N01668:52
A sermon wherein is showed, I. That the ministers of the Gospel need, and…A sermon wherein is shewed, I. That the ministers of the Gospel need, and…
A sermon wherein is showed, I. That the ministers of the Gospel need, and ought to desire the prayers of the Lord's people for them. II. That the people of God ought to pray for his ministers. : Preached at Roxbury, October 29. 1718. When Mr. Thomas Walter was ordained a pastor in that church, by his grand-father, Increase Mather. D.D. : [Seven lines of Scripture texts]A sermon wherein is shewed, I. That the ministers of the Gospel need, and ought to desire the prayers of the Lord's people for them. II. That the people of God ought to pray for his ministers. : Preached at Roxbury, October 29. 1718. When Mr. Thomas Walter was ordained a pastor in that church, by his grand-father, Increase Mather. D.D. : [Seven lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland for J. Edwards, 1718
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
WE have a known saying, as undoubted as Ancient; If any Man desires the Office of a Bishop, (and it is to a Demonstration Evident, ⟨p. 28⟩That when the Twentieth Chapter of the Acts was written, every Presbyter in the Church of our Saviour was a Bishop) he desires a Good Work. It was the Remark of a Father in the Primitive Church, famous for the asserting of this parity, That the Ministry of the Gospel, is to be considered as a Work rather than a Dignity, more of a Work than an Advancement. Indeed the Book which Thoroughly furnishes us for it, and which never miscalls any thing, has called it, The Work of the Ministry. To desire this Work, while he that had a Station in it, usually stood in the Front of Danger, and as the Last, (if indeed one) of the Good Bishops of Rome Observed, Primus ad Martyrii tormenta ducebatur; This was an Ambition that could not easily be taxed for a Faulty one. But the only thing, that in our more easy times of Safety, can Legitimate the desire of it, is, That it is a Work: A Work, I say; A Work wherein we are Workers together with GOD. Thy Ambition, O Man of God, it is to be Indefatigably Employed in the Fatigues of a vast Labour, which requires uncommon Degrees of Diligence, of Patience, of Self-Denial, unto the performance of it. But in such a Work, Oh! What Assistances are called for!
WE have a known saying, as undoubted as Ancient; If any Man desires the Office of a Bishop, (and it is to a Demonstration Evident, ⟨p. 28⟩That when the Twentieth Chapter of the Acts was written, every Presbyter in the Church of our Saviour was a Bishop) he desires a Good Work. It was the Remark of a Father in the Primitive Church, famous for the asserting of this parity, That the Ministry of the Gospel, is to be considered as a Work rather than a Dignity, more of a Work than an Advancement. Indeed the Book which Thorougly furnishes us for it, and which never miscalls any thing, has called it, The Work of the Ministry. To desire this Work, while he that had a Station in it, usually stood in the Front of Danger, and as the Last, (if indeed one) of the Good Bishops of Rome Observed, Primus ad Martyrii tormenta ducebatur; This was an Ambition that could not easily be taxed for a Faulty one. But the only thing, that in our more easy times of Safety, can Legitimate the desire of it, is, That it is a Work: A Work, I say; A Work wherein we are Workers together with GOD. Thy Ambition, O Man of God, it is to be Indefatigably Employ'd in the Fatigues of a vast Labour, which requires uncommon Degrees of Diligence, of Patience, of Self-Denial, unto the performance of it. But in such a Work, Oh! What Assistences are called for!