The saints everlasting rest

Answer 1. It is first your duty, and then the minister's. It will be no excuse for you, because it is their work, except you could prove it were only theirs. Magistrates must govern both you and your children: doth it therefore follow that you must not govern them? It belongs to the s••••lmaster to correct them, and doth it not belong also to you? There must go many hands to this great work; as to the building of ⟨p. 250⟩an house there must be many workmen, one to one part, and another to another, and one must not leave their part, and say it belongs to the other: so it is here in the instructing of your children; first, you must do your work, and then the minister must do his: you must be doing it privately, night and day; the minister must do it publicly and privately, as oft as he can.

2. But as the case now stands with ministers, they are disabled from doing that which belongs to their office, and therefore you cannot now cast your work on them. I will instance but in two things.

First, It belongs to their office to govern the church, and to teach with authority; and great and small are commanded to obey them, Heb. xiii. 7.17. But this is unknown, and hearers look on themselves as free-men, that may obey or not, at their own pleasure. People think we have authority to speak to them when they please to hear, and no more. Nay, few of the godly themselves understand the authority that their teachers have over them from Christ: they know how to value a minister's gifts, but not how they are bound to obey him because of his office: not that they should obey him in evil, nor that he should be a final decider of all controversies, nor should exercise his authority in things of no moment; but as a schoolmaster may command his scholars when to come to school, and what book to read, and what form to be of, and as they ought to obey him, and learn of him, and not to set their wits against his, but to take his word, and believe him as their teacher, till they understand as well as he, and are ready to leave his school; just so are the people bound to obey and learn of their teachers. Now this ministerial authority is unknown, and so ministers are the less capable of doing their work, which comes to pass, 1. From the pride of man's nature,