Direction Third.
A Second Exhortation to Arm, and an Argument urging the Exhortation.
‘Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand’ — Eph. 6:13
The Apostle in these words reassumes his former exhortation mentioned, ver. 11, and presseth it with a new force, from that more particular discovery which he gives of the enemy, ver. 12, where, like a faithful scout, he makes a full report of Satan’s great power and malice; and also discloseth what a dangerous design he hath upon the saints—no less than to despoil them of all that is heavenly —from all which he gives them a second alarm, and bids them ‘Arm! arm!’ ‘Wherefore take unto you,’ &c. In the words consider—FIRST. The exhortation with the inference, ‘wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God.’ SECOND. The argument with which he urgeth the exhortation, and that is double—First. ‘That you may be able to withstand in the evil day.’ Second. ‘Having done all, to stand.’ That is, both able to fight and able to conquer.
DIRECTION III.—FIRST GENERAL PART.
[The Exhortation with the Inference.]
‘Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God,’ — Eph. 6:13
As for the first general, ‘the exhortation,’ we shall waive it as to the substance of it—it being the same with what we have handled, ver. 11; only there are two observables which we shall lightly touch—the one, from the repetition of the very same exhortation so soon, one verse only [being] interposed; the other from the verb the apostle useth here, which being not the same with ver. 11, affords a different note. There it is ‘put on;’1 here it is, ‘take unto you.’2
FIRST OBSERVABLE.
[Why the apostle renews so soon the same exhortation; also, what truths ministers ought to preach.]
Here observe the repetition of the same exhortation and that in so short a space. Sure it was not for want of matter, but rather out of abundance of zeal, that he harps the second time on the same string. Indeed he is a better workman, who drives one nail home with reiterated blows, than he which covets to enter many, but fastens none. Such preachers are not likely to reach the conscience, who hop from one truth to another, but dwell on none. Every hearer is not so quick as the preacher, to take a notion as it is first darted forth; neither can many carry away so much of that sermon which is made up all of varieties —where a point is no sooner named, but presently it pulls back its hand, and another makes a breach and comes forth; before the first hath been opened and hammered upon the conscience by a powerful application—as where the discourse is homogeneal, and some one necessary truth is cleared, insisted on, and urged home with blow upon blow. Here the whole matter of the discourse is akin, and one part remembered, brings the memory acquainted with the other; whereas in the former, one puts the other in a weak memory. Short hints and away may please a scholar, but [are] not so profitable for others. The one [way is] more fit for the schools, the other for the pulpit. Were I to buy a garment in a shop, I should like him better that lays one good piece or two before me that are for my turn, which I may fully peruse, than him who takes down all his shop, and heaps piece upon piece, merely to show his store, till at last for variety I can look wishly3 on none, they lie so one upon another. Again, as it is profitable thus to insist on truths, so it is not unbecoming a minister to preach the same truths again and again. Paul here goes over and over the same exhortation, ver. 11, 13, and elsewhere tells us this is ‘not grievous’ to him, but to them ‘it is safe,’ to hear the same things over and over, Php. 3:1. There are three sorts of truths must in our ministry be preached oft.