stoop, even to the holding of his stirrup. Tamerlane, a Scythian cap- tain, the terror of his time, died with three fits of an ague. Anacreon the poet was choked with the kernel of a grape, ^schylus was killed by the shell of a tortoise which fell from an eagle's talons, who, as some conceive, took his bald head for a white rock. The Lord Montaigne tells us of a duke of Brittany that was stifled to death in such a throng of people as is m some great congregations on the Lord's-day. An emperor died by the scratch of a comb ; and one of the kings of France died by the chock i of a hog ; and one that was brother to a great lord, playing at tennis, received a blow with a ball a little above the right ear, which struck him into his grave. There is nothing so small but may be a man's bane. The paring of a toe, the cutting of a corn, the scratch of a nail, the prick of a pin, a fish- bone, a hair, a drop of water, a crumb of bread, a bad air, or an evil smell, may bring a man to his long home, yea, a little smoke may soon stifle him, or his own spittle, let down unwarily, may suddenly choke him.
And oh that all I have spoken upon this account might be so blessed as to work you to take heed of putting the day of your death so far from you ! The evil servant, when he thought his master was gone afar off, then he lays about him, distempers himself, and beats his fellow- servants, Luke xii. 45. And so the lewd woman in the Proverbs, chap. vii. 19, 20, when the goodman was gone a long journey, when he was far from home, then she grew wanton, vain, and secure ; so when men put afar off the day of their death, then they grow more loose, profane, and unholy ; "whereas a serious and frequent eyeing and minding of death as at hand, as at a man's elbow, would alarm a man to break off his sins by repentance, and to labour for holiness, as a man would labour for life itself I have read of the women in the Isle of Man, that the first web they make is their winding-sheet, wherewith they usually gird themselves when they go abroad, to shew that they are still mindful of their mortality. Ah, friends, a constant minding of your mortality would contribute very much towards the making of you holy. He that daily looks upon death will be daily a-looking after holiness. The oftener any man looks into the grave, the oftener that man will be looking up to heaven, and a-begging that God would make him holy even as he is holy. But,
6. Sixthly and lastly, Take heed of settling yourselves under a lewd and scandalous ministry, or ofJiaving any inwardness with such whose lives give the lie to their doctrine. An ill-lived preacher is the greatest destroyer of the souls of men. He that preacheth well, but lives ill, does what he can to murder all his hearers at once. There is no greater bar to holiness than ministers' lewdness : an unholy life mars the soundest and the sweetest doctrine: Isa. ix. 16, 'The leaders of this people have caused them to err.' The sins of teachers are the teachers of sins ; as the corrupt glosses, so the lewd practices of many preachers makes many to stumble at that word, and to shuff,2 and chat, and contest, and kick against that word whereby they should be made holy and happy for ever. A scandalous minister is the greatest ^ Ab before, ' neck.' — G. ' * Push ; ' sometimes ' sliuft.' — G. .
Heb. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 211
pest, the worst plague, and the sorest mischief that can be to a people ; for his enormities, his wickednesses, will have the strongest influences upon the souls and lives of men, to make them miserable in both worlds. His falls will be the fall and ruin of many ; for people are more prone to live by examples than by precepts, and to mind more what the minister does than what he says, and to eye more how he walks than how he talks. It was said of one, long since, that was an excellent preacher, but a very bad liver, that when he was in the pulpit it was pity he should ever come out of it, he preached so well ; and when he was out of it, it was pity that ever he should go into it, he lived so ill. Certainly it is pity that ever such should go into a pulpit who preach well but live ill, who have much of God in their mouths, and much of the devil in their lives ; who have the earth as much at their fingers' end as they have heaven at their tongue's end, who puts a loud lie upon the truth, and whose lives puts their words to a blush ; who have much of heaven in their expressions, and nothing of heaven in their conversations ; who have much holiness in their books, but none in their bosoms, and much holiness in their lips, but none in their lives. The lewd lives of such persons causes people to slight and abhor the holy things of God, 1 Sam. ii. 17; yea, their bad lives often raise doubts in their hearers' hearts whether those things be true that they preach or no. Hearers will be ready to object and say. If these things be true that the minister says, why does he not practise what he preaches ? why does he not do as well as say ? and with what face or • coufidence can he appear against that in the pulpit, which he coun- tenanceth and patroniseth in his life ? Who will credi^ that man's doctrine, who has Jacob's voice, 'but Esau's hands ; who is a saint, yea, .an angel, in the pulpit, but a debauched sinner, yea, an incarnate devil, out of it ? I have read of a woman who, living in professed doubt of the Godhead, after better illumination and repentance, did often protest that the vicious life of a great scholar, under whose ministry she did live, did conjure up those damnable doubts in her soul.i There is nothing that brings holy truths so much into question as the unholy conversations of such preachers ; neither is there any- thing that exposes a minister's person and office to so much scorn and contempt as an unholy life. Let a minister be never so learned, solid, quaint, elegant, zealous, judicious, sententious, &c., yet if he be carnal, covetous, worldly, vain, and loose in his life and conversation, his hearers will rather deride his doctrine than reform by his doctrine, they will rather contemn it than study how to profit by it ; therefore he said right that said —
' Turpe est doctori, cum culpa redarguit ipsum.'
' Unto a teacher it 's no small disgrace When his own faults reprove him to his face.'
There is nothing in all the world that is more powerful and prevalent to corrupt and mislead unholy men, and to harden, strengthen, and encourage them in ways of wickedness, than the looseness of their lives whose office binds them to look to the salvation of their souls, Ezek. xiii. 22, and Jer. xxxiii. 15 : Mai. ii. 8, ' Ye are departed out
^ Mr [Samuel] Ward's Sermons.
212 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB. XII. 14.