What is meant by a mystery and Why is the gospel is a mystery 2/3

        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.