The Ministry (continued)
A Minister's self-examination:
1. You have heaven to win or lose yourselves. A holy calling will not save an unholy man.
2. You have sinful inclinations as well as others.
3. You have greater temptations than most men.
4. The tempter will make his first and sharpest onset upon you. If you will be leaders against him, he will spare you no further than God restrains him.
5. Many eyes are upon you, and therefore there will be many to observe your falls.
6. Your sins are more aggravated than those of other men. They have more of hypocrisy in them.
7. The honor of your Lord and Master, and of His holy truth, doth lie more on you than other men.
8. The souls of your hearers and the success of your labors, do very much depend upon your self-examination. (Richard Baxter)
The Christian's life should put his minister's sermon in print. (William Gurnall)
Miracles
We have the full use and benefit of the Holy Spirit which was given then, that seal that was then set to the Christian doctrine and Scriptures stands there still. When Christ hath fully proved to the world the truth of His mediatorship, office, and doctrine, must He still continue the same actions. Is it not enough that He sealed it up once, but must He set a new seal for every man that requireth it in every age? Then miracles would be no miracles. Must your landlord seal your lease anew every time you will causelessly question his former seal? Then, if Christ had done miracles among a thousand, every man that was not present should come and say, "Do the like before me also, or I will not believe." Will you put God to this, that either He must work constant miracles in every age, and before every man, or else He must not be believed in? (Richard Baxter)
The rising a dead body to life would astonish us, but we are unaffected that every day so many living men and women are born. (Owen Bates)
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