9. “What! Then you make yourselves, _like the apostles_.” Because this silly objection has so often been urged, I will for once spend a few words upon it, though it does not deserve that honour. Why, must not every man, whether clergyman, or layman, be in some respects _like the apostles_, or go to hell? Can any man be saved, if he be not holy, _like the apostles_? A follower of them, as they were of Christ? And ought not every preacher of the gospel, to be in a _peculiar_ manner _like the apostles_, both in holy tempers, in exemplariness of life, and in his indefatigable labours for the good of souls? Woe unto every ambassador of Christ, who is not _like the apostles_ in this! In holiness; in making full proof of his ministry; in spending and being spent for Christ! We _cannot_ and therefore we _need_ not be like them, in _working outward miracles_. But we may and ought, in _working together with God_ for the salvation of men. And the same God who was always ready to help _their_ infirmities, is ready to help _ours_ also. He who made them _workmen that needed not to be ashamed_, will teach us also _rightly to divide the word of truth_. In this respect likewise, in respect of his _having help from God_, for the work whereunto he is called, every preacher of the gospel is _like the apostles_. Otherwise he is of all men most miserable.
* 10. And I am bold to affirm, that these unlettered men, _have help from God_ for that great work, the saving souls from death; seeing he hath enabled, and doth enable them still, to _turn many to righteousness_. Thus hath he _destroyed the wisdom of the wise, and brought to nought the understanding of the prudent_. When they imagined they had effectually shut the door, and locked up every passage, whereby any help could come to two or three preachers, weak in body as well as soul; who they might reasonably believe would humanly speaking, wear themselves out in a short time: when they had gained their point by securing (as they supposed) all the men of learning in the nation; _he that sitteth in heaven laughed them to scorn_, and came upon them by a way they thought not of. _Out of the stones he raised up_ those who should beget children to _Abraham_. We had no more foresight of this than you. Nay, we had the deepest prejudices against it: until we could not but own, that God gave _wisdom from above_ to these unlearned and ignorant men; so that the work of the Lord prospered in their hand, and sinners were daily converted to God.
Indeed in the one thing which they profess to know, they are not _ignorant_ men. I trust there is not one of them who is not able to go thro’ such an examination, in substantial, practical, experimental divinity, as few of our candidates for holy orders, even in the university (I speak it with sorrow and shame, and in tender love) are able to do. But oh! what manner of _examination_, do most of _those candidates_ go through? And what proof are the _testimonials_ commonly brought (as solemn as the _form_ is wherein they run) either of their _piety_ or _knowledge_, to whom are intrusted those sheep, which God hath purchased with his own blood!
11. “But they are _laymen_. You seem to be sensible yourself, of the strength of this objection. For as many as you have answered, I observe you have never once so much as touched on this.”
I have not. Yet it was not distrust of my cause, but tenderness to you which occasioned my silence. I had something to advance on this head also: but I was afraid you could not bear it. I was conscious to myself, that some years since, to touch this point, was to touch the apple of my eye. And this makes me almost unwilling to speak now; lest I should _shock_ the prejudices I cannot _remove_.
* Suffer me, however, just to intimate to you some things, which I would leave to your farther consideration. The _scribes_ of old, who were the ordinary _preachers_ among the _Jews_, were not _priests_; they were not better than _laymen_. Yea, many of them were incapable of the priesthood, being of the tribe of _Simeon_, not of _Levi_.
Hence probably it was, that the _Jews_ themselves never urged it as an objection to our Lord’s preaching (even those who did not acknowledge or believe, that he was sent of God in an _extraordinary_ character) that he was no _priest_ after the order of ♦_Aaron_. Nor indeed could be; seeing he was of the tribe of _Judah_.
♦ “Aron” replaced with “Aaron”
Nor does it appear, that any objected this to the apostles. So far from it, that at _Antioch_ in _Pisidia_, we find _the rulers of the synagogue sending unto Paul and_ Barnabas, strangers just come into the city, _saying, men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on_, Acts xiii. 15.