The house of prayer is a poor place in which to exhibit beads, ribbons, gewgaws, and trinkets. The evils of such extravagances are many. It keeps people from meeting, when they have not apparel as gorgeous as their neighbours. It loads the poor with burdens
too heavy to be borne to procure fashionable clothing. It leads many into temptation, debt, dishonesty, and sin. It causes many a poor shop-girl to work nearly all of Saturday night, that some customer’s fine clothes may be ready for the Sabbath show. It keeps people at home in cloudy or stormy weather, when, if they wore plain clothing, they could defy clouds and storms. It consumes the hours in dressing, crimping, and fussing, keeping people from worship, and wasting time, hindering the reading of the Scripture, and making Sabbath a day of folly. It makes the poor envious, malicious, and envious, and plants many a bitter thought in the minds of children and others, when they see their neighbours decked in finery, often unpaid for, and feel that people are respected, not for the integrity of character, but for the vanity of their clothes. It causes many a frivolous, trifling mind, to forget God and Christ and the Gospel, and to spend the hour appointed for religious service in comparing garments, studying fashions, and arranging their own gay attire. It causes vanity in the rich, and murmuring in the poor. It wastes the Lord’s money that is needed for more noble and important purposes. It leads the young in the path of pride, gratifying the lusts of the eye. It is forbidden in God’s Word. And yet we seldom find a minister that dare open his mouth against this fashionable sin. Let us dress plainly before the Lord, for example’s sake at home and abroad, for decency’s sake, and for the sake of Christ.—The Bulwark.
Sketch of Address
DELIVERED BY THE LATE REV. ALEXANDER GUNN,
SENIOR,* WATTEN,
AT INDUCTION, IN 1831, OF THE LATE REV. W. ROSS TAYLOR, D.D.,
AS MINISTER OF THURSO.
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God.”—2 TIM. ii. 15.
DEAR BROTHER,—We who bear the name of the ministers of Christ should often put the question to ourselves, Are we approved unto God or not? We ought often to consider what tokens we have in our own souls, and in our work, of being approved unto God. And we ought often to examine ourselves as to our own standing and progress in the Divine life, lest when we preach the gospel of salvation to others, we ourselves be cast away. Ministers are called in Scripture “the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. viii. 2, 3). Those, therefore, are surely approved unto God
who are concerned that Christ be magnified, and that self be subdued, who look on themselves as less than the least of all Christ’s servants. The apostle, although he thought highly of his office and of his great Master whose name and whose message he bore, yet he thought meanly of himself: “Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Thus all those who are approved unto God have low thoughts of themselves. “Not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.” Again, Christ’s true ministers seek to be approved unto God only in and through Christ. We cannot be approved unto God unless united to Christ by faith. Paul says, “Salute Apelles approven in Christ.” We are approved unto God only as seen in Christ, and our persons and our services are accepted only in the Beloved. And in order to this faith in Christ, and as a sure ground and foundation of your faith, I would remind you of Christ’s own promise to His servants, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” He promises to be with them, to teach them, to guide them, to strengthen them, to plead their cause, and to grant His blessing on their labours, that these may conduce to His own glory, and to the good of their fellow-men. If their labours are hard, His presence is sweet; if their labours are disappointing, His presence is consoling, yea, His presence can transfuse sweetness and peace into the most painful steps of their way. In this promise, “Lo, I am with you,” there is a sufficiency for your support under all the trials and discouragements you may meet with. Trials and discouragements you will meet with, for what is the work to which you are called? You are called to contend with the powers of darkness, to overturn the devil’s kingdom in the hearts of men, and to rescue the prey out of the mouth of the roaring lion. And in the face of all this, you may see in yourself nothing but weakness, emptiness, and helplessness, you may feel you are in yourself unable to overcome the least sin or to resist the least temptation. How then is the work to be carried on? Only in and through the faith of Christ’s word of promise, “Lo, I am with you.” That is sufficient for you, be against you what may; that is the promise you are to plead, and to employ in answer to all the difficulties that may beset you, and all the opposition that may assail you. No doubt you may sometimes want the sense of Christ’s presence, your inward peace may be interrupted, and your outward lot may be perplexing. But whatever be your case, cleave to the Lord’s word, and keep to His work, and assuredly He will cause you to hear His promise anew in your experience, saying to you, “Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God.” O! then cleave to the Lord at all times, cleave to His Word and to the work to which you are called, steadfastly pursue the great ends of the ministry, faithfully testify of Christ, and prayerfully warn souls, and you will find the Lord
ever nigh unto you for all that you wait upon Him for. And may God bless you out of Zion, and give you to see the good of Jerusalem, and at length lift up your head with joy.
Let me now say a few words to you, my brethren of this congregation, concerning the duties you owe to your pastor, who is, I hope, the Lord’s anointed unto you. He is now separated to the work of the ministry among you, and I trust it is in answer to many prayers on behalf of this event. Receive him, therefore, in the Lord with all gladness, and esteem him very highly in love for his work’s sake. Be not as those that lay snares for him who reproveth in the gate, for if you are really to profit by the ordinances dispensed by him, you must submit your consciences to the power of the Word of God of which he is an ambassador unto you. Also, let him have a special interest in your prayers. Pray for him personally, for the better it fares with your minister’s soul, the more will your own edification be promoted. And pray for him ministerially, that utterance may be given him that he may open his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel. His work is difficult, and there is no doubt but that he will meet with various trials and discouragements in the faithful discharge of the duties of his office. Be earnest, therefore, in pleading with the Lord that He would enable him to show himself approved unto God, that being by grace an able minister of the New Testament he may prove, in the performance of all that he is called unto, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Seek that he may be taught rightly to divide the Word of truth that God in Christ may be glorified, that the Church of God may be fed, and that the world lying in wickedness may be left without excuse. And finally, brethren, pastors, and people, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified, and may the Three-One-God get praise in you all, now and for ever.—Amen.