There is a diversity of gifts as there is of tempers, and of tempers as there is of faces, that in all this variety, God may be the more glorified. The penmen of Scripture, that all wrote by the same Spirit, and by an in- faUible conduct, do not wi-ite in the same style. In the Old Testament, there is a plain difference between the lofty, courtly style of Isaiah, and the priestly, grave style of Jeremiah. In Amos there are some marks of his calling* in his prophecy. In the New Testament, you will find John sublime and seraphical, and Paul rational and argumentative. 'Tis easy to track both by their peculiar phrases, native elegances, and distinct man- ner of expression. This variety and ' manifold grace,' 1 Pet. iv. 10,f still
* That is, a ' herdsman.' — G.
t Ubi Vulgat. Dispensatio multiformis gratije. The more accurate rendering from the Vulgate is, ' Unusquisque, sicut accepit gratiam, in alterutrum illam adminis- trantes, sicut boni dispensatores multiformis gratiae Dei.' — Ed. Paris, 2 vols. 12mo. 1851.— G.
4 TO THE READER.
continneth. The stones that lie in the building of God's house are not all of a sort. There are sapphires, carbuncles, and agates, all which have their peculiar use and lustre, Isa. liv. 12.* Some are doctrinal, and good for information, to clear up the truth and vindicate it from the sophisms of wretched men ; others have a great force and skill in application. Some are more evangelical, their souls are melted out in sweetness ; others are sons of thunder, more rousing and stirring, gifted for a rougher strain, which also hath its use in the art of winning souls to God. 'Twas observed of the three ministers of Geneva, that none thundered more loudly than Farel, none piped more sweetly than Viret, none taught more learnedly and sohdly than Calvin.f So variously doth the Lord dispense his gifts, to shew the liberty of the spirit, and for the greater beauty and order of the church ; for difference with proportion causeth beauty ; and to prevent schism, every member having his distinct excellency. So that what is wanting in one, may be supplied by another ; and all have something to commend them to the church, that they may be not despised ; as in several countries they have several commodities to maintain traffic between them all. We are apt to abuse the diversity of gifts to divisions and partiaUties, whereas God hath given them to maintain a communion. | In the church's vestment there is variety, but no rent. Varietas sit, scissura non sit.
All this is the rather mentioned, because of that excellent and peculiar gift which the worthy and reverend author had in unfolding and applying the great mysteries of the gospel in a sweet and mellifluous way ; and there- fore was by his hearers usually termed The Sweet Dropper, sweet and hea- venly distillations usually dropping from him with such a native elegance as is not easily to be imitated. I would not set the gifts of God on quar- relling, but of all ministries, that which is most evangelical seemeth most useful. * The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,' Kev. xix. 10. ' Tis spoken by the angel to dissuade the apostle from worshipping him. You that preach Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen from the dead, have a like dignity with us angels that foretell things to come, your mes- sage is ' the spirit of prophecy ; ' as if he had said, This is the great and fundamental truth wherein runneth the life, and the heart-blood of rehgion.
The same spirit is breathing in these discourses that are now put into thy hand, wherein thou wilt find much of the comforts of the gospel, of the sealing of the Spirit, and the constant courses of God's love to his people, fimitfully and faithfully improved for thy edification.
* Varia gemmarum genera propter varia dona quae sunt in Ecclesia. — Sanct[ius].
t Gallica mirata est Calvinum Ecclesia nuper ; quo nemo docuit doctius. Est quoque te nuper mirata Farelle tonantem ; quo nemo tonuit fortius. Et miratur adliuc fundentem mella Viretum ; quo nemo fatur dulcius. Scilicet aut tribus his servabere ttstibus olim, aut interibis Gallia. — Beza. (Poemata et Epigrammata, p. 90, 82mo, Ludg. Bat., 1614).— G.
X Tunc bene multiformis Dei gratia dispensatur, quando acceptum donum etiam ejus qui hoc non habet, creditur, quando propter eum cui impenditur sibi datum putatur. — Gregor. Moral., lib. xxviii., c. 6,
TO THE READER. 5
Let it not stumble thee that the work is posiJmme* and cometh out so long after the author's death. It were to be wished that those who excel in public gifts would, during Hfe, publish their own labours, to prevent spurious obtrusions upon the world, and to give them their last hand and polishment, as the apostle Peter was careful to ' write before his decease,' 2 Pet. i. 12-14. But usually the church's treasure is most increased by legacies. As Elijah let fall his mantle when he was taken up into heaven, so God's eminent servants, when their persons could no longer remain in the world, have left behind them some worthy pieces as a monument of their graces and zeal for the pubhc welfare. Whether it be out of a mo- dest sense of their own endeavours, as being loath upon choice, or of their own accord to venture abroad into the world, or whether it be that being occupied and taken up with other labours, or whether it be in a conformity to Christ, who would not leave his Spirit till his departure, or whether it be out of an hope that their works would find a more kindly reception after their death, the living being more liable to envy and reproach (but when the author is in heaven the work is more esteemed upon earth), whether for this or that cause, usually it is, that not only the life, but the death of God's servants hath been profitable to his church, by that means many use- ful treatises being freed from the privacy and obscureness to which, by modesty of the author, they were formerly confined.