06. PART II - OBJECTIONS TO THIS DUTY
PART II - OBJECTIONS TO THIS DUTY I will next answer some of those objections which might be made to the practice I have been recommending.
OBJECTION 1:
We teach our people in public; how then are we to additionally teach them one by one?
ANSWER:
You pray for them in public: must you not also pray for them in private? Paul taught every man, and exhorted every man, and did so both publicly, and from house to house, night and day, with tears.263 But why need we say more, when experience speaks so loudly on this subject? I am daily forced to wonder how lamentably ignorant many of our people are, who seemed to diligently hear me these past ten or twelve years, while I spoke as plainly as I was able to speak. Some do not know that each person in the Trinity is God; nor that Christ is God and man; nor that he took his human nature to heaven; nor what they must trust in for pardon and salvation; nor many similar important principles of our faith. Indeed, some who constantly come to private meetings are still grossly ignorant: whereas, by one hour’s personal instruction in private, they seem to understand more, and better accept it than they did in all their lives before.
OBJECTION 2:
All who are in the parish are not in the church, nor do I take pastoral charge of them; and therefore I am not satisfied that I am bound to take these pains with them.
ANSWER:
[a] The usual income which most receive is for teaching the whole parish, even though you are not obliged to take them all into the church.
[b] Why do we need to look for a stronger obligation than the common bond that lies on all Christians, to further the work of men’s salvation and the good of the Church, and the honor of God, to the utmost of their power; combine this with the common bond that is on all ministers to further these ends by ministerial teaching to the utmost of their power? Can it be a work that is so good, and so apparently conducive to greatly benefit men’s souls, and yet you perceive no obligation to do it?
OBJECTION 3: This course will take up so much time, that a man will have no opportunity to follow his studies. Most of us are young and inexperienced, and need much time to improve our own abilities, and to increase our own knowledge, which this course will entirely prevent.
ANSWER:
(1): We suppose that those whom we persuade to this work understand the substance of the Christian religion, and are able to teach it to others; the addition of lower and less necessary things is not to be preferred above this needed communication of the fundamental principles of religion. I highly value common knowledge, and I would not encourage anyone to treat it lightly; but I value saving souls more. That work, which is our great end, must be done whatever else is left undone. It is a very desirable thing for a physician to be thoroughly studied in his art, and to be able to see the reason for his practice, and to resolve whatever difficult controversies are before him. Say a physician had charge of a hospital, or lived in a city where pestilence was raging. And say he wanted to study fermentation, the circulation of the blood, blisters, and other similar and excellent points instead of visiting his patients and saving men’s lives. If he turned them away, and let them perish, and told them he did not have time to give them advice because he must follow his own studies, I would consider that man a preposterous student; he preferred the indirect means of study before the ends of those studies: indeed, I would think him as a civil kind of murderer. Men’s souls may be saved without knowing whether God predetermined the creature in all its acts; whether the understanding necessarily determines the will; whether God works grace in a physical or in a moral way of causation; what freewill is; whether God has scientiam mediam,264 or uses positive decrees when considering the blame for evil deeds; and a hundred similar questions, which are probably the things you would be studying when you should be saving souls. Get to heaven, and help your people get there, and you will know all these things in a moment, and a thousand more, which now, by all your studies, you will never know. Is this not the most expeditious and certain way to knowledge?
(2) If you do not grow extensively in knowledge, you will by this way of diligent practice obtain intensive and more excellent growth. If you do not know as many things as others, you will know the great things better than they do; dealing seriously with sinners for their salvation will help give you far deeper understandings of the saving principles of religion than you will get by any other means; and a little more knowledge of these is worth all the other knowledge in the world. Oh, when I am looking heavenward, and gazing towards the inaccessible light, and aspiring after the knowledge of God, and find my soul so dark and distant, that I am ready to say, “I do not know God – he is above me – quite out of my reach,” I think I could willingly exchange all the other knowledge I have for one glimpse more of the knowledge of God and of the life to come. Oh that I had never known a word in logic or metaphysics, nor known whatever schoolmen said, so that I had just one spark more of that light which would show me the things I must shortly see. For my part, I conceive that by seriously speaking of everlasting things, and teaching the creed, or a short catechism, you may grow more in knowledge (though not in the knowledge of more things), and prove to be much wiser men than if you spent that time studying ordinary, or interesting, yet less necessary things. And perhaps it will be found, before we have finished, that this employment tends to make men much abler pastors for the Church, than private studies alone. The ablest physician, lawyer, and divine too, is the one who adds practice and experience to his studies; while the one who proves to be a useless drone, refuses God’s service all his life under the pretense of preparing for it, and lets men’s souls go to perdition while he pretends to be studying how to recover them, or to get more ability to help save them.
(3) Yet let me add, that though I count this the main thing, I want you to have more, because these subservient sciences are very useful; and therefore I say, so that you may have sufficient time for both, lose no time on vain recreations and employments; do not consume it in needless sleep; do not trifle away a minute. Do what you do with all your might and then see whether you will not have sufficient time for these other pursuits. If you set apart just two days a week to do this great work, you may find some time for common studies out of the other four.
Indeed, are not four days in the week (after spending so many years in the university) a fair proportion for men to study controversies and sermons? Though my weakness deprives me of an abundance of time, and extraordinary works take up six, if not eight tenths of my time, yet I bless God that I can find time to provide for preaching two days a week, notwithstanding the two days for personal instruction. Now, for those who are not troubled with any extra work (I mean writing and occupations of various kinds, besides the ordinary work of the ministry), I can only believe that, if they are willing, they may find at least two half-days a week for this work.
(4) Duties are to be taken together: the greatest is to be preferred, but none are to be neglected that can be performed; one is not to be pleaded against another, but each is to know its proper place. But if such a case of necessity arose that we could not carry on further studies and instruct the ignorant too, then I would throw aside all the libraries in the world rather than be guilty of the perdition of one soul; or at least, I know this would be my duty.
OBJECTION 4: But this course will destroy the health of our bodies by consuming our energies, and allowing us no time for needed recreations; it will wholly keep us up from friendly interaction with others so that we never leave home, or enjoy a day with our friends to relax our minds; instead, we will seem discourteous and morose to others, and so we will tire ourselves; the bow that is always bent is in danger of breaking in the end.
ANSWER:
(1): This is the plea of the flesh for its own interest. The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the way,” and he will not plow because of the cold. There is no duty of importance and self-denial that your flesh and blood will not give you “wise” reasons such as these against it. Who would ever have been burned at the stake for Christ if this kind of reasoning had been valid? Indeed, who would ever have become a Christian?
(2) We may take time for needed recreation and still attend to this work. An hour or half-hour walk before eating is all the recreation needed for the health of most of the weaker sorts of students. I have reason to know something of this by long experience. I have a body that has languished under great weaknesses for many years. My diseases have required as much exercise as almost any in the world, and I have found exercise the principal means of my preservation until now. Therefore, I have as great a reason to plead for it as any man I know. Yet I have found that the amount I mentioned has blessed my preservation, though I know that much more would likely have tended toward my greater health. Indeed, I do not know one minister in a hundred that needs as much exercise as me. Indeed, I know an abundance of ministers who scarcely use exercise at all, though I do not commend them in this. I have no doubt it is our duty to use as much exercise as necessary to preserve our health, so far as our work requires. Otherwise, for one day’s work we would lose the opportunity of many days. But this may be done, and yet the work we are engaged in may be done too. On those two days a week that you set apart for this work, what hinders you from taking an hour or two to walk for the exercise of your bodies, and much more on other days? Some men do not limit their recreation to fixed hours, but must have hours to please their luxurious temperament, and not merely to fit them for their work. Such sensualists need to study the nature of Christianity better, and learn the danger of living after the flesh, and practice mortification and self-denial more, before they preach these things to others.
If you must have your pleasures, you should not have put yourselves into a calling that requires you to make God and his service your pleasure, and that restrains you so much from fleshly pleasures. Is it not your baptismal obligation to fight against the flesh?265 Do you not know that much of Christian warfare consists in the combat between the flesh and the spirit? This is the difference between a true Christian and an unconverted man: the one lives after the spirit and mortifies the deeds and desires of the body; the other lives after the flesh. Do you make it your calling to preach this to others and, notwithstanding that, you must have your own pleasures? If you must, then for shame, give up preaching the gospel and professing Christianity, and instead profess what you are. As “you sow to the flesh, from the flesh you will reap corruption.”266 Paul says: “Therefore I do not run uncertainly; I do not fight as someone who beats the air: but I keep my body under, and bring it into, subjection; lest somehow, after I have preached to others, I myself might be a castaway.”267 Do not sinners such as we need to do so even more? What? Will we pamper our bodies and give them their desires in unnecessary pleasure, when Paul must keep his body under, and bring it into, subjection? Must Paul do this lest, after all his preaching, he might be a castaway? And yet do we not have much more cause to fear it ourselves? I know that some pleasure is lawful; that is, when it is useful to fit us for our work. But for a man to be so in love with his pleasures, as to needlessly waste his precious time for their sake, and to neglect the great work of men’s salvation, indeed, to plead for the right to do so, as if it ought to be done, so as to justify himself in it – this is a wickedness that is inconsistent with the common fidelity of a Christian, much less the fidelity of a minister of Christ. Those wretches who are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,”268 must look to be loved by him accordingly. They are better fit to be cast out of Christian communion, than to be the leader of the Church, for we are commanded “to turn away from such.”269 Recreations for a student must especially be used for the exercise of his body, for he has before him such a variety of delights for his mind. They must be used like a whetting stone is used by a mower for his blade; that is, only as needed for the work. We must be careful that they do not rob us of our precious time, but are kept within the narrowest possible bounds.
(3) The labor in which we are engaged is not likely to impair our health much. It is true, it must be serious; but that will only excite and revive our spirits, not spend them so much. Men can talk all day long about other matters without diminishing their health any; why may we not talk with men about their salvation without diminishing our own?
(4) What do we have our time and strength for, except to expend them for God? What is a candle made for, except to burn? Thus, burned and expended we must be; and is it not more fitting that it should be in lighting men’s way to heaven, and in working for God, than in living for our flesh? How little difference there is between the pleasure of a long life, and of a short life, when they are both at an end! What comfort will it be to you at death that you lengthened your life by shortening your work? One who works much, lives much. Our life is to be valued according to its ends and its works, and not according to its mere duration. As Seneca says of a drone, “There he lies, not there he lives; and long he abode, though not long he lived.” Will it not comfort us more at death, to review a short time faithfully spent, than a long life spent unfaithfully?
(5) As for visits and civilities, if they are more useful than our ministerial employments, you may break the Sabbath for them; you may forbear preaching for them; and you may also forbear this private work. Otherwise, how dare you make them a pretense for neglecting so great a duty? Must God wait on your friends? Whether they are lords, or knights, or gentlemen, must they be served before God? Or is their displeasure or censure a greater hurt to you than God’s displeasure or censure? Or dare you think, when God questions you about your neglects, that you can put him off with this excuse: “Lord, I would have spent more time seeking men’s salvation, but such a gentleman, or such a friend, would have taken it badly, if I had not waited on him?” If you still “seek to please men,” you are no longer the servants of Christ.270 Someone who dares to spend his life in flesh-pleasing, and man-pleasing, is bolder than I am. And one who dares waste his time in compliments, little considers his involvement with it. Oh if I could only improve my use of time according to my convictions about the need to improve it! I will not resent someone who has looked death in the face as often as I have, if he values his time. I profess that I wonder about those ministers who have time to spare, those who can hunt or shoot or bowl, or spend two or three hours, indeed, whole days together in similar recreations; or those who can sit an hour together in empty conversation, and spend whole days in friendly visits, and take long journeys to attain such ends. Good Lord! What do these men think about, when so many souls around them cry for help, and death gives us no respite; and they do not know how short a time they may be together with their people; when the smallest parish has so much work that it might employ all their diligence, night and day?
Brothers, I hope you are content to be dealt with plainly. If you have no sense of the worth of souls, and of the preciousness of that blood which was shed for them, and of the glory to which they are going, and of the misery of which they are in danger, you are not Christians; and consequently, you are very unfit to be ministers. And if you have that sense, then how can you find time for needless recreations, visits, or conversations? Like idle gossips, do you dare to chat and trifle away your time when you have works such as these to do, and so many of them?
O precious time! How swiftly it passes away! How soon will it be gone! What are the forty years of my life that have past? If every day were as long as a month, I think it would still be too short for the work of a day. Have we not already lost time enough in the days of our vanity? I never come to a dying man, who is not utterly stupid, who cannot better see the worth of time. O then, if they could call time back again, how loudly they would call! If they could only buy it, what would they not give for it? And yet we can afford to trifle it away; yes, and allow ourselves to willfully cast off the greatest works of God. O what a befooling thing sin is, that it can thus distract men who seem so wise! Is it possible that a man of any compassion and honesty, or with any concern about his ministerial duty, or any sense of the strictness of his account, has time to spare for idleness and vanity? And I must tell you further, brothers, that if someone else may take time for mere delight that is not necessary, you cannot do so; for your undertaking binds you to stricter attendance than other men are bound to. May a physician, when the plague is raging, take more relaxation or recreation than is necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death? Just as his pleasure is not worth men’s lives, still less is yours worth men’s souls. Suppose a city were besieged, and the enemy is watching on one side for any advantage to surprise it; and on the other side it is seeking to fire it with grenades, which they throw in continually. Certain men undertake as their duty to watch the ports, and others undertake to quench the fire that may be kindled in the houses. I pray you, tell me what time would you allow these men for recreation or relaxation when the city is in danger, and the fires will burn on and prevail if they pause in their diligence? Would you excuse one of these men, if he leaves his work and says, “I am but flesh and blood; I must have some relaxation and pleasure”? Surely, at most, you would allow him only what was absolutely necessary. Do not protest this and say, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?”271 For it is your mercy; and you are well, if you know when you are well, as I will show you in answering the next objection.
OBJECTION 5:
I do not think it is required of ministers to make drudges272 of themselves. If they preach diligently, and visit the sick, and perform other ministerial duties, and occasionally do good to those they interact with, I do not think God requires us to thus obligate ourselves to instruct every person distinctly, and make our lives a burden and a slavery.
ANSWER:
I showed before what use and weight this duty has, and how plainly it is commanded. Do you think that God does not require you to do all the good you can? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death, and say, “God does not require me to make myself a drudge to save them?” Is this the voice of Christian or ministerial compassion? Is it not rather the voice of sensual laziness and diabolical cruelty? Does God give you work to do, and will you not believe that he would have you do it? Is this the voice of obedience, or of rebellion? It is all the same, whether your flesh prevails with you to refuse obedience to an acknowledged duty, and to say plainly, “I will obey no further than it pleases me”; or whether it makes you willfully reject the evidence that should convince you that it is a duty, and say, “I will not believe it is my duty unless it pleases me.” It is the character of a hypocrite to make a religion of the cheapest part of God’s service which fits with his fleshly ends and pleasure, and to reject the rest which is inconsistent with them. And in addition to these words of hypocrisy, this objection superadds the words of gross impiety. For what a wretched slander this is against the most high God, to call his service slavery and drudgery! What thoughts do such men have of their Master, their work, and their wages? The thoughts of a believer, or of an infidel? Are these men likely to honor God and promote his service, if they have such base thoughts of it? Do these men delight in holiness, if they consider it a slavish work? Can they believe the misery of sinners is real, if they consider it drudgery to be diligent to save them? Christ says, that “whoever does not deny himself and forsake all, and does not take up his cross and follow him, cannot be his disciple.”273 But these men consider it slavery to labor hard in his vineyard, and to deny their own ease at a time when they have every accommodation and encouragement. This is so far from forsaking all! How can these men be fit for the ministry if they are such enemies to self-denial and to true Christianity?
I am therefore forced to say that the main misery of the Church arises from this: that so many are made ministers before they are Christians. If these men had seen the diligence of Christ in doing good, when he neglected his meal to talk with one woman, and when he had no time to eat bread, would they not have been of the same mind as his carnal friends who restrained him and said, “He is beside himself”?274 They would have told Christ he had made a drudge or slave of himself, and God did not require all this bother. If they had seen him preaching all day, and praying all night, it seems he would have received this same censure from them for his labor. I can only advise these men to search their own hearts, whether they sincerely believe the Word which they preach. Do you indeed believe that such glory awaits those who die in the Lord, and such torment awaits those who die unconverted? If you do, then how can you think any labor is too much for such weighty ends? If you do not believe it, then say so, and get out of the vineyard, and go with the prodigal son to keep swine! Do not undertake to feed the flock of Christ! Do you not know, brothers, that it is your own benefit which you protest? The more you do, the more you will receive: the more you lay out now, the more you will have coming in. If you are strangers to these Christian paradoxes, you should not have undertaken to teach them to others. At present, our incomes of spiritual life and peace are commonly acquired in the course of duty; so the one who is most dutiful, has the most from God. Exercising grace increases it. Is it slavery to be more with God than other men, and to receive more from him than other men? It is the main solace of a gracious soul to do good, and to receive by doing; and to be greatly exercised about those Divine things which have his heart. Besides, we prepare to receive more hereafter: we spend out our talents to gain interest on them, and by improving them we will make five become ten,275 and so we will be made rulers of ten cities.276 Is it a drudgery to send to the most distant parts of the world, to exchange our trifles for gold and jewels? Do these men not seek to justify the profane when they characterize all diligent godliness as a drudgery, and reproach it as a strict and tedious life, and say they will never believe that a man cannot be saved without all this bother? Yet that is exactly what they are saying in respect to the work of the ministry. They consider this diligence as disagreeable tediousness, and they will not believe that a man cannot be a faithful minister without all this bother!
It is a heinous sin to be negligent in so great a business; and to approve of that negligence; and to be so impenitent about it; and to plead against this duty as if it were not a duty at all. When they should be expending themselves to save souls, they say, “I do not believe that God requires it.” This so aggravates the sin that, if the needs of the Church did not force us to use such men for lack of better ones, I can only think that they are worthy to be thrown out as rubbish, as “salt that has lost its savor, neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill…” “He that has ears to hear,” adds Christ, “let him hear.” 277 If such ministers become an epithet and a reproach, then they may thank themselves, for it is their own sin that makes them vile. While they thus debase the service of Christ, they only debase themselves, and prepare for a greater debasement at the Last Day.
OBJECTION 6: The times that Paul lived in required more diligence than ours. The churches were only in their planting stage, the enemies were many, and the persecutions were great. But now it is not so.
ANSWER: This argument smacks of a man locked up in a study, and unacquainted with the world. Good Lord! Are there not multitudes around us who do not know whether Christ is God or man, nor whether he has taken his body to heaven or left it on earth, nor what he has done for their salvation, nor what they must trust in for pardon and everlasting life? Are there not many thousands around us who are drowned in presumption, security,278 and sensuality; and when we have done all we can in the pulpit, who neither believe nor understand us? Are there not many who are willfully drunk, worldly, and self-seeking; who are revilers, hate a holy life, and want nothing but death as their remedy? Are there not many who are ignorant, dull,279 and scandalous professors280 of Christ, and many who would divide, seduce, and trouble the Church? And yet the happiness of our times is claimed to be so great, that we may excuse ourselves from personal instruction, because there is less need in our times?! What else besides faith and experience will answer this objection? Believe better within, and look more without – among the miserable people of our own times – and I guarantee that you will not see any reason to spare your pains, nor lack of work or necessities to invite you to it. What conscientious minister does not find work enough to do from one end of the year to the other, even if he only has a hundred souls to care for? Are ungodly men less miserable because they profess Christ, or more miserable?
OBJECTION 7: But if you make such severe laws for ministers, the Church will be left without them. For what man will choose such a toilsome life for himself? Or what parents will impose such a burden on their children? Men will avoid it both because of the bodily toil that is involved, and because of the danger to their consciences should they fail to discharge their task well.
ANSWER:
(1): It is not we, but Christ, who made and imposed these laws which you call severe. If I were to silence or misinterpret them, that would not relax them, nor would it excuse you. The one who made them knew why he did it, and he will expect obedience to them. Is infinite goodness to be questioned by us, or suspected of making bad or unmerciful laws? No, it is pure mercy in him to impose this great duty upon us. If physicians were required to be as diligent as possible in hospitals, or pest-houses,281 or with other kinds of patients, in order to save their lives, would there not be more mercy than rigor in this law? What! Must God let the souls of your neighbors perish in order to save you a little labor and suffering, and do so as a mercy to you? Oh, what a miserable world we would have if blind, self-conceited man ruled it!
(2) As for a supply of pastors, Christ will take care of that. The one who imposes this duty has the fullness of the Spirit,282 and he can give men the heart to obey his laws.283 Do you think Christ will allow all men to be as cruel, unmerciful, fleshly, and self-seeking as you? The one who undertook the work of our redemption, and who bore our transgressions himself,284 and who has been faithful as the chief Shepherd of the Church,285 will not lose all his labor and suffering for lack of instruments to carry on his work. Nor will he come down again to do all these things himself because no one else will do it. But he will provide men to be his servants and ushers in his school, men who willingly take up the labor, and rejoice to be employed in this way, and who consider this to be the happiest life in the world – the one you consider so great a toil, and would not exchange for your ease and your carnal pleasure. To save souls and propagate the gospel of Christ, they will be content to bear the burden and the heat of the day;286 they will fill up the full measure of the sufferings of Christ in their bodies;287 and work while it is day;288 and do whatever they do with all their might;289 and be servants of all;290 and do all this not to please themselves, but others, for their edification;291 and they will become all things to all men so that they may save some;292 and they will endure all things for the elect’s sake;293 and spend and be spent for their fellow-creatures.294 And they will do this even though the more they love others, the less they might be loved by them, and even though they might be accounted enemies for telling them the truth. Christ will provide such pastors to his people, men after his own heart,295 those who will “feed them with knowledge and understanding,”296 those who will not “seek what is theirs, but them.”297 What? Do you think Christ wants servants such as you, who like Demas, would turn to the present world and forsake him?298
If you dislike his service, you may seek better employment where you can find it, and boast of your gain in the end; but do not threaten him with the loss of your service. He has made the laws you will call severe for all who will be saved, as well as for his ministers. For all who will be his disciples must “deny themselves, and mortify the flesh, and be crucified to the world, and take up their cross, and follow him.”299 And yet Christ will not be without disciples, nor will he conceal his seemingly hard terms from men in order to entice them to his service. Instead, he will tell them of the worst, and then he will let them come or not come, as they choose. He will call to them beforehand to count the cost. He will tell them that “the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has not where to lay his head,”300 that he does not come to give them worldly peace and prosperity,301 but to call them to “suffer with him, that they may reign with him,”302 and “in patience possess their souls,” 303 to conquer, that they may be crowned304 and “sit down with him on his throne.”305 And all this he will cause his chosen to do. Have you come to that pass with Christ, as the Israelites did with David, and now say as Saul did, “Will the son of Jesse give you fields and vineyards?”306 Or as Sheba did, “We have no portion in David, no inheritance in Jesse’s son. Every man to your tents, O Israel!”307 If you say “Now look to your own house, Son of David,”308 you will see that Christ will look to his own house; and you should look to yours, as well as you can. And then tell me, at the hour of death and judgment, which is the better bargain? Is Christ more in need of you, or you of him? As for scruples of conscience, from your fear of failing at the task, let me remark: First, it is not our involuntary imperfections that Christ will take so heinously; it is our unfaithfulness and willful negligence. Second, it will not serve your defense to run out of the vineyard on the pretense of having doubts that you can do the work as well as you ought to. He can follow you, and overtake you, just as he overtook Jonah, with such a storm that it will put you “in the belly of hell.”309 To shirk a duty, because you cannot be faithful in its performance, will prove a poor excuse in the end. If men would consider at the beginning what the difference is between temporal things and eternal things, and what they will gain or lose by Christ, and if they only possessed that faith which is “the evidence of things not seen,”310 and had lived by faith and not by sense,311 all these objections would easily be resolved. The pleas our flesh and blood give for gratifying their desires would sound like children’s reasoning, or like men who lost their senses.
OBJECTION 8: But to what purpose is all this, when most of the people will not submit anyway? They will not come to us to be catechized; they will tell us they are too old to go to school. And therefore it is better to leave them alone, than to trouble them and ourselves to no purpose.
ANSWER:
(1) It is not denied that too many people are obstinate in their wickedness, that the “simple ones love simplicity, and the scorners delight in scorning, and fools hate knowledge.”312 But the worse they are, the sadder their case is, and the more they are to be pitied, and the more diligent we should be for their recovery.
(2) I wish it were not the blame of ministers that a large portion of the people are so obstinate and contemptuous. If we only burned and shined before them as we ought to do; if we only had convincing sermons and convincing lives; if only we set ourselves to do all the good we could, whatever it might cost us; if only we were more meek and humble, more loving and charitable, and we let them see that we treat worldly things lightly compared to their salvation. Then much more might be done by us than has been done so far, and the mouths of many would be shut. Though the wicked will still be wicked, perhaps more would be receptive, and perhaps the number of wicked would be fewer, and maybe they would be calmer than they are. If you say that some of the ablest and most godly ministers in the country have just as many unreceptive and scornful parishioners as others do, then I answer that some able and godly men have been too lordly and distant; and some of them have been too uncharitable and worldly, and reluctant to do costly though necessary good works; and some of them have done but little in private, when they have done so excellently in public; and so they have hindered the fruit of their labors. But where these impediments do not exist, experience tells us that the success is much greater, at least regarding getting the people to be calmer and more teachable; yet we cannot expect they will all be brought to so much reason.
(3) The willfulness of the people will not excuse us from our duty. If we do not offer them our help, how do we know who will refuse it? Offering it is our part, and accepting it is theirs. If we do not offer it, we leave them excusable, for they have not refused it; but then we are left without excuse. But if they refuse our help when it is offered, then we have done our part, and delivered our own souls.313
(4) If some refuse our help, others will accept it; and the success with them may be enough to reward all our labor, even if our labor were greater. Consider that all our people are not worked on by our public preaching either; and yet we must not, on this basis, give it up as unprofitable.
OBJECTION 9: But what likelihood is there that men will be converted by this means, when they are not converted by the preaching of the Word, which is God’s main ordinance to that end? “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the preaching of the word.”314
ANSWER:
(1) I showed you the advantages of this course before, and therefore I will not repeat them now; only, lest anyone still thinks that this will hinder him from preaching, I may add to the many benefits mentioned before that it will be an excellent means of helping you in preaching. For just as the physician’s work is only half done when he understands the disease, so too, when you are well acquainted with your people’s condition, you will know what to preach about. Talking for an hour with an ignorant or obstinate sinner will furnish you with as much useful material for your sermons as an hour’s study will do; for you will learn what you need to insist on, and what objections they have to repel it.
(2) I hope there are none who are so silly as to think this conference I am talking about is not preaching. What? Is it the number to whom we speak that makes it preaching? Or do questions and answers not make it preaching? Surely a man may just as truly preach to one person, as he does to a thousand. And as we already said, if you examine Scripture, you will find that most preaching recorded in the New Testament was done by conference, frequently by question and answer, and that it was done with one or two, fewer or more, as opportunity served. Christ himself most commonly preached this way. Besides, we must take account of our people’s learning if we value the success of our work.
There is therefore nothing from God, from the Scriptures, or from right reason, that would cause us to question our work, or be unwilling to do it. But from the world, from the flesh, and from the devil, we have much more, perhaps, than we anticipate. But against all these temptations, if we rely on God, and we look at our great obligations on the one hand, and the hopeful effects and blessed rewards on the other, then we will see that we have little cause to draw back or faint.
Let us set before us the pattern in our text (Acts 20:19-28), and learn our duty from there. O what a lesson is found here before us! But how badly it is learned by those who still question whether these things are their duty! I confess, some of these words of Paul have so often been presented before my eyes, and impressed upon my conscience, that I have been much convinced by them of my duty, and my neglect. And I think this one speech better deserves a twelve-month’s study, than most things that young students spend their time on. O brothers! Write it on your study doors – make a copy for yourselves in capital letters, so that it may be ever before your eyes. If we could only learn two or three lines of it well, what preachers we would be!
[a] Our general business – Serving the lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears.
[b] Our special work – Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock.
[c] Our doctrine – Repentance toward God, and faith toward our lord Jesus Christ.
[d] The place and manner of teaching – I have taught you publicly, and from house to house.
[e] His diligence, earnestness, and affection – I have not ceased to warn everyone night and day, with tears. This is what must win souls, and preserve them.
[f] His faithfulness – I kept back nothing that was profitable to you, and I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
[g] His disinterestedness and self-denial for the sake of the gospel – I have coveted no man’s silver or gold or apparel: indeed, these hands have ministered to my necessities, and to those who were with me, remembering the words of the lord Jesus, how he said “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
[h] His patience and perseverance – None of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to me, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I received from the lord Jesus.
[i] His prayerfulness – I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
[j] His purity of conscience – For which I ask you to note this day that I am free of the blood of all men.
Write all this on your hearts, and it will do yourselves and the Church more good than twenty years’ study of those lesser things which, though they may get you greater applause in the world, yet if separated from these other things, they will make you a “sounding brass and a clanging cymbal.”315 The great advantage of ministers having a sincere heart is this: that the glory of God and the salvation of souls are their very end; and where that end is truly intended, no labor or suffering will stop them or turn them back; for a man must have his end, whatever it costs him. Whatever else he forgets, he will still retain this lesson: One thing is needful; seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.316 Hence he says, “Necessity is laid upon me, indeed, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.”317 This is what will most effectually make all our labors easy, and make all our burdens light, and make all our sufferings tolerable, and cause us to venture any risk: if we may only win souls to Christ. What I once made the motto of my colors in another war, I desire to keep before my eyes in this one (which is not entirely another war, based on my intentions). On one side, “He that saves his life will lose it.” On the other, “Do not ruin the cause for the sake of keeping one’s life.” The one who knows that he serves a God who will never allow any man to be a loser by him, need not fear whatever hazards he runs in his cause. And one who knows that he seeks a prize which, if obtained, will infinitely overbalance his cost, may boldly enlist his whole estate in it, and sell all he has to purchase so rich a pearl.318
Well, brothers, I will spend no more words in exhorting wise merchants to purchase such a bargain, nor in telling teachers such common truths; and if I have already said more than is necessary, I will be glad. I hope I may now take it for granted that you are resolved to keep the utmost diligence and fidelity in the work. On this supposition, I will now proceed to give you some directions to rightly manage it.