Blockheads and Parsons

By Daniel Davis
The following is an excerpt from John Wesley’s Address to the Clergy. In this address, he posits several things necessary of a minister and with razor sharp wit and insight confronts several issues of his regarding the ministry.

One of the problems faced in Wesley’s day was the concept that if the son of a family could not cut it at a variety of other occupations, he could always do well enough to be a clergy. Here is part of his response to that idea.

It is easy to perceive, I do not speak this for their sake; (for they are incorrigible;) but for the sake of parents, that they may open their eyes and see, a blockhead can never ‘do well enough for a Parson.’ He may do well enough for a tradesman; so well as to gain fifty or an hundred thousand pounds. He may do well enough for a soldier; nay, (if you pay well for it,) for a very well-dressed and well-mounted officer. He may do well enough for a sailor, and may shine on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war. He may do so well, in the capacity of a lawyer or a physician, as to ride in his gilt chariot. But O! Think not of his being a Minister, unless you would bring a blot upon your family, a scandal upon our Church, and a reproach on the gospel, which he may murder, but cannot teach.

Though we may read his words with a chuckle, he does touch on a vital issue: what is necessary to be a spiritual leader? Of course, we would say that God calls and chooses, not we ourselves. Wesley would agree. Yet we must ask, could not aptitude itself be an indicator of the presence or absence of God’s calling? If so, what aptitudes are necessary? How do we discern them? How does our ideal compare with our practice?

At what point do we say, “do well enough” doesn’t do?