Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Criticism and interpretation
6. The standing ministry in Mansoul was endowed also; but I cannot
imagine what the court of teinds would make of the instrument of
endowment. As it has been handed down to us, that old ecclesiastical
instrument reads more like a lesson in the parish minister's class for
the study of Mysticism than a writing for a learned lord to adjudicate
upon. Here is the Order of Council: 'Therefore I, thy Prince, give thee,
My servant, leave and licence to go when thou wilt to My fountain, My
conduit, and there to drink freely of the blood of My grape, for My
conduit doth always run wine. Thus doing, thou shalt drive from thine
heart all foul, gross, and hurtful humours. It will also lighten thine
eyes, and it will strengthen thy memory for the reception and the keeping
of all that My Father's noble secretary will teach thee.' Thus the
Prince did put Mr. Conscience into the place and office of a minister to
Mansoul, and the chosen and presented man did thankfully accept thereof.
(1) Now, there are at least three lessons taught us here. There is, to
begin with, a lesson to all those congregations who are about to choose a
minister. Let all those congregations, then, who have had devolved on
them the powers of the old patrons,--let them make their election on the
same principles that the Prince of Mansoul patronised. Let them choose a
probationer who, young though he must be, has the making of a seer in
him. Let them listen for the future seer in his most stammering prayers.
Somewhere, even in one service, his conscience will make itself heard, if
he has a conscience. Rather remain ten years vacant than call a minister
who has no conscience. The parish minister of Mansoul sometimes seemed
to be all conscience, and it was this that made his head so full of
judgment, his tongue so full of a brave boldness, and his heart so full
of holy love. Your minister may be an anointed bishop, he may be a
gowned and hooded doctor, he may be a king's chaplain, he may be the
minister of the largest and the richest and the most learned parish in
the city, but, unless he strikes terror and pain into your conscience
every Sabbath, unless he makes you tremble every Sabbath under the eye
and the hand of God, he is no true minister to you. As Goodwin says, he
is a wooden cannon. As Leighton says, he is a mountebank for a minister.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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