(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 ¦< 8LF,4—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.
