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

 Third.  In regard of yourselves.  Love to your­selves will plead to pray for them.

1. Consider their ministry is an office set up on purpose for your sakes.  It was never intended for the exalting of a few men above their brethren, but for the service of your faith.  The gifts that Christ hath given to men, Eph. 4—that is, their office and abilities to discharge it—are both for the edifying of the body of Christ, and will you not pray for those that from one end of the year to the other are at work for you?  If you had but a child or servant sent abroad about your worldly business, would you not send a prayer after him?  Thus did good Jacob, when his children went on his errand to Egypt: ‘God Almighty give you mercy before this man.’  Will you not do thus much for your poor minister, and pray God Almighty go with him, when in his study to prepare, and when in the pulpit to deliver what he hath prepared for our souls?
2. The ministers’ miscarriage is dangerous to the people; therefore pray for them, lest you be led into temptation by their falls.  The sins of teachers are the teachers of sin.  If the nurse be sick, the child is in danger to suck the disease from her that lies at her breast.  If the minister be tainted with an error, it is strange if many of his people should not catch the infection; when, if he be loose and scandalous in his life, he is like a common well or fountain, corrupted and muddied, at which all the town draw their water. The devil aimed at more than Peter when he desired leave to try a fall with him.  ‘Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat,’ Luke 22:31.  He knew his fall was like to strike up the heels of many others.  The minister’s practice makes a greater sound than his doctrine. They who forget his sermon, will remember his ex­ample to quote it for their apology and defence when time serves.  Peter withdraws, and ‘other Jews dissembled with him,’ Gal. 2:12, 13.  Truly, friends, your ministers are but men, and of no stronger than yourselves—men subject to the like passions.  He among them that presumes he shall not slide into an error, or fall into a sin, is bolder than any promise in the word gives him leave.  They need your prayers as much as any, and those most that fear their danger least.
3. By praying for the minister you take the most hopeful way to profit by his ministry.  Such a soul as this may come in expectation to have a portion laid on his trencher; his meal is spoke for; and such guests as send to heaven before they come to an ordinance are most likely to have the best entertainment.  He that hears a sermon, and hath not prayed for the minister, and the success of his labours, sits down to his meat before he hath craved a blessing; he plays the thief to his own soul, while he robs the minister of the assistance his prayers might have brought him in from heaven.  Pinch the nurse, and you starve the child. The less the minister is prayed for, the less, it is to be feared, will the people profit by him.
4. By praying for the minister you do not only render the word he preacheth more effectual to your­selves, but you also interest yourselves in the good his ministry does to others.  As there is a way of partak­ing in others’ sins, so in others’ holy services.  He that strengthens the hands of a sinner any way in his wicked practices, makes his sin his own, and shall partake with him in the wages due to the work when the day of reckoning comes.  So he that strengthens the minister’s hand in his holy work, whether by prayer, countenance, or relief of his necessities, becomes a partaker with him in his service, and shall not be left out in the reward, Matt. 10:40.  We read there of ‘a prophet's reward’ given to private Chris­tians; they who communicate with the minister in his labour, by any subserviency to it, shall share in the reward.  When God comes to reward his prophets for their faithful service, then Obadiah that hid them from the fury of their persecutors—then Onesiphorus that refreshed their bowels—yea, then all those faithful ones that put up their fervent prayers for the free course of the gospel in their ministry—shall be called in to share with them in the reward.  He that hath but a fifteenth part in a ship is an owner as well as he that hath more; and, when the voyage is over, he hath his share of the return that is made proportion­able to his part.  O what an encouragement is this to have a stock going in this bottom!—yea, to venture than ever at the throne of grace for the now despised ministers of Christ, seeing heaven’s promise is our insuring office to secure all we send to sea upon this account.

Ministers of the gospel have a special claim on the prayers of believers 2/3

3. It is opposed work by hell and earth.

           (1.) It is opposed by hell.  The devil never liked temple work; he that was at Joshua’s right hand to resist him, is at the minister’s elbow to disturb him, and that both in study and pulpit also.  ‘I would have come,’ saith Paul, ‘but Satan hindered.’  Who can tell all the devices that Satan hath to take the minister off or hinder him in his work?  One while he discourag­eth him, that he is ready with Jonah to run away with his charge; another while he is blowing of him up with pride.  Even Paul himself hath a thorn given him in his flesh to keep pride out of his heart.  Sometimes he roils him with passion, and leavens his zeal into sourness and unmercifulness.  This the disciples were tainted with, when they called for fire to come down from heaven upon those that stood in their way. Sometimes he chills their zeal, and intimidates their spirits into cowardice and self‑pity.  Thus Peter fa­voured himself when he denied his Master; and when at another time he dissembled with the Jews, to curry their favour.

           (2.) It is opposed by the wicked world.  ‘To be a minister,’ said Luther, ‘is nothing else but to derive the world’s wrath and fury upon himself.’  How are they loaden with reproaches!  This dirt lies so thick nowhere as on the minister’s coat.  What odious names did the best of men, the apostles themselves, go under?  And it were well they would only smite them with the tongue; but you shall find in all ages persecutors have thirsted most after their blood.  The persecution in the Acts begins with the cutting off of James’ head.  Seven thousand could lie better his in Jezebel’s time than one prophet.  These are the bur­densome stones which every one is lifting at, though none can do it without bruising his own fingers.  In every national storm almost, they are taken up to be thrown overboard for those that raised it.  How many are there of an opinion that nothing keeps them from seeing happy days but the standing of them and their office?  O miserable happiness, which cannot be bought and purchased but with the ruin of those that bring the tidings of peace and salvation to them all! Such a happiness this would be as the sheep had in the fable, when persuaded to have the dogs that kept the wolves off killed; or as the passengers at sea would have when their pilot is thrown overboard.  In a word, such a happiness as the Jews had when Christ was taken out of the way by their murderous hands. They slew him to preserve themselves from the Ro­mans destroying their city, but brought them with irreparable ruin by this very means upon their own head.

4. That which adds weight to all the former is, that the men who are to bear this heavy burden, and to conflict with all these difficulties and dangers, are those who have no stronger shoulders than others; for they are men subject to the like infirmities with their brethren.  Now, will not all this melt you into com­passion towards them, and your compassion send you to prayer for them?  Shall they stand in the face of death and danger, where Satan's bullets, and man’s also, fly so thick, and you not be at the pains to raise a breast‑work before them for their defence by your prayers?

          

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?