CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

¹2. As it's our duty, so it's our glory; It's the greatest honour we are capable of, to have such divine Mysteries committed to us, the Truths of God have only Majesty in them, they only convince the Conscience and awe it; They only breed reverence and admiration, so that although humane Learning and parts have a subservient excellency, yet if the Word of God and the Truth of God be not principal, there is no mastering of the Conscience and captivating of it: Hence are those commands, to attend to their doctrine, 1 Tim. 3.13, 15, 16. and to give themselves to reading, that so they may deliver only Gods will as it is revealed in Gods Word. It's their glory as well as their duty, for the glory of a thing lieth in the excellency of its due and proper perfection; The glory of a King is a higher thing then the glory of a Peasant, and in another nature; All arts and Offices have their peculiar Glory; Logic in disputing well, Rhetoric in speaking well, and the Glory of Divinity lieth in divine Arguments and Motives, so that those who preach only humane or moral matter, they go below the Majesty of Divinity; Those that study words and fancy-fall things that may tickle the ear, these regard not the gravity of their office, nor of their employment; But as in the Ecclesiastical History, the Heathen said all the while a Christian argued with reason he could answer him, but when he brought forth the Authority of the Word, Thus saith the Lord, then he had no more to reply, Thus it's here, all the while thou hast strains of wit, and preachest like an humane Orator, not as one speaking the Oracles of God; Men will hear thee and applaud thee, but they will retain their lusts still, they th•nk thou art not in earnest, That thou lookest more to an expression that may please, then to an Argument that may wound the heart and conscience; It's therefore the glory of a Minister to be potent in divine Scripture Truths.

¹2. As it's our duty, so it's our glory; It's the greatest honour we are capable of, to have such divine Mysteries committed to us, the Truths of God have onely Majesty in them, they onely convince the Conscience and awe it; They onely breed reverence and admiration, so that although humane Learning and parts have a subservient excellency, yet if the Word of God and the Truth of God be not principall, there is no mastering of the Conscience and captivating of it: Hence are those commands, to attend to their doctrine,