Sacrilegious desertion of the holy ministry rebuked, and tolerated preaching of the gospel vindicated,…Sacrilegious desertion of the holy ministery rebuked, and tolerated preaching of the gospel vindicated,…

Brethren, our great account is near: The Judge is at the door: It will be then comfortable to give a true account of Ministerial fidelity, and hear, Well done good and faithful servant; rather than to hear, We have beaten our fellow Servants, or unfaithfully kept the Key of knowledge. The souls of your charge are many and precious: It is a hard and great work to cure one: to make one Ignorant person understand, one proud person humble, one infidel to believe, one worldling to become Heavenly, or one sensualist to be a mortified Saint: What help then do you need; what labour is requisite, to bring a Parish of many hundred or thousand persons to this change! As our weakness must make us all cry out, Who is sufficient for these things, so when one man hath ten mens work to do, he may well say, He is insufficient: In the first three Centuries, when one Congregation had a Bishop with a College or Company of fellow Presbyters, they were not too many, though one only could preach at once. I speak not uncertainties: We have tried the Pastoral work; and know by experience that a Parish of a thousand (much more of many ⟨p. 129⟩thousand) families, hath work enough for many the most able and diligent Ministers in the Land: Yea, a Parish of an hundred Families, needeth more help than any one Minister is able to afford them: Try them all by personal conference house by house as we have done, and judge. Would you then have the people taught, reformed and saved, or not? If yea, Would you not have necessary help to do it? I cannot believe that man to know truly what it is to be a Minister or a Christian, that perceiveth not a necessity of help if he can have it: And if you had converted all now living, those that are born next will have need of as much labour as their Parents: For ignorance, sensuality and pride will be born with them.

Brethren, our great account is near: The Judge is at the door: It will be then comfortable to give a true account of Ministerial fidelity, and hear, Well done good and faithful servant; rather than to hear, We have beaten our fellow Servants, or unfaithfully kept the Key of knowledge. The souls of your charge are many and precious: It is a hard and great work to cure one: to make one Ignorant person understand, one proud person humble, one infidel to believe, one worldling to become Heavenly, or one sensualist to be a mortified Saint: What help then do you need; what labour is requisite, to bring a Parish of many hundred or thousand persons to this change! As our weakness must make us all cry out, Who is sufficient for these things, so when one man hath ten mens work to do, he may well say, He is insufficient: In the first three Centuries, when one Congregation had a Bishop with a Colledge or Company of fellow Presbyters, they were not too many, though one onely could preach at once. I speak not uncertainties: We have tryed the Pastoral work; and know by experience that a Parish of a thousand (much more of many