Divine efficacy without humane power. Opened in a sermon preached at St. Margarets Church…

Greatly do the profane the Ministry of the Word, and betray the Trust which Christ hath put upon them as his Ambassadors, who preach the vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord; and a woeful curse they incur by so high a presumption, Deut. 18. 20. The less there is of Christ in a Sermon, and of the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit, how full soever it may otherwise be of Exotic learning, of heaped allegations, of strains of wit, or luxuriancies of ⟨p. 23⟩fancy and language, it hath so much the less of the power of God to the salvation of the souls of men. For we are not to preach our selves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, 2 Cor. 4. 5. And as they are the best Ministers, who so preach, so they are the best hearers, who savour and relish nothing so well in a Sermon, as the gracious and powerful manifestations of Christ to the conscience, and evidences of the commission which the preacher hath received from him.

Greatly do the profane the Ministry of the Word, and betray the Trust which Christ hath put upon them as his Ambassadours, who preach the vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord; and a woful curse they incurre by so high a presumption, Deut. 18. 20. The lesse there is of Christ in a Sermon, and of the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit, how full soever it may otherwise be of Exotick learning, of heaped allegations, of strains of wit, or luxuriancies of ⟨p. 23⟩fancy and language, it hath so much the lesse of the power of God to the salvation of the souls of men. For we are not to preach our selves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, 2 Cor. 4. 5. And as they are the best Ministers, who so preach, so they are the best hearers, who savour and relish nothing so well in a Sermon, as the gracious and powerful manifestations of Christ to the conscience, and evidences of the commission which the preacher hath received from him.