TWO COUNTER, VIEWS.
Is lay-preaching wrong? Is it inexpedient? Is this
sign of our time good, or bad, or indifferent? We see no great
difficulty in this vexed question, and there really needs little to be
said on it. Some take very high ground, and say that any Christian man
may preach. Did Wilberforce transgress the laws of any Church, they will
argue, when he wrote the "Practical View?" Might he not have read its
successive chapters to any audiences that might choose to hear him,
whether fifty, five hundred, or five thousand? Might he not have spoken
them? And what is this but preaching? For our own part, we frankly grant
it, and say, when you get a Wilberforce, by all means let him preach.
When the Earl of Shaftesbury, some years ago, in the Lords, proposed the
abolition or some large modification of the Conventicle Act, and spoke
of the good that might result if Christian men, though without episcopal
ordination, should read the Bible and pray with groups of poor wicked
peasants in a work-shed, or barn, or barrack, we admired the question
with which the worthy Earl of Congleton puzzled the mitred heads :—How
does the Bible say, (Acts viii. 1, 4,) that when the persecution arose
against the church which wa3 at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered
abroad throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the
apostles, .... they that were scattered abroad went
everywhere preaching the word, if lay-preaching be unseriptural? We
admire it still, and say from the depths of our hearts —Would God that
all the Lord's people were prophets ! And yet, were we in a mood for
argument, it could be said that the disciples in this case were
miraculously endowed, so that the fact of their preaching cannot be
construed into a precedent when miraculous gifts have ceased. It could
be argued, that in a partially - organised church, many anomalies are
tolerated, and even necessary, which would not be tolerated in a church
thoroughly organised. When a man is off the road, if he is determined to
move only on the road, he cannot move at all. It could be argued, that
when the Westminster Confession asserts, for example, that the civil
magistrate "hath power to call synods," the clause is on all hands
understood to apply to an imperfectly-constituted state of the Church.
But, on the other hand, those who would proscribe
lay-preaching, whether from jealous regard to the status of the
ministry, or to the imprimatur of literary or theological faculties,
ought to see that all that is really solid in this question is covered
by the old commonplace—the exception strengthens the rule. The right to
wear gowns and bands—the right to wear surplices and lawn sleeves, we
sacredly respect. But a man can preach without this right. John Bunyan
was never regularly ordained; others may rise up bearing the
unmistakeable stamp of God. Must their mouths be shut? The Church of
Rome is wiser here than some Protestant Churches. If any of her sons
will make a crusade in her cause, she carefully provides for him a niche
within her pale; she bids him tie a rope round his waist, shave his
head, nurse his beard, starve his body; she loads him with relics, and
lets him indulge his evangelistic knight-errantry, if he will, beyond
the wall of China. And this is one popular element at least in that
Church ''out of which there is no salvation." Again we say, the
exception strengthens the rule. The most scrupulous Churchman may feel
reassured and cheerful; great or efficient lay-preachers do not appear
often. And when we view the vast work to be done— the tide of
profaneness that rolls along our streets, whose spent waves break in
even on the seclusion of rustic parishes—the millions spent on drink—
the solid front which infidelity and loathly forms of vice present—and
the powerlessness of faithfully-administered ordinances; when we see how
the growth of our manufacturing towns and cities has outrun the supply
of the means of grace so far that tens of thousands within hearing of
the Sabbath-bell are as estranged from the gospel as the Tartars that
roam the desert—the young prowling in "winged raggedness" through dense
lanes and wynds, from which jails are filled, the old dying without
knowing how to put words together to pray—as ministers of Christ, and by
every consideration of religion and of patriotism, we appeal to every
man who loves his Saviour in the words of Dr Guthrie, (on "Ezekiel," p.
13):— "Think not that this noblest work is our exclusive privilege, nor
stand back as if you had neither right nor call to set to your hand.
What although in the Church you hold no rank? No more does the private
who wears neither stripes on his arm nor epaulettes on his shoulder; but
although a private, may he not die for the colours which it is not his
privilege to carry? . . . . Where sinners are perishing—where
opportunity offers—where the rule, ' Let all things be done decently and
in order,' is not outraged and violated, call it preaching if you
choose, but, in God's name, let hearers preach.....Thousands, tens of
thousands, are dying in their sins! Although every minister were as a
flaming fire in the service of his God, every bishop were a Latimer,
every reformer were a Knox, every preacher were a Whitfield, [every
missionary were a Martyn, the work is greater than ministers can
accomplish; and if men will not submit that the interests of nations and
the success of armies shall be sacrificed to routine and forms of
office, much less should these be tolerated where the cause of souls is
at stake."
