I came across this while searching the internet. Good stuff.

John Charles Ryle, better known as J. C. Ryle, was an English Anglican bishop and preacher of the late 19th century. He said this:

“We shall do well to bear in mind this fact. Ordination does not confer the saving grace of the Holy Spirit. Ordained men are not necessarily converted. We are not to regard them as infallible, either in doctrine or in practice. We are not to make popes or idols of them, and insensibly put them in Christ’s place. We are to regard them as ‘men of like passions’ with ourselves, liable to the same infirmities, and daily requiring the same grace. We are not to think it impossible for them to do very bad things, or to expect them to be above the reach of harm from flattery, covetousness, and the world. We are to prove their teaching by the word of God, and follow them so far as they follow Christ, but no further. Above all, we ought to pray for them, that they may be successors not of Judas Iscariot, but of James and John. It is a dreadful thing to be a minister of the Gospel! Ministers need many prayers.”