Ministers of the gospel have a special claim on the prayers of believers 1/3

           Third.  From this request of the apostle we may note that the ministers of the gospel are, in an especial manner, to be remembered in the saints’ prayers; and that,

           First.  In regard of God, whose message they bring.  They come about his work and deliver his er­rand.  Not to pray for them will be interpreted you wish not well to the business they have in hand for him.  They do not only come from God, but with Christ.  ‘We then, as workers together with him, be­seech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain,’ II Cor. 6:1.  Christ and the minister go into the pulpit together.  A greater than man is there; master and servant are both at work.

           Again, the blessing of the minister’s labour is from God; not the hand that sets the plant or sows the seed, but God’s blessing, gives the increase, I Cor. 3:6.  When Melancthon was first converted, the light of the gospel shone so clear and strong a beam on his own eyes, that he thought he should convert all he preached unto.  He deemed it was impossible his hearers should withstand that truth which he saw with so much evidence; but he afterwards found the con­trary, which made him say, ‘I see now that the old Adam is too hard for the young Melancthon.’  God carries the key by his girdle that alone can open hearts, and prayer is the key to open  his.  When Christ intended to send forth his disciples to preach the gospel, he sets them solemnly to prayer, Matt. 9:38.  Many are the promises which he hath given to the ministers of the gospel for their protection—that he will keep these stars in his right hand, or else they had been on the ground and stamped under foot long ere this—for their assistance and success in the work: ‘I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say,’ Ex. 4:12.  ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all na­tions...I am with you alway, unto the end of the world,’ Matt. 28:19, 20. Wherefore are these promises, but to be shot back again in prayers to God that gave them?

    Second.  In regard of the ministers themselves. There is not a greater object of pity and prayer in the whole world than the faithful ministers of Christ; if you consider,

1. The importance of their work.  It is temple work, and that is weighty; which made Paul, that had the broadest shoul­ders of all his brethren, cry out, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’  ‘I am doing a great work,’ said Nehemiah, Neh. 6:3.  But what was that to his?  No work more hazardous to carry in than this.  It is sad enough to drop to hell from under the pulpit—to hear the gospel, and yet to perish; but O how dismal to fall out of it thither for unfaithfulness to the work!  The consideration of this made Paul so bestir him; ‘knowing the terror of the Lord we per­suade men.’
2. It is a laborious work.  'Know them which labour among you...and admonish you,’ I Thes. 5:12; those who la­bour in the word and doctrine, @Ë6@B4ä<J,H—which la­bour to weariness.  He that preaches as he should, shall find it a work, and not play.  Not a work of an hour while speaking in the pulpit, but a load that lies heavy on his shoulders all the week long; a labour that spends the vitals, and consumes the oil which should feed the lamp of nature; such a labour, in a word, as makes old age and youth oft meet together.  The Jews took Christ to be about fifty years old when he was little above thirty, John 8:57.  I find some give this reason of it, because Christ had so macerated his body with labour in preaching, fasting, and watching, that it aged his very countenance and made him look older than he was.  Other callings are, many of them,  but as exer­cise to nature; they blow off the ashes from its coal, and help to discharge nature of those superfluities which oppress it.  Who eats his bread more heartily, and sleeps more sweetly, than the ploughman?  But the minister's work debilitates nature.  It is hard for him to eat and work too.  Like the candle, he wastes while he shines.  Whatever work is thought harder than other, we have it borrowed to set forth the min­ister’s labour.  They are called soldiers, watchmen, husbandmen, yea, their work is set out by the pangs of a woman in travail.  Some of them indeed have easier labours than other—those who find more success of their ministry than their brethren; but who can tell the throes that their souls feel who all the time of their ministry go in travail and bring forth dead children at last?