I shall not record here the many excellent virtues that are conspi- cuous in your Lordship, and truly adorn your honour ; but I cannot forbear to mention the foundation of them, sincere and solid piety, so clearly discovered in a most Christian deportment under your heavy afflictions. Surely that reverence and meek submission to the high and holy providence of God, that humble trust in his mercy, which so admirably appeared in your deep distress, was from the divine Spirit, whose glorious attribute is the Comforter. I shall earnestly pray that God, who turneth the shadow of death into the morning, will be pleased always to support you with his reviving presence, that he will guide you by his counsel through this afflicting world, and bring you to his glory. — I am, my Lord, your Lordship's very humble and obedient servant, William Bates.
* This dedication, and the Address to the Reader which follows it, refer to the second volume of ' Manton's Works,' which contains twenty-seven sermons on Mat. xxv., forty-five on John xvii., twenty-four on Rom. vi., forty-five on Rom. viii., and forty on 2 Cor. v.— Ed.
TO THE READER.
Christian Header, — Our blessed Lord, calling the multitude to some account of their so free and frequent motions in going to hear the first gospel preacher, John the Baptist, doth it in these terms, Mat. xi. 7, 8, ' What went you out into the wilderness to see ? A reed shaken with the wind ? But what went ye out for to see ? A man clothed in soft raiment ? They that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what went ye out for to see ? A prophet ? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet ;' ver. 11, ' Verily I say unto you, that amongst them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist : notwithstanding, he that is least in the king- dom of God is greater than he ; ' — teaching us several things by that speech, relating to the religious action of hearing the word, and to a true gospel minister. With reference to the former — (1.) That he that goeth out to hear ought in the first place to propound to him- self a due end. (2.) That men may propose to themselves in such motions very false and undue ends, such as going to see reeds shaken with the wind, men clothed with soft raiment, &c. (3.) That the true end men should propose to themselves should be, not to hear a philo- sopher or an orator, but a prophet ; which term signifieth a person revealing the will of God ; for the signification of that term is not to be restrained to one only from God revealing things to come, but publishing the divine will, whether relating to future things or things before revealed ; which is evident not only from the application of it to the Baptist, but to any that will consider that predictions of future contingencies was the least part of any of the ancient prophets' work. This is that true and more special end which every good man ought to propound to himself when he goeth to hear as a religious action, whose object is not a mere sound, which is the object of hearing con- sidered as a natural act, but of the ' joyful sound.' Nor can there lie any obligation upon any religiously to hear anything but the will of God, which a discourse doth not cease to be by the addition of man's words for the explanation or application of any part of the divine will, by such as God hath betrusted with that employment, more than an ambassador's message ceaseth to be his master's will because delivered in his own words, though to the sense of his instructions. Which thing well digested would not only teach ministers what and how to preach, but the people also what and how to hear, according to the direction of their Lord. If our end in hearing were to tickle our ears
316 TO THE READER.
with a sound, our reason would guide us to hear such whose language is ' as the voice of one that hath a lovely song, and can play well on an instrument.' If our end were to promove ourselves in critical learning, or improve our reason, the same reason would guide us to choose to hear the hest philosophises or grammarians, such as best understood the niceties of words and varieties of syntax. But if our end be to hear a prophet, one that should reveal God's mind unto us, and to make it more intelligible, that by it we may be more improved in knowledge, faith, love, obedience, and other habits fitting us for the kingdom of God and eternal salvation, the same reason will teach us to hear the most substantial, scriptural, and practical sermons that we can, as being most accommodate to the true end of our action, to which every wise man proportioneth mediate actions. And indeed all other discourses are abusively called preaching, and Athens were a more proper place for them than a preacher's pulpit.
God hath seemed to have reserved it for a great blessing to the last age of the world that, for aught appears to us from any books, it hath been more fertile of such preaching than any since that of the apostles. The ancient church had persons that did famously in their genera- tions ; such were Chrysostom in the Greek, and Augustine in the Latin church ; but besides that they were but very few, whoso reads the one and the other must compliment antiquity at a great rate, if himself hath any judgment, and doth not say that multitudes in the last age have been as to preaching greater than they. In the former are to be found many judicious explications of scripture, many honest and spiritual discourses; in the latter, not these things only, but a pleasantness of wit and fancy. But for plenty of matter, clearness of judgment, orderliness of method, and many other things, they have not been a little exceeded by men of this last age. Nor is it any dis- paragement to them, more than it was to John the Baptist, that ' the least in the kingdom of heaven' was to be ' greater than he ;' or to Christ, that the apostles, John xiv. 12, were to do greater things than he had done. In the middle ages of the church, preaching generally was turned into trifling about scholastic niceties ; and to the very dawning of the Reformation the priests' texts were out of Scotus or Aquinas ; and we remember they were not ashamed when Luther, Melancthon, &c, restored in some degree the true kind of preaching, to petition magistrates for the suppression of it, and a liberty to trifle still in that great work of God with discourses upon Scotus and Aquinas. Though Luther, Zuinglius, and others in Germany, and Mr Calvin, Farellus, and Viret, and Beza, in France, about a hundred and fifty years since mended this matter in a great degree, yet we all know how ill their examples were followed ; so as Mr Perkins, who began to flourish about the year 1580, is generally judged to have been the first who amongst us restored preaching to its true use, and taught us the true manner of it, whose piety was followed by many ; but as their number hath vastly increased since that time, especially in the fifty or sixty years last past, so God hath seemed to pour out his Spirit upon ministers, as to spiritual gifts, in a more plentiful measure, yet in very different proportions, that he might have some to feed his lambs, as well as others to feed his sheep. The generality of good