05. PART I - MOTIVES TO PERFORM THIS DUTY

PART I - MOTIVES TO PERFORM THIS DUTY In line with this plan, I will proceed to state to you some motives to persuade you to perform this duty. The first group of reasons by which I will persuade you are taken from its benefits; the second group, from its difficulty; and the third group, from its necessity, and from the many obligations we are under to perform it.

ARTICLE I - MOTIVES FROM THE BENEFITS OF THE WORK When I look before me, and consider what, through the blessing of God, this work is likely to effect if well managed, it makes my heart leap for joy. Truly, brothers, you have begun a most blessed work, one your own consciences may rejoice in, and your parishes may rejoice in, and the nation may rejoice in, and the child that is yet unborn may rejoice in. Indeed, thousands and millions, for all we know, may have cause to bless God for it, when we have finished our course. And though it is our business this day to humble ourselves for neglecting it so long (and we have good cause to do so), yet the hopes of a blessed success are so great in me, that they are ready to turn it into a day of rejoicing.

I bless the Lord that I have lived to see such a day as this, and to be present at so solemn an engagement of so many servants of Christ to commit to such a work. I bless the Lord that has honored you of this county to be the beginners and awakeners of the nation to this duty. It is not a controversial point, one with which the exasperated minds of men might pick quarrels with us; nor is it a new invention, for which envy might charge you are innovators, or pride might refuse to follow, because you led the way. No; it is a well-known duty. It is just a more diligent and effectual management of our ministerial work. It is not a new invention, but simply the restoration of the ancient ministerial work. And because it is so overflowing with advantages to the Church, I will enumerate some of the particular benefits which we may hope will result from it, so that when you see its excellence, you may be more intent upon it, and be more loath to let any negligence or failing of yours frustrate or destroy it. For certainly anyone who has the true intentions of a minister of Christ will rejoice in the appearance of any further hope of attaining the ends of his ministry; and nothing will be more welcome to him than what will further the very business of his life. I will now show you more particularly that this work is calculated to accomplish this.

1. It will be a most hopeful means of converting souls; for it unites those great things which most further such an end.

(1) As to the matter of conversion: it is about the most necessary things, the principles or essentials of the Christian faith.

(2) As to the manner of conversion: it will be by private conversation, when we may have an opportunity to drive it all home to the conscience and the heart. The work of conversion consists of two parts: first, informing the judgment in the essential principles of religion; second, changing the will by the efficacy of the truth. Now in this work we have excellent advantages for both. For informing their understanding, it is an excellent help to have the sum of Christianity fixed in their memory. Bare words which are not understood will make no change. Yet, when the words are in plain English, someone who has them is far more likely to understand their meaning, and thus the Gospel, than someone without them. For what do we have to make invisible things known, except words or other signs? Those, therefore, who deride all catechisms as unprofitable forms of instruction, might better deride themselves for talking, and using the form of their own words, to make their minds known to others. Why would written words, which are constantly before their eyes, and in their memories, not instruct them as well as the transient words of a preacher? These “forms of sound words” are therefore far from being unprofitable, as some persons imagine; indeed, they are of admirable use to everyone. Besides, we will have the opportunity, by personal conference, to test how far people understand the catechism, and to explain it to them as we go along; and to insist on those particulars which the persons we speak to have most need to hear. A form of sound words, joined with a plain explication of them, may do more than either of them could do alone.

Moreover, we will have the best opportunity to impress the truth upon their hearts, when we can speak to each individual’s particular need, and say to the sinner, “You are the man,”215 and plainly speak about his particular case; we can drive home the truth with familiar importunity. If anything in the world is likely to do them good, it is this. Those who do not understand a sermon will understand familiar speech; and they will have far greater help to apply it to themselves. Besides, you will hear their objections, and know where Satan has his best advantage over them; and so you may be able to show them their errors, and confute their objections, and more effectually convince them. We can better bring them to the point of repentance, and urge them to reveal their resolutions for the future, and get them to promise to use means and reformation, than we could otherwise do. What more proof do we need of this, than our own experience? I seldom deal with men purposely on this great business, in private, serious conference, except they go away with some seeming convictions, and promises of new obedience, if not some deeper remorse, and a sense of their condition.

O brothers, what a blow may we give to the kingdom of darkness, by the faithful and skillful management of this work! If then, saving souls, your neighbors’ souls, many souls, from everlasting misery is worth your labor, then get up and do it! If you want to be the fathers of many who are born again, and you want to “see of the travail of your souls,”216 and want to be able to say at last, “Here am I, and the children whom you have given me”217 – get up and ply blessed work! If it would do your heart good to see your converts among the saints in glory, and praising the Lamb before the throne; if it would rejoice you to present them blameless and spotless to Christ, then prosecute with diligence and ardor this singular opportunity that is offered you. If you are ministers of Christ indeed, you will long for the perfecting of his body, and the gathering in of his elect; and you will “travail as in birth”218 until Christ is formed in the souls of your people. You will embrace those opportunities which your harvest-time affords you, and which the days of sunshine in a rainy harvest afford you, those times during which it would unreasonable and inexcusable for you to be idle. If you have a spark of Christian compassion in you, it will surely seem worth your greatest labor to save so many “souls from death, and to cover” so great “a multitude of sins.”219 If, then, you are indeed fellow-workers with Christ, then set to his work, and do not neglect the souls for whom he died. O remember, when you are talking with the unconverted, that at that moment you have an opportunity to save a soul, and to rejoice the angels of heaven, and to rejoice Christ himself, to cast Satan out of a sinner, and to increase the family of God! And what is your “hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing?” Is it not your saved people “in the presence of Christ Jesus at his coming?” Yes, doubtless “they are your glory and your joy.” 220

2. Personally catechizing will necessarily promote the orderly edification of those who are converted, and it will establish them in the faith. It risks our whole work, or at least it greatly hinders it, if we do not do it in the proper order. How can you build, if you do not first lay a good foundation; or how can you put on the top-stone, while the middle ones are missing? “Grace makes no leaps,” any more than nature does. The second order of Christian truths have such a dependence upon the first, that they can never be well-learned until the first ones are learned. This is what makes so many labor in vain; they are “ever-learning, but never come to the knowledge of the truth,”221 because they want to read before they learn to spell, or to know their letters. This makes so many fall away: they are shaken with every wind of temptation, because they were not well-settled in the fundamental principles of religion. It is these fundamentals that must lead men to further truths; it is these they must build upon; it is these that must actuate all their graces, and animate all their duties; it is these that must fortify them against temptations. One who does not know these things, knows nothing; one who knows them well, knows much that will make him happy; and one that knows them best, is the best and most understanding Christian. The most godly people, therefore, in your congregations, will find it worth their labor to learn the very words of a catechism. If you want to safely edify them, and firmly establish them, then be diligent in this work.

3. It will make our public preaching better understood and regarded. When you have instructed them in the principles, they will better understand all you say. They will perceive what you drive at once they are once acquainted with the main points. This prepares their minds, and opens a way to their hearts. But without this, you may lose most of your labor; the more pains you take in accurate preparation, the less good you may do. Therefore, just as you do not want to lose your public labor, see that you are faithful in this private work.

4. By means of it, you will come to be familiar with your people, and you may thereby win their affections. The lack of this by those who have very large congregations, is a great impediment to the success of our labors. By their distance from their people, and being unacquainted with them, many missteps are fomented between ministers and people; on the other hand, familiarity will tend to engender those affections which may open their ears to further instruction. Besides, when we are familiar with them, they will be encouraged to open their doubts to us, and deal freely with us. But when a minister does not know his people, or is a stranger to them, it necessarily hinders him in doing any good among them.

5. By means of it, we will become better acquainted with each person’s spiritual state, and so we will better know how to watch over them. When we know their temper, and their main objections, we will better know how to preach to them, and to conduct ourselves toward them; we will better know what they most need to hear. We will better know how to be “jealous over them with a godly jealousy,” 222 and what temptations to most guard them against. We will better know how to lament for them, and to rejoice with them, and to pray for them. Someone who wants to pray correctly for himself must know his own wants, and the diseases of his own heart; so too, someone who wants to pray correctly for others, must know theirs as far as possible.

6. By means of this test, and by acquainting ourselves with our people’s spiritual state, we will be greatly assisted in admitting them to the sacraments. I do not doubt that a minister might require his people to come to him at an appropriate time to give an account of their faith and proficiency, and to receive instruction; and thus he does it in preparation for the Lord’s Supper. Yet, ministers have stressed that examination only within the context of that ordinance, and have not considered it their common duty to observe the state and proficiency of each member of their flock at all times; nor have they conveyed that it is the people’s duty to submit to the guidance and instruction of their pastors at all times. Because of this, they have caused their people to ignorantly object to their examinations. Now, by this course of action, we will discover their fitness or unfitness in a way that is not open to objection; and in a way that is far more effectual than partially examining them before they are admitted to the Lord’s table.

7. It will show men the true nature of the ministerial office, and awaken them to better consider it than is now usual. It is too common for men to think that the work of the ministry is nothing but preaching, baptizing, administering the Lord’s Supper, and visiting the sick. Because of this, the people will submit to no more; and too many ministers are such strangers to their own calling, that they will do no more. It has often grieved my heart to observe how little some eminent and able preachers do to save souls, except in the pulpit; and by this neglect, how much of their labor is to so little purpose. They have hundreds of people that they never spoke a word to personally for their salvation; and if we may judge by their practice, they do not consider it their duty; the principal thing that hardens men in this oversight, is the common neglect of this private aspect of the work by other ministers. There are so few who do much in it, and the omission has grown so common among pious and able men, that its disgrace is abated by their other abilities. A man may be guilty of it these days without any particular notice or dishonor. Sin never reigns so much in a church or state, as when it has gained a reputation, or at least, when it is no longer a disgrace to the sinner, or an offense to the beholder. But I have no doubt, through the mercy of God, that restoring the practice of personal oversight will convince many ministers that this is as truly their work as what they now do; and it may awaken them to see that the ministry is a different kind of business than what too many excellent preachers make of it. Brothers, if you will set yourselves closely to this work, and follow it diligently (even though you do it silently, without any words to those who neglect it), I am hopeful that most of you may live to see the day when neglecting private personal oversight of all the flock will be taken for a scandalous and odious omission. It will be as much a disgrace to those who are guilty of it, as preaching only once a day was considered to be up to now.223 A schoolmaster must take a personal account of his scholars, or else he is likely to do them little good. If physicians only read a public lecture on medicine, their patients will not be made much better by them; nor would a lawyer secure your estate by reading a lecture on law. The charge of a pastor requires personal dealing, as much as any of these others. Let us show this to the world by our practice; for most men are not grown by bare words. The truth is, we have been led to greatly wrong the Church in this neglect, by over-reacting to the extreme of the Papists, who bring all their people to auricular confession.224 In doing away with this error of theirs, we have gone to the opposite extreme; and we have led our people much further into this neglect than we have gone ourselves. It troubled me greatly to read from an orthodox historian, that licentiousness and a desire to escape the strict inquiries of the priests in confession, substantially motivated the Reformation in Germany. And yet it is likely enough to be true: that those who were against reformation in other respects, might join with better men in decrying the Romish clergy, in order to do away with confession. I have no doubt that the Popish auricular confession is a sinful novelty, which the ancient Church was unacquainted with. But perhaps some will think it strange if I said that our common neglect of personal instruction is much worse than their confessions in themselves (i.e. ignoring their doctrines of satisfaction and purgatory). If any among us were guilty of so gross a mistake as to think that, when he has preached, he has completed all his work, then let us show him by our practice of the rest, that there is much more to be done. Let us show that “taking heed to all the flock,” is a different business than careless, lazy ministers imagine. If a man thinks that this main duty is not his duty, then he is likely to neglect it, and to be impenitent in his neglect.

8. It will help our people better to understand the nature of their duty toward their overseers, and consequently, to discharge their duty better. This indeed would be a matter of no consequence if it were only for our sakes; but it greatly concerns their own salvation. I am convinced, by sad experience, that it is no small impediment to their salvation, and to a true reformation of the Church, that the people do not understand what the work of a minister is, and what their own duty towards him ought to be. They commonly think that a minister has nothing more to do with them than preach to them, administer the sacraments to them, and visit them in sickness. They think that if they hear him, and receive the sacraments from him, then they owe him no further obedience, nor can he require any more of them. Little do they know that the minister is in the church, just as the schoolmaster is in his school. He is there to teach, and to take an account of everyone in particular. All Christians, ordinarily, must be disciples or scholars in such a school. They do not consider that a minister is in the church, for the same reason that a physician is in a town. He is there for all people to resort to for personal advice, for curing all their diseases; “the priest’s lips should preserve knowledge, and the people should ask for the law from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”225 They do not consider that all souls in the congregation are bound to have personal recourse to him for their own safety, to resolve their doubts, for help against their sins, for direction in their duty, and to increase knowledge and every saving grace; and that ministers are purposely placed in congregations for this purpose, to be ready to advise and help the flock.

If our people only knew their duty, they would readily come to us when they desire to be instructed, and to give an account of their knowledge, faith, and life. They would come of their own accord, without being sent for. And they would knock oftener at our doors; and call for advice and help for their souls, and ask, “What must we do to be saved?”226 Whereas now the matter has come to such sad pass that they think a minister has nothing to do with them: and if he admonishes them, or if he calls upon them to be catechized and instructed, or if he takes an account of their faith and income, they want to ask him by what authority he does these things? They think he is a busy-body who loves to meddle where he has no business; or a proud man who wants to rule over their consciences. They may as well ask by what authority he preaches, or prays, or gives them the sacrament? They do not consider that all our authority is only for our work, a power to do our duty; and that our work is for them: so that it is only an authority to do them good. They speak no more wisely than if they quarreled with a man who wanted to help put out a fire in their house, and they asked him by what authority he did it? Or with someone who wanted to give money to relieve the poor, and they asked him by what authority he requires them to take his money? Or it is as if I offered my hand to someone who has fallen to help him up, or to someone in the water to keep him from drowning, and the person asked me by what authority I did that?

What has brought our people to this ignorance of their duty, except custom? To speak truly and plainly, it is we, brothers, who are to blame. We have not accustomed them and ourselves to anything more than common public work. We see what custom does with the people. Among the Papists, they do not hesitate to confess all their sins to the priest; but among us, they disdain to be catechized or instructed – because it is not the custom. They look at it as though it is strange, and they say, “Such things were never done before.” And if we can only prevail to make this duty as common as other duties, then they will much more easily submit to it than they do now. What a happy thing would it be, if you live to see the day that it becomes as ordinary for people of all ages to come to their ministers for personal advice, and for help with their salvation, as it is now usual for them to come to the church to hear a sermon, or to receive the sacrament. Our diligence in this work, is the way to bring this about.

9. It will give the governors of the nation more correct views about the nature and burden of the ministry, and so it may procure from them further assistance. It is a lamentable impediment to the reformation of the Church, and to saving souls, that in most populous towns, there are only one or two men to oversee many thousands of souls, and so the laborers are not in any degree equal to the work. Instead, it becomes impossible to do a substantial amount of that personal duty which faithful pastors should do for all the flock. I have often said it, and I must say it still, that this is a great part of England’s misery: that a great degree of spiritual famine reigns in most cities and large towns throughout the land, even where they have no sense of it, and mistakenly think themselves well-provided for. Alas! we see multitudes of ignorant, carnal, sensual sinners around us – here a family, and there a family, and there almost a whole street or village of them – and our hearts pity them, and we see that their needs cry loudly for our speedy and diligent relief, so that “he that has ears to hear” must hear. Yet even if we were fervently committed, we could not help them. And that is not merely because of their obstinacy, but also because our lack of opportunity. We found by experience, that if we only had time to speak to them, and to plainly reveal their sin and danger to them, there would be great hope of doing good to many of those who receive very little from our public teaching. But we cannot come to them because more necessary work prohibits us; and we cannot do both at once. Our public work must be preferred to private instruction, because there we can deal with many at once. It is as much as we are able to do, to perform the public work, with perhaps a little more. And if we do take the time, when we should be eating or sleeping instead, then besides ruining our weakened bodies, we will still be unable to speak to very many of them. So we must stand by and see poor people perish. We can only be sorry for them; we cannot even speak to them to try for their recovery. Is this not a sad case in a nation that glories in the fullness of the gospel? An infidel might say no. But I think that no man who believes in an everlasting joy or torment should give such an answer.

I will give you my own case for instance. We have two ministers, and a third at a chapel, who are willing to spend every hour of our time in Christ’s work. Before we undertook this work, our hands were full; now we are committed to set apart two days every week, from morning to night, for private catechizing and instruction. Anyone may see that we must leave undone all that other work that we were used to doing during that time. We must conduct the public work of preaching with little preparation, and so we deliver the message of God raw and confused, and not in accord with its dignity and the need of men’s souls. This greatly troubles our minds to consider it, and troubles us more when we are doing it. And yet it must be so; there is no remedy. Unless we omit this personal instruction, we must run into the pulpit unprepared. And we dare not omit this – it is so great and necessary a work. When we have incurred all those inconveniences, and we have set apart two whole days a week for this work, it is as much as we can do to go over the parish once in a year (there being about 800 families). Worse than that, we will be forced to cut it short, and do it less effectually for those we meet with, having more than fifteen families a week to deal with. And, alas! How paltry it is to speak to a man only once in a year, and be forced to do it so cursorily, compared to what their needs require. Yet we hope to have some fruit of even this much work. But how much more there might be if we could speak to them once a quarter, and do the work more fully, and deliberately, as you who are in smaller parishes may do.

Many ministers in England have ten times the number of parishioners that I have. If they were to undertake the work we have undertaken, they could go over their parish only once in ten years. So while we are hoping for opportunities to speak to them, we hear of one dying after another, and to the grief of our souls, we are forced to go with them to their graves before we could ever speak a word to them personally, to prepare them for their change. And what is the cause of all this misery? Why, our rulers have not seen the need to have more than one or two ministers in such parishes; and so they have not allotted any funds for that purpose. Some have taken much from the Church (the Lord humble all those who consented to it, for it may prove to be the consumption of the nation in the end) while leaving this famine in major areas of the land. It is easy to separate from the multitude, and gather distinct churches, and let the rest sink or swim. It is easy to let them be damned unless they can be saved by public preaching. But it should not be hard to answer whether this is the most charitable and Christian course to take. But what is the matter with us, that wise and godly rulers should thus be guilty of our misery, and that none of our cries awaken them to compassion? What! Are they so ignorant that they do not know these things? Or have they grown cruel to the souls of men? Or are they false-hearted to the interests of Christ, and plan to undermine his kingdom? No, I hope it is none of these; but from all I can find, we are to blame, the ministers of the gospel, whom they should employ in this way. For those ministers who have small parishes, and might do this private part of the work, still will not do it, or at least few of them will. And those who are in great towns and cities, who might do something, even though they cannot do it all, will do nothing except what accidentally falls in their way, or they will do next to nothing. Thus, the magistrate is not aware of our work; he does not observe or consider the weight of it. Or if they do apprehend its usefulness, if they see that ministers are careless and lazy and will not do it, then they think it a waste to provide them funding for it – it would be like cherishing idle drones – and so they think, that if they furnish ministers enough income to preach in the pulpit, they have done their part. Thus they are involved in heinous sin, and we are the cause of it. We must heartily set ourselves to this work, and show the magistrate to his face that it is a most weighty and necessary part of our work; and that we would do it thoroughly if we could; and that if there were hands enough, the work might go on. If we do this, and they see the happy success of our labors, then no doubt, if the fear of God is in them, and they have any love for his truth and men’s souls, they will offer their helping hand. They will not let men perish because there is no one to speak to them to prevent it. They will one way or another raise funds in such populous places for laborers, proportioned to the number of souls, and to the extent of the work. Just let them see us dive into the work, and behold it prospering in our hands, as no doubt it will, if it is well-managed through God’s blessing. Then their hearts will be drawn to promote it. Instead of pulling parishes together to diminish the number of teachers, they will either divide them, or allow more teachers per parish. But when they see so many carnal ministers who make a greater stir for income for themselves, than they do to obtain more help in the work of God, they are tempted by such worldly men to hurt the Church, so that particular ministers may have their ease and luxury.

10. It will greatly facilitate the ministerial work in succeeding generations. Custom, as I said before, is the thing that holds so much sway with the multitude. Those who first break a destructive custom, must bear the brunt of the multitude’s indignation. Now, somebody must do it. If we do not, it will fall to our successors to do it; and how can we expect that they will be any more hardy, and resolute, and faithful than we are? It is we who have seen the heavy judgments of the Lord, and heard him pleading by fire and sword with the land. It is we who have been in the furnace ourselves, and should be the most refined. It is we who are most deeply obliged by oaths and covenants, by wonderful deliverances, experiences, and mercies of all sorts. And if we still flinch and turn our backs, and prove false-hearted, why should we expect any better from those who have not been driven by such scourges as we have, nor drawn by such ropes? But, if they do prove better than we are, the same odium and opposition must befall them which we avoid, and it will be increased because of our neglect; for the people will tell them that we, their predecessors, did no such things. But if we would now break the ice for those who follow us, their souls will bless us, and our names will be dear to them, and they will feel the happy fruits of our labor every day of their ministry. They will do so when the people willingly submit to their private instructions and examinations, and even to discipline, because we have acquainted them with it, and removed the prejudice, and broken the evil custom which our predecessors were the cause of. Thus we may do much to save many thousands of souls, in all ages to come, as well as in the present age in which we live.

11. It will be conducive to ordering our families better, and spending the Sabbath better. Once we get the masters of families to examine their children and servants every Lord’s Day, and make them repeat some of the catechism and passages of Scripture, this will provide them profitable employment; otherwise many of them would be idle or ill-employed. Many masters, who know little themselves, may still be brought to do this for others, and in this way they may even teach themselves.

12. It will do good to many ministers, who are too apt to be idle, and to mis-spend their time in unnecessary discourse, business, journeys, or recreations. It will let them see that they have no time to spare for such things; and thus, when they are engaged in so much pressing employment of so high a nature, it will be the best cure for all that idleness, and loss of time. Besides, it will cut off that scandal which usually follows from these things; for people are apt to say, ‘Such a minister can spend his time at bowling, or other sports, or empty discourse; why may we not do so the same? ‘Let us all set diligently to this part of our work, and then see what spare time we can find to live idly, or in sensual pleasure or worldliness, if we can.

13. It will produce many personal benefits to ourselves. It will do much to subdue our own corruptions, and to exercise and increase our own graces. It will afford much peace to our consciences, and comfort us when it comes time to review our past.

Spending time provoking others to repentance and heavenly-mindedness may do much to excite these things in ourselves. To decry the sin of others, and engage them against it, and direct them to overcome it, does much to shame us out of our own. Our conscience will scarcely allow us to live in what we take so much bother to draw others away from. Even our constant employment for God, and busying our minds and tongues against sin, and for Christ and holiness, will do much to overcome our fleshly inclinations, both by direct mortification and by diversion, leaving our fancies no room or time for their old employment. All the austerities of monks and hermits who addict themselves to unprofitable solitude, and who think to save themselves by neglecting to show compassion to others, will not do nearly so much in the true work of mortification as this fruitful diligence for Christ.

14. It will be some benefit, that by this means we will remove ourselves and our people from pointless controversies, and from expending our care and zeal on the lesser matters of religion, which least tend to their spiritual edification. While we are taken up in teaching, and they are taken up in learning the fundamental truths of the gospel, we will divert our minds and tongues, and have less room for lower things; and so it will cure many of the wranglings and contentions that take place between ministers and people. For we do what we need not and should not do, because we will not diligently do what we need and should do.

15. And then for the extent of the aforesaid benefits: The design of this work is the reforming and saving of all the people in our several parishes. For we will not leave out any man who will submit to be instructed. Though we can scarcely hope that every individual will be reformed and saved by it, yet have we reason to hope that as the attempt is universal, so the success will be more general and extensive than we have seen up till now from our other labors. I am sure this work is most like the spirit, and precept, and offers of the gospel, which require us to preach Christ to every creature, and promise life to every man, if he will accept it by believing. If God would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,227 (that is, as Rector and Benefactor of the world, he has shown himself willing to save all men if they are willing themselves, even though he will also make his elect willing)228 then surely it befits us to offer salvation to all men, and to endeavor to bring them to the knowledge of the truth. And, if Christ “tasted death for every man,”229 it is fitting that we should preach his death to every man. This work has a greater design, than accidental conferences now and then with a particular person. I have observed that in such occasional discourses, men satisfy themselves with having spoken some good words, but they seldom drive the matter home plainly and personally, so as to convince men of their sin and misery, and of God’s mercy. In this purposely appointed work, we are more likely to do that.

16. It is likely to be a work that will reach over the whole land, and not stop with those of us who have now engaged in it. For though it is presently neglected, I suppose the cause of that neglect is the same for our brothers as it has been with us: namely, inconsiderateness and laziness, which we are bewailing here this day; but especially, it is despairing that the people will submit to it. But when the people are reminded of so clear and great a duty, and see the practicability of it in good measure, and when it is done by common consent, no doubt they take it up universally, and gladly concur with us in so blessed a work. For they are the servants of the same God; they are as sensible of the interests of Christ, as compassionate toward men’s souls, as conscientious and self-denying, and as ready to do or suffer for such excellent ends as we are. Therefore, since they have the same spirit, rule, and Lord, I will not be so uncharitable as to doubt whether all who are godly throughout the land (or at least most of them,) will gladly join with us. And oh, what a happy thing it will be to see such a general combination for Christ; and to see all England so seriously called upon, and importuned for Christ, and placed in so fair a path to heaven! I think considering it should make our hearts rejoice, to see so many faithful servants of Christ all over the land addressing every particular sinner with such importunity, like men who will not accept a denial. I think I even see all the godly ministers of England commencing the work already, and resolving to embrace the present opportunity, so that unanimity may facilitate it.

17. Lastly, the duty which we are now recommending is of so great a weight and excellence, that the main part of Church reformation that remains, as to means, consists in this; and it must be the primary means to answer the judgments, mercies, prayers, promises, cost, endeavors, and blood of the nation. Without this, it will not be done; the ends of all these will never be well attained; a reformation will never be worked to any purpose; the Church will be still run down; the interest of Christ will be greatly neglected; and God will still have a controversy with the land, and above all, with the ministry that has been deepest in guilt.

How long have we talked of reformation, how much have we said and done for it generally, and how deeply and devoutly have we vowed our own parts in it; and, after all this, how shamefully we have neglected it, and still neglect it to this day! We carry ourselves as if we had not known or considered what that reformation was which we vowed to make. As carnal men will claim to be Christians, and profess with confidence that they believe in Christ, and accept his salvation, and may even contend for Christ, and fight for him, yet for all this, they will have none of him, but perish for refusing him, those who little dreamed that they had refused him. And all because they did not understand what his salvation is, and how it is carried on, but instead they dream of a salvation without displeasing their flesh, and without denying themselves and renouncing the world, and parting with their sins, and without any holiness, or taking any pains and labor on their own to be subservient to Christ and the Spirit. In the very same way, too many ministers and private men talk, and write, and pray, and fight, and long for reformation, and they would little believe someone who presumed to tell them that, notwithstanding all this, their hearts were against reformation; and that those who were praying for it, and fasting for it, and wading through blood for it, would never accept it, but would themselves reject and destroy it. And yet so it is, and so it has too plainly proved to be. And from where is all this strange deceitfulness of heart, that good men should know themselves no better than this? Why, the case is plain: they thought of a reformation that would be given by God, but not of a reformation that would worked on, and by, themselves. They considered the blessing, but they never thought of the means to accomplish it. Instead, it is as if they expected all things, other than themselves, would be mended without them, or that the Holy Ghost would again descend miraculously, or that every sermon would convert thousands, or that some angel from heaven or some Elijah would be sent to restore all things, or that the law of the parliament, and the sword of the magistrate, would convert or constrain all and do the deed. Little did they think of a reformation that must be worked by their own diligence and unwearied labors, by earnest preaching and catechizing, and personal instructions, and taking heed to all the flock, whatever pains or reproaches it might cost them. They did not think that a thorough reformation would multiply their own work; but all of us had too carnal thoughts, so that when we had ungodly men at our mercy, all would be done, and conquering them was simply converting them, or using such a means as would frighten them to heaven. But the business is far different than that. Had we known then how a reformation must be attained, then perhaps some of us would have been colder in effecting it. And yet I know that even foreseen labors seem small matters at a distance, while we only hear and talk about them. But when we come nearer to them, and we must lay our hands to the work, and put on our armor, and charge through the thickest of opposing difficulties, then the sincerity and the strength of men’s hearts is brought to trial, and it will become apparent how they purposed and promised beforehand. To many of us, reformation is like the Messiah was to the Jews. Before he came, they looked and longed for him, and boasted of him, and rejoiced in hope of him. But when he finally came, they could not abide him, but hated him, and would not believe that he was indeed the person they waited for. Therefore they persecuted him and put him to death, to the curse and confusion of most of their nation. “The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. But who may abide the day of his coming and who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap: and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, so that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.”230 And the reason was, because it was another kind of Christ that the Jews expected; it was one who would bring them riches and liberty; to this day they profess that they will never believe in any Messiah than that kind. So it is with too many of us concerning reformation. They hoped for a reformation that would bring them more wealth and honor with the people, and more power to force men to do what they wanted of them; but now they see a reformation that puts them to more condescension and more pains than ever before. They thought of having those who oppose godliness under their feet; but now they see they must go to them with humble entreaties, and put their own hands under their feet if they would do them any good; and they must meekly beg even those who sometimes sought their lives, and make it their daily business now to overcome them by kindness, and win them with love. O how many carnal expectations are crossed up here!

ARTICLE 2 - MOTIVES FROM THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE WORK

Having stated to you the first class of reasons, drawn from the benefits of the work, I come to the second sort which is taken from the difficulties. If these, indeed, were taken alone, I confess they might be discouragements rather than motives; but taking them together with those motive that go before and after them, the case is far otherwise: for difficulties must excite us to greater diligence in a necessary work. And we will find many difficulties, both in ourselves and in our people; but because they are such obvious things, your experience will leave you no room to doubt them, and so I will pass over them in a few words.

1. Let me note the difficulties in ourselves.

(1) In ourselves there is extensive dullness and laziness, so it will not be easy to get us to be faithful in so hard a work. Like a sluggard in bed who knows he should rise, yet he delays and would lie there as long as he can; we do the same thing with our duties to which our corrupt natures are averse. This will force us to use all our powers. Mere sloth will tie the hands of many.

(2) We have a base man-pleasing disposition, which makes us let men perish for fear of losing their love, and so we let them go quietly to hell, lest we make them angry with us for seeking their salvation. We are ready to draw the displeasure of God, and risk the everlasting misery of our people, rather than draw on ourselves their ill-will. This attitude must be diligently resisted.

(3) Many of us also have a foolish bashfulness, which makes us reluctant to begin this work with them and speak plainly. We are so modest, in fact, that we blush to speak for Christ, or to contradict the devil, or to save a soul, while at the same time we are less ashamed of shameful works.

(4) We are so carnal that our fleshly interests entice us to be unfaithful in the work of Christ, lest we should lessen our income, or bring trouble on ourselves, or set people against us, or such things. All these require diligence in order to resist them.

(5) We are so weak in the faith, that this is the greatest impediment of all. And so, when we ought to set upon a man for his conversion with all our might, there is a stirring of unbelief within us as to whether there is a heaven and a hell, or at least our belief in them is so feeble that it hardly excites in us a kindly, resolute, and constant zeal for the work. Thus, our whole endeavor is weak, because the spring of our faith is so weak. O what a need there is, then, to have ministers for their own souls and their work, to look intently at their faith, and especially to see that their assent to the truth of Scripture is sound and lively concerning the joys and torments of the life to come.

(6) Lastly, we commonly lack sufficient skillfulness and fitness for this work. Alas! How few of us know how to deal with an ignorant, worldly man for his conversion! To get within him and win him over; to suit our speech to his condition and temper; to choose the most appropriate subjects, and follow them up with a holy mixture of seriousness, and terror, and love, and meekness, and evangelical allurements – Oh! Who is fit for such a thing?231 I profess seriously that it seems to me, by experience, that it is just as hard to converse with such a carnal person, for his change, as it is to preach the sermons we ordinarily do, if not much more. All these difficulties in us should awaken us to holy resolution, preparation, and diligence, so that we may not be overcome by them, and be hindered in the work.

2. Having noticed these difficulties in ourselves, I will now mention some which we meet with in our people.

(1) Many of them will be obstinately unwilling to be taught; they scorn to come to us, thinking they are too good to be catechized, or too old to learn; we must deal wisely with them in public and in private, and study by the force of reason, and the power of love, to conquer their perverseness.

(2) Many who are willing are so dull that they can scarcely learn a page of a catechism over a long time; therefore they will keep away, ashamed of their ignorance, unless we are wise and diligent to encourage them.

(3) And when they do come, the ignorance and limited comprehension of many is so great that you will find it hard to get them to understand you; so if you do not have the fortunate art of making things plain, you will leave them as ignorant as before.

(4) You will find it still harder to work things on their hearts, and to drive home to their consciences so as to produce that saving change which is our grand aim, and without which our labor is lost. Oh what a block, what a rock, is a hardened, carnal heart! How strongly it will resist the most powerful persuasions, and hear of everlasting life or death as if it were nothing! Therefore, if you do not have great seriousness, and fervency, and powerful material, and express them appropriately, you can expect little good. And when you have done all, the Spirit of grace must still do the work. Just as God and men usually choose instruments suitable to the nature of the work or end, so the Spirit of wisdom, life, and holiness does not usually work with foolish, dead, and carnal instruments. He works by persuasions of light, life, and purity that are like himself, and that fit the work which is to be accomplished by them.

(5) Lastly, when you have made some desirable impressions on their hearts, if you do not look after them, and take special care of them, their hearts will soon return to their former hardness; their old companions and temptations will destroy it all again. In short, all the difficulties of the work of conversion, which you will use to acquaint your people, are involved in our present work.

ARTICLE 3 - MOTIVES FROM THE NECESSITY OF THE WORK The third sort of motives is drawn from the necessity of the work. For if it was not necessary, the slothful might be discouraged rather than excited by the difficulties mentioned now. But because I have already been longer than I intended, I will give you only a brief hint of some of the general basis of this necessity.

1. This duty is necessary for the glory of God. Because every Christian lives to the glory of God as his end in life, he will gladly take that course which most effectually promotes it. For what man would not attain his ends? O brothers, if we could set this work on its feet in all the parishes of England, and get our people to submit to it, and then prosecute it skillfully and zealously ourselves, what a glory it would put on the face of the nation; and what glory would redound to God by means of it! If our common ignorance were thus banished, and our vanity and idleness turned into the study of the way of life, and every shop and every house were busied in learning the Scriptures and catechisms, and speaking of the Word and works of God, what pleasure would God take in our cities and country! He would even dwell in our homes, and make them his delight. It is the glory of Christ that shines in his saints, and all their glory is his glory. What honors them in number or excellence, therefore honors him. Will not the glory of Christ be wonderfully displayed in the New Jerusalem when it descends from heaven in all that splendor and magnificence described in the Book of Revelation? If, therefore, we can increase the number or strength of the saints, we will thereby increase the glory of the King of saints; for he will have service and praise where before he had only disobedience and dishonor. Christ will also be honored in the fruits of his shed blood, and the Spirit of grace will be honored in the fruit of his operations in us. And do such important ends as these not require that we use these means with diligence?

Every Christian is obliged to do all he can for the salvation of others. But every minister is doubly obliged, because he is set apart for the gospel of Christ, and he is to give himself wholly to that work.232 It is needless to further question our obligation, when we know that this work is necessary to our people’s conversion and salvation, and when we know that we are in general commanded to do all that is necessary to these ends, as far as we are able. I hope we do not doubt that the unconverted need conversion. Whether this is a means to that end, and a most necessary means, experience may put beyond a doubt, if we had no other evidence. Let those who have taken the most pains in public examine their people, and test whether many of them are not nearly as ignorant and careless as if they had never heard the gospel. For my part, I study to speak as plainly and movingly as I can, (and next to my study to speak truly, these are my main studies). Yet I frequently meet with those who have heard me for eight or ten years, who do not know whether Christ is God or man, and wonder when I tell them the history of his birth and life and death, if they had ever heard it before. Of those who know the history of the gospel, how few are there who know the nature of that faith, repentance, and holiness which it requires, or at least who know their own hearts? But most of them have an ungrounded trust in Christ, hoping that he will pardon, justify, and save them somehow, while the world owns their hearts and while they live according to the flesh. They take this trust for justifying faith! I have found by experience that some ignorant persons, who have long been unprofitable hearers, have gotten more knowledge, and more remorse of conscience, in half an hour’s close discourse, than they did from ten years of public preaching.

I know that preaching the gospel publicly is the most excellent means, because we can speak to many people at once. But it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner. For the plainest man can scarcely speak plainly enough in public for them to understand; but in private we may do it much more effectively. In public we do not use the plain expressions or repetitions their dullness requires, but in private we may. In public our speeches are long, and we over-run their understanding and memory; they are confounded and at a loss, not being able to follow us; one thing drives out another, and so they do not know what we have said. But in private we can take our work a step at a time, and bring our hearers along with us. By our questions and their answers, we can see how far they understand us, and what we have to do next. In public, by the length, and because we alone speak, we lose their attention; but when they are participating in the discussion, we can easily cause them to attend to our words. Besides, we can better answer their objections, and engage them with promises before we leave them, which we cannot do in public. I conclude, therefore, that public preaching will not be sufficient: for though it may be an effectual means to convert many at a time, yet not as many as experience and God’s appointment of further means may assure us. If you neglect this duty, you may study long, and preach to little purpose.

2. This duty is necessary to the welfare of our people. Brothers, can you believe that you may look at your people, who are miserable, and not see them calling to you for help? There are no sinners with whom you cannot be compassionate, so as to be willing to relieve them at a much higher cost than this comes to. Can you see them like the wounded man by the wayside, and unmercifully pass them by? Can you hear them cry out to you, as the man of Macedonia cried out to Paul in vision, “Come and help us,” 233 and yet refuse your help? Say you were entrusted with the charge of a hospital, where one languishes in one corner, and one groans in another, and cries out, “Oh, help me, pity me for the Lord’s sake!” and where a third is raging mad, and would destroy both himself and you; would you sit idle and refuse your help? If it may be said of someone who does not relieve men’s bodies that the love of God is not in him, then how much more may it be said of one who does not relieve men’s souls? “If he sees his brother in need, and withholds compassion from him, how does the love of God dwell in him?”234 You are not such monsters, such hard-hearted men; rather, you pity a leper; you pity the naked, the imprisoned, or the desolate; you pity one who is tormented with grievous pain or sickness. Will you not pity an ignorant, hard-hearted sinner? Will you not pity someone who is shut out from the presence of the Lord, and lies under his wrath without a remedy, unless thorough repentance speedily prevents it? Oh what heart is it that will not pity such a person? What will I call the heart of such a man? A heart of stone, a very hard rock or adamant;235 the heart of a tiger; or rather the heart of an infidel: for surely if he believed the misery of the impenitent, it is impossible not to take pity on him. Can you tell men in the pulpit that they will certainly be damned unless they repent, and yet have no pity on them when you have proclaimed such a danger to them? And if you do pity them, will you not do this much for their salvation?

How many around you are blindly hastening to perdition, while your voice is appointed to be the means of arousing and reclaiming them? The physician, who is doubly bound to relieve the sick, has no excuse when even every neighbor is likewise bound to help. Brothers, what if you heard a sinner crying after you in the streets, “O sir, have pity on me, and afford me your advice! I am afraid of the everlasting wrath of God. I know I must leave this world shortly, and I am afraid that I will be miserable in the next.” Could you deny your help to such a poor sinner? What if a sinner came to your study-door and cried for help, and would not go away until you told him how to escape the wrath of God? Could you find in your hearts to drive him away without that advice? I am confident you could not. Why, alas! Such persons are less miserable than those who will not cry for help. It is the hardened sinner, who does not care for your help, who needs it the most: and he has not even enough life to sense he is dead, nor does he have enough light to see his danger, nor enough sense to pity himself – this is the man who is most to be pitied. Look at your neighbors around you, and think how many of them need your help in nothing less than the apparent danger of their damnation. Suppose you heard every impenitent person whom you see and know around you, crying to you for help, “If you ever pitied poor wretches, pity us, lest we be tormented in the flames of hell: if you have a heart, pity us.” Now, do for your people what you would do for someone who followed you about with such cries. How can you walk, and talk, and be merry with such people, when you know their situation? I think, when you look them in the face, and think about how they must suffer everlasting misery, you would break into tears (just as the prophet did when he looked at Hazael),236 and then break into the most importuning exhortations. When you visit them in their sickness, would it not wound your hearts to see them ready to depart into misery, before you ever dealt seriously with them about their conversion?

Oh, then, for the Lord’s sake, and for the sake of poor souls, have pity on them, stir yourselves up, and spare no pains that might be conducive to their salvation.

3. This duty is necessary to your own welfare, as well as to your people’s. This is your work, for which, among others, you will be judged. You can no more be saved without ministerial diligence and fidelity, than they or you can be saved without Christian diligence and fidelity. Therefore, if you do not care about others, at least care about yourselves. Oh what a dreadful thing it is to answer for the neglect of such a charge! And what sin is more heinous than betraying souls? Does this threat not make you tremble: “If you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man will die in his iniquity; but will I require his blood at your hand.” I am afraid, no, I have no doubt, that the day is near when unfaithful ministers will wish they never knew what is to have charge of souls; but that they had rather been colliers, sweeps, or tinkers,237 than pastors of Christ’s flock. Besides all the rest of their own sins, they will have the blood of so many souls to answer for. O brothers, our death as well as our people’s death is at hand, and it is as terrible to an unfaithful pastor as to any other. We all must die, and there is no remedy, nor wit, nor learning, nor popular applause that can avert the stroke of the clock or delay the time. Willing or not, our souls must go into a world we have never seen, where our persons and our worldly interest will not be respected. Oh, to have then a clear conscience that can say, “I did not live to myself but to Christ; I did not spare my pains; I did not hide my talents; I did not conceal men’s misery from them, nor their way of recovery.” O sirs, let us therefore take time while we have it, and work while it is day; “for the night comes, when no man can work.”238 This is our day too; and by doing good to others, we will do good to ourselves. If you would prepare for a comfortable death, and a great and glorious reward, the harvest is before you. Gird the loins of your minds, and quit yourselves like men,239 that you may end your days with these triumphant words: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: after this there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that day.”240 If you would be blessed with those who die in the Lord, then labor now, so that you may rest from your labors then, and do those works you wish would follow you, and not those that will prove to be your terror ARTICLE 4 - APPLICATION OF THESE MOTIVES

Having found so many and such powerful reasons to move us to this work, I will now apply them further for our humiliation and motivation.

1. Why do we bleed before the Lord this day? It is that we have neglected so great and good a work for so long; that we have been ministers of the gospel for so many years, and done so little by way of personal instruction and conferring to save men’s souls! If we had only set about this business sooner, who knows how many souls might have been brought to Christ, and how much happier our congregations might have been? And why might we not have done it sooner as well as now? I confess, there were many impediments in our way, and there still are, and they will continue to exist while there is a devil to tempt us, and a corrupt heart in man to resist the light. But if the greatest impediment had not been in ourselves, even in our own darkness and dullness, and being indisposed to our duty, and our dividedness and reluctance to come together for the work of God, much might have been done before this. We had the same God to command us, and the same miserable objects of compassion, and the same liberty from governors that we have now. We have sinned, and we have no just excuse for our sin; and the sin is so great because the duty is so great, that we should be afraid of pleading any excuse for it. May the God of mercy forgive us, and all the ministry of England, and not lay this or any of our ministerial negligence to our charge! Oh that he would cover all our unfaithfulness, and by the blood of the everlasting covenant, wash away our guilt of the blood of souls, so that when the chief Shepherd will appear, we may stand before him in peace, and not be condemned for scattering his flock. And oh that he would make his controversy against the pastors of his Church; and not deal any the worse with the flock for our sakes, nor allow them to be scattered by those who would undermine or persecute them, as the pastors have allowed his sheep to be scattered; and that he will not care as little for us as we have cared little for the souls of men; nor think that his salvation is too good for us, as we have thought that our labor and sufferings were too much for men’s salvation!

Because we have had many days of abasement in England for the sins of the land, and for the judgments that have fallen on us, I hope we hear that God will more thoroughly humble the ministry, and cause them to bewail their own neglects, and to set apart some days throughout the land to that end, so that they may not think it enough to lament the sins of others while they overlook their own. And I hope that God may not abhor our solemn national abasements, because they are managed by unhumbled guides; and that we may first prevail with him for a pardon for ourselves, so that we may be better fit to beg for the pardon of others. And oh that we may cast out the dung of our pride, contentiousness, self-seeking, and idleness, lest God cast our sacrifices in our faces like dung, and cast us out as the dung of the earth, as he has done to many others of late for a warning to us; and that we may presently resolve in concord to mend our pace, before we feel a sharper spur than we have felt before.

2. And now, brothers, what do we have to do for the time coming, except to deny our lazy flesh, and rouse ourselves up to the work before us. The harvest is great, the laborers are few; the loiterers and hinderers are many, the souls of men are precious; the misery of sinners is great, and the everlasting misery to which they near is greater; the joys of heaven are inconceivable, the comfort of a faithful minister is not small; the joy of extensive success will be a full reward. To be fellow-workers with God and his Spirit is no little honor; to be subservient to the shed blood of Christ for men’s salvation is not a light thing. To lead the armies of Christ forward through the thickest of the enemy; to guide them safely through a dangerous wilderness; to steer the vessels through such storms and rocks and sands and shelves, and bring it safely into the harbor of rest, requires no small skill and diligence. The fields now seem white for harvest;241 the preparations made for us are very great; the season of working is more calm than most of the ages before us have seen. We have carelessly loitered too long already; the present time is posting away; 242 while we are trifling, men are dying; oh how fast they are passing into another world! And is there nothing in all this to awaken us to our duty, nothing to resolve us to speedy and unwearied diligence? Can we think that a man can be too careful and laborious under all these motivations and obligations? Or that a man who is blind himself, can be a fit instrument to illumine other men? Or that someone who is so senseless himself, can enliven others? What, sirs! Are you, who are men of wisdom, as dull as the common people? And do we need a torrent of words to persuade you to take up your known and weighty duty? One would think it should be enough to put you to work; to show a line in the Book of God; to prove it to be his will; or to prove to you that the work has a tendency to promote men’s salvation. One would think the very sight of the misery of your neighbors would be a sufficient motive to elicit your most compassionate endeavors for their relief. If a cripple just unwraps his sores, and shows you his disabled limbs, it will move you without words; will souls who are near to damnation not also move you?

O happy church, if the physicians were only healed themselves! If we did not have too much of the infidelity and stupidity which we daily preach against in others; and if we were more soundly persuaded of what we persuade others; and if we were more deeply affected by the wonderful things with which we want to affect them! If only there were such clear and deep impressions upon our own souls of those glorious things which we daily preach, oh what a change it would make in our sermons, and in our private course of life! Oh what a miserable thing it is to the Church and to themselves, that men preach of heaven and hell before they soundly believe that there are such things, or before they have felt the weight of the doctrines they preach! It would amaze a sensible man to think about the matters of which we preach and talk, about what it means for the soul to pass out of this flesh, and appear before a righteous God, and enter into unchangeable joy, or unchangeable torment! Oh, with such amazing thoughts dying men apprehend these things! How such matters should be preached and discussed! Oh the gravity, the seriousness, the incessant diligence, which these things require!

I do not know what others think of them, but for my part, I am ashamed of my stupidity. I wonder at myself that I do not deal with my own and others’ souls, as someone who looks for the great day of the Lord. I wonder that I can have room for almost any other thoughts or words, and yet such astonishing matters do not wholly absorb my mind. I marvel how I can preach of them slightly and coldly, and how I can leave men alone in their sins and not go to them, and beg them for the Lord’s sake to repent, however they may take it, and whatever pains or trouble it may cost me! I seldom come out of the pulpit, without my conscience striking me that I have not been more serious and fervent in preaching. It does not accuse me so much for lack of embellishments or elegance, nor for using an unattractive word; but it asks me, “How could you speak of life and death with such a heart? How could you preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, lethargic way? Do you believe what you say? Are you in earnest or in jest? How can you tell people that sin is such an awful thing, and that so much misery lies upon them and before them because of it, and yet be no more affected by it? Should you not weep over such people, and should your tears not interrupt your words? Should you not cry aloud, and show them their transgressions, and entreat and beg them as you would for life and death?” Truly, this is the peal that conscience rings in my ears, and yet my drowsy soul will not be awakened.

Oh what a thing is an insensitive and hardened heart! O Lord, save us from the plague of infidelity and hard-heartedness ourselves, or else how will we be fit instruments to save others from it? Oh, do to our own souls what you would use us to do on the souls of others! I am even confounded to think what a difference there is between my sickbed understanding, and my pulpit understanding, of the life to come. How can it seem so light a matter to me now, when it seemed so great and dreadful a matter on my sickbed (and I know it will be so again when death looks me in the face), especially when I know and think of that approaching hour daily? And yet these thoughts will not restore such a working understanding! O sirs, surely if you had all conversed with our neighbor Death as often as I have, and had as often received the sentence of death in yourselves, you would have a disquieted conscience, if not a reformed life, with regard to your ministerial diligence and fidelity. And you would have something within you that would frequently ask questions such as these: “Is this all the compassion you have for lost sinners? Will you do no more to seek and to save them? Look how many there are around you who are still the visible sons of death! What have you said to them, or done for their conversion? Will they die and be in hell before you will speak one serious word to them to prevent it? Will they curse you there forever, because you did not do more in time to save them?”

Such cries of conscience ring in my ears daily, though the Lord knows I have too little obeyed them. May the God of mercy pardon me, and awaken me, along with the rest of his servants who have been sinfully negligent in this way. I confess to my shame that I seldom hear the bell toll for someone who is dead, without my conscience asking me, “What have you done to save that soul before it left the body? There is one more who has gone to judgment; what did you to prepare him for it?” And yet I have been slothful and reluctant to help those who survive. When you are laying a corpse in the grave, how can you do other than think to yourselves, “Here lies the body; but where is the soul? And what have I done for it before it departed? It was part of my charge; what account can I give of it?”243

O sirs, is it a small matter to you to answer such questions as these? It may seem so now, but the hour is coming when it will not seem so. “If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts.”244 He will condemn us much more, and with another kind of condemnation than our conscience uses. The voice of our conscience is a quiet voice, and the sentence of our conscience is a gentle sentence, compared to the voice and the sentence of God. Alas! Conscience sees just a little bit of our sin and misery compared to what God sees. What mountains these things would appear to your souls, which now seem molehills. What beams these would be in your eyes, which now seem splinters, if you could only see them with a clearer light (I dare say, as God sees them). We can easily adapt and plead our cause with our conscience either by bribing it, or by bearing its sentence. But God is not so easily dealt with, nor is his sentence so easily borne. “Wherefore we receiving,” and preaching, “a kingdom that cannot be moved, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably, with reverence, and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire.”245 But because you will not say that I frighten you with monsters, and tell you of dangers and terrors when there are none, I will show you here the certainty and sureness of that rise up against us and condemn us if we willfully neglect this great work after this.

(1) Our parents, who destined us to the ministry, will condemn us, and say, “Lord, we devoted them to your service, and they made light of it, and served themselves.”

(2) Our masters who taught us, our tutors who instructed us, the schools and universities where we lived, and all the years that we spent in study, will rise up in judgment against us, and condemn us; for why was all this done, except for the work of God?

(3) Our learning and knowledge and ministerial gifts will condemn us; for to what purpose did we partake of these, except for the work of God?

(4) The act of voluntarily undertaking the charge of souls will condemn us; for all men should be faithful to the trust which they have undertaken.

(5) All the care of God for his Church, and all that Christ has done and suffered for it, will rise up in judgment against us and condemn us if we are negligent and unfaithful,; because by our neglect we destroyed those for whom Christ died.246

(6) All the precepts and charges of Holy Scripture, all the promises of assistance and reward, all the threats of punishment, will rise up against us and condemn us; for God did not speak all this in vain.

(7) All the examples of the prophets and apostles, and other preachers recorded in Scripture, and all the examples of the faithful and diligent servants of Christ in these latter times, and in the places around us, will rise up in judgment and condemn us; for all these were for our imitation, and to provoke us to a holy emulation in fidelity and ministerial diligence.

(8) The Holy Bible that lies open before us, and all the books in our studies that tell us of our duty, directly or indirectly, will condemn the lazy and unprofitable servant; for we do not have all these helps and furnishings in vain.

(9) All the sermons that we preach to persuade our people to work out their salvation with fear and trembling,247 to lay forceful hands upon the crown of life, and take the kingdom by force,248 to strive to enter at the narrow gate,249 and to run so as to obtain the prize,250 will rise up against the unfaithful and condemn them; for if it so dearly concerns them to labor for their salvation, does it not concern us who have charge of them to also be forceful, laborious, and unwearied in striving to help with their salvation? Is it worth their labor and patience, and not also worth ours?

(10) All the sermons that we preach to them to present the evil of sin, the danger of a natural state, the need of a Savior, the joys of heaven, and the torments of hell, yes, and the truth of the Christian religion, will rise up in judgment against the unfaithful, and condemn them. And a sad review it will be to them, when they are forced to think, “Did I tell them of such great dangers and hopes in public, and would I not do more in private to help them? What? Tell them daily of damnation, and yet let them run into it so easily? Tell them of such glory, and scarcely speak a word to them personally to help them towards it? Were these such great matters to me at church, and such small matters when I came home?” Ah! This will be dreadful self-condemnation.

(11) All the sermons that we have preached to persuade other men to such duties – as neighbors who exhort one another daily, and parents and masters who teach their children and servants the way to heaven – will rise up in judgment against the unfaithful, and condemn them. For would you persuade others to do what you yourselves will not do, as far as you can? When you threaten them for neglecting their duty, how much more you threaten your own souls!

(12) All the income which we take for our service, if we are unfaithful, will condemn us; for who will pay a servant to take his pleasures, or sit idle, or work for himself? If we have the fleece, 251 surely it is so we may look after the flock; by taking wages, we obligate ourselves to the work.

(13) All the witness that we have borne against the scandalous, negligent ministers of this age, and all the endeavors we made to remove them, will condemn the unfaithful; for God is no respecter of persons. If we are their successors in such sins, then we spoke all that against ourselves. Just as we condemned them, God and others will condemn us, if we imitate them. And, though we may not be as bad as they were, it will prove sad if we are even like them.

(14) All the judgments God executed on negligent ministers in this age, before our own eyes, will condemn us if we are unfaithful. Has he made idle shepherds and pleasure-seeking drones a stench in the nostrils of the people? And will he honor us if we are idle and pleasure-seeking? Has he sequestered them, and thrown them out of their homes, and out of their pulpits, and treated them as dead while they are still alive, and made them a mockery and an example in the land? And yet we dare imitate them? Are their sufferings not our warnings? And did all this not befall them as an example to us? If anything in the world would awaken ministers to self-denial and diligence, I think we have seen enough to awaken us to it. Would you have imitated the old world if you had seen the flood that drowned it? Would you have indulged in the sins of Sodom – idleness, pride, gluttony – if you had seen the flames which consumed it rising up to heaven?252 Who would have been a Judas if he had seen him hanged and burst open? 253 And who would have been a lying, sacrilegious hypocrite, if he had seen Ananias and Sapphira die?254 And who would not have been afraid to contradict the gospel, if he had seen Elymas struck with blindness?255 And will we prove idle, self-seeking ministers, when we have seen God scourging such men, driving them out of his temple,256 and sweeping them away like dirt into the gutters?257 God forbid! For then how great and how manifold our condemnation is.

(15) Lastly, all the days of fasting and prayer which have been kept in England in recent years for a reformation, will rise up in judgment against the un-reformed, those who will not be persuaded to do the painful part of the work. This, I confess, so heavily aggravates our sin that I tremble to think of it. Was there ever a nation on the face of the earth, which so long and so solemnly followed God with fasting and prayer, as we have done? Before the parliament began, we were bowed frequently and fervently in secret! After that, for many years together, we had a monthly fast commanded by the parliament, besides frequent private and public fasts on other occasions. And what was all this for? Whatever means we looked at for some time, the end of all our prayers was still Church-reformation, and in that, our prayers were especially for these two things: a faithful ministry, and the exercise of discipline in the Church. And if it once entered the hearts of the people, or even our own hearts, to imagine that when we had all we wanted and the matter was put into our hands to be as painstaking as we could, and to exercise what discipline we would, that we would do nothing more than publicly preach, that we would take no pains to personally catechize and instruct our people, nor exercise any significant part of discipline at all? It astonishes me to think of it. What a depth of deceit is in the heart of man! What? Are good men’s hearts so deceitful too? Are all men’s hearts so deceitful? I confess that I told many soldiers and other carnal men at that time that, although they had fought for a reformation, I was confident they would abhor it, and be its enemies, once they attained it. Once they realized that the yoke of discipline would pinch their own necks, and when they were catechized and dealt with personally, and reproved for their sin in both private and public, and brought to public confession and repentance, or avoided as impenitent, they would scorn and spurn all this, and see the yoke of Christ as tyranny. But little did I think that the ministers would drop it all, and put almost none of this on them; but instead leave them alone for fear of displeasing them, and let everything go on as before.

Oh, the earnest prayers which I have heard for a serious ministry, and for discipline! It was as if they had even wrestled for salvation itself. Indeed, they commonly called discipline, “the kingdom of Christ, or the exercise of his kingly office in his church,” and that is how they preached and prayed for it, as if establishing discipline had been establishing the kingdom of Christ. I never thought then that they would refuse to establish it when they were free to do so. What! Is the kingdom of Christ now considered of no particular interest or concern?

What if the God of heaven, who knew our hearts in this matter, had with his dreadful voice given us, in the middle of our prayers and cries, or during one of our public monthly fasts, this answer in the presence of the assembly? “You deceitful-hearted sinners! What hypocrisy is this, to weary me with your cries for what you will not have, even if I would give it to you; and thus you lift up your voices to ask for what your souls abhor! What is reformation, except the instruction and importunate persuading of sinners to accept my Christ and my grace as offered to them, and governing my Church according to my word? Yet you will not be persuaded to do these things, which are your work, because you find them troublesome and disagreeable. Though I have delivered you, it is not me, but yourselves, whom you want to serve. I must be as earnest to persuade you to reform the Church, in doing your own duty, as you are earnest with me to grant you liberty for reformation. And, when all is done to grant you liberty, you will still leave your work undone; and it will be a long time before you are persuaded to do my work.” If the Lord, or any messenger of his, had given us such an answer, would it not have shocked us? Would it not have seemed incredible to us that our hearts would become as they now prove to be? Would we not have said, as Hazael said, “Is your servant a dog, that he should do this thing?”258 Or as Peter said, “Though all men forsake you, yet I will not.”259 Well, brothers, sad experience has shown us our frailty. We have refused the troublesome and costly part of the reformation that we prayed for. But Christ still turns back, and looks upon us with a merciful eye. Oh if we still had the hearts to go out immediately and weep bitterly,260 and to do no more as we have done, lest a worse thing come upon us;261 and now, instead, to follow Christ, whom we have so far forsaken, through his labor and suffering, even to the point of death!262

I have thus shown you what will come of it, if you will not set yourselves faithfully to this work, to which you are under so many obligations and engagements. What an inexcusable thing our neglect will be, and how great and manifold a condemnation it will expose us to! Truly, brothers, if I did not understand the work to be exceedingly important to you, to the people, and to the honor of God, I would not have troubled you with so many words about it, nor would I have presumed to speak so sharply as I have done. But when the question is about life and death, men are apt to forget their reverence and courtesy and compliments and good manners. For my own part, I understand that this is one of the best and greatest works I will ever put my hand to in my life; and I truly think that if your thoughts of it are like mine, then you will not think my words are too many or too sharp. I can well remember the time when I was earnest to reform matters of ceremony. If I were cold in such a substantial matter as this, how disorderly and disproportionate my zeal would appear to have been back then! Alas! Can we think the reformation is finished when we have only tossed out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures, gestures, and forms? Oh no, sirs! It is converting and saving souls that is our business. That is the main part of reformation, the one that does the most good, and tends most to save the people. And now, brothers, the work is before you. It consists in personally instructing all the flock, as well as in public preaching. Others have done their part and borne their burden, and now comes yours. You may easily see how great a matter lies upon your hands, and how many will be wronged if your fail in your duty, and how much will be lost by sparing your labor. If your labor is worth more than the souls of men, and more than the blood of Christ, then sit still, and do not look after the ignorant or the ungodly. Instead, follow your own pleasure or worldly business, or take your ease; do not displease sinners, or your own flesh, but instead let your neighbors sink or swim. If public preaching will not save them, let them perish. But, if the case is far different than that, then you had best look around you.