An Exhortation to Ministers

When true religion falls under a general and remarkable decay, it is time for all that are concerned to awaken and rouse themselves to fresh vigor and activity, in their several posts of service. If the interests of piety and virtue are things fit to be encouraged and maintained in the world, if the kingdom of the blessed God among men be worthy to be supported, surely it is a necessary and becoming zeal for every one who hath the honor to be a minister of this kingdom, to take alarm at the appearance of such danger; and each of us should enquire, What can I do to strengthen the things which remain and are ready to die, as well as to recover what is lost? Let my brethren, therefore, in the ministry, forgive me, if I presume at this season to set before them a plain and serious exhortation. It was prepared for a public solemnity, wherein an esteemed young friend and brother entered into the ministerial office; and upon this account I have used much more freedom in the language than I could ever pretend to justify on any other occasion. It was in the name of my reverend brethren then present, as well as in my own, that the exhortation addresses him in the manner following:

You have this day devoted and dedicated yourself to the service of Christ in the ministry of the gospel, and particularly for the edification of this church. Your brethren in the ministry have also done all that they can do toward the dedicating and devoting you to the same sacred service, by the various solemn transactions of the day; and now we entreat, we exhort, we charge you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the words of the great apostle, that you take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you fulfil it; Col. iv. 17. While we are endeavoring to press this charge on your conscience, we would speak also, each of us, to our own souls, and renew the awful charge upon ourselves. We would call to mind our own vows and engagements this day, and revive our decaying and dying zeal in this sacred and important service. What I have to say on this subject, shall be contained under four general heads:

I. Take heed to your own personal religion, as absolutely necessary to the right discharge of the ministerial office.

II. Take heed to your private studies and preparatious for public service.

III. Take heed to your public labors, and actual ministrations in the church.

IV. Take heed to your conversation in the world, and especially among the jiock of Christ over which you preside. Bear with me while I enlarge a little upon each of these.

Section I. — of a minister’s personal religion.

I. Take heed to your own personal religion, especially to the work of God in your own heart, as absolutely necessary to the right discharge of the ministerial work. Surely there is the highest obligation on a preacher of the gospel to believe and practise what he preaches. He is under the most powerful and sacred engagements to be a Christian himself, who goes forth to persuade the world to become Christians. A minister of Christ who is not a hearty believer in Christ, and a sincere follower of him, is a most shameful and inconsistent character, and forbids in practice what he recommends in words and sentences. But it is not enough for a minister to have a common degree of piety and virtue, equal to the rest of Christians; he should transcend and surpass others. The leaders and officers of the army under the blessed Jesus should be more expert in the Christian exercise, and more advanced in the holy warfare, than his fellow-soldiers are supposed to be; 2 Cor. vi. 4. In all things approving ourselves (saith the apostle) as the ministers of God in much patience, etc., and I may add, in much of every Christian grace. A little and low degree of it is not sufficient for a minister; see therefore not only that you practice every part and instance of piety and virtue which you preach to others, but abound therein, and be eminent beyond and above the rest, as your station in the church is more exalted, and as your character demands.

The world expects more from you, your own conscience requires more of you, and Christ your Lord both requires and expects much more religion to be found in you, who are the lea;.!er, than in the rest of the flock, since your advantages are much superior to most of theirs. Your time and life are in a special manner devoted to the things of God and religion, and the heavenly world: Your particular calling as a minister is much nearer akin to your general calling as a Christian, than that of the rest of mankind; and you ought to improve it for the advancement of your Christianity. You are more disengaged from the busy cares and embarrassments of this life than other Christians, that you may have your heart and soul more entirely employed in things that relate to the life to come.

Your daily duty calls you to be more conversant with the word of God, with the rules of piety, and the gospel of salvation: The precepts which require universal godliness, and the promises that encourage it, are better known to you, and your mind is better furnished with them, or at least it should be so. You are obliged to copy out the life of Christ more exactly, that you may be an example to the flock in every thing that is holy. Your temptations to a vain and worldly spirit, and a sensual temper of mind, are much fewer than those of many other men, whose hearts and hands are necessarily busied in the affairs of the world, and who are more frequently constrained into the company of sinners.

Now since your helps in the way to heaven, both as to the knowledge and practice of duty, are much greater than what others enjoy, and your obstacles and impediments are in some instances less than theirs, it will be a shameful thing in you, as it is a matter of shame to any of us, to sink below the character of other Christians in the practice of our holy religion, or even if we do not excel the most of them, since our obligations to it, as well as our advantages for it, are so much greater than others. Take heed therefore, to your own practical and vital religion, as to the truth, reality, and evidence of it, as to the liveliness and power of it, as to the growth and increase of it.

I. Take heed to your own practical religion, to the truth and reality of it, and the clear and undoubted evidence of it in your own conscience. Give double diligence to make your calling, and election sure. See to it with earnest solicitude, that you be not mistaken in so necessary and important a concern; for a minister who preaches up the religion of Christ, yet has no evidence of it in his own heart, will lie under vast discouragements in his work; and if he be not a real Christian himself, he will justly fall under double damnation. Keep a constant holy jealousy over your own soul, lest while you preach to the eternal salvation of others yourself become a cast-away, or disapproved of God, and for ever banished from his presence; 1 Cor. ix. 2*7. Call your own soul often to account; examine the temper, the frame, and the motions of your heart with all holy severity, so that the evidences of your faith in Jesus, and your repentance for sin, and your conversion to God, be many and fair, be strong and unquestionable; that you may walk on with courage and joyful hope toward heaven, and lead on the flock of Christ thither with holy assurance and joy.

II. Take heed to your own religion, as to the liveliness and power of it. Let it not he a sleepy thin in your bosom, but sprightly and active, and always awake. Keep your own soul near God in the same way in which you first came near him, i. e. by the media-Hon of Jesus Christ. Let no distance or estrangement grow between God and you, between Christ and you. Maintain much converse with God by prayer, by reading his word, by holy meditation, by heavenly-mindedness, and universal holiness in the frame and temper of your owu spirit. Converse with God and with your own soul in the duties of secret religion, and walk always in the world as under the eye of God. Every leader of the flock of God should act as Moses did, should live as seeing him that is invisible; Heb. xi. 27.

III. Take heed to your personal religion, as to the growth and increase of it. Let it be ever upon the advancing hand. Be tenderly sensible of every wandering affection toward vanity, every deviation from God and your duty, every rising sin, every degree of growing distance from God. Watch and iray much, and converse much with God, as one of his ministering angels in flesh and blood, and grow daily in conformity to God and your blessed Saviour, who is the first minister of his Father’s kingdom, and the fairest image of his Father. Such a conduct will have several happy influences towards the fulfilling of your ministry, and will render you more fit for every part of your public ministrations.

1. Hereby you will improve in your acquaintance with divine things, and the spiritual parts of religion, that you may better teach the people both truth and duty. Those who are much with God may expect and hope, that he will teach them the secret of his covenant, and the ways of his mercy, by communications of divine light to their spirits. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his covenant; Psalm xxv. 14. Luther used to say, that he got more knowledge in a short time by

prayer sojnetimes, than by the study and labor of many hours.

2. Hereby you will be more fit to speak to the great God at all times, as a son with holy confidence in him as your father, and you will be better prepared to pray with and for the people. You will have an habitual readiness for the work, and increase in the gift of prayer. You will obtain a treasure and fluency of sacred language, suited to address God on all occasions. Hereby you will gain a freedom and interest in the throne of grace, and become a more powerful intercessor for your people, under the influence of Jesus the great Intercessor, who is ever near the throne; and bo sure you improve your interest in heaven, for the edification of those committed to your care.

3. Hereby you will be kept near to the spriDg of all grace, to the fountain of strength and comfort in your work: You will be ever deriving fresh anointings, fresh influences, daily lights and powers, to enable you to go through all the difficulties and labors of your sacred office.

4. Hereby, when you come among men in your sacred ministrations, you will appear, and speak, and act like a man come from God; like Moses with a lustre upon his face when he had conversed with God; like a minister of the court of heaven employed in a divine office ;like a messenger of grace who hath just been with God, and received instructions from him; and the world will take cognizance of you, as they did of the apostles, that they were mere who had been with Jesus; Acts iv. 13.

5. This will better furnish you for serious convei-se with the souls and consciences of men, by giving you experimental acquaintance with the things of religion, as they are transacted in the heart. You will learn more of the springs of sin and hoHness, the workings of nature and grace, the deceitfuhiess of sin, the subtilty of temptation, and the holy skill of counterworking the snares of sin, and the devices of Satan, and all their designs to ruin the souls of men. You will speak with more divine compassion to wretched and perishing mortals; with more life and power to stupid sinners; with more sweetness and comfort to awakened consciences, and with more awful language and influence to backsliding Christians. You will hereby learn to preach more powerfully in all respects for the salvation of men, and talk more feelingly on every sacred subject, when the power, and sense, and life of GodHness are kept up in your own spirit. Then on some special occasions it may not be improper to borrow the language of David the prophet, and of St. Paul and St. John, two great apostles, though it may be best in public to speak in the plural number. We have believed, therefore we have spoken; what we have heard and learned from Christ, tve have declared unto you; what we have seen and felt, we are bold to speak; attend and we will tell you what God has done for our aouls. You may then at proper seasons convince, direct, and comfort others by the same words of light and power, of precept and promise, of joy and hope, which have convinced, directed and comforted you; a word coming from the heart will sooner reach the heart.

Section H. — of a minister’s private studies.

The second general head of exhortation relates to your own private studies: Take heed to these, that you may better fulfil your miuistiy. Give yourself (saith St. Paul to Timothy) to reading, to meditation, that your profiting may appear to all; 1 Tim. iv. 13, 15. These private studies are of various kinds, whether you consider them in general, as necessary to furnish the mind with knowledge, for the “office of the ministry; or in particular, as necessary to prepare discourses for the pulpit.

1st. Those general studies may be just mentioned in this place, which furnish the mind with knowledge for the work of a minister; for though it is known you have passed through the several stages* of science in your younger years, and have made a good improvement in them, yet a review of many of them will be found needful, and an increase in some (so far as leisure permits) may be proper and useful, even through the whole course of life. Among these, some are necessary to improve the reasoning faculty, to teach us to distinguish truth from falsehood, and to judge aright concerning any subjects that are proposed to us; such are the art of logic, which gives us rules for judging and reasoning, and some of the speculative principles of the mathematics, particularly the demonstrations of geometry, and the inferences or corollaries that are drawn from them, wherein we have the clearest and ftiirest examples to teach us reasoning by the practice of it.

And as all arts and sciences have a connection with and influence upon each other, so for a divine as well as for a physician, it is needful there should be some knowledge of nature and the powders of it in the heavens and earth, in the air and water, that we may thereby leai-n and teach more of the glories of our Creator, and more easily distinguish between what is natural and what is miraculous. This will enable us also to think and speak more justly almost upon any subject which occurs in our private reading, in our public ministry, or in our daily conversation; and particularly it is useful, if not necessary for a minister to have some acquaintance with human nature, in the two constituent parts of it, soul and body, and in the powers and passions of mankind, that we may better distinguish how far particular actions are natural and mechanical, and how far they are voluntary and moral, virtuous or sinful; how far they are influenced by fiesh and bloody and how far they are under the government of the will, which is of great im])ortance in order to judge right in many cases of conscience, and to give directions for the nnral or religious life.

It is needful also, and of considerable moment, that a divine should be acquainted with the arts of method and of oratory; the one to range our thoughts and discourses in due order, and to set the tilings of God before men in the plainest, the most conspicuous and convincing light; and the other to win upon the hearts of the hearers, and to lead them by a sweet and powerful influence on their affections, into the love and practice of religion. There are other parts of science wdiich are necessary for ministers to be well acquainted with, and particularly those which are the foundations of all religion; such as the knowledge of God and his attributes by the light of nature and reason, the knowledge of man as a creature of God, in his natural dependence upon his Creator, and in his moral relations both to God and his fellow-creatures, together wdth the obligations to duty which are derived thence, and which branch themselves into all the parts of morality and religion. It is requisite to have some acquaintance also with the heathen writers, the folly and madness of pagan idolatry, the history and the customs of ancient ages and nations, and the history of the church of the Jews and of Christians, in order to establish our faith in the doctrines of Christianity, and to prove the religion of Christ to be divine, and that the Bible is the word of God.

AVhen this great point is once settled, then our chief business will be to understand this Bible, and to find out the meaning of the holy Scriptures; and for this end (as well as for the reading of ancient heathen authors) it is requisite that we should have some skill in the tongues; and particularly those wherein the Scriptures were written, viz. Hebrew and Greek, that we may be able at least to judge a little for ourselves, concerning the translation of any text in our language. For this purpose also some knowledge of the customs of the ancients, both Jews and Pagans, is necessary, in order to give us a juster idea of many things recorded in Scripture; and we should get some acquaintance with geography and chronology, which will be of great service to set before our eyes the distant places and times wherein those ancient affairs were transacted, which the Scripture re-lates, and without which the history of Sciipture, as well as some of the prophecies, can never be well understood.

Nor is it an unprofitable study to read some of the writings of the fathers, who lived in the very first ages of Christianity, that we may know the sentiments and customs of those who lived nearest to the days of the apostles; this may give a little light to some expressions and phrases used in Scripture, and enable us sometimes better to understand what the evangelists and apostles wrote. But it must be confessed, that immediately after the apostolic age, and indeed before the apostles were dead, there were so many corruptions and mistakes both in faith and worship, so many fancies and inventions of men crept into the church, that there is scarce one ancient writer perfectly free, and not one of them to be entirely trustef], as a diroctor of our consciences, or as a regulator of our belief or practice. St. Paul himself tells us that in his days the mystery of iniquity began to work; 2 Thess. ii. 7. The fathers, as they are called, have many weak and fanciful things in their writings; it is the Bible alone that must be our guide; the word of the Lord is -pure and perfect.

Above all things therefore, the constant reading and study of the holy Scriptures are necessary, in order to a larger and more complete acquaintance with our divine religion. Here our faith and conscience may rest safely, in all our enquiries about matters of belief or practice. The doctrines, the commands, the typ<is and histories, the prophecies, the promises and threatenings of the word of God, are the brightest and noblest part of the knowledge of a minister. These are the things that are able to make us and our heathers wise unto salvation, and to furnish the man of God for every good word and work; 2 Tim. iii. 1*5, 16. Let us never imagine we know enough of divine tldogs, while we dwell in flesh and blood. God and Christ, and the things of heaven, are fruitful and inexhaustible subjects of our enquiry and knowledge; they are so in this world, and they will be so for ever in the world to come. The angels of God pry further into them, nov shall the sons of men ever know them to perfection. These will be the glorious objects of everlasting study, and everlasting entertainment.

I might add in the last place, that there are some other parts of human knowledge, which, though they are not necessary, yet are greatly ornamental to a minister, in the present age, which is so much enriched with knowledge, viz. some further acquaintance with modern geogi’aphy, the nations and kingdoms of this world; some general view of astronomy, the appearances, and seeming or real motions of the sun and moon, stars and planets, and of this earth, which is now generally agreed to be one of the planetary worlds; to which we may join some skill in philology, criticism on the writings of men as well as on Scripture, and various parts of science which go under the name of the belles lettres, or polire learning. These are such sort of accomplishments of the mind as will embellish the character of the minister, and render his person and his labors more acceptable to the world.

But amongst all these enquiiies and studies, and these vai-ious improvements of the mind, let us take heed that none of them carry our thoughts away too far from our chief and glorious design, that is, the ministry of the gospel of Christ. Let none of them intrench upon those hours which should be devoted to our study of the Bible, or preparations for the pulpit: and wheresoever we find our inclinations too much attached to any particular human science, let us set a guard upon ourselves, lest it rob us of our diviner studies, and our best improvement. A minister should remember, that himself, with all his studies, is consecrated to the service of the sanctuary: Let every thing be done therefore with a view to our great end: Let all the rest of our knowledge be like lines drawn from the vast circumference of universal nature, pointing to that divine centre, God and religion; and let us pursue every part of science with a design to gain better qualifications thereby for our sacred work. Forgive me, my friends, that I have dwelt so long on these general preparations for the work of the ministry. Though they are learned at the academy, yet I can by no means think it proper they should be left there and forgotten.

2nd. I come to speak of those particular studies which are preparatory for the public work of the pulpit; and here when you retire to compose a sermon, let your great end be ever kept in view, i, <?., to say something for the honor of God for the glory of Christy for the salvation of the souls of men; and for this purpose a few rules may perhaps be of some service. One great and general rule is, ask advice of Heaven by prayer about every part of your preparatory studies; seek the direction and assistance of the Spirit of God, for iuchning your thoughts to proper subjects, for guiding you to proper Scriptures, and framing your whole sermon both as to the matter and manner, that it may attain the divine and sacred ends proposed. But I insist not largely on this here, because yrayers for aids and counsels from Heaven belong to every part of your work, both in the closet, in the pulpit, and in your daily conversation. The particular rules for your preparatory work may be such as these: »-

L In choosing your texts, or themes of discourse, seek such as are most suited to do good to souls, according to the present wants, dangers, and circumstances of the people; whether for the instruction of the ignorant; for the conviction of the stupid and senseless; for the melting and softening of the obstinate; for the conversion of the wicked; for the edification of converts; for the comfort of the timorous and mournful; for gentle admonition of backsliders, or more severe reproof. Some acquaintance with the general case and character of your hearers is needful for this end.

IL In handling the text, divide, explain, illustrate, prove, convince, infer, and apply in such a manner, as to do real service to men, and honor to our Lord Jesus Christ. Do not say within yourself, how much or how elegantly I can talk upon such a text, but what can I say most usefully to those who hear me, for the instruction of their minds, for the conviction of their consciences, and for the persuasion of their hearts? Be not fond of displaying your learned criticisms in clearing up the terms and phrases of a text, where scholars only can be editied by them; nor spend away the precious moments of the congregation, in making them hear you explain what is clear enough before, and hath no need of explaining; nor in proving that which is so obvious that it wants no proof. This is little better than trifling with God and man. Think not, how can I make a sermon soonest and easiest? but how can I make the most profitable sermon for my hearers; not what fine things I can say, either in a way of criticism or philosophy, or in a way of oratory and harangue, but what powerful words I can speak to impress the consciences of them that hear with a serious and lasting sense of moral, divine, and eternal things. Judge wisely what to leave out as well as what to speak. Let not your chief design be to work up a sheet, or to hold out an hour, but to save a soul.

III. In speaking of the great things of God and religion, remember you are a minister of Christ and the gospel, sent to publish to men what God has revealed by his prophets and apostles, and by his Son Jesus; and not a heathen philosopher to teach the people merely what the light of reason can search out: You are not to stand up here as a professor of ancient or modern philosophy, nor an usher in the school of Plato or Seneca, or Mr. Locke; but as a teacher in the school of Christ, as a preacher of the New Testament. You are not a Jewish priest, to instruct men in the precise niceties of ancient Judaisms, legal rites and ceremonies; but you are a Christian minister; let Christianity, therefore, run through all your composures, and spread its glories over them all.

It is granted, indeed, that reasonings from the light of nature have a considerable use in the ministry of the gospel. It is by the principles of natural religion, and by reasoning I’rom them on the wonderful events of piophecy and miracle, &c. that we ourselves must learn the truth of the Christian religion, and we must teach the people to build their faith of the gospel on just and rational grounds; and this may perhaps, at some time or other, require a levy whole discourses on some of the principal themes of natural religion, in order to introduce and display the religion of Jesus. But such occasions will but seldom arise in the course of your ministry. It is granted also that it is a very useful labor sometimes in a sermon, to shew how far the light of nature and reason will carry us on in search of duty and happiness; and then to manifest how hnppily the light of Scripture supplies the deficiencies of it; that the people may know how gi-eatly they are indebted to the peculiar lavor of God for the book of divine revelation.

And yet further, since the whole of natural religion is contained and included in the gospel of Christ, it is proper sometimes to show that reason as well as Sciipture confirms the same doctrines, and obliges us to practise the same duties. It is certain also that human reason, though it could not discover the religion of Christ, yet it is able to point out many admirable glories and divine condescendencies in this religion when it is discovered. It is good to impress the conscience, as well as instruct the understanding, by the two great lights that God has given us, viz. reason and revelation. Two such pillars will support the structure of religion better than one. And when we happen to hear any of our brethren occasionally insisting on the themes of natural religion, and enforcing the belief of truths, or the practice of duties, by the principles of reason, let us candidly suppose they are pursuing some of these designs which I have now mentioned, and that the principles and topics of revelation and Christianity are in reserve, to be displayed at large in their following sermons.

In general it is most safe and honorable for a minister of Christ, to make the gospel appear to be the reigning principle in his discourses, and make his hearers see how gloriously it has improved the religion of nature. If you speak of our natural knowledge of the attributes of God, and the truths of religion that reason dictates, show how they are all exalted, how brightly they shine in the gospel of Christ, and what new discoveries and. new glories relating to them are derived from the Holy Scriptures. If you speak of the duties which men owe to God, or to one another, even those which are found out by reason and natural conscience, show how the gospel of Christ hath advanced and refined every thing that nature and reason teach us: Enforce these duties by motives of Christianity, as well as by philosophical arguments drawn from the nature of things: Stir up the practice of them by the examples of Christ and his apostles by that heaven and that hell which are revealed to the world by Jesus Christ our Saviour: Impress them on the heart by the constraining influence of the mercy of God and the dying love of our Lord Jesus Christ, by his glorious appearance to fudge the liuing and the dead, and by our blessed hope of attending him on that day. These are the appointed arguments of our holy religion, and may expect more divine success.

When you have occasion to represent what need there is of diligence and labor in the duties of holiness, show also what aids are promised in the gospel, to humble and feeble souls who are sensible of their own frailty to resist temptations, or to discharge religious and moral duties; and what influences of the Holy Spirit may be expected by those who seek it. Let them know that Christ is exalted to send forth his Spirit, to bestow repentance and sancti-Jication as well as forgiveness; for without him we can do nothingr; Acts V. 31. John xv. 5.

As there are seasons and times proper to impress the mind with the glories of God our Creator, and to enforce the duties of morality, to teach men to govern their unruly appetites and passions, to bind all the rules of virtue on the consciences of men, and press them with zeal and fervor, according to the example of the apostles in the New Testament; so there are times and seasons to treat more at large on the peculiar truths of revelation and the glories of Christianity, both for the honor of our Saviour, and for the welfare of souls. For this reason they are so largely insisted on by the holy writers, those blessed patterns of our ministry. There must be some seasons allotted to the descriptions of the sinful and miserable state of mankind as revealed in Scripture; to the dignity of the person of Christ the Redeemer, the only begotten Son of God, and the Son of Man; to the covenant of grace, of pardon and salvation made with men, in and through this glorious Mediator; to the incarnation, life and death, the sacrifice and atonement, the resurrection, intercession, and universal government and lordship of Jesus Christ, and his coming to judge the world at the last day; and to the appointed methods of our participation of the blessings which he bestows. These illustrious doctrines are big with a thousand duties both to God and man; all the practices of faith and love, repentance and universal holiness flow from them by plain and easy deduction; all the sacred rules of piety and virtue, sobriety, justice and goodness, the holy skill of living and dying in the love and favor of God, are the most natural and happy inferences from these sublime truths of our religion. We preach the gospel in a very defective manner, if we neglect the moral or divine duties which are derived from the faith of Christ.

If you would raise the hearts of your hearers to a just and high esteem of this gospel of grace, and impress them with an awful sense of the divine importance and worth of it, be not afraid to lay human nature low, and to represent it in its ruins by the fall of the first Adam. It is the vain exaltation of ruined nature, that makes the gospel so much despised in our age. Labor, therefore, to make them see and feel the deplorable state of mankind as described in Scripture, that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and a sentence of death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; let them hear and know that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, that there is none righteous, no, not one; that every mouth may he stopped, and all the world may appear guilty he/ore God. Let them know that it is 7iot in man that walketh to direct his steps; that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any good thing; that we are without strength, alienated from the l/fe of God through the ignorance and darkness of our understandings, and are by nature children of disobedience, and children of wrath; that we are unable to recover ourselves out of these depths of wretchedness without the condescensions of divine grace, and that the gospel of Christ is introduced as the only sovereign remedy and relief under all this desolation of nature, this overwhehniug distress; neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved; Acts iv. 12. And they that wilfully and obstinately reject this message of divine love, must perish without remedy and without hope; for there remains no more sacrifice for sin, hut a certain fearful expectation of vengeance; Heb. x. 26. By this conduct you will approve yourself to be a faithful messenger of Christ in good earnest, a minister of the New Testament, and a workman that needs not to he ashamed, if you take special seasons to discover to men what the word of God reveals concerning their misery, and declare to them the whole counsel of God for their salvation. I entreat you, my dear friend and brother, to get it deeply impressed on your heart, that as (I believe) your real and sincere design is to save the souls of men from sin and eternal death, so it is the gospel of Christ which is the only instrument whereby you can ever hope to attain this blessed end; and that for two reasons:

1. It is this gospel which, in its own nature, is most happily suited in all the parts of it to this great design; and no other schemes which the wit or reason of man can contrive are so: It is the voice of pardoning grace and reconciliation to God by Jesus Christ, that powerfully allures and encourages the awakened sinner, to return to his duty to God and his Maker: It is the promise of divine assistance to enable us to mortify sin, and to practise holiness, which animates the feeble creature to attempt it: It is the attractive view of heavenly blessedness as revealed in the gospel, that invites the soul onward to make its way through all the dangerous enticements and terrors of this world, which is at enmity with God. The divine fitness of this gospel of grace, to restore fallen man to the favor and image of his Maker, is so vaiious and

12=^ astonishing, that to describe it in all instances would require a laro-e volume.

And 2. As the gospel is so happily suited to attain these ends, so it is the only eftectual means that God has appointed, in the lips of his ministers, for this purpose. It is with these wondrous discoveries of this gospel, that he furnished the minds and lips of the fishermen and illiterate persons, when he sent them forth to convert and save a perishing world. These were the sacred weapons with which they were armed, when our exalted Saviour gave them commission to travel through the dominions of Satan, which were spread over the heathen countries, and to raise up a kingdom for himself amongst them. It was with principles, rules, and motives, derived from this gospel, that they were sent to attack the reigning vices of mankind, to reform profligate nations, and to turn them from dumb idols to serve the living God. And though St. Paul were a man of learning above the rest, yet he was not sent to preach the enticing words of mart’s wisdom nor to talk as the disputers of the age and philosophers did in their schools; but his business was to preach Christ crucified: Though this doctrine of the cross and the Son of God hanging upon it, was a stumbling block to the Jeios, and the Greeks counted it foolishness, get to them that were called, both Jews and Greeks, this doctrine was the power of God, and the wisdom of God for the salvation of men. And therefore St. Paul determined to know nothing among them, in comparison of the doctrine of Christ and him crucified. These were the weapons of his warfare, which were mighty through God to the pulling down of the strong holds of sin and Satan in the hearts of men, and brought every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. It was by the ministration of this gospel that the fornicators were made chaste and holy, and idolaters became woi’shippers of the God of heaven; that thieves learned honest labor, and the covetous were taught to seek treasure in heaven; the drunkards grew out of love with their cups, and renounced all intemperance; the revilers governed their tongues and spoke well of their neighbors, and the cruel extortioners and oppressors learned to practise compassion and charity: These vilest of sinners, these children of hell, were made heirs of the kingdom of heaven, being washed, being sanctified, being justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spii-it of our God; 1 Cor. vi. 9, &c.

Had you all the refined science of Plato or Socrates, all the skill in morals that ever was attained by Zeno, Seneca or Epictetus; were you furnished with all the flowing oratory of Cicero, or the thunder of Demosthenes; were all these talents and excellencies united in one man, and you were the person so richly endowed, and could you employ them all in every sermon you preach, yet you could have no reasonable hope to convert and save one soul in Great Britain, where the ^-ospel is published, while you lay aside the glonous gospel of Christ, and leave it entirely out of your discourses. Let me proceed yet further and say, had you the fullest acquaintance that ever man acquired with all the principles and duties of natural religion, both in its regard to God and to your fellow-creatures, had you the skill and tongue of an angel to range all these in their fairest order, to place them in their fullest light, and to pronounce and represent the whole law of God with such force and splendor to a British auditory, as was done to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, you might perhaps lay the consciences of men under deep conviction, /or by the law is the knowledge of sin: But I am fully persuaded you would never reconcile one soul to God, you would never change the heart of one sinner, nor bring him into the fovor of God, nor fit him for the joys of heaven, without this blessed gospel which is committed to your hands.

The great and glorious God is jealous of his own authority, and of the honor of his Son Jesus; nor will he condescend to bless any other methods for obtaining so divine an end, than what he himself has prescribed; nor will his Holy Spirit, whose office is to glorify Christ, stoop to concur with any other sort of means for the saving of sinners, where the name and offices of his Son, the only appointed Saviour, are known, and despised, and neglected. It is the gospel alone that is the 2mwer of God to salvation. If the prophets will not stand in his counsel, nor cause the people to hear his words, they will never be able to turn Israel froi7i the htiquity of their loays, nor the evil of their doings; Jer. xxiii. 22.

Perhaps it may be said in opposition to this advice, that the peculiar doctrines and discoveries of the gospel of Christ, were necessary to be published in a more large and particular manner, at the first institution of our religion, and to be insisted upon with greater frequency among the Jews, and especially among the Gentiles, who before were unacquainted with the name, the history, and the several offices of the blessed Jesus; but there is no such need of repeating them in Christian countries, where people are trained up from their infancy to know Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour of the world: And therefore it is more needful in our land to preach upon the natural duties of piety toward God, of justice and truth, and goodness toward our neighbor, and self-government and sobriety with regard to ourselves. And this may be done with good success among the people, upon the plain principles and motives which arise from the very nature of things, from the beauty and excellency of virtue, and its tendency to make all men happy, and the natural deformity of vice, and the mischiefs that attend it. But give me leave to answer this objection with these three or four inquiries:

First, Was it not the special design of these doctrines of Christ, when they were first graciously communicated to the world, to reform the vices of mankind which reason could not reform, and to restore the world to piety and virtue, for which the powers of reason appeared so feeble and impotent? The nations of the earth had made long and fruitless essays, what the light of nature and philosophy would do, to bring wandering, degenerate man back again to his Maker: Fruitless and long essays indeed, when, after some thousands of years, the world, who had forgotten their Maker and his laws, still ran further from God, and plunged themselves into all abominable impieties and corrupt practices! Now, if the all-wise God saw the gospel of Christ, to be so fit and happy an instrument for the recovery of wretched man to religion and morahty; if he furnished his apostles with these doctrines for this very purpose, and pronounced a blessing upon them as his own appointment, why should we not suppose, that this gospel is still as fit in its own nature for the same purposes, as it was at first? And why may we not hope, the same heavenly blessing, in a great measure to remain upon it, for these purposes, to the end of the world? While we introduce these divine topics, drawn from the gospel of Christ, to enforce piety and virtue upon the consciences of men, God forbid that we should abandon those arguments, drawn from the nature of things, and from human reason: The gospel does by no means exclude them, but clears, and enlightens, and advances them all, and gives them tenfold power for the purposes for which they are designed. The blessed apostles themselves sometimes made use of them; and they may be spread abroad in a rich variety by every preacher of the gospel to much better purpose, than a Seneca, or an Epictetus could display them. All khids of efforts are necessary, and every sort of weapon may be used in its proper place, to make assaults upon the kingdom of Satan in the hearts of naen; but it is evident, that the divine principles and motives of Christianity were sent us down from heaven, as more sovereign remedies for the mortal diseases of the soul, and mv more eftectual for the reformation of mankind.

Secondly, If the beautiful ideas of virtue and religion, and the natural tendency of it to make men happy, be such suflScient motives to enforce the practice of it, I would inquire, why was not the

Gentile world reformed without the gospel? Why were the polite and knowing nations so abominably and almost universally sunk into shameful vices? Why did not the self-sufficient reward of virtue constrain greater numbers of mankind to change their manners, and to practise good morality? If this had been the best and most effectual way of changing the hearts and of reforming the profligate lives of men, why was not St. Paul sent only or chieliy with these principles and instructions of reason, to talk of the divine beauty of religion and excellency of virtue amongst them, and the advantages that it brought into human society and private life? What need was there that he should be commissioned to preach the doctrine of the cross of Christ, and the love of the Son of God descending from heaven to die for” sinners? What makes him dwell so much upon the recovery of a sinful world to God, by the atonement and sufferings of the blessed Jesus, as a means and motive to persuade sinners to forsake their sins, and to be reconciled to God? Why are the evangelic topics so often insisted on, and represented in lively language, for the encouragement of virtue and piety, and as a guard against sin? What need had he of the history of a crucijied Son of God rising from the dead, ascending to heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, interceding for shiners, and governing the world, in order to reform mankind from vice and impiety? Why does the Scripture tell us, that the hearts of men are to be purified by faith, that believing on the Son of God is the way to get the victory over the world? What need was there that St. Paul should teach us, that our sins are to be mortified in us by the assistance of the Holy Spirit; or that St. Peter or St. John should tell us, that we must he horn again, and made new creatures by the word of God, and by this blessed Spirit and his influences? Were all these doctrines so needful in the primitive days, and attended with such illustrious and divine success, and are they grown useless and needless now?

Let me enquire, in the third place, Are all the hearers that make up our public assemblies so well acquainted with the doctrines of Christ and the gospel in our day, that they have no need to be taught them? Have they all enjoyed so happy an education from their infancy, as to understand the principles of the Christian religion, and the peculiar articles of the faith, which are so necessary to restore sinners to a divine life? Do they so much as know that they are by nature dead in tresjMsses and sins? And do they know bow to apply those vital truths to the blessed purposes of godliness? I am sure when we make particular enquiries, we find many of them ignorant enough both of themselve? and their

2V8 ClIOICEWORKSOF

Saviour, find they have need to he taught the first 2yrinciple8 of the oracles of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Shall I enquire yet farther, Is this a day when we should leave the peculiar articles of the religion of Christ out of our ministrations, when the truth of them is boldly called in question, and denied by such multitudes who dwell among us? Is this a proper time for us to forget the name of Chnst in our public labors, when the witty talents and reasonings of men join together, and labor Lard to cast out his sacred name with contempt and scorn? Is it so reasonable a practice in this age, to neglect these evangelic themes, and to preach up virtue, without the special principles and motives with which Christ has furnished us, when there are such numbers amongst us who-are fond of heathenism, who are endeavoring to introduce it again into a Christian country, and to spread the poison of infidelity through a nation called by his name? If this be our practice, our hearers will begin to think indeed that infidels may have some reason on their side, and that the glorious doctrines of the gospel of Christ are not so necessary as our fathers thought them, while they find no mention of them in the pulpit, no use of them in our discourses from week to week, and from month to month, and yet we profess to preach for the salvation of souls. Will this be our glory to imitate the heathen philosophers, and to drop the Gospel of the Son of God? To be Goujpliniented by unbeUevers as men of superior sense, and as deep reasoners, while we abandon the faith of Jesus, and starve the souls of our hearers, by neglecting to distribute to them this bread of Ufe which came down from heaven O let us who are his ministers remember the last words of our departing Lord, Go, preach the gospel to every nation: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned; and lo, I am with you alway, to the end of the world j Mark xvi. 15, 16. Matt, xxviii. 20. Let us fulfil the command, let us publish the threatening with the promise, and let us wait for the attendant blessing.

Wheresoever this gospel is published, with clear and proper evidence, the belief of it is made necessary to salvation, and it is part of the commission of ministers to make known this to the people; nor is there any thing else which can stand in the room and stead of this gospel, or attain those happy purposes for which this holy institution was designed. Unless, therefore, you have such a high esteem for the gospel of Christ, and such a sense of its divine worth and power, as to take it along with you when you desire to save souls, you had better lay down the ministry and abandon your sacred profession; for you will but spend your strength for nought and waste your breath in vain declamations: You will neither saie your own soul, nor them that hear you; and you will have a terrible account to give at the last day, what you have done with this gospel which was entrusted with you for the salvation of men: You have hid this divine talent in the earthy you have traded entirely with your own stock, you have comjmssed yourself about with sparks of light of your own kindling, and you must lie down in sorrow with eternal loss.

Forgive me, my dear brother and friend, and you, my beloved and honored brethren in the ministry, forgive me, if I have indulged too much vehemence in this part of my discourse; if I have given too great a loose to pathetic language on this needful subject. I doubt not but your own consciences bear me witness, that this elevated voice is not the voice of reproof, but of friendly warning; and, I persuade myself, that you all join with me in this sentiment, that if ever we are so happy as to reform the lives of our hearers, to convert their hearts to God, and to train them up for heaven, it must be done by the principles of the gospel of Christ. On the occasion of such a head of advice, therefore, I assure myself you will forgive these warm emotions of spirit. Can there be any juster cause or season to exert fervor and zeal, than while we are pleading for the name, and honor, and kingdom of our adored Jesus? Let him live, let him reign for ever on his throne of glory; let him live upon our lips, and reign in all our ministrations: Let him live in the hearts of all our hearers; let him live and reign through Great Britiau, and through all the nations, till iniquity be subdued, till the kingdom of Satan be destroyed, and the whole world are become willing subjects to the sceptre of his grace! Thus have I finished my third exhortation relating to the preparation of your sermons for the pulpit.

IV. In addressing your discourse to your hearers, remember to distinguish the different characters of saints and sinners, the converted and the unconverted, the sincere Christian and the formal professor, the stupid and the awakened; the diligent and backsliding, the fearful or humble soul, and the obstinate and presumptuous; and in various seasons introduce a word for each of them. Thus you will divide the word of God aright, and give to every one their portion; 2 Tim. ii. 15. The general way of speaking to all persons in one view, and under one character, as though all your hearers were certainly true Christians, and converted already, and wanted only a little farther reformation of heart and life, is too common in the world; but I think it is a dangerous way of preaching: It hath a powerful and unhappy tendency to lull unregenerate sinners asleep in security, to flatter and deceive them with dreams of happiness, and make their consciences easy without a real conversion of heart to God.

Let your hearers know that there is a vast and unspeakable difference betwixt a saint and a sinner, one in Christ, and one out of Christ; between one whose heart is in a state of corrupt nature or unrenewed, and one that is in a state of grace, and renewed to tiiith and holiness; between one who is only horn of the fleshy and is a child of wrath, and one who is horn again or horn of the Spirit and is become a child of God, a member of Christ, and an heir of heaven. Let them know that this distinction is great and necessary; and it is not made (as some have imagined) by the water of baptism, but by the operations of the word and Spirit of God on the hearts of men, and by their diligent attendance on all the appointed means and methods of converting grace. It is a most real change, and of infinite importance, and however it has been derided by men, it is glorious in the eyes of God, and it will be made to appear so at the last day in the eyes of men and angels; but it will bring with it infinite terror to those, who thought themselves safe in a common careless profession of Christianity, without any inward and divine change of heart. That little treatise, written by the learned Mr. John Jennings, concerning the preaching of Christ and experimental preaching, has many valuable hints relating to these two last particulars of my exhortation.

V. Lead your hearers wisely into the knowledge of the truth, and teach them to build their faith upon solid grounds. Let them first know why they are Christians, that they may be firmly established in the belief and profession of the reh’gion of Christ; that they may be guarded against all the assaults of temptation and infidelity in this evil day, and may be able to render a reason of the hope that is in them; furnish them with arguments in opposition to the rude cavils and blasphemies which are frequently thrown out in the world against the name and doctrines of the holy Jesus.

Then let the great, the most important, and most necessary articles of our religion, be set before your hearers in their fairest light. Convey them into the understandings of those of meanest capacity, by condescending sometimes to plain and familiar methods of speech; prove these important doctrines and duties to them by all proper reasons and arguments; but as to the introducing of controversies into the pulpit, be not fond of it, nor frequent in it: In your common course of preaching avoid disputes, especially about things of less importance, without an apparent call of Providence.

Relig-ious controversies, frequently introduced without real necessity, have an unhappy tendency to hurt the spirit of true godliness both in the hearts of preachers and hearers; 1 Tim. iv. 7. And have a care of laying too much stress on the peculiar notions, and terms, and phrases of the little sects and parties in Christianity; take heed that you do not make your hearers bigots and uncharitable, while you endeavor to make them knowing Christians. Establish them in all the chief and most important articles of the gospel of Christ, without endeavoring to render those who differ from you odious in the sight of your hearers. Whensoever you are constrained to declare your disapprobation of particular opinions, keep up and manifest your love to the persons of those who espouse them, and especially if they are persons of virtue and piety.

VI. Do not content yourself to compose a sermon of mere doctrinal truths and articles of belief, but into every sermon (if possible) bring something practical. It is true, knowledge is the foundation of practice; the head must be furnished with a degree of knowledge, or the heart cannot be good: But take heed that dry speculations and mere schemes of orthodoxy do not take up too large a part of your composures; and be sure to impress it frequently on your hearers, that holiness is the great end of all knowledge, and of much more value than the sublimest speculations; nor is there any doctrine but what requires some correspondent practice of piety or virtue. And among the practical parts of Christianity, sometimes make it your business to insist on those subjects which are inward and spiritual, and which go by the name of expeiimental religion. Now and then take such themes as these, viz. the first awakenings of the conscience of a sinner by some special and awful providence, by some particular passages in the word of God, in pious writings or public sermons, the inward terrors of the mind, and fears of the wrath of God, which sometimes accompany such awakenings: the temptations which arise to divert the mind from them, and to soothe up the sinner in the course of his iniquities; the inward conflicts of the spirit in these seasons, the methods of relief under such temptations, the arguments that may fix the heart and will for God, against all the enticements and oppositions of the world; the labors of the conscience fluctuating between hope and fear; the rising and working of indwelling sin in the heart; the subtle excuses framed by the flesh for the indulgence of it; the ‘peace of God derived from the gospel allaying the inward terrors of the soul under a sense of guilt; the victories obtained over strong corruptions and powerful temptations, by the ftiith of unseen things, by repeated addresses to God in prayer, by trusting in Jesus the firivat Mediator, who is made of God to us wisdom and rhjhteousjiess sanctijication and redemption.

While you are treatino- on these subjects, give me leave to put you again in mind, that it will sometimes have a very happy influence on the minds of hearers, to speak what you have learned from your own experience, though there is no need that you should tell them pul)licly it is your own: You may inform them what you borrowed from your own observation, and from the experience of Christians, ancient or modern, who have passed through the same trials, who have wrestled with the same corruptions of nature, who have grapy)led with the same difficulties, and at last have been made conquerors over the same temptations. As face answers face in the (/lass, so the heart of one man answers to another y and the workings of the different principles of flesh and spirit, corrupt nature, and renewing grace, have a great deal of resemblance in the hearts of different persons who have passed through them. This sort of instruction, drawn from just and solid experience, will animate and encourage the young Christian, that begins to shake off the slavery of sin, and to set his ftice towards heaven: This will make it appear, that religion is no impracticable thing; it will establish and comfort the professors of the gospel, and excite them with new vigor to proceed in the way of ftiith and holiness; it will raise a steadfast courage and hope, and will generally obtain a most happy effect upon the souls of the hearers, beyond all that you can say to them from principles of mere reasoning and dry speculation; and especially where you have the concurrent experience of any scriptural examples.

VII. Whether you are discoursing of doctrine or of duty, take great care that you impose nothing on your hearers, either as a matter of faith or practice, but what your Lord and Master Jesus Christ has imposed. These are the limits of the commission which Christ gave to the first ministers of the gospel; Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. Go disciple all nations, baptizi7ig them who are willing to become my disciples, and teach them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you. He has not given leave to his ministers, whether separate in their single congregations, or united in synods or councils, the least degree of power to appoint one new article of faith, nor to enjoin any new sort of devotion or practice, nor to impose any one life or ceremony of worship but what he himself has framed and enjoined. And yet, to our universal reproach, there is scarce any party of Christians but hath been too ready to impose some doctrines upon the belief of their proselytes which Christ has not imposed, or to require of them some practices or some abstinences about meats or days, or things indifferent, which Christ lias not required. It is this assuming power that has turned Christianity into a hundred shaypes, and everyone oftliem in some deg-ree unlike the glorious gospel. It is this has brought in all the superstitions and fooleries, the splendid vanities, the useless austerities, and the childish trifles of the Greek and Romish churches; and it is this has too far corrupted the purity, and defaced the beauty of most of those churches who boast of reformation, and wear the Protestant name.

Now to discourage and deter us all from such presumption, let us remember that this imposing spirit has generally found it necessary to support its commands with penalties and persecutions. Hence proceed the imprisonments and the murders, the cruelties, the tortures, and the wild and bloody fury that has ravaged the nations of Christendom, and cast a foul and lasting blot and infamy upon the religion of the blessed Jesus. Blessed Jesus! when shall this stain be washed out from thy religion, and this scandal die? If we survey the persecuting laws and edicts that have been framed and executed in Great Britain, or in foreign nations, in ancient or later times, we shall seldom find that the plain and explicit doctrines and duties of the gospel have been guarded with these terrors; but it is the wretched inventions of men, it is the institutions of pnests, or the appointments of kings (all which have been mere additions to the word of God), that have had the honor, shall I say, or the infamy to be thus guarded with bloody severities, and with engines of death. It is the absolute determination of men upon some points which Christ has not plainly determined; it is some forms of pretended orthodoxy which Scripture knows nothing of, or at least which the word of God has not made necessary to our faith; it is some ceremonies or modes of worship which Christ and his apostles never commanded, that have generally been the shameful occasion of excomnmnications and prisons, of banishments and martyrdoms. See to it therefore with a holy and religious care, when you dictate any thing to your hearers as necessary to be believed or practised, that you have the plain and evident direction of Scripture to support you in it.

It is this corrupt mixture of human opinions, and human forms of divine service, that has so disguised the pure religion of the gospel, as to tempt the deist to renounce it entirely. The pure religion of Jesus has divine charms in it, and is, like the author, altogether lovely; but when on one hand it is corrupted and debased, by new doctrines foisted into our creeds, and new mysteries

-svbich men have invented to overload our faith; when it is incumbered by new rituals of worship, or imposed rules and practices ou the other hand, which the holy Scripture hath not enjoined; when men make articles of faith, which are no where plainly levealed; when they pronounce that to be a sin which God hath no where forbidden, and appoint that to be a duty which God hath never commanded (which I take to be the veiy nature of superstition), it casts such a veil of deformity over the beauties of the gospel, that it is no wonder if the men of reason start at it, and pronounce against it. While we hold forth this confused mass and mixture of things divine and human, and call it the religion of Christ, we tempt the men of infidelity to establish themselves in their unbelief; and they will hardly now give a favorable hearing to the pure doctrine of the gospel, because they have been so much disgusted with the sight of it, in a corrupt and superstitious dress.

But in this state of frailty and imperfection, dangers attend us on either hand. As we must take heed that we do not add the foncies of men to our divine religion, so we should take equal care that we do not curtail the appointments of Christ. With a sacred vigilance and zeal, we should maintain the plain, express, and necessary articles, that we find evidently written in the word of God, and suffer none of them to be lost through our default. The world has been so long imposed upon by these shameful additions of men to the gospel of Christ, that they seem now to be resolved to bear them no longer. But they are unhappily running into another extreme; because several sects and parties of Christians have tacked on so many false and unbecoming ornaments to Christianity, they resolve to deliver her from these disguises; but while they are paring otf all this foreign trumpery, they too often cut her to the quick, and sometimes let out her life-blood (if I may so express it), and maim her of her very limbs and vital parts. Because so many irrational notions and follies have been mixed up with the Christian scheme, it is now a modish humor of the age to renounce almost every thing that reason doth not discover, and to reduce Christianity itself to little more than the light of nature and the dictates of reason. And under this sort of influence, there are some who are believers of the Bible and the divine mission of Christ, and dare not renounce the gospel itself; yet they interpret some of the peculiar and express doctrines of it into so poor, so narrow, and so jejune a meaning, that they suffer but little to remain beyond the articles of natural religion. This leads some of the learned and polite men of the age to explain away the sacrifice and the atonement imiila for our sins by the death of Christ, and to bereave our religion of the ordinary aids of the Holy Spirit, both which are so plainly and expressly revealed, and so frequently repeated in the New Testament, and which are two of the chief glories of the blessed gospel, and which perhaps are two of the chief uses of those sacred names of the Son and the Holy Spirit, into which we are baptized. It is this very humor that persuades some persons to reduce the injury and mischief that we have sustained by the sin and fall of Adam, to so slight a bruise and so inconsiderable a wound, that a small matter of grace is needful for our recovery; and accordingly they impoverish the rich and admirable remedy of the gospel to a very culpable degree, supposing no more to be necessary for the restoration of man, than those few ingredients, which in their o[)inion, make up the whole composition. Hence it comes to pass, that the doctrine of regeneration, or an entire change of corrupt nature by a principle of divine grace, is almost lost out of their Christianity; or at least they suppose renewing grace and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, and his assistances, to carry nothing more in them than the outward divine messages and discoveries of grace, made and attested by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit to the Christian world. This is a dangerous extreme on the other hand; I hope it will never obtain amongst us Protestant dissenters; but since it is a fashionable error, you ought to set a stricter guard against it. As he that adds or takes away from the words of the jjrophccy in the latter end of the book of God, is left under a curse; Rev. xxii. 18. 19. so we should set a holy guard upon ourselves, lest we add any thing to the gospel of Christ; or take any thing from it, lest we expose ourselves to the same divine indignation.

To avoid both these extremes, permit me to give this general word of advice, and may God enable me to take it myself, viz. That in all our ministrations we keep a constant and religious eye upon the holy Srcipture, that in the necessary and most important points of doctrine or duty, we may teach our hearers neither more nor less than the Scripture teaches. Our great business is to expound Scripture, and enforce the word of God upon the minds and hearts of men; When therefore we explain the great and necessary points of the gospel contained in any one Scripture, let us do it as much as possible by bringing other parts of Scripture into the same view, that the word of God may be a comment on itself. When we have occasion to make inferences from it, let us take care that the connection of them be strong and evident, and that they lie not far oflf at a distance, for in very distant inferences we are more liable to mistake. When we are delivering our own best opinions concernino; divine subjects, and giving our advice upon matters which are not evidently and so expressly revealed, let us practice the modesty of the blessed apostle, 1 Cor. vii. 6, 10, 12, 25, &c. I speak this by 2)ermission or advice, and not of commandment: * It is I speak it, and not the Lord: I have no j!?Za/^ commandment of the Lord about it, yet I givQ my judgment as one that has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful: I siqrpose, therefore, that in the present case, this is good to be practised, or that to be avoided: Judge ye within yourselves, whether what I sp)cak be agreeable to the word of God; 1 Cor. xi. 13.

VIII. Remember that you have to do with the understanding, reason, and memory of man, with the heart and conscience, with the will and atiections; and therefore you must use every method of speech which may be most proper to engage and employ each of these faculties, or powers of human nature, on the side of leHgion, and in the interests of God and the gospel. Your first business is with the understanding, to make even the lower jDai’ts of your auditory know what you mean. Endeavor, therefore, to find out all the clearest and most easy forms of speech, to convey divine truths, into the minds of men. Seek to obtain a perspicuous style, and a clear and distinct manner of speaking, that you may eftectually impress the understanding, while you pronounce the words; that you may so exactly imprint on the mind of the hearers the same ideas which you yourself have conceived, that they may never mistake your meaning. This talent is sooner attained in younger years, by having some judicious friend to hear or read over your discourses, and inform you where perspicuity is wanting in your language, and where the hearers may be in danger of mistaking your sense. For want of this, some young preachers have fixed themselves in such an obscure way of writing and talking, as hath very much prevented their hearers from obtaining distinct ideas of their discourse. And if a man gets such an unhappy habit, he will be sometimes talking to the air, and make the people stare at him, as though he was speaking some unknown language.

Remember you have to do with the reasoning powers of man, in

* I know these expressions of the apostle have another turn given them by some judicious commentators, viz. that the apostle had sutiicient proof of the directions which lie pronounces strongly to be the commands of Christ from other places of Scripture; but that these which he expresses so cautiously, were directions which Christ had not elsewhere given us, but were made known to him by his own special inspiration. I am not fally assured which is the true sense, but I rather think it is to be understood, as St. Paul’s own private sense of things, who was a man ftwored with many inspiraiioa preaching the gospel of Christ; for though this gospel be revealed iVom heaven, and could never be discovered by all the efforts of human reason, yet it is the reason of man must judge of several thino-s relatino* to it, viz. It is reason must determine whether the evidence of its heavenly original be clear and strong: It is reason must judge whether such a doctrine or such a duty be contained in ihis gospel, or may be justly deduced from it: It is the work of human reason to compare one Scripture with another, and to find out the true sense of any particular text by this means: And it is reason also must give its sentence, whether a doctrine, which is pretended to be contained in Scripture, be contrary to the eternal and unchangeable relations and reasons of things; and if so, then reason may pronounce that this doctrine is not from God, nor can be given us by divine revelation. Reason, therefore, hath its office and proper province, even in matters of revelation; yet it must always be confessed, that some propositions may be revealed to us from heaven, which may be so far superior to the limits and sphere of our reasoning powers in this present state, that human reason ought not to reject them, because it cannot fully understand them, nor clearly and perfectly reconcile them, unless it plainly see a natural absurdity in them, a real impossibility, or a plain inconsistence with other parts of divine revelation.

Well then, since you have to do with reasonable creatures in your sacred work, let your manner of speaking be rational, and your arguments and inferences just and strong, that you may effectually convince your hearers of the truth of what you deliver, in your ministrations of the gospel. And in your representation of things to the reason and understanding of men, it would sometimes be of special advantage to have some power over the fancy or imagination: This would help us to paint our themes in their proper colors, whether of the alluring or the forbidden kind. And now and then we should make use of both, in order to impress the idea on the soul with happier force and success.

When you would describe any of the personal or social virtues of life, so as to enforce their practice, set yourself to display the beauties and excellencies of them, in their own agreeable and lovely forms and colors. But do not content yourself with this alone: This is not sufficient to allure the degenerate and sensual mind of man to practise them. Few persons are of so happy a disposition, and so refined a genius, as to be wrought upon by the mere aspect of such inviting qualities. Endeavor, therefore, to illustrate the virtues by their contrary vices, and set forth these moral mischiefs both in their deformities and their dangerous consequences, before the eyes of your hearers. Think it not enough to represent to them the shining excellencies of humility and benevolence, of justice, and veracity, gratitude, and temperance; but produce to sight the vile features of pride, envy, malice, spite, knavery, ftilsehood, revenge, sensuality, luxury, and the rest of that cursed train, in their proper places and seasons. Make it evident, how contrary they are both to the law of God and the gospel of Christ; describe them in all their several forms, shapes, and appearances; strip them of their false pretences and disguises; shew how they insinuate and exert themselves in different occurrences of life, and different constitutions; and pursue them so narrowly, as it were, with a hue and cry, with such exact descriptions, that if any of these vices are indulged by your hearers, they may be found out by strict self-examination, that the consciences of the guilty may be laid under conviction of sin, and be set in the way of repentance and reformation.

Whensoever any vice has found the way into our bosoms, and make its nest there, its proper and evil features and characters had need to be marked out by the preacher with great accuracy, that it may be discovered to our consciences in order to its destruction; for these wretched hearts of ours are naturally so fond of all their own inmates, that they are too ready to hide their ill qualities from our own sight and conviction, and thus they cover and save them from the sentence of mortification and death, which is denounced against every sin in the word of God. And let the preacher and the hearer both remember, that sin must be pursued to the death, or else there is no life to the soul. It is only the Christian who by the Spirit mortifies the sinful deeds of the body has the promise of salvation and life; Rom. viii. 13. It would be a happy thing, if this vivacious and sprightly power of the fancy, which too often becomes an ingenious and successful tempter of the soul to guilt, mischief and ruin, might, by the art of the preacher, be gained over to the interests of virtue and goodness, and employed for God and salvation,

Think farther, that you should take some care also to engage the memory, and to make it serve the purposes of religion. Let your reasonings be never so forcible and convincing, let your language be never so clear and intelligible, yet if the whole discourse glide over the ears in a smooth and delightful stream, and if nothing be fixed in the memory; the sermon is in great danger of being lost and fruitless. Now to avoid this dang*er, I would recommend to you the care of a clear and distinct method, and let this method appear to the hearers, by the division of your discourses into several plain and distinct particulars, so that the whole may not be a mere loose harangue, without evident members and discernible rests and pauses. Whatsoever proper and natural divisions belong to your subject, mark them out by the numbers 1st, 2d, 3d, <fec. This will afford you time to breathe, in the delivery of your discourse, and give your hearers a short season for recollection of the particulars which have been mentioned before.

But in this matter take care always to maintain a happy medium, so as never to arise to such a number of particulars as may make your sermon look like a tree full of branches in the winter, without the beautiful and profitable appearance of leaves and fruit. Cast the scheme of your discourse into some distinct general heads, and lesser subdivisions in your first sketches and rudiments of it: This will greatly assist you in the amplification; this will help you to preserve a just method throughout, and secure you from repeating the same thoughts too often: This will enable you to commit your sermon to your own memory the better, that you may deliver it with ease, and it will greatly assist the understanding as well as the memory of all that hear you. It will furnish them with matter and method for an easy recollection at home, for meditation in their devout retirement, and for religious conference or rehearsal after the public worship is ended.

Consider again, your business is with the consciences, and wills, and affections of men. A mere conviction of the reason and judgment, by the strongest arguments, is hardly suflScient, in matters oif piety and virtue, to command the will into obedience; because the appetites of the flesh and the interests of this world are engageti on the opposite side. It is a very common case with the sons and daughters of Adam, to see and know their proper duty, and to have the reasons that enforce it fresh in their memory; and yet the powerful efforts of the flesh and the world withhold the will from the practice, forbid its holy resolutions for God and heaven, or keep them always feeble, doubtful and wavering. The God of nature, therefore, has furnished mankind with those powers which we call passions, or affections of the heart, in order to excite the will with superior vigor and activity to avoid the evil and pursue the good. Upon this account, the preacher must learn to address the passions in a proper manner, and I cannot but think it a very imperfect character of a Christian preacher, that he reasons well upon every subject, and talks clearly upon his text, if he has nothing of the pathetic in his ministra’iions, no talent at all to strike the passions of the heart.

Awaken your spirit, therefore, in your compositions, contrive all lively, forcible, and penetrating forms of speech, to make your words powerful and impressive on the hearts of your hearers, when hg-ht is first let into the mind. Practise all the awful and solemn ways of address to the conscience, all the soft and tender influences on the heart. Try all methods to rouse and awaken the cold, the stupid, the sleepy race of sinners; learn all the language of holy jealousy and terror, to aliVight the presumptuous; all the compassionate and encouraging manners of speaking, to comfort, encoura«’-e, and direct the awakened, the penitent, the willing, and the humble; all the winning and engaging modes of discourse and expostulation, to constrain the hearers of every character to attend. Seek this happy skill of reigning and triumphing over the hearts of an assembly; persuade them with power to love and practise all the important duties of godliness, in oyposition to the flesh and the world; endeavor to kindle the soul to zeal in the holy warfare, and to make it bravely victorious over all the enemies of its salvation. But in all these eftbrts of sacred oratory, remember still you are a minister of the gospel of Christ; and as your style must not affect the pomp and magnificence of the theatre, so neither should you borrow your expressions or your metaphors from the coarsest occupations, or any of the mean and uncleanly occurrences in life. Swell not the sound of your periods with ambitious or pedantic phrases; dress not your serious discourses to the people in too glitteiing array, with an affectation of gaudy and flaunting ornaments, nor ever descend to so low a degree of famiharity and meanness, as to sink your language below the dignity of your subje(ft or your office.

IX. As the art of reasoning, and the happy skill of persuasion, are both necessary to be used in framing your discourses, so both of them may be borrowed in a good measure from the holy Scriptures. The word of God will furnish you with a rich variety of forms both to prove and persuade. Clear instruction, convincing argument, and pathetic address to the heart, may be all drawn from the sacred writers. Many fine strokes of true logic and rhetoric are scattered through that divine book, the Bible: Words of force and elegance to charm and allure the soul, glitter and sparkle like golden ore in some peculiar parts of it. You may find there noble examples of the awful and compassionate style, und inimitable patterns of the terrible and the tender. Shall I therefore take the freedom once again to call upon you to remember that you are a minister of the word of God, a professor and preacher of the Bible, and not a mere philosopher upon the foot of reason, nor an orator in a heathen school? I am not here directing you to compose your whole sermons of nothing else but a perpetual connection of texts of Scripture; nor to spend the whole hour in running from one text to another, as a concordance, or the margin shall point them out. Persons of low degrees ot learning, who give themselves up to this method, have frequently introduced portions of Scripture in their discourses, in a sense which the holy writers never thought ot and which the Spirit of God never designed; and yet if a learned man would happily explain the more difficult parts of the word of God, perhaps it would be generally best done, and especially in the pulpit, by coinpai-ing them with other texts which are more plain and easy. Scripture is the best interpreter of itself.

As for argument to confirm a doctrine or enforce a duty, you may borrow much of this from the word of God. It is true, when we speak of those subjects which belong to natural religion, we may very properly bring arguments from the nature of God and man, and from the reason of things, to shew how necessary and reasonable it is to believe such a truth, or to practise such a virtue; nor is the Scripture itself barren of such reasonings, and even in the peculiar articles of Christianity, it is a most excellent and useful design, now and then, to shew how consistent and harmonious they are with reason, and how worthy of our faith and practice, since the word of God has revealed them, though they could not be found out by the light of nature. Yet these arguments, if they are long and labored, and not immediately apprehended by the mind, are much more proper to be communicated to the world by writing than by speaking; there the reader may review and dwell upon an argument till he has grasped the whole chain, and admits all the connected inferences, and sees undoubted eWdence of the conclusion: But reasonings in the pulpit, for the most part, should be short and easy, that they may strike conviction into the mind almost as soon as they strike the ear, unless your hearers were all men of learning and refined education.

But the bulk of our auditors, whether in the city or country, are not much profited by sermons merely made up of rational proofs of any doctrine or duty, deeply and laboriously deduced from the original springs and prime nature of things. They do not find their minds so much enhghtened, nor their hearts warmed by the tedious train of connected inferences that are fetched fi’om distant principles of nature and philosophy. This method, I confess, may entertain a few of the more rational, the more learned, or more polite persons in an auditory, who can survey and comprehend the sense of such discourses, and feel the force of such long chains of argumentation; and these persons, I own, ought to have due respect paid them in some parts of our ministry. Yet it is not the great business of a preacher of the gospel only to please the few, but to become oil things to all men, and, if possible, to win a multitude of souls to Christ. The generality of our hearers have their lives filled up with the business of their station, and have little leisure or advantage to improve their understandings in the art of dee]) reasoning. These will yawn and nod, and grow weary of the sermon; nor will such a preacher (though his discourses are never so much labored) profit the assembly, any more than please them, if he goes on resolutely in this way: Such a minister will quickly despise his hearers, and they will soon be tired with their preacher; and if some providence does not remove him to another congregation, or if he does not betake himself to some other business of life, he will be tempted to forsake the Protestant dissenters, and throw himself into the established church, when he has persuaded his conscience to comply with the imposed terms of ministerial conformity.

I grant it is necessary to use good reason through your whole discourse, and connect all the parts of it with justice: But, as I hinted before, let your arguments to prove any point be generally short and easy, and within the grasp of a common understanding: Remember that a few plain and obvious reasonings, from familiar and well-known principles, and some clear and well-chosen texts of Scripture, with a word or two to explain or apply them to the understanding and conscience of men with light and zeal, will impress the judgment and pierce the heart with more speedy and powerful conviction; and our hearers, who regard a plain scriptural argument as the word of the living God, will much more readily receive it, and submit much sooner to the force and authority of it. Thus saith the prophet, or thus saith the apostle, carries greater weight with it, both to convince and to persuade, than a long series of demonstrations from remote principles, though they should be firm and strong as those of Euclid or Sir Isaac Newton.

And as for bright, warm, and pathetic language, to strike the imagination or to affect the heart, to kindle the divine passions or to melt the soul, there is none of the heathen orators can better furnish you than the moving expostulations of the ancient prophets, the tender and spi’igjitly odes of holy David, or the affectionate part of the letters of St. Paul, which even his enemies in the church of Corinth confess to be powerful. The Eastern writers, ainong whom we number the Jews, were particularly famous for lively oratory, for bright images, and bold animated figures of speech. Could I h.-’ Ve heard Isaiah or Jeremy pronouncing some of their sermons, or attended St. Paul in some of his pathetic strains of preaching, I should never mourn a want of acquaintance with Tully or Demosthenes.

A preacher whose mind is well stored and enriched with the divine sense and sentiments, the reasoning and the language of Scripture (and especially if these are wrought into his heart by Christian experience), supposing his other talents are equal to those of his brethren, will always have a considerable advantage over them in composing such discourses as shall be most popular and must useful in Christian assemblies; and he may better expect the presence and blessing of God, to make his word triumph over the souls of men, and will generally speak to their hearts with more power for their eternal salvation. Shew me one sinner turned to God and holiness by the labors of a Christian preacher, who is generally entertaining the audience with a long and weighty chain of reasoning from the principles of nature, and teaching virtue in the language of heathen philosophy: And I think I may undertake to shew you ten who have been convinced and converted, and have become holy peisons and lively Christians by an attendance upon a scriptural, afiectionate, and experimental ministry: The whole assembly hang attentive upon the lips of a man who speaks to the heart as well as the understanding, and who can enforce his exhortations from a manifold experience of the success of them. They delight to hear the preacher whose plain and powerful addresses to the conscience, and whose frequent methods of reasoning in the pulpit, have been drawn from what they themselves have read in Scripture concerning God and man, sin and duty, our misery and divine mercy, death, resurrection, judgment, heaven, and hell. They attend with holy reverence and attection on such a minister, whose frequent arguments both in points of doctrine and practice is, Thus saith the Lord.

X. Be 7iot slothful or negligent in your weekly preparations for the pulpit: Take due time for it. Begin so early in the week that you may have time enough before you to finish your preparations well, and always allow for accidental occurrences, either from indisposition of body, fi’om interruptions by company, from unforeseen business or trouble, &c. that you may not be reduced to the necessity of hurrying over your work in haste at the end of the week, and serving God and the souls of men with poor, cold, and careless performances. Remember that awful word, though spoken on another occasion, Jer. xlviii. 10. Cursed he he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully. Manage so as to leave generally the Saturday evening, or at least the Lord’s-day morning, entire for the review and correction of your discourse, and for your own spiritual improvement by the sermon which you have prepared for the people.

If it should happen that the mere providence of God, without any neglect of yours, has hindered you from making- so good a preparation as you designed, you may with courage, and hope of divine assistance, venture into the assembly with more slender and imperfect furniture: But if your conscience tells you that your preparations are very slight, and the neglect is all your own, you have less reason to expect aids from above without great humihation for your negligence. And what if God should forsake you so far in the pulpit, as to expose you to public shame, and thus punish you for your carelessness in the midst of the congregation?

Study your matter well by meditation and reading, and comparing Scriptures together, till you have gotten it completely within your grasp and survey: Then if you should happen to be so situated in preaching, that you could not refresh your memory by the inspection of your paper every minute, yet you will not be exposed to hurry and confusion; a ready thought will suggest something pertinent to your purpose. Let your preparations be usually so perfect that you may be able to fill up the time allotted for the discourse with solid sense and proper language, even if your natural spirits should happen to be heavy and indisposed at the hour of preaching, and if your mind should have no new thoughts arising in the delivery of your discourse. Labor carefully in the formation of your sermons in younger years: A habit of thinking and speaking well, procured by the studies of youth, will make the labor of your middle age easy, wdien perhaps you will have much less time and leisure. This shall suffice for the second general head, which exhorts you to take heed to your private studies, both those which may furnish you for the work of the ministry in general, and those which are necessaiy to your particular preparations for the pulpit.

Section IIL — of public ministrations.

We proceed now to the third general head, and that is. Take heed to your public labors and ministrations in the church, which may be done by attending to the following particulars:

L Api)ly yourself to your work with pious delight; not as a toil and task, which you wish were done and ended, but as a matter of inward pleasure to your own soul: Enter the pulpit with the solemnity of holy joy, that you have an opportunity to speak for the honor of God, and the salvation of men. Then you will not preach or pray with sloth or laziness, with coldness or indifference: We do not use to be slothful and indifferent in the pui-suit of our joys, or the relish of our chosen pleasures. Stir up yourself to the work with sacred vigor, that the assembly may feel what you speak. But if you deliver the most solemn and lively composures like a man that is half asleep, it will be no wonder if your hearers slumber. A dull preacher makes a drowsy church.

II. Endeavor to get your heart into a temper of divine love, zealous for the laws of God, affected with the grace of Christ, and compassionate for the souls of men. With this temper engage in public work. Let your frame of spirit be holy with regard to your own inward devotion, near to God, and delighting in him; and let it be zealous for the name of Christ, and the increase of his kingdom. 0 pity perishing sinners when you are sent to invite them to be reconciled to God. Let not self be the subject or the end of your preaching, but Christ and the salvation of souls. We preach not ourselves saith the apostle, hut Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus’’ sake; 2 Cor. iv. 5. Speak as a dyi!ig preacher to dying hearers, with the utmost compassion to the ignorant the tempted, the foolish, and the obstinate; for all these are in danger of eternal death. Attend your work with the utmost desire to save souls from hell, and enlarge the kingdom of Christ your Lord. Go into the public assembly wdth a design (if God please) to strike and persuade some souls there into repentance, faith, holiness and salvation. Go to o/?m blind eyes, to unstop deaf ears, to make the lame walk, to make the foolish wise, to raise those that are dead in trespasses and sins to a heavenly and divine life, and to bring guilty rebels to return to the love and obedience of their Maker, by Jesus Christ, the great Reconciler, that they may be pardoned and saved. Go to diftuse the savor of the name of Christ and his gospel through a whole assembly, and to allure souls to partake of his grace and glory.

in. Go forth in the strength of Christ, for these glorious effects are above your own strength, and transcend all the powers of the brio-htest preachers. Be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus; 2 Tim. ii. 1. Without him we can do nothing; John xv. 5. Go with a design to work wonders of salvation on sinful creatures, but in the strength of Jesus, who hath all poioer given him in heaven and earth, and hath promised to be with his ministers to the end of the world; Matt, xxviii. 20. Pray earnestly for the promised aids of the Spirit, and plead with God who hath sent you forth in the service of the gospel of his Son, that you may not return empty, but brins: in a fair harvest of converts to heaven. It is the Lord of the harvest who only can give this divine success to the laborers. He that planteth is nothing and he that ivatereth is noth’ ing, but all our hope is in God, who giveth the increase; 1 Cor. iii. 7.

IV. Get the substance of your sermon, which you have prepared for the pulpit, so wrought into your head and heart by review and meditation, that you may have it at command, and speak to your hearers with freedom; not as if you were reading or repeating your lesson to them, but as a man sent to teach and persuade them to faith and holiness. Deliver your discourses to the people like a man that is talking to them in good earnest about their most important concerns, and their everlasting welfare; like a messenger sent from heaven who would fain save sinners from hell, and allure souls to God and happiness. Do not indulge that lazy way of reading over your prepared paper, as a schoolboy does an oration out of Livy or Cicero, who has no concern in the things he speaks. But let all the warmest zeal for God, and compassion for perishing men, animate your voice and countenance; and let the people see and feel, as well as hear, that you are speaking to them about things of infinite moment, and in which your own eternal interest lies as well as theirs.

V. If you pray and hope for the assistance of the Spirit of God in every part of your work, do not resolve always to confine yourself precisely to the mere words and sentences which you have written down in your private preparations. Far be it from me to encourage a preacher to venture into public work without due preparation by study, and a regular composure of his discourse. We must not serve God with what cost us nothing. All our wisest thoughts and cares are due to the sacred service of the temple: But what I mean is, that we should not impose upon ourselves just such a number of pre-composed words and lines to be delivered in the hour, without daring to speak a warm sentiment that comes fresh upon the mind. Why may you not hope for some lively turns of thought, some new pious sentiments which may strike light and heat, and life into the understandings and the hearts of those that hear you? In the zeal of your ministrations, why may you not expect some bright, and warm, and pathetic forms of argument and persuasion, to otter themselves to your lips, for the more powerful conviction of siimers, and the encouragement and comfort of humble Christians? Have you not often found such an enlargement of thought, such a variety of sentiment and fi’eedom of speech, in common conversation upon an important subject, beyond what you were apprized of beforehand? And why should you forbid yourself this natural advantage in the pulpit, and in the fervor of sacred ministrations, where also you have more reason to hope for divine assistance?

Besides, for us who are Protestant dissenters, and confine ourselves to no set forms of prayer, it seems more unreasonable to confine our lips constantly and precisely to the words written in our ])ay)ers in the work of preaching. Do we plead so earnely for the liberty of prayer, and yet never give our spirits a liberty to express their present warm, lively, and affectionate thoughts, in ministering the gospel of Christ under the hopes of his assistance? Why must we never dare to add any thing to our premeditated notes in speaking to the people, while we take this freedom in speaking to the blessed God? As there has been many a fervent and devout petition offered to Grod in our addresses to him which has not been thought of before, so many a sentence that was never written has been delivered in our addresses to the people with glorious success; it has come more immediate and warm from the heart, and may have been blessed of God to save a soul,

VI. Here would be a proper place to interpose a few directions oonoernijig elocution, and the whole manner of delivery of your discourse to the people; which includes both a voice, gesture, and behavior suited to the subject and design of every part of the sermon. But the rules that are necessary for this part of our work are much better derived from books written on this subject, from an observation of the best preachers, in order to imitate them, and an avoidance of that which we find offensive when we ourselves are hearers. Besides, as I have had an opportunity sometimes, my dear brother, of attending your performances in public, I think I may be bold to say, that in this, as well as in several other parts of your ministration, you stand in no need of any advice I can give. But since you have called me at present to this service, I have endeavored to fulfil it. If I had a design to go through the whole of the ministerial office, I should here also find a proper place to speak of the manner of your performance of public prayer, of your direction of the person who leads that part of worship which is called psalmody, and in your ministration of the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s-supper; but this would require much more time, and my chief design was to put you in mind of a few useful things which relate to preaching. I proceed, therefore, to the last particular.

VII. Be very solicitous about tle success of all your labors in the pulpit. Water the seed sown, not only with public but secret prayer. Plead with God importunately, that he would not safter you to labor in vain. Be not like that foolish bird the Ostrich, which lays her eggs in the dust, and leaves them there, regardless whether they come to life or not: God hath not given her understanding; Job xxxix. 14-17. But let not this folly be your character or practice: Labor, and watch, and pray, that your sermons and the fruit of your studies may become words of divine life to souls.

It is 3n observation of pious Mr. Baxter’s, which I have read somewhere in his works, that he has never known any considerable success from the brightest and noblest talents, nor the most excellent kind of preaching; and that even where the preachers themselves have been truly religious, if they have not had a solicitous concern for the success of their ministrations. Let the awful and important thoughts of souls being saved by my preaching, or left to perish and be condemned to hell by my negligence, I say, let this awful and tremendous thought dwell ever upon your spirit. We are made watchmen to the house of Israel, as Ezekiel was; Ezek. iii. 17, etc., and if we give no warning of approaching danger, the souls of multitudes may perish through our neglect, hut the blood of souls luill be terribly required at our hands.

Section IV. — of the conversation of a minister.

We are come now to the fourth and last thing which I projDOsed, in order to the fulfilling of your ministry, viz. Take heed to your whole conversation in the world; let that be managed not only as becomes a professor of Christianity, but as becomes a minister of the gospel of Christ. Now, amongst other rules which may render your conversation agreeable to your character, I entreat you to take these few into your thoughts:

I. Let it be blameless and inoffensive. Be vigilant, he temperate in all things, not only as a soldier of Christ, but as an under-leader of part of his army. £e tetnperate, and abstain sometimes even from lawful delights, that you may make the work of self-denial easy, and that you may hear hardship as becomes a soldier; 2 Tim. ii. 3, 4. Be watchful or vigilant, lest you be too much entangled with the affairs of this life, that you may better please him who has chosen you for an officer in his battalions, and that you may not be easily surprised into the snares of sin. Guard against a love of pleasure, a sensual temper, an indulgence of appetite, an excessive rehsh of wine or dainties; this carnalizes the soul, and gives occasion to the world to reproach us but too justly.

Watch carefully in all your conduct that you give no offence, as far as possible, neither to Jew or Gentile, nor to the church’ of God that so the ministry may not he blamed; 1 Cor. x. 32. 2 Cor. vi. 3. Maintain a holy jealous)^ over yourself and your conduct, that the name of Christ and his gospel suffer not the reproach of tongues and impious blasphemies through your means. Oh, how dreadful is the mischief that a scandalous minister does to the gospel of our blessed Lord! What a fearful train of consequences may attend his indulgence of any sinful appetite, or any single criminal action, even though it be not repeated! What a fatal stumbling-block does he lay before the feet of saints and sinners! He turns away the heart of sinners from God and religion, who perhaps begin to think of setting their faces toward heaven: He discourages the heaits of young Christians, and weakens the hands of all the friends of Christ. Woe be to the preacher by whom such offences come.

II. Let your conversation be exemplary in all the duties of holiness and virtue, in all the instances of worship and piety toward God, and in those of justice, honor, and hearty benevolence toward men. Be forward and ready to engage in every good word and work, that you may be a pattern and a leader of the flock, that you may be able to address the people committed to your care in the language of the blessed apostle. Be ye followers of me., even as I also am of Christ; 1 Cor. xi. 1. Brethreji, be followers tor/ether of me J and mark them which loalk so as ye have us for an example. For our conversation is in heaven; Phil. iii. 17-20. Those things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do you ppractise, and the God of peace be with you; Phil. iv. 9.

III. Let your conversation be grave and manly, yet pleasant and engaging. Let it be grave, manly, and venerable: Remember your station in the church, that you sink not into levity and vain trifling, that you indulge not any ridiculous humors, or childish follies below the dignity of your character: Keep up the honor of your oflice among men by a remarkable sanctity of manners, by a decent and manly deportment. Remember that our station does not permit any of us to set up for a buff”oon; nor will it be any glory to us to excel in farce and comedy. Let others obtain the honor of being good jesters, and of having it in their power to spread a laugh round the company when they please: But let it be our ambition to act on the stage of life as men who are devoted to the service of the God of heaven, to the real benefit of mankind on earth, and to their eternal interests.

Yet there is no need that your behavior should have any thing stift” or haughty, any thing sullen or gloomy in it: There is an art of pleasing in conversation that will maintain the honor of a superior office without a morose silence, without an affected stiffness, and without a haughty superiority. A pleasant story may proceed without offence from a minister’s lips; but he should never aim at the title of a man of mirth, nor abound in such tales as carry no useful instruction in them, no lessons of piety, or wisdom, or virtue. Let a cheerful freedom, a generous friendship, and an innocent pleasure, generally appear on your countenance; and let your speech be ever kind and affectionate. Do not put on any forbidding airs, nor let the humblest soul be afraid to speak to you. Let your whole carriage be civil and affable; let your address to men be usually open and free, such as may allure persons to be open and free with you in the important concerns of their souls. Seek as far as possible to obtain all your pious designs, by soft and gentle methods of persuasion.

If you are ever called to the unpleasing and painful work of reproof, this may be done effectually upon some occasions without speaking a word. When vicious, or uncleanly, or unbecoming speeches arise in public conversation, a sudden silence, with an assumed gravity, will often be a sensible and a sufficient reproof. Or where words of admonition may not be proper, because of the company, sometimes a sudden departure may be the best way to acquaint them with your disapprobation. But there are cases wherein such a tacit rebuke is not sufficient to answer your character and your office. Sometimes it is necessary for a minister to bear a public and express witness against shocking immorality, or against vile and impious discourse. Yet in general it must be said, if a reproof can he given in secret it is best and most likely to prevail upon the offender, because it less irritates his passions, nor awakens his pride to vindicate himself, and to despise all reproof.

Whensoever Providence calls you to this work, make it appear to the transgressor, that you do it with regret and pain; let him see that you are not giving vent to your own wrath, but seeking his interest and welfare; and that were it not for the honor of God, and for his good, you would gladly excuse yourself from the ungrateful task; and that it is a work on which your spirit takes no delight. If the case and circumstances require some speeches that are awful and severe, let it appear still that your love and pity are the prevailing passions, and that even your anger has something divine and holy in it, as being raised and pointed against the sin rather than against the sinner. Study to make the whole of your carriage and discourse amongst men so engaging, as may invite strangers to love you, and allure them to love religion for your sake.

IV. In order to attain the same end, let your conversation be attended with much self-denial and meekness; avoid the character of a humorist, nor be unreasonably fond of little things, nor peevish for the want of them. Suppress rising passion early. If you are providentially led into argument and dispute, whether on themes of belief or practice, be very watchful lest you run into fierce contention, into angry and noisy debate. Guard against every word that savors of malice, or of bitter strife; watch against the first stirrings of sudden wrath or resentment; bear with patience the contradiction of others, and forbear to return railing for railing. A minister must he gentle and not apt to strive but meekly instructing gainsayers. He should never be ready either to give or take oft’ence, but he should teach his people to neglect and bury resentment, to be deaf to reproaches, and to forgive injuries by his own example, even as God has forgiven all of us. Let us imitate his divnno pattern, who cancels and forgives our infinite offences for the sake of Jesus Christ. A bishop must not he a brawler or a striker; 1 Tim. iii. 3. but such as the apostle was, gentle among the ‘people even as a 7iurse cherishes her children; and being affectionately desirous of their welfare ive should he willing to impart not only the gospel of God to them, but any thing that is dear to us, for the salvation of their souls; 1 Thess. ii 7, 8.

Never suffer any differences (if possible) to arise between you and any of the people who are committed to your care, or attend on your miuistrations: This will endanger the success of your best labors among them, and for this reason, though you visit families with freedom, yet avoid all unnecessary enquiries into their domestic aflfairs by a prying curiosity; the pleasure of such secrets will never pay for the danger that attends them, and your own business is suflScient for you. Avoid entering into any of the little private and personal quarrels that may arise among them, unless Providence give you an evident call to become a peacemaker: But even in this blessed work there is some danger of disobliging one side or the other; for though both sides are often to blame, yet each supposes himself so much in the right, that your softest and most cand’d intimation of their being culpable, even in little things, will someiini awaken the jealousy of one or both parties against you; this will tend to abate their esteem of you, and give a coldness to their attention on your sacred services. We had need he wise as serpents in this case, and harmless as doves; Matt. x. 16.

V. Let your conversation be as fruitful and edifying as your station and opportunities will allow. Wheresoever you come, endeavor (if possible) that the world may be the better for you. If it be the duty of every Christian, much more is it the indispensable duty of a minister of Christ, to take heed that no corrupt communication proceed oat of his mouthy hut that lohlch is good for edification, that it may minister grace to the hearers; Eph. iv. 29. In your private visits to the members of your flocks, or to the houses of those who attend on your ministry, depart not (if possible) without putting in some word for God and religion, for Christ and his gospel: Take occasion, from common occurrences that arise, artfully and insensibly to introduce some discourse of things sacred. Let it be done with prudence and holy skill, that the company may be led into it ere they are aware. The ingenious Mr. Norris’s little Discourse of Religious Conversation, and Mr. Matthew Henry’s Sermon of Friendly Visits, have many excellent and valuable hints in them for our use.

It is to be confessed, that the best of ministers and Christians sometimes fall into such company, that it is hardly possible to speak a word for God and the gospel among them. Try then whether you can lead the discourse to some useful theme in matters of science, art, and ingenuity, or to rules of prudence, morality, or human conduct. The?’e is a time of keeping silence and restraining our lips as with a bridle, even from every thing that is ‘piously good, while some sort of wicked men stand before us; Psalm xxxix. i 2. The best men are sometimes dumb with silence, and dare not speak of God or religion, lest they should cast their pearls before swine, and give their holy things to dogs; and lest they should provoke the unclean or the envious animals to foam out their impurities or to turn again and rend them. But I doubt this caution has been carried much farther by our own cowardice, carnality of spirit, than David ever practised it in the xxxix. Psalm, or than Jesus Christ, meant it in the vii. of Matthew. Let us take heed then that we abuse not this prudeut caution to a manifest neglect of our duty, and to withhold our lips from the things of God, where Providence gives us a fair opportunity to speak of them.

Now and then take occasion to speak a kind and religious word to the children of the household; put them in mind of avoiding some childish folly, or of practising some duty that belongs to their age. Let your memory be well furnished with words of Sci-ipture, suited to the several ages of mankind, as well as to the various occasions of life, that out of the abundance of the heart your mouth may speak to the advantage of all that hear you, and particularly improve the younger parts of mankind, who are the hopes of the next generation. Make the lambs of the flock love you, and hear your voice with delight, that they may grow up under your instruction, to fill up the room of their fothers when they are called away to heaven; Nor let servants be utterly neglected, where Providence may afford you an opportunity to speak a word to their souls.

Learn what are the spiritual circumstances of the families whom you visit, and address them with a word in season, where you can have proper opportunity. Converse personally with them (if you can) about their eternal concerns. Let the ease and gentleness of your addresses to them, in a natural and familiar way, take off all that shy and bashful tincture from their minds, that is ready to prevent their uttering a word about the concern of their souls. Enquire tenderly into their state with regard to God: Draw sinners by words of compassion to repent of their crimes, to return to God, and to trust in Jesus the Saviour. Teach Christians sincerely to love and practise duty, and to endure with honor the trials of life. Teach them to be sick and die as becomes the disciples of Christ. Treasure up your own experiences of divine things, not only as matters of delightful review in your own retirements, and for the encouragement of your own hope, but as lessons to be taught your people upon all proper occasions. Whether you are afflicted or whether you are comforted, let it be for their consolation and salvation; 2 Cor. i. 6.

A minister, whose business and known employment is to speak of the things of God, should never be ashamed to impart divine knowledge, or to exhort to holiness with his lips, and to preach the word of the gospel of grace, whether the world calls it in season or out of season; 2 Tim. iv. 1. He that has the happy talent of parlor preaching, has sometimes done more for Christ and souls in the space of a few minutes, than by the labor of many hours and days in the usual course of preaching in the pulpit. Our character should be all of a piece, and we should help forward the success of our public ministrations by our private addresses to the hearts and consciences of men, where Providence favors us with just occasions.

In order to promote this work of particular watchfulness over the flock of Christ, where he has made you a shepherd and overseer, it is useful to keep a catalogue of their names, and now and then review them with a pastoral eye and affection. This will awaken and incline you to lift up proper petitions for each of them, so far as you are acquainted with their circumstances in body or mind. This will excite you to give thanks to God on account of those who lualk as become the gospel, and who have either begun, or proceeded and increased in the Christian life and temper by your ministry: You will observe the names of the neo- ligent and backsliding Christians, to mourn over them, and admonish them: You will be put in mind how to dispose of your time in Christian visits, and learn the better to fulfil your whole ministry among them.

I shall enlarge no further in the enumeration of our duties, which would easily swell into a volume, if they were set before our eyes in their full extent: But in general I say, these are the methods whereby we must take heed to ourselves, if we would fulfil the ministry that we have received of Christ. To supply what I have omitted, read frequently, and with holy attention, the epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus, which will furnish you richly with directions for your work; and I would recommend to you the examples of St. Paul and Timothy, as they are put well together in a little book by the Reverend Mr. Murray, which was printed but a few years ago. And as the account of the lives of many ancient ministers may furnish us with patterns for our imitation, so the life of the late venerable Dr. Cotton Mather, of New England, has many excellent hints in it for this purpose; Chafp. ii. Sect. 1. and Chap. vi.

Section V. — a solemn enforcement of these exhortations ON the conscience.

The things which I have spoken hitherto have been a display of the best methods I can think of, for the execution of the sacred office of the ministry: And so far as they are conformable to the word of God, we may venture to say these are your duties, my dear brother, and these are ours. It remains now to be considered, in what manner shall we enforce them on our own consciences, and on yours. What solemn obtestations shall I use to press these momentous concerns on all our hearts? What pathetic language shall I choose, what words of awful eflicacy and divine fervor, which may first melt our spirits into softness, and then imprint the duties upon them with lasting power? We exhort and charge you, we exhort and charge ourselves, by all that is serious and sacred, by all that is important and everlasting, by all the solemn transactions between God and man which are past, and by all the more solemn and awful scenes which are yet to come, by all things in our holy religion which are dreadful and tremendous, and by all things in this gospel which are glorious and amiable, heavenly and divine; we charge you by all that is written in this book of God, according to which we shall be judged in the last day, by all the infinite and astonishing glories and terrors of an invisible world and an unseen eternity, we charge and exhort, you, we exhort and charge ourselves, that we all take heed to the ministry which loe have received of the Lord Jesus that we fulfil it. But let us descend to more particular forms of solemn exhortation, which perhaps may strike our consciences in a more sensible manner, and print the duties deeper upon our hearts.

First then, we exhort and charge you, we charge and exhort our own souls, by all the ancient transactions between God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, for the salvation of sinful men, by all the eternal counsels of peace that passed between them to recover lost mankind to the favor and image of his Maker, that we preach this gospel with faithfulness, and be instant in the sacred work. It is the effect of these divine counsels that we publish to sinners; it is the merciful product of this sacred covenant of redemption that we are sent to proclaim to a lost world: This is the gospel that is put into our hands: God grant we may speak as becomes creatures entrusted with messages of such a heavenly original, with affairs of such divine solemnity.

Secondly V^q exhort and charge you, and we would charge ourselves to fulfil our ministry, by the invaluable treasure of this gospel which is put into our hands, by that word of life which is committed to our ministration. Let us speak with such a serious zeal as becomes the oracles of God and the embassies of his mercy, with such compassion to dying souls as is manifested in this gospel of love, with such inward feiTor and holy solicitude for the success of our labors, that if it were possible, not the soul of one sinner within the reach of our preaching might miss of this pardoning mercy and eternal joy. Oh let us not dare to trifle wdth God or men: Let us not dare be cold and lifeless in pronouncing the words of everlasting life, nor lazy nor indolent in carrying these eiTands of divine love to a lost and perishing world.

Thirdly We charge and beseech you, and we charge ourselves, by the mercies of the living God which we hope both you and we have tasted, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we hope we have felt and received, that you and we proclaim these mercies with a sacred zeal, and that in the name of God and of our Lord Jesus, we offer them to a miserable world with holy importunity. If ever we have known this wondrous compassion of God to ourselves, if ever we have tasted that the Lord is gracious, let us remember the relish we have had of this infinite compassion and condescending grace, when we were perishing under the power and guilt of sin; and with an imitation of that divine piety, let us entreat sinners to be saved. Let us remember all the allurinof charms, the heavenly sweetness of forgivinor, sanctifying-, and saving grace; and do our utmost to set them all before sinners in the most inviting light, that we may win sinful men to accept of the same salvation.

Fourthly, We exhort and charge you, and we charge ourselves, by the dear and glorious name of our blessed Jesus, whose servants loe are, whose name we bear, whose authority gives us commission, and who hath chosen us to be the ministers of his yrace, the messengers of his dying love to the sons of men: We charge and beseech you to take care of the honor of his name in your ministrations, for we are sent forth to display before the eyes of the world the unsearchable riches of Christ. We are entrusted to spread abroad the honor of his name; 0 let us labor and strive that our zeal bear some proportion to the dignity of our trust, and let us take heed that we do nothing unworthy of our great and glorious Master in heaven, who dwells at the right hand of God; nothing unworthy of that holy and illustrious name, in which we are sent forth to preach this gospel, and to enlarge his kingdom. He has set us up as lights upon a hill in this sinful world, this benighted part of his dominion; let us burn and shine to his honor, He has assumed and placed us as stars in his right hand; let us shine and burn gloriously, that we may give light to a midnight world. O that we may point out to them the morning star, that we may bring them under the beams of the rising sun of righteousness, and guide them in the way to the hills of paradise and everlasting joy!

Fifthly, We beseech and charge you, while we charge ourselves, by the inestimable value of the blood of Christ, which purchased this salvation, that you and we display this illustrious and costly purchase to sinful perishing creatures; this precious blood, which is sufficient to redeem a world from death, and which is the price of all our infinite and everlasting blessings, demands that we publish and offer them in his name, with holy zeal and solicitude to sinful men. Oh may our heart and our lips join to proclaim this redemption, this salvation, these everlasting blessings, with such a devout and sacred passion as becomes the divine price that was paid for them! Let us not be found triflers with the blood of Christ, nor let us bring cold hearts and dead affections, when we come to set before sinners the rich and inestimable stream of that life and blood that comes warm from the heart of the djdng Son of God. Let perishing creatures know that it cost the Prince of Glory such a dreadful price as this to redeem them from eternal misery; and at the same time let our own spiiits feel the powerful workinofs of crratitude to the divine friend that bled and died for us, and let our language make it appear that we speak what we feel.

Sixthly We entreat you with all tenderness, and with holysolemnity and fear, we charge you, and we charge ourselves, by the invaluable worth of perishing souls, that we fulfil all our ministry wMth a concern of heart equal to so important a case. How can we dare to speak with lifeless lips, with cold language, or a careless air, when we are sent to recover immortal souls from the brink of everlasting death? Oh let it never be said that such or such a soul was lost for ever through our carelessness, through our coldness, through our sinful sloth in publishing the offers of recovering grace! How tremendous and painful will such a thought be to our hearts! How dreadful the anguish of it to the awakened conscience of a drowsy preacher.

Seventhly We charge you solemnly, and we charge ourselves, by the honor that Christ has done to us in times past, and has done to you this day, by the dignity of that ofiice with which we have been formerly invested, and which you have this day received, that neither you nor we do any thing unbecoming this honorable character. Does Jesus, the divine Shepherd, appoint us under-shepherds of his flock: are we constituted stewards in his house, to dispense the mysteries of his grace, and the good things of his gospel; are we the messengers of our risen Lord to a dying world; are we the ministers of our exalted Saviour in his kingdom here below; a.re we the stars in his right hand; are we the earthly angels in his churches? Oh let us take heed that we do nothing to disgrace the titles of dignity and honor which he has put upon us in his word; Let us remember that every dignity brings an equal duty with it: and by fulfilling the various and diflScult duties of our holy station, let us make it appear that our office was not conferred upon us in vain. It behoves us well to remember, that a blemish upon the name of a minister, arising from his own criminal conduct, brings a foul and lasting scandal upon the ofiice itself, and upon the gospel of our glorified Lord, in whose name we act: And he will not fail to resent it.

Eighthly We exhort and charge you therefore, my dear brother, by all the sacred solemnities of this day, by the vows of God which you have this day taken upon yourself, and the bond wherewith you have hound your soul; and we would each of us charge our owi? consciences, by our own former solemn vows, that neither you nor we ever suffer ourselves to forget or disregard our holy and powerful engagements; that we be awake at all times to fulfil our work, and that we never indulge low and trifling thoughts of what has formerly appeared to us, and what this day appears to you of such awful importance. Oil let us ever refresh upon our spirits the serious and impoitnnt transactions of that day, wherein we gave up ourselves to Christ, in the sacred srrvice of his church. Let us often review the vows of these remarkable seasons of our life, and renew and confirm them before the Lord.

Ninthly We charge you, and we charge ourselves, by the decaying interest of religion, and the withering state of Christianity at this day, that we do not increase this general and lamentable decay, this growing and dreadful apostasy, by our slothful and careless management of the trust that is commited to us. It is a divine interest indeed, but declining; it is a heavenly cause, but among us it is sinking and dying. O let us stir up our hearts, and all that is within us, and strive mightily in ])rayer and in preaching to revive the work of God, and beg earnestly that God, by a fresh and abundant etiusion of his own Spirit, would revive his own work among us! Revive thy own work 0 Lord in the midst of these years of sin and degeneracy, nor let us labor in vain. Where is thy zeal, 0 Lord, and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and thy mercies? Are they restrained? 0 let us rouse our souls with all holy fervor to fuliil our ministry, for it will be a dreadful reproach upon us, and a burthen too heavy for us to bear, if we let the cause of Christ and godliness die under our hands for want of a lively zeal, and pious fervor and faithfulness in our ministrations.

Tenthly, We entreat, we exhort and charge you, and we charge ourselves, by the solenm and awful circumstances of a dying bed, and the thoughts of conscience in that important hour, when we shall enter into the world of spirits, that we take heed to the ministry which we have received: Surely that hour is hastening upon us, when our heads will lie upon a dying pillow. When a few more mornings and evenings have visited our windows, the shadows of a long night will begin to spread themselves over us: Li that gloomy hour, conscience will leview the behavior of the days that are past, will take account of the conduct of our whole lives, and will particularly examine our labors and cares in our sacred office. Oh may we ever dread the thoughts of making bitter work for repentance in that hour, and of treasuring up terrors for a death bed by a cai’eless and useless ministry!

Eleventhly, We exhort, and charge you, and we charge ourselves, by our gathering together before the throne of our Lord Jesus Chiist, and the solemn account we must there give of the ministry with which he hath entrusted us, that we prepare by our present zeal and labor to render that most awful scene peaceful to our souls, and the issue of it joyful and happy. Let us look forward to that illustrious and tremendous appearance, when our Lord shall come with ten thousand of his holy ang-els to enquire into the conduct of men, and particularly of the ministers of his kinfdom here on earth. Let us remember that we shall be examined in the Hglit of the tlames of that day. What we have done with his gospel which he gave us to preach? What we have done with his promises of rich salvation, which he sent us to offer in his name? What is become of the souls committed to our care? O that we may ffive up our account with joy and not loith grief to the Judge of the living and the dead, in that glorious, that dreadful and decisive hour!

Twelfthly, We charge and warn you, my dear brother, and we warn and charge ourselves, by all the terrors written in this divine book, and by all the indignation and vengeance of God, which we are sent to display before a sinful world; by all the torments and agonies of hell, which we are commissioned to denounce against impenitent sinners, in order to persuade men to turn to God, and receive and obey the gospel, that we take heed to our ministry that we fulfil it. This vengeance and these terrors will fall upon our souls, and that with intolerable weight, with double and immortal anguish, if we have trifled with these terrible solemnities, and made no use of these awful scenes to awaken men to lay hold of the oflered grace of the gospel. Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord, let us persuade men for we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive according to our work; 2 Cor. v. 10, 11.

In the last place. We entreat, we exhort and charge you, by all the joys of paradise, and the blessings of an eternal heaven, which are our hope and support under all our labors, and which in the name of Christ we offer to sinful perishing men, and invite them to partake thereof: Can we speak of such joys and glories with a sleepy heart and indolent language? Can we invite sinners who are running headlong into hell to return and partake of these felicities, and not be excited to the warmest forms of address, and the most lively and engaging methods of persuasion? What scenes of brightness and delight can animate the lips and language of an orator, if the glories and the joys of the Christian heaven and our immortal hopes cannot do it 1 We charge and entreat you therefore, and we charge ourselves, by the shining recompences which are promised to faithful ministers, that we keep this glory ever in view, and awaken our dying zeal in our sacred work, lliere is a crown of righteousness laid up for those who have fought the good fight, who have finished their course, who have Jcept the faith; 2

Tim. iv. 7. There is a glory which is to be revealed, a crown of glory which fadeth not away, prepared for every under-shepherd, who shall feed the flock of God under his care, and be found faithful in his work; ^ohen the great Shepherd shall appear, he himself will bestow it upon them. O let us look up continually to this immortal crown? Let us shake oft’ our sluggishness, and rouse all our active powers at the prospect of this fehcity. Let us labor and strive with all our might, that we may become possessors of this bright reward.

Before we conclude this exhortation, let us try to enforce it still with more power, by considering in whose presence are these solenmities transacted, and these charges given. We exhort and charge you then, in the presence of this church, who hath called you to minister to them in holy things, and who give up their souls this day to your care, to your instructions, to your conduct in the ministrations of the gospel. We charge and exhort you that you take the oversight of them with all humility and diligence, and sacred delight, that you make the life of their souls your perpetual care, that none of them may be lost through your deftiult.

We exhort and charge you in the presence of this whole assembly, who are met together to behold and hear our faith and order iti the gospel. They are witnesses of the solemn obligations you have this day laid yourself under, and will be called as witnesses against you in the day of Christ, if you take no care to perform your sacred vows. We exhort and charge you, in the presence of the holy and elect angels, who are continually waiting in their ministry on the saints in the church, and viewing with delight the ministration of the gospel of Christ, their Lord and ours, as it is managed by the hand of men. They see, they hear, and they will bear record against you; a dreadful record of broken vows and faithless promises, if you are found careless and unfaithful.

Forgive me, dear brother, forgive the solemn language of these exhortations; we hope, we believe, we are persuaded your heart is right with God, and you will be found faithful in that day, and that men and angels will be witnesses of your zeal and your labors in the sacred work. But we also feel so much coldness in our own spirits, that we have need to address you and ourselves in most solemn and awful language.

We charge you then finally, in the presence of God, the great God, the all-knowing and almighty, the universal Governor and Judge, and our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom he hath committed all judgment, Wio hath eyes as a fame of fre to see through our hearts and souls; we charge you, and we charge ourselves, under the all-seeing eye of the great God, and of his Son Jesus our Lord, that with holy care and diligence both we and you fulfil the work of our ministry with which Christ hath entrusted us, that we may approve ourselves to him in zeal, and faithful q ess, and love; in zeal for his honor and his gospel, in faithfulness to our sacred commission, and in love and pity to the souls of men. If sinners will continue obstinate and impenitent, after all our pious cares, labors and prayers, their blood will never lie at our door; our work is left with the Lord, and our judgment and reward with our God; Isaiah xlix. 4. But if it be possible, we should with utmost earnestness and compassion seize the souls of sinners who are on the very borders of hell, we should pluck them like brands out of the fire, and save them from burning; Jude verse 23.

0 may the Spirit of the blessed God favor us with his divine aids, that we may bring home many wanderers to the fold of Christ, the great Shepherd; that we may rescue many souls from death, who may be our py, our crown, our glory in the day of the Lord Jesus! May this be your happiness, my dear brother, may this be mine! May this be the happiness of every one of us who minister in holy things, through the abounding grace of Christ and the influences of his Spirit: And may it be the happiness of all who in dilierent places attend our constant holy ministrations, and particularly of all that hear us this day, to stand and appear with us before the judgment-seat of Christ with mutual delight and joy: And may each of us who preach and hear, receive our proper portion of the everlasting recompence and glory which shall be assigned to those who are faithful, by Jesus, our Saviour and our Judge to whom he dominion and praise for ever and ever. Amen.