When Meekness is Specially Required.
We must instruct gainsayers with meekness. It is prescribed to ministers that they "must not strive, but be gentle to all men, in meekness instructing those who oppose themselves." They serve the Prince of peace; they preach the gospel of peace; they are the ambassadors of peace; and therefore must be careful to keep the peace. The apostles were not military men, or men of strife and noise, but fishermen who followed their employment with quietness. It is highly necessary that the guides of the church be strict governors of their own passions. "Learn of me" says Christ, "for I am meek and lowly," and therefore fit to teach you. We must "contend earnestly," but not angrily—no, for "the faith once delivered to the saints." When we have ever so great an assurance that it is the cause of truth we are pleading, yet we must so manage our defense against those who gainsay, as to make it appear that it is not to confuse the erroneous, but to confute the error that we intend. This meekness would teach us not to prejudice a cause, nor to condemn an adversary without hearing him. It would teach us not to aggravate matters in dispute, nor to father upon an adversary, all the absurd consequences which we think may be inferred from his opinion. It would teach us to judge charitably of those who differ from us, and to forbear all personal reflections in arguing with them. God's cause needs not the patronage of sinful passions, which often give a mighty shock even to the truth for which we plead. Meekness would prevent and cure that bigotry which has been so long the bane of the church, and contribute a great deal toward that happy state in which the Lord shall be one, and his name one. Public reformations are carried on with most credit and comfort, and are most likely to settle on lasting foundations, when meekness sits at the stern and guides the motions of them. When Christ was purging the temple, though he was therein actuated by a zeal for God's house that even ate him up, yet he did it with meekness and prudence, which appeared in this instance, that when he drove out the sheep and oxen, which could easily be caught again, he said to them that sold doves, "Take these things hence." He did not let loose the dove and send them flying, for that would have been to the loss of the owners. Angry, noisy, bitter arguings, ill become the assertors of that truth which is great and will prevail. Our Lord Jesus lived in a very froward and perverse generation, yet it is said, "He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the street." Though he could break them as easily as a bruised reed, and extinguish them as soon as one could quench the wick of a candle newly lighted, yet he will not do it till the day comes when "he shall bring forth judgment unto victory." Moses dwelt with a very obstinate and stiff-necked people, and yet "My doctrine" says he, "shall drop as the rain, my speech distil as the dew." It was not the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire that brought Elijah into temper (for the Lord was not in them), but "the still small voice;" when he heard that, he wrapped his face in his mantle. In dealing with gainsayers, a spirit of meekness will teach us to consider their temper, education, custom, the power of prejudice they labor under, the influence of others upon them, and to make allowances accordingly, and not to call every false step an apostasy, and every error and mistake a heresy; methods of proceeding more likely to irritate and harden, than to convince and reduce gainsayers. I have heard it observed long since "that the scourge of the tongue has driven many out of the temple, but never drove any into it."