideration and prayer. But a distant view of the ministry
is generally very different from what it is found to be, when we are
actually engaged in it. The young soldier, who has never seen an enemy, may
form some general notions of what is before him: but his ideas will be much
more lively and different when he comes upon the enemy in the field of
battle.
If the Lord was to show us the whole of the work
beforehand, who that has a due sense of his own insufficiency and weakness,
would venture to engage? But he first draws us by a constraining sense of
his love, and by giving us an impression of the worth of souls, and leaves
us to acquire a knowledge of what is difficult and disagreeable by a gradual
experience. The ministry of the Gospel, like the book which the Apostle John
ate, is a bitter sweet; but the sweetness is tasted first, the
bitterness is usually known afterwards, when we are so far engaged that
there is no going back.
Yet I would not discourage you: it is a good and noble
cause, and we serve a good and gracious Master; who, though he will make us
feel our weakness and vileness, will not allow us to sink under it. His
grace is sufficient for us: and if he favors us with a humble and dependent
spirit, a single eye, and a simple heart; he will make every difficulty give
way, and mountains shall sink into plains before his power.
You have known something of Satan's devices while you
were in private life; how he has envied your privileges, assaulted your
peace, and laid snares for your feet: though the Lord would not allow him to
destroy you, he has permitted him to sift, and tempt, and shoot his fiery
arrows at you. Without some of this discipline, you would have been very
unfit for that part of your office which consists in speaking a word in
season to weary and heavy laden souls. But you may now expect to hear from
him, and to be beset by his power and subtlety in a different manner. You
are now to be placed in the forefront of the battle, and to stand as it were
as his main target. So far as he can prevail against you now, not yourself
only, but many others will be affected. Many eyes will be upon you; and if
you take a wrong step, or are ensnared into a wrong spirit, you will open
the mouths of the adversaries wider, and grieve the hearts of believers more
sensibly, than if the same things had happened to you while you were a
layman. The work of the ministry is truly honorable; but, like the
post of honor in a battle, it is attended with peculiar dangers:
therefore the Apostle cautions Timothy, "Take heed to yourself, and to your
doctrine." To yourself in the first place, and then to your doctrine; the
latter without the former would be impracticable and vain.
You have need to be upon your guard in whatever way your
first attempts to preach the Gospel may seem to operate. If you should (as
may probably be the case, where the truth has been little known) meet with
much opposition, you will perhaps find it a heavier trial than you have
anticipated; but I speak of it only as it might draw forth your
corruption's, and give Satan advantage against you: and this may be two
ways; first, by embittering your spirit against opposers, so as to speak in
anger, to attack them in defiance, or retaliate upon them in their own way;
which, besides bringing guilt upon your conscience, would of course increase
your difficulties, and impede your usefulness. A violent opposition against
ministers and professors of the Gospel is sometimes expressed by the devil's
roaring, and some people think no good can be done without it. It is
allowed, that men who love darkness will show their dislike of the light;
but, I believe, if the wisdom and meekness of the friends of the Gospel had
been always equal to their good intentions and zeal, the devil would not
have had opportunity of roaring so loud as he has sometimes done.
The subject-matter of the Gospel is offense enough to the
carnal heart; we must therefore expect opposition: but we should not
provoke or despise it, or do anything to aggravate it. A patient continuance
in well-doing, a consistency in character, and an attention to return kind
treatment for hard treatment, will, in a course of time, greatly soften the
spirit of opposition; and instances are to be found of ministers, who are
treated with some respect even by those people who are most averse to their
doctrine. When the Apostle directs us, "If it be possible, and as much as in
us lies, to live peaceably with all men," he seems to intimate, that, though
it be difficult, it is not wholly impracticable. We cannot change the
rooted prejudices of their hearts against the Gospel; but it is
possible, by the Lord's blessing, to stop their mouths, when they behold our
holy lives in Christ. And it is well worth our while to cultivate this
outward peace, provided we do not purchase it at the expense of truth and
faithfulness; for ordinarily we cannot hope to be useful to our people,
unless we give them reason to believe that we love them, and have their
interest at heart.
Again; opposition will hurt you, if it should give you an
idea of your own importance, and lead you to dwell with a secret
self-approbation upon your own faithfulness and courage in such
circumstances. If you are able to stand your ground, uninfluenced either by
the favor or the fear of men, you have reason to give glory to God; but
remember, that you cannot thus stand an hour, unless he upholds you.
It shows a wrong turn of mind, when we are very ready to speak of our
trials and difficulties of this kind, and of our address and
resolution in encountering them. A natural stiffness of spirit, with a
desire to have self taken notice of, may make a man willing to endure
those kind of hardships, though he has but little grace in exercise. But
true Christian fortitude, from a consciousness that we speak the truths of
God, and are supported by his power, is a very different thing.
If you should meet with but little opposition, or if the
Lord should be pleased to make your enemies your friends, you will probably
be in danger from the opposite quarter. If opposition has hurt many,
popularity has wounded more. To say the truth, I am in some concern
for you. Your natural abilities are considerable; you have been diligent in
your studies; your zeal is warm, and your spirit is lively. With these
advantages, I expect to see you a popular preacher. The more you are so, the
greater will your field of usefulness be. But, alas! you cannot yet know
what dangers popularity will expose you. It is like walking upon ice. When
you shall see an attentive congregation hanging upon your words: when you
shall hear the well-meant, but often injudicious commendations, of those to
whom the Lord shall make you useful: when you shall find, upon a notice of
your preaching in a different place, people thronging from all parts to hear
you—how will your heart feel?
It is easy for me to advise you to be humble, and for you
to acknowledge the propriety of the advice; but, while human nature remains
in its present state, there will be almost the same connection between
popularity and pride—as between fire and gunpowder: they cannot
meet without an explosion, at least not unless the gunpowder is kept very
damp. So, unless the Lord is constantly moistening our hearts (if I may so
speak) by the influences of his Spirit, popularity will soon set us in a
blaze! You will hardly find a person, who has been exposed to this fiery
trial, without suffering loss. Those whom the Lord loves, he is able to
keep, and he will keep them upon the whole; yet by such means, and in a
course of such narrow escapes, that they shall have reason to look upon
their deliverance as no less than miraculous.
Sometimes, if his ministers are not watchful against the
first impressions of pride, he permits it to gather strength; and then it is
but a small thing that a few of their admirers may think them more than men
in the pulpit, if they are left to commit such mistakes, when out of it, as
the weakest of the flock can discover and pity. And this will certainly be
the case, while pride and self-sufficiency have the ascendant. Beware, my
friend, of mistaking the exercise of gifts for the exercise of
grace. The minister may be assisted in public for the sake of his
hearers; and there is something in the nature of our public work, when
surrounded by a concourse of people, which is suited to draw forth the
exertion of our abilities, and to engage our attention in the outward
services—when the frame of the heart may be far from being right in the
sight of the Lord.
When Moses smote the rock, the water followed; yet he
spoke unadvisedly with his lips, and greatly displeased the Lord. However,
the congregation was not disappointed for his fault, nor was he put to shame
before them; but he was humbled for it afterwards. They are blessed, whom
the Lord preserves in some degree humble, without leaving them to expose
themselves to the observation of men, and to receive such wounds as are
seldom healed without leaving a deep scar. But even these have much to
suffer.
Many distressing exercises you will probably meet with
upon the best supposition, to preserve in you a due sense of your own
unworthiness, and to convince you, that your ability, your acceptance, and
your usefulness, depend upon a Power beyond your own. Sometimes, perhaps,
you will feel such an amazing difference between the frame of your spirit in
public, and in private when the eyes of men are not upon you, as will make
you almost ready to conclude, that you are no better than an hypocrite, a
mere stage-player, who derives all his pathos and exertion from the sight of
the audience! At other times, you will find such a total emptiness and
indisposition of mind, that former seasons of liberty in preaching will
appear to you like the remembrance of a dream, and you will hardly be able
to persuade yourself you shall ever be capable of preaching again: the
Scriptures will appear to you like a sealed book, and no text or subject
afford any light or opening to determine your choice: and this perplexity
may not only seize you in the study, but accompany you in the pulpit!
If you are enabled, at some times, to speak to the people
with power, and to resemble Samson, when, in the greatness of his strength,
he bore away the gates of the city; you will perhaps, at other times, appear
before them like Samson when his locks were shorn, and he stood in fetters.
So that you need not tell the people you have no sufficiency in yourself;
for they will readily perceive it without your telling them. These things
are hard to bear; yet successful popularity is not to be preserved upon
easier terms: and if they are but sanctified to mortify your pride, you will
have reason to number them among your choicest mercies.
I have but just made a beginning upon the subject of the
difficulties and dangers attending the ministry. But my paper
is full. If you are willing I should proceed, let me know, and I believe I
can easily find enough to fill another sheet. May the Lord make you wise and
watchful! That he may be the light of your eye, the strength of your arm,
and the joy of your heart, is my sincere prayer.