N05154:31
Christ the great example of Gospel ministers. A sermon preached at Portsmouth, at the…Christ the great example of Gospel ministers. A sermon preach'd at Portsmouth, at the…
Christ the great example of Gospel ministers. A sermon preached at Portsmouth, at the ordination of the Reverend Mr. Job Strong, to the pastoral office over the South Church in that place, June 28. 1749, / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Northampton.Christ the great example of Gospel ministers. A sermon preach'd at Portsmouth, at the ordination of the Reverend Mr. Job Strong, to the pastoral office over the South Church in that place, June 28. 1749, / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Northampton.
Boston: printed by T. Fleet, 1750
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.
Ministers should imitate their great Master in his fervent Prayers for the good of the Souls of Men. We find it to be Christs Manner whenever he undertook any Thing of special Importance in the Work of his Ministry, first to retire and pour out his Soul in extraordinary Prayer to his Father. Thus when he was about to enter on a Journey, and go a Circuit throughout all Galilee to preach in their Synagogues, he rose up a great while before Day, and went out, and departed into a solitary Place, and there prayed. Mark i. 35 — 39. And when he was about to choose his twelve Apostles, and send them out to preach the Gospel, he first went out into a Mountain to pray, and continued all Night in Prayer to God. Luke vi. 12. &c. And the Night before his Crucifixion, wherein he offered up himself a Sacrifice for the Souls of Men, he pours out his Soul in extraordinary Prayer, for those he was about to die for, as we have an Account in John xvii. That wonderful and most affecting Prayer of his, was not so much for himself as for his People. Although' he knew what amazing Sufferings he was to undergo the next Day, yet he seems as it were to be unmindful of himself, and to have his Heart all taken up with Concern about his Disciples; which he manifests in his spending so much Time in comforting and counselling them, and praying for them with great Affection, Compassion, ⟨p. 13⟩earnest Care and fatherly Tenderness. And the Prayers that he made in the Garden of Gethsemane, under the amazing View of the Cup he was to drink the next Day, seem to be intercessory; especially the last of the three Prayers which he there made, when being in an Agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his Sweat was as it were great Drops of Blood falling down to the Ground: When he did not pray that the Cup might pass from him, as he had done before, but that God's Will might be done. (Compare Luke xxii. 44. with Matt. xxvi. 42.) That Prayer, as the Apostle teaches us, Heb. v. 6, 7. was a Prayer that he put up as our High Priest; and therefore must be a Prayer of Intercession for us, a Prayer offered up with his Blood which he sweat in his Agony; as Prayers were wont to be offered up with the Blood of the Sacrifices in the Temple. His Prayer at that Time, Thy Will be done, was not only an Expression of Submission, but had the Form of a Petition, as it is in the Lord's Prayer.