Preaching of Christ opened in a sermon preached at St. Peters Church in the…

Therefore great diligence, fidelity and wisdom is to be used in this so ⟨p. 11⟩weighty a service. It is no small work whereby strong holds must be pulled down, and every high thing that exalteth it self against the Kingdom of God be demolished, whereby sin and Satan must be dispossessed, and the whole man subdued to the obedience of Christ, whereby the very natural propensions of men must be changed, and they effectually persuaded to hate what they loved, to love what they hated, to deny themselves, their reason, their will, their appetites, their interests, their lands, their relations, their lives, their All, (for this they must sometimes do quoad exercitium, ever quoad praeparationem animi) to please an invisible God, and to obtain an invisible inheritance. This is not the work of an illiterate Reader, but of one who hath the tongue of the learned, a workman that need not to be ashamed. This is not the work of a careless loiterer, that shears the fleece, and starves the flock, but of one who gives himself wholly to it. So did those Renowned ⟨p. 12⟩Bishops in the primitive times, we read every where in Saint Chrysostom of his [Greek or Hebrew] intimating that he was a daily preacher; and of Saint Ambrose his Omni Die Dominico, as Saint Austin tells us, Confess. 6. c. 3. prayer and preaching are two excellent and worthy parts of the Ministry of Reconciliation, appointed as mutual helps and furtherances each to other, and therefore they on either hand do very ill, who jostle out and disparage the one by the other, as if performing the one were a sufficient discharge of the Ministerial Function, and means of the peoples edification and salvation without the other. Certainly our Saviours Commission extends to the worlds end, Matth. 28. 20. as long as there are strong holds to be demolished, sin to be reproved, a Church to be edified, Saints to be perfected, enemies to be resisted, there will be a necessity of every Ordinance of Christ, by which these great works may be effected.

Therefore great diligence, fidelity and wisdome is to be used in this so ⟨p. 11⟩weighty a service. It is no small work whereby strong holds must be pulled down, and every high thing that exalteth it self against the Kingdom of God be demolished, whereby sinne and Satan must be dispossessed, and the whole man subdued to the obedience of Christ, whereby the very natural propensions of men must be changed, and they effectually perswaded to hate what they loved, to love what they hated, to deny themselves, their reason, their will, their appetites, their interests, their lands, their relations, their lives, their All, (for this they must sometimes do quoad exercitium, ever quoad praeparationem animi) to please an invisible God, and to obtain an invisible inheritance. This is not the work of an illiterate Reader, but of one who hath the tongue of the learned, a workman that need not to be ashamed. This is not the work of a carless loiterer, that shears the fleece, and starves the flock, but of one who gives himself wholly to it. So did those Renowned