Why the gospel and its professors are so slighted, misunderstood, and persecuted

Use First. This gives us a reason why the gospel, with the great offers it makes, is so slighted and re­jected by the wicked world.  The cause is, the bles­sings of the gospel are a mystery, and offered in such a way that carnal hearts skill not of them, and there­fore care not for them. The things it propounds are such as they like well enough, might they have them in a way suited to their carnal apprehensions.  The gospel offers riches and honours; who are not taken with these?  The gospel opens a mine of unsearchable riches, but in a mystery; it shows them a way how to be ‘rich in faith,’ ‘rich to God,’ rich for another world, while poor in this.  Our Saviour went about to learn the young man in the gospel the way to be rich—not by purchasing more land, but by selling what he had; but he would not follow his counsel.  The gospel offers pleasures and delights—and these the sensual world like well enough—but, alas! they please not their carnal coarse palate, because they are pleasures in a mystery, pleasures in mourning for sin, and mortifying of sin, not pleasures in satisfying them; pleasures in communion with Christ at an ordinance, not with a knot of good fellows over a pot at an ale-house; pleasures to the eye and palate of faith, not of sense; to feed their souls, not pamper and fat their bellies.  In a word, the gospel makes discovery of high and choice notions.  Surely now those who are the more sober part of the world, bookish men, and in love with good literature, whose souls crave intel­lectual food, and prize a lecture more than a feast, these will be highly pleased with the truths the gospel brings to light, being such rare mysteries that they can find in no other book.  Yet, alas! we see that the gos­pel doth as little please this sort and rank of men as any other.  Had it been filled with flowers of rhetoric, chemical experiments, philosophical notions, or max­ims of policy, O how greedily would they have em­braced it!  But it is wisdom in a mystery.  ‘We speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought,’ I Cor. 2:6.  Bradwardine, a great scholar, before he was meekened by the grace of the gospel, slighted Paul’s epistles, as afterward he con­fessed, because he did not express ingenium meta­physicum—a metaphysical head in his discourses.

           Again, we here have the reason why the gospel and its professors are not only slighted, but hated and persecuted.  For the gospel, it is a mystery, which the world knows not; and therefore opposed by it.  Ignorance is the mother of persecu­tion: ‘Father, for­give them, they know not what they do!’  The greatest enemies the gospel ever had were not the sensual and open profane—though these bad enough—but the superstitious and ignorantly devout, these have been they who have shown most fierceness and fury against the gospel.  Paul tells of the ‘devout’ persons that cruelly persecuted him, Acts 13:50.  None more hot against the truth than Paul himself, who was a strict Pharisee, but bloody enemy against the truth.  What reason then have we to pray for the increase of gospel light!  The more the gospel is known, the more kindly will it be entertained.

           Again, the professors of the gospel, why are they so hated and maligned, but because they partake of the mysterious nature of the gospel, and therefore their worth is not known?  They are high-born, but in a mystery; you cannot see their birth by their outward breeding—the arms they bear, revenues they have to live on, by which the world judges the greatness of persons and families.  No, their outside is mean, while their inside is glorious; and the world values them by what they know and see of their external port, and not by their inward graces.  They pass, as a prince in disguise of some poor man’s clothes, through the world, and their entertainment is accord­ingly.  Had Christ put on his robes of glory and ma­jesty when he came into the world, surely he had not gone out of it with so shameful and cruel a death; the world would have trembled at his footstool, which we see some of them did when but a beam of his deity looked forth upon them.  Did saints walk on earth in those robes which they shall wear in heaven, then they would be feared and admired by those who now scorn and despise them.  But, as God should not have had his design in Christ’s first coming had he so ap­peared, so neither would he in his saints, did the world know them, as one day they shall; therefore he is pleased to let them lie hid under the mean cover­ings of poverty and other infirmities, that so he may exercise their suffering graces, and also accomplish his wrath upon the wicked for theirs against them.

           The gospel as a mystery shows us the reason why carnal men do so bungle when they meddle with matters of religion.  Let them speak of gospel truths —what ignorance do they show!  Even as a countryman chops logic, and speaks of the liberal arts, so they of heavenly matters.  Do we not see that those who in worldly affairs will give you a wise and solid answer, in the truths of the gospel they speak like children and babes?  Yea, even those that have some brain-knowledge of the Scriptures, how dry and unsavoury is their discourse of spiritual things!  They are like a parable in a fool’s mouth.  So, when they engage in any duty of religion.  Put them to pray, hear the word, or meditate upon what they have heard; you had as good give a workman’s tools to him that was never of the trade.  They know not how to handle them; they go ungainsomely about the work, and cut all into chips.  Every trade hath its mystery, and religion above all callings, when none but those that are instructed in know how to manage.

What is meant by a mystery and Why is the gospel is a mystery 3/3

2. It is mysterious and dark.  Gospel truths are not known in their native glory and beauty, but in shadows.  We are said indeed ‘with open face’ to ‘be­hold the glory of God,’ but still it is ‘as in a glass.’ Now, you know the glass presents us with the image, not with the face itself.  We do not see them as in­deed they are, but as our weak eyes can bear the knowledge of them.  Indeed this glass of the gospel is clearer than that of the law was; we see truths through a thinner veil; baptism is clearer than circumcision, the Lord's supper than the passover; in a word, the New Testament than the Old; yet there is nothing of heaven revealed in the gospel but it is translated into our earthly language, because we are unable while here below to understand its original.  Who knows, or can conceive, what the joys of heaven are, so as to speak of them in their own idiom and propriety?  But, a feast we know, what a kingdom is we under­stand; with riches and treasures we are well acquain­ted.  Now, heaven is set out by these things, which in this world bear the greatest price in men’s thoughts. In heaven is a feast, yet without meat; riches, without money; a kingdom, without robes, sceptre, and crown, because infinitely above these.  Hence it is said, ‘It doth not yet appear what we shall be,’ I John 3:2.  Our apprehensions of these things are manly compared with those under the law, but childish compared with the knowledge which glorified saints have.  Therefore, as Paul saith ‘he putteth childish things away,’ when he grew up into further knowledge of the gospel; so he tells us of an imperfect knowl­edge, which yet he had, ‘that must be done away, when that which is perfect is come,’ I Cor. 13:10, 11.

           Sixth. The gospel is a mystery in regard of the contrary operation it hath upon the hearts of men. The eyes of some it opens, others it blinds; and who so blind as those whose eyes are put out with light? Some when they hear the gospel are ‘pricked in their hearts;’ they can hardly stay till the preacher hath done his sermon, but cry out, ‘What shall I do to be saved?’  Others are hardened by it, and their con­sciences seared into a greater stupidity.  At Paul’s sermon, Acts 17:32, ‘some mocked;’ others were af­fected so with his discourse that they desired to ‘hear it again.’  What a mysterious doctrine is this, that sets one a laughing, another a weeping!—that is the savour of life to some, and of death to others!

           Seventh. The gospel is a mystery in regard of those rare and strange effects it hath upon the godly; and that both in respect of their judgments and prac­tice.  As the gospel is ‘a mystery of faith,’ so it enables them to believe strange mysteries—to believe that which they understand not, and hope for that which they do not see.  It enables them to believe three to be one, and one to be three; a trinity of Persons in the Deity, and a unity of essence; a Father not older than his Son, a Son not inferior to his Father; a Holy Spirit proceeding from both, yet equal to both.  It teaches them to believe that Christ was born in time, and that he was from everlasting; that he was com­prehended within the virgin’s womb, and yet the heaven of heavens not able to contain him; to be the son of Mary, and yet her maker that was his mother; to be born without sin, and yet justly to have died for sin.  They believe that God was just in punishing Christ though innocent, and in justifying penitent believers who are sinners; they believe themselves to be great sinners, and yet that God sees them in Christ ‘without spot or wrinkle.’

           Again, as the gospel is a ‘mystery of godliness,’ it enables Christians to do as strange things as they be­lieve—to live by another’s Spirit, to act from another’s strength, to live to another’s will, and aim at another’s glory.  They live by the Spirit of Christ, act with his strength, are determined by his will, and aim at his glory.  It makes them so meek and gentle that a child may lead them to anything that is good, yet so stout that fire and faggot shall not fright them into a sin.  They can love their enemies, and yet, for Christ’s sake, can hate father and mother.  It makes them diligent in their worldly calling, yet enables them to contemn the riches they have got by God’s blessing on their labour; they are taught by it that all things are theirs, yet they dare not take a penny, a pin, from the wicked of the world by force and rapine. It makes them so humble as to ‘prefer every one in honour’ above themselves, yet so to value their own condition that the poorest among them would not change his estate with the greatest monarch of the world.  It makes them thank God for health, and for sickness also; to rejoice when exalted, and as much when made low; they can pray for life, and at the same time desire to die.  Is not that doctrine a mys­tery which fills the Christian’s life with so many riddles!

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        Third.  It is a mystery in regard of the paucity of those to whom it is revealed.  Secrets are whispered into the ears of a few, and not exposed to all.  ‘Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God,’ Mark 4:11.  Who were those ‘you,’ but a few dis­ciples who believed on his name?  The greater part of the world were ever strangers to this mystery.  Before Christ’s time it was impaled within a little spot of ground of the Jewish nation.  Since it came abroad into the Gentile world, and hath been travelling above these sixteen hundred years hither and thither, how few at this day are acquainted with it!  Indeed, where its glorious light shines long, many get a literal no­tional knowledge of it—it were strange that men should walk long in the sun and not have their faces a little tanned with it; but the spiritual and saving knowledge of this mystery is revealed but to few, for the number of saints is not great compared with the reprobate world.

           Fourth. It is a mystery in regard of the sort of men to whom it is chiefly imparted—such as are, in reason, most unlikely to dive into any great mysteries; those who are despised by the wise world, and the great states of it, as poor and base.  ‘Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty,’ I Cor. 1:26, 27.  If we have a secret to reveal, we do not choose weak and shallow heads to impart it unto; but here is a mystery which babes understand and wise men are ignorant of: ‘I thank thee, O Father,...because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.’  The people who were so scorned by the proud Pharisees, as those who knew not the law, John 7:49, to them was the gospel revealed, while these doctors of the chair were left in ignorance.  It is revealed to the poor many times, and hid from kings and princes.  Christ passeth often by palaces to visit the poor cottage.  Herod could get nothing from Christ—who out of curiosity so long desired to see him, Luke 23:8; whereas the poor woman of Samaria with a pitcher in her hand, Christ vouchsafeth her a sermon, and opens to her the saving truths of the gospel.  Pilate missed of Christ on the bench, while the poor thief finds him, and heaven with him, on the cross.  Devout women are passed by and left to perish with their blind zeal, while harlots and publicans are converted by him.

 Fifth. It is a mystery in regard of the kind of knowledge the saints themselves have of it.

1. Their knowledge is but in part and imperfect. The most of what they know is the least of what they do not know.  The gospel is as a rich piece of arras rolled up; this God hath been unfolding ever since the first promise was made to Adam, opening it still every age wider than other; but the world shall sooner be at an end than this mystery will be fully known. Indeed, as a river—which may be breaks forth at first from the small orifice of a little spring—does widens its channel and grows broader as it approacheth nearer the sea; so the knowledge of this mystery doth spread every age more than other, and still will, as the world draws nearer and nearer to the sea of eternity, into which it must at last fall.  The gospel appeared but a little spring in Adam’s time, whose whole Bible was bound up in a single promise; this increased to a rivulet enlarged itself into a river in the days of the prophets; but when Christ came in the flesh then knowledge flowed in amain.  The least in the gospel state is said to be greater than the greatest before Christ.  So that, in comparison of the darker times of the law, the knowledge Christians now have is great, but compared with the knowledge they shall have in heaven, it is little, and but peep of day.

What is meant by a mystery and Why is the gospel is a mystery 1/3

           First. The word mystery is used in an evil sense. ‘The mystery of iniquity doth already work,’ II Thes. 2:7; whereby is meant the secret rising antichristian dominion, whereof some foundations were laid even in the apostle’s days.  Error is but a day younger than truth.  When the gospel began first to be preached by Christ and his apostles, error presently put forth her hand to take it by the heel and supplant it.  The whole system of antichristianism is a mystery of pol­icy and impiety.  Mystery is written upon the whore of Babylon’s forehead, Rev. 17:2.  And Causabon tells us the same word was written up­on the pope’s mitre; if so, it is well he would own his name. ‘My soul, en­ter not thou into their secrets.’

           Second.  In a good sense.  Sometimes for some particular branch of evangelical truth.  Thus the rejec­tion of the Jews and calling of the Gentiles is called a ‘mystery,’ Rom. 11:25; the wonderful change of those that shall be upon the earth at the end of the world, I Cor. 15:51; the incarnation, resurrection, and ascen­sion of Christ, I Tim. 3:16; with others.  Sometimes it is used for the whole body of the gospel; as to the doctrine of it, called a ‘mystery of faith,’ I Tim. 3:9; as to the purity of its precepts and rules for a holy life, a ‘mystery of godliness;’ as to the author, subject, and end of it, called ‘the mystery of Christ,’ Eph. 3:4—it was revealed by him, treats of him, and leads souls to him; and lastly, in regard of the blessed reward it promiseth to all that sincerely embrace it, called ‘the mystery of the kingdom of God,’ Mark 4:11.  This gospel is the glorious mystery we are now to speak of; and we will show in what respect it is a mystery, or why so called by the Spirit of God.

Why or in what respects the gospel is a mystery.  First.  Because it is known only by divine revela­tion.  Such a secret it is that the wit of man could never have found out.  There are many secrets in na­ture, which, with much plodding and study, have at last been discovered, as the medicinal virtue of plants and the like; but the gospel is a secret, and contains in it such mysteries as were omni ingenio altiora—be­yond the reach of all genius, as Calvin saith.  What man or angel could have thought of such a way for reconciling God and man as in the gospel is laid out? How impossible was it for them to have conjectured what purposes of love were locked up in the heart of God towards fallen man, till himself did open the cabinet of his own counsel?  Or had God given them some hint of a purpose he had for man’s recovery, could they ever have so much as thought of such a way as the gospel brings to light?  Surely as none but God could lay the plot, so none but himself could make it known.  The gospel therefore is called ‘a revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,’ Rom. 16:25.

           Second. Because the gospel when revealed, its truths exceed the grasp of human understanding. They are the eye of our reason as the sun is to the eye of our body, such a nimium excellens—exceeding excellency, as dazzles and overpowers the most pier­cing apprehension.  They disdain to be discussed and tried by human reason.  That there are three subsis­tences in the Godhead, and but one divine essence, we believe, because there revealed.  But he that shall fly too near this light, as thinking to comprehend this mysterious truth in his narrow reason, will soon find himself lost in his bold enterprise.  God and man, united in Christ’s person, is undeniably demonstrable from the gospel.  But, alas! the cordage of our under­standing is too short to fathom this great deep. ‘With­out controversy,’ saith the apostle, ‘great is the mys­tery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh,’ I Tim. 3:16.  It is a truth without controversy, Òµ@8@(@LµX<TH—it is confessed of all, yet such a mystery as is not fordable by our short-legged under­standing.  That there is no name but the name of Jesus by which we can be saved is the grand notion of the gospel; but how many mysteries are wrapped up in this one truth?  Who that should have seen the babe Jesus when he lay in the manger, and afterward meanly bred under a carpenter, and at last executed for a malefactor, could have imagined, as one saith, that upon such weak hinges should move such a glor­ious design for man’s salvation?  But who dares think it unreasonable to believe that upon God’s report to be true, which we cannot make out by our own under­standing?  Some things we apprehend by reason that cannot be known by sense—as that the sun is bigger than the earth; some things by sense, which cannot be found out by reason.  That the lodestone attracts iron, and not gold, our eye beholds; but why it should, there our reason is dunced and posed.  Now if in nature we question not the truth of these, though sense be at a loss in one and reason in the other, shall we in religion doubt of that to be true which drops from God’s own mouth and pen, because it exceeds our weak understanding?  Wouldst thou see a reason, saith Augustine, for all that God saith? look into thy own understanding, and thou wilt find a reason why thou seest not a reason.

The end in Paul’s request as a minister of Christ for the prayers of believers

‘That I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel.’      The third branch in the division of the words presents us with the end why he desires their prayers for utterance to be granted him, expressed in these words—‘that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel;’ where there are these three observables.  First. The sublime nature of the gospel—it is ‘a mystery.’  Second. Wherein lies the work of a gospel minister—‘to make known the mystery of the gospel.’  Third. The manner how he is to perform this work —‘that I may open my mouth boldly.’

What is meant by a ‘mystery,’ and in what respects the gospel is one.

           First Observable.  The sublime nature of the gospel—it is ‘a mystery.’  The Greek word µLFJZD­4T< some derive from µLXT, to teach any secret be­longing to religion; others of µbT or µb.T, to shut the mouth, because those that were initiated or admitted to be present at the religious rites and mysteries of the heathens—who were called µbFJ"4 —might not reveal them to those that were •µb<J@4, or not initiated.  Therefore they had an image before the temple, holding his finger upon his mouth, to put them in mind as they went in and out of keeping secret what was done within.  Indeed the mysteries in their idolatrous worship were so impure and filthy that nothing but secrecy could keep them from being abhorred and detested by the more sober part of mankind; and it is not unworthy of our noting what I find observed to my hand by a learned pen—that the Spirit of God should make choice of that word in the New Testament so often to express the holy doctrine of truth and salvation contained in it, which was so vilely abused by those heathenish idolaters; surely it shows them to be over‑scrupulous that judge it unlawful any way to make use of those names or things which have been abused by heathens or idolaters.  (R. Sanderson on I Tim. 3:16.)  But, to return to the word ‘mystery;’ it hath obtained in our usual speech to be applied to any secret, natural, civil, or religious, which lies out of the road of vulgar under­standings.  In Scripture it is generally used for reli­gious secrets; and it is taken both in an evil sense and in a good.

Use or Application

           Use First.  To ministers.  Do ministers depend thus on God for utterance?  This speaks to you , my brethren in the Lord’s work.  Do nothing for which God may stop your mouths when you come into the pulpit.

1. Take heed of any sin smothering in your bosoms.  Canst thou believe God will assist thee in his work who canst lend thy hand to the devil’s? Mayest thou not rather fear he should hang a padlock on thy lips, and strike thee dumb, when thou goest about thy work?  You remember the story of Origen, how after his great fall he was silenced in the very pul­pit; for, at the reading of that, ‘What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?’ Ps. 50:16, the conscience of his sin would not suffer him to speak.  O it is sad when the preacher meets his own sin in his subject, and pronounceth sentence against himself while he reads his text!  If thou wouldst have God assist thee, be zealous and repent.  When the trumpet is washed, then the Holy Spirit, thou mayest hope, will again breathe through it.
2. Beware thou comest not in the confidence of thy own preparation.  God hath declared himself against this kind of pride: ‘By strength shall no man prevail,’ I Sam. 2:9.  A little bread with God’s blessing may make a meal for multitude, and great provision may soon shrink to nothing if God help not in the breaking of it.  It is not thy sermon in thy head, or notes in thy book, will enable thee to preach except God open thy mouth.  Acknowledge therefore God in all thy ways, and ‘lean not to thy own understanding.’  The swelling of the heart as well as of the wall goes before a fall.  Did the Ephraimites take it so ill that Gideon would steal a victory without calling them to his help?  How much more may it provoke God, when thou goest to the pulpit, and passest by his door in the way without calling for his assistance?

           Use Second. To the people.  Take heed you do not stop your ministers’ mouths.  This you may do,

1. By admiring their gifts and applauding their persons; especially when this is accompanied with un­thankfulness to God that gives them; when you ap­plaud the man, but do not bless God for him.  Princes have an evil eye upon those subjects that are over-popular.  God will not let his creatures stand in his light, nor have his honour suffer by the reputation of his instrument.  The mother likes not to see the child taken with the nurse more than with herself.  O how foolish are we, who cannot love, but we must dote; not honour, what we adore also!  He that would keep his posey fresh and sweet, must smell and lay it down again—not hold it too long in his hand, or breathe too much upon it; this is the way soon to welter it. To overdo is the ready way to undo.  Many fair mercies are thus overlaid and pressed to death by the excess of a fond affection; or when it is accompanied with detracting of others—the abilities of one are cried up to cry down the another.  ‘I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos.’  Thus the disciples of either advanced their preacher to hold up a faction.
2. You may provoke God to withdraw his assis­tance by expecting the benefit from man and not from God; as if it were nothing but to take up your cloak and Bible, and you are sure to get good by such a one’s ministry.  This is like them in James, that say, ‘We will go into such a city, and get gain;’ as if it were no more to hear with profit than to go to the tap and draw wine or beer in your own cellar!  It is just thou shouldst find the vessel frozen—the minister, I mean, straitened, and his abilities bound up—because thou comest to him as unto a God who is but a poor instrument.  O say not to him, Give me grace, give me comfort, as Rachel asked children of her husband; but go to thy God for these in thy attendance on man.
3. You may provoke God to withdraw his assis­tance by rebelling against the light of truth that shines forth upon you in his ministry.  God sometimes stops the minister’s mouth because the people shut their hearts.  Why should the cock run to have the water spilt upon the ground?  Christ himself did ‘not many mighty works’—‘he could not,’ saith Mark—in his own country, ‘because of their unbelief.’  Dei justitia non permittebat, ut sanctum canibus daretur, saith Brugensis upon the place—it is just God should take away the ministry, or stop the minister’s mouth, when they despise his counsel, and the word becomes a reproach to them.  I am sure it is a sad dump to the minister's spirit, that preacheth long to a gainsaying people, and no good omen to them.  The mother’s milk goes away sometimes before the child's death. God binds up the spirit of his messengers in judg­ment: ‘I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house,’ Eze. 3:26.

Threefold import of Paul’s request, when he desires that utterance be prayed for 2/2

 Second.  When the apostle desires ‘utterance’ to be given him, he may mean that he may have a word given him to preach—Ë<" µ@ *@2,\0 8`(@H, ac­cording to that which Christ promiseth, ‘It shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak,’ Matt. 10:19.  From which we may note:

1. That ministers have no ability of their own for their work.  O how long may they sit tumbling their books over, and beating their brains, till God comes to their help; and then, as Jacob’s venison, it is brought to their hand!  If God drop not down his assistance, we write with a pen that hath no ink.  If any in the world need walk pendantly upon God more than others, the minister is he.
2. Observe that those who are most eminent for gifts and grace have meanest thoughts of themselves, and are acquainted most with their own insufficiency. Paul himself is not ashamed to let Christians know that if God brings it not into him he cannot deal out to them; he cannot speak a word to them till he re­ceives it from God: ‘Not that we are suffi­cient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament,’ II Cor. 3:5, 6.  He is the able minister whom God enables.
3. Observe, the meanest Christian may, by his faithful prayers, help to make the minister’s sermon for him.  ‘Pray,’ saith the apostle, ‘that utterance may be given unto me;’ that I may have from God what I should deliver to others.  O what a useful instrument is a praying Christian! he may not only help his own minister, but others even all the world over.  Paul was now at Rome, and sends for prayers as far as to the saints at Ephesus.

           Third.  By ‘utterance’ he may mean a faculty of speech—a readiness and facility to deliver to others what he hath been enabled to conceive in his own mind of the will of God.  Many eminent servants of God have been very sensible of, and much dis­couraged for, their impedite speech and hesitant de­livery.  Now this may proceed from a  natural cause, or supernatural.

1. From a natural cause.  As,

           (1.) From a defect in the instruments of speech; which some think was the cause of Moses’ complaint, ‘I am not eloquent,...but I am slow of speech,’ Ex. 4:10.  And this discouraged him from being sent on God’s errand.  But God can compensate the hesitancy of the tongue with the divine power of the matter delivered.  This Moses, who was so ‘slow of speech,’ yet was ‘mighty in words,’ Acts 7:22, able to make Pharaoh’s stout heart to tremble, though he might stammer in the delivery of it.  God promised indeed to be ‘with his mouth;’ yet, it is probable, he did not cure his natural infirmity, for we find him complaining after­wards of it.  Such natural imperfections, therefore, should neither discourage the minister nor prejudice the people; but rather make him more careful that the matter be weighty he delivers, and them that their attention be more close and united.

           (2.) From a weak memory.  He that reads in a bad print, where many letters are defaced, cannot read fast and smooth, but will oft be stopped to study what is next.  Memory is an inward table or book, out of which the minister reads his sermon unseen.  If the notions or meditations we have to deliver be not fairly imprinted on our memory, no wonder that the tongue is oft at a stand, except we should speak to no purpose.  If the hopper be stopped, the mill cannot grind; or if the pipe that feeds the cistern be obstruc­ted, it will be seen at the cock.  When God hath assis­ted in the study, we need him to strengthen our memory in the pulpit.

           (3.) From fear.  If the heart faint, it is no wonder the tongue falters.  This, it is like, was at the bottom of Jeremiah's excuse: ‘Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child,’ Jer. 1:6.  That is, I want the courage and spirit of a man to wrestle with these oppositions that will certainly meet me in the work. That this was his infirmity appears by the method God takes for the cure: ‘Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee,...be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee,’ ver. 7, 8.

2. From a supernatural cause; where none of these defects are, but the minister stands best fur­nished and in greatest readiness for his work.  Yet, let but God turn the cock, and there is a stop put to the whole work.  Not only ‘the preparations of the heart,’ but ‘the answer of the tongue,’ both are ‘of the Lord,’ Prov. 16:1.  God keeps the key of the mouth as well as of the heart; not a word can get out, but sticks in the teeth while [i.e.until] God opens the doors of the lips to give it a free egress.  He opened the mouth of the ass, and stopped the mouth of that wicked prophet its master.  Hear him confessing as much to Balak: ‘Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say anything? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak,’ Num. 22:38.  Never man de­sired more to be speaking than he; that which should have got him his hire, the wages of unrighteousness, for he loved it dearly.  But God had tongue-tied him. Nay, even holy men, when they would speak the truth, and that for God, cannot deliver themselves of what they have conceived in their inward meditations. Hence David’s prayer: ‘Open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.’  Ezekiel he would ‘make his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth;’ he should not reprove them though he would, Eze. 3:26.

Threefold import of Paul’s request, when he desires that utterance be prayed for 1/2

           First. By ‘utterance’ may be meant liberty to preach the gospel;—that his mouth might not be stopped by the persecutor, who had him already his prisoner.  Now he desires they would pray for him, that he might not be quite taken off his work: where,

1. Observe what a grievous affliction it is to a faithful minister to be denied liberty to preach the gospel.  So long as Paul might preach, though in a chain, he is not much troubled; the word is free, though he be bound.  But, to have his mouth stopped, to see poor souls ready to perish for want of that bread which he hath to give out, and yet may not be allowed this liberty, goes to his heart.  ‘O pray,’ saith he, ‘that utterance may be given.’  If he may not preach, neither should he live; for upon this account alone he desired life—the furtherance of their faith, Php. 1:25.  O how far are they from Paul’s mind, to whom it is more tedious to preach than grievous to be kept from the work!  How seldom should we see some in the pulpit, were it not a necessary expedient to bring in their revenue at the year's end!
2. The liberty of the gospel, and of the ministers to deliver it, are in an especial manner to be prayed for.

           (1.) Because this is strongly opposed and ma­ligned by Satan and his instruments.  Wherever God opens a door for his gospel there Satan raiseth his batteries.  ‘For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries,’ I Cor. 16:9. No sooner doth God open his shop-windows, but the devil is at work to shut them again, or hinder the free-trade of his gospel.  Other men's servants can work peaceably in their master’s shop, but as for God’s servants, every one hath a stone to throw in at them as they pass by.  When Paul began to preach at Thes­salonica, the city was presently in an uproar and cry, ‘These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also,’ Acts 17:6.  Indeed they said true; let the gospel have but liberty and it will ‘turn the world upside down.’  It will make a change, but a happy one.  This the devil knows, and therefore dreads its approach.

           (2.) Because it is the choicest mercy that God can bless a nation with.  Happy are the people that are in such a case.  It is the gospel of the kingdom; it lifts a people up to heaven. We could better spare the sun out of its orb than the preaching of the gospel out of the church.  Souls might find the way to heaven, though the sun sis not lend them its light; nut without the light of truth they cannot take one right step to­wards it.  Work, saith Christ, ‘while ye have the light,’ John 12:36.  Salvation-work cannot be done by the candle‑light of a natural understanding, but by the daylight of gospel revelation; this sun must rise before man can go forth to this labour.

           (3.) It is God’s power to preserve the liberty of his gospel and messengers, in spite of the devil and his instruments.  Therefore, indeed, Paul sends them not to court to beg his liberty, but to heaven.  God had Nero closer prisoner than he had Paul.  ‘Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it,’ Rev. 3:8.  At Ephesus were many adversaries we heard, yet the door was kept open.  Christ carries the keys of the church-door at his girdle: ‘He that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth,’ Rev. 3:7, ‘the key of the house of David,’ so Isa. 22:22.  The church is Christ’s house, and the mas­ter sure will keep the key of his own door.

           (4.) Prayer hath a mighty power with God to preserve or restore liberty to his gospel and messen­gers.  It hath fetched home his servants from banish­ment, it hath brought them out of their dungeon. The prison could not hold Peter when the church was at prayer for him.  It hath had a mighty influence into the church’s affairs when at the lowest ebb.  It was a sad world to the church in Nero’s time, when Paul set the saints a praying for kings and those that were in authority; which prayers, though they were not ans­wered in Nero, yet I doubt not but afterwards they were in Constantine and other Christian princes, under whose royal wing the church of Christ was cherished and protected.

           (5.) Pray for their liberty, because, when the gospel goes away, it goes not alone, but carries away your other mercies along with it.  The hangings that are taken down when the prince removes his court. Where the minister hath not liberty to preach the truth, the people will not long have liberty to profess it.  When it went ill with James the apostle, it went not well with the church at Jerusalem, Acts 12:1, 2, nor can that place look long to enjoy its outward peace. When God removes his gospel, it is to make way for worse company to come, even all his sore plagues and judgements, Jer. 6:8.

    

The matter of Paul’s request, as a minister of Christ, for the prayers of believers

           The second branch in the general division of the words follows, and contains the matter of the apostle’s request to the church of Ephesus, or what he desires them to mention to God in his behalf—‘that utterance may be given unto me.’  Where observe, First. The spirituality of his desire.  He sets them not a praying for carnal things, the world’s honour or riches; no, we hear him not so much as mention his necessities and outward wants, which he, being now a prisoner, it is like, was no great stranger to; but they are spiritual wants he most groans under.  He desires the charity of their prayers more than of their purse.

Second. Observe the public concernment of that he begs prayers for—‘that utterance may be given me.’ This is not a personal privilege, that would redound only on his own private advantage, but which renders him useful to others—that which may fit him for his public employment in the church; from which we may gather this note.

What the minister of Christ chiefly desires believers’ prayers for

           Note. A faithful minister’s heart runs more on his work than on himself.  That which he chiefly de­sires is how he may best discharge his ministerial trust.  No doubt Paul spake out of the abundance of his heart.  That comes out first of which his heart was most full, and for which his thoughts were most soli­citous; as if he had said, If you will take me into your prayers, let this be your request, ‘That utterance may be given me.’  Wherever, almost, you find him begging prayers, he forgets not this: ‘Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course,’ II Thes. 3:1; ‘Praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ,’ Col. 4:3.  Admirable are the expressions whereby this holy man declares how deeply his heart was engaged in the work of the Lord.  He tells them that his very soul and spirit was set upon it: ‘Whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son,’ Rom. 1:9.  Never did any more long for preferment in the church, than he to preach the gospel to the church.  ‘I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift,’ ver. 11.  He professeth himself a debtor to all sorts of men; he hath a heart and tongue to preach to all that have an ear to hear: ‘I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise,’ ver. 14.  Yea, he was ‘ready to preach the gospel’ ver. 15, where he should stand in the mouth of death and danger.  This so took up his thoughts, that for it he threw all his worldly concernments at his heels.  As for the world’s riches, he professeth he progged not for it: ‘I seek not yours, but you,’ II Cor. 12:14. He had a nobler merchandise in his eye.  He had rather preach them into Christ, than their money into his purse.  And for their respect and love, though it was due debt to him, yet he lays it aside, and on he will go with his work, though they give him no thanks for his pains: ‘I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.’  His duty he will do to them, and leaves them to look to theirs to him.  The nurse draws forth her breast to the child, though froward, because she looks for her reward, not from the child, but its parent.  God will reward the faithful minister, though his people will not thank him for his labour.

           In a word, his very life was not valued by him when it stood in competition with his work: ‘But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus,’ Acts 20:24.  And not without great reason is it that ministers should prefer their duty above all temporal respects.  They are servants to God; and a servant must look to his work, whatever becomes of himself.  Abraham’s servant would not eat till he had done his message; and when it sped, neither would he stay then to lose time, but posts back again with all expedition to his master, Gen. 24:33.  He said well who was employed to relieve the city of Rome with corn, who, when the master of the ship would have had him stay for fair weather, answered, ‘It is necessary that we sail, not that we live.’  It is necessary the minister should fulfil his ministry, not that he should be rich, not that he should be in reputation.  The incompar­able value of souls is such as should make hazard our whole temporal stake to promote their eternal salva­tion.  He that wins souls is wise, though he lose his own life in the work.  But we come to a more particu­lar inquiry into these words, what the apostle means by ‘utterance,’ which he desires may be given him.  A parallel place to this we have, Col. 4:3, 4.  Three things we may conceive the apostle drives at in this his request.

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.