02. CHAPTER 1 - THE OVERSIGHT OF OURSELVES

CHAPTER 1 - THE OVERSIGHT OF OURSELVES SECTION 1 – THE NATURE OF THIS OVERSIGHT Let us consider what it is to take heed to ourselves.

1. See that the work of saving grace is thoroughly wrought in your own souls. Take heed to yourselves, lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the effectual working of that gospel which you preach; and lest, while you proclaim to the world the necessity of a Savior, your own hearts neglect him, and you miss an interest in him and his saving benefits. Take heed to yourselves, lest you perish, while you call upon others to take heed of perishing; and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare food for them. Though there is a promise of shining as the stars, to those “who turn many to righteousness,”29 that supposes that they are first turned to it themselves. Considered simply, their own sincerity in the faith is the condition of their glory, though their great ministerial labors may be a condition of the promise of their greater glory. Many have warned others so that they will not come to that place of torment, while they hastened to it themselves: many a preacher is now in hell, who has a hundred times called upon his hearers to use the utmost care and diligence to escape it. Can any reasonable man imagine that God would save men for offering salvation to others, while they refuse it themselves; and for telling others those truths which they themselves neglect and abuse? Many a tailor goes in rags who makes costly clothes for others; and many a cook scarcely licks his fingers when he has dressed the most costly dishes for others. Believe it, brothers, God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher; but because he was a justified, sanctified man, and consequently faithful in his Master’s work. Therefore, take heed to ourselves first, so that you are what you persuade your hearers to be, and believe what you persuade them to believe, and heartily entertain that Savior whom you offer to them. He that bid you to love your neighbors as yourselves, implied that you should love yourselves, and not hate and destroy yourselves and them.

It is a fearful thing to be an unsanctified professor, but much more to be an unsanctified preacher. Does it not make you tremble when you open the Bible, for fear you read the sentence of your own condemnation there? When you pen your sermons, little do you think that you are drawing up indictments against your own souls! When you are arguing against sin, that you are aggravating your own sin! When you proclaim to your hearers the unsearchable riches of Christ and his grace, that you are publishing your own iniquity in rejecting them, and your unhappiness in being destitute of them! What can you do in persuading men to Christ, in drawing them from the world, in urging them to a life of faith and holiness, that your own conscience, if it were awake, would not tell you that you speak all this to your own confusion?30 If you speak of hell, you speak of your own inheritance: if you describe the joys of heaven, you describe your own misery, seeing you have no right to “the inheritance of the saints in light.”31 What can you say, for the most part, that will not be said against your own souls? O miserable life! That a man should study and preach against himself, and spend his days in a course of self-condemnation! A graceless, inexperienced preacher is one of the most unhappy creatures on earth, and yet ordinarily he cannot sense his unhappiness; for he has so many counter-weights that seem like the gold of saving grace, and so many splendid stones that resemble Christian jewels, that he is seldom troubled with the thoughts of his poverty;32 but he thinks he is “rich, and increased in goods, and stands in need of nothing, when he is poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked.”33 He is acquainted with the Holy Scriptures; he is exercised in holy duties; he does not live in open disgraceful sin; he serves at God’s altar; he reproves other men’s faults; and he preaches up holiness, both of heart and life. How can this man choose to be anything but holy? Oh what aggravated misery this is, to perish in the midst of plenty! To famish with the bread of life in our hands, while we offer it to others, and urge it on them! That those ordinances of God should be the occasion of our delusion, which are instituted as the means of our conviction and salvation! And while we hold the mirror of the gospel up to others, to show them the face and aspect of their souls, we either look on the back of it ourselves, where we can see nothing, or else we turn it to the side, so that it may misrepresent us to ourselves! If such a wretched man would take my counsel, he would make a stand, and call his heart and life to account, and set to preaching awhile to himself before he preaches any more to others. He would consider whether food in the mouth that does not go into the stomach will nourish; whether he that “names the name of Christ should not depart from iniquity,”34 whether God will hear his prayers, if “he regards iniquity in his heart,”35 whether it will serve in his defense at the day of reckoning to say, “Lord, Lord, we have prophesied in your name,” when he will hear these awful words: “Depart from me; I do not know you.”36 What comfort will it be to Judas, when he has gone to his own place, to remember that he preached with the other apostles, or that he sat with Christ and was called “Friend” by him? When such thoughts as these have entered into their souls, and kindly worked awhile upon their consciences, I would advise them to go to their congregation, and preach again Origen’s sermon on Psalms 50:16-17. “But to the wicked God says, “What right do you have to declare my statutes, or to take my covenant into your mouth, seeing that you hate instruction, and throw my words away behind you.” And when they have read this text, I would advise them to sit down and expound it, and apply it by their tears; and then make a full and free confession of their sin, and lament their case before the whole assembly, and desire the assembly’s earnest prayers to God for pardoning and renewing grace. This is so that hereafter they may preach a Savior whom they know, and may feel what they speak, and may commend the riches of the gospel from their own experience. Alas! It is the common danger and calamity of the Church, to have unregenerate and inexperienced pastors, and to have so many men become preachers before they are Christians; to have so many who are sanctified by dedication to the altar as the priests of God, before they are sanctified by hearty dedication as the disciples of Christ. And thus to worship an unknown God, and to preach an unknown Christ, to pray through an unknown Spirit, to recommend a state of holiness and communion with God, and a glory and a happiness which are all unknown to them, and likely to be unknown to them forever. One who does not have in his own heart both the Christ and the grace of which he preaches, is likely to be but a heartless preacher. Our Universities: Teach within the context of Theology

O that all our students in our universities would well consider this! What a poor business it is to them, to spend their time acquiring some little knowledge of the works of God, and learning some of those names which the divided tongues of the nations have imposed on them, and yet not know God himself, nor exalt him in their hearts, nor be acquainted with that one renewing work which would make them happy! They only “walk in a vain show,”37 and spend their lives like dreaming men. While they busy their wits and tongue over a plethora of names and notions, they are strangers to God, and to the life of saints. If God ever awakens them by his saving grace, they will have thoughts and chores so much more serious than their unsanctified studies and arguments that they will confess they were only dreaming before. They busy themselves about a world of business that is nothing, while they are willful strangers to the primitive, independent, necessary Being, who is all in all. Nothing can be rightly known if God is not known; nor can any study be well-managed, nor serve any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature until we know its relationship to the Creator: uncomposed single letters and syllables are no better than nonsense. Someone who overlooks the one who is the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,”38 and does not see him in all things, who is the All of all, sees nothing at all. All creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they mean nothing when separated from God. Were they actually separated, they would cease to be, and the separation would be annihilation; and when we separate them in our imaginations, we make them nothing to ourselves. It is one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle,39 and another thing to know them as a Christian.40 Only a Christian can read one line of his Physics so as to understand it correctly. It is a high and excellent study, and of greater use than many apprehend; but Aristotle can teach us only the smallest part of it. When man was made perfect, and placed in a perfect world, where all things were in perfect order, the whole creation was then man’s book, in which he was to read the nature and will of his great Creator. Every creature had the name of God so legibly engraved on it, that man might run and read it. He could not open his eyes without seeing some image of God; but nowhere could he see that image so fully and lively as in himself. Therefore, it was his work to study the whole volume of nature, but first and foremost to study himself. And if man had stayed on this course, he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and of himself. But when he would only know and love the creature and himself in a way that separated them from God, he lost the knowledge of both the creature and the Creator, in so far as it could exalt and be worthy of the name of knowledge; and instead of this, he has obtained the unhappy knowledge which he influenced, including the empty notions and illusionary knowledge of the creature and himself, as separated from God. And thus, the one who lived for the Creator, and depended on him, lives for and depends upon the other creatures, and upon himself; and thus, “Every man at his best estate” (the learned as well as the illiterate) “is altogether vanity. Surely every man walks in a vain show; surely they are making an uproar in vain.” 41 It must be well observed that God did not lay aside the relation of a Creator by becoming our Redeemer; but in some respect, the work of redemption is subordinate to that of creation, and the law of the Redeemer is subordinate to the law of the Creator. In the same way, the duties which we owed to God as Creator have not ceased, but the duties we owe to the Redeemer, as such, are subordinate to them. It is the work of Christ to bring us back to God, and to restore us to the perfection of holiness and obedience. And just as he is the way to the Father, so faith in him is the way to our former employment and enjoyment of God. I hope you perceive what I intend in all this: namely, that to see God in his creatures, and to love him, and to converse with him, was the employment of man in his upright estate.42 This has not ceased to be our duty. In fact, far from it: it is the work of Christ to bring us back to it by faith. And therefore, the most holy men are the most excellent students of God’s works; none but the holy can correctly study them or know them. “His works are great, sought out by all those who have pleasure in them,”43 but not for themselves; rather it is for the One who made them. Your study of physics and other sciences is not worth a rush,44 if it is not God that you seek after in them. To see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God, as exhibited in his works – this is the true and only philosophy; the contrary is mere foolery, and is so called again and again by God himself. This is the sanctification of your studies: when they are devoted to God, and when he is the end, the object, and the life of them all.

And, therefore, I will presume to tell you, by the way, that it is a grand error, and of dangerous consequence in Christian academies, (pardon the censure from one who is so unfit to pass it on, but the necessity of the case commands it,) that they study the creature before the Redeemer, and they set themselves to physics, and metaphysics, and mathematics, before they set themselves to theology. On the contrary: no man lacking the vitals of theology is capable of being more than a fool in philosophy. Theology must lay the foundation and lead the way in all our studies. If God is to be searched after in our search of the creature, (and we must not separate the knowledge of the two) then tutors must read God to their pupils in all of it. Divinity must be the beginning, the middle, the end, the life, and the all of their studies. Our physics and metaphysics must be reduced to theology; and nature must be read as one of God’s books, which is purposely written to reveal himself. The Holy Scripture is the easier book: when you have first learned of God from it, and of his will, as the most necessary things, then you may address yourselves to the study of his works, and read every creature as a Christian, and as a divine. If you do not see yourselves and all things as living, and moving, and having their being in God,45 then you see nothing, whatever you may think you see. If you do not perceive in your study of the creatures, that God is all, and in all, and that “of him, and through him, and to him, are all things,”46 you may think, perhaps, that you “know something; but you know nothing as you ought to know.”47 Do not think so basely of your physics and of the works of God, that they are only preparatory studies for boys. It is a most high and noble part of holiness to search after, behold, admire, and love the great Creator in all his works. How much have the saints of God been employed in this high and holy exercise! The book of Job, and the Psalms, may show us that our physics are not so little related to theology as some suppose.

Therefore, in zeal for the good of the Church, and for their own success in their most necessary labors, I submit for the consideration of all pious tutors, whether they should not read to their pupils, or make them read, the foremost parts of practical divinity (and there is no other), as timely and as diligently as they would any of the sciences; and consider whether they should not go together from the very first? It is good that they hear sermons; but that is not enough. Tutors should make it their principal business to acquaint their pupils with the doctrine of salvation, and labor to set it home upon their hearts, so that everything else might be received according to its due weight; read to their hearts as well as to their heads, and carry on the rest of their instructions in the same way. Then it may become apparent that they are making the other studies subservient to theology, and their pupils may feel what they are aiming at in all of them. Thus, they would teach all their philosophy in habitu theologico,48 – this might be a happy means to make a happy Church and a happy country. But languages and philosophy consume almost all their time and diligence, and yet, instead of reading philosophy like divines, they read divinity like philosophers. It is as if it were a thing of no more importance than a music lesson, or arithmetic, instead of being the doctrine of everlasting life. This is what destroys so many in the bud, and pesters the Church with unsanctified teachers! This is why we have so many worldly men to preach of the invisible bliss, and so many carnal men to declare the mysteries of the Spirit; and I wish I might not say this, but this is why we have so many infidels to preach Christ, or so many atheists to preach the living God. When they are taught philosophy before or without religion, it is no wonder that their philosophy is all or most of their religion! Our Schools: Preach as well as Teach

Again, therefore, I address myself to all those who have charge of the education of youth, especially to prepare them for the ministry. You who are schoolmasters and tutors: begin and end with the things of God. Speak daily to the hearts of your scholars those things that must be wrought into their hearts, or else they are undone. Let some piercing words fall frequently from your mouths, of God, and the state of their souls, and the life to come. Do not say they are too young to understand and entertain them. You little know what impressions they may make. Not only the soul of the boy, but many souls may have cause to bless God for your zeal and diligence and indeed, for one such seasonable word. You have a great advantage above others to do them good; you have them before they are grown to maturity; they will hear you when they will not hear another. If they are destined to the ministry, you are preparing them for the special service of God; they must first have the knowledge of the One whom they have to serve. Oh think to yourselves what a sad thing it would be to their own souls, and what a wrong it would be to the Church of God, if they came out from you with common and carnal hearts, to take on so great, so holy, and so spiritual a work! Of a hundred students in one of our colleges, how many might there be who are serious, experienced, and godly young men? If you sent half of them on a work for which they were unfit, what painful work they would make in the Church or in the country! But instead, if you are the means of their conversion and sanctification, how many souls may bless you, and what greater good can you do the Church? Once their hearts are savingly affected with the doctrine which they study and preach, they will study it more heartily, and preach it more heartily: their own experience will direct them to the best subjects, and furnish them with material, and enliven them to drive it home to the conscience of their hearers. Therefore, see that you do not make painful work for the groans and lamentation of the Church, nor for the great tormentor of the murderers of souls.

2. Do not content yourselves with being in a state of grace, but also be careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, and do so before you preach them to others. If you did this for your own sakes, it would not be lost labor; but I am speaking to you for the public’s sake, so that you would do it for the sake of the Church. When your minds are in a holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of its fruits. Your prayers, and praises, and doctrine will be sweet and heavenly to them. They will likely sense when you have been with God extensively: what is most on your heart, is likely to be most in their ears. I confess, and I must speak by lamentable experience, that I publish to my flock the state of my own soul. When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and I can often observe the effect of this in the best of my hearers: that when I have grown cold in preaching, they have grown cold too; and the next prayers which I have heard from them have been too much like my preaching.

We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If we keep from taking food ourselves, we will famish them; it will soon be visible in their leanness, and in the dull discharge of their several duties. If we let our love decline, we are not likely to raise theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching: if the matter does not show it, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, whether errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are likely to fare the worse for it. Whereas, if we would abound in faith, and love, and zeal, it would overflow to the refreshment of our congregations, and it would appear in the increase of those same graces in them! Therefore, O brothers, watch over your own hearts: keep out lusts and passions, and worldly inclinations; keep up the life of faith, and love, and zeal: be much at home, and be much with God. If it is not your daily business to study your own hearts, and to subdue corruption, and to walk with God – if you do not make this a work to which you constantly attend – then all will go wrong, and you will starve your hearers; or, if you have a perverted fervency, you cannot expect a blessing to attend it from on high. Above all, be much in private prayer and meditation. From there you must fetch the heavenly fire needed to kindle your sacrifices. Remember, you cannot decline and neglect your duty to your own hurt alone: many others will lose by it as well. For your people’s sakes, therefore, look to your hearts. If a pang of spiritual pride should overtake you, and you should fall into any dangerous error, and vent your own inventions to draw disciples after you, what a wound may this prove to the Church of which you have been given the oversight. You may become a plague to them instead of a blessing. They may wish they had never seen your faces. Oh, therefore, take heed to your own judgments and affections. Vanity and error will slyly insinuate themselves, and they seldom come without alluring pretences: great corruptions and apostasies usually have small beginnings. The prince of darkness frequently impersonates an angel of light to draw the children of light again into darkness. How easily will corruptions also creep in upon our affections and our first love; how easily fear and care abate! Watch, therefore, for the sake of yourselves and others.

But, besides this general course of watchfulness, I think a minister should take some special pains with his heart before he goes to the congregation: if it is cold, how is he likely to warm the hearts of his hearers? Therefore, specially go to God for life beforehand: read some rousing, awakening book; or meditate on the weight of the subject of which you are to speak, and on the great need of your people’s souls, so that you may go into his house in the zeal of the Lord. In this manner, maintain the life of grace in yourselves, so that it may appear in all your sermons from the pulpit, and so that everyone who comes to the assembly cold may have some warmth imparted to him before he departs.

3. Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling-blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin; lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labors. It greatly hinders our work when other men, all week long, privately contradict what we have been speaking to them publicly from the Word of God about the poor; we cannot be at hand to expose their folly. But it will hinder your work much more if you contradict yourselves, and if your actions make your tongue a lie, and if you build up for an hour or two with your mouths, and then all week long pull it down with your hands! This is the way to make men think that the Word of God is but an idle tale, and to make preaching seem no better than prating. Someone who means what he says, will surely do what he says. One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing.

Tell me, brothers, in the fear of God, do you value the success of your labors, or do you not? Do you long to see it work upon the souls of your hearers? If you do not, what do you preach for? What do you study for? And what do you call yourselves the ministers of Christ for? But if you do, then surely you cannot find it in your heart to mar your work for nothing. What! Do you value the success of your labors, and yet you will not part with a little to the poor, nor put up with an injury or a foul word, nor stoop to the lowest, nor forbear your passionate or lordly carriage – no, not to win souls, and attain the end of all your labors! You value success little indeed, if you will sell it at so cheap a rate, or will not do so small a matter to attain it. It is a palpable error of some ministers, who make such a disproportion between their preaching and their living, who study hard to preach exactly, and yet study little or not at all to live exactly. All week long is little enough to study how to speak two hours; and yet one hour seems too much to study how to live all week. They are loath to misplace a word in their sermons, or to be guilty of any notable infirmity, (and I do not blame them, for the matter is holy and weighty); but they make nothing of misplacing affections, words, and actions, in the course of their lives. Oh how scrupulously have I heard some men preach; and how carelessly have I seen them live!

They have been so accurate in the preparation of their sermons, that preaching seldom seemed as much a virtue to them as making their language more polite; all the rhetorical writers they could meet with were enlisted to serve them to adorn their style, (and trinkets were often their primary ornaments). They were so fussy in hearing others, that no man would please them if he spoke as he thought, or if he did not drown his emotions, or dull the edge, or keep from disquieting the heart by his predominant use of fantastic wit. And yet, when it came to matters of practice, once out of church, how unscrupulous these men were, and how little they regarded what they said or did, that it was so palpably gross as to dishonor them! Those who preach precisely, would not live precisely! What a difference there was between their pulpit speeches and their informal discourse! Those who were most impatient with barbarisms, solecisms, and paralogisms in a sermon, could easily tolerate them in their life and conversation.

Certainly, brothers, we have great cause to take heed to what we do as well as to what we say: if we intend to be the servants of Christ indeed, we must not be servants in tongue only, but we must serve him with our deeds, and be “doers of the work, that we may be blessed in our deed.”49 As our people must be “doers of the word, and not hearers only,”50 so we must be doers and not speakers only, lest we “deceive ourselves.” A practical doctrine must be practically preached. We must study as hard how to live well, as how to preach well. We must think and think again, how to compose our lives, as well as our sermons, so as to most tend toward men’s salvation. When you are studying what to say to your people, if you have any concern for their souls, you will often think to yourself, “How will I get within them? And what will I say that is most likely to convince them, and convert them, and promote their salvation?” And should you not just as diligently think to yourself, “How will I live, and what will I do, and how will I dispose of all that I have, so as to most tend toward saving men’s souls?” Brothers, if saving souls is your end, you will certainly intend it out of the pulpit as well as in it! If it is your end, you will live for it, and contribute all your endeavors to attain it. You will ask concerning the money in your purse, as well as concerning the word of your mouth, “In what way will I lay it out for the greatest good, especially to men’s souls?” Oh that this were your daily study: how to use your wealth, your friends, and all you have for God, as well as your tongues! Then we would see that fruit of your labors which is never likely to be seen otherwise. If you intend the end of the ministry to be in the pulpit only, then it would seem that you consider yourselves to be ministers no longer than you are there. And, if so, I think you are unworthy to be esteemed ministers at all.

Let me then entreat you, brothers, to do well, as well as say well. Be “zealous of good works.”51 Do not spare any cost if it may promote your Master’s work.

(1) Maintain your innocence, and walk without offense. Let your lives condemn sin, and persuade men to duty. Would you have your people be more careful of their souls than you are of yours? If you would have them redeem their time, then do not misspend yours. If you would have their speech be edifying and not vain, then see that you speak the things which may edify, and which tend to “minister grace to the hearers.”52 Order your own families well, if you would have them do the same. Do not be proud and lordly, if you would have them be lowly. There are no virtues in which your example will do more, at least to abate men’s prejudice, than humility, and meekness, and self-denial. Forgive injuries and “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”53 Do as our Lord, “who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return.”54 If sinners are stubborn and aggressive and contemptuous, flesh and blood will persuade you to take up their weapons, and to master them by their carnal means: but that is not the way (at least, no further than is necessary for self-preservation, or as the public good may require); instead, overcome them with kindness and patience and gentleness. The former may show that you have more worldly power than they have (which ordinarily is still too hard for the faithful); but it is the latter only that will tell them that you excel them in spiritual excellence. If you believe that Christ is more worthy of imitation than Caesar or Alexander, and that it is more glory to be a Christian than to be a conqueror, indeed, to be a man than a beast – which often exceed us in strength – then contend with charity, and not with violence; set meekness and love and patience against force, and not force against force. Remember, you are obliged to be the servants of all. “Condescend to men of low estate.” Do not be a stranger to the poor of your flock; they are apt to take your distance for contempt. Familiarity, improved to holy ends, may do an abundance of good. Do not speak aggressively or disrespectfully to anyone; but be courteous to the lowest, as you would be to your equal in Christ. A kind and winning carriage is a cheap way of doing men good.

(2) Let me entreat you to abound in works of charity and benevolence. Go to the poor, and see what they want, and show your compassion at once to their soul and body. Buy them a catechism, and other small books that are likely to do them good, and make them promise to read them with care and attention. Stretch your purse to the utmost, and do all the good you can. Do not think of being rich; do not seek great things for yourselves or your posterity. What if you do impoverish yourselves to do a greater good? Will this be loss or gain? If you believe that God is the safest purse-bearer, and that expending in his service is the greatest usury, then show them that you believe it. I know that flesh and blood will quibble55 before it will let go of its prey, and will never say anything against this duty that is also against its own interest; but mark what I say (and may the Lord drive it home upon your hearts), that any man who has anything in the world that is so dear to him that he cannot spare it for Christ if he calls for it, is no true Christian. And because a carnal heart will not believe that Christ calls for it when he cannot spare it, he therefore makes that his self-deceiving and empty excuse. I say further, that the man who will not be persuaded that duty is duty, because he cannot spare for Christ what is to be expended in that duty, is no true Christian; for a false heart corrupts the understanding, and that again increases the delusions of the heart. You are not undone if you do not strive to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness in order to lay up treasure in heaven, even though you leave yourselves little on earth. You lose no great advantage for heaven by becoming poor: “In pursuing one’s way, the lighter one travels the better.”

I know, where the heart is carnal and covetous, words will not wring men’s money out of their hands; they can say all this and more to others; but saying is one thing, and believing is another. Yet with true believers, I think such considerations should prevail. O what an abundance of good our ministers might do, if they would only live in contempt of the world, with its riches and glory, and expend all they have in their Master’s service; and pinch their flesh, so that they may have something with which to do good! This would unlock more hearts to the reception of their doctrine than all their oratory; and, without this, singularity in religion will seem but hypocrisy; and it is likely that it is so. “He who practices such disinterest prays to the Lord; he who snatches a man from peril offers a rich sacrifice; these are our sacrifices; these are holy to God. Thus, the one who is more devout among us, is the one who is more self-effacing,” says Minucius Felix. Though we need not do as the Papists, who take themselves to monasteries, and cast away their property, yet we must have nothing except what we have for God.

4. Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of what you condemn daily. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done that, dishonor him as much as others do? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power, and yet treat it with contempt, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws, and yet willfully break them? If sin is evil, why do you live in it? If it is not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it is dangerous, how dare you venture on in it? If it is not, why do you tell men that it is? If God’s threats are true, why do you not fear them? If they are false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them, and put them into such frights without cause? Do you “know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death,”56 and yet will you do them? “You who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who say a man should not commit adultery,” or be drunk, or covetous, are you such yourself? “You who make your boast of the law, through breaking the law, dishonor God.”57 What! Will the same tongue speak evil that speaks against evil? Will those same lips which censure, and slander, and backbite your neighbor, still decry these and similar things in others? Take heed to yourselves, lest you decry sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest you bow to it, and become its slaves yourselves, while you seek to bring it down in others: “For what overcomes a man is what brings him into bondage.”58 “To whom you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are his servants to obey, whether it is sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.”59 O brothers! It is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.

Lastly, take heed to yourselves, that you do not lack the qualifications necessary for your work. One who would teach men all those mysterious things which must be known for salvation must not be a babe in knowledge himself. O what qualifications are necessary for a man who has such a charge upon him as we have! How many difficulties in divinity there are to be solved! And how many concern the fundamental principles of religion! How many obscure texts of Scripture must be expounded! How many duties we have to perform which, if we are not well informed, we and others may miscarry in the subject, manner, and end of them! How many sins we must avoid, which cannot be done without understanding and foresight! What a number of sly and subtle temptations we must open up to our people’s eyes, so that they may escape them! How many weighty and yet intricate cases of conscience we have to resolve almost daily! And can so much work, and work such as this, be done by raw, unqualified men? O what strongholds we have to batter, and how many of them! What subtle and obstinate resistance we must expect from every heart we deal with! Prejudice has so blocked up our way, that we can scarcely procure a patient hearing. We cannot make a breach in their groundless hopes and carnal peace, without them having twenty empty excuses and seeming reasons to close it up again, and having twenty enemies, who are seeming friends, ready to help them. We do not dispute with them on equal terms. We have children to reason with, people who cannot understand us. We have distracted men (spiritually) to argue with, who will bowl us down with raging nonsense. We have willful, unreasonable people to deal with. And when they are silenced, they are still no more convinced; and when they can give you no reason, they will give you their resolution. They are like the man that Salvian had to deal with who, being resolved to devour a poor man’s substance, and being entreated by Salvian to forbear, replied that he could not grant his request, for he had already made a vow to take it; so that the preacher, by reason of this most religious yet evil deed, was willing to die. We dispute against men’s wills and passions as much as we do against their understanding; and these people have neither reason nor ears. Their best arguments are, “I will not believe you about such things, nor will I believe all the preachers in the world; I will not change my mind, or life; I will not leave my sins; I will never be that strictly confined, come what will.” Whenever we go about the conversion of a sinner, we do not have just one, but multitudes of raging passions and contradicting enemies to dispute against at once. It is like a man disputing at a fair, or in a tumult, or in the middle of a violent and abusive crowd. What fairness and what success could he expect? Yet such is our work; and it is a work that must be done.

O brothers! What should we be in skill, resolution, and unwearied diligence, when we have all this to do? Did Paul cry out, “Who is sufficient for these things?”60 And will we be proud, or careless, or lazy, as if we were indeed sufficient? As Peter says to every Christian, in consideration of our great approaching change, “What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness!”61 So may I say to every minister, “Seeing all these things lie upon our hands, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy endeavors and resolutions for our work!” This is not a burden for the shoulders of a child. What skill every part of our work requires! – and how much importance is in every part! To preach a sermon, I think, is not the hardest part; and yet what skill is necessary to make the truth plain; to convince the hearers, to let irresistible light into their consciences, and to keep it there, and drive it all home; to screw the truth into their minds, and work Christ into their affections; to meet every objection, and clearly to resolve it; to drive sinners to a stand, and make them see that there is no hope, except that they must unavoidably be either converted or condemned – and to do all this, with regard to language and manner, as befits our work, and yet in a way most suited to the capacities of our hearers. This, and a great deal more that should be done in every sermon, surely requires a great deal of holy skill. So great a God, whose message we deliver, should be honored by our delivery of it. It is lamentable in a message from the God of heaven, one of everlasting moment to the souls of men, that we should behave so weakly, so unattractively, so imprudently, or so slightly, that the whole business miscarries in our hands; and that God should instead be dishonored, and his work be disgraced, and sinners be hardened rather than converted; and all this comes through our weakness or neglect! How often have carnal hearers gone home jeering at the palpable and dishonorable failings of the preacher! How many sleep under us, because our hearts and tongues are sleepy, and because we did not bring with us the skill and zeal to awaken them! Moreover, what skill is necessary to defend the truth against those who would deny it, and to deal with those who would dispute and quibble in their various ways and cases! And if we fail through weakness, how they will exult over us! Yet that is the least of the matter: for who knows how many weak ones may be perverted by this weakness, leading to their own undoing, and to the trouble of the Church? What skill is necessary to deal in private with one poor ignorant soul for his conversion! O brothers! Do you not shrink and tremble under the sense of all this work? Will a common measure of holy skill and ability, of prudence and other qualifications, serve for such a task as this? I know necessity may cause the Church to tolerate the weak, but woe to us if we tolerate and indulge our own weakness! Do not reason and conscience tell you, that if you dare to venture on so high a work as this, you should spare no pains to be qualified to perform it? It is not an idle snatch or a taste of studies every now and then that will serve to make an able and sound divine. I know that laziness has learned to allege the vanity of all our studies, and I know how entirely the Spirit must qualify us for our work, and assist us in it. But it is not as if God commanded us to use the means, and then authorized us to neglect them. It is not as if it were his way to cause us to thrive in idleness; or to bring us knowledge by dreams when we are asleep; or to take us up into heaven to show us his counsels; and all the while we are not thinking of any such matter, but instead are idling away our time on earth! O that men should dare, by their laziness, to “quench the Spirit,” and then blame the Spirit for doing it! “O outrageous, shameful and unnatural deed!” God has required us, that we be “not slothful in business,” but “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” 62 We must provoke our hearers to be such, and such we must be ourselves. O, therefore, brothers, lose no time! Study, and pray, and confer, and practice; for your abilities must be increased in these four ways. Take heed to yourselves, lest you are weak through your own negligence, and lest you mar the work of God by your weakness.

SECTION 2 THE MOTIVES TO THIS OVERSIGHT

Having shown you what it is to take heed to ourselves, I will next lay before you some motives to awaken you to this duty.

1. Take heed to yourselves, for you have a heaven to win or lose, and souls that must be happy or miserable forever; and therefore it concerns you to begin at home, and to take heed to yourselves as well as to others. Preaching well, may succeed in saving others without the holiness of your own hearts and lives; it is at least possible, though unusual; but it is impossible that it will save yourselves. “Many will say in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?”63 to whom he will answer, “I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity.” O sirs, how many men have preached Christ, and yet have perished for want of a saving interest in him! How many, who are now in hell, have told their people of the torments of hell, and warned them to escape from it! How many have preached of the wrath of God against sinners, who are now enduring it! O what sadder case can there be in the world, than for a man, who made it his very trade and calling to proclaim salvation, and to help others to heaven, yet after all this to be shut out himself! Alas! That we should have so many books in our libraries which tell us the way to heaven, and that we should spend so many years reading these books, and studying the doctrine of eternal life, and after all that to miss it! – that we should study so many sermons of salvation, and yet fall short of it! – that we should preach so many sermons of damnation, and yet fall into it? And all this is because we preached so many sermons of Christ, while we neglected Him; we preached so many of the Spirit, while we resisted him; we preached so many of faith, while we did not ourselves believe; we preached of repentance and conversion, while we continued in an impenitent and unconverted state; and we preached of a heavenly life, while we remained carnal and earthly ourselves. If we will be divines only in tongue and title, and do not have the Divine image upon our souls, nor give ourselves up to the Divine honor and will, then it is no wonder if we are separated from the Divine presence, and denied the fruition of God64 forever. Believe it, sirs, God is no respecter of persons: he does not save men for their coats or callings; a holy calling will not save an unholy man. If you stand at the door of the kingdom of grace to let others in, and will not go in yourselves, then you will knock in vain at the gates of glory because you would not enter at the door of grace. If you intended to have a part in the glory which you preached then you will find that your lamps should have had the oil of grace65 as well as the oil of ministerial gifts – holiness, as well as doctrine. Do I need to tell you that preachers of the gospel must be judged by the gospel, and stand at the same bar, and be sentenced on the same terms, and be dealt with as severely as any other men? Can you think you will be saved, then, because you are clergy? Or that you will be released by the plea “He passed for a clergyman,” when you lack the evidence that “He believed and lived as a Christian.” Alas, it will not be! You know it will not be. Take heed therefore to yourselves, for your own sakes, because you have your own souls to save or lose, as well as those of others.

2. Take heed to yourselves, for you have a depraved nature, and sinful inclinations, as much as others. If innocent Adam had need to take heed, and lost himself and us for want of it, then how much more need do we have! Sin dwells in us, even when we preach ever so much against it; and one degree of sin prepares the heart for another, and one sin inclines the mind to more sin. If one thief is in the house, he will let the rest in, because they have the same disposition and design. A spark is the beginning of a flame, and a small disease may cause a greater one. A man who knows himself to be partially blind should take heed to his feet. Alas! In our hearts, as well as in the hearts of our hearers, there is an averseness to God, a foreignness to him; and there are unreasonable and almost unruly passions! In us there are, at best, the remnants of pride, unbelief, self-seeking, hypocrisy, and all the most hateful, deadly sins. And does it not then concern us to take heed to ourselves? Does not so much of the fire of hell that was at first kindled in us remain unextinguished, that it is necessary for us to take heed? Are there not so many traitors in our very hearts, that it is necessary for us to take heed? You will scarcely let your little children go about by themselves while they are weak, without calling upon them to take heed of falling. And, alas! How weak are those of us that seem the strongest! How apt we are to stumble over a straw! How small a matter will cast us down by enticing us to folly, or by kindling our passions and our inordinate desires, by perverting our judgments, weakening our resolutions, cooling our zeal, and abating our diligence! Ministers are not only sons of Adam, but sinners against the grace of Christ, as well as others; and so they have increased their radical sin. If you take not heed, these treacherous hearts of yours will, one time or another, deceive you. Those sins that seem now to lie dead will revive: your pride, and worldliness, and many a foul vice will spring up that you thought had been weeded out by the roots. It is most necessary, therefore, that men of so much infirmity should take heed to themselves, and be careful in the oversight of their own souls.

3. Take heed to yourselves, because the tempter will ply you with his temptations more than other men. If you will be the leaders against the prince of darkness, then he will spare you no further than God restrains him. He bears the greatest malice toward those who are engaged to do him the greatest mischief. He hates Christ more than any of us, because he is the General of the field, and the Captain of our salvation, and he does more than all the rest of the world against Satan’s kingdom. Accordingly, Satan hates the leaders under Christ more than he hates the common soldiers: he knows he can rout the soldiers if the leaders fall before their eyes. He has tried that way of fighting for a long time: not against great or small (comparatively speaking), but striking the shepherds so that he may scatter the flock. So great has been his success this way, that he will continue to follow it as far as he is able. Take heed, therefore, brothers, for the enemy has a special eye on you. You will have his most subtle insinuations66, and incessant solicitations, and violent assaults. As wise and learned as you are, take heed to yourselves, lest he outwit you. The devil is a greater scholar than you, and a nimbler disputant; he can transform himself into an angel of light to deceive; he will get within you, and trip you up by the heels before you are aware; he will play the trickster with you, undiscerned; he will cheat you of your faith or innocence, and you will not know that you have lost it; worse, he will make you believe your faith is multiplied or increased, when in fact it is lost. You will see neither hook nor line, much less the subtle angler himself, while he is offering you his bait. And his bait will be so fitted to your temper and disposition, that he will be sure to find advantages within you, and make your own principles and inclinations betray you; and whenever he ruins you, he will make you the instruments of ruin to others. O what a conquest he will think he has, if he can make a minister lazy and unfaithful, or if he can tempt a minister into covetousness or scandal! He will glory against the Church, and say, “These are your holy preachers? See what their strictness is like, and where it brings them.” He will glory against Jesus Christ himself, and say, “These are your champions?! I can make your best servants abuse you; I can make the stewards of your house unfaithful.” If he insulted God on a false surmise, and told him he could make Job curse him to his face, then what will he do if he should actually prevail against you? In the end, he will insult God as much over you: that he could draw you to be unfaithful to your great trust, and to blemish your holy profession, and to so greatly serve the one who was your enemy. O, do not gratify Satan to this extent; do not let him make sport of you; do not allow him to use you as the Philistines used Samson, first depriving you of your strength, then putting out your eyes, and finally making you the object of his triumph and derision.

4. Take heed to yourselves, because there are many eyes upon you, and there will be many to observe your falls. You cannot miscarry without the world ringing of it. The eclipses of the sun by day are seldom without witnesses. As you take yourselves for the lights of the churches, you may expect that men’s eyes will be upon you. If other men may sin without observation, you cannot. And you should thankfully consider how great a mercy this is, that you have so many eyes to watch over you, and so many ready to tell you of your faults; and thus you have greater helps than others, at least to restrain you from sin. Though they may do it with a malicious mind, yet you have the advantage of it. God forbid that we should prove so impudent as to do evil in the public view of all, and to sin willfully while the world is gazing on us! “Those who sleep, sleep in the night; and those who are drunk, are drunk in the night.”67 Consider yourself to always be in the open light: even the light of your own doctrine will expose your evil doings. You are lights set upon a hill; do not think to lie hidden. Take heed therefore to yourselves, and do your work as those who remember that the world looks at them, and does so with the quick-sighted eye of malice, ready to make the worst of everything, to see where the smallest fault can be found, to aggravate it where they find it, to divulge it and to take advantage of it for their own purposes, and to invent faults where they cannot find them. How cautiously, then, we must walk before so many ill-minded observers!

5. Take heed to yourselves, for your sins have more heinous aggravations than other men’s sins. It was a saying of king Alphonsus that “a great man cannot commit a small sin.”68 Much more may we say that a learned man, or a teacher of others, cannot commit a small sin; or, at least, that the same sin is greater when committed by him, than if committed by another.

(1) You are more likely than others to sin against knowledge, because you have more than they have, or at least you sin against more light or greater means of knowledge. What! Do you not know that covetousness and pride are sins? Do you not know what it is to be unfaithful to your trust, and, by negligence or self-seeking, to betray men’s souls? You know your “Master’s will; and, if you do not do it, you will be beaten with many stripes.”69 The greater the knowledge, the more willfulness there must be.

(2) Your sins have more hypocrisy in them than other men’s, by how much more you have spoken against them. O what a heinous thing is it in us, to study how to disgrace sin to the greatest degree, and to make it as odious in the eyes of our people as we can, but when we have done so, to then live in it, and secretly cherish what we publicly disgrace! What vile hypocrisy it is to make it our daily work to decry it, and yet to hold onto it; to publicly call it all nothing, and to privately make it our bed-fellow and companion; to bind heavy burdens on others, and not touch them ourselves with a finger!70 What can you say to this in judgment? Did you think as badly of sin as you said, or did you not? If you did not, why would you disguise that by speaking against it? If you did, why would you hold onto it and commit it? O do not bear that sign of a hypocritical Pharisee: “They say, but do not.”71 Many a minister of the gospel will be shamed and unable to look up because of this heavy charge of hypocrisy.

(3) Your sins have more treachery in them than other men’s, by how much more you have engaged yourselves against them. Besides all your common engagements as Christians, you have many more as ministers. How often have you proclaimed the evil and danger of sin, and called sinners away from it? How often have you pronounced the terrors of the Lord against it? All this surely implied that you renounced it yourselves. Every sermon that you preached against it, every exhortation, every confession of it in the congregation, laid an obligation on you to forsake it. Every child that you baptized, and every administration of the Lord’s supper, affirmed your own renouncement of the world and the flesh, and your engagement to Christ. How often, and how openly, have you borne witness to the odiousness and damnable nature of sin? And yet you entertain it, notwithstanding all these professions and testimonies of your own? O what treachery it is to make such a stir against sin in the pulpit, and, after all that, to entertain it in your heart, and give it the place that is due to God, and even prefer it above the glory of the saints!

6. Take heed to yourselves, because such great works as ours require greater grace than other men’s works. Weaker gifts and graces may offer a man a more even course of life, one that is not liable to such great trials. Smaller strength may serve for lighter works and burdens. But if you will venture into the great undertakings of the ministry; if you will lead the troops of Christ on against Satan and his followers; if you will engage yourselves against principalities, and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places; if you will undertake to rescue captive sinners out of the devil’s paws; do not think that a heedless, careless course will accomplish so great a work as this. If you think to go through such momentous things as these with a careless soul, then you must expect to come off with greater shame and deeper wounds of conscience, than if you had lived a common life. It is not only the work that calls for heed, but the workman also, so that he may be fit for business of such weight. We have seen many men who lived as private Christians, having a good reputation for their roles and piety; but when they took upon themselves either the magistrate or military employment, where the work was above their gifts, and temptations overmatched their strength, they proved to be scandalous and disgraced men. And we have seen some private Christians of good esteem, who, having thought too highly of their roles, and thrust themselves into the ministerial office, have proved to be weak and empty men; they have become greater burdens to the Church than some whom we endeavored to throw out. They might have done God more service in the higher rank of private men than they do among the lowest in the ministry. If you would venture into the midst of enemies, and bear the burden, and the heat of the day, then take heed to yourselves.

7. Take heed to yourselves, for the honor of your Lord and Master, and of his holy truth and ways, lies more heavily on you than on other men. Because you may render him more service, so you may do him more disservice than others. The nearer men stand to God, the greater dishonor he has by their miscarriages, and the more they will be imputed by foolish men to God himself. The heavy judgments executed on Eli and on his house were because such men recoiled at his sacrifice and offering: “Therefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.”72 It was that great aggravation, of “causing the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme,”73 which provoked God to deal more sharply with David than he would otherwise have done. If you are indeed Christians, the glory of God will be more precious to you than your lives. Take heed therefore what you do against it, as you would take heed what you do against your lives. Would it not wound you to the heart to hear the name and truth of God reproached for your sakes; to see men point to you and say, “There goes a covetous priest, a secret drunkard, a scandalous man; these are the ones who preach strictness, while they themselves can live as loose as others; they condemn us with their sermons, and condemn themselves with their lives; notwithstanding all their talk, they are as bad as we are.” O brothers, could your hearts endure to hear men cast the dung of your iniquities in the face of the holy God, and in the face of the gospel, and of all who desire to fear the Lord? Would it not break your hearts to think that all the godly Christians about you should suffer reproach for your misdoings? If one of you who is a leader of the flock were to be ensnared only once into some scandalous crime, there is scarcely a man or woman who seeks diligently after their salvation, who upon hearing it, would not have it thrown in their face by the ungodly around them; besides this, there is the grief of their own hearts for your sin, however much they may detest and lament it. The ungodly husband will tell his wife, and the ungodly parents will tell their children, and ungodly neighbors and fellow-servants will tell one another of it, saying, “These are your godly preachers? See what comes of all your fussing! What better are you than others? You are all alike.” Such words as these all the godly in the country must hear for your sakes. “It must be that such offenses come; but woe to that man by whom they come!”74 O take heed, brothers, of every word you speak, and of every step you tread, for you bear the ark of the Lord – you are entrusted with his honor! If you who “know his will, and approve the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourselves are guides of the blind, and lights to those who are in darkness, instructors of the foolish, teachers of babes,”75 – if you, I say, should live contrary to your doctrine, and “by breaking the law should dishonor God, the name of God will be blasphemed” among the ignorant and ungodly “through you.” 76 And you are not unacquainted with that standing decree of heaven: “Those who honor me I will honor; and those who despise me will be lightly esteemed.”77 No man ever dishonored God without it proving to be the greatest dishonor to himself. God will find out ways enough to wipe off any stain that is cast upon him; but you will not so easily remove the shame and sorrow from yourselves.

8. Lastly, take heed to yourselves, for the success of all your labors depends very much upon this. God uses men to fit them for great works, before he employs them as his instruments in accomplishing them. Now, if the work of the Lord is not soundly done upon your own hearts, how can you expect him to bless your labors to effect it in others? He may do it, if he pleases, but you have much cause to doubt whether he will. I will mention here some reasons which may satisfy you, that one who would be a means of saving others, must take heed to himself; and that God seldom prospers the labors of unsanctified men.

(1) Can it be expected that God will bless someone’s labors (in comparison to other ministers) who does not work for God, but for himself? Now, this is the case with every unsanctified man. Only converted men will make God their chief end, and do all or any thing heartily for his honor; others make the ministry a trade to live by. They choose it rather than another calling, because their parents destined them to it, or because it affords them a reasonable income; because it is a life in which they have more opportunity to furnish their intellects with all kinds of science; or because it is not as toilsome to the body for those who are inclined to favor their flesh; because it is accompanied with some reverence and respect from men; and because they think it a fine thing to be leaders and teachers, and to have others “receive the law from their mouth.”78 They are ministers for ends such as these, and for these ends they preach; and if it were not for these ends, or for similar objects, they would soon give up. And can it be expected that God would greatly bless the labors of men such as these? It is not for him that they preach, but themselves, and their own reputation or gain. It is not him, but themselves, that they seek and serve; and, therefore, it is no wonder that he leaves them to themselves for the success, and that their labor has no greater blessing than they themselves can give it, and that the word reaches no further than their own strength can make it reach.

(2) Can you think that someone is likely to be as successful as others if he does not deal heartily and faithfully in his work, and does not believe what he says, and is not truly serious when he seems to be most diligent? And can you think that any unsanctified man can be hearty and serious in the ministerial work? He may indeed have a kind of seriousness, that proceeds from a common faith, or an opinion that the Word is true; or he may be actuated by a natural fervor, or by selfish ends: but he does not have the seriousness and fidelity of a sound believer who ultimately intends God’s glory and men’s salvation. O sirs, all your preaching and persuading of others will only be a dream and vile hypocrisy until the work is thoroughly done upon your own hearts. How can you set yourselves, day and night, to a work that your carnal hearts are averse to? How can you call with serious fervor upon poor sinners to repent and return to God, if you never repented or returned to God yourselves? How can you heartily follow poor sinners with importunate solicitations to take heed of sin, and to lead a holy life, if you never felt the evil of sin, or the worth of holiness yourselves?

These things are never well known until they are felt, nor are they well-felt until they are possessed; and someone who does not feel them himself, is not likely to speak feelingly of them to others, nor to help others feel them. How can you follow sinners, with compassion in your hearts and tears in your eyes, and beg them, in the name of the Lord, to stop their course, and return and live, and yet you have never had as much compassion on your own soul as to do this for yourselves? What! Can you love other men better than yourselves? Can you have pity on them, when you have no pity upon yourselves? Sirs, do you think someone will be heartily diligent to save men from hell, if he is not heartily persuaded that there is a hell? Or can he bring men to heaven, if he does not truly believe that there is a heaven? As Calvin says on my text79; “The man who neglects his own salvation will never take diligent care for the salvation of others.” Someone who does not have a strong a belief in the Word of God and the life to come, so as to withdraw his own heart from the vanities of this world, and excite him to holy diligence for salvation, cannot be expected to be faithful in seeking the salvation of other men. Surely someone who would dare to damn himself, would dare to leave others alone who are on the way to damnation; Someone like Judas, who will sell his Master for silver, will not hesitate to make merchandise of the flock; someone who will let go of his hopes of heaven, rather than leave behind his worldly and fleshly delights, will hardly leave them behind to save others. We may naturally conceive that someone who is willfully cruel to himself will have no pity on others; someone who is unfaithful to his own soul is not to be trusted with other men’s souls; he will sell it to the devil for the short pleasures of sin. I confess that a man who takes no heed to himself, but is careless of his own soul, will never have my consent to have charge of other men’s souls, and to oversee them for their salvation, unless it were a case of absolute necessity, and no better could be had.

(3) Do you think it is likely that someone will fight against Satan with all his might if he is himself a servant to Satan? Will he do any great harm to the kingdom of the devil, if he is himself a member and a subject of that kingdom? Will he be true to Christ if he is in covenant with his enemy? Now, this is the case of all unsanctified men, of whatever rank or profession they are: they are the servants of Satan, and the subjects of his kingdom; he is the one who rules in their hearts. And are they likely to be true to Christ if they are ruled by the devil? What prince will choose the friends and servants of his enemy to lead his armies in war against him? This is what has made so many preachers of the gospel enemies to the work of the gospel which they preach. No wonder such men deride the holy obedience of the faithful; while they take upon themselves to preach a holy life, they cast reproaches on those who practice it! O how many such traitors have been in the Church of Christ in all ages, which have done more against him, under his colors, than they could have done in the open field! They speak well of Christ and of godliness in general, and yet they slyly do what they can to bring them into disgrace, and make men believe that those who strive to seek God with all their hearts are a company of enthusiasts or hypocrites. And when they cannot for shame speak that way in the pulpit, they will do it in private among their acquaintances. Alas! How many such wolves have been set over the sheep! If there was a traitor among the twelve in Christ’s family, no wonder if there are many now. It cannot be expected that a slave of Satan, “whose god is his belly, and who minds earthly things,”80 should be any better than “an enemy to the cross of Christ.”81 What if he lives civilly, and preaches plausibly, and outwardly maintains a profession of religion? He may be held as fast in the devil’s snares by worldliness, pride, a secret distaste of diligent godliness, or by an unsound heart that is not rooted in the faith, nor unreservedly devoted to Christ, as others are held fast by their drunkenness, uncleanness, and similar disgraceful sins. Publicans and harlots sooner enter heaven than Pharisees, because they are sooner convinced of their sin and misery.

And, though many of these men may seem excellent preachers, and may decry sin as loudly as others, yet it is all an affected fervency, and too commonly it is no more than useless bawling; for someone who cherishes sin in his own heart never falls upon it in earnest in others. I know, indeed, that a wicked man may be more willing to see the reformation of others than of himself, and hence he may show a kind of earnestness in dissuading them from their evil ways; that is because he can preach against sin at an easier rate than he can forsake it; and another man’s reformation may coexist with his own enjoyment of his lusts. And, therefore, many a wicked minister or parent may be earnest with their people or children to amend, because they do not lose their own sinful profits or pleasures by another’s reformation; nor does it call them to that self-denial which their own reformation does. Yet, for all of this, there is none of that zeal, resolution, and diligence, which are found in all who are true to Christ. They do not set themselves against sin as the enemy of Christ, and as what endangers their people’s souls. A traitorous commander, who shoots only powder against the enemy, may make as great a sound or report with his guns as those which are loaded with bullets; but he does no harm to the enemy. So one of these men may speak as loudly, and mouth his pleas with an affected fervency, but he seldom does any great punishment against sin and Satan. No man can fight well unless he hates, or is very angry; much less can he fight against those whom he loves, and loves above all. Every unrenewed man is so far from hating sin, as to set it as his dearest treasure. So you can see that an unsanctified man, who loves the enemy, is unfit to be a leader in Christ’s army, or to draw others to renounce the world and the flesh, because he clings to them himself as his finest good.

(4) It is not likely that the people will highly regard the doctrine of such men, when they see that they do not live as they preach. They will think that he does not mean what he says, if he does not live as he says. They will hardly believe a man that does not seem to believe himself. If someone tells you to run for your lives because a bear or an enemy is at your back, and yet he does not increase his own pace, then you will be tempted to think he is only talking in jest, and that there really is no such danger as he alleges. When preachers tell people of the necessity of holiness, and that without it no one will see the Lord,82 and yet they remain unholy themselves, people will think that they are only talking to pass away the hour, and that they must say something for their money, and that all these are only a course of words. You may you lift up your voice against sin only so long, before men will not believe there is any such evil or danger as you speak of, for all the while they see the same man who reproaches it, cherishing it in his heart, and making it his delight. Rather, you tempt them to think there is some special good in it, and that you disparage it like gluttons disparage a dish that they love, so that they may have it all to themselves. As long as men have eyes as well as ears, they wish to see your meaning as well as hear it; and they are more apt to believe their sight than their hearing, it being the more perfect sense of the two.

All that a minister does is a kind of preaching; and if you live a covetous or careless life, you preach these sins to your people by your practice. If you drink, or game, or trifle away your time in pointless conversations, they take it as if you said to them, “Neighbors, this is the life you should all live; you may venture on this course without any danger.” If you are ungodly, and do not teach your families the fear of God, nor contradict the sins of the company you are in, nor turn the stream of their pointless talking, nor deal with them plainly about their salvation, then they will take it as if you preached to them that such things are needless, and that they may boldly do the same as you. No, you do worse than all this, for you teach them to think evil of others who are better than yourselves. How many a faithful minister, and private Christian, is hated and reproached for the sake of such as you! What do the people say to them? “You are so strict, and tell us so much of sin, and duty, and make such a fuss about these matters, while such and such a minister, who is as great a scholar as you (and as good a preacher), will be funny and joke with us, and leave us alone, and never trouble himself (or us) with such things. You, however, can never be quiet, and you make more fuss than is needed. You love to frighten men with your talk of damnation, while other sober, learned, and peaceable divines are quiet, and live with us like other men.”

Such are the thoughts and talk of people, which your negligence gives rise to. They will let you preach against their sins, and talk as much as you want about godliness in the pulpit, if you will only let them alone afterwards, and be friendly and fun-loving with them when you have finished, and return to talking as they do, and living as they do, and become indifferent with them in your conversation. For they look at the pulpit like a stage: a place where preachers must show themselves, and play their parts, where you have liberty for an hour to say what you’re inclined to say; but they will not value what you say if you do not show them, by saying it personally to their faces, that you were earnest, and did indeed mean it all. Is that man then likely to do much good, or is he fit to be a minister of Christ, if he will only speak for Christ an hour on the Sabbath, and by his life, preaches against him all week, and indeed makes his own public words a lie? Even if any of the people are wiser than to follow the examples of such men, the loathsomeness of their lives will still make their doctrine less effectual. Though you know the meat to be good and wholesome, it may make a weak stomach turn if the cook or the servant who carries it has leprous or even dirty hands. Take heed therefore to yourselves, if you ever intend to do good to others.

Lastly, consider that the success of your labors depends on the assistance and blessing of the Lord. Where has he made any promise of his assistance and blessing to ungodly men? If he does promise his Church a blessing, even by such ungodly men, he still does not promise these men any blessing. To his faithful servants he has promised that he will be with them, that he will put his Spirit upon them, and put his word into their mouths, and that Satan will fall before them as lightning from heaven. But where is there any such promise to ungodly ministers? No, by your hypocrisy and your abuse of God, you provoke him to forsake you, and to destroy all your endeavors, at least as to yourselves, even though he may bless your endeavors for his chosen ones. For I do not deny that God may do good to his Church through wicked men; yet he does not ordinarily do it, nor does he do it so eminently, as he does by his own servants. And what I have said of the wicked themselves, applies in part to the godly; it applies while they are scandalous and backsliding, and in proportion to the measure of their sin.