BELOVED BRETHREN,
THE following question, proposed at our last annual meeting, forms the subject of our address for the present year -- "By what conduct are members of churches most like by to strengthen the hands of their ministers, and co- operate with them in promoting the interests of vital religion?" The subject is important, and will, we hope, arrest your attention. We solicit your aid in the noble work of advancing the holy religion of Jesus Christ, and would gladly point out to you the most certain means of success. To do this, we shall take a view of the various branches of christian duty, and endeavor to impress your minds with their importance. Your ministers, with whom you are united in this work, demand your attention; to them you owe a peculiar duty; they are appointed of God to lead in this great work, and to devote themselves wholly to it As ministers of Christ they are holy men, possessing the spirit of that religion they are appointed to inculcate upon others -- Men eminent for faith and patience, for charity and godly zeal, for prudence and discretion, for every grace and virtue -- men animated with a principle of love to Christ and the souls of men. Their appointment also, as teachers, implies that they are themselves taught and are able to teach others. As shepherds of the flock, they are, it is to be presumed, possessed of qualifications and abilities to lead you into truth, and to feed you with knowledge. But with all these qualifications, which we hope they in some measure possess, and are still endeavouring to improve, they are but men -- men of infirmities and feeble men, who cannot command success. You then are not to be idle spectators and leave your ministers to labour alone. What may be your treatment of them, cannot be a matter of indifference; to secure their greatest, usefulness, a certain line of conduct towards them is incumbent on you. Their influence is to be preserved; otherwise their usefulness is lost. To preserve their influence, as far as it depends on you, tenderly regard their characters. The character of every good man is dear to him, and ought never to he slandered. With what delicacy then, should we treat that of a minister; and how carefully should we refrain, not only from every thing which may slander, but which may, either directly or indirectly, lessen that reputation on which not only the dearest happiness of an individual, but in some degree that of a whole community, depends. The limits of our letter will not permit an enumeration of the various means by which the character of your own minister may be injured, but your prudence will see and avoid them; and your own solicitude that his character should be far and honourable, will suggest to you many prudent expedients to wrest it from the abuse of others. Feel for the cause of God and you will then feel for the reputation of your ministers. You may lessen your ministers' influence by the want of a proper regard, not only to their moral, but to their ministerial character: unjustly depreciating their abilities and making illiberal remarks on their performances will greatly injure their influence. It is laudable to compare the doctrines delivered by your ministers with the sacred scriptures, and to judge for yourselves respecting the truth of them; but is there not some delicacy to be used in expressing your objection to their doctrines, or your disapprobation of their performances? Instead of retarding the work by continual and severe remarks upon the labours of your ministers, would you not do well to remember that no human works are perfect, and that you, informing to yourselves a standard of excellence, are subject to deception and error? Let then forbearance be exercised; recollecting also that circumstances are numerous, which lead mankind to feel, think and judge differently. You will act a more liberal, a more consistent and a more useful part by uniting with your ministers; and as suitable opportunities may offer, by endeavouring to to impress the minds of your families, friends and neighbours with the excellency of those truths which they may from time to time deliver unto you. Dwell more upon their good and wholesome instructions, their fervent and pious exhortations, than upon their errors and failing, and you will strengthen their influence and assist their labours. Circumstances may occur in which it may be proper to notice the deficiencies in their performances but in those instances prudence and discretion are to be used. A free and affectionate conversation with your ministers themselves upon the unsatisfactory parts of their performances, would be of mutual advantage. Failings to which your ministers are liable in common with all mankind, and which may be called infirmities, are to be borne with tenderness, and should never be subject to severe censure or ridicule. A contrary conduct would not only be ungenerous, but would lessen the respect for their character and injure their usefulness. Let your general deportment towards them be respectful and becoming the dignity, not of their persons, they are earthen vessels, but of their office; of the trust committed unto them. Live with them in love, esteeming them highly for their work's sake, and you will comfort their hearts, strengthen their hands, encourage them to enter with more cheerfulness and spirit upon their labours, and open to them a fairer prospect of success. Be ever ready and desirous to enter into free and affectionate conversation with your ministers upon the spiritual state of your own souls; on the duties of the christian, and the precepts and doctrines of the gospel. Great would be the advantage vital religion would derive from a such well improved intimacy between ministers and their people. Knowing your views and feelings, they would more successfully communicate to you instructions, and you with them, be mutually animated in the work of God. Reflect upon the effects of a contrary conduct. Consider the discouragement and difficulties your ministers must feel, and the darkness and coldness in which you must remain, if no opportunities for spiritual conversation with them are improved. Is not the want of this free converse withthem on spiritual things, one great source of those complaints which you have often made respecting your lifeless state; and are not ministers and people, in this respect, verily guilty! May your lips be touched as with a live coal from the altar, and your tongues become the pen of a ready writer; and at the close of your interviews with your minister may you be able to say, did not our hearts burn within us when we communicated our thoughts and feelings to him, and he expounded unto us the scriptures!
To pray for your ministers, is a duty incumbent on you. "Brethren," says the apostle, "pray for us." That they have the prayers of the souls committed to their charge is an animating consideration to your ministers; and cannot fail to attach them to you more tenderly.
Provide for your ministers a comfortable support. They are to be instant in season and out of season; to he wholly occupied in the various duties of their office; studying, meditating, reading, preaching, praying, exhorting and visiting their flocks, in sickness and health. These are labours in which your ministers are to he continually engaged; but their temporal support God has made your care. If their, time and attention are occupied and embarrassed with making provision for their own and their families support, it will he impossible for them to prevent the cause of God from suffering among you. Here you must strengthen their hands and encourage them in their work., by delivering them, as much as possible, from the perplexing cares of the world; thus manifesting your willingness to bear your share of the burden. Has the conduct of any of you been different from this; and if so, have your ministers felt no difficulties, and vital religion suffered no injury? Let experience impartiality decide. -- Surely they have. Brethren, these things ought not so to be the sacred cause of Christ demands from you every support. Unite with your ministers, & if they are willing to devote their time and strength to the work, do not prevent them by denying them a comfortable subsistence.
From the faithful discharge of the duties we have already enumerated as incumbent on you, your ministers will derive peculiar aid in their work; but your general conduct, as well as the treatment of your ministers, will either strengthen or weaken their hands, as such conduct either supports or wounds the cause of God. Your exemplary and holy lives will add force and energy to the truths delivered by your ministers. Live then that religion which you would wish recommended to others; maintain a holy communion with God, and keep alive the spirit of religion. Let your souls be animated with the contemplation of the glorious character of God, and the glory and grandeur of Christ's kingdom, both in this and the future world. But remember, religion does not consist in contemplation only. The duties inculcated in the Bible, are mostly of the active kind; and such as can be performed only by men in a state of society. The fruit of the spirit, not the flights of the imagination, mark the Christian and distinguish him from, the children of the wicked. Be careful to have your intercourse with the world free from censure, and recollect that he who is unjust to man, is unjust to God. The enemies of religion will justly ridicule your profession of a change of heart, if it be not connected with a change of conduct. They will say your conversion is a deception, your devotion mockery, and your faith no better than that of devils. Your ministers will labour in vain to convince others of the necessary of being born again, if you should be found of an unforgiving temper and conduct, censorious, backbiting, passionate, impatient, indolent, covetous or sensual. They will never believe that religion to be of God which does not benefit mankind by softening and improving the mind, and by suppressing those passions which are destructive of domestic and public happiness. Viewing the works of God and his providences, and being struck with that goodness which he has displayed in these operations, they justly look for the same display in the effects of a religion which claims God for its author. They will never believe that religion to be of God which is connected with a character the reverse of his own. To answer the expectations of those who reason justly, and silence the clamours raised by the enemies of religion, your ministers will labour in vain without the assistance of your truly christian lives and conduct. Be then the tender affectionate companion, not the peevish, passionate and cruel; be the faithful parent and the dutiful child; the peaceable, the fair, the punctual and the upright man in all your commerce with the world; and the sincere, pious christian in all the duties of religion. Live in peace among yourselves, and you wilt, comfort and support the heart of those who watch for your souls as those who must give an account. This will be their language -- "Behold ye the people of our charge; and learn how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Union peculiarly characterises the kingdom of Christ, and is essential to its beauty, strength and happiness. Destitute of union and peace among yourselves, you are not subjects of the king of peace, and are not co-operating with his ministers. Figure to yourselves how harrowed up must be the feelings of a minister, how blasted his strength, and how accumulated his difficulties, who lives in the midst of a divided and contentious people. Do they cooperate with him in advancing vital religion in the world? The spirit of contention is death to vital religion, and will ever be fatal to the most powerful exertions of your ministers. Let the olive branch of peace ever be green and flourishing among you. The injury which the cause of Christ, sustains, from the neglect of gospel institutions, or from the careless attention to them of those who profess to be the children of God, particularly to public worship, is often great and being sensibly seen and felt by the ministers of Christ, embarrasses them with peculiar difficulties. This institution is well calculated to awaken an attention to religion, and to spread its happy influence among mankind. Well worthy of remembrance is the injunction of the apostle -- "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together." He who neglects this duty, or is careless in the performance of it, most be destitute of a proper regard to the feelings of his minister and to the real interests of religion. The evil is contagious; the example of one an has influence on another, and a regular attendance on public worship becomes unfashionable; your, minister is deserted, and his heart and strength fail him. To strengthen then his hands and to aid him in the work, go with him to the house of God, animate him and your friends by your presence.
In your families, much may be and much ought to be done, which would be of general and important advantage to genuine Christianity and greatly facilitate the work of the ministry. Here, in your families, the foundation of all that is good and praise-worthy is to be laid; and God has made this work the duty of parents. Impressions of piety may be early fixed on the minds of children, and more readily by the parents than by ministers themselves. These impressions, received from their parents, prepare their minds to receive impressions from the preaching of the gospel; and being made in early youth, they generally abide with them, and direct and influence their conduct through life. Where this duty is neglected by parents, the work of the minister is arduous, his prospect of success most discouraging. Difficult, indeed, will it be for him to fix the attention of the young to the serious duties of religion, when their minds receive no pious instructions at home. Numerous are the evils, extensive and lasting, which vital religion suffers from the neglect of this duty; but time will not permit us to trace them through their various branches. Your own experience must have brought many of them to your view; and you must have often mourned for the neglect both of family religion and the pious education of children Have you not often grieved for ministers, whose unremitted exertions to form pious and serious habits in the minds of youth, have been rendered fruitless by the want of support and encouragement from pious parents? Let it not be said of you, brethren, who are parents, that you have deserted your ministers in this difficult and important part of their work. Every tender, every affectionate, every powerful consideration, unites to awaken and fix your attention to this duty; and to fill you with shame and remorse for the neglect of any means for informing the minds of your tender offspring, for attaching them to the doctrines of the gospel and to the practice of true virtue. To second then, the exertions of your ministers, and to encourage them in the work, you must maintain religion in your families, and teach it to your children and domestics, both by precept and example.
The few observations which we have made upon the subject, and which we must now close, we hope will receive from you that attention which their importance demands. The promotion of religion in the world, is, of all others, the most interesting object to a benevolent mind, being the most intimately connected with the happiness of mankind, and the future glory of Christ. What vigorous exertions then ought to be used, both by ministers and people, to promote the interests of the Redeemer's kingdom; and what solicitude should we feel to know whether we are using the most successful means to accomplish it. Guilt, it is to be feared, has, in a greater or less degree, been incurred by us all. We have been wanting in that noble ardour which the religion of Christ demands; but it is time now for us to awake and rise from the dead. The voice of our Redeemer is heard in different parts and through extensive regions of our land. He has, lifted up his standard against the enemy, when coming in like a flood, and thousands are flocking to it. Let us unite with them, engaging with resolution and perseverance in the contest -- manifesting, by our holy lives and godly conversation, that we are in truth enlisted under the banners of Jesus. Manifest, brethren, to your ministers by your faithful conduct, that you will not desert them in their noble opposition against error, sin and Satan. Zealously engage with them in all becoming measures to promote the saving knowledge of the Redeemer, and the consequent fruits of holiness; and may your united efforts be crowned with abundant success in the complete triumph of truth, holiness, peace and love.
Our interview has been attended with much harmony and brotherly affection. We trust some tokens of special favour from our God and Redeemer have been afforded us. It becomes us to acknowledge, with profoundest gratitude and admiration, our obligation to divine goodness and mercy, for the great revival in religion before-mentioned, with which God has been pleased, in the present day, to bless his people in these southern states of America: and especially, as he has graciously afforded this inestimable blessing to some of the churches in our connection. Let our hearts glow with gratitude and love to the great author; and let both our lips and lives praise him! Let your fervent prayers also, dear brethren, continually ascend to the throne of grace, that the blessing may greatly increase; and continue with us in its happy effects.
Finally, we conclude in the language of inspiration -- "Live in love and peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you."
Wishing you the best of blessings, and requesting an interest in your prayers, we remain,
Beloved Brethren,
Your's affectionately in gospel bonds. =============== [From the Charleston Baptist Association Minutes, 1802, via Wood Furman A. M., A History of the Charleston Association of Baptist Churches. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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