The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers. ‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ 3/5

           [2.] When such a puissant prince sends his am­bassadors for peace to a people that have already felt the impressions of his power, and are pining under the bleeding miseries which their war with him has brought upon them, O how would they run to open their city gates to his ambassador!—as willingly surely as Noah opened the window to receive the dove that brought the olive‑branch after that dismal flood.  This is the deplored state which the ministry of the gospel finds mankind involved in.  What a forlorn condition hath our war with heaven brought us into! Do we not feel the arrows of divine vengeance sticking in our very hearts and consciences?  The curse of God cleav­ing to every faculty of our souls and member of our bodies?  Are not all the creatures in arms against us? and doth not hell from beneath open its devouring mouth upon us, ready to swallow us in everlasting destruction?  And yet we are so stout that we can find no lodging in our town for his ambassadors, but a prison? no entertainment to the offers of peace they make, but contempt and scorn?

           [3.] When the terms of peace he brings are hon­ourable.  Gold, we say, may be bought too dear, and so may the peace of one state with another; as when Nahash the Ammonite offered peace to the men of Jabesh‑Gilead, but upon condition that they should have ‘every one his right eye thrust out, to lay it as a reproach on Israel,’ and therefore was rejected with just indignation; they resolving rather to die with hon­our than live with shame.  It is the custom among many of this world’s princes to make their demands according to the length of their sword.  When their power is great it is hard to have peace on easy terms. Now this, one would think, should make the min­isters of the gospel and their message infinitely wel­come to poor sinners, that, though they come from the great God that may make his own demands—for who may say to God, ‘What doest thou?’—and might not only require the eye out of your head, but force the very heart out of your body; yet offers peace on such gracious terms, that we could not possibly have framed them so to our own advantage, had we been left to draw them, as he of his own free grace is pleased to propound them; there being nothing in the whole instrument of peace provided for himself, besides the securing of his own glory in our salvation. See, a little, what he offers to poor sinners, and what he requires of them again.  He offers to seal an act of oblivion, wherein all wrongs done to his crown and dignity in the time of our hostility against him shall be forgiven and forgotten.  So runs the promise, ‘He will forgive them their iniquities, and remember them no more.’  He will not only forgive what is past, but receive our persons into favour for the future.  A prince may save a malefactor's life, but forever banish his person from court.  But God promiseth access into his presence.  ‘By whom also we have access by faith into this grace (or favour) wherein we stand,’ Rom. 5:2.  Yea, he promiseth to restore the sinner to all that by his rebellion was forfeited.  Treason taints the blood, degrades from honour, and confiscates the estate; God offers to take off the whole curse which befell the sinner for his rebellion, and restores him to his primitive dignity.  He ‘gives them power to be­come his children,’ John 1:12, and, as his children, makes them his heirs, and that not to a Cabul here below only, but to heaven itself, an inheritance in light beyond all expression glorious; for godliness hath both the promise of this life and that which is to come.

          

The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers. ‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ 2/5

 (1.) In the greatness of the Prince from whom they come.  Ambassadors have their respect according to the rank of their master that sends them; the greater the prince, the more honourable is his mes­senger.  Now, the ministers of the gospel come from the great God, who is ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’—by whom they reign and of whom they hold all their principalities.  This is their Master in whose name they come.  Therefore Moses, when he was to deliver his message to Israel, bids them ‘ascribe great­ness to that God’ whose name and will he was to publish, Deut. 32:3.  The potentates of the world have found to their cost how deeply God takes himself concerned in the affronts that are done to his serv­ants.  What brought Israel's flourishing kingdom to ruin but their mocking his messengers and misusing his prophets?  Then ‘the wrath of God arose against his people, till there was no remedy,’ II Chr. 36:16.  We cannot despise the messenger and honour his master that sends him, Luke 10:16.  Few are so bold as to say with that proud king, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?’ Ex. 5:2.  But too many dare say, Who is the minister, that I should obey his message? —repent at his summons, tremble at the words he delivers? forgetting, alas! they have God’s authority for what they say; and so, by a slanting blow, they hit God himself in contemning his ambassador.

           (2.) In the greatness of the Person whose place the minister supplies.  Ministers are but deputy am­bassadors; Christ himself had the first patent; called therefore ‘the Messenger of the covenant,’ Mal. 3:1; and ‘the Apostle...of our profession,’ Heb. 3:1.  From him the ministers receive their authority: ‘All power is given unto me,...Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,’ Matt. 28:18.  So, II Cor. 5:20, ‘We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.’  As if the apostle had said, We do but deliver that message which Christ should and would have done had he not been called to heaven about the affairs of his church; and therefore hath left us as his deputies to carry out that ministry which himself began when he was here below.  Now, what an honour is it for a poor creature to stand up in Christ’s room and bring that message to poor sinners which was first committed unto him?

           (3.) In the excellency of the message they bring. There are three kinds of embassies in the world which make way for their honourable entertainment that are the messengers to bring them to any state—embassies for peace, embassies for marriage, and embassies for trade.

           (a) Embassies for peace.  Beautiful are their feet, and honoured are their persons, that bring glad ti­dings of peace along with them; especially four things concur in their embassage, which will all be found in the minister’s negotiation.

           [1.] When an ambassador comes from some puissant prince whose power is formidable and arm­ies irresistible.  An ambassador from such a prince, to a people naked and unarmed, for peace and amity, O how welcome is his approach! Such a king we come from.  He offers not peace because he cannot main­tain a war or stands in need of our friendship.  Sin­ners need his favour, but he fears not their hostility. Never could they yet shoot any of their arrows so high as heaven, but all have come down upon their own heads.  What can he that spits against the wind, but look to have it blown back upon his own face? and he that fights with God, but expect to have his weapons beat back to his own head?  Worldly princes treat when they cannot fight.  Think not so of the great God.  His instruments of death are ready.  No place where he hath not his armed troops able to fetch in his proudest enemies.  No creature so little but con­tains an army in it big enough to tame the proudest king in the world.  The worm under Herod’s foot, at God’s command, shall seize on him and eat out his heart. O with what fear and trembling should the ambassadors of this God be received!  When Samuel the prophet came to Bethlehem, ‘the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?’ I Sam. 16:4.

The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers. ‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ 1/5

           We are at length got to the last general head in the words—the double argument with which the apostle backs his request, the more effectually to provoke them to the remembrance of him in their prayers.  First. Taken from his office—‘for which I am an ambas­sador.’  Second. From his present af­flicted state—‘an ambassador in bonds.’

An argument for Paul’s request, taken from his office.

           First argument. Paul enforces his request for his people’s prayers by an argument taken from his office.  Ambassadors being messengers of state, sent by princes abroad about great affairs of their king­dom, it behoves all good subjects to wish them good speed and success in their embassy.  Upon this ac­count, Paul, being sent from the great God in embas­sage as the apostle of the Gentiles, desires the church’s prayers for a happy success to the message he brings.

           Note.  Ministers of the gospel are God’s ambas­sadors.  The apostle doth not monopolize this title, as if none were so beside himself; for elsewhere he reads others in the commission, ‘We are ambassadors for Christ,’ II Cor. 5:20—that is, we apostles who are now upon the place, and in the employment of the gospel, and such also as shall be despatched after us to the end of the world upon the same errand.  The author­ity of the apostles’ extraordinary commission, and that which ordinary ministers after them have, is the same for substance, only they had their mission im­mediately from Christ’s mouth, and were ecumenical; whereas ordinary ministers receive it from the church by an authority derived from Christ, and are fixed to their particular orbs, and are to lie as ambassadors legier in some one place whither they are sent.  In handling this point we shall inquire into these three particulars.  First. Why ministers are called ambassa­dors.  Second. Why God would send ambassadors to his poor creature.  Third. Why he useth weak men and not glorious angels, to be his ambassadors in this negotiation.

Why ministers are called ambassadors. 

           First. Let us inquire why ministers are called ambassadors: and that is, 1. To set out the dignity of their function.  2. To set out the duty of their func­tion.

The dignity of the ministry is expressed by the title ‘ambassadors.’

1. Ministers of the gospel are by God designated ambassadors, to set out the dignity of their office. God by this title would procure and honourable esteem of the ministers’ calling in the hearts of all those to whom they are sent.  This is more necessary to the good success of their message than is generally thought.  I know very well that what ministers speak on this subject, they are thought in it to be rather kind to themselves, than friends to the gospel.  Men are prone to interpret it as a fruit of their pride, and an affectation they have of some outward grandeur and worldly pomp which they design to gain by such a magnificent title.  The apostle himself was sensible of this, and therefore, when he had called for that respect which was due to the minister’s function —‘Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God’—he gives a caveat, that they would ‘judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come,’ I Cor. 4:1, 5. Then it shall be known from what spirit it is that we ministers magnify our office, and have been acted by in our function; and also by what spirit they are moved who vilify and despise both it and our persons for our calling's sake.  Now the dignity of gospel ambassadors will appear in three things.

          

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5.     Consider, if thou beest not now bold for Christ in thy ministry, thou canst not be bold before Christ at his judgment-bar.  He that is afraid to speak for Christ will certainly be ashamed to look on his face then.  ‘We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,’ &c., II Cor. 5:10.  Now what use doth Paul make of this solemn meditation?  ‘Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men,’ ver. 11. It is no wisdom to provoke the judge by flat­tering the prisoner.  A serious thought of that day, as we are going to preach, would make us shut all base fear out of the pulpit.  It is a very small thing to be judged by man now for our boldness, but dismal to be condemned by Christ for our cowardice.  This is man’s judgment-day, as Paul calls it, I Cor. 4:3.  Every one dares tax the preacher, and pass his sentence up­on him, if he please not his itching ear; but Christ will have his judgment-day also, to judge them that now take upon them to judge others, and his sentence will easily reverse theirs.  Yea, even those that now condemn thy freedom thy freedom to reprove would be the first to accuse thee for thy sinful silence.  The wicked servant, who likes the remissness of his mas­ter’s government—whereby he may play his ungodly pranks without control—cries out of him at the gal­lows, and is oft heard there to lay both his sin, and sad catastrophe of his life to which it brings him, at his master's door; saying, ‘If he had reproved me, the magistrate had not condemned me; if he had done his duty, the hangman had not now been to do his office.’ Thus may some at the last day accuse their cowardly ministers, and say, ‘If they had told them their danger, they had not run into it; if they had been bold to reprove their sin, they had not been so impudent to live in the practice of it, which now hath brought them to everlasting shame and misery.’

6. Consider how bold Christ was in his ministry. His very enemies were forced to give him this testi­mony, ‘We know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly,’ Luke 20:21.  He spared not the proudest of them, but to their head reproved them, and denounced the judgment of God against them.  When in the midst of his enemies, he was not daunted with their high looks or furious threats, but owned that very truth which they made his capital crime, Matt. 27:11; John 18:37.  Hence Paul saith of him that ‘before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confes­sion,’ I Tim. 6:13; and useth this as the most powerful argument to conjure Timothy to be faithful in his ministry.  What greater incentive to valour can the soldier have, than to see his general before him stand with undaunted courage where the bullets fly thick­est?  Such valiant captains do not use to breed white-livered soldiers.  It is impossible we should be das­tardly if instructed by him and acted with his spirit. When the high-priest and elders ‘saw the boldness of Peter and John’—who were convented before them —they soon knew where they had got this heroic resolved spirit; for it is said, ‘they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus,’ Acts 4:13.
7. Pray and beg prayers, for this holy boldness. Thus did the apostles come by it.  Their natural bold­ness was not the product of any natural greatness of spirit they had above others.  You see what stout soldiers they were in themselves by their poor-spirited behaviour at Christ’s attachment, when they all ran away in a fright, and left him to shift for himself.  No; this boldness was the child of prayer; it was not bred in them, but granted from heaven unto them at their humble suit. See them praying hard for it: ‘Now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,’ Acts 4:29.  Mark, they do not pray against suf­fering, but for ‘boldness’to preach, whatever it may cost them.  They desire not to be excused the battle, but to be armed with courage to stand in it.  They had rather be lift above the fear of suffering, than have an immunity from suffering.  Let God but give them boldness to do their duty, and stand to their tackling, and they have enough.  Now see how soon God sets his fiat to their prayers: ‘And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness,’ ver. 31.  There is the grace they desired, dropped into their bosom, in a farther measure than ever they had it.  If the soldier hath a desire to fight for his prince, no doubt he may have arms for asking.  If this be thy sincere request, God will not deny it.  See them also sending others to God upon this errand for them, Col. 4:3, and here in the text.  Certainly people cannot de­sire that of God for their minister which both he and they need more.  It is a difficult duty to them, but necessary for you.  He cannot be a faithful minister that dares not deliver all his message. When Mauritius the emperor had inquired of Phocas’ dis­position, he said, si timidus est, homicida est—if he be timorous, he is a murderer.  He that fears his people’s faces is the man that is most like to murder their souls; so that you pray for yourselves, while you endeavour to pray down this gift upon your minister.

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 Fourth.  We promised to propound some helps to procure this boldness.

1. A holy fear of God.  We fear man so much be­cause we fear God so little.  One fear cures another as one fire draws out another.  When your finger is burned you hold it to the fire; when man’s terror scares you, turn your thoughts to meditate on the wrath of God.  This is the plaster God lays to Jer­emiah’s wrists to cure his anguish distemper of man’s fear. ‘Be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them,’ Jer. 1:17.  If we must be broken in pieces—so is the original—better man do it than God.  What man breaks in pieces God can make whole again.  ‘He that loseth his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it,’ Mark 8:35.  But if God break us in pieces, it is beyond the skill of man to gather the sherds, and remake what God hath marred.
2. Castle thyself within the power and promise of God for thy assistance and protection.  He that is a coward in the open field grows valiant and fearless when got within strong walls and bulwarks.  Jeremiah was even laying down is arms, and fleeing from the face of those dangers which his ministry to a rebel­lious and enraged people exposed him.  Hear what course he had in his thoughts to take, because the word of the Lord was made a reproach to him, and a derision daily: ‘Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name,’ Jer. 20:9. Now what kept him from this cowardly flight?  ‘But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one,’ ver. 11.  Now he takes heart, and goes on with his work un­dauntedly.  Our eye, alas! is on our danger, but not on the invisible walls and bulwarks which God hath promised to set about us.  The prophet’s servant, that saw the enemy's army approaching, was in a panic fright; but the prophet, that saw the heavenly host for his lifeguard about him, cared not a rush for them all. If God be not able to protect thee, why dost thou go on his errand at all?  If thou believest he is, why art thou afraid to deliver it when he is able to deliver thee?
3. Keep a clear conscience.  He cannot be a bold reprover that is not a conscientious liver.  Such a one must speak softly for fear of waking his own guilty conscience.  He is like one that shoots in a rusty foul piece, his reproofs recoil upon himself.  Unholiness in the preacher’s life either will stop his mouth from reproving, or the people's ears from receiving what he saith.  O how harsh a sound does such a cracked bell make in the ears of its auditors!  Every one desires, if he must be smitten, that it may be by the hand of ‘the righteous,’ Ps. 141:5.  Good counsel from a wicked man is spoiled by his stinking breath that delivers it. Our Saviour was fain to bid them hear the Pharisees, because their persons were a scandal to their doc­trine, Matt. 23:2, 3.  Even those that are good are too prone to turn their back off the ordinance for the scandal of him that officiates.  This is their weakness and sin; but woe be to them at whose wickedness they stumble upon this temptation.  It shows the man hath a very good stomach, that can eat his dinner out of a slovenly cook’s hands; and a very sound judgment and quick appetite to the word, that can fall to and make a hearty meal of it without any squeamish scru­pulosity or prejudice from the miscarriages of the preacher.
4. Consider that which thou most fearest is best prevented by thy freedom and holy boldness in thy ministry.  Is it danger to thy life thou fearest?  No such way to secure it as by being faithful to him that hath the sole dispose of it.  In whose hands thinkest thou are thy times? Surely in God’s. Then it is thy best policy to keep him thy friend; for, ‘when thy ways please him, he can make thy enemies to be at peace with thee.’  Man-pleasing is both endless and needless.  If thou wouldst, thou couldst not please all; and if thou couldst, there is no need, so thou pleasest one that can turn all their hearts or bind their hands. They speed best that dare be faithful.  Jonah was afraid of his work.  O he durst not go to such a great city with so sad a message!  To tell them they should be destroyed was to set them awork to destroy him that brought the news.  But how near was he losing his life by running away to save it?  Jeremiah seemed the only man like to lose his life by his bold preach­ing, yet had fairer quarter at last than the smooth preachers of the times.  However, it is better to die honourably than live shamefully.  Is it thy name thou art tender of?  If thou beest free and bold, the word thou deliverest will be a reproach and daily derision to thee, as once to Jeremiah.  Thou mayest, indeed, be mocked by some, but thou wilt be reverenced by more; yea, even they that wag their heads at thee carry that in their conscience which will make them fear thee.  They are the flattering preachers—who are ‘partial in the law’—that become ‘base’ among the people, Mal. 2:9.

6.  

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         Third. What kind of boldness must the min­ister’s be.

1. A convincing boldness.  ‘How forcible are right words?’ saith Job; and how feeble are empty words, though shot with a thundering voice?  Great words in reproving an error or sin, but weak argu­ments, produce laughter oftener than tears.  Festus thought it ‘unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him,’ Acts 25:27.  Much more unreasonable is it in the pulpit to condemn an error and not prove it so; a practice and not convince of the evil of it.  The apostle saith of some, ‘Their mouths must be stopped,’ Titus 1:11.  They are convincing arguments that must stop the mouth.  Empty reproofs will soon open the mouths of those that are reproved, wider, than shut them.  The Spirit of God reproves by convincing, ‘And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin,’ ¦8X(­>,4, John 16:8, he will convince; and so should the minister.  This is to preach in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit.
2. A wise boldness.  The minister is to reprove the sins of all, but to personate none.  Paul, being to preach before a lascivious and unrighteous prince, touched him to the quick, but did not name him in his sermon.  Felix’s conscience would save Paul that labour; he ‘trembled,’ though Paul did not say he meant him.
3. A meek boldness.  ‘The words of wise men are heard in quiet,’ Ecc. 9:17.  Let the reproof be as sharp as thou wilt, but thy spirit must be meek.  Passion raiseth the blood of him that is reproved, but com­passion turns his bowels.  The oil in which the nail is dipped makes it drive the easier, which other­wise have riven the board.  We must not denounce wrath in wrath, lest sinners think we wish their misery; but rather with such tenderness, that they may see it is no pleasing work to us to rake in their wounds, but do it, that we might not by a cruel silence and foolish pity be accessory to their ruin, which we cordially desire to prevent.  Jeremiah sounds the alarm of judgment, and tells them of a dismal calamity approaching; yet at the same time appeals to God, and clears himself of all cruelty towards them: ‘I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee,’ Jer. 17:16.  As if he had said, I have delivered my mes­sage in denouncing judgment (for I durst do no other), but it was with a merciful heart; I threatened ruin, but wished for peace.  Thus Daniel, he dealt plainly and roundly with the king, but ushers in his hard message with an affectionate ex­pression of his love and loyalty to him: ‘My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies,’ Dan. 4:19.
4. A humble boldness; such a boldness as is raised from a confidence in God, not from ourselves, or our own parts and ability, courage or stoutness. Paul is bold, and yet can tremble and be in fear; bold, in confidence of his God: ‘We were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much con­tention,’ I Thes. 2:2; but full of fear in the sense of his own weakness: ‘I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling,’ I Cor. 2:3.
5. A zealous boldness.  Our reproofs of sin must come from a warm heart.  Paul’s spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city given to idolatry. Jeremiah tells us ‘the word of God was as fire in his bones;’ it broke out of his mouth as the flame out of a furnace.  The word is a hammer, but it breaks not the flinty heart when lightly laid on.  King James said of a minister in his time, he preached as if death was at his back.  Ministers should set forth judgment as if it were at the sinner’s back, ready to take hold of him. Cold reproofs or threatenings, they are like the rum­blings of thunder afar off, which affright not as a clap over our head doth.  I told you the minister’s boldness must be meek and merciful, but not to prejudice zeal.  The physician may sweeten his pill to make his patient to swallow it better; but not to such a degree as will weaken the force of its operation.         

The minister is to declare the gospel with boldness 1/4

           Third Observable. The manner how the gos­pel minister is to perform his work—‘that I may open my mouth boldly.’  We must inquire:—First. What this boldness is the apostle desires prayers for. Second. Wherein the minister is to express the bold­ness in preaching the gospel.  Third. What kind of boldness it is that he must show.  Fourth. Some helps to procure boldness.

           First. What this boldness is the apostle desires prayers for.  The words are ¦< B"ÖÕ0F\‘, and import these two things:

1. To speak all that he hath in command from God to deliver.  This lies full in the etymon of the word.  Thus Paul kept nothing back of God’s counsel, Acts 20:27.  He ‘concealed not the words of the holy One,’ as Job’s phrase is.
2. To speak with liberty and freedom of spirit—without fear or bondage to any, be they many or mighty.  Now this is seen, (1.)By speaking openly, and not in corners; the trick of heretics and false teachers, who ‘privily bring in their damnable heresies.’  It is said Christ ‘spake them openly’ —¦<B"ÖÕ0F\‘, Mark 8:32.  (2.) By speaking plainly.  It shows some fear in the heart, when our words are dark and shady—that the preachers’ judgment or opinion cannot easily be spelled from his words, he lays the so close and ambiguous.  The minister is to speak truth freely and plainly.  This was the apostle’s boldness, ‘Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech,’ B@88± B"ÖÕ0F\‘ PDf­µ,2"—‘we use great boldness;’ so your margin II Cor. 3:12.

           Second. Wherein the minister is to show this boldness in preaching the gospel.

1. In asserting the truths of the gospel.  He is not to smother truth for the face or fear of any.  Ministers are called witnesses.  A witness is to speak what he knows, though it be in open court before the greatest of men.  Paul had a free tongue to speak the truth, even in prison, though he was in bonds, yet he tells us ‘the word of God is not bound,’ II Tim. 2:9.  Some truths will go down easily; to preach these re­quires no boldness.  The worst in the congregation will give the preacher thanks for his pains upon some subject; but there are displeasing truths, truths that cross the opinion, may be, of some in the assembly; to preach these requires a free and bold spirit.  When Christ was to preach before the Pharisees, he was not afraid to preach against their errors.  Had some wary preacher been to have stood in his place, he would have pitched upon such a subject as should not have offended their tender ears.  There are truths that ex­pose the preacher to scorn and derision, yet not to be concealed.  Paul preached the resurrection, though some in the assembly mocked him for his pains. There are truths that sometimes may expose the minister to danger—truths that carry the cross at their back.  Such was that truth that Isaiah delivered con­cerning the rejection of the Jews.  ‘But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not,’ Rom. 10:20.  This was like to enrage his country­men, and bring their fists about his ears.  We read of a ‘word of patience’ which we are to keep, Rev. 3.10.  Such a word as the preacher had need have good store of patience that delivers it, and Christians that pro­fess it, because it may bring them into trouble, and draw the persecutor’s sword against them.  This is not always the same.  The word of patience in the apos­tle’s time was truths levelled against Judaism and heathenism; under the Arian emperors, it was the deity of Christ; in Luther’s time the doctrine of justi­fication, and others asserted by him against the Romish church.
2. Boldness in reproving sin, and denouncing judgment against impenitent sinners.  They are com­manded ‘to lift up their voice like a trumpet, and tell Jerusalem her sins.’ ‘Preach the word,’ saith Paul; ‘be instant in season, and out of season; reprove, rebuke with all long-suffering.’  He must reprove, and con­tinue therein while they continue to sin.  The dog ceaseth not to bark so long as the thief is in the yard. A minister without this boldness is like a smooth file, a knife without an edge, a sentinel that is afraid to let off his gun when he should alarm the city upon a danger approaching.  Nothing more unworthy to see a people bold to sin and the minister afraid to reprove.  It is said of Tacitus that he took the same liberty to write the emperor’s lives that they took in leading them.  So should the minister in reproving sin, be they who they will.  Not the beggar’s sin, and spare the gentleman's; not the profane, and skip over the professor’s sin.  It was all one to Christ; whoever sinned should hear of it.  The scribes and Pharisees, them he paid to purpose; neither connives he at his own disciples, but rebukes them sharply.  ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ saith he to Peter; ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ to his own mother for her unseasonable importunity.

  

The duty of the people to make known the gospel

           Use Second. To the people.  As it is the min­ister’s task to make known the mystery of the gospel in his pulpit, so your duty to do the same in your lives.  The Christian’s life should put his minister’s sermon in print; he should preach that mystery every day to the eyes of his neighbours, which the minister preacheth once or twice a week to their ears.  As a true-made dial agrees with the sun in its motion, and as a well‑drawn picture resembles the face from which it was taken, so should thy conversation resemble that gospel which thou professest.  Let none have cause to say, what once did of some loose Christians, aut hoc non est evangelium, aut hi non sunt evangelici —either this is not the gospel, or these are not its subjects.  What hast thou to do with any sordid and impure practices, who pretendest to be instructed in this high and holy mystery?  Thy Christian name ill agrees with a heathen life.  If thou sufferest any that is not of thy profession to outstrip thee, yea but to keep pace with thee, in any action  that is virtuous and truly honourable, thou shamest thyself and the gospel also.  What a shame were it to find one in some trivial country school that should be able to pose a graduate in the university!  Thou art trained up in such high and heavenly learning as no other re­ligion in the world can show, and therefore your lives are to bear proportion to your teaching.  It was a sharp reproof to the Corinthian saints, when the apostle said, 6"Jz –<2DT­B@< B,D4B"J,ÃJ,—‘ye walk as men,’ I Cor. 3:3; that is, men in a natural state. And he that walks thus like men, will not walk much unlike the very beasts; for man is become brutish in his understanding, and it is worse to live like a beast than to be a beast.

           Surely, Christians, if you have not your name for nought, you partake of a nature higher than human. Your feet should stand where other men’s heads are; you should live as far above the carnal world as grace is above nature, as heaven is above earth.  Christ would never have stooped beneath angels, but to raise your hearts and lives above men.  He would never have humbled himself to take the human nature, but on a design to make us partakers of the divine; nor would he have walked on earth, but to make a way to elevate our hearts to heaven.  Say not, therefore, flesh and blood cannot bear such an injury or for bear such a sensual pleasure.  Either thou art more than a man, or less than a Christian.  Flesh and blood never re­vealed the gospel to thee, flesh and blood never re­ceived Christ; in a word, flesh and blood shall never enter into the kingdom of God.  If thou beest a Chris­tian, thou art baptized into the spirit of the gospel; thou hast a heaven-born nature, and that will enable thee to do more than flesh and blood can do.  Hast thou no desire to see others converted by the gospel? Wouldst thou steal to heaven alone, and carry none of thy neighbours with thee? 

Now, how shalt thou win them into a good opinion of the gospel, but by such an amiable life as may commend it unto their consciences?  It was a charge long ago laid upon Christianity, that it was better known ‘in leaves of books than in the lives of Christians.’  From hence it is, that many are hardened in their wickedness and prejudice against the gospel.  He is an unwise fisher­man that scareth away the fish which he desires to get within his net.  O offend not those, by scandals in thy life, whom thou wouldst have converted by the preaching of the gospel.  There is now‑a‑days, saith one, much talk, as if the time for the Jews’ conversion were at hand; but, saith he, the loose lives of Chris­tians do so disparage this heavenly mystery, that the time seems further off.  Indeed, the purity of Chris­tians' lives is the best attractive to win others to the love of religion.  Had Christ’s doves more sweet spices of humility, charity, patience, and other heav­enly graces, in their wings, as they fly about the world, they would soon bring more company home with them to the church’s lockers.  This is the gold that should overlay the temple of Christ’s church, and would make others in love with its beauty.  This was one happy means for the incredible increase of con­verts in the primitive times.  Then the mystery of the gospel was made known, not only by the apostles’ powerful preaching, but by Christians’ holy living.  See how they walked, Acts 2:46; and what was the blessed fruit of it ‘They had favour with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved,’ ver. 47.  It would tempt any al­most but a devil—who loves to live in the fire of con­tention, and is desperately hardened against all good­ness—to have entered their names into such a heav­enly society; but when this gold grew dim, then the gospel began to lose its credit in the world, and con­sequently its takings.  Converts came in slower when those that professed the gospel began to cool in their zeal and slacken in the strictness of their lives.

USE OR APPLICATION Reproof and encouragement to ministers.

           Use First. To the ministers.  To reprove some; for encouragement to others.  It reproves,

1. The vainglorious preachers; that, instead of ‘making known the mystery of the gospel,’ makes it his errand into the pulpit to make himself known; who blows up his sermon, as butchers do their flesh they sell, with a windy pomp of words, and frames their discourse rather to tickle their ears, than to profit their souls; to send them home applauding the preacher for his wit and parts, rather than admiring the excellencies of Christ and riches of his grace. Thus many, alas! who should be factors for Christ, play the merchants for their own credit.  They are sent to woo souls for Christ, and they speak one word for him and two for themselves.  This is a great wickedness, which blessed Paul solemnly clears him­self of, ‘Nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: nor of men sought we glory, I Thes. 2:5, 6.  O how sel­dom are any converted by such sermons!  These gloriæ animalia—vainglorious preachers, they may be, like Rachel, fair, but their ministry is like to be barren.
2. Abstruse preachers; who do not make the mysteries of the gospel known, but make truths plain in themselves mysterious by their dark perplexed discourses upon them.  This was the unhappiness of the schoolmen, that ruffled and ensnarled the plain­est truths of the gospel with their harsh terms and nice questions, which else might have been wound off by an ordinary understanding.  What is said of some commentators, ‘The places on which they treat were plain till they expounded them,’ may be said of some preachers, their text was clear till their obscure dis­course upon it darkened it.  What greater wrong can a preacher do his hearers than this?  The preacher is to open scriptures; but these turn the key the wrong way, and lock the up from their knowledge.  They are to hold up the gospel glass before their people, whereby they may see to dress their souls, like a bride, against their husband’s coming; but by that time that they have breathed on their text, it is so obscured that they cannot see their face in it.  That water is not the deepest that is thickest and muddy; nor the matter always the most profound when the preacher’s expression is dark and obscure.  We count it a blemish in speech, when a man's pronunciation is not distinct.  I know not then how it should come to be thought a perfection to be obscure in the delivery of our conceptions.  The deeper and fuller the sculp­ture in the seal is, the clearer the impression will be on the wax. The more fully any man understands a thing, the more able he will be to deliver it plainly to others.  As a clipped stammering speech comes from an impediment in the instruments of speech, so a dark and obscure delivery of our thoughts bewrays a defect in our apprehensions; except it should come from an affectation of soaring high in our expressions above the reach of vulgar understandings—and this is worst of all.
3. The mere moral preacher; the stream of whose preaching runs not in an evangelical channel. Moral duties he presseth, and sins against the moral law he exclaims against.  Neither dare I blame him for that.  The Christian’s creed doth not vacate the ten commandments.  One of the first sermons our Sa­viour preached was most of it spent in pressing moral duties Matt. 5.  And never more need to drive this nail to the head than in our days, in which Christianity hath been so wounded in its reputation by the moral dishonesty of many of its professors.  But I level my reproof against them for this, that they do not preach the law evangelically, and make that the main design of their ministry for which they received their commission, and that is, ‘to make known the mystery of the gospel’—‘to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellow­ship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ,’ Eph. 3:8, 9.  Did it make the father un­dervalue Cicero’s works—which otherwise he ad­mired for their eloquence—only because his leaves were not perfumed with the sweet name of Jesus Christ?  Surely then it is a foul blot upon their ser­mons and labours, who reveal little of Christ and the mystery of the gospel through the whole course of their ministry.  The woe is pronounced not only against the non-preaching minister, but the not-gospel-preaching minister also: ‘Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel,’ I Cor. 9:16.  An ethic lecture will not make thy people ‘wise unto salvation.’  It were well if thou couldst preach thy drunken neigh­bour sober and the riotous temperate.  But this is no more than Plato did for his Polemo.  This may make them men that were before beasts; but thou must get them to be saints, regenerate ones; preach them out of themselves, as well as out of their flagitious prac­tices; from the confidence of their righteousness, as well as from the love of their sins; or else thou leavest them short of heaven.  Well then, smoke, yea fire, them out of their moral wickednesses, by the threat­enings of the law; but rest not till thou hast ac­quainted them with Christ, and the way of salvation by him.  In a word, preach moral duties as much as thou wilt, but in an evangelical strain.  Convince them they cannot do these without grace from Christ, for want of which the heathens’ virtues were but splendida peccata—gilded vices.  Per fidem venitur ad opera, non per opera venitur ad fidem—we must come to good works by faith, and not to faith by good works.  The tree must be good before the fruit it bears can be so.  ‘Without me ye can do nothing.’  And then convince them, when they are most exact in moral duties, that this must not be their righteousness before God; the robe which they must cover their souls with—if they would not be found naked in his sight—must not be the homespun garment of their own inherent righteousness wrought in them, but of Christ’s righteousness which he wrought for them.

   It affords a word of sweet encouragement to the faithful ministers of Christ.  Haply you have been long at work for Christ, and see little fruit of your labours; your strength is even spent, and candle almost at the socket of old age; but your people are still carnal and obstinate, no sun will tan them, no arguments move them, filthy they are, and so will continue; to hell they will go, no gate can stop them; thou hast done thy utmost to reclaim them, but all in vain.  This is sad indeed—to them, I mean—thus to go to hell by broad daylight, while the gospel shows the whither every step of their sinful course leads them.  But thou hast cause of much inward peace and comfort, that thou hast done what God expects at thy hands.  Remember thy work is, ‘To make known the mystery of the gospel,’ and upon their peril be it if they embrace it not.  God never laid it upon thee to convert those he sends thee to.  No; to publish the gospel is thy duty, to receive it is theirs.  Abraham promiseth to discharge his servant of his oath, if the woman which he was to woo for his son would not follow him; and so will God clear thee of their blood, and lay it at their own door.  ‘If thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness,...he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul,’ Eze. 3:19.  God judgeth not of his servants’ work by the success of their labour, but by their faithfulness to deliver his message.  ‘Though Israel be not gath­ered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,’ Isa. 49:5.

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.