APPLICATION - Against The Rulers of The Darkness of This World 3/6

Now a minister may be accessory to the ignorance of his people

           First. By his own ignorance.  Knowledge is so fundamental to the work and calling of a minister, that he cannot be one without it.  ‘Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Hosea 4:6.  The want of knowledge in a minister can be such a defect, as cannot be supplied by anything else.  Be he never so meek, patient, bountiful, unblamable, if he hath not skill to divide the word aright, he is not cut out for a minister.  Everything is good, as it is good for the end it is appointed to.  A knife, though it had a haft of diamonds, yet if it will not cut, it is no knife.  A bell, if not sound, is no bell.  The great work of a minister is to teach others, his lips are to preserve knowledge, he should be as conversant in the things of God as others in their particular trades.  Ministers are called lights.  If the light then be darkness, how great is the darkness of that people like to be?  I know these stars in Christ’s hands are not all of the same magnitude.  There is a greater glory of gifts and graces shining in some than [in] others; yet so much light is necessary to every minister, as was in the star the wise men saw at Christ's birth, to be able out of the word to direct sinners the safe and true way to Christ and salvation.  O sirs, it is a sad way of getting a living by killing of men, as some unskilful physi­cians do; but much more to get a temporal livelihood by ruining souls through our ignorance.  He is a cruel man to the poor passengers, who will undertake to be pilot, when he never so much as learned his compass.

           Second. By his negligence.  It is all one if the nurse hath no milk in her breasts, or having [it], draws it not forth to her child.  There is a woe to the idle shepherd, Zech. 11:17; such as have mouths, but speak not; lips, but not to feed the people with knowledge.  It shall be the people's sin, if they feed not when bread is before them, but woe to us if we give them not meat in due season.  O sirs, what shall we say to our Lord that trusts us, if those abilities which he hath given us as market-money to buy bread for our people, be found wrapped up in a napkin of sloth? if that time wherein we should have been teaching and instructing them, shall appear to be wasted in our pleasures, or employed about our car­nal profits.  That servant shall have but a sad wel­come of his master when he comes home, that shall be found out of the way with the key, and the family starving in meantime for want of provision.

           Third. By his unedifying preaching; when he preacheth unsound doctrine, which doth not perfect the understanding, but corrupt it.  Better he did leave them in simple ignorance, than colour their minds with a false dye; or when that he preacheth is frothy and flashy, no more fit to feed their souls, than husks the prodigal’s belly, which, when they know, they are little the wiser for their soul’s good.  Or, when his discourses are so high flown, that the poor people stand gazing, as those who have lost the sight of their preacher, and at the end of the sermon cannot tell what he would have.  Or, those who preach only truths that are for the higher form of professors, who have their senses well exercised; excellent, may be, for the building up three or four eminent saints in the congregation; but in the meantime, the weak ones in the family—who should indeed chiefly be thought on, because least able to guide themselves, or carve for themselves—these are forgotten.  He, sure, is an unwise builder that makes a scaffold as high as Paul’s steeple, when his work is at the bottom, and he is to lay the foundation, whereas the scaffold should rise as the building goes up.  So Paul advanceth in his doc­trine, as his hearers do in knowledge: ‘Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection,’ Heb. 6:1.  ‘Let us;’ it is well, in­deed, when the people can keep pace with the preacher.  To preach truths and notions above the hearer’s capacity, is like a nurse that should go to feed the child with a spoon too big to go into its mouth.  We may by such preaching please ourselves and some of higher attainments, but what shall poor ignorant ones do in the meantime?  He is the faithful steward that considers both.  The preacher is, as Paul saith of himself, a ‘debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise,’ Rom. 1:14.  [He is] to prepare truths suitable to the de­gree of his hearers.  Let the wise have their portion, but let them be patient to see the weaker in the family served also.

   Fourth. A minister may be accessory to the igno­rance of his people, when through the scandal of his life he prejudiceth his doctrine; as a cook, who, by his nastiness, makes others afraid to eat what comes out of his foul fingers.  Or he may be so, when, through his supercilious carriage, his poor people dare not come to him.  He that will do any good in the min­ister’s calling, must be as careful as the fisher, that he doth nothing to scare souls away from him, but all to allure and invite, that they may be toled  within the compass of his net.

           Use Third. [To the ignorant.]  Is the ignorant soul such a slave to Satan?  Let this stir you up that are ignorant from your seats of sloth whereon, like the blind Egyptians, you sit in darkness, speedily come out of this darkness, or resolve to go down to utter darkness.  The covering of Haman’s face did tell him that he should not stay in the king's presence.  If thou livest in ignorance, it shows thou art in God’s black bill.  He puts this cover before their eyes in wrath, whom he means to turn off into hell: ‘If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost,’ II Cor. 4:3.  In one place sinners are threatened, ‘they shall die without knowledge,’ Job 36:12; in another place, they shall die in their sins, John 8:21.  He, indeed, that dies without knowledge, dies in his sins; and what more fearful doom can the great God pass upon a creature than this?  Better die in a prison, die in a ditch, than die in one’s sins.  If thou die in thy sins, thou shalt rise in thy sins; as thou fallest asleep in the dust, so thou awakest in the morning of the resur­rection; if an ignorant Christless wretch, as such thou shalt be arraigned and judged.  That God whom sin­ners now bid depart from them will then be worth their acquaintance—themselves being judges—but alas! then he will throw their own words in their teeth, and bid them depart from him, he desires not the knowledge of them.  O sinners, you shall see at last, God can better be without your company in heaven, than you could be without his knowledge on earth.  Yet, yet it is day, draw your curtains, and be­hold Christ shining upon your face with gospel-light. Hear wisdom crying in the streets, and Christ piping in your window in the voice of his Spirit and messen­gers, ‘How long, ye simple ones, will ye love sim­plicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?  Turn you at my reproof: be­hold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you,’ Prov. 1:21-23.  What can you say, sinners, for your sottish ignorance?  Where is your cloak for this sin?  The time hath been when the word of the Lord was precious, and there was no open vision, not a Bible to be found in town or coun­try; when the tree of knowledge was forbidden fruit, and none might taste thereof without license from the pope.  Happy he that could get a leaf or two of the Testament into a corner, afraid to tell the wife of his bosom!  O how sweet were these waters, when they were forced to steal them! but you have the word, or may, in your houses; you have those that open them every Sabbath in your assemblies; many of you, at least, have the offers of your ministers, to take any pains with you in private, passionately  beseeching you to pity your souls, and receive instruction; yea, it is the lamentation they generally take up, [that] you will not come unto them that you may receive light. How long may a poor minister sit in his study, before any of the ignorant sort will come upon such an errand?  Lawyers have their clients, and physicians their patients; these are sought after, and called up at midnight for counsel; but alas! the soul, which is more worth than raiment and body too, that is neg­lected, and the minister seldom thought on, till both these be sent away.