Page 6 - word to PDF

know the way of salvation. It has been frequently said that "the way to heaven is
blocked up with dead professors"; but is it not true also that the melancholy obstruction is
not composed of members of churches only? Let us take heed unto ourselves!

As the minister's life is in more than one respect the life of a ministry, let us speak a few
words on ministerial holy living.

Let us seek the Lord early. "If my heart be early seasoned with his presence, it will
savor of him all day after." (Bishop Hall; Psalm 5:4, vide Hebrew) Let us see God before man
every day. "I ought to pray before seeing any one. Often when I sleep long, or meet with
others early, and then have family prayer and breakfast and forenoon callers, it is eleven or
twelve o'clock before I begin secret prayer. This is a wretched system. It is unscriptural.
Christ rose before day, and went into a solitary place… Family-prayer loses much of
power and sweetness; and I can do no good to those who come to seek for me. The
conscience feels guilty, the soul unfed, the lamp not trimmed. Then, when secret prayer
comes, the soul is often out of tune. I feel it far better to begin with God, to see His face first,
to get my soul near Him before it is near another…It is best to have at least one hour alone
with God before engaging in anything else. At the same time, I must be careful not to
reckon communion with God by minutes or hours, or by solitude." (M'Cheyne)

Hear this true servant of Christ exhorting a beloved brother: "Take heed to thyself. Your own
soul is your first and greatest care. You know a sound body alone can work with power,
much more a healthy soul. Keep a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up
close communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read the Bible for your own
growth first, then for your people."

"With him," says his biographer, "the commencement of all labor

invariably consisted in the preparation of his own soul. The forerunner of each day's
visitations was a calm season of private devotion during morning hours. The walls
of his chamber were witnesses of his prayerfulness I believe of his tears as well as of
his cries. The pleasant sound of psalms often issued from his room at an early hour;
then followed the reading of the Word for his own sanctification: and few have so fully
realized the blessing of the first psalm." Would that it were so with us all! "Devotion," said
Bishop Hall, "is the life of religion, the very soul of piety, the highest employment of grace.
It is much to be feared that "we are weak in the pulpit because we are weak in the
closet." (James.)

Let us see communion with God as manifested in a youth of about twenty. James
Janeway writes of his brother John: "I once hid myself that I might take the more exact
notice of the intercourse that I judged was kept up between him and God. But oh, what a
spectacle did I see! Surely a man walking with God, conversing intimately with his Maker,