"If the warring winds of nature's strife, But thanks be to God, this religion can never be wrested from us. You may heap suffering upon the disciple of Jesus. You may subject him to the keenest torture, you may tear from him his very heart, but you cannot wrest from him the faith which he has received from the Holy Ghost. We have this hope as the anchor of the soul sure and steadfast. It is the solace of our lives, let it pass into fruition and be the perfect bliss of heaven. What shall I say to him who is refusing to receive Jesus Christ and his religion? You are fighting against God, impenitent hearer. You refuse to acknowledge the claims of his Son, and this is opposition enough to destroy you. Do not tell me that you have not been fighting against God, when I see you resisting his Spirit, refusing the calls of his grace, tearing from you the cords which a merciful being has thrown out to draw you to himself. What an unhallowed war you are waging. Wo unto him that striveth with his Maker. Who hath hardened himself against Him and has prospered. In such a contest expect defeat, expect ruin, expect to be covered with eternal shame. But desist, desist. Come over to the Lord's side. Enlist with the soldiers of the cross. Fight the fight of faith, and a glorious victory shall be yours. When you come to die, as you look back upon the fading scenes of time, and look foward to the realities of eternity, you can say in the language of one of old: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness," I have left myself but a moment to speak a word to those who are about to go forth from this venerable Institution to engage in the more public duties of life. My brothers, I am not a stranger to the emotions which this morning pervade your bosoms. It is but a few years since my circumstances were similar to your own, and the feelings with which I was then exercised are yet vivid in my recollection. In view of the inter *The Graduating Class. esting position which you now occupy, what can I say to you? This is not the time for any protracted advice. I can only exhort you to cherish the elevated sentiments of virtue and of truth, which I doubt not have been again and again impressed upon your attention by those to whom has been confided the important work of training your intellects, and of guiding your morals. Those who have been distinguished for any thing very great or good in this world, have generally had some particular maxim, some leading truth to which they have looked as to the polar star of their being. Permit me to suggest one maxim for your guidance in all future life. It shall be that which an inspired man addressed to a youth dear to his heart, when he was about to enter upon the responsible duties of his vocation,-" Study to show thyself approved unto God." This advice has a stronger claim, because it is the dictate of revelation. If you enter any of the learned professions, let this study form a part of your daily studies, and let it adorn the profession which you may choose. Should your life be devoted to the pursuits of commerce, let this study incite you to write holiness to the Lord upon your merchandise; and should you engage in the ancient and respectable business of agriculture, let this study shed its sacred influence over this vocation. That is a most shallow and miserable philosophy which excludes God from its calculations. The time has gone by when the vituperation of Christianity passes for superior shrewdness and penetration. Believe me, gentlemen, the way of transgressors is hard. Believe me, nay, believe inspiration, That wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace. Study to show thyself approved unto God. Do this then, my brother, anp whatever thou mayest fail in hereafter, you will not have failed in the one thing needful. Neglect it. Then in whatever else thou mayst succeed, life will be to thee an utter failure! May God bless you! THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY. "The obstructions which the gospel meets every time it is preached, are the accumulations of centuries, and the result of no small part of the plans of men. It is the profoundest scheme in this world of sin, the most gigantic enterprise that men ever formed, to go through this world committing sin every day, and yet evading remorse of conscience; indulging in guilty passions, and yet escaping the thunders of law, gaining as much of the world as a man pleases, and yet not harrowed in his solitary moments by the accusings of conscience; passing amidst the blightings of God's indignation, and yet not terrified; and hearing all the time the appeals of mercy and yet not moved. Never was there so vast a scheme of wickedness, so complicated, elaborate, and compacted on any other subject. Philosophy here has lent its aid; poetry its charms; eloquence its appeals; false theology its alliance; learning its skill; age its experience; and youth its ardor, in forming plans to oppose the obvious claim of the gospel. And it is complete. While this influence governs the sinner, what cares he for the groans of Jesus Christ; or the offers of mercy; or the judgment seat of God; or the glories of heaven; or the pains of hell? What cares he that we appeal to him by every thing that is sacred in heaven, terrible in despair; that is tender in love, and bleeding in mercy, or that is infinite in the interests of his own soul, or terrible in the future scenes of woe? To all these appeals he is indifferent. The ministers of religion must be qualified not merely to declaim, but convince; not only to weep and plead, but to stand up against philosophic men and convince them they are wrong: to show that the fatalism of the Stoic, and of the better kind of deists; the sensuality of Epicureans, and of the mass of infidels; and the dogmas of a theology founded on ancient and false philosophy, are as much in the face of true science as they are of the bible. If in this pursuit we are drawn into the regions of metaphysics, the fault is not ours but that of those who led us there. If the sinner like hunted game, will flee to dens and hiding places we must follow him; and he should be the last to complain that we preach to him metaphysics. It must be proved to men that they are wrong. The time has gone by when declamation can be substituted for argument. Dark dogmas, however pompous, statuary, and solemn, will not supply the place of evidence in an age of light. Men will think and reason, and draw their own conclusions; and this must be fully understood by the ministry. Man must be made to feel that God's view of sin is just. That what he has expressed is the true measure of human guilt. That the dying agonies of the Redeemer were but a fair expression of the guilt of men. That God has a right to affix the penalty to crime; and to declare that these shall go away into everlasting punishment. Men must be roused, and severed-however rudely from earthly things; and hurried onward, and thrown into the deep solemnities of a universe, where the God of justice reigns, where every thing is full of God, and where voices from earth and heaven and hell, mingle, and fall on his ear, and tell him to hasten away from his delusions, and be prepared to die. Man must be brought to a willingness to arrest his plans of wickedness where they are; to abandon the unfinished scheme; to stop in his career of pleasure; to relinquish a plan of gain however flattering, and a scheme of ambition however imposing, and pause, and turn to the living God The purpose must be one that shall be executed now."-Chris. Spec. THE BAPTIST PREACHER. VOL. III. August, 1844. NO. 8 MINISTERIAL CULTURE: A sermon, preached before the Virginia Baptist Education Society, at its Fourteenth Annual Meeting, in the First Baptist Church, Richmond, June 3, 1844, by REV. JOSEPH WALKER. "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 2 TIM. II: 15. The education of which we are to treat in this discourse, is that of the intellect. It may be thought, as our subject is Ministerial Culture, that we should unite the moral with the intellectual, and thus contemplate the improvement both of the understanding and the heart. But such a course, while it might serve to flatter settled prepossessions, would be irrelative to the designs of the Education Society. This Institution has for its main object the development of the mental powers, rather than the tuition of the religious affections. And though conducted on principles. strictly moral, it neither proposes to convert men, nor teach them theology. The former is taken for granted; the latter is to be prosecuted in a different institution, and depends for its success mainly on the ardent prayers and patient researches of the student. Young men of approved piety, "apt to teach," selected and sent hither by the Churches, are the only ones received in the character of Ministers. The prime object in sending them, is to aid in the cultivation of their natural endowments. Fitness, therefore, will confine our remarks on this occasion to the advancement of the understanding. It is a reflection on the intelligence of the present age, that discourses on education, are deemed at all necessary. The naked fact that sermons must be preached, setting forth the value of educated mind, implies a fearful amount of ignorance and indifference on the subject. And the objections raised against the education of Ministers, carry on their face, in legible characters, the stamp of barbarism. Oppose education and you declare 19-Ve. 3. war against the philosophy of the human mind. You wring from man, with a sacrilegious hand, the capacity to learn, and rank him with the brute creation. You close every avenue to the soul, and shut out forever those sublime emotions, arising from observation and reflection. In short, you make his appetite, his lust, and a blind instinct, the only incentives to action. In the absence of mental training, what becomes of logic? of poetry? of eloquence? of political science? of painting and sculpture? of the mechanic arts? of refined intercourse? and, I may ask, of civilization itself? But it is not so much for education in general that we shall plead to-night, as for its degrees. A man having the susceptibility, surrounded by the magnificent scenery of nature, and holding intercourse with his fellows, is obliged, in the nature of things, to learn something. He begins his education at his mother's breast. And, however loudly some may inveigh against it, yet every man is to a certain extent educateď. It is for a greater expansion of the mind, dependant, in a great degree, on its own endeavors, that we contend in this discourse. The mind is a perpetual motion, possessing the singular power to enlarge its perceptions, treasure up ideas, and distribute them to kindred minds. This power is to be excited by study; and the effect of mental toil, will be for weal or wo, just in the ratio that a man studies to subserve the cause of Christ, or the selfish purposes of man. Hence the Apostle exhorts: "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. I. In the first place, we shall explain the design of study. Every particle of matter, as well as every attribute of mind has a relation to some end. The end of study is, 1. Simply, to increase our knowledge. The man who for the first time sees a steam engine and inspects carefully its cylinders, its rods, its valves and its levers; knows, as by intuition, that it was designed by some man and made for a certain purpose. In the same way the philosopher, intent on the phenomena of mind, concludes that perception, abstraction, comparison, reason and memory, were created by an intelligent, adequate cause, and must have respect to some noble design. The question now arises, for what purpose were these faculties furnished? This can only be solved by a trial. This mental machine must be put in motion, and then we shall see that it moves the man, as the engine does the shipWhat gives impulse to the mind, is beyond the province of philosophy, or metaphisics to search out. This, however, is apparent to every one who has the least experience on the subject: that he can abstract his mind from things and extraneous events, and pursue a train of reflections which enlarge his knowledge, mature his judgment, and establish his memory. This is study. Thus the intellectual succeptibilities are strengthened, and the measure of knowledge is increased. God creates a soul, a full apparatus |