Cylchgronau Cymru

THE WELSH CALVfflSTIC METHODIST RECORD. APRIL, 1852. THE DUTIES OF THE CHURCH TO HER MINISTERS. (Continued from page 53.) 4. The fourth duty we would notice as incumbent upon the church to her ministers is obedience and submission to them in their official capacity. They are taught to rule in the Lord, without intermeddling with, or seeking any authority over you, saving that which belongs to their office. And in that they are only the servants of another. They are to minister therein in love and humility, for the edification and not the destruction of the churches, avoiding that proud and haughty spirit in which the rulers of this world often exercise their authority. Thus doth Christ teach them—" Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you; but whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister. And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." The office-bearers of the Church are prohibited, not only from claiming unlawful authority, and making laws for the disciples of Christ, according to their own whims, but also from exercising even that authority With which they are endowed with a high hand and domineering spirit. " All the names given by the Holy Ghost unto those who preside in the church," say a Dr. Owen—" are exclusive of rigid authority, and pregnant with notions of spiritual care, duty, and benignity." In fact, the minister of the gospel, when his spirit is in a right frame, feels that to rule is to him nothing more than a duty—another form of obedience. He is the servant of all in exercising that authority; his life is one course of submission and servitude even to those over whom he rules. Yea, it is the weightiest part of all his obedience, and he sometimes feels it to be a burden, and like Moses or Jeremiah pants for release. He is often ready to cry—" Oh! that I had wings like a dove; then would I fly away