HI. Take heed to your public labours, and actual ministrations in the church.

IV. Take heed to your conversation in the world, and especially among the flock of Christ over which you preside. Bear with me while I enlarge a little upon each of these.

§ 2. (I.) Take heed to your PERSONAL RELIGION, especially to the work of God in your own heart, as absolutely necessary to the right discharge of the ministerial work. Surely there is the highest obligation on a preacher of the gospel to believe and practise what he preaches. He is under the most powerful and sacred engagements to be a christian himself, who goes forth to persuade the world to become christians. A minister of Christ, who is not a hearty believer in Christ, and a sincere follower of him, is a most shameful and inconsistent character, and forbids in practice. what he recommends in words and sentences.

But it is not enough for a minister to have a common degree of piety and virtue, equal to the rest of christians, he should transcend and surpass others. The leaders and officers of the army under the blessed Jesus should be more expert in the christian exercises, and more advanced in the holy warfare, than their fellow-soldiers are supposed to be: 2 Cor. vi. 4. In all things approving ourselves (saith the apostle) as the ministers of God, in much patience, &c. and, I may add, in much of every christian grace. A small and low degree of it is not sufficient for a minister; see therefore not only that you practice every part and instance of piety and virtue which you preach to others, but abound therein, and be eminent beyond and above the rest, as your station in the church is more exalted, and as your character demands.

Now since your helps, in the way to heaven, both as to the knowledge and practice of duty, are much greater than what others enjoy, and your obstacles and impediments are in some instances less than theirs, it will be a shameful thing in you, as it is a matter of shame to any of us, to sink below the character of ather christians

in the practice of our holy religion, or even if we do not excel the most of them; since our obligations to it, as well as our advantages for it, are so much greater than those of others.

3. 1. Take heed therefore to your own practical and vital religion, as to the reality, and the clear, undoubted evidence of it in your conscience. Give double diligence to make your calling and election sure. See to it, with earnest solicitude, that you be not mistaken in so necessary and important a concern; for a minister who preaches up the religion of Christ, yet has no evidence of it in his own heart, will lie under vast discouragements in his work; and if he be not a real christian himself, he will justly fall under double damnation.

Call your own soul often to account; examine the temper, the frame, and the motions of your heart with all holy severity, so that the evidences of your faith in Jesus, of your repentance for sin, and of your conversion to God, be many and fair, be strong and unquestionable; that you may walk on with courage and joyful hope toward heaven, and lead on the flock of Christ thither with holy assurance and joy.

2. Take heed to your own religion, as to the liveliness and power of it. Let it not be a sleepy thing in your bosom, but sprightly and active, and always awake. Keep your own soul near to God, and in the way in which you first came near him, i. e. by the mediation of Jesus Christ. Let no distance and estrangement grow between God and you, between Christ and you. Maintain much converse with God by prayer, by reading his word, by holy meditation, by heavenly-mindedness, and universal holiness in the frame and temper of your own spirit. Converse with God and with your own soul in the duties of secret religion, and walk always in the world as under the eye of God. Every leader of the flock of God, should act as Moses did, should live as "seeing him that is invisible."*

3. Take heed to your personal religion, as to the

Heb. xi. 27

growth and increase of it. Let it be ever upon the advancing hand. Be tenderly sensible of every wandering affection toward vanity, every deviation from God and your duty, every rising sin, every degree, of growing distance from God. Watch and pray much, and converse much with God, as one of his ministering angels in flesh and blood, and grow daily in conformity to God and your blessed Saviour, who is the first minister of his Father's kingdom, and the fairest image of his Father.

§ 4. Such a conduct will have several happy influences towards the fulfilling of your ministry, and will render you more fit for every part of your public ministra

tions.

1. Hereby you will improve in your acquaintance with divine things, and the spiritual parts of religion, that you may better teach the people both truth and duty. Those who are much with God may expect and hope that he will teach them the secret of his covenant, and the ways of his mercy, by communications of divine light to their spirits. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will shew them his covenant."* LUTHER used to say, that he sometimes got more knowledge in a short time by prayer, than by the study and labour of many hours.

2. Hereby you will be more fit to speak to the great God at all times, as a son with holy confidence in him as your father, and you will be better prepared to pray with and for your people. You will have an habitual readiness for the work, and increase in the gift of prayer. You will obtain a treasure and fluency of sacred language, suited to address God on all occasions.

3. Hereby you will be kept near to the spring of all grace, to the fountain of strength and comfort in your work; you will be ever deriving fresh anointings, fresh influences, daily lights and powers, to enable you to go through all the difficulties and labours of your sacred office.

✔ Ps. xxv. 14,

4. Hereby, when you come among men in your sacred ministrations, you will appear, and speak, and act like a man come from God; like Moses with a lustre upon his face, when he had conversed with God; like a minister of the court of heaven employed in a divine office; like a messenger of grace who hath just been with God, and received instructions from him; and the world will take cognizance of you, as they did of the apostles, that they were men who had been with Jesus.*

5. This will better furnish you for serious converse with the souls and consciences of men, by giving you experimental acquaintance with the things of religion, as they are transacted in the heart. You will learn more of the springs of sin and holiness, the workings of nature and grace, the deceitfulness of sin, the subtilty of temptation, and the holy skill of counterworking the snares of sin, and the devices of Satan, and all their designs to ruin the souls of men. You will speak with. more divine compassion to wretched and perishing mortals; with more life and power to stupid sinners; with more sweetness and comfort to awakened consciences, and with more awful language and influence to backsliding christians.

6. You will hereby learn to preach more powerfully in all respects for the salvation of men, and talk more feelingly on every sacred subject, when the power, and sense, and life of godliness are kept up in your own spirit. Then on some special occasions it may not be improper to borrow the language of David the prophet, and of St. Paul and St. John, two great apostles, though it may be best in public to speak in the plural number. "We have believed, therefore we have spoken; what we have heard and learned from Christ, we have declared unto you; what we have seen and felt, we are bold to speak; attend and we will tell you what God has done for our souls." You may then at proper seasons convince, direct and comfort others by the same words of light and power, of precept and

* Aots iv. 13.

promise, of joy and hope, which have convinced, directed and comforted you: a word coming from the heart will sooner reach the heart.

5. (II.) Take heed to your own PRIVATE STUDIES. These private studies are of various kinds, whether you consider them in general, as necessary to furnish the mind with knowledge, for the office of the sacred ministry; or, in particular, as necessary to prepare discourses for the pulpit.

Those general studies may be just mentioned, in this place, which furnish the mind with knowledge for the work of a minister; for though it be known you have passed through the several stages of science in your younger years, and have made a good improvement in them, yet a review of many of them will be found needful, and an increase in some (so far as leisure permits) may be proper and useful, even through the whole course of life.

But amongst all these inquiries and studies, and these various improvements of the mind, let us take heed that none of them carry our thoughts away too far from our chief and glorious design, that is, the mis nistry of the gospel of Christ. Let none of them intrench upon those hours which should be devoted to our study of the bible or preparations for the pulpit: and whensoever we find our inclinations too much attached to any particular human science, let us set a guard upon ourselves, lest it rob us of our diviner studies, and our best improvement. A minister should remember that himself, with all his studies, is consecrated to the service of the sanctuary. Let every thing be done therefore with a view to our great end; let all the rest of our knowledge be like lines drawn from the vast circumference of universal nature, pointing to that divine centre, God and religion; and let us pursue every part of science; with a design to gain better qualifications thereby for our sacred work.

6. I come to speak of those particular studies which are preparatory for the public work of the pulpit; and here when you retire to compose a sermon, let your great