62
Pastoral Ministry
Never take advantage of the confidence your people place in
you—When ministers thus take advantage of the confidence the people
place in them and lead souls to ruin, they make themselves as much
more guilty than the common sinner as their profession is higher.
In the day of God, when the great Ledger of Heaven is opened, it
will be found to contain the names of many ministers who have made
pretensions to purity of heart and life and professed to be entrusted with
the gospel of Christ, but who have taken advantage of their position to
allure souls to transgress the law of God.—
Testimonies for the Church
5:143
.
Ministers violating the seventh commandment must not be en-
trusted with guardianship of souls—I have no real ground of hope
for those who have stood as shepherds to the flock, and have for years
been borne with by the merciful God, following them with reproof,
with warnings, with entreaties, but who have hid their evil ways, and
continued in them, thus defying the laws of the God of heaven by
practicing fornication. We may leave them to work out their own
salvation with fear and trembling, after all has been done to reform
them; but in no case entrust to them the guardianship of souls. False
shepherds! Oh, can it be that the men who have been engaged in this
work for a long time will corrupt their ways before the Lord after great
experience and special light?—
Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel
Workers, 428
.
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