The Faithful Preacher (Foreword by John Piper) E-Book

Thabiti M. Anyabwile

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 349

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

The cliché is that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. But Thabiti Anyabwile contends that it is not the mistakes we must study; it is the people who have overcome them. So he presents three of the most influential African-American pastors in American history who can teach us what faithful ministry entails. Lemuel Haynes (1753-1833) reminds pastors that eternity must shape our ministry. Daniel A. Payne (1811-1893) stresses the importance of character and preparation to faithful shepherding. And Francis J. Grimké (1850-1937) provides a vision for engaging the world with the gospel. While they are from the African-American tradition, they, like all true saints, belong to all Christians of every background and era. Distinctive for its use of rare and out-of-print messages, Anaybwile's work is valuable as a reference as well as a devotional resource.

Leseprobe

The Faithful Preacher

Copyright © 2007 by Thabiti M. Anyabwile

Published by Crossway Booksa publishing ministry of Good News Publishers1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Jessica Dennis

Cover illustration: Jessica Dennis

First printing, 2007

Printed in the United States of America

Bible quotations are taken from the King James Version.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anyabwile, Thabiti M., 1970—The faithful preacher : recapturing the vision of three pioneering African-American pastors / Thabiti M. Anyabwile.

1. African Americans—Religion. 2. African American clergy.3. Pastoral theology. 4. Haynes, Lemuel, 1753-1833. 5. Payne, DanielAlexander, 1811-1893. 6. Grimké, Francis J. (Francis James), 1850—1937.I. Title.

BR563.N4A59      2007277.3'08092396073—dc22

2006017146

MLY              17     16     15     14     13     12     11     10     09     08     07

15     14     13     12     11     10     9     8     7     6     5     4     3     2     1

Above all . . .for the glory of Christ Jesus the Savior.

With thanks to the Father for Kristie, my wife,the tangible expression of the Father's favor to me.(Proverbs 18:22)

With thanks to God for Afiya and Eden, my daughters,who lovingly asked, “Daddy, how’s the book coming?”and spurred me on to completion.

To my God and my Savior,my wife, and my daughters . . . with love.

CONTENTS

Foreword by John Piper

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Lemuel Haynes Pastoral Ministry in Light of Eternity

The Character and Work of a Spiritual WatchmanDescribed (1792)

The Important Concerns of Ministers and the People ofTheir Charge (1797)

The Sufferings, Support, and Reward of Faithful Ministers,Illustrated (1820)

Part II: Bishop Daniel A. PayneA Vision for an Educated Pastorate

Who Is Sufficient for These Things? (1852)

The Christian Ministry: Its Moral and IntellectualCharacter (1859)

The Divinely Approved Workman: Semi-CentennialSermon (1874)

Part III: Francis J. GrimkéThe Gospel and the Church in the World

The Afro-American Pulpit in Relation to Race Elevation (1892)

Christianity and Race Prejudice (June 5, 1910)

The Religious Aspect of Reconstruction (February 19, 1919)

Christ’s Program for the Saving of the World (February 28, 1936)

Notes

FOREWORD

By John Piper

I have been happily drawn into this book because it embodies four passions of my life. First, it is rooted in the big biblical vision of the sovereign God called reformed theology. Second, it expresses the wise conviction that knowing history and biography will protect us from trendiness in the ministry and will reveal the blind spots of our own age and enrich us with the insights that other generations have received. Third, it mines the unknown riches of the African-American experience and lays hold on the truth that their suffering was not in vain but has treasures for our time not yet dreamed of. Fourth, it lifts us above the low, managerial, psychologized, pragmatic, organizational view of the pastoral office and sets us in the high, clean air and bright light of the biblical vision of what it means to be called to shepherd the blood-bought bride of Christ.

You are about to meet three African-American pastors—Lemuel Haynes (1753–1833), Daniel A. Payne (1811–1893), and Francis Grimké (1850–1937). Their pastoral and educational ministries total over 130 years of faithfulness to God’s people. You will be introduced to them biographically by the able hand of Thabiti Anyabwile. Then you will meet them in their own words. This book is mainly to be prized as the never-before- gathered collection of African-American writings on the pastoral ministry from a time that spans 150 years and stretches across the terrible Civil War of our nation.

In this book we who are not African-American receive the double profit of reading not only across a culture but across the centuries—and thus across another culture. And, of course, that implies that the AfricanAmerican reader will read across another culture as well. My guess and my prayer is that these unusual crossings will weave our lives and ministries together in ways we have not foreseen.

There are surprises ahead. Did you know there was such a thing as “black puritans”? The author describes all three of these brothers like this: “They were puritans. They committed themselves to sound theology in the pulpit, theologically informed practice in the church, and theologically reformed living in the world.”

Did you know that, in the words of John Saillant, “From Calvinism, this generation of black authors (referring specifically to Lemuel Haynes) drew a vision of God at work providentially in the lives of black people, directing their sufferings yet promising the faithful among them a restoration to his favor and his presence”?

Did you know that in 1835 the South Carolina Assembly passed a law that said, “[If] any free person of color or slave shall keep any school or other place of instruction for teaching any slave or free person of color to read or write, such free person of color or slave shall be liable to the same fine, imprisonment, and corporal punishment as are by this Act imposed and afflicted upon free persons of color and slaves for teaching slaves to read or write”? This forced the closing of Daniel Payne’s school and led him to work out his vision for an educated black ministry within the northern context of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and in the leadership of Wilberforce University in Ohio, “the first institution of higher education owned and operated by African-Americans.”

Did you know that it was even possible for a free black man (Lemuel Haynes) in the eighteenth century to marry a white woman and pastor an all-white congregation in Vermont for over thirty years?

Did you know that Charles Hodge, professor of theology at Princeton Seminary, taught African-American students such as Francis Grimké, who took the great reformed vision of God and spent his life working out its implications for race relations in the church while serving as pastor of 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.?

So there will be surprises. But what should be no surprise is that there are treasures of biblical wisdom in centuries before our own and in cultures not our own. I love the blow this book makes against chronological snobbery and ethnocentricity. May the Lord of the Church, for the good of His people and the ingathering of His lost sheep and the glory of His name, give this book good success.

John PiperPastor for Preaching and Vision,Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

God, in His kindness, allows some men and women to set ideas into print and to see those ideas published for others. Such an opportunity is a great blessing. And that blessing is accompanied by other blessings in the form of loved ones, family and friends, and critics who support your efforts and make it better. This acknowledgments page is an acknowledgment of both blessings from God.

To God alone belongs any praise for any edification that this volume offers the reading world. To God alone belongs the praise for the fruitfulness of the men and ministries featured here. To God alone belongs the praise for providentially ordering my reading life so that I would be introduced to these men and find opportunity to assemble a sampling of their work. I acknowledge God in all these things and more; to Him belongs the glory.

I thank God always when I remember my wife, Kristie, who without fail is my biggest encourager and cheerleader. She has ever had my back in life and ministry. Sweetie, “I see you in my eyes.”

I thank God too for Afiya and Eden, my daughters. It’s an indescribable pleasure to have your six- and four-year-old daughters interested in your ministry. Thank you, girls, for all the times you stopped by my desk with snacks and presents and to ask, “Daddy, how’s your book coming?” I pray and trust there are crowns in heaven for you for your tender example of love and service.

God blessed me with two friends who helped make this work possible—Mark Dever and C. J. Mahaney. Brothers, I have learned so much from you, and I pray that the Lord will multiply all our labors for His glory. Thank you for your tireless example of faithful pastoral ministry. You brothers are rock-solid friends and mentors, and I praise God for placing you in my life.

I also praise God for the blessing of John Piper, who authored the foreword to this volume and through whom the Lord has been pleased to teach this generation to exult in the excellencies of Jesus Christ.

And then there is the gift of God’s church. At the writing of this book, I was a member, elder, and assistant pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. I praise God for CHBC whose love, encouragements, prayer, and joy redound to God’s glory and to my blessing. I want to especially thank Cathy Boehme, John Keim, Sam Lam, Gio Lynch, and John and Dawn Ingold for their faithful comments and their editing of this volume. May your labors bear much fruit.

I also praise the Lord for the faithfulness of the family at Crossway Books, who care more about the truth of God than the ring of sales.

To God be the glory!

INTRODUCTION

As I complete this book, I am at the eve of a dream come true—serving the Lord in full-time Christian ministry as a senior pastor. Over the past several years I have served as an elder in two churches, helped plant one of those churches, and carried on an itinerant preaching and evangelism ministry. Over the years and throughout these ministry opportunities, my desire for serving in pastoral ministry, for shepherding the people of His pasture, has steadily grown and has at times been nearly overwhelming.

However, sitting on the eve of that dream, I am stalked by questions and uncertainties that at some point surely haunt every man in the ministry. In fact, it is in some measure the uncertainties and the questions that prepare a man for the ministry—they keep him humble and dependent upon the Lord for wisdom and guidance. So I have come to embrace my questions as a particular form of grace from God. Still, questions and uncertainties call for answers and resolve.

Many questions depend largely on individual circumstances—whether the person involved is married or single, whether he has children, how much experience he has, whether he is educated for the task, gifted, sure of his calling, etc. However, most questions fall generally into one of three categories:

What does the Lord require of His pastors?

How must I prepare for this calling, and am I ready?

What is the pastor’s responsibility outside the church, for engaging the world?

Bookshelves in Christian bookstores are filled with answers to these and other questions involving pastoral ministry. Some of them are classics and well worth reading. Others promise great payoffs for little effort and “new ideas for today’s ministry.” The array of options is dizzying. Yet most of these new ideas have one fatal flaw in common—because they are new, they are not proven. These proposals on how to build an effective church or become a successful pastor generally lack any track record beyond the personal experiences of the individual authors. So the honest reader faces the daunting task of evaluating the worthiness of these various perspectives, gauging, usually through trial and error, whether the approaches will work in their local churches and whether their effects are good or bad, faithful or unfaithful to biblical truth. But who really wants to approach shepherding the Lord’s sheep by trial and error?

As I have prepared for my own journey into ministry, wading through a truckload of trees used to print hundreds of books aimed at pastors, my experience confirmed that old folk wisdom, “all that glitters is not gold”—especially when it is extolled as a new form of gold. As I have sought for a better way, a better understanding, and a biblically faithful perspective, it has pleased my soul to realize that the old ideas are still the best ideas. Those who have gone before us, old friends with old ideas, have left us a proven track record of faithfulness and fruitfulness. And the two do go together: where there is faithfulness, fruitfulness is bound to follow.

We are told from the time we are schoolchildren that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Maintaining an ignorance of history will not result in the replication of greatness and earlier success. Those who learn from history, who wisely consult those who have gone before, are the only ones who have a real chance at succeeding and avoiding pitfalls. Faithfulness and fruitfulness in ministry require wisdom, hard work, time, and the providential blessings of God, all of which are enhanced by a humble study of our predecessors.

The best place to learn and prepare for the ministry is still at the feet of the Master Himself, and from His apostles. Who would not want to study under Paul or Peter? To hear their account of firsthand experiences with our Lord? Jesus, Paul, Peter, and others are still available to us, to speak with us through God’s Word. And I trust that every faithful pastor is learning, studying, praying, and seeking wisdom and grace for the task from them.

But also available to us are “lesser” luminaries, men who were not apostles but who were faithful students and shepherds. Christian history is filled with Spurgeons, Calvins, Luthers, and others who have had to answer tough questions, face uncertainties, and persevere in faith as they led God’s people. From them the wise pastor gains valuable insights and observes patterns of godliness for his own ministry.

This book profiles three “lesser” luminaries from the AfricanAmerican experience—Lemuel Haynes, Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne, and Dr. Francis Grimké. They are “lesser” luminaries in the sense that they are not worthy of comparison to the Lord and in the sense that the Lord’s apostles had unique ministries in Christian history. But they are not lesser to other saints in their passion for God, in their love for God’s people, in their zeal for a pure church, or in the wisdom they leave behind for pastors and leaders of the church.

In Haynes, Payne, and Grimké you will find great models of and exhortations to faithfulness. Lemuel Haynes, a former indentured servant, served as pastor of an all-white congregational church for thirty-three years in Rutland, Vermont—an unheard of feat for an African-American of his period and ours. Bishop Payne served over forty years as pastor, bishop, and university president. Dr. Grimké gave nearly six decades of his life to serving as pastor of 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. These men were faithful to their Lord, their calling, and the people in their charge.

Related to their faithfulness is their longevity. Their careers span most major periods in American history, including the American Revolution, slavery at the height of its power, the Civil War, Emancipation and Reconstruction, and World War I. Through these periods, they faced extreme hardships. None of them were born into privilege. All of them either witnessed or tasted the lash of slavery and the racial prejudices that followed that institution. Around them American society changed radically. However, their commitment to the ministry and their understanding of it remained constant. They continued in the same glorious work of proclaiming the gospel “instant in season, out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2).

But principally these men are included here for their consistently high and biblical view of the pastoral ministry. They greatly esteemed the privilege and responsibility of caring for God’s people, of cultivating and leading a “pure” church, and of dedicating one’s self to representing Christ before a dying world. They were puritans. They committed themselves to sound theology in the pulpit, theologically informed practice in the church, and theologically reformed living in the world. They saw Christ in all things and endeavored to see Him glorified before all people. They were from the African-American tradition of Christianity, but like all true saints, they belong to all Christians of every background and era. They were gifts to the Body of Christ from Christ Himself, and they will befriend every leader with a God-given desire to glorify Christ through beautifying the church.

Lemuel Haynes reminds us to view the pastoral ministry from the vantage point of eternity and the accounting that pastors will give to the Lord of the Church. Daniel Alexander Payne instructs us on how preparation and education, both in intellect and character, affect the minister and the people in his charge. And Francis Grimké challenges us to remember that the church and the pastor, as they confront the world and its problems, are first and foremost to preach the gospel and to live the gospel.

For many readers, this volume will be an introduction to these men and their careers. For others, Haynes, Payne, and Grimké are already old friends. Both the newcomer and the longtime acquaintance will be rewarded for reading these pastors and will find answers for many of the questions and concerns that face us today. These are representatives of the old ideas that have served and preserved the church for over two thousand years.

PART ONE: Lemuel Haynes: Pastoral Ministry in Light of Eternity

If the church is to prosper and mature, she will need faithful men to lead and care for her. The church will need men who are sound in doctrine, whose lives are guided by the Word of God, and who are willing to defend the truth. The church will need to hold up as its ideal those who model fidelity and love toward God, men who will pour themselves out for the benefit of the Lord’s sheep. Men of this mold are gifts to the church from her Lord. In the late 1700s the Lord did indeed give such a gift to the church—Lemuel Haynes.

Lemuel Haynes was born on July 18, 1753 in West Hartford, Connecticut. Early biographers speculated that Haynes’s mother was either a daughter of the prominent Goodwin family of Hartford or a servant named Alice Fitch who worked for one John Haynes. However, speculations about his parentage proved profitless. Abandoned by his parents at five months of age, Haynes was raised as an indentured servant by the Rose family in Middle Granville, Massachusetts. The Roses treated Lemuel as one of the family’s own children, giving him the same pious instruction in Christianity and family worship that Deacon Rose gave all his children.1

Following his indenture, Haynes volunteered in 1774 as a Minuteman and in October 1776 joined the Continental Army, thus becoming part of the American Revolution. Haynes volunteered just as the Continental Pastoral Ministry in Light of Eternity Navy and Army suffered heavy casualties at the Battle of Valcour Bay on October 11, 1776 and General Washington’s forces met defeat at the Battle of White Plains on October 28, 1776. In November 1776 Continental forces witnessed over three thousand casualties and the loss of over one hundred cannons and thousands of muskets in defeats at Fort Washington and Fort Lee. Lemuel served in the Continental Army until November 17, 1776, when he contracted typhus and was relieved of duty. Despite the dismal prospects of the Revolution at this point, as a patriot Haynes was determined to defend with life and tongue the newly developing nation and its ideals of liberty. His political values were shaped by his “idealization of George Washington and allegiance to the Federalist Party.”2

But it was during his time with the Rose family and after the American Revolution that Haynes demonstrated his interests and talents for theology and ministry. “Haynes was a determined, self-taught student who pored over Scripture until he could repeat from memory most of the texts dealing with the doctrines of grace.”3 Though Haynes benefited from the devout religious practice and instruction of Deacon Rose, the works of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Philip Doddridge influenced him the most. Indeed, Haynes owed much to the revival and evangelism efforts of Whitefield and Edwards, who greatly impacted America, and especially the New England area, during the Great Awakening of the 1740s.

Haynes began his formal ministerial training by studying Greek and Latin with two Connecticut clergymen, Daniel Farrand and William Bradford. He was licensed to preach on November 29, 1780 and five years later became the first African-American ordained by any religious body in America. In 1804 Middlebury College awarded Haynes an honorary Master’s degree—another first for an African-American.

Owing largely to his Puritan-like experiences with the Rose family and his admiration of Whitefield and Edwards, Haynes adopted a decidedly Calvinistic theology. Calvinism was typical of African-American writers during Haynes’s lifetime. One biographer, reflecting on a host of African-American writers in the late 1700s, observed:

Indeed, Calvinism seems to have corroborated the deepest structuring elements of the experiences of such men and women as they matured from children living in slavery or servitude into adults desiring freedom, literacy, and membership in a fair society. From Calvinism, this generation of black authors drew a vision of God at work providentially in the lives of black people, directing their sufferings yet promising the faithful among them a restoration to his favor and his presence. Not until around 1815 would African American authors, such as John Jea, explicitly declare themselves against Calvinism and for free-will religion.4

Despite what appeared to be a Calvinistic hegemony, the New England area was not without its disputes and controversies. Following the First Great Awakening, significant arguments regarding church membership, salvation, assurance, and the revivals themselves unsettled and divided churches. Jonathan Edwards, one of Haynes’s theological influences, was fired from his Northampton pastorate for refusing to administer Communion to church members and their children who, though morally upstanding, did not profess saving faith in Christ, a practice known as the “half-way covenant.” Other churches divided into “New Light,” “Old Light,” and “Moderate” local assemblies. New Light congregations welcomed the revival of the Great Awakening with open arms, while their Old Light counterparts opposed the revival and the emotional excesses that accompanied it. Moderates attempted a middle-of-the-road understanding that recognized God’s activity in the revival but sought to curb emotionalism. These ecclesial and theological controversies were the protean matter of Haynes’s intellectual formation. Haynes was a “New Light moderate” and a strict Congregationalist who favored the independence of the local church and the need for a regenerate membership.

Lemuel Haynes’s pastoral career spanned forty years. He began his life of Christian service as a founding member and supply pastor to the church in Middle Granville, Massachusetts. He served in Middle Granville for five years, then received ordination from the Association of Ministers in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Haynes completed his ordination in 1785 while serving a church in Torrington, Connecticut. However, despite his evident prowess as a preacher, he was never offered the pastorate of that church due to racial prejudice and resentment among some churches in the area. In 1783 Haynes met and married twenty-year-old Elizabeth Babbit, a young white schoolteacher and a member of the Middle Granville congregation. The couple bore ten children between 1785 and 1805.

On March 28, 1788 Haynes left the Torrington congregation and accepted a call to pastor the west parish of Rutland, Vermont, where he served the all-white congregation for thirty years—a relationship between pastor and congregation rare in Haynes’s time and in ours both for its length and for its racial dynamic. During his stay in Rutland, the church grew in membership from forty-two congregants to about three hundred and fifty as Haynes modeled pastoral devotedness and fidelity to the people in his charge. He also emerged as a defender of Calvinistic orthodoxy, opposing the encroachment of Arminianism, universalism, and other errors.

In March 1818, on the heels of a five-year-long dispute with a deacon and growing alienation between Haynes and members of the congregation, several of whom were facing various church discipline charges, the church voted against continuing its relationship with their pastor of thirty years. In his farewell sermon to the Rutland congregation, “The Sufferings, Support, and Reward of Faithful Ministers, Illustrated,” Lemuel Haynes concluded:

The flower of my life has been devoted to your service:—and while I lament a thousand imperfections which have attended my ministry; yet if I am not deceived, it has been my hearty desire to do something for the salvation of your souls.

Following his tenure in Rutland, Haynes remained active in ministry, serving despite declining health. He served as pastor in Manchester, Vermont from 1818 until 1822. In 1822 he began an eleven-year preaching ministry with a church in Granville, New York. Haynes contracted a gangrenous infection in one of his feet in March 1833. But he continued his duties with the Granville, New York congregation until May of that year, when health limitations overtook him. Lemuel Haynes died on September 28, 1833 at the age of eighty.5

As a pastor, Haynes seemed always to be possessed with thoughts of the welfare of his congregation. Their salvation was paramount. His sermons made explicit the centrality of the cross of Christ and were rich in both theological instruction and practical application for his hearers. Lemuel Haynes is a wonderful model of the “old ideas” that stand the test of time and point the way forward even in our day.

The sermons included in this volume provide a glimpse into Haynes’s understanding of pastoral ministry. In general, an eschatological expectation gripped Haynes’s heart and mind. In each of the selections included here, the anticipation of meeting the Lord Jesus Christ at the Judgment motivated Haynes’s instructions to his hearers. Haynes well understood that the bar of Christ, especially for the minister, would be a time of penetrating judgment, a time at which the heart and habits of the pastor would be laid bare and his just rewards made known.

Consequently, Haynes believed that a minister’s Christian character was essential to his faithfulness and to his effectiveness in the gospel ministry. In a 1792 ordination sermon, “The Character and Work of a Spiritual Watchman Described,” Haynes underscored five key traits a minister needs to possess. First, they are to “love the cause in which they profess to embark.” That is, they must love Christ Himself and the proclamation of His divine glory to those who would hear and be saved. Second, the minister is to be wise and prudent, understanding the subtlety of the spiritual task and the spiritual enemies against whom he is engaged. Third, patience must accompany every member of the ministry. Fourth, courage and fortitude must fill his heart. And fifth, vigilance, alertness, and close attention to the business of watching for souls must characterize the spiritual watchman, the faithful preacher. Apart from these qualifications, the Christian minister is completely unprepared to give an account to God for his conduct and his care for God’s people. But those who are prepared would examine their motives for entering the ministry, would be careful to know their duties as pastors, would seek to please none but God, would work to make their preaching plain, sober, modest, and reverent, and would work to know as much as possible about the souls entrusted to their care.

Haynes’s eschatological vision of pastoral ministry was displayed most clearly in a 1798 funeral sermon entitled “The Important Concerns of Ministers and the People of Their Charge.” In this sermon Haynes anticipated that the pastor and the congregation would have a special relationship to one another in the coming judgment of Christ, where the congregation would be the “hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing . . . in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming.”6 However, the Second Coming of Christ and the accompanying judgment of ministers and their people was, in Haynes’s estimation, a proposition filled with both joyous promise and striking terror. At stake, more than merely the souls of pastors and congregants, was the very glory of God Himself—whether the character of the Redeemer was properly displayed before His creation through the ministry of which both minister and member were a part. If the pastor was faithful, the congregation and their shepherd would enjoy a special intimacy with one another, an intimacy deepened by the congregants’ commendation of the pastor and by the pastor’s recommendation of his people before the Lord Himself. However, if either the pastor or the congregation were unfaithful, their eternal relationship would be one of accusing and exposing the other before God and His Son. For everlasting good or for eternal ill, the pastor and the congregation were joined in a most solemn union before God, according to Haynes. Haynes concluded, “The influence of a faithful or unfaithful minister is such as to effect unborn ages; it will commonly determine the sentiments and characters of their successors, and in this way they may be doing good or evil after they are dead, and even to the second coming of Christ.” The unfaithful minister would be tried for his treasonous neglect of the souls of the people, and the unfaithful congregation would stand to hear the pastor’s denouncement of their spiritual apathy and hardheartedness. Therefore, ministers ought to preach, and people ought to listen, “with death and judgment in view.”

After three decades of pastoral ministry, the church in Rutland, Vermont discharged Lemuel Haynes from his pulpit. By most accounts, the strong sin of racial prejudice finally overcame some members of the congregation who challenged Haynes’s leadership. At the occasion of his farewell sermon, “The Sufferings, Support, and Reward of Faithful Ministers, Illustrated,” Haynes only briefly recounted some of his thirty years in Rutland. For the most part he took the opportunity to instruct the congregation one last time in the calling, character, and challenges of pastoral ministry. Perhaps feeling the sting of his own situation, Haynes focused on the joys and sorrows that accompany faithfulness in ministers. Faithful ministers are commissioned and sent by Christ as His ambassadors and messengers, a commission that determines their direction and manner in ministry, including how and what to preach and how long they are to serve in a particular place. That commission, asserted Haynes, sometimes ends quickly for the faithful minister:

The lives of ministers are often shortened by the trials they meet with; some times they are actually put to death for the sake of the gospel: they can say with this holy apostle, As dying, and behold we live! As chastened, and not killed; As sorrowing, yet always rejoicing. The memory of a Patrick, a Beveridge, a Manton, a Flavel, a Watts, a Doddridge, an Edwards, Hopkins, Bellamy, Spencer and Fuller is previous to us; but alas! we see them no more. No more in their studies; no more the visitants of their bereaved flock; no more in their chapels or sanctuaries on earth. They have run their race, finished their course, and are receiving their reward. Their successors in office are pursuing them with rapid speed: and will soon, very soon accomplish their work.

Haynes anticipated that his own demise would follow shortly after leaving the pulpit in Rutland. But for all the bonds and afflictions, briars and thorns, vilification, and opposition faced by faithful ministers, the faithful ministers were never to despair or lose heart because their lot in eternity would be great joy and satisfaction with their Master.

For those in or contemplating entrance into pastoral ministry, Lemuel Haynes reminds us of the solemn importance of faithfulness in the gospel minister. Haynes warns us of a blithe attitude toward our work as ministers, ambassadors for Jesus Christ. Indifference is deadly—to our people and to ourselves. Ours is a life dedicated to caring for another’s children with the anticipation of one day returning them to their Heavenly Father. At that time we shall give an account of our stewardship—what we have taught His children, what model or example we have provided, whether we have tended to the state of their souls, and most importantly, whether we spoke reproachfully or gloriously of their True Father. If we would be faithful, we must keep the coming of our Lord in full view as we discharge all the duties we have been given by Him who walks in the midst of the seven lampstands (Revelation 1:13).

Sketch of Rev. Lemuel Haynes, a frontispiece in Timothy Mather Cooley,Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lemuel Haynes, A.M., for Many Years Pastor of a Church in Rutland, Vt., and Later in Granville, New York (1837; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969).

The Character and Work of a Spiritual Watchman Described (1792)

Haynes’s first published sermon was preached at the ordination of Rev. Reuben Parmelee (1759–1843), the first minister of the seven families (nine members) who gathered together to form the First Congregational Church, Hinesburgh, Vermont. The sermon was likely preached in 1791, when the first organized church was established through the efforts of Parmelee. For three years prior Christians had met in homes and farms and in the open air with no consistent pastoral oversight. While most sources assume the sermon was published in 1791, it was probably the first publication of the printing partnership of Collier and Buel of Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1792.

The Character and Work of a Spiritual Watchman Described,a Sermon, Delivered at Hinesburgh, February 23, 1791,at the Ordination of the Rev. Reuben Parmelee

For they watch for your souls, as they that must give account.

-HEBREWS 13:17

Nothing is more evident than that men are prejudiced against the gospel. It is from this source that those who are for the defense of it meet with so much contempt. It is true, they are frail, sinful dust and ashes, in common with other men; yet on account of the important embassy with which they are entrusted, it is agreeable to the unerring dictates of inspiration “to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake” (1 Thess. 5:13).

To illustrate this sentiment was the delight of the apostle in this verse: “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves.” He was far from inculcating anything that might seem to confront what the apostle Peter has enjoined in 1 Peter 5:3, “neither as being lords over God’s heritage.” The word signifies to lead, guide, or direct (Guyse’s paraphrase).

Our text contains an important motive—to excite the attention and respect that is due to the ministers of Christ on account of their relation to Him. This involves the aspect that their work has to a judgment-day: “For they watch for your souls, as they that must give account.” They are amenable to their great Lord and Master for every sermon they preach and must give an account of the reception they and their work met with among their hearers. Under the influence of such a thought, let us take notice of a few things, supposed by the work assigned to ministers in the text, and say something with respect to their character, whence it appears that they must give account when they may be said to be properly influenced by such considerations.

I. There are several ideas suggested by the work assigned to gospel ministers in the text, which is, to watch for souls.

This supposes,

1. That the soul is of vast importance; else why so much attention paid to it as to have a guard to inspect it? All those injunctions we find interpreted through the sacred pages to watchmen to be faithful are so many evidences of the worth of men’s souls. What renders them so valuable is the important relation they stand in to their Maker. The perfections of the Deity are more illustrated in the redemption of fallen men than they would have been in the salvation of apostate angels; else why were the latter passed by, while God chose the former as the objects of His attention? God has from eternity appointed a proper number for the display of His mercy and justice; means are necessary to fit them for the Master’s use; so the soul, in this view, is of infinite importance.

2. Being commanded to be watchmen over the souls of men implies that they are prone to neglect them or to be inattentive to those souls. When one is set to inspect or watch over another, it supposes some kind of incapacity that the individual is under to take care of himself. The Scripture represents mankind by nature as fools, madmen, being in a state of darkness, etc.

Men in general are very sagacious with respect to temporal affairs and display much natural wit and ingenuity in contriving and accomplishing evil designs; “but to do good they have no knowledge” (Jer. 4:22). This is an evidence that their inability to foresee danger and provide against it is of the moral kind. If there were a disposition in mankind, correspondent to their natural powers, to secure the eternal interest of their souls in the way God has proscribed, watchmen would in a great measure be useless.

3. The work and office of gospel ministers suggests the idea of enemies invading, that there is a controversy subsisting, and danger approaching. When soldiers are called forth, and sentinels stand upon the wall, it denotes war. The souls of men are environed with ten thousand enemies that are seeking their ruin. Earth and hell are combined together to destroy. How many already have fallen victims to their ferocity! The infernal powers are daily dragging their prey to the prison of hell. Men have rebelled against God and made him their enemy; yea, all creatures, and all events, are working the eternal misery of the finally impenitent sinner.

4. We are taught in the text and elsewhere that the work of a gospel minister is not with the temporal but with the spiritual concerns of men: they watch for souls. Their conversation is not to be about worldly affairs but about things that relate to Christ’s kingdom, which involves the everlasting concerns of men’s souls. When a minister’s affections are upon this world, his visits among his people will be barren. He will inquire about the outward circumstances of his flock and perhaps, from pecuniary motives, rejoice at prosperity, as though that was of greatest concern. But he will have nothing to say with respect to the health and prosperity of their souls, having no joys or sorrows to express on account of the fruitful or lifeless state of the inward man.

II. Let us say something with respect to the character of a spiritual watchman.

Natural endowments, embellished with good education, are qualifications so obviously requisite in an evangelical minister that it is needless for us to insist upon them at this time; and that the interest of religion has, and still continues, greatly to suffer for the want of them is equally notorious.

In the early ages of Christianity, men were miraculously qualified and called into this work of the gospel ministry; but we are far from believing that this is the present mode by which ordinary ministers are introduced.

1. It is necessary that those who engage in this work love the cause in which they profess to be embarked; the love of Christ must be shed abroad in their hearts. Hence our blessed Lord, by whose repeated inter rogations to Simon whether he loved Him, has set before us the importance of this qualification in a spiritual shepherd. The sad consequences of admitting those into the army who are in heart enemies to the commonwealth have often taught men to be careful in this particular. The trust reposed in a watchman is such as renders him also capable of great detriment to the community. He that undertakes this work from secular motives will meet with disappointment. What a gross absurdity it is for a man to commend religion to others, while he is a stranger to it himself. “The pious preacher will commend the Savior from the personal fund of his own experience.” Being smitten with the love of Christ himself, with what zeal and fervor will he speak of the divine glory! Love to Christ will tend to make a minister faithful and successful. The importance of this point urges me to be copious on the subject, were it not too obvious to require a long discussion.

2. Wisdom and prudence are important qualifications in ministers: hence that injunction of the Great Preacher (Matt. 10:16): “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Such a minister is a man of spiritual understanding whose soul is irradiated with the beams of the Son of Righteousness, has received an unction from the Holy One, is taught by the Word and Spirit, and walks in the light of God’s countenance. He has seen the deceit of his own heart, knows the intrigues of the enemy, sees the many snares to which the souls of men are exposed, and, not being ignorant of the devices of Satan, will endeavor to carry on the spiritual campaign with such care and prudence that the enemy shall not get an advantage. He knows that he has a subtle enemy to oppose, and also human nature, replete with enmity against the gospel; and he will endeavor in every effort to conduct himself with that wisdom and circumspection as shall appear most likely to prove successful.

3. Patience is another very necessary qualification in a spiritual watchman. Being inspired with love to the cause, he will stand the storms of temptation and will not be disheartened by all the fatigue and suffering to which his work exposes him but will endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.