A Saint Indeed

First the heart must be purged; and then tis prepared for any service of God: when the heart of Isaiah was purified, which was the thing signified▪ by the touching of his lips with a coal from the Altar, Isai. 6. 7. then he was fit for Gods work: here am I, send me, v. 8. a man that hath not learned to keep his heart, put him upon any service for God, and if it be attended with honour, it shall swell up and overtop his spirit: if with suffering it will exanimate and sink him.

Jesus Christ had an instrumental fitness for his fathers work above all the servants that ever God employed, he was zealous in public work for God, so zealous, that sometimes he forgot to eat bread, yea, that his friends thought he had been besides himself: but yet he so carried on his public work, as not to forget his own private communion with God; and therefore you read in Matth. 14. 23. that when he had been labouring ⟨p. 204⟩all day yet after that, he went up to a mountain apart to pray, and was there alone. O let the keepers of the vineyards look to their own vineyard! we shall never be so instrumental to the good of others, as when we are most diligent about our own Souls.

Jesus Christ had an instrumental fitness for his fathers work above all the servants that ever God imployed, he was zealous in publick work for God, so zealous, that sometimes he forgat to eat bread, yea, that his friends thought he had been besides himself: but yet he so carried on his publick work, as not to forget his own private communion with God; and therefore you read in Matth. 14. 23. that when he had been labouring ⟨p. 204⟩all day yet after that, he went up to a mountain apart to pray, and was there alone. O let the keepers of the vineyards look to their own vineyard! we shall never be so instrumental to the good of others, as when we are most diligent about our own Souls.