own faith weak, and our hearts dull, and unsuitable to so great a work as we have to do, we must have recourse to Him, and say, 'Lord, wilt thou send me with such an unbelieving heart to persuade others to believe? Must I daily plead with sinners about everlasting life and everlasting death, and have no more feeling of these weighty things myself? O send me not naked and unprovided to the work; but, as thou commandest me to do it, furnish me with a spirit suitable thereto.' Prayer must carry on our work as well as preaching; he preacheth not heartily to his people, that prayeth not earnestly for them. If we prevail not with God, to give them faith and repentance, we shall never prevail with them to believe and repent. When our own hearts are so far out of order, and theirs so far out of order, if we prevail not with God to mend and help them, we are like to make but unsuccessful work.

XV. Having given you these concomitants of our ministerial work, as singly to be performed by every minister, let me conclude with one other that is necessary to us, as we are fellow-labourers in the same work; and that is this, we must be very studious of union and communion among ourselves, and of the unity and peace of the churches that we oversee. We must be sensible how needful this is to the prosperity of the whole, the strengthening of our common cause, the good of the particular members of our flock, and the further enlargement of the kingdom of Christ. And therefore, ministers must smart when the church is wounded, and be so far from being the leaders in divisions, that

they should take it as a principal part of their work to prevent and heal them. Day and night should they bend their studies to find out means to close such breaches. They must not only hearken to motions for unity, but propound them and prosecute them; not only entertain an offered peace, but even follow it when it flieth from them. They must, therefore, keep close to the ancient simplicity of the Christian faith, and the foundation and centre of catholic unity. They must abhor the arrogancy of them that frame new engines to rack and tear the church of Christ, under pretence of obviating errors, and maintaining the truth. The scripturesufficiency must be maintained, and nothing beyond it imposed on others; and if papists, or others, call to us for the standard and rule of our religion, it is the Bible that we must show them, rather than any confessions of churches, or writings of men. We must learn to distinguish between certainties and uncertainties, necessaries and unnecessaries, catholic verities and private opinions; and to lay the stress of the church's peace upon the former, not upon the latter. We must avoid the common confusion of speaking of those that make no difference between verbal and real errors, and hate that rabies quorundum Theologorum, who tear their brethren as heretics, before they understand them. And we must learn to see the true state of controversies, and reduce them to the very point where the difference lieth, and not make them seem greater than they are. Instead of quarelling with our brethren, we must combine against the common adversaries; and all ministers must associate and

hold communion, and correspondence, and constant meetings to those ends, and smaller differences of judgment are not to interrupt them. They must do as much of the work of God, in unity and concord, as they can, which is the use of synods; not to rule over one another, and make laws, but to avoid misunderstandings, and consult for mutual edification, and maintain love and communion, and go on unanimously in the work that God hath already commanded us. Had the ministers of the Gospel been men of peace, and of catholic, rather than factious spirits, the church of Christ had not been in the case it now is. The notions of Lutherans and Calvinists abroad, and the differing parties at home, would not have been plotting the subversion of one another, nor remain at that distance, and in that uncharitable bitterness, nor strengthen the common enemy, and hinder the building and prosperity of the church as they have done.

SECTION III.

The Motives to this Oversight.

HAVING Considered the manner in which we are to take heed to the flock, I shall now proceed to lay before you some motives to this oversight: and here I shall confine myself to those contained in my text.

I. The first consideration which the text affordeth us, is taken from our relation to the flock-We are overseers of it.

1. The nature of our office requireth us to "take heed to the flock." What else are we overseers for? 66 Episcopus est nomen quod plus oneris quam honoris significat," says Polydore Virgil. To be a bishop, or pastor, is not to be set up as an idol for the people to bow to; but it is to be the guide of sinners to heaven. It is a sad case that men should be of a calling of which they know not the nature, and undertake they know not what. Do these men consider what they have undertaken, that live in ease and pleasure, and have time to take their superfluous recreations, and to spend an hour and more at once, in loitering, or in vain discourse, when so much work doth lie upon their hands? Brethren, do you consider what you have taken upon you? Why, you have undertaken the conduct, under Christ, of a band of his soldiers "against principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places." You must lead them on to the sharpest conflicts; you must acquaint them with the enemy's stratagems and assaults; you must watch yourselves, and keep them watching. If you miscarry, they and you may perish. You have a subtle enemy, and therefore you must be wise. You have a vigilant enemy, and therefore you must be vigilant. You have a malicious, and violent, and unwearied enemy, and therefore you must be resolute, courageous, and indefatigable. You are in a crowd of enemies, encompassed by them on every side, and if you heed one and not all, you will quickly fall. And O what a world of work have you to do! Had you but one ignorant old man or woman to teach, what an arduous task would it be, even though they

But if they are as un

should be willing to learn!

willing as they are ignorant, how much more difficult But to have such a multitude of ig

will it prove!

norant persons, as most of us have, what work will it find us! What a pitiful life is it, to have to reason with men that have almost lost the use of reason, and to argue with them that neither understand themselves nor you! O brethren, what a world of wickedness have we to contend with in one soul; and what a number of these worlds! And when you think you have done something, you leave the seed among the fowls of the air; wicked men are at their elbows to rise up and contradict all you have said. You speak but once to a sinner, for ten or twenty times that the emissaries of Satan speak to them. Moreover, how easily do the business and cares of the world choke the seed which you have sown! And if the truth had no enemy but what is in themselves, how easily will a frozen carnal heart extinguish those sparks which you have been long in kindling: yea, for want of fuel, and further help, they will go out of themselves! And when you think your work doth happily succeed, and have seen men confessing their sins, and promising reformation, and living as new creatures and zealous converts, alas! they may, after all this, prove unsound and false at the heart, and such as took up new opinions, and new company, without a new heart. O how many, after some considerable change, are deceived by the profits and honours of the world, and are again entangled by their former lusts! How many do but change a disgraceful way of fleshpleasing, for a way that is less dishonourable, and

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