EXHORTATION TO MINISTERS to whom this sword is specially committed 1/3

To the ministers—into your hand this sword of the word is given in an especial manner. Unto you the ministry of it is committed. God hath not left it at random to all; that who will may publicly preach the gospel. That which is everybody’s work is no¬body’s. He hath therefore set up a standing office with officers in his church, on whom he hath laid this burden, and from whom he expects an account. He ‘hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation,’ II Cor. 5:19—as a prince commissionates this or that man to be his ambassador—‘O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust,’ I Tim. 6:20. See here, and tremble at the charge which is deposited in your hands. You are ambassadors from the great God to treat with poor sinners concerning their eternal peace upon those articles which are contained in the gospel. You are his under-workmen, to rear up his temple in the hearts of men, and to lay every stone by the line and rule of this word. His stewards, to give his family their portions in due season, and all your provision to be taken out of this store house. In a word, you are his shepherds, to lead and feed his flock, and that in no other than these ‘green pastures.’ Now, if the peace be not concluded, the ambassador is sure to be called to an account where the fault lies. If the house be not built, or go to decay, woe to the negligent workman. If the family starve, what reckoning will the steward make? If the sheep wander, or die of the rot through thy neglect, who shall pay for the loss but the idle shepherd? Now, in order to the discharge of this your public trust, I shall only point at two duties incumbent on you both, with a reference to this word left in your hands—one to be performed in your study, the other in your pulpit.

First Duty. In your study acquaint yourselves with the word of God. That which may pass for diligence in a private Christian’s reading and search into the Scripture, may be charged as negligence upon the minister. The study of the Scriptures is not only a part of our general calling in common with him, but of our particular also, in which we are to be exercised from one end of the week to the other. The husband¬man doth not more constantly go forth with his spade and mattock, to perform his day labour in the field, than the minister is to go and dig in this mine of the Scripture. He is not to read a chapter now and then as his worldly occasions will permit; or steal a little time from his other scholarly studies to look into the Bible in transitu—in passing, and bid it farewell. But it must be his standing exercise—his plodding work. All other must stoop to this. Suppose thou shouldst know what Plato, Aristotle, with the rest of the princes of worldly learning, have written, and hadst encircled all the arts within thy circumference, but art unskilful in the word of righteousness, thou wouldst be Paul's unlearned person—as unfit to be a minister as he that hath read all the body of the law is to be a physician if ignorant of this art. I do not here intend to nourish the vain conceit of those sons of ignorance who think human learning unnecessary for a min¬ister’s furniture. Truly, without this, we should soon come to our old mumpsismus, and run into the barbarism of former times. I have read of one Beda, that dissuaded Francis I., a French king—and that when learned Budæus was present—from his princely resolution of setting up professors of languages in is university, saying, ‘The Greek tongue was the fountain of all heresies;’ but the man was found to understand not a word of Greek himself. Indeed, few or none will speak against learning but those that have not so much of it as to make them understand its use. I dare not bid our ministers, as some fanatics have done, burn all their books but the Bible. No; but I would exhort them to prefer it above all their other books, and to direct all their other studies to furnish them with Scripture knowledge. As the bee that flies over the whole garden, and brings all the honey she gets from every flower therein into her hive; so should the minister run over all his other books, and reduce their notions for his help in this. As the Israelites offered up the jewels and ear-rings borrowed of the Egyptians to the service of the tabernacle, benedicta philosophorum sunt peculia Christianorum—the good saying of philosophers are the property of Christians. And certainly there are such jewels to be borrowed even from them, as may become the ear of the Christian, so they be refined and gospellized. Thus the captive virgin, Deut. 21, when her head was shaved, her nails pared, and her garment changed, might be taken into an Israelite’s bos¬om. Religion and learning revived together. The light which Erasmus brought into the schools helped Luther’s labours in the church.