Respect for station or calling so ample is here meant, as to satisfy
the average desire of approbation. The extent, to which this is
satisfied by the respect paid by the child, to the parent, for the
relation's sake, is so moderate, as one of the elements tending to the
formation of character, that it may be expected to operate generally as
it universally would, where the right spirit fully reigns. The remark
holds good, with moderate abatement, in the relation of teacher and
pupil.
In the infancy of the Christian church, the relation between pastor and
flock was closely analogous to that between parents and children. On
the one side were men of a disinterested and paternal spirit, so
earnestly living the new life hid with Christ in God, that hardly the
possibility could be conceived of a desire to exalt and magnify self,
over the ignorance and degradation of their spiritual charge. On the
other side were men, children in knowledge, incapable of estimating the
ministry simply after the consciousness of benefits received. We are
not then to condemn the arrangement, which clothed the ministry with an
official dignity, the office being revered independently of the claims
of the man; nor to wonder, if the arrangement outlived the necessity,
or passed the bounds of moderation; or if it was not fully calculated,
the danger, lest men of the primitive spirit yield places to those of
an inferior stamp; and how truly eternal vigilance is the cost, at
which all things here must be saved from their tendencies to
deterioration.
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