Now then I ask, Is nothing due from you to such friends and benefactors ? When they, from love to your souls, and from an ardent desire to impart unto you the blessings of salvation, make " themselves your servants for Christ's sake°," renouncing all worldly cares, pleasures, and advantages, and consecrating all their time and talents exclusively to you, is there no love, no respect, no deference to be shewn to them ? This, I am sure, is not God's judgment respecting them : for he requires, that " you esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake ^ :" and if you refuse them this tribute, you are guilty of gross injustice to them, and of vile ingratitude to God, whose commission and authority they beai*.
If you suppose that their living of the altar is a sufficient recompence, I must observe, that there is scarcely a faithful servant in all the Church of God who might not turn his talents to a far better account, if pecuniary emolument be the standard by which his recompence is to be estimated. As for the '* shepherds who feed themselves, and not the flock," I speak not of them : I leave them to their own fearful respon- sibility^: but of faithful pastors, I affirm, that, if they could have the whole world for their hire, they would despise it all in comparison of one soul, whom they may present to God as begotten by their ministry and saved by their effiDrts^ I say, then, ye are debtors to them to a gi'eat amount : if they have been your spiritual fathers, ye owe them your own souls^: and
z Ezek. iii. 17 — 21. and xxxiii. 7 — 9. » 2 Cor. ii. 16.
b 1 Cor. X. 16, 17. "= 2 Cor. iv. 5. <> 1 Thess. v. 12, 13.
e Jer. xxiii. 1, 2. Ezek. xxxiv. 1 — 10. Zech, xi. 17.
f 1 Tim. iv. 16. with 1 Thess, ii. 19, 20.
s Philem. ver. 19.