The minister’s duty to make known the gospel 2/2

 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 3:14. ‘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.