if they are only your instructors, yet, as watching with all tenderness and fidelity for your souls, their griefs and their joys should be the griefs and the joys of you all^.]
2. The benefit accruing to yourselves —
[Daily do they go to God, to give up, as it were, an ac- count of the stewardship committed to them : and this they do either with joy or grief, according as they find success or disappointment in their ministerial labours. See what grief St. Paul experienced when his people walked disorderly': and, on the other hand, with what ecstatic joys he was filled, when they walked worthy of their high calling'^ ! So it is with every minister, in proportion as he approves himself faithful to his God. And how deeply are your interests involved in these exercises of your minister's soul ! When he sees you disobe- dient to the word, and regardless of his paternal admonitions, how do his hands hang down, and his spirit sink within him! Truly, it is " with grief," and " with groanings," (as the word imports,) that he goes to his God from day to day. And the whole of his ministry, in its ardour, in its unction, in its whole character, is lowered, when he has to labour amongst a proud, a worldly, a contentious, a gainsaying people. His mouth is stopped ; and, instead of finding an enlargement of mind, and a liberty of utterance towards them, he is constrained rather to speak only in tears of anguish \ and, as it were, in the groans of one that is travailing in birth™.
On the other hand, in what tender strains did the Apostle address those who had received his word with power, and evinced its influence by a holy and heavenly conversation ! He was amongst them " as gentle as a nursing mother ; and was so affectionately disposed towards them, that he was willing to impart to them, not the Go.spel only, but his own soul also, because they were dear unto him"." How would words, pro- ceeding from him in such a strain, " distil as the dew," and penetrate their inmost souls ! And when he felt such enlarge- ment of heart towards them, what corresponding feelings would be generated in their souls °! Such then are still the feelings of faithful ministers in this day. They experience either straitness, or enlargement, according as their people evince a disposition that becomes the Gospel, or a state of mind tending to obstruct its influence. And therefore, if you seek nothing but your own " profit," you should, by a loving, submissive, and obedient spirit, encourage the efforts of your minister, and impart comfort to his soul.
h 2 Cor. ii. 3. * 2 Cor. ii. 4. k 1 Thess. iii. 9, 10.
1 Phil. iii. 18. "> Gal. iv. 19. " 1 Thess. ii. 7. 8.
° ;2Cor. vi. 11—13.
2f^Ol.] CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES IIMPROVED IN PRAYER. 549
But it is not to the present world only that this considera- tion must be contined. For though it is true, that a glorified soul can feel no grief, any more than God himself can, yet, for the purpose of impressing our minds, this idea may be pre- dicated of them, as well as of him. And O ! think of the joy with which they will present to God their obedient children in the last dayP, and the grief with which they will appear as "swift witnesses" against such as were intractable and dis- obedient i! Verily, their griefs will be "unprofitable indeed to you," when the very word which they have spoken to you will be found only "a savour of death" unto you, and the means of your more aggravated condemnation''.]
" Suffer ye then a word of exhortation" —
[How long we shall stand in our present relation to each other, God alone knows: but this we know, that I must give up an account to God of my labours, as you also must of your improvement of them. O that I may be found faithful ! and may you also so improve my ministry, that I may give up an account of you with joy, and not with grief! Imagine not your work done, when you have heard the word delivered to you. In reality, both your work and mine is then but just begun. We must watch for each other, and each of us for ourselves. And O ! may you never have occasion for that painful reflection, " How have 1 hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of my teacher, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me^l" And may I so watch, and so labour, that, like the Apostle himself, I may " be pure from the blood of all men* ! "]