Hence ministers of the gospel are not only bound to the love of God and man, by the law of their nature and by the general profession of christianity, but also by the voluntary services of their office. They pledge themselves to the most entire devotedness to the promotion of the divine glory, and the advancement of the best interests of men. they sustain characters to which attach important services and high responsibility. They are servants, they are soldiers, they are stewards, they are workers together with God. In these characters they are the subjects of commands, of exhortations, of warnings, and encouragements. They are charged "before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, to preach the word, to be instant in season, and out of season, to reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine."* Now what is the appropriate duty of persons thus related to God, and thus employed for men? Is it a cautious fear lest 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2. they should go beyond their commission, or of exceeding in the discharge of their duty? Will men thus engaged lay restrictions on the powers of their minds, or the feelings of their hearts? Will they not rather, with glowing love to their fellow creatures and tender compassion for their fellow sinners, pour out the desire of their heart in prayer to God that they may be saved? As the appointed instruments of mercy, will they not go into the streets and lanes of the city, and into the highways and hedges, and by all possible arguments, persuasions, warnings, and invitations, compel them to come to the gospel feast? Ministers divinely taught and influenced, will consider their commission, and the trust committed to them, as pointing out the extent of their duty; the promised presence of their Lord, and the almighty agency of the Holy Spirit, as their support and encouragement. Thus directed, supported, and encouraged, they will go every where preaching the word, testifying to the Jew and also to the Greek, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ: saying, "Repent ye and believe the Gospel;" as did the great Preacher of righteousness, when he came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God."* Such was the conduct of those ministers of Christ, who first promulgated his gospel in the world; and those of his servants in the present day who are not cramped by human systems, aud whose hearts are not contracted— I had almost said hardened-by baneful prejudice, will also be able to address all their hearers in the following language of the apostle "Being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted to you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us."+ Infidels may be gratified to obtain the venerable Doctor Hawker as an auxiliary, in holding up to the smile of contempt the affection and zeal of evangelical ministers, whilst those ministers themselves deeply lament that they do not, like the apostle, travail in birth * Mark i. 14, 15. + 1 Thess. ii. 8. for their hearers, until Christ be formed in them; and like him, more gladly spend and be spent for them.† Whilst to be "without natural affection," is a scriptural mark of the reprobate, notwithstanding Dr. Hawker's ridicule, the faithful ministers of Christ will be desirous for their natural feelings to be so wrought upon by the circumstances of perishing sinners, that they may increasingly contemplate their awful state, as our Lord did that of the city of Jerusalem, when he wept and lamented over it. In the preceding quotation Doctor Hawker says, that 'to preach the Gospel and proclaim salvation in the audience of all sinners, is the province of all faithful ministers-that here are the limits of human powers-that no man can go farther that to persuade to the acceptation of Christ would be an invasion of the office of the Holy Spirit. To preach Christ is their province, to persuade to the acceptation of Christ is his.' Is not the Holy Spirit emphatically styled Gal. iv. 19. + 2 Cor. xii. 15. Rom. i. 26. the Comforter ?* And is it not his province to comfort the people of God and to guide them into all truth? And yet who more officiously invades his office in these particulars than Doctor Hawker? One might naturally ask, whether he has a special power delegated to him by the Almighty for these purposes? Or whether it is more within the province of human powers to administer consolation to the soul of the distressed, or to "lead the blind in a way that they know not," than it is to "persuade men," and to invite them to come to Christ, and accept the salvation which is so freely given to every one that asks, " without money and without price?"+ But will Doctor Hawker, the champion of sovereign acts of grace, maintain that in the ministry of the divine word, there is a province assigned to the ministers of the gospel distinct and separate from the agency and influences of the Holy Spirit? Are we to learn from Doctor Hawker, that the knowledge of the gospel is acquired, and its John xiv. 26. + Isa. lv. 1 ད་ |