FREE MINISTRY.
Our ministry may be said to be free in several distinct senses.
1. It is open to all.
2. Its exercise is not subject to any pre-arrangement.
3. It is not paid.
We believe that the one essential qualification for the office of a
minister is the anointing of the Holy Spirit; and that this anointing is
poured out without respect of persons upon men and women, upon old and
young, upon learned and unlearned. The gift is, we believe, a purely
spiritual one, as much beyond our control as the rain from heaven; yet
as unfailing, as abundant, as necessary to fertility.
Our views of this matter differ from those of other Christians, not in
the fact that we recognize the free gift of this holy anointing, not
even in the fact that we repudiate the idea of its being purchasable by
money, but in the fact that our idea of ministry refers exclusively to
the offering of spontaneous spiritual ministrations. All would surely
agree that it is impossible for any one to offer acceptable prayer, or
to sow in other hearts the living seed of the kingdom, without a
distinct gift from above. It is obvious that we cannot give what we have
not received. It is also surely undeniable that what we have freely
received we should freely give; that the gift of God cannot be bought
for money, nor restricted in its exercise to humanly prepared channels.
No one who believes in the reality of the gift of “prophecy”—of
speaking, that is, from the immediate promptings of the Spirit of
Truth—would dare to seek either to purchase or to restrain such
utterances. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Our
doctrine of a free ministry, of course, supposes a real belief in the
continual inbreathing of that Divine Spirit, giving both light and
utterance through His own chosen vessels for the help of all. It also
goes a step further, and regards such spiritual ministrations as
all-sufficient. Here is the real point of divergence between us and our
fellow-Christians. The vast majority of them regard something more than
these purely spiritual ministrations as essential to a full allegiance
to our common Lord.
Other Christian bodies have from very early times recognized a
distinction between clergy and laity, and have regarded at least two
sacraments as having been instituted by Christ Himself, and as being in
some sense or other “necessary to salvation;” and the greater number, or
at any rate the largest, of these bodies have habitually adopted the use
of liturgical forms of public worship.
At the root of our abstinence from all these generally accepted
practices, there lies the one conviction of the all-sufficiency of
individual and immediate communication with the Father of our spirits;
and a profound belief that by His coming in the flesh our Lord Jesus
Christ did, in fact, open a new and living way of access to God, which
superseded and blotted out the former dispensation of rites and
ceremonies, investing all believers with the function of “kings and
priests” (calling them, that is, both to exercise dominion and to offer
acceptable sacrifices in His name), and enabling them to show forth the
nature and results of that worship in spirit and in truth, which was no
longer to be in any sense confined to temples made with hands, and of
that kingdom which is “not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Ghost.”
It was a bold thing indeed for the early Friends to break loose at once
from the whole ecclesiastical system, with its venerable and
long-established claim to be the divinely ordained channel of spiritual
nutriment. In doing so, they no doubt took up an attitude of hostility
towards the “hireling priests,” and their “steeple-houses” and
“so-called ordinances,” which, however comparatively intelligible it may
have been at the time, was yet not only highly obnoxious, but would even
seem to have led them into some degree of injustice.
After sixty or seventy years of severe persecution, however, borne with
extraordinary patience as well as constancy, their right to carry out
their own manner of worship was fully allowed; and by a strange result
of changes, partly within the Society itself and partly in the
surrounding mental atmosphere, Friends, from being regarded as
peculiarly pestilent heretics, came to be looked on as the most harmless
and least obnoxious of Nonconformists. I believe, however, that this can
be the case only as long as we are content to acquiesce in a purely
passive and dwindling state. Any attempt to promulgate our peculiar
views must necessarily give offence. We may, perhaps, no longer think it
a duty to denounce the institution of a separate clergy, and the
observance of “so-called ordinances,” as positively unlawful or sinful.
But to say plainly that we consider them as superfluous, requires hardly
less boldness, and is scarcely likely to be more palatable. The fact,
however, cannot be disguised; and in spite of the pain which, in these
days of free and lively interchange of sympathy, is involved in taking
up any clear ground of separation, no true Friend would desire in the
slightest degree to disguise or to veil our ancient testimony against
outward observances and their accompanying institution of a paid
ministry.
It is, however, a great help in doing so to be able to point to the very
remarkable fact of the existence during more than two centuries of a
body of people whose lives bear abundant witness to the reality of their
Christian profession, amongst whom these “ordinances” have been
altogether disused.
For my own part, I would rather leave that fact to speak for itself than
attempt to trace all the inferences which may, I think, be fairly drawn
from it. Yet the question whether the clerical and sacramental system is
indeed an essential part of Christianity, or a human accretion, is too
profoundly important to the future of Christianity itself to be lightly
passed over. Are there not many, in these days especially, who would
willingly listen to the Christianity of Christ Himself, could they but
find it disentangled from the enormously “developed” Christianity of the
dominant Churches?
I am far from venturing to claim that the Society of Friends does
actually exhibit a perfect living instance of what has been called
“primitive Christianity revived,” but I do believe its ideal to be the
true, and the only true one; that of a Church, or “gathered people,”
living with the one object of obeying the teaching of Christ Himself to
the very uttermost—His own teaching, not that of those who have spoken
in His name, even though they be apostles, except in so far as they
speak in accordance with it. To _live_ the Sermon on the Mount, and the
rest of the gospel teaching, and in all things to listen for the living
voice of the good Shepherd, watching constantly that no human tradition
divert our attention from it,—this is our acknowledged aim and bond of
union as a Society. Our conviction of its sufficiency is the ground of
our existence as a separate body.
We believe that neither the division of Christian people into clergy and
laity, nor the use of sacramental ceremonies, were enjoined by Christ
Himself. It is clear that both these practices quickly arose amongst the
early Christians; but remembering that the early Christians were but
fallible human beings like ourselves, and that they were undeniably far
from clear what rites and ceremonies were to be observed, we do not feel
that their practice is to be our guide.
The institution of a separate clergy and that of the sacraments form, of
course, essentially one system. The early Friends went to the root of
the matter when they abandoned at once the whole of what they called
“mountain and Jerusalem worship,” as opposed to the worship in spirit
and in truth, which is not limited to any time or place.
I have not the slightest intention of taking upon myself the attempt to
show that they were right in doing so. The grounds of their action are
fully set forth and defended with undeniable vigour and ability by
Robert Barclay, in his famous “Apology.” My humbler endeavour will be to
describe the perplexities which prepared my own mind thankfully to
accept what to myself appears to be a thoroughly satisfactory
disentanglement of essential Christianity from whatever can be honestly
regarded as unintelligible, and unworthy of its lofty and spiritual
character.
I must own at the outset that I have never been able clearly to
understand the grounds upon which the “ordinances” in question are
regarded as essential parts of Christianity, nor have I ever found it
possible to arrive at a thoroughly satisfactory explanation of their
precise (supposed) effects. I am, of course, not ignorant of the general
nature of those grounds or supposed results. But a broad space of
obscurity seems to separate the actual transactions out of which the
“ordinances” arose from the earliest known records of the institutions
themselves; and it is notorious that theologians differ very widely in
their views of the spiritual results produced either by ordination or by
a due participation in the sacraments, and also of the conditions
necessary to their “validity.”
It is here that the practical pinch of the system is felt. Were the
matter one of purely speculative interest, how gladly would I and other
unlearned people have left it in the hands of those better qualified to
deal with it! But it is a question of urgent practical importance,
which, as regards at least one of the sacraments, no devout person can
escape. Every adult member of the Church of England (every one, that is,
who is so in a religious sense) is confronted with a solemn challenge to
do, or to leave undone at his peril, an act involving vast and
mysterious consequences for good or for evil to his spiritual welfare.
No middle course is possible, and the Church Prayer-book promises no
safety either in its performance or omission. To “partake unworthily” is
represented as involving vague and awful dangers—dangers possibly,
though not clearly, greater than those which would be incurred by
omitting an act “generally necessary to salvation.” But how to be sure
of partaking worthily? “A true penitent heart and lively faith ... a
lively and steadfast faith in Christ our Saviour ... and perfect charity
with all men,”—if these are the necessary _preparations_ for being “meet
partakers of these holy mysteries,” failing in which we do but “eat and
drink our own damnation” by venturing to partake of them, is it any
wonder if the troubled heart is held in a state of continual uneasiness,
and shrinks almost equally from the act and from its omission?
Such, at least, was my own painful and long-continued experience. The
injunction to “examine one’s self” as a safeguard against unworthy
participation did but increase the perplexity and distress. For how can
self-examination fail to increase the sense of unworthiness? and how is
it possible for any one to imagine himself competent to be judge in his
own case?
I do not forget that the Prayer-book suggests (not to say prescribes) a
refuge from such perplexities in an application to “some discreet and
learned minister of God’s Word” for “absolution, and ghostly counsel and
advice.” I quite recognize the consistency of this suggestion, which
seems to me to confirm the obvious remark already made, that the
sacerdotal and sacramental system hangs together, and must be adopted or
rejected as a whole. In my own case, Protestantism was too strong to
allow of my accepting this legitimate corollary of the Church of England
doctrine respecting the Lord’s Supper. To have recourse to confession
and absolution was an impossibility to me, as I believe it to be even
yet to the great majority of Englishwomen, and as it is assuredly likely
always to be to Englishmen. But I doubt whether any satisfactory
resting-place short of it is to be found for those who fully adopt the
Anglican view of sacraments.
I do not mean to represent the perplexities and scruples I have spoken
of as having constituted the whole of my experience in this matter, or
to say that I was quite unable to meet them in a manner more or less
provisionally satisfactory to myself. It is true that out of
perplexities and scruples sprang doubts and questionings (with which,
indeed, the very air I breathed was thick), so that during the twenty
years in which I was a regular communicant in the Church of England, I
was never able to feel that my own practice was based upon thoroughly
clear and solid ground of ascertained truth. Yet in spite of, or rather
alongside of, all scruples and questionings as to the real intention of
our Lord—if, indeed, He had any intention at all—with regard to any
special commemoration of His death by the use of bread and wine, I did
earnestly, throughout those years, according to the measure of my
ability, endeavour to solve the problem in practice—to make the act of
outward “communion” a real occasion of renewed self-dedication, and of
inward and spiritual feeding on the bread of life. Such times were,
indeed, often occasions of deep spiritual blessing; but I never could
discern that they were so in any other sense than that in which every
real act of prayer, of penitence, of self-dedication, and of
thanksgiving must necessarily be so. The whole blessing appeared to me
to be of a spiritual kind, and due to spiritual causes. The connection
between the use of bread and wine and these spiritual sources of
blessing never became clear to me. The more profound the blessedness of
communion with Christ and with His people, the less conceivable did it
seem that it should depend upon the official performance of an elaborate
rite.
The Bible, to which in this Protestant country we are always referred
for the solution of the difficulties as to which Catholics consult their
priests, appeared to me to afford no help whatever in defining the
conditions necessary to a right participation, nor in directing one’s
choice between the various sacramental theories to be met with in our
days. All schools of theology equally appeal to it, and it is obvious
that a book cannot decide between rival interpretations of itself. It
did, however, distinctly help me towards the conclusion that there might
be no need to choose between these various theories at all. To my
unassisted reason it appeared that the effect of comparing any, even the
mildest, modern eucharistical theory with the accounts to be found in
the New Testament of our Lord’s parting supper with his disciples, was
chiefly to show that a vast and unexplained addition to, or at the least
development of, the original idea had taken place since these accounts
were written. The whole form of words used in the Communion Service
seems to me to convey meanings almost immeasurably different from
anything which I could myself have extracted from the one brief
expression, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Left to myself and to
Scripture, the Gospel narratives would never have suggested the idea of
any intention to institute a ceremony at all, far less to invest its
observance with possibilities so awful both for good and for evil, not
only in case of omission, but even in case of inadequate observance. To
my own mind, the narratives of the Last Supper in Matthew and Mark,
which contain no allusion to any possible repetition of the feast,
appeared quite as complete, quite as significant, as that of Luke, which
gives the addition, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The allusions in the
Epistle to the Corinthians to some disorderly practices in that Church
certainly make it clear that they had adopted a practice of meeting to
“show the Lord’s death till He come” by eating bread and drinking wine;
and the apostle’s reference to a Divine communication to himself of the
circumstances of the Last Supper certainly seems to show that he
believed them to have sufficient ground for doing so; but, on the other
hand, the words which he there ascribes to Christ, “Do this, _as oft as
ye drink it_, in remembrance of me,” have always seemed to me to be
distinctly incompatible with the idea of a command to eat bread and
drink wine _in order_ to commemorate His death, and would rather suggest
a reverent remembrance of Him on all social occasions, and perhaps
especially when meeting for the Passover or any other religious feasts.
I was thus fully ripe for the view so vigorously put forth in Barclay’s
“Apology,”[13] as held by Friends.
I have allowed my thoughts to fall into a somewhat autobiographical
form, because the appearance of egotism seems to me preferable to the
real presumption of going beyond one’s knowledge, and also because I am
anxious to show how unavoidably (and at the same time, I believe,
innocently) one may become entangled in questions too deep and too
perplexing for ordinary minds, in the mere honest endeavour to obey at
once the teachings of Jesus Christ and of the Church.
To myself it was the greatest relief, at a time when I had thus been
driven to choose between obedience to my own conscience on the one hand,
and outward communion with my fellow-Christians on the other, and when I
had for two years, with pain and grief, excommunicated myself
accordingly—it was at that moment the greatest relief to find a body of
Christians who held the simple, and, to my mind, the one worthy view of
Christianity, as a dispensation entirely spiritual in its nature; a
state of enlightenment and true worship in which forms and shadows had
passed away, and the substance alone was to be laboured for. It was in
the quiet meetings already described that I myself first learnt the full
meaning of the words, “baptizing into the Name ... and the communion of
the body of Christ.” The outward observances by which these “holy
mysteries” are typified in the devotions of other bodies had been to me
rather a hindrance than a help. I cannot help suspecting that they are
so to many.
For if not a help, they must be a hindrance. It may, to people in some
stages of education, or in some countries, be a natural and real way of
receiving or expressing truth, to perform ceremonial acts. I cannot
think that it is the spontaneous language of intelligent devotion in our
own time and country. To my own mind the great crowning lesson imparted
by our Divine Master, in the solemn farewell hours of His last evening
with His disciples, is lowered and eclipsed when considered as the
institution of a ceremony, and shines out again in its fulness of
majestic pathos when regarded as an embodied or acted parable. His
repeated warnings to His disciples against their inveterate tendency to
take His words literally, and to interpret them as referring to the meat
that perishes instead of as being spirit and life, sound in one’s ears
when one feels oppressed by what (forgive me the irrepressible truth) to
some of us seems the unintelligent practice of continually repeating a
form used by Christ once for all to show forth the central truth of His
life-giving life on earth.
It is the fear that, in wrapping the “words of eternal life” in a
garment of superstitious usage, they are being inevitably buried out of
the reach of those who need them the most, which prompts me to speak
thus boldly. Whatever lowers our religion to a matter of outward
observance, whatever seems to give to unreasoning participation in
outward acts a place on the same level with that inward continuance in
the Word of Christ which makes His disciples free, is surely a human and
a grievous barrier in the homeward path which He came to open to all.
Those who feel as we do about the meaning of our Lord on the occasion of
His last supper with His disciples, will naturally incline to take a
similar view of His meaning in the few references made by Him to the
subject of baptism. The word is obviously used in the New Testament in
several different senses. If we believe (as is at least suggested by the
words of the Apostle Paul) that there is but “one baptism,” we must
surely suppose it to be that baptism “with the Holy Ghost and with fire”
which John foretold as the office of Him for whom he himself, with his
“baptism with water,” was preparing the way;—He who was to increase as
John decreased, and who said of Himself, after He had “fulfilled all
righteousness” by submitting to John’s baptism, that He had yet “a
baptism to be baptized with”—assuredly not an outward one.
With the observance of rites and ceremonies, the need for a separate
priesthood passes away. It is, I believe, undisputed that the word
“priest” is used in the New Testament only with reference to the high
calling of all believers; the calling to offer themselves as living
sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God.
It appears to us that this priestly office of all believers is greatly
obscured, and the sense of religious responsibility weakened, by the
delegation to a separate and official class of persons of the function
of conducting the devotions of the congregation. The exclusive
employment of one man as spokesman for the whole congregation must of
necessity quench in others any impulse to offer vocal ministrations, at
any rate during the time of public worship; and in regard to daily life,
the idea of a “cure of souls” seems equally inconsistent with the Quaker
idea of “watching over one another for good,” as being a duty resting
more or less on all the members of a meeting.
There are, of course, many other Church offices besides the essentially
priestly one of offering the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving which
are fulfilled, and often nobly fulfilled, by the clergy of the Church of
England. These other offices, such as teaching, visiting the sick,
attending to the relief of the poor, etc., are surely in no way
inseparable, though they are popularly undistinguished, from that claim
to the priesthood against which Friends have always protested. It may be
an open question whether all the civilizing, softening, philanthropic,
and beneficent influences exercised by the clergy could be brought to
bear with equal effect upon the population, especially of country
districts, if the idea of an essential distinction between them and the
laity were suddenly obliterated. The question what would be the
practical result of such an obliteration, or, in other words, of the
adoption of Friends’ principle of a free ministry, is at any rate
scarcely within the visible horizon. It would certainly be impossible to
any candid person in these days to speak without respect and admiration
of the clergy generally, and without deep reverence of many amongst
them. The days are long past when such phrases as a “hireling ministry”
could have been indiscriminately used concerning a body of men whose
lives are in innumerable instances so visibly and nobly disinterested.
It is an obvious, though too common mistake, to confound the conditions
of any service with the motives from which it is undertaken. But it is
nevertheless a very grave question what effect the fact that ordination
to the clerical office opens to any young man of ordinary abilities and
respectability the gates of an honourable profession, by which he may
lawfully earn his bread and maintain a family, is likely to have upon
the spiritual character of the ministerial office. Surely the Quaker
principle that no spiritual ministrations should ever be subject to
payment is at least one that must commend itself as ideally the highest.
It may, however, very naturally be asked whether in practice it admits
of a sufficient provision being made for the instruction and edification
of congregations.
And here there is, of course, a deep-seated divergence of feeling and
thought at the bottom of the difference in practice between Friends and
other Christian bodies. We Friends believe that it is not necessary that
each congregation should be placed under the spiritual care of a pastor.
We believe that it is the right and the duty of each individual
Christian to approach the Divine presence in his own way—to sit under
the immediate teaching of Christ Himself, and to be ready to take his
share, if at any time called upon by the one Head of the Church, in
offering prayer, praise, thanksgiving, or exhortation, for the help,
comfort, and edification of all. Should no vocal services be offered in
any meeting, we do not therefore feel that it has failed of its effect
as an occasion of united worship.
Some small meetings are frequently, if not habitually, held entirely in
silence; in all our meetings there is some space left for that worship
which is beyond words. The responsibility for the lively and healthy
state of each meeting is, or should be, felt to rest upon all its
members, both collectively and individually.
It is obvious that a ministry so jealously guarded as ours from all
external pressure can be kept in vigorous exercise only as the result of
a deep and widely diffused religious experience. Serious, though by no
means insuperable, difficulties do undoubtedly arise in the practical
application of this fundamental principle of our Society. Our
faithfulness to it is being severely tested by modern conditions; and
upon that faithfulness our very life as a Society must, I believe,
depend. There is in the comparatively aggressive attitude we have
assumed of late years, as well as in the great pressure upon time and
strength exerted by modern activities of all kinds, a constant
temptation to adopt methods less pure, less severely disinterested, than
those to which we are pledged by all our traditions. Unless we have
faith and patience enough to maintain the freedom of our ministry even
at the cost of some sacrifice of popularity, I believe that our light
must inevitably be extinguished just when it is most urgently
needed.[14]
The admission of the ministry of women seems naturally to flow from the
disuse of all but spontaneous spiritual ministrations. For such
ministrations experience shows women to be often eminently qualified.
The whole of the Quaker view of ministry depends upon the frank
disregard of outward and visible signs in favour of the inward and
spiritual grace. To make both essential, or each essential to the other,
seems necessarily to land one in impenetrable intricacies, if not in a
vicious circle. If one of the two alone is essential, there can of
course be no question which it is. Whether inward and spiritual graces,
in other words, holiness, can flourish without the use of outward
observances, must ultimately be a question of experience and
observation. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” It might perhaps be
difficult for one born and bred in the Society to appeal explicitly to
this test. But having entered it within the last few years, I may
perhaps without impropriety say that Friends need surely not shrink from
the inquiry whether the practical standard of holiness amongst their
members is on a level with that of other Christians. If it be so—if
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
and temperance be not lacking amongst us—surely we may well ask, Wherein
does our free ministry fail of its due effect?
“It fails,” some would no doubt reply, “not in the quality, but in the
quantity of its results. However excellent the results in the life and
conversation of Friends individually, they are not a growing body, and
therefore not a healthy branch of the Church at large.” I shall deal
elsewhere with the subject of our long dwindling in former times, and
our present slow increase in numbers. I will content myself here with
the obvious reply that the numerical increase or decrease of a
denomination can never afford a satisfactory test of the spiritual
fruitfulness of its ministry; mere numbers being always affected by many
other causes, some of which have but little connection with spiritual
health. It even gives but a very doubtful measure of the mere numbers to
whom the influence of the preaching in question may extend. It must, no
doubt, be admitted that the personal and the numerical tests are apt to
yield conflicting results; that the purest form of religion is rarely
the most popular, though it is likely to have the most lasting, and, in
the end, the most widely spread, influence. But if purity and popularity
are in any sense incompatible, can we hesitate as to the direction
towards which we should lean?[15]
I have said that our corner-stone and foundation is our belief that God
does indeed communicate with each one of the spirits He has made in a
direct and living inbreathing of some measure of the breath of His own
life. That belief is not peculiar to us. What is peculiar to us is our
testimony to the freedom and sufficiency of this immediate Divine
communication to each one. The ground of our existence as a separate
body is our witness to the independence of the true gospel ministry of
all forms and ceremonies, and of all humanly imposed limitations and
conditions. We desire to guard this supreme function of the human spirit
from all disturbing influences as jealously as the mariner guards his
compass from anything which might deflect the needle from the pole; and
for the same reason—that we believe the direct influence of the Divine
Mind upon our own to be our one unerring Guide in the voyage of life,
and that the faculty by which we discern it is but too easily drawn
aside by human influences. There is, surely, a very deep significance
and value in the Protestant instinct of independence in this deepest
region. The Quaker tradition of “non-resistance” has attracted a degree
of popular attention which is, I think, out of all proportion to that
bestowed on the profound and stubborn independence of Quakerism—its
resolute vindication of each man’s individual responsibility to his
Maker, and to Him alone. The supreme value assigned by Friends to
consistency of conduct—to strict veracity and integrity, and other plain
moral duties—has, I believe, an intimate connection with their
abandonment of all reliance upon outward observances, or official
support and absolution. “The answer of a good conscience” comes into
prominence when all extraneous means of purification are discarded. And
when outward ordination is seen to be insufficient to enable any one
effectually to minister to the deep needs of a troubled spirit, then
that ministry which is truly the outcome of the fiery “baptisms” of
Divinely appointed discipline assumes its true dignity in our eyes as
the only real qualification for reaching the witness in other hearts.
I doubt whether any other Protestant sect recognizes the preciousness of
the discipline of suffering as it is recognized by Friends. That it is
only through deep experience, both of inward exercises and of outward
sorrows, that any one can become fully qualified to hold forth the Word
of life to others, is signified by the familiar Quaker expression, “a
deeply baptized minister.” So strongly have some Friends felt this
necessity that they have come to distrust, if not to condemn, whatever
appears to them “superficial” or easily produced in ministry. A holy
awe, deepening at times, I believe, into even too anxious a restraint,
has ever surrounded the exercise of our emphatically “free”
ministry—free from all human and outward moulding, precisely in order
that it may be the more sacredly reserved to the Divine and inward
moulding and restraining as well as impelling power.
The danger of our profoundly “inward” ideal is, of course, in its
liability to generate scruples, and a degree of morbid
introspectiveness, especially in the exercise of this particular gift.
Recognizing fully the deep truth that many “baptisms” have to be passed
through by those to whom the priceless gift of ministry is entrusted,
and that peculiar trials are apt to precede every special replenishing
of the sacred vessel, Friends have sometimes gone on to hold it almost a
profanation to speak in meetings for worship except as the immediate
result of some such painful exercises. It is easy to see the danger of
any such limitation of the manner in which the Divine pleasure may be
intimated to individuals. It seems both probable and agreeable to
experience that a truly spiritual ministry should vary greatly both in
its form and in its degree of depth, in various minds. There is
obviously a childlike as well as a profound utterance of prayer and
praise, and surely of “testimony” or “prophecy” also. But to recognize
this diversity is not in the slightest degree to lower our idea of the
indispensableness of a Divine warrant for utterance. The scrupulous
jealousy which would limit all ministry to one type is a very different
thing from that spirit of holy fear which must in this matter, above
all, be the beginning of wisdom. I think that those who are the most
ready to accept with reverence whatever is offered in simple obedience,
the most desirous themselves to learn simply to obey, will also be the
first to feel that no one should venture to break the silence in which
inward prayer may be arising from other hearts except under the
influence (to use the time-honoured Quaker expression) of “a fresh
anointing from above.” The nearest approach to a description of what we
hold to be a right ministry would seem to be—words spoken during, and
arising from, actual communion with God.