CHAPTER IX.

MISCELLANEOUS DIRECTIONS RESPECTING THE WHOLE MINISTERIAL WORK.1

[THE next thing proposed, to which we now proceed, was, fourthly, to give some miscellaneous directions for the more comfortable, acceptable and useful discharge of the pastoral office in all its branches.]

I. Through the whole course of your ministry, insist most upon the greatest, most certain and most necessary things. If we can teach Christ to our people, we teach them all. Get them well to heaven, and they will have knowledge enough. The plainest and most commonly acknowledged truths, are what men live most upon; these are the great instruments in destroying sin, and in raising the heart to God. We should always have our people's necessities in our eye. To remember that "one thing is needful," will take us off from needless ornaments and unprofitable controversies. Many other things are desirable to be known, but these must be known, or else our people are undone forever. Necessity should be the great disposer of a minister's studies and labors. If we were sufficient for everything, we might fall upon everything, and take in order the whole Encyclopaedia. But life is short, and we are dull. Eternal things are necessary, and the souls which depend on our teaching are precious. I confess that necessity has been the conductor of my studies and my life. It chooses what books I shall read, and when, and how long. It chooses my text and makes my sermon, both for matter and manner, as far as I can keep out my own corruptions. Though I know that the constant expectation of death has been a great cause of this with regard to myself, yet I can see no reason why the most healthful man should not make sure of the necessaries first; considering the shortness and uncertainty of all men's lives. Who can, either in study, preaching or life, be employed about foreign matters, when he knows that this or that must be done? As the sol

1 N. B. "The sins of ministers," which the author had pointed out in a distinct series of particulars, are introduced in this, as many of the thoughts in both necessarily coincided. These directions stood in different parts of the original work, but it seemed most natural to place them together here.

dier says, "Non diu disputandum, sed celeriter et fortiter dimicandum ubi urget necessitas," so much more may we, as our business is more important. Doubtless this is the best way to redeem time, to spend it only on necessary things; and I think it is the way to be most profitable to others, though not always to be most pleasing and applauded; because through men's frailty, that is too true which Seneca complains of, "Nova potius miramur quam magna."

A preacher must be often upon the same things, because the matters of necessity are few. This we should not avoid, in order to satisfy such as look for novelties, though we should clothe the same necessaries with a grateful variety, in the manner of our delivering them. Necessaries are common and obvious; for superfluities we may waste our time and labor, and often to no purpose. The great volumes and tedious controversies that so much trouble us and waste our time, usually made up more of opinion than necessary truths.1 You would choose those authors to read for yourselves, which tell you what you know not, and treat of the most necessary things in the clearest manner, though it be in the most barbarous language; rather than those which most learnedly, and in the most elegant, grateful language, tell you that which is false and vain, and " magno conatu nihil dicere."2 And surely you should act on the same principle in teaching other men, as in studying for yourself. They are commonly empty, ignorant men, destitute of the matter and substance of true learning, who are over-curious about words and ornaments, who affect to be esteemed what they are not, having no other way to procure that esteem; whereas the oldest, most experienced and most learned men abound in substantial verities, usually delivered in the plainest dress. Which brings me to add,

II. All our teaching should be as plain and evident as we can make it.

This best suits a teacher's ends. He that would be un

1 Necessitas brevibus clauditur terminis; opinio nullis.-Marsil. Ficinus.

2 Sunt qui scire volunt eo fine tantum ut sciant, et turpis curiositas est; et sunt qui scire volunt ut scientiam suam vendant, et turpis quaestus est; sunt qui scire volunt ut sciantur ipsi, et turpis vanitas est; sed sunt qui scire volunt ut aedificentur, et prudentia est; et sunt quoque qui scire volunt ut aedificent, et charitas est.-Bernard, Serm. in Cant. 26.

derstood, must make it his business to be understood, by speaking to the capacities of his hearers. Truth loves the light, and is most beautiful when most naked. He is an enemy that hides the truth; and he is a hypocrite, who does this under a pretence of revealing it. Highly ornamented sermons, (like painted glass in windows, which keeps out the light,) are too often the marks of hypocrisy. If you would not teach men, what do you in the pulpit? If you would, why do you not speak so as to be understood? For a man purposely to cloud his matter in strange words, and hide his mind from the people whom he pretends to instruct, is the way to make fools admire his profound learning, but wise men, his folly, pride and hypocrisy. Some persons purposely conceal their sentiments, through a pretence to necessity, because of men's prejudices, and the unpreparedness of common understandings to receive the truth. But truth overcomes prejudice by mere light of evidence. no better way to make a good cause prevail, than to make it as plain and as thoroughly understood as we can; this will properly dispose an unprepared mind. He that is not able to deliver his matter plainly to others, (I mean as plainly as the nature of it will bear, and supposing them to have capacities for understanding it,) shows that he has not well digested it himself.

There is

III. We should always suit our instructions, and our behavior to the capacities and circumstances of those with whom we have to do.

Our work must be carried on prudently, orderly and by degrees. Milk must go before strong meat. The foundation must be laid before we can build upon it. Children must not be dealt with as men at age. A person must be brought into a state of grace, before we can expect from him the works of grace. The stewards of God's household must 'give to each their portion in due season,' Luke 12: 42. We must not go beyond the capacities of our people, nor teach them the perfection, who have not learned the principles. There must be a prudent mixture of severity and mildness, both in our preaching and discipline; each must be predominant according to the quality of the person or the matter we have in hand. If there be no severity, our reproofs will be despised; if it be all severity, we shall be esteemed usurpers of dominion.

IV. Every part of our work must be managed with great humility.

Pride is one of the most heinous, and yet one of our most palpable sins. It discovers itself in many by their dress; it chooses their cloth and their fashion, and dresses their hair and their habit according to the taste. And I wish this were all, or the worst; but alas, how frequently does it go with us to our studies! How often does it choose our subject, and how much oftener our words and ornaments! Sometimes it puts in toys and trifles under a pretence of laudable embellishments, and often pollutes instead of polishing. It makes us speak to our people what they do not understand, [merely to display our learning]. It takes off the edge of a discourse under a pretence of filing off the roughness and superfluity. If we have a plain and cutting passage, it throws it away as too rustical or ungrateful. Now, though our matter be of God, if our dressing and manner and end be from Satan, (as is the case when pride has the ordering of it,) we have no great reason to expect success. Yet thus does pride make many a man's sermon. And when they have composed the discourse, it goes with them into the pulpit, it forms their tone, it animates their delivery, it takes them off from what would be displeasing, and directs them in the pursuit of vain applause. In short, instead of seeking God's glory and denying themselves, it makes them, both in studying and preaching, to seek themselves and deny God. When they should ask, "what shall I say, and how shall I say it to please God best, and do most good?"-pride makes them ask, "what shall I say, and how shall I deliver it, to be thought a learned, able preacher, and to be applauded by all that hear When the sermon is done, pride goes home with them, and makes them, more eager to know whether they were applauded, than whether they did any good to the souls of men. Were it not for shame, they could willingly ask people how they liked them, to extort their commendations. If they perceive that they are highly thought of, they rejoice as having attained their end; if not, they are displeased as having lost the prize.

me?"

But this is not all; some ministers are so set upon a popular air, and having the highest place in the esteem of men, that they envy the abilities and names of their brethren who are preferred to them; as if all were taken from their praise, that is given to another's, and as if God had bestowed his

gifts upon them as the mere ornaments of their persons, that they might walk as men of reputation in the world, and as if all the gifts of other ministers were to be trodden down and vilified, if they should stand in the way of their honor. Strange! that one workman should malign another, because he helps him to do his master's work! Yet how common is this heinous crime among men of ability and eminence in the church! They will secretly blot the reputation of such as oppose their own, and will at least raise suspicions, where they cannot fasten accusations. Nay, some go so far as to be unwilling that any ministers abler than themselves should come into their pulpits, lest they should be applauded above themselves. It is a surprising thing that any man who has the least fear of God, should so envy his gifts in others, as that he had rather his carnal hearers should remain unconverted, than that they should be converted by another person who may be preferred to himself. Yet this sin does so prevail, that it is difficult to get two ministers to live together in love and quietness, unanimously to carry on the work of God. Unless one of them be greatly inferior to the other, and content to be so esteemed, and to be governed by him, they are contending for precedency, envying each other's interest, and behaving with strangeness and jealousy towards one another, to the shame of their profession and the injury of the congregation. Nay, so great is the pride of some ministers, that when they might have an equal assistant, to further the work of God, they had rather take all the burden upon themselves though more than they can bear, than that any should share with them in their honor, or lest they should diminish their own interest in the people. It is owing to pride, that many ministers make so little proficiency; they are too proud to learn. It is through pride also that men so magnify their own opinions, and are as censorious of any that differ from them in lesser things as if their sentiments were the rules of the church's faith. While we cry down papal infallibility, too many of us would be Popes ourselves, and would have everything determined by our judgments, as if we were infallible. And so high are our spirits, that when any reprove or contradict us, (though they have sufficient reason to do it,) we are commonly impatient both of the matter and the manWe love the man that will say as we say, and promote our reputation, though in other respects he be less worthy our esteem; but he is ungrateful to us, who differs from us,

ner.