that this is not what they come foi", or can be content with ; but that they wish them to (leal kindly with their Master, whose message they bring, and send them back to him with the joyful news of their repentance and acceptation of Christ : they should passionately endeavour their salvation, and faithfully dis- charge their commission ; that if they will go to hell, they may carry this witness with them, that their destruction is of themselves, and comes not for Avant of your care and compassion to their souls. It is not enough that you are orthodox preachers, and deliver the truth, — it is zeal that God calls for at your hands. He so strongly himself desires the salvation of poor sinners, that he disdains you should coldly deliver it, without shewing your good- will to i'. Christ, when he sends his servants to invite guests to his gospel-supper, bids them, ' compel them to come in,' Liike xiv. 23. But how? Surely not as the Spaniards did the Indians, who drove them to be baptized, as we drive cattle to watering, with staves and stones : we are not to drive them in with outward violence, and cruelty practised upon their bodies ; but a spMtual force of argu- ment, subduing their hearts by our powerful preaching. When God smites the consciences of men with the terrors of his threatenings, it is to make tliem willing, not to save them against their will. Fourthly, Let not any person or thing bribe or scare thee from a faithful discharge of thy trust. Ambassadors must not be pensioners to a foreign prince. He is unworthy to serve a prince in so honourable an employment, that dares not trust his master to defend and reward him : such a one will not long be faithful to liis trust. Nor will lie in the ministrj^ that rests not contented with God's promise for his protection or reward : O, how soon will he, for fear or favour, seek to save his stake or mend it, though it be by falsifying his trust to God himself! Blessed Paul was far from this baseness, and hath set a noble pattern to all that shall be God's ambassadors to the end of the world : ' As we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak ; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts ; for neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness ; God is witness,' 1 Thess. ii. 4, 5. Fifthly, Be kind to, and tenderly careful of, thy fellow-subjects. Were it not strange, if an ambassador sent from hence to Turkey, or Spain, instead of protecting or encouraging the English merchants there in their trade, should hinder their traffic, and employ all the power of his place to their prejudice and damage? Surely his prince sent him not to be an enemy, but a friend and patron to his good subjects there. The minister, as God's ambassador, is to encourage tlie saints in their heavenly trade, to assist them by his counsel, and to protect them from the scorn that their wicked neighbours cast upon them. (3, how sad it is, if he shall bend his ministry against them ! — if he shall weaken their hands, and strengthen the hands of the ungodly, in or out of the pulpit, by his preaching or practice ! Better he were, with a millstone tied about his neck, thrown into the sea, than thus to offend these little ones. Moses smote the Egyptian, hut rescued the Israelite ; what accoiuit will they make to God of their embassy, who, in the very pulpit, smite the Israelites with their tongues, sneering at them for their purity, and applaud the wicked and profane in their congregations, whereby they bless themselves, as going to heaven, when, God knows, their feet stand in the way that will lead them to hell?
CHAPTER XV.
FIVE THINGS TOUCHED UPON, FROM PAUl's BEING IN BONDS.
The second argument with which he stirs them up to the remembrance of him in their prayers, in his present afflicted state, — ' For which I am an ambassador in bonds:' in the Greek, 'in a chain.' When we hear of an ambassador, and a chain, we might at first expect it to be a chain of gold about his neck, and not a chain of iron about his leg or arm; yet it is the latter which is here meant. Paul was now a prisoner at Rome, but in libera custodia, as it is thought by interpreters, from this passage, 'in a chain,' not in chains ; it being usual there for a prisoner to be committed to the custody of some soldier, with whom he might walk abroad, having a chain on his right arm, which was tied to his keeper's left arm ; such a prisoner it is conceived this
AN AMr.ASSADOll IN DONDS. g;?5
holy man was: Paul, the 'lamb,' was prisoner to Nero, the 'lion,' and, therofbre, both needed .and desired the church's prayers for him. Many observations this short passage affords ; I shall lightly touch on them.