Portland Gazette, And Maine Advertiser

Monitor.....No. 19

THE PREACHER....No. 12.

"But I keep under my body, and bring it into
subjection: lest that by any means, when I
have preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway"

THE situation of a minister and teacher
in Israel, is a place of high responsibility,
and I presume there is no station whatever,
in which it is so difficult to behave with propriety. Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, saw and acknowledged the truth of
this: it was therefore his constant endeavour
to "keep under his body," to correct his
vicious inclinations, and to subdue every irregular
appetite. The delicate situation in
which every minister of the Gospel is placed,
should excite them peculiarly anxious
thoughts to resist those sins which beset and cast
against the sinner. The least deviation from
rectitude which is observed in a minister
is written as with a pen of iron and on
the memory of every one, and no allowance
is made for the weakness and fallibility of
human nature: nor, are any of his good actions
or virtues, ever placed on the opposite
scale, or suffered to plead any palliation—
But all who make any public profession of
religion, are, in a measure, preachers to
others. Every person looks to those who
openly profess and worship God, for good
examples; and if such neglect known duties,
it may be a means of leading many into
error, by creating in them a distrust of that
system which they here advocate, and
causing them to suppose that the Gospel
cannot be very pure, when those
who profess a firm belief in it, "do not act according
to its precepts." So it is with every
preacher of morality. Would a man reform
his neighbor He must first reform himself
Would he have his neighbor deal justly? He
must render to every man his due Would
he wish to make his neighbor charitable?
He must set him the example. "Physician
heal thyself." saith a divine teacher, and
while we neglect this material point, we
shall be but ill capacitated to correct the vices
of others "The preacher, will now leave
for a while the ministerial department, and
direct his attention more particularly to dis-
vesting himself of those evil properties
which he holds in common with others, lest
it be tauntingly said to him, "Thou hypocrite,
first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote
out of thy brother's eye"