THE DUTY OF PEOPLE, AND THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MINISTERS.
Heb. xiii. 17. Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves : for they toatch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief : for that is unprofitable for you.
MAN, as a social being, has duties to the society of which he is a member : and of these duties he must be reminded, no less than of those which are purely personal. The. Church of Christ is one great family % in which, as in every other family, order must be observed, by the exercise of power in those who preside, and a submission to it amongst those who are placed under their direction. The govern- ment that shall be exercised in it is appointed by God himself; who has invested his ministers with power to rule, and has required of their people a sub- mission to their authority. But as, on the one hand, there has been amongst some who have presided an unscriptural usurpation of authority, very different from that which God ever committed to them ; so, on the other hand, there is amongst others a very unscriptural disregard of that authority which is legi- timate, and which every minister of God is bound to exercise in that society over which he presides. For the due administration of order and good government in the Church, the Apostle, having finished his direc- tions respecting personal duties, proceeds to give one, which more immediately relates to our social inter- course, but which is of the greatest consequence to the welfare of that family of which we are members.
In calling your attention to this apostolic pre- cept, I shall have occasion to set before you, I. The duty of people towards their minister —
A shepherd naturally presides over his flock : and so must a pastor of God's Church exercise rule over a Eph. iii. 15.
2f350.J THE people's duty, A MINISTER'S JOY. 545
that flock which he feeds, over which the Holy Ghost himself has constituted him an overseer''." Not that civil power was ever delegated by God to his minis- ters ; that exclusively belongs to the civil magi- strates ^ If the Lord Jesus Christ, when appealed to as an arbitrator in relation to civil rights, said, " Who made me a ruler and a divider over you''?" much less can any claim of temporal authority belong to those who are called by him to the administration of affairs which are purely spiritual. Yet is there power given to ministers,
1. As ambassadors from God —
[August as this title is, we claim it as of right belonging to us: for though we would by no means exalt ourselves, it becomes us, and is our bounden duty, to " magnify our office®." We come from God to you, and proclaim to you in his name the terms on which he will forgive your past rebelUon, and receive you to his favour. It is in the very place of Christ that we stand, when we entreat you for his sake to be reconciled to God*^ The word which we preach to you is God's: and by you " it must be received, not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the word of God^." If our testimony be rejected, it is not man, but God himself, that ye reject**. Doubtless, you must judge how far the voice of the minister accords with the word of God : for it is to that extent only that you are bound to pay any attention to it : and so far are you to be from receiving the word of man implicitly and without examination, that you are required of God himself " not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits whether they be of God';" and to " prove all things, and hold fast that only which is good''." But when " the word which is delivered to you is that only which your minister has himself received from the LordV' then must you obey it as much as if it was delivered to you by God himself in an audible voice from heaven.