spirits to ihcir iiiinisters or others for counsel ; but the ignorant eoul feels no smart. If the minister stay till he sends for him to instruct him, he may sooner hear the bell go for him, than anj' messenger come for him ; you must seek them out, and not expect that they will come to you. These are a sort of people that are afraid more of their remedy than their disease, and study more to hide their ignorance, than how thej' may have it cured ; which should make us pity them the more, because they can pity themselves so little. I confess, it is no small imhappiness to some of us, who have to do with a multitude, that we have neither time nor strength to make our address to every particular person in our congregations, and attend on them as their needs require, and yet cannot well satisfy our consciences otherwise. But let us look to it, that though we cannot do to the height of what we would, we be not found wanting in what we may. Let not the difticulty of our province make us like some, who, when they see they have more work u])on their hands than they can well despatch, grow sick of it, and sit down out of a lazy despondency, and do just nothing. He that hath a great house running to ruin, and but a small purse, it is better for him to repair now a little, and then a little, than let all fall down, because he cannot do it all at once. Many ministers may complain of their predecessors, that they left them their people more out of repair than their nouses, and this makes the work great indeed. As the Jews, who were to revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish before they could build the wall, yet it went up, because ' the people had a mind to work,' Neh. iv. ; O, if once our hearts were but filled with zeal for God, and compassion to our people's souls, we would up and be doing, though we could but lay a brick a day, and God would be with us. May be you who find a peo])le rude and sottishly ignorant, like stones in the quarry, and trees unfelled, shall not bring the work to such perfection in your days as you desire ; yet, as David did for Solomon, thou niayest, by thy pains in teaching and instrxicting them, prepare materials for another who shall rear the temple. It is very ordinary for one minister to enter into the labours of another, to reap those by a work of conversion, in whom a former minister hath cast the seed of knowledge and conviction . and when God comes to reckon with his workmen, the ploughman and sower shall have his penny, as well as the harvest man and reaper. O it is a blessed thing to be, as Job saith he was, eyes to the blind, much moi-e to blind souls ; such are the ministers whom God himself calls ' pastors after his own heart, that feed his people with knowledge and understanding,' Jer. iii. 15. But woe to those that are accessary to their people's ignorance ! Now a minister may be accessary to the ignorance of his people.
First, By his own ignorance. Knowledge is so fundamental to the work and calling of a minister, that he cannot be one without it : ' Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thovi shalt be no priest to me; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children,' IIos. iv. 6. The want of knowledge in a minister is such a defect as cannot be supplied by an\'thing else ; be he never so meek, patient, boimtiful, iniblam- able, if he hath not skill to divide the word aright, he is not cut out for a minister. Everything is good, as it is good for the end it is appointed to ; a knife, though it had a haft of diamonds, yet if it will not cut, it is no knife. A bell, if not sound, is no bell. The great work of a minister is to teach others ; his lips are to preserve knowledge ; he should be as conversant in the things of God, as others in their particular trades. Ministers are called lights ; if the light then be darkness, how great is the darkness of that people like to be ! I know these stars in Christ's hands are not all of the same magnitude ; there is a greater glory of gifts and graces shines in some than others ; j'ct so much light is necessary to every minister, as was in the star the wise men saw at Christ's birth, to be able, out of the word, to direct simiers the safe and true way to Christ and salvation. O sirs, it is a sad way of getting a living by killing of men, as some imskilful physiciaiis do ; but much more to get a temporal live- lihood by ruining souls through our' ignorance. He is a cruel man to the poor passengers, who will undertake lo be pilot, when he never so much as learned his compass.
Secondly, By his negligence. It. is all one if (he nurse hath no milk in her
118 AGAINST THE UULEUS OF THE