The Works of John Angell James, Vol. 8: Onewhile Minister of the Church Assembling in Carrs Lane Birmingham

Excerpt from The Works of John Angell James, Vol. 8: Onewhile Minister of the Church Assembling in Carrs Lane Birmingham
"An Earnest Ministry the Want of the Times," (first published in 1847, ) is here followed by shorter pieces of a kindred nature, so as to form a volume for the special use of Ministers, notwithstanding that repetitions of thoughts and illustrations will be discovered in them now that they are thus brought together. The letters, reprinted from the "Evangelical Magazine," may perhaps be considered superseded by the longer works, but they seemed so worthy of being preserved, that the Editor could not make up his mind to omit them, and the volume contains an extra number of pages.
The same volume of the Magazine contains a letter from the Author, on his plan of holding meetings such as described at pages 329 and 378; but it contains little either of information or remark which will not be found there.
The Author read at the meeting of the Congregational Union, in the autumn of 1845, a paper on the state of the Ministry in the Denomination, which produced a great impression on those who heard it; but it was never intended to be printed. Another of the pieces here given was read before the Union at a subsequent meeting. The circumstance of his having been appointed to prepare these addresses, gives additional weight to his opinions on these subjects.
Many of the Author's other writings also bear upon the Ministerial character and life. No man ever more entirely gave himself up to the duties of the office, studied it more deeply, or had better opportunities for observing the men sustaining it in his own denomination. He entered into all its duties, dangers, joys, and sorrows, and has left warnings and counsels in reference to each of them.
He asserted the rights of Ministers, and appealed to the churches on their behalf, in his Church Member's Guide, his Christian Professor, and his Sermon at Mr Mather's settlement.
His Charges to his brother at the beginning of his own ministry, and to his co-pastor at the end of it, gave not so much his own theory, or the fruits of his reading on the subject, as the details of what he was doing or had done, and the results of his own experience, expressed with all the anxiety inspired by his connection with the persons addressed.
His Sermon on Ministerial Activity counselled men bearing with him the heat and burden of the day. The fact that the Staffordshire Ministers (no doubt at the suggestion of his friend Mr Scales, ) went out of their county to invite him at the age of twenty-nine to address them at the formation of their Association, proves how soon he acquired that standing among his brethren which he preserved until his death.
But his printed sermons and addresses on the deaths of ministers, by the variety of the facts and characters enumerated, afforded him the best opportunities to delineate all the more important varieties of the ministerial character, and to deduce from each its appropriate lesson.