[The minister’s duty to make known the gospel.]

Second Observable. Wherein lies the work of a gospel minister—‘to make known the mystery of the gospel.’ You have had the sublime nature of the gospel set forth: it is a mystery. Here the minister’s work is laid out; he is with all possible clearness and perspicuity to open this mystery and expose it to the view of the people. Mark, ‘the gospel’ is his subject, and ‘to make it known’ is his duty. So runs the minister’s commission for his office, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,’ Mark 16:15. We hear people sometimes saying, The preacher is beside his text; but he is never beside his errand so long as it is the gospel he makes known. Whatever is his text, this is to be his design. His commission is to make known the gospel; to deliver that therefore which is not reductive to this is beside his instructions. Nothing but the preaching of the gospel can reach the end for which the gospel ministry was appointed, and that is the salvation of souls, ‘After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,’ I Cor. 1:21. The great book of the creation had lain long enough open before the world’s eyes, yet could they never come to the saving knowledge of God, by all that divine wisdom which is written with the finger of God in every page thereof. Therefore it pleased God to send his servants, that by preaching the gospel, poor souls might believe on Christ, and believing might be saved. No doctrine but the gospel can save a soul; nor the gospel itself, except it be made known.

[The gospel alone can save a soul, and this only when known.]

First. No doctrine but the gospel can save a soul. Galen may learn you to save your health if you will follow his rules. Littleton and other law-books will teach you how to save your estates. Plato and other philosophers will learn you how to save your credits among men, by an outward just inoffensive life. Their doctrine will be a means to save you from many nasty and gross sins, by which you may be applauded by your neighbours on earth, and perhaps less tormented in hell, where Fabricius finds a cooler place than Cataline. But it is the gospel alone whereby you can be taught how to save your souls from hell and bring them to heaven. But what do I speak of these? It is not God’s own law—the moral, I mean—that is now able to save you. God would never have been at such a vast expense—in the bloodshed of his Son—to erect another law, viz. the law of faith, if that would have served for this purpose; Gal. 2:21, ‘for if righteousness come’—yea, or could come—‘by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.’

Question. Why then do ministers preach the law?

Answer. They preach it as they should, they preach it in subserviency to the gospel, not in opposition. Qui scit benè distinguere inter legem et evangelium, Deo gratias agat, et sciat se esse theologum—he that knows how to distinguish well between the law and the gospel, let him bless God, and know that he then deserves the name of a divine. We must preach it as a rule, not as a covenant, of life. Holiness, as to the matter and substance of it, is the same that ever it was. The gospel destroys not the law in this sense, but adds a strong enforcement to all its commands.

Again, we may and must preach the law as the necessary means to drive souls out of themselves to Christ in the gospel. The gospel is the net with which we should catch souls and draw them out of their sinning sinking state. But how shall we ever get them to come into it? Truly never. Except we first beat the river with the law’s clubs—threatenings, I mean—sinners lie in their lusts, as fish in the mud, out of which there is no getting them but by laying hard upon their consciences with the threatenings of the law. ‘Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound,’ Rom. 5:20; that is, in the conscience by conviction, not in life by commission and practice. The law shows both what is sin, and also what sin is. I mean it tells when we commit a sin, and what a hateful and dangerous thing we do in committing of it—how we alarm God, and bring him with all his strength into the field against us. Now this is necessary to prepare a way for the sinner’s entertaining the gospel. The needle must enter before the thread with which the cloth is sewed. The sharp point of the law must prick the conscience before the creature can by the promises of the gospel be drawn to Christ. The field is not fit for the seed to be cast into it till the plough hath broken it up. Nor is the soul prepared to receive the mercy of the gospel till broken with the terrors of the law.

Second. The gospel itself saves not, except it be made known. ‘If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost,’ II Cor. 4:3. Where God sends no light, he intends no love. In bodily sickness a physician may make a cure, though his patient knows not what the medicine is that he useth. But the soul must know its remedy before he can have any healing benefit from it. John is sent ‘to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,’ Luke 1:77. No knowledge, no remission. Christ must be lift up on the pole of the gospel, as well as on the tree of the cross, that by an eye of faith we may look on him, and so be healed, John 3:14³. ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved,’ Isa. 45:22. A man that sees may lead another that is bodily blind to the place he would go. But he that would go to heaven must have an eye in his own head to see his way, or else he will never come there. ‘The just shall live by his faith,’ Hab. 2:4, not by another’s. A proxy faith is bootless. Now saving faith is a grace that sees her object; it is ‘the evidence of things not seen,’ Heb. 11:1; that is, which are not seen by sense. ‘I know,’ saith Paul, ‘whom I have believed,’ II Tim. 1:12. Therefore faith is oft set out by knowledge: ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent,’ John 17:3. Now, how can they know Christ and life eternal, till the gospel be made known, which bringeth him and life by him to light? II Tim. 1:10. And by whom shall the gospel be made known if not by the ministers of it? Thus far the apostle drives it: ‘How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?’ Rom. 10:14. So that this great work lies at the minister’s door. He is to ‘make known the mystery of the gospel.’

Objection. But what need now of preaching? this was the work of those that were to plant a church. Now the church is planted and the gospel made known, this labour may be spared.

Answer. The ministry of the gospel was not intended only to plant a church, but to carry on its growth also. What Paul plants, Apollos comes after and waters with his ministry, I Cor. 3:6. When the foundation is laid, must not the house be built? And this Christ gave ministers to his church for, ‘For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,’ Eph. 4:12. The scaffold is not taken down till the building be finished, but rather to raised higher and higher as the fabric goes up. Thus Paul went on in his ministry from lower points to higher, from foundation to superstructory truths, Heb 6:1. A famous church was planted at Thessalonica, but there was something ‘lacking in their faith,’ which Paul longed to come and carry on to further perfection I Thes. 3:10. Surely they that think there is so little need of preaching, forget that the gospel is a mystery—such a mystery as can never be fully taught by the minister or learned by the people; neither do they consider how many engineers Satan hath at work continually to undermine the gospel, both as it is a mystery of faith and godliness also. Hath not he his seedsmen that are always scattering corrupt doctrine? Surely then the faithful minister had need obviate their designs by making known the truth, that his people may not want an antidote to fortify them against their poison. Are their not corruptions in the bosoms of the best, and daily temptations from Satan and the world to draw these forth, whereby they are always in danger, and oft sadly foiled? In a word, is not grace planted in a cold soil, that needs cherishing from a gospel ministry? Do we not see, that what is got in one Sabbath by the preaching of the word, is, if not lost, yet much impaired, by the next? Truly our hearts are like lean ground, that needs ever and anon a shower or else the corn on it withers and changeth its hue. O what barren heaths would the most flourishing churches soon prove if these clouds did not drop upon them! The Christians to whom Peter wrote were of a high form, no novices, but well grounded and rooted in the faith; yet this did not spare the apostle his further pains: ‘I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth,’ II Peter 1:12.

USE OR APPLICATION.

[Reproof and encouragement to ministers.]

Use First. To the ministers. To reprove some; for encouragement to others. It reproves,

1. The vainglorious preachers; that, instead of ‘making known the mystery of the gospel,’ makes it his errand into the pulpit to make himself known; who blows up his sermon, as butchers do their flesh they sell, with a windy pomp of words, and frames their discourse rather to tickle their ears, than to profit their souls; to send them home applauding the preacher for his wit and parts, rather than admiring the excellencies of Christ and riches of his grace. Thus many, alas! who should be factors for Christ, play the merchants for their own credit. They are sent to woo souls for Christ, and they speak one word for him and two for themselves. This is a great wickedness, which blessed Paul solemnly clears himself of, ‘Nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: nor of men sought we glory, I Thes. 2:5, 6. O how seldom are any converted by such sermons! These gloriæ animalia—vainglorious preachers, they may be, like Rachel, fair, but their ministry is like to be barren.

2. Abstruse preachers; who do not make the mysteries of the gospel known, but make truths plain in themselves mysterious by their dark perplexed discourses upon them. This was the unhappiness of the schoolmen, that ruffled and ensnarled the plainest truths of the gospel with their harsh terms and nice questions, which else might have been wound off by an ordinary understanding. What is said of some commentators, ‘The places on which they treat were plain till they expounded them,’ may be said of some preachers, their text was clear till their obscure discourse upon it darkened it. What greater wrong can a preacher do his hearers than this? The preacher is to open scriptures; but these turn the key the wrong way, and lock the up from their knowledge. They are to hold up the gospel glass before their people, whereby they may see to dress their souls, like a bride, against their husband’s coming; but by that time that they have breathed on their text, it is so obscured that they cannot see their face in it. That water is not the deepest that is thickest and muddy; nor the matter always the most profound when the preacher’s expression is dark and obscure. We count it a blemish in speech, when a man’s pronunciation is not distinct. I know not then how it should come to be thought a perfection to be obscure in the delivery of our conceptions. The deeper and fuller the sculpture in the seal is, the clearer the impression will be on the wax. The more fully any man understands a thing, the more able he will be to deliver it plainly to others. As a clipped stammering speech comes from an impediment in the instruments of speech, so a dark and obscure delivery of our thoughts bewrays a defect in our apprehensions; except it should come from an affectation of soaring high in our expressions above the reach of vulgar understandings—and this is worst of all.

3. The mere moral preacher; the stream of whose preaching runs not in an evangelical channel. Moral duties he presseth, and sins against the moral law he exclaims against. Neither dare I blame him for that. The Christian’s creed doth not vacate the ten commandments. One of the first sermons our Saviour preached was most of it spent in pressing moral duties Matt. 5. And never more need to drive this nail to the head than in our days, in which Christianity hath been so wounded in its reputation by the moral dishonesty of many of its professors. But I level my reproof against them for this, that they do not preach the law evangelically, and make that the main design of their ministry for which they received their commission, and that is, ‘to make known the mystery of the gospel’—‘to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ,’ Eph. 3:8, 9. Did it make the father undervalue Cicero’s works—which otherwise he admired for their eloquence—only because his leaves were not perfumed with the sweet name of Jesus Christ? Surely then it is a foul blot upon their sermons and labours, who reveal little of Christ and the mystery of the gospel through the whole course of their ministry. The woe is pronounced not only against the non-preaching minister, but the not-gospel-preaching minister also: ‘Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel,’ I Cor. 9:16. An ethic lecture will not make thy people ‘wise unto salvation.’ It were well if thou couldst preach thy drunken neighbour sober and the riotous temperate. But this is no more than Plato did for his Polemo. This may make them men that were before beasts; but thou must get them to be saints, regenerate ones; preach them out of themselves, as well as out of their flagitious practices; from the confidence of their righteousness, as well as from the love of their sins; or else thou leavest them short of heaven. Well then, smoke, yea fire, them out of their moral wickednesses, by the threatenings of the law; but rest not till thou hast acquainted them with Christ, and the way of salvation by him. In a word, preach moral duties as much as thou wilt, but in an evangelical strain. Convince them they cannot do these without grace from Christ, for want of which the heathens’ virtues were but splendida peccata—gilded vices. Per fidem venitur ad opera, non per opera venitur ad fidem—we must come to good works by faith, and not to faith by good works. The tree must be good before the fruit it bears can be so. ‘Without me ye can do nothing.’ And then convince them, when they are most exact in moral duties, that this must not be their righteousness before God; the robe which they must cover their souls with—if they would not be found naked in his sight—must not be the homespun garment of their own inherent righteousness wrought in them, but of Christ’s righteousness which he wrought for them.

It affords a word of sweet encouragement to the faithful ministers of Christ. Haply you have been long at work for Christ, and see little fruit of your labours; your strength is even spent, and candle almost at the socket of old age; but your people are still carnal and obstinate, no sun will tan them, no arguments move them, filthy they are, and so will continue; to hell they will go, no gate can stop them; thou hast done thy utmost to reclaim them, but all in vain. This is sad indeed—to them, I mean—thus to go to hell by broad daylight, while the gospel shows the whither every step of their sinful course leads them. But thou hast cause of much inward peace and comfort, that thou hast done what God expects at thy hands. Remember thy work is, ‘To make known the mystery of the gospel,’ and upon their peril be it if they embrace it not. God never laid it upon thee to convert those he sends thee to. No; to publish the gospel is thy duty, to receive it is theirs. Abraham promiseth to discharge his servant of his oath, if the woman which he was to woo for his son would not follow him; and so will God clear thee of their blood, and lay it at their own door. ‘If thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness,…he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul,’ Eze. 3:19. God judgeth not of his servants’ work by the success of their labour, but by their faithfulness to deliver his message. ‘Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,’ Isa. 49:5.

[The duty of the people to make known the gospel.]

Use Second. To the people. As it is the minister’s task to make known the mystery of the gospel in his pulpit, so your duty to do the same in your lives. The Christian’s life should put his minister’s sermon in print; he should preach that mystery every day to the eyes of his neighbours, which the minister preacheth once or twice a week to their ears. As a true-made dial agrees with the sun in its motion, and as a well‑drawn picture resembles the face from which it was taken, so should thy conversation resemble that gospel which thou professest. Let none have cause to say, what once did of some loose Christians, aut hoc non est evangelium, aut hi non sunt evangelici —either this is not the gospel, or these are not its subjects. What hast thou to do with any sordid and impure practices, who pretendest to be instructed in this high and holy mystery? Thy Christian name ill agrees with a heathen life. If thou sufferest any that is not of thy profession to outstrip thee, yea but to keep pace with thee, in any action that is virtuous and truly honourable, thou shamest thyself and the gospel also. What a shame were it to find one in some trivial country school that should be able to pose a graduate in the university! Thou art trained up in such high and heavenly learning as no other religion in the world can show, and therefore your lives are to bear proportion to your teaching. It was a sharp reproof to the Corinthian saints, when the apostle said, 6”Jz –<2DTB@< B,D4B”J,ÃJ,—‘ye walk as men,’ I Cor. 3:3; that is, men in a natural state. And he that walks thus like men, will not walk much unlike the very beasts; for man is become brutish in his understanding, and it is worse to live like a beast than to be a beast.

Surely, Christians, if you have not your name for nought, you partake of a nature higher than human. Your feet should stand where other men’s heads are; you should live as far above the carnal world as grace is above nature, as heaven is above earth. Christ would never have stooped beneath angels, but to raise your hearts and lives above men. He would never have humbled himself to take the human nature, but on a design to make us partakers of the divine; nor would he have walked on earth, but to make a way to elevate our hearts to heaven. Say not, therefore, flesh and blood cannot bear such an injury or for bear such a sensual pleasure. Either thou art more than a man, or less than a Christian. Flesh and blood never revealed the gospel to thee, flesh and blood never received Christ; in a word, flesh and blood shall never enter into the kingdom of God. If thou beest a Christian, thou art baptized into the spirit of the gospel; thou hast a heaven-born nature, and that will enable thee to do more than flesh and blood can do. Hast thou no desire to see others converted by the gospel? Wouldst thou steal to heaven alone, and carry none of thy neighbours with thee? Now, how shalt thou win them into a good opinion of the gospel, but by such an amiable life as may commend it unto their consciences? It was a charge long ago laid upon Christianity, that it was better known ‘in leaves of books than in the lives of Christians.’ From hence it is, that many are hardened in their wickedness and prejudice against the gospel. He is an unwise fisherman that scareth away the fish which he desires to get within his net. O offend not those, by scandals in thy life, whom thou wouldst have converted by the preaching of the gospel. There is now‑a‑days, saith one, much talk, as if the time for the Jews’ conversion were at hand; but, saith he, the loose lives of Christians do so disparage this heavenly mystery, that the time seems further off. Indeed, the purity of Christians’ lives is the best attractive to win others to the love of religion. Had Christ’s doves more sweet spices of humility, charity, patience, and other heavenly graces, in their wings, as they fly about the world, they would soon bring more company home with them to the church’s lockers. This is the gold that should overlay the temple of Christ’s church, and would make others in love with its beauty. This was one happy means for the incredible increase of converts in the primitive times. Then the mystery of the gospel was made known, not only by the apostles’ powerful preaching, but by Christians’ holy living. See how they walked, Acts 2:46; and what was the blessed fruit of it ‘They had favour with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved,’ ver. 47. It would tempt any almost but a devil—who loves to live in the fire of contention, and is desperately hardened against all goodness—to have entered their names into such a heavenly society; but when this gold grew dim, then the gospel began to lose its credit in the world, and consequently its takings. Converts came in slower when those that professed the gospel began to cool in their zeal and slacken in the strictness of their lives.

[The minister is to declare the gospel with boldness.]

Third Observable. The manner how the gospel minister is to perform his work—‘that I may open my mouth boldly.’ We must inquire:—First. What this boldness is the apostle desires prayers for. Second. Wherein the minister is to express the boldness in preaching the gospel. Third. What kind of boldness it is that he must show. Fourth. Some helps to procure boldness.

First. What this boldness is the apostle desires prayers for. The words are ¦< B”ÖÕ0F\‘, and import these two things:

1. To speak all that he hath in command from God to deliver. This lies full in the etymon of the word. Thus Paul kept nothing back of God’s counsel, Acts 20:27. He ‘concealed not the words of the holy One,’ as Job’s phrase is.

2. To speak with liberty and freedom of spirit—without fear or bondage to any, be they many or mighty. Now this is seen, (1.)By speaking openly, and not in corners; the trick of heretics and false teachers, who ‘privily bring in their damnable heresies.’ It is said Christ ‘spake them openly’ —¦< B”ÖÕ0F\‘, Mark 8:32. (2.) By speaking plainly. It shows some fear in the heart, when our words are dark and shady—that the preachers’ judgment or opinion cannot easily be spelled from his words, he lays the so close and ambiguous. The minister is to speak truth freely and plainly. This was the apostle’s boldness, ‘Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech,’ B@88± B”ÖÕ0F\‘ PDfµ,2”—‘we use great boldness;’ so your margin II Cor. 3:12.

Second. Wherein the minister is to show this boldness in preaching the gospel.

1. In asserting the truths of the gospel. He is not to smother truth for the face or fear of any. Ministers are called witnesses. A witness is to speak what he knows, though it be in open court before the greatest of men. Paul had a free tongue to speak the truth, even in prison, though he was in bonds, yet he tells us ‘the word of God is not bound,’ II Tim. 2:9. Some truths will go down easily; to preach these requires no boldness. The worst in the congregation will give the preacher thanks for his pains upon some subject; but there are displeasing truths, truths that cross the opinion, may be, of some in the assembly; to preach these requires a free and bold spirit. When Christ was to preach before the Pharisees, he was not afraid to preach against their errors. Had some wary preacher been to have stood in his place, he would have pitched upon such a subject as should not have offended their tender ears. There are truths that expose the preacher to scorn and derision, yet not to be concealed. Paul preached the resurrection, though some in the assembly mocked him for his pains. There are truths that sometimes may expose the minister to danger—truths that carry the cross at their back. Such was that truth that Isaiah delivered concerning the rejection of the Jews. ‘But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not,’ Rom. 10:20. This was like to enrage his countrymen, and bring their fists about his ears. We read of a ‘word of patience’ which we are to keep, Rev. 3.10. Such a word as the preacher had need have good store of patience that delivers it, and Christians that profess it, because it may bring them into trouble, and draw the persecutor’s sword against them. This is not always the same. The word of patience in the apostle’s time was truths levelled against Judaism and heathenism; under the Arian emperors, it was the deity of Christ; in Luther’s time the doctrine of justification, and others asserted by him against the Romish church.

2. Boldness in reproving sin, and denouncing judgment against impenitent sinners. They are commanded ‘to lift up their voice like a trumpet, and tell Jerusalem her sins.’ ‘Preach the word,’ saith Paul; ‘be instant in season, and out of season; reprove, rebuke with all long-suffering.’ He must reprove, and continue therein while they continue to sin. The dog ceaseth not to bark so long as the thief is in the yard. A minister without this boldness is like a smooth file, a knife without an edge, a sentinel that is afraid to let off his gun when he should alarm the city upon a danger approaching. Nothing more unworthy to see a people bold to sin and the minister afraid to reprove. It is said of Tacitus that he took the same liberty to write the emperor’s lives that they took in leading them. So should the minister in reproving sin, be they who they will. Not the beggar’s sin, and spare the gentleman’s; not the profane, and skip over the professor’s sin. It was all one to Christ; whoever sinned should hear of it. The scribes and Pharisees, them he paid to purpose; neither connives he at his own disciples, but rebukes them sharply. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ saith he to Peter; ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ to his own mother for her unseasonable importunity.

Third. What kind of boldness must the minister’s be.

1. A convincing boldness. ‘How forcible are right words?’ saith Job; and how feeble are empty words, though shot with a thundering voice? Great words in reproving an error or sin, but weak arguments, produce laughter oftener than tears. Festus thought it ‘unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him,’ Acts 25:27. Much more unreasonable is it in the pulpit to condemn an error and not prove it so; a practice and not convince of the evil of it. The apostle saith of some, ‘Their mouths must be stopped,’ Titus 1:11. They are convincing arguments that must stop the mouth. Empty reproofs will soon open the mouths of those that are reproved, wider, than shut them. The Spirit of God reproves by convincing, ‘And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin,’ ¦8X(>,4, John 16:8, he will convince; and so should the minister. This is to preach in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit.

2. A wise boldness. The minister is to reprove the sins of all, but to personate none. Paul, being to preach before a lascivious and unrighteous prince, touched him to the quick, but did not name him in his sermon. Felix’s conscience would save Paul that labour; he ‘trembled,’ though Paul did not say he meant him.

3. A meek boldness. ‘The words of wise men are heard in quiet,’ Ecc. 9:17. Let the reproof be as sharp as thou wilt, but thy spirit must be meek. Passion raiseth the blood of him that is reproved, but compassion turns his bowels. The oil in which the nail is dipped makes it drive the easier, which otherwise have riven the board. We must not denounce wrath in wrath, lest sinners think we wish their misery; but rather with such tenderness, that they may see it is no pleasing work to us to rake in their wounds, but do it, that we might not by a cruel silence and foolish pity be accessory to their ruin, which we cordially desire to prevent. Jeremiah sounds the alarm of judgment, and tells them of a dismal calamity approaching; yet at the same time appeals to God, and clears himself of all cruelty towards them: ‘I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee,’ Jer. 17:16. As if he had said, I have delivered my message in denouncing judgment (for I durst do no other), but it was with a merciful heart; I threatened ruin, but wished for peace. Thus Daniel, he dealt plainly and roundly with the king, but ushers in his hard message with an affectionate expression of his love and loyalty to him: ‘My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies,’ Dan. 4:19.

4. A humble boldness; such a boldness as is raised from a confidence in God, not from ourselves, or our own parts and ability, courage or stoutness. Paul is bold, and yet can tremble and be in fear; bold, in confidence of his God: ‘We were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention,’ I Thes. 2:2; but full of fear in the sense of his own weakness: ‘I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling,’ I Cor. 2:3.

5. A zealous boldness. Our reproofs of sin must come from a warm heart. Paul’s spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city given to idolatry. Jeremiah tells us ‘the word of God was as fire in his bones;’ it broke out of his mouth as the flame out of a furnace. The word is a hammer, but it breaks not the flinty heart when lightly laid on. King James said of a minister in his time, he preached as if death was at his back. Ministers should set forth judgment as if it were at the sinner’s back, ready to take hold of him. Cold reproofs or threatenings, they are like the rumblings of thunder afar off, which affright not as a clap over our head doth. I told you the minister’s boldness must be meek and merciful, but not to prejudice zeal. The physician may sweeten his pill to make his patient to swallow it better; but not to such a degree as will weaken the force of its operation.

Fourth. We promised to propound some helps to procure this boldness.

1. A holy fear of God. We fear man so much because we fear God so little. One fear cures another as one fire draws out another. When your finger is burned you hold it to the fire; when man’s terror scares you, turn your thoughts to meditate on the wrath of God. This is the plaster God lays to Jeremiah’s wrists to cure his anguish distemper of man’s fear. ‘Be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them,’ Jer. 1:17. If we must be broken in pieces—so is the original—better man do it than God. What man breaks in pieces God can make whole again. ‘He that loseth his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it,’ Mark 8:35. But if God break us in pieces, it is beyond the skill of man to gather the sherds, and remake what God hath marred.

2. Castle thyself within the power and promise of God for thy assistance and protection. He that is a coward in the open field grows valiant and fearless when got within strong walls and bulwarks. Jeremiah was even laying down is arms, and fleeing from the face of those dangers which his ministry to a rebellious and enraged people exposed him. Hear what course he had in his thoughts to take, because the word of the Lord was made a reproach to him, and a derision daily: ‘Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name,’ Jer. 20:9. Now what kept him from this cowardly flight? ‘But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one,’ ver. 11. Now he takes heart, and goes on with his work undauntedly. Our eye, alas! is on our danger, but not on the invisible walls and bulwarks which God hath promised to set about us. The prophet’s servant, that saw the enemy’s army approaching, was in a panic fright; but the prophet, that saw the heavenly host for his lifeguard about him, cared not a rush for them all. If God be not able to protect thee, why dost thou go on his errand at all? If thou believest he is, why art thou afraid to deliver it when he is able to deliver thee?

3. Keep a clear conscience. He cannot be a bold reprover that is not a conscientious liver. Such a one must speak softly for fear of waking his own guilty conscience. He is like one that shoots in a rusty foul piece, his reproofs recoil upon himself. Unholiness in the preacher’s life either will stop his mouth from reproving, or the people’s ears from receiving what he saith. O how harsh a sound does such a cracked bell make in the ears of its auditors! Every one desires, if he must be smitten, that it may be by the hand of ‘the righteous,’ Ps. 141:5. Good counsel from a wicked man is spoiled by his stinking breath that delivers it. Our Saviour was fain to bid them hear the Pharisees, because their persons were a scandal to their doctrine, Matt. 23:2, 3. Even those that are good are too prone to turn their back off the ordinance for the scandal of him that officiates. This is their weakness and sin; but woe be to them at whose wickedness they stumble upon this temptation. It shows the man hath a very good stomach, that can eat his dinner out of a slovenly cook’s hands; and a very sound judgment and quick appetite to the word, that can fall to and make a hearty meal of it without any squeamish scrupulosity or prejudice from the miscarriages of the preacher.

4. Consider that which thou most fearest is best prevented by thy freedom and holy boldness in thy ministry. Is it danger to thy life thou fearest? No such way to secure it as by being faithful to him that hath the sole dispose of it. In whose hands thinkest thou are thy times? Surely in God’s. Then it is thy best policy to keep him thy friend; for, ‘when thy ways please him, he can make thy enemies to be at peace with thee.’ Man-pleasing is both endless and needless. If thou wouldst, thou couldst not please all; and if thou couldst, there is no need, so thou pleasest one that can turn all their hearts or bind their hands. They speed best that dare be faithful. Jonah was afraid of his work. O he durst not go to such a great city with so sad a message! To tell them they should be destroyed was to set them awork to destroy him that brought the news. But how near was he losing his life by running away to save it? Jeremiah seemed the only man like to lose his life by his bold preaching, yet had fairer quarter at last than the smooth preachers of the times. However, it is better to die honourably than live shamefully. Is it thy name thou art tender of? If thou beest free and bold, the word thou deliverest will be a reproach and daily derision to thee, as once to Jeremiah. Thou mayest, indeed, be mocked by some, but thou wilt be reverenced by more; yea, even they that wag their heads at thee carry that in their conscience which will make them fear thee. They are the flattering preachers—who are ‘partial in the law’—that become ‘base’ among the people, Mal. 2:9.

5. Consider, if thou beest not now bold for Christ in thy ministry, thou canst not be bold before Christ at his judgment-bar. He that is afraid to speak for Christ will certainly be ashamed to look on his face then. ‘We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,’ &c., II Cor. 5:10. Now what use doth Paul make of this solemn meditation? ‘Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men,’ ver. 11. It is no wisdom to provoke the judge by flattering the prisoner. A serious thought of that day, as we are going to preach, would make us shut all base fear out of the pulpit. It is a very small thing to be judged by man now for our boldness, but dismal to be condemned by Christ for our cowardice. This is man’s judgment-day, as Paul calls it, I Cor. 4:3. Every one dares tax the preacher, and pass his sentence upon him, if he please not his itching ear; but Christ will have his judgment-day also, to judge them that now take upon them to judge others, and his sentence will easily reverse theirs. Yea, even those that now condemn thy freedom thy freedom to reprove would be the first to accuse thee for thy sinful silence. The wicked servant, who likes the remissness of his master’s government—whereby he may play his ungodly pranks without control—cries out of him at the gallows, and is oft heard there to lay both his sin, and sad catastrophe of his life to which it brings him, at his master’s door; saying, ‘If he had reproved me, the magistrate had not condemned me; if he had done his duty, the hangman had not now been to do his office.’ Thus may some at the last day accuse their cowardly ministers, and say, ‘If they had told them their danger, they had not run into it; if they had been bold to reprove their sin, they had not been so impudent to live in the practice of it, which now hath brought them to everlasting shame and misery.’

6. Consider how bold Christ was in his ministry. His very enemies were forced to give him this testimony, ‘We know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly,’ Luke 20:21. He spared not the proudest of them, but to their head reproved them, and denounced the judgment of God against them. When in the midst of his enemies, he was not daunted with their high looks or furious threats, but owned that very truth which they made his capital crime, Matt. 27:11; John 18:37. Hence Paul saith of him that ‘before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession,’ I Tim. 6:13; and useth this as the most powerful argument to conjure Timothy to be faithful in his ministry. What greater incentive to valour can the soldier have, than to see his general before him stand with undaunted courage where the bullets fly thickest? Such valiant captains do not use to breed white-livered soldiers. It is impossible we should be dastardly if instructed by him and acted with his spirit. When the high-priest and elders ‘saw the boldness of Peter and John’—who were convented before them —they soon knew where they had got this heroic resolved spirit; for it is said, ‘they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus,’ Acts 4:13.

7. Pray and beg prayers, for this holy boldness. Thus did the apostles come by it. Their natural boldness was not the product of any natural greatness of spirit they had above others. You see what stout soldiers they were in themselves by their poor-spirited behaviour at Christ’s attachment, when they all ran away in a fright, and left him to shift for himself. No; this boldness was the child of prayer; it was not bred in them, but granted from heaven unto them at their humble suit. See them praying hard for it: ‘Now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,’ Acts 4:29. Mark, they do not pray against suffering, but for ‘boldness’ to preach, whatever it may cost them. They desire not to be excused the battle, but to be armed with courage to stand in it. They had rather be lift above the fear of suffering, than have an immunity from suffering. Let God but give them boldness to do their duty, and stand to their tackling, and they have enough. Now see how soon God sets his fiat to their prayers: ‘And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness,’ ver. 31. There is the grace they desired, dropped into their bosom, in a farther measure than ever they had it. If the soldier hath a desire to fight for his prince, no doubt he may have arms for asking. If this be thy sincere request, God will not deny it. See them also sending others to God upon this errand for them, Col. 4:3, and here in the text. Certainly people cannot desire that of God for their minister which both he and they need more. It is a difficult duty to them, but necessary for you. He cannot be a faithful minister that dares not deliver all his message. When Mauritius the emperor had inquired of Phocas’ disposition, he said, si timidus est, homicida est—if he be timorous, he is a murderer. He that fears his people’s faces is the man that is most like to murder their souls; so that you pray for yourselves, while you endeavour to pray down this gift upon your minister.

BRANCH FOURTH.

[The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers].

‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’

We are at length got to the last general head in the words—the double argument with which the apostle backs his request, the more effectually to provoke them to the remembrance of him in their prayers. First. Taken from his office—‘for which I am an ambassador.’ Second. From his present afflicted state—‘an ambassador in bonds.’

[An argument for Paul’s request, taken from his office.]

First argument. Paul enforces his request for his people’s prayers by an argument taken from his office. Ambassadors being messengers of state, sent by princes abroad about great affairs of their kingdom, it behoves all good subjects to wish them good speed and success in their embassy. Upon this account, Paul, being sent from the great God in embassage as the apostle of the Gentiles, desires the church’s prayers for a happy success to the message he brings.

Note. Ministers of the gospel are God’s ambassadors. The apostle doth not monopolize this title, as if none were so beside himself; for elsewhere he reads others in the commission, ‘We are ambassadors for Christ,’ II Cor. 5:20—that is, we apostles who are now upon the place, and in the employment of the gospel, and such also as shall be despatched after us to the end of the world upon the same errand. The authority of the apostles’ extraordinary commission, and that which ordinary ministers after them have, is the same for substance, only they had their mission immediately from Christ’s mouth, and were ecumenical; whereas ordinary ministers receive it from the church by an authority derived from Christ, and are fixed to their particular orbs, and are to lie as ambassadors legier in some one place whither they are sent. In handling this point we shall inquire into these three particulars. First. Why ministers are called ambassadors. Second. Why God would send ambassadors to his poor creature. Third. Why he useth weak men and not glorious angels, to be his ambassadors in this negotiation.

[Why ministers are called ambassadors.]

First. Let us inquire why ministers are called ambassadors: and that is, 1. To set out the dignity of their function. 2. To set out the duty of their function.

[The dignity of the ministry is expressed by the title ‘ambassadors.’]

1. Ministers of the gospel are by God designated ambassadors, to set out the dignity of their office. God by this title would procure and honourable esteem of the ministers’ calling in the hearts of all those to whom they are sent. This is more necessary to the good success of their message than is generally thought. I know very well that what ministers speak on this subject, they are thought in it to be rather kind to themselves, than friends to the gospel. Men are prone to interpret it as a fruit of their pride, and an affectation they have of some outward grandeur and worldly pomp which they design to gain by such a magnificent title. The apostle himself was sensible of this, and therefore, when he had called for that respect which was due to the minister’s function —‘Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God’—he gives a caveat, that they would ‘judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come,’ I Cor. 4:1, 5. Then it shall be known from what spirit it is that we ministers magnify our office, and have been acted by in our function; and also by what spirit they are moved who vilify and despise both it and our persons for our calling’s sake. Now the dignity of gospel ambassadors will appear in three things.

(1.) In the greatness of the Prince from whom they come. Ambassadors have their respect according to the rank of their master that sends them; the greater the prince, the more honourable is his messenger. Now, the ministers of the gospel come from the great God, who is ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’—by whom they reign and of whom they hold all their principalities. This is their Master in whose name they come. Therefore Moses, when he was to deliver his message to Israel, bids them ‘ascribe greatness to that God’ whose name and will he was to publish, Deut. 32:3. The potentates of the world have found to their cost how deeply God takes himself concerned in the affronts that are done to his servants. What brought Israel’s flourishing kingdom to ruin but their mocking his messengers and misusing his prophets? Then ‘the wrath of God arose against his people, till there was no remedy,’ II Chr. 36:16. We cannot despise the messenger and honour his master that sends him, Luke 10:16. Few are so bold as to say with that proud king, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?’ Ex. 5:2. But too many dare say, Who is the minister, that I should obey his message? —repent at his summons, tremble at the words he delivers? forgetting, alas! they have God’s authority for what they say; and so, by a slanting blow, they hit God himself in contemning his ambassador.

(2.) In the greatness of the Person whose place the minister supplies. Ministers are but deputy ambassadors; Christ himself had the first patent; called therefore ‘the Messenger of the covenant,’ Mal. 3:1; and ‘the Apostle…of our profession,’ Heb. 3:1. From him the ministers receive their authority: ‘All power is given unto me,…Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,’ Matt. 28:18. So, II Cor. 5:20, ‘We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.’ As if the apostle had said, We do but deliver that message which Christ should and would have done had he not been called to heaven about the affairs of his church; and therefore hath left us as his deputies to carry out that ministry which himself began when he was here below. Now, what an honour is it for a poor creature to stand up in Christ’s room and bring that message to poor sinners which was first committed unto him?

(3.) In the excellency of the message they bring. There are three kinds of embassies in the world which make way for their honourable entertainment that are the messengers to bring them to any state—embassies for peace, embassies for marriage, and embassies for trade.

(a) Embassies for peace. Beautiful are their feet, and honoured are their persons, that bring glad tidings of peace along with them; especially four things concur in their embassage, which will all be found in the minister’s negotiation.

[1.] When an ambassador comes from some puissant prince whose power is formidable and armies irresistible. An ambassador from such a prince, to a people naked and unarmed, for peace and amity, O how welcome is his approach! Such a king we come from. He offers not peace because he cannot maintain a war or stands in need of our friendship. Sinners need his favour, but he fears not their hostility. Never could they yet shoot any of their arrows so high as heaven, but all have come down upon their own heads. What can he that spits against the wind, but look to have it blown back upon his own face? and he that fights with God, but expect to have his weapons beat back to his own head? Worldly princes treat when they cannot fight. Think not so of the great God. His instruments of death are ready. No place where he hath not his armed troops able to fetch in his proudest enemies. No creature so little but contains an army in it big enough to tame the proudest king in the world. The worm under Herod’s foot, at God’s command, shall seize on him and eat out his heart. O with what fear and trembling should the ambassadors of this God be received! When Samuel the prophet came to Bethlehem, ‘the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?’ I Sam. 16:4.

[2.] When such a puissant prince sends his ambassadors for peace to a people that have already felt the impressions of his power, and are pining under the bleeding miseries which their war with him has brought upon them, O how would they run to open their city gates to his ambassador!—as willingly surely as Noah opened the window to receive the dove that brought the olive‑branch after that dismal flood. This is the deplored state which the ministry of the gospel finds mankind involved in. What a forlorn condition hath our war with heaven brought us into! Do we not feel the arrows of divine vengeance sticking in our very hearts and consciences? The curse of God cleaving to every faculty of our souls and member of our bodies? Are not all the creatures in arms against us? and doth not hell from beneath open its devouring mouth upon us, ready to swallow us in everlasting destruction? And yet we are so stout that we can find no lodging in our town for his ambassadors, but a prison? no entertainment to the offers of peace they make, but contempt and scorn?

[3.] When the terms of peace he brings are honourable. Gold, we say, may be bought too dear, and so may the peace of one state with another; as when Nahash the Ammonite offered peace to the men of Jabesh‑Gilead, but upon condition that they should have ‘every one his right eye thrust out, to lay it as a reproach on Israel,’ and therefore was rejected with just indignation; they resolving rather to die with honour than live with shame. It is the custom among many of this world’s princes to make their demands according to the length of their sword. When their power is great it is hard to have peace on easy terms. Now this, one would think, should make the ministers of the gospel and their message infinitely welcome to poor sinners, that, though they come from the great God that may make his own demands—for who may say to God, ‘What doest thou?’—and might not only require the eye out of your head, but force the very heart out of your body; yet offers peace on such gracious terms, that we could not possibly have framed them so to our own advantage, had we been left to draw them, as he of his own free grace is pleased to propound them; there being nothing in the whole instrument of peace provided for himself, besides the securing of his own glory in our salvation. See, a little, what he offers to poor sinners, and what he requires of them again. He offers to seal an act of oblivion, wherein all wrongs done to his crown and dignity in the time of our hostility against him shall be forgiven and forgotten. So runs the promise, ‘He will forgive them their iniquities, and remember them no more.’ He will not only forgive what is past, but receive our persons into favour for the future. A prince may save a malefactor’s life, but forever banish his person from court. But God promiseth access into his presence. ‘By whom also we have access by faith into this grace (or favour) wherein we stand,’ Rom. 5:2. Yea, he promiseth to restore the sinner to all that by his rebellion was forfeited. Treason taints the blood, degrades from honour, and confiscates the estate; God offers to take off the whole curse which befell the sinner for his rebellion, and restores him to his primitive dignity. He ‘gives them power to become his children,’ John 1:12, and, as his children, makes them his heirs, and that not to a Cabul here below only, but to heaven itself, an inheritance in light beyond all expression glorious; for godliness hath both the promise of this life and that which is to come.

Now, let us see what he expects at the sinner’s hand. Not to purchase this his favour with a ransom out of his own purse! No, he empties his Son’s veins to pay that. But he requires us, (a) To lay down the weapons of our rebellion—for he cannot in honour treat with us while we have that sword in our hand with which we have fought against him. (b) To accept our pardon and peace at the hands of free grace; attributing the glory of it to the mere mercy of God as the moving, and Christ’s satisfactory obedience as the meritorious cause. (c) That we shall swear fealty and allegiance to him for the future. How reasonable these are, those that now reject them shall confess with infinite shame and horror for their folly, when Christ shall pack them to hell by his irrevocable sentence.

[4.] When in all this a prince is real in the offers of peace he makes, and gives full security for the performance of what he promiseth, this must needs make the ambassador that brings them still the more welcome. Treaties of peace among men are too often used but as a handsome blind for war—they intend least what they pretend most. But when an ambassador comes plenipotentiary, and enabled to give full security and satisfaction against all fears and jealousies that may arise in the breasts of those he treats with, this gives a value to all the rest. Now, the great God hath wonderfully condescended to satisfy the querulous hearts of poor sinners. Guilt hath made man suspicious of God; his own unfaithfulness to God makes him jealous of God’s faithfulness unto him. Could Satan make Eve so question the truth of God’s promise? He saith but, ‘Ye shall not surely die?’ and she is presently shaken out of her faith on her Maker to believe her destroyer. O how easy then is it for him to nourish those suspicions which do naturally breed now in our unbelieving hearts! How oft are we putting it to the question, Will God forgive so great, so many sins? May I venture to believe? Now God gives his ambassadors full instructions from his word to satisfy all the doubts and scruples which he injects, or which may arise from our own misgiving hearts. Tota Scriptura hoc agit, saith Luther, ne dubitamus sed certò speremus—the whole Scripture drives at this, to satisfy our doubts, and assure our hopes in the mercy of God. St. Paul hath a passage something like this, ‘Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope,’ Rom. 15:4.

There are many expedients men use to satisfy the minds of those they deal with concerning the truth of their promises and certainty of their performing them. Sometimes they ratify them with their seal set to the writing. Thus God gives the broad seal of the sacraments, and privy seal of his Spirit, to assure the believer he will perform all he hath promised in his word. Sometimes witnesses are called in for further security of the conveyance. Thus in the purchase Jeremiah made of his kinsman’s field, he took witnesses to the bargain, Jer. 32:10. See witnesses both in heaven and earth, ready to vouch the truth of what God promiseth, and all agree in their verdict, I John 5:7, 8. If all these will not do, then an oath is taken, and this useth to be ‘an end of controversies.’ To this also doth God graciously condescend. Not that God’s promise needs the suretiship of his oath to make it surer—for it is as impossible God should lie when he promiseth as when he swears—but to make our faith stronger, which needs such supporters as these to stay and strengthen it; as is hinted in that sweet place, from which one flower the sincere believer may suck honey enough to live comfortably upon in the hardest longest winter of affliction that can befall him: ‘Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation,’ &c., Heb. 6:17, 18. Now, the greater the security God enables his ambassadors to offer poor sinners for the salvation they preach in his name, the more prodigiously provoking is their unbelief and impenitency who reject it. When Titus Vespasian came into Jerusalem, and saw the unspeakable miseries which the besieged had endured from those three sore plagues, sword, pestilence, and famine, that had so long raged among them, it is said that he broke out into these words, ‘I am not guilty of all this blood which hath been shed, nor of the miseries this people have endured; that by their obstinacy have brought it upon their own heads.’ O how much more may the ambassadors of Christ wash their hands over the heads of impenitent sinners, to whom they have so oft offered pardon and peace in God’s name, but they would not hearken, and say, ‘We are free from your blood; it is your own obstinacy and desperate impenitency hath undone your precious souls. Would you have accepted life at the hands of mercy, you should not have been cut off by the sword of his justice.’

(b) Embassies for marriage. To offer an alliance by marriage between one state and another, this is one great part of the minister’s embassage. They are sent to let the world know what good-will the God of heaven bears to poor sinners; that he can be content to bestow his only Son and heir in marriage upon them, if they also upon treaty can like the match. Nay more, both Father and Son desire it. It is a match which God himself first thought on for his Son. It sprang from the counsel of his own will; and when this great intendment was transacted betwixt Father and Son—as it was before the foundation of the world—the Son declared his liking of it to his Father, yea, expressed the dear affection he bore to mankind; for then it was that he ‘rejoiced in the inhabitable parts of the earth, and his delights were with the sons of men.’ In pursuance of this, ‘when the fulness of time was come,’ he took his progress from heaven to earth, that by marrying our nature he might also enter a near alliance with the persons of believers. This is the match God’s ambassadors come to negotiate with you. The Scriptures are their credential letters, that confirm, under God’s own handwriting and seal, the truth of all they offer in his name. There you have the picture of his heavenly Prince they woo your affections for drawn to the life in his glory, love, and loveliness, that, by knowing him, you may the better take liking to his person; there are the rich bracelets of the promises, which his messengers are in his name to deliver to those willing souls that shall entertain the motion, and declare their consent to take him for their Lord and husband; yea, they have authority to pronounce the contract, and to promise in Christ’s name marriage, which at the great day he will perform unto them: ‘I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ,’ II Cor. 11:2. Stand here and adore, ye children of men, this low stoop of divine majesty! O that ever it should enter into the heart of the great God to match his Son unto his creature, and that not of the noblest house among them! for ‘he took not upon him the nature of angels,’ but of mankind, not in its primitive state, but when it was lapsed and degraded of its primitive glory. For a high-born prince to take a poor damsel out of the beggar’s row, is a thing that yet the world hath not been acquainted with. But to take one from the meanest cottage were not so strange as to take her from the jail or bar, where she is condemned for treason against his royal person. Yet this is the very case—the Lord offers to lift up the head of his rebel creature out of prison, where it lies under a sentence of death for horrid treason against his crown and dignity, to take it into his bed and bosom. Truly I know not at which most to wonder; whether at the mercy of God in making love to us, or our pride and folly that are so coy hardly persuaded to entertain the motion. Though Abigail confessed herself unworthy to be David’s wife, yet she was too wise to stand in her own light, by letting slip such an opportunity for her preferment as was not like again to occur; therefore it is said, ‘She made haste to go with David’s servants.’ But alas! how do we either broadly deny, or foolishly make excuse, and hold God’s messengers in suspense from day to day.

(c) Embassies for commerce and trade. Suppose a prince had in his kingdom rich commodities, without which his neighbour nation could not subsist, nor could find elsewhere; if this prince should send an ambassador to this people, and offer them a free trade, that they might come as oft as they pleased and take of the good things of his land, O how joyfully would such an embassy be embraced! Man’s happiness on earth lies in a free trade and commerce with heaven. This world is a barren beggarly place. Nothing is here to be had that an immortal soul can live upon or find satisfaction from. In heaven alone what it needs is to be found. The food it must live on, the clothes it must wear, are both of the growth of this heavenly country. Man’s first sin spoiled all his trade with heaven. No sooner did Adam rebel, but a war was commenced, and all trade with him forbidden. Therefore, in our natural state, we are said to be ‘afar off,’ and ‘without God in the world.’ The sad effects of this loss are to be seen in the forlorn condition of man’s soul, which was once was so gloriously arrayed with righteousness and holiness, but now shamefully naked—not having a rag to cover its shame withal.

Now, God sends his ambassadors to offer peace, and with it liberty to return to its first communion with him: ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.’ He invites all to turn merchants with heaven, ‘Come ye to the waters;’ by which phrase the gospel is compared to a port-town, or its quay-side, to which the crier calls people to repair, and buy commodities that are there landed. Here it is that God sets forth the riches of his grace to view and sale ‘without money and without price.’ That must needs be a gainful trade which brings in rich treasure without much cost exported. Here is all the riches of heaven to be had, and no money required for the purchase. Can you hear of this pearl of price, and not turn merchants for it? Or can your souls be maintained by your peddling worldly trade? O, why do ye spend your money for that which is not bread? It is not necessary you should be rich in the world, but it is necessary you should have Christ and his grace. In all your pains and travail for the things of this world, you are but merchant adventurers—it is a hazard you get them or lose your labour. There is no certain rule and method can be learned for growing rich in the world. There are some poor as well as rich of every trade; but, in this trade for Christ and his grace, there is an office erected to insure all your adventure. His soul shall live that seeks the Lord; he that hungers after righteousness shall be satisfied.

[The duty of the ministry is set out by the title ‘ambassadors.’]

2. Ministers of the gospel are by God designated ambassadors, to set out the duty of their office. Where there is honos there is onus—places of honour are places of trust and service. Many like well enough to hear of the minister’s dignity—with Diotrephes, they love pre-eminence—that would willingly be excused the labour that attends it. None have a greater trust deposited in their hands than the minister. It is tremendum onus—a weight that made the apostle tremble under it: ‘I was among you,’ saith Paul, ‘with much fear and trembling.’ To them is ‘committed the word of reconciliation,’ II Cor. 5:19. If the treaty of peace between God and sinners doth not speed, the ambassador is sure to be called to an account how he discharged his place. But more of the minister’s duty as an ambassador afterwards.

[Why God delivers his gospel by ambassadors from mankind.]

Second. The second thing we propounded to give an account of was, why God would send ambassadors to his poor creature. I answer,

1. Negatively.

(1.) Not because he needs man’s good-will. Earthly princes’ affairs require they should hold a correspondence with their neighbours, therefore they send ambassadors to preserve peace or preserve amity. But God can defend his crown without the help of allies.

(2.) Not because he was bound to do it. There is a law of nations, yea of nature, that obliges princes before they commence a war to offer peace. But the great God cannot be bound, except he binds himself. When Adam sinned, God was free, and might have chosen whether he would make a new league with man, or take vengeance on him for breaking his faith in the first. But,

2. Affirmatively. No other account can be given of this but the good-will and free-grace of God. When Christ, who is the prime Ambassador, landed first on earth, see what brought him hither, ‘Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,’ Luke 1:78. Tender mercy indeed, for the life of man lay under God’s foot at his pure mercy. He was no more bound to treat with his creature than a prince with a traitor legally condemned. Wherever God’s ambassadors come, they come on mercy’s errand: ‘The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people,’ II Chr. 36:15.

Question. But if God will treat with his poor creatures, why doth he it by ambassadors, and not by himself immediately?

Answer. This is the fruit of divine indulgence. Sin hath made the presence of God dreadful; man cannot now well bear it. What a fright was Adam put into when he heard but the voice of God walking towards him in the garden, and not furiously rushing upon him? The Jews had the trial of this; they soon had enough of God’s presence, and therefore came to Moses, saying, ‘Speak thou with us,…but let not God speak with us, lest we die,’ Ex. 20:19.

[Why God useth men, and not angels, as his ambassadors.]

Third. But if God will use ambassadors, why does he not employ some glorious angels from heaven to bring his message, rather than weak and frail men?

Answer (1). The apostle gives us the reason: ‘We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us,’ II Cor. 4:7; ¦< ÏFJD”6<T4H F6,b,F4<—in vessels of shell. As the precious pearl is found in a shell, so this precious treasure of the gospel shall be found in frail men, that the excellency of the work may be of God. The more contemptible the instrument, the more glorious appears his divine power in using it for so high and noble an end. To see a man wound another with a sword that is sharp and weighty would carry no wonder; but to wound him with a feather in his hand, this would speak it a miracle. To see men fall down and tremble when an angel—a creature of such might and glory—is the speaker, is no great wonder; but to behold a Felix quivering on the bench, while a man, and he a poor prisoner at the bar, preacheth to his judge, this carries a double wonder. First, that so poor a creature as Paul was, and in the condition of a prisoner, durst be so bold; and also, that so great a person as Felix was should be smitten with his words, as if some thunderbolt had struck him. Who will not adore the power of a God in the weakness of the instrument? Had God employed angels in this business, we should have been in danger of ascribing the efficacy of the work to the gifts and parts of the instrument, and of giving credit to the message for the messenger’s sake that is so honourable. But now, God sending those that are weak creatures like ourselves, when anything is done by them, we are forced to say, ‘It is the Lord’s doing,’ and not the instruments’. What reason God had this way to provide for the safe-guarding his own glory, we see by our proneness to idolize the gifts of men, where they are more eminent and radiant than in others. What would we have done if angels had been the messengers? Truly, it would have been hard to have kept us from worshipping them, as we see John himself had done, if he had not been kept back by the angel’s seasonable caveat, Rev. 19:10.

Answer (2). Ministers, being men, have an advantage many ways above angels for the work.

(a) As they are more nearly concerned in the message they bring than angels could have been; so that they cannot deceive others, without a wrong to their own salvation. What greater argument for one’s care than his own interest? Surely that pilot will look how he steers the ship that hath an adventure in the freight.

(b) Their affections have a naturalness arising from the sense of those very temptations in themselves which their brethren labour under. This an angel could not have; and by this they are able to speak more feelingly to the condition of other men than an angel could do. So that what man wants of the angels’ rhetoric is recompensed with his natural affection and sympathy flowing from experience. He knows what a troubled conscience is in another, by having felt it throb in his own bosom; as God told his people, having been themselves sojourners in Egypt, ‘You know the heart of a stranger.’ And who will treat poor souls with more mercy than they who know they need it themselves?

(c) The sufferings which ministers meet with for the gospel’s sake are of great advantage to their brethren. Had angels been the ambassadors they could not have sealed to the truth of the doctrine they preached with their blood. Paul’s bonds were famous at court and country also: ‘Many of the brethren,…waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear,’ Php. 1:14. Angels might have sounded the trumpet of the gospel with a shriller voice; but men alone have pitchers to break—I mean frail bodies—by suffering for the gospel, whereby the glory of its truths, like the lamp in Gideon’s soldier’s hand, shines forth upon the eyes of their greater enemies, to the confusion of their faces and amazement of their hearts.

USE OR APPLICATION.

[Exhortation to the people to hearken to God’s ambassadors.]

Are ministers ambassadors? This shows the gospel ministry to be an office peculiar to some, not a work common to all. An ambassador we know is someone who hath his commission and credential letters from his prince to show for his employment. It is not a man’s skill in state affairs that makes him an ambassador, nor ability in the law that makes a man a magistrate, but their call to these places. Neither do gifts make a man a minister, but his mission: ‘How can they preach except they be sent?’ The rules which the Spirit of God gives about the minister’s admission into his function were all to no purpose if it lay open to every man’s own choice to make him a preacher. ‘Lay hands suddenly on no man,’ I Tim. 5:22; that is, admit none to the ministry without good proof and trial. But why should any be set apart for that which every one may do? This leads to an exhortation, 1. To the people. 2. To the minister.

Exhortation 1. To the people. Be persuaded in the fear of God to hearken to the message these ambassadors bring. What mean you to do in the business they come to treat about? Will you be friends with God or not?—take Christ by faith into your embraces, or resolve to have none of him? We are but ambassadors; back again we must go to our Master that sends us, and give an account what comes of our negotiation. Shall we go and say, Lord, we have been with the men thou sentest us unto; thy message was delivered by us according to our instructions; we told them fire and sword, ruin and damnation, would come upon them, if they did not at thy call repent and turn; we laid both life and death before them, and spared not to reveal ‘the whole counsel of God’ for their salvation; but they believed never a word we spake; we were to them as those that mocked, or told what we had dreamed in the night, and not the words of truth an faithfulness? O God forbid that this should be the report which at their return they make to God of their negotiation! But the more to affect you with the importance of their message, and your answer to it, consider these things following:

(1.) Consider the wonderful love of God in sending you these ambassadors. Is it not a prince that sends to one of his own rank, but a God to his rebel creature; against whom he might have sent, not an ambassador to treat, but an army of judgments to fight and destroy. It is not against rebels that are entrenched in some place of strength, or in the field with a force wherewith you are able to resist his power; but to his prisoners fettered and manacled —to you that have your traitorous head on the block. It is not any need he hath of your life that makes him desire your salvation. A prince sometimes saves his rebellious subjects because he needs their hands to fight for him, and weakens himself by shedding their blood; but God can ruin you, and not wrong himself. If you perish, it is without his damage. The Pharisees are said to reject ‘the counsel of God against themselves,’ Luke 7:30. It is you that suffer, not God.

(2.) Consider what an intolerable affront is given to the majesty of heaven by rejecting his offers of grace. Princes’ requests are commands. Who dare deny a king what he asks? and darest thou, a poor thimbleful of dust, stout it out against thy Maker? It is charged upon no less than a king as an act of insufferable pride, that ‘he did…evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord,’ II Chr. 36:12. But what! must a king come down from his throne, and humble himself before a poor prophet that was his own subject. God will not have him tremble and bow, not to Jeremiah, but to ‘Jeremiah…speaking from the mouth of the Lord.’ O, consider this, ye that think it childish and poor-spirited to weep at a sermon, to humble yourselves at the reproof of a minister! Your carriage under the word preached declares what your thoughts of God himself are. When Naash slighted David’s ambassadors, and abused them, the king took the scorn upon himself. ‘I will publish the name of the Lord,’ saith Moses, ‘ascribe ye greatness unto our God,’ Deut. 32:3. How should they ascribe greatness to God while Moses is preaching to them. Surely he means by their humble attendance on, and ready obedience to, the word he delivered in God’s name.

(3.) Consider how much the heart of God is engaged in the message his ambassadors bring. When a prince sends an ambassador about a negotiation, the success of which he passionately desires, and from which he promiseth himself much honour, to be opposed in this must needs greatly provoke and enrage him. There is nothing that God sets his heart more upon than the exalting of Christ, and his grace through him, in the salvation of poor sinners. This therefore is called ‘his counsel,’ Heb. 6:17; ‘the pleasure of the Lord,’ Isa. 53:10. Abraham’s servant knew how much his master desired a wife for his son and heir among his kindred, and therefore presseth Laban with this as the weightiest argument of all other, ‘If you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me; and it not, tell me;’ as if he had said, By this the truth of your love to my master will be seen. So here. If ye will indeed deal kindly with God, tell his ambassadors so, by your complying with them in that which he so affectionately desires. This the Lord Jesus, when on earth, called ‘his Father’s business,’ which must be done, whatever comes on it: ‘Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?’ Luke 2:49. He knew he had never come hither except for the despatch of this, and could not look his Father on the face, when he went back, except this was finished. Therefore, as this sped, and the work of the gospel made progress, or met with any stop, in the hearts of men, he mourned or rejoiced. When it was rejected, we find him ‘grieved for the hardness of their hearts,’ Mark 3:5. When his disciples make report how victoriously the chariot of the gospel ran, ‘in that hour,’ it is said, ‘he rejoiced in spirit,’ Luke 10:21. When he was taking his leave of the world, his thoughts are at work how the gospel should be carried on, and the salvation of souls suffer no prejudice by his departure; he therefore empowers his apostles for the work: ‘All power is given me. Go, preach the gospel to all nations.’ Yea, now in heaven he is waiting for the success of it, and listening how his servants speed in their errand. Now, what a prodigious sin is it, by thy impenitency to withstand God in his main design! Do you indeed deal kindly with our Master, whose embassy we bring?

(4.) Consider the weight and importance of the message these ambassadors bring unto you. It is not a slight, sleeveless errand we come about. ‘I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil,’ Deut. 30:15. ‘He that believeth not,…the wrath of God abideth on him,’ John 3:36. We come not to entice you with the favour of an earthly prince, who may promise honours to‑day, and lose his own crown to-morrow. We bait not our hook with the world’s treasures or pleasures; but bring you news of a heaven that shall as surely be yours as you are now on earth, if you accept of the offer. We scare you not with the displeasure of a mortal man, ‘whose breath is in his nostrils;’ not with the momentary torment of a rack or gibbet, which continue hardly long enough to be felt; but with the never-dying wrath of the ever-living God. And what we either promise or threaten in God’s name, he stands ready and resolved to perform. He ‘confirmeth the word of his servants, and performeth the counsel of his messengers;’ Isa. 44:26.

(5.) Consider on what terms the gospel and its messengers stay among you. There is a time when God calls his ambassadors home, and will treat no longer with a people; and that must needs be a sad day! For, when they go, then judgments and plagues come. If the treaty ends, it will not be long before the war begins. ‘Elisha died,…and the bands of the Moabites invaded the land,’ II Kings 13:20. The prophet once gone, then the enemy comes. The angel plucks Lot out of Sodom, and how long had they fair weather after? The Jews put away the gospel from them by their impenitency, which made the apostles ‘turn to the Gentiles,’ Acts 13:46. But did they not thereby call for their own ruin and destruction, which presently came flying on the Roman eagle’s wings to them? They judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, and God thought them unworthy also to have a temporal. If once God calls home his ambassadors, it is no easy matter to bring them back, and get the treaty, now broke up, set on foot again. God can least endure, upon trial made of him, to be slighted in that which he makes account is one of the highest ways he can express his favour to a people. Better no ambassadors had come, than to come and go re infectâ —without effecting what they came for. They ‘shall know,’ saith God, ‘there hath been a prophet among them,’ Eze. 2:5; that is, they shall know it to their cost. God will be paid for his ministers’ pains. Now, ministers die, or are removed from their people, and glad they are to be so rid of them; but they have not done with them till they have reckoned with God for them.

[Exhortation to ministers in discharge of their duty as ambassadors of the King of kings.]

Exhortation 2. To the ministers of the gospel. You see, brethren, your calling; let it be your care to comport with this your honourable employment. Let us set forth a few directions.

(1.) Stain not the dignity of your office by any base unworthy practices. Dignitas in indigno, saith Salvian, is ornamentum in luto—O lay not the dignity of your function in the dirt by any sordid unholy actions! Paul magnified his office; do not you do that which should make others vilify and debase it. That which makes others bad will make you worse. ‘Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?’ John 6:70. You are called angels, but if wicked, you become devils. We have read of ‘a prophet’s reward,’ Matt. 10:41, which amounts to more than a private disciple’s; and do you not think there will be a prophet’s punishment in hell, as well as reward in heaven? One saith, ‘If any were born without original sin, it should be the minister; if any could live without actual sin it should be the minister; if there were such a thing a venial sin, it should not be in ministers. They are more the servants of God than others; should not they then be more holy than others?’ Art thou fit to be an ambassador, who art not a good subject? to be a minister, that art not a good Christian?

(2.) Keep close to thy instructions. Ambassadors are bound up by their commission what they are to say; be sure therefore to take thy errand right, before thou ascendest the pulpit to deliver it. ‘I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you,’ I Cor. 11:23. God bids the prophet, Eze. 3:17, ‘Hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.’ It must be from him, or it is not right. O take heed thou dost not set the royal stamp upon thy own base metal! Come not to the people with, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ when it is the divination of thy own brain. No such loud lie as that which is told in the pulpit. And, as thou must not speak what he never gave thee in commission, so not conceal what thou hast in command to deliver. It is as dangerous to blot out, as put in, anything to our message. Job comforted himself with this, that he had ‘not concealed the words of the Holy One,’ Job 6:10. And Paul, from this, washeth his hands of the blood of souls, ‘I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God,’ Acts 20:26, 27. Pray, observe, he doth not say he hath declared all the counsel of God. No; who can, but God himself? The same apostle saith, ‘We prophesy but in part.’ There is a terra incognita—unknown land, in the Scriptures, mysteries that yet were never fully discovered. We cannot declare all that know not all. But he saith, ‘He shunned not to declare all.’ When he met a truth, he did not step back to shun it; as when we see a man in the street with whom we have no mind to speak, we step into some house or shop till he be past. The holy apostle was not afraid to speak what he knew to be the mind of God; as he had it from God, so should they from him. He did not balk in his preaching what was profitable for them to know. Caleb, one of the spies sent to Canaan, could not give them a full account of every particular place in the land, but he made the best observation he could, and then brings Moses word again—‘As it was,’ saith he, ‘in mine heart,’ Joshua 14:7; while others basely concealed what they knew, because they had no mind to the journey; and this gained him the testimony from God’s own mouth to be a man that ‘followed him fully,’ Num. 14:23. So he that doth his utmost to search the Scriptures, and then brings word to the people as it is in his heart, preaching what he hath learned from it, without garbling his conscience and detaining what he knows for fear or favour, this is the man that fulfills his ministry, and shall have the euge—well done! of a faithful servant.

(3.) Think it not enough that thou deliverest thy message from God, but show a zeal for thy Master, whose cause thou negotiatest. Should an ambassador, after audience had, and his errand coldly done, then give himself up to the pleasures of the court where he is resident, and not much mind or care what answer he hath, nor how his master’s business speeds, surely he could not say he had done the duty of a faithful ambassador. No; his head and heart must be both at work how he may put life into the business and bring it soonest to the desired issue. Abraham’s servant would neither eat nor drink till he saw which way his motion would work, and how they would deal with his master. Thus should ministers let those they are sent to see they are in earnest—that their hearts are deeply engaged in their embassy. When their people show their respect to their persons, though they are thankfully to resent this civility, yet they are not to let them know this is not it they come for, or can be content with; but that they would deal kindly with their Master, whose message they bring, and send them back to him with the joyful news of their repentance and acceptation of Christ. They should passionately endeavour their salvation; one while trying to dissolve them with the soft entreaties of love; another while beleaguering them with threatenings, that if they will to hell, they may carry this witness with them, that their destruction is of themselves, and comes not on them for want of your care and compassion to their souls. It is not enough you are orthodox preachers, and deliver truth; it is zeal God calls for at your hands. He so strongly himself desires the salvation of poor sinners, that he disdains you, whom he sends to impart it to them, should coldly deliver it, without showing your good-will to the thing. Christ, when he sends his servants to invite guests to his gospel-supper, bids them ‘compel them to come in,’ Luke 14:23. But how? Surely not as the Spaniards did the Indians, who drove them to be baptized as we drive cattle with staves and stones. We are not to pelt them in with outward violence and cruelty practised upon their bodies, but [by] a spiritual force of argument subduing their hearts in our powerful preaching. Percutit ut faciat voluntarios, non salvet invitos—when God smites the consciences of men with the terrors of his threatenings, it is to make them willing, not to save them against their wills (Bern.).

(4.) Let not any person or thing in the world bribe or scare thee from a faithful discharge of thy trust. Ambassadors must not be pensioners to a foreign prince. He is unworthy to serve a prince in so honourable an employment that dares not trust his master to defend and reward him. Such a one will not long be faithful to his trust; nor will he in the ministry, that rests not contented with God’s promise for his protection or reward. O how soon will he for fear or favour seek to save his stake or mend it, though it be by falsifying his trust to God himself? Blessed Paul was far from this baseness, and hath set a noble pattern to all that shall be God’s ambassadors to the end of the world: ‘As we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness,’ I Thes. 2:4, 5.

(5.) Be kind to and tenderly careful of thy fellow-subjects. Were it not strange if an ambassador, sent from hence to Turkey or Spain, instead of protecting and encouraging the English merchants there in their trade, should hinder their traffic, and employ all the power of his place to their prejudice and damage? Surely this prince sent him not to be an enemy, but a friend and patron, to his good subjects there. The minister, as God’s ambassador, is to encourage the saints in their heavenly trade, to assist them by his counsel, and protect them from the scorn that their wicked neighbours cast upon them for their goodness. O how sad is it if he shall bend his ministry against them! if he shall weaken their hands and strengthen the hands of the ungodly, in or out of the pulpit, by his preaching or practice! Better he were, with a millstone tied about his neck, thrown into the sea, than thus to offend these little ones! Moses, he smote the Egyptian, but rescued the Israelite. What account will they make to God of their embassy, who, in the very pulpit, smite the Israelite with their tongues, twitting them for their purity, and stroke the Egyptian—the profane and wicked, I mean, in their congregations—whereby they bless themselves as going to heaven, when, God knows, their feet stand in the ways that will undoubtedly lead them to hell!

[An argument for Paul’s request, taken from his present afflicted state.]

Second Argument. The second argument with which he stirs them up to his remembrance in their prayers, is taken from his present afflicted state—‘for which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ In the Greek ἐν ἁλύσει—in a chain. When we hear of an ambassador and a chain, we might at first expect it to be a chain of gold about his neck, and not a chain of iron about his leg or arm; yet it is the latter here is meant. Paul was now a prisoner at Rome, but in libera custodia. as is thought by interpreters from this passage—in a chain, not in chains; it being usual there for a prisoner to be committed to the custody of some soldier, with whom he might walk abroad, having a chain on his right arm, which was tied to his keeper’s left arm. Such a prisoner, it is conceived, this holy man was now. Paul the lamb was prisoner to Nero the lion, and therefore both needed and desired the church’s prayers for him. Many are the observables which this short passage might afford. I shall lightly touch them, but not enlarge upon them.

[Five observables touched upon, from Paul’s being in bonds.]

First Observable. Observe the usage which this blessed apostle finds from an ungrateful world. A chain is clapped upon him, as if he were some rogue or thief. He preacheth liberty to poor sinners, and is deprived of his own for his pains; he proclaims deliverance to the captives, and is used like a slave for his labour. One would wonder what they could find against so holy and innocent a person to accuse him for, who made it his daily exercise to live without offence to God and man; yet see what an indictment Tertullus prefers against him, Acts 24, as if there had not been such a pestilent fellow in the whole country as he! And Paul himself tells us he ‘suffered trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds,’ II Tim. 2:9. Many grievous things were laid to his charge. Whence,

Note. That the best of men may and oft do suffer under the notion of vile and wicked persons. Let the saints’ enemies alone to black their persons and cause. Christ himself must be ‘numbered among the transgressors,’ and no less than blasphemy be laid to his charge. Persecutors think it not enough to be cruel, but they would be thought just while they are cruel—‘Ye have condemned and killed the just,’ James 5:6. Here is a bloody murder committed with all the formalities of justice. They condemn first, and then kill; and truly, murder on the bench is worse in God’s account than that which is perpetrated by a villain on the highway. Well, there is a time when Paul’s cause and the rest of suffering saints’ shall have a fairer hearing than here they could meet with, and then it will appear with another complexion than when drawn with their enemies’ black-coal. The names of the godly shall have a resurrection as well as their bodies. Now they are buried with their faces downward—their innocency and sincerity charged with many false imputations; but then all shall be set right. And well may the saints stay to be cleared as long as God himself stays to vindicate his own government of the world from the hard speeches of ungodly ones.

Second Observable. Observe the true cause of Paul’s sufferings. It was his zeal for God and his truth—‘for which I am in bonds:’ that is, for the gospel which I profess and preach. As that martyr who, being asked how he came into prison, showed his Bible, and said, ‘This brought me hither.’ Persecutors may pretend what they will, but it their religion and piety that their spite is at. Paul was an honest man, in the opinion of his countrymen, so long as he was of their opinion, went their way, and did as they did; but when he declared himself to be a Christian, and preached his gospel up, then they cried him down as fast—then his old friends turned new enemies, and all their fists were about his ears. The wicked are but the devil’s slaves, and must do as he will have them. Now, it is truth and godliness that pull down his kingdom. When, therefore, these appear in the saints’ lives, then he calls forth the wicked world, as a prince would do his subjects into the field, to fight for him; so that it is impossible to get to heaven without blows. ‘He that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution:’ {II Tim. 3:12} that is, one way or other; and none more than the preacher. He puts his hand into the wasp’s nest, and therefore must expect to be stung; he treads on the serpent’s head, and it were strange if he should not turn again to bite him. But let not this trouble you. Fear not what you can suffer, only be careful for what you {do} suffer. Christ’s cross is made of sweet wood. There are comforts peculiar to those that suffer for righteousness. When Sabina, a Christian martyr, fell in travail in the prison, and was heard to cry and make a dolor in those her child-bearing throes, some asked her how she could endure the torments which her persecutors prepared for her, if she shrank at those? ‘O,’ saith she, ‘now I suffer for sin, then I shall suffer for Christ.’

Third Observable. Observe how close Paul sticks to the truth. He will not part with it, though it brings him to trouble. He had rather the persecutor should imprison him for preaching the gospel, than he imprison it by a cowardly silence. He hath cast up his accounts, and is resolved to stand to his profession whatever it may cost him. The truth is, that religion is not worth embracing that cannot bear one’s charges in suffering for it; and none but the Christian’s is able to do this. Neither is he worth the name of a Christian that dares not take Christ’s bill of exchange, to receive in heaven what he is sent out in suffering for his sake on earth. And yet, alas! how hard is it to get faith enough to do this! It is easier to bow at the name, than to stoop to the cross of Jesus. Many like religion for a summer-house, when all is fair and warm abroad in the world; but, when winter comes, doors are shut up, and nobody to be seen in or about it.

Fourth Observable. Observe the publication Paul makes of his sufferings to the church. He, being now a prisoner, sends his despatches to this and other churches, to let them know his condition. From whence,

Note. That sufferings for the gospel are no matter of shame. Paul doth not blush to tell it is for the gospel he is ‘in bonds.’ The shame belonged to them that clapped on the chain, not to him that wore it. The thief, the murderer, may justly blush to tell wherefore they suffer, not the Christian for well-doing. ‘If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf,’ I Peter 4:16. Christ himself counted it no dishonour to have the print of his wounds seen after his resurrection. Babylas, a Christian martyr, would have his chains buried with him. The apostles ‘rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name,’ Acts 5:41. And if it be no shame to suffer for the gospel, then surely it is none to profess it, and live up to its holy rules. Shall the wicked ‘glory in their shame,’ and thou be ashamed of thy glory? Shall they do the devil’s work at noonday light, and thou afraid to be seen with the good? Yet Salvian tells us, in his days—so wicked they were, and such a scorn was cast upon holiness—that many carried Christ’s colours in their pocket, and concealed their piety, ne viles haberentur—lest they should be counted vile and base.

Fifth Observable. Observe the end why he makes known his sufferings.

1. That they may know the true cause wherefore he suffered. Paul’s enemies laid heavy things to his charge, and these might haply fly as far as Ephesus. When the saints’ are in a suffering condition, Satan is very industrious to defame them, and misrepresent the cause of their troubles to the world, as if it were for no good. Now, though Paul regarded little what the wicked world said of him, yet he desired to stand right in the thoughts of the churches, and therefore acquaints them with the cause of his imprisonment.

2. To strengthen their faith and comfort their hearts. No doubt but Paul’s chain entered their souls, and his suffering was their sorrow. This he knew, and therefore sends them word by Tychicus—the bearer of this epistle—how it fared with him in his bonds, that they might not spend too many tears for him who had a heart so merry and cheerful in his sufferings: ‘That ye might know our affairs, and that he comfort your hearts,’ Eph. 6:22. Thus have we seen sometimes a tender-hearted, father on his sick-bed, not so much troubled with his own pains, or thoughts of his approaching death, as to see his children take them so much to heart; and therefore, forgetting his own miseries, address himself with a smiling countenance to comfort them. O it is an excellent sight to behold the saints that are at liberty mourning over their afflicted brethren, and those that are the sufferers become comforters to them that are at liberty! Never doth religion appear more glorious than when they commend it who are suffering for it. And no way can they commend it higher than by a holy humble cheerfulness of spirit in their sufferings. The comfortable which the martyrs in queen Mary’s days sent out of prison, did wonderfully strengthen their brethren throughout the kingdom, and fit them for the prison. Sufferers preach with great advantage above others. They do not speak by hearsay, but what they experiment {verified} in themselves.

3. To engage their prayers for him. Suffering saints have ever been very covetous of prayers. Paul acts all the churches at work for him. ‘Pray, pray, pray,’ was the usual close to Mr. Bradford’s letters out of prison. And great reason for it; for a suffering condition is full of temptations. When man plays the persecutor, the devil forgets not to be a tempter. He that followed Christ into the wilderness will ever find a way to get to his saints in the prison. Sometimes he will try whether he can soften them for impressions of fear, or make them pity themselves; and he shall not want them that will lend their tears to melt their courage and weaken their resolution—may be wife and children, or friends and neighbours, who wish them well, but are abused by Satan to lay a snare before them, while they express their affection to them. No doubt those good people meant well to Paul, who, with tears and passionate entreaties, endeavoured to keep him from Jerusalem—where it was foretold he should come into trouble—but Satan had a design against Paul therein, who hoped they might not only break his heart, but weaken his courage, with their tears. When he cannot make a coward of the saint, to run from the cross; then he will try to sour and swell his spirit with some secret anger against those that laid it on. O it is no easy matter to receive evil, and wish none to him from whose hands we have it. To reserve love for him that shows wrath and hatred to us is a glorious but a difficult work. If he cannot leaven him with wrath against his persecutor, then he will try to blow him up with a high conceit of himself, who dares suffer for Christ, while others shrink in their heads, and seek to keep themselves safe within their own shell. O this pride is a salamander, that can live in the fire of suffering! If any one saint needs the humility of many saints, it is he that is called to suffer. To glory in his sufferings for Christ becomes him well, II Cor. 12:9; Gal. 6:14; but to glory in himself for them is hateful and odious. Needs not he a quick eye, and a steady hand, that is to drive his chariot on the brow of so dangerous a precipice?

In a word, a suffering condition is full of temptations, so the saint’s strength to carry him safely through them is not in his own keeping. God must help, or the stoutest champion’s spirit will soon quail. ‘In all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need,’ Php. 4:12. This was a hard lesson indeed to learn . Who was his master? See, ‘I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me,’ ver. 13. Now, as the saints’ strength to suffer is not in themselves, but Christ, so prayer is the best means to fetch it in for their help; for by it they confess their own weakness, and so God is secured from having a co-rival in the praise. Which Paul is here free to do, and more than so; for, as he confesseth he can do nothing without Christ’s strength to enable and embolden him, so he dares not rely on his own solitary single prayers for the obtaining it, but calls in the auxiliary forces of his fellow-saints to besiege heaven for him; that, while he is in the valley suffering for the gospel, they might be lifting up their hands and hearts in the mount of prayer for him.

The End Of “The Christian in Complete Armour”

— John 3

See also the following passage from Numbers:

4And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. 5And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. 6And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. 7Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 8And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. 9And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

— Numbers 21

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← Direction XI: The Divisions of Prayer (continued) · Contents

Footnotes

1. Prog: — to prowl about, as in search of food or plunder; forage. From Webster’s. ↩

2. The meaning of the word skill in this case is probably more in line with either the obsolete meanings of knowledge, understanding, or judgment; or, the archaic meanings of to matter, avail, or make a difference; with the former being the most likely. — SDB ↩

3. 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. ↩