(4.) Because the bride is in a distant country, afar off, ignorant of the Bridegroom and his glory, therefore he sends his ministers, as his ambassadors, to declare his glorious fulness and sufficiency, and how willing he is to have the match accomplished, and what he has done and suffered in order to bring it about. Ministers are called “ the friends of the Bridegroom, who stand and hear him, and rejoice greatly because

, of the Bridegroom's voice;" and their joy is fulfilled when the happy match takes place, John iii. 29.

(5.) Because such is the enmity and alienation of the heart of the bride from the match, that all moral suasion proves utterly ineffectual, therefore the Bridegroom comes in a day of power, and by manifesting himself to her, in the glory of his person and mediation, and by touching the iron sinew of her obstinate will with the rod of his strength, makes her willing in the day of his power, and thus gains the consent of the bride; upon which she cries out, I am the Lord's, an dwill be called by his name: Hos.fi. 16: “ Thou shalt call me Ishi, and shalt call me no more Baali.”

Thus you see that faithful ministers, however they be clay vessels, yet are ambassadors from heaven, to carry on a peace, an advantageous trade, and an honourable match with the King's Son. And does it not follow from all this, that a faithful minister of Christ is worthy of all reception and entertainment?

Inf. 3. See from this doctrine, the folly and madness of a great many professed Christians and gospel-hearers, who prefer lumber and trash to the precious treasure of the gospel, freely and fully offered to them.

Some prefer their worldly wealth, profits, pleasures, and honours of this life, to all the profits, pleasures, and honours of religion and true godliness. The cry of the generality is, " Who will show us any of this world's goods? what shall we eat?

what shall we drink? wherewithal shall we be clothed ?" But as for the eternal treasures of the gospel, they have no regard to them; they care for none of these things. I have known some in this place, who some years ago had a promising appearance of religion, and seemed to run well, but plunging themselves in the mire of worldly affairs, and grasping after the riches of this world, have ever since run backward in religion, instead of going forward; so that we may say of them as Paul did of Demas, “ He hath forsaken me, having loved this present world;" and in such is fulfilled that word of the apostle, 1 Tim. vi. 9, 10: “But they that will be rich fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

Some again (and very commonly it is so with those of whom I spoke last,) prefer a jingle of words, a flourish of heathen morality, to the gospel of Christ; they choose rather to have their ears tickled with the words of men's wisdom, than to have their hearts touched, and their souls fed and nourished, with the plain and simple truths of the everlasting gospel. They that are of this spirit, plainly declare that their palate is vitiated with some dreadful spiritual distemper or other, their understandings are darkened, and their affections taken up with some other thing than precious Christ, and his unsearchable riches. And I may say of such ministers as entertain their hearers with the flourishes of rhetoric and moral harangues, instead of preaching Christ, and the supernatural mysteries of Christianity, whatever be their character among their votaries, they are ministers of Satan, transforming themselves into ministers of Christ, and that awful word is but too applicable to them and their abettors, Matth. xv. 14: “ They are blind guides ; and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

Much of a-kin with these, are they who set a great value upon their own righteousness by the law, preferring the same to the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all the riches and treasures of the gospel. Many gospel hearers, are married to the law as a husband, and, with the Jews, go about to establish their own righteousness, and will not submit to the righteousness of God. Some, perhaps, may have very orthodox heads, while yet they have legal hearts; and thus they seek righteousness, not directly, but as it were by the works of the law," Rom. ix. 32. They were never really "dead to the law by the body of Christ, that they might be married to a better Husband, even to him who is raised from the dead:” and therefore can never bring forth fruit acceptable to God: but Ephraim's character is applicable to them, “ They are empty vines, bringing forth fruit unto themselves."

Now, of all such I may say, as Christ says of self-conceited Laodicea, who imagined herself to be rich and increased with goods, and that she stood in need of nothing, that, in reality, they are but "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked :" you are feeding upon ashes; a deceived heart hath turned you aside, that you cannot deliver your soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? But to what a melancholy pass will you be reduced, when you shall be laid and weighed in God's balances, and that awful hand-writing come

forth against you, “ MENE, TEKEL, Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting !" And therefore observe how God expostulates with you, because of your folly in preferring your own counters to the gospel gold and treasure, Is. lv. 2: "Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not ?" And see how he appeals to the very heavens, to bear testimony for him against your madness, Jer. ii. 12, 13: "Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be ye

O very desolate, saith the Lord. For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."

Inf. 4. Are ministers of the gospel earthen vessels, by whom the gospel-treasure is conveyed to God's family? This serves to inform us,

1st, Of the wonderful and amazing condescension of God towards poor sinners of Adam's family. It is out of pity to us, that he conveys the treasure in earthen vessels of the like mould with yourselves. When God spake immediately, or by the ministry of angels, at Mount Sinai, to Israel, the whole camp fell to trembling, "and so terrible was the sight, that Moses” himself “ said, I exceedingly fear and quake,” Heb. xii. 19–21. The apostle John, Rev. xxii. 8, 9, when he had a message delivered to him by an angel of heaven, was ready to fall into idolatry, or angel-worship, until the angel said to him, “ See thou do it not; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book : worship God.” Thus you see, that when God conveys the gospel of his grace to you by earthen vessels, he thus suits himself to the weakness and imbecility of man in his fallen state.

2dly, See hence that death is in the marriage knot between ministers and their people, as well as between husband and wife. When a people get a minister from the Lord, they are to lay their account with the want of him in God's appointed time, the earthen vessel must return again to the earth : “ Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?" But though your faithful ministers die, yet their words do not die with them; no, “ the word of the Lord endureth for ever;" it takes fast hold of you, as it did of your fathers, and will go either to heaven or hell with you ; it will either be “ the savour of life unto life, or the savour of death unto death."

3dly, See, also, that the ministers of Christ are but tender ware, and had need to be tenderly handled; for an earthen vessel is soon staved, and broken into pieces, and then it is of VOL. III.

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no more use.

Your ministers are men of like passions and infirmities of body and mind like yourselves, and stand much in need of your sympathy, especially considering that the strength of battle from hell and earth is against them. What dashing and harsh treatment some of these earthen vessels have met with in Stirling, is pretty well known: some of them have been stoned; some have had their hoary hairs brought to the grave with sorrow; and another has been cast out of the legal synagogue and maintenance, for bearing testimony against the sins of the place, and the tyranny and defection of the judicatories of the church of Scotland. These things I mention not out of resentment, but įhat I may be found a faithful witness for the Lord against the sins of the place; the magistrates and town-council of Stirling must answer to God for what they have done in this matter. All that I shall say upon the head, is, with my royal Master, when they were taking away his life, “ Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;" and with the proto-martyr Stephen, when they were stoning him to death, and when he was going out of time into eternity, “ Lord, lay not this sin unto their charge."

Inf. 5. See from this text and doctrine, what it is makes, (1.) an able, and, (2.) a successful minister of the gospel.

As to the first, the apostle says of himself, and his brethren in the same office, that “ God had made them able ministers of the New Testament," 2 Cor. ii. 6. Now, if it be asked, What it is that makes a man an able minister of the New Testament? The answer is, When he has his earthen vessel well stored and replenished with the treasure of that gospel grace and truth that comes by Christ Jesus, such a one is called, by Christ himself, “a scribe well instructed in the kingdom of God; he is like a householder, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old,” for the edification of the church of God, Matth. xiii. 52. He has “milk for babes, and strong meat for them that are of riper age.” But,

the dispensation of the gospel-treasure, and the “excellency of the power is of God, and not of us,” i Cor. iii. 6: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” Some people are ready to think all is well enough if they get ministers endowed with flourishing gifts; but people had little need to rest there; for although you had Paul, or Apollos, yea Christ himself in the flesh, to preach to you, all would not do without “the power of God" coming along; and therefore, it highly concerns such, who regard the edification and salvation of their own souls, to be much at a throne of grace, pleading earnestly with the Lord, that he “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," may not only fill the earthen vessel with the treasure of the gospel, but that the gospel may “come to them, not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost;

for the weapons

of warfare are mighty" only " through God to the pulling down of strong-holds," 2 Cor. x. 4, 5.

The last inference I draw from this text and doctrine, is this: Hence we may see the nature of that work we are just now to go about. What is the ordination of a minister, but just the consecration or dedication of an earthen vessel, to the service of the church of Christ, which is the house of the living God, that in it, or by it, the treasure of the gospel may be conveyed to the whole family? which dedication, according to scripture warrant, is to be done by “ fasting and prayer, and the laying on of the hands of the presbytery,” Acts xiv. 23, compared with I Tim. iv. 14; which work we shall now proceed to, referring the farther application of this doctrine to some other occasion.

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[The preceding Sermon was preached at the Ordination of Mr. JAMES ERSKINE as one of the Associate Ministers of the Gospel at Stirling, 22nd January, 1752.]