So was it with the church under the old testament, as God by the prophets complains in a hundred places. Can any man be so stupid as to imagine that the ordinary discharge of the priestly office in the church of Rome, in saying their offices at canonical hours, hear- ing of confessions and giving absolutions, without the least dram of labouring in word and doctrine, is a means to keep up the power of Christian religion, or is not an effectual means to drench mankind in sin and security? Neither-doth the calling of things by other names change their natures. Wherever there is the same neglect of the true work of the ministry, in the matter of it or manner of its per- formance, the same event will ensue thereon. And it will be no- where more fatal than where men love to have it so, and despise whatever is spoken to the contrary, so as that it shall be esteemed a crime for any one to be dissatisfied with the soul-ruining sloth and negligence of this sort of men.
4, Moreover, whereas great relief in all these cases might be taken from a holy, exemplary conversation and walking among them in whom it is required as an ordinance of God for the direction and encouragement of the people, it is manifest in the world, and suffi- ciently taken notice of, that many of them in their own persons are openly ambitious, insatiably covetous, proud, sensual, haters of them that are good, companions of the worst of men, evidencing the de- praved habits of their minds in all signal instances of vice and folly.
APOSTASY INTO PROFANENESS, ETC, 195 —
He that shall consider what was the state, what were the lives, of
_ the apostles and first preachers of the gospel, with those who suc-
ceeded them for some ages following, not merely as to their outward condition of straits and poverty (which, as it will be pleaded, was occasioned by the state of things then in the world), but as to that humility, lowliness of mind, self-denial, contempt of the world, zeal for God, purity of life, which they prescribed unto others and gave an exemplification of in themselves; and then take a view of that
_ universal contradiction unto them and their ways which the lives
and course of very many in the world do at this day openly express; he must conclude that either all those things were needless in them, as to the public interests of Christianity, or that they are unspeakably endamaged by those of some at present.
Wherefore, it cannot with any modesty be denied but that by reason of these and the like miscarriages in the spiritual guides of
_ the people, the generality of Christians have been either led or suf-
E
2 a
fered insensibly to fall into the present apostasy. When God shall be pleased to give unto the people who are called by his name, in a more abundant manner, “ pastors after his own heart, to feed them with knowledge and understanding ;” when he shall revive and in- crease a holy, humble, zealous, self-denying, powerful ministry, by a ‘more plentiful effusion of his Spirit from above; then, and not until then, may we hope to see the pristine glory and beauty of our reli- gion restored unto its primitive state and condition.
Those who do yet judge that matters among the common profes-
_ sors of Christianity, as to the obedience of faith, are in as good a
as r
posture as they were at any time formerly, or as they need to be, who have no other desire or interest in them but only that they should not be better, may abide in their security without troubling themselves with these things. But for such as cannot but see that a revolt or defection from gospel obedience is not only begun in the world, but carried unto that height that it is ready to issue in ido- latry or atheism, it is time for them to consider under whose hand this hath fallen out, and be stirred up to put a stop unto its progress ~ before it be too late. Nor is it to be expected or fancied that there will be a recovery of the people from ungodliness and profaneness, or unto the holy obedience the gospel requireth, until there be such a change wrought in the ministry that the word may be so dispensed and such examples given as may be effectual unto that end. It is to cast the highest contempt on the office itself to imagine that this breach can be otherwise healed; for whereas this declension is fallen out under the conduct of the present ministry and that of the fore- going ages, it is not to be thought that it will be retrieved under the same conduct. And to suppose that it can be done any other way,
196 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
that the world of professed Christians shall be recovered unto holy obedience by any other means but the ministerial dispensation of the word, is to render it a thing altogether useless. Here, then, must begin the cure of that lethargy in sin that the world is fallen into,— namely, in the renovation of a powerful evangelical ministry, or the due discharge of that office by them that are called thereunto or possess the place of it, if ever it be effected unto any purpose in this world. .