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Ministerial Pride
From Timeless Grace Gems
by Richard Baxter
One of our most heinous and palpable sins is PRIDE. This is a sin which has too much sway in most ministers, but which is more hateful and inexcusable in us than in other men. Yet is it so prevalent in some of us, that it fills our discourses, it chooses our company, it forms our countenances, it puts the accent and emphasis upon our words. It fills some men's minds with aspiring desires, and designs. It possesses them with envious and bitter thoughts against those who stand in their light, or who by any means eclipse their glory, or hinder the progress of their reputation. Oh what a constant companion, what a tyrannical commander, what a sly and subtle insinuating enemy, is this sin of pride! It goes with men to the draper, the mercer, the tailor: it chooses them their cloth, their trimming and their fashion. Fewer ministers would ruffle it out in the fashion in hair and habit, if it were not for the command of this tyrannous vice.From Timeless Grace Gems
by Richard Baxter
I wish that this were all, or the worst. But, alas, how frequently does PRIDE go with us to our study, and there sit with us and do our work! How oft does it choose our subject, and, more frequently still, our words and ornaments! God commands us to be as plain as we can—that we may inform the ignorant; and as convincing and serious as we are able—that we may melt and change their hardened hearts. But pride stands by and contradicts all, and produces its toys and trifles. It pollutes, rather than polishes. And, under presence of laudable ornaments, dishonors our sermons with childish things, as if a prince were to be decked in the clothes of a stage-player, or a painted fool. Pride persuades us to paint the window, that it may dim the light, and to speak to our people that which they cannot understand, to let them know that we are able to speak unprofitably. If we have a plain and cutting passage, it takes off the edge, and dulls the life of our preaching, under presence of filing off the roughness, unevenness, and excess. When God charges us to deal with men as for their lives, and to beseech them with all the earnestness that we are able; this cursed sin controls all, and condemns the most holy commands of God, and says to us, 'What! Will you make people think you are mad? Will you make them say you rage or rave? Cannot you speak soberly and moderately?' And thus does pride make many a man's sermons! And what pride makes the devil makes, and what sermons the devil will make and to what end, we may easily conjecture. Though the matter is of God—yet if the dress, and manner, and end is from Satan—we have no great reason to expect success.
And when pride has made the sermon in the study—it goes with us into the pulpit—and forms our tone, animates us in the delivery, takes us off from that which may be displeasing, howsoever necessary, and sets us in pursuit of vain applause! In short, the sum of all is this—pride makes men, both in studying and preaching—to seek themselves, and deny God—when they should be seeking God's glory, and denying themselves! When they should inquire, "What shall I say, and how shall I say it—to please God best, and do most good?" pride makes them ask, "What shall I say, and how shall I deliver it, to be thought a learned able preacher, and to be applauded by all that hear me?"
When the sermon is done, pride goes home with them, and makes them more eager to know whether they were applauded, than whether they did prevail for the saving of souls. Were it not for shame, they could find in their hearts to ask people how they liked them and to draw out their commendations. If they perceive that they are highly thought of, they rejoice, as having attained their end; but if they see that they are considered but weak or common men, they are displeased, as having missed the prize they had in view!
But even this is not all, nor the worst, if worse may be. Oh, that ever it should be said of godly ministers, that they are so set upon popular air, and on sitting highest in men's estimation; that they envy the talents and names of their brethren who are preferred before them. As if all were taken from their praise, that is given to another; and as if God had given them his gifts to be the mere ornaments and trappings of their persons, that they may walk as men of reputation in the world, and as if all his gifts to others were to be trodden down and vilified, if they seem to stand in the way of their honor!
What! A saint, a preacher of Christ, and yet envy that which has the image of Christ, and malign his gifts for which he should have the glory, and all because they seem to hinder our glory? Is not every true Christian a member of the body of Christ, and, therefore, partaker of the blessings of the whole, and of each particular member thereof? And does not every man owe thanks to God for his brethren's gifts, not only as having himself a part in them, as the foot has the benefit of the guidance of the eye, but also because his own ends may be attained by his brethren's gifts, as well as by his own? For if the glory of God, and the Church's felicity, be not his end, he is not a Christian. Will any workman malign another, because he helps him to do his master's work? Yet, alas, how common is this heinous crime of envy and pride—among the ministers of Christ! They can secretly blot the reputation of those that stand in the way of their own; and what they cannot for shame do in plain and open terms, lest they be proved liars and slanderers, they will do in generals, and by malicious intimations, raising suspicions where they cannot fasten accusations. And some go so far, that they are unwilling that anyone who is abler than themselves, should come into their pulpits, lest they should be more applauded than themselves! A fearful thing it is, that any man, who has the least of the fear of God, should so envy God's gifts, and had rather that his carnal hearers should remain unconverted, and the drowsy unawakened, than that it should be done by another who may be preferred before him!
Yes, so far does this cursed vice prevail, that in large congregations, which have need of the help of many preachers, we can scarcely, in many places, get two of equality to live together in love and quietness, and unanimously to carry on the work of God. But unless one of them be quite below the other in abilities, and content to be so esteemed, or unless he is willing to be ruled by him, they are contending for precedency, and envying each other's interest, and walking with coldness and jealousy towards one another, to the shame of their profession, and the great wrong of their people!
I am ashamed to think of it, that when I have been laboring to convince people of the great necessity of more ministers than one in large congregations, they tell me, "they will never agree together!" I hope the objection is unfounded as to the most, but it is a sad case that it should be true of any. Nay, some men are so far gone in pride, that when they might have an equal assistant to further the work of God, they had rather take all the burden upon themselves, though more than they can bear, than that anyone should share with them in the honor, or that their interest in the esteem of the people should be diminished!