so the ground and call of a person to the ministry is no other than God's word, such as this, " Occupy till I come; every one, wherein he is called, let him walk with God." (3.) Such as God calls to preach now, are not called to preach immediately. Much less doth the call of God to preach actually constitute them ministers; for then were they ministers before they were ordained or elected. But he is called to preach in such a manner, method, and order, that is, by the ordination and election of the Church; God will have his power to be conveyed to him in such a channel. He will have him indeed preach, but he will first have his gift and call tried; and when the servants of Christ have found the Lord to have called him, they are authoritatively in the name of Christ to enjoin him to the exercise of his gift, and to publish the same to the people. (4.) Ministers ordinarily have great aversion to the work of the ministry, it being a difficult work, and a work above the strength of flesh and blood, and exposing to the hatred of all men. And such who find greatest insufficiency in themselves, and are most sensible of their wants, are truly called of God; as Jeremiah, who cried he was a child. (5.) Therefore doth the Lord with the very office, or short time thereafter, bestow qualities and endowments fitting them for the service: as it is said of Saul, that the Lord did "give him a new heart" when he made him a king; the Lord many times in the very time of ordination, and thereafter, gives greater measure of grace and gifts to his servant. I cannot say but I found a sensible increase of knowledge, gifts, and graces, from the very time of my setting out, although in the very act of ordination I did not find these gifts sensibly in me, or did not find such a change. There is something of this therefore in that expression, "The gift that was given thee by laying on of the hands of the presbytery." Some never find the furniture till they be engaged in the work; increase of gifts and graces therefore is a sign of God's call to the ministry, and seal thereof.

The Lord calls to and employs men in the work of the ministry, whom he never calls effectually to be saints. He makes many in some measure meet for the ministry, and useful to the Church,

who were never made meet for the kingdom of heaven, else Christ would never have called Judas to be an apostle; although such usually discharge their office neither so successfully, painfully, or comfortably, and, I am surě, never acceptably. 2. Though hypocrites and reprobates, whom the Lord Jesus doth make use of in the Church, may be true and lawful ministers, yet cannot it be instanced that the Lord Jesus in Old or New Testament did ever commission a scandalous, insufficient, or unqualified person, or one known to be a hypocrite, to serve him. 3. I many times found, that when I thought I was most enlarged, and most sensibly assisted, either in preaching, or conference, or prayer, I have done least good, there have not been such fruits; and, on the contrary, when I found greatest deadness and straitness in my spirit in ministerial exercises, I found I have done most good: to show we should not trust in ourselves, but in the Lord, in whom alone is the blessing, and of whom alone is the efficacy of ordinances; and to encourage ministers under indispositions, and "out of season," to be always doing; for they may do most good when they think themselves least fitted for any such thing. 4. Sometimes, in the distempers of spirit, I have said, I will retire and mend my nets, and for some time "hear what the Lord will say to me," and not open my mouth to speak to others. I have then found it never worse with me, and my corruptions and my confusions to grow stronger upon me; so that I have been forced to alter my resolutions, and appear in public; and by studying of preachings, and by preaching of them, I have sensibly found a cure of my spiritual distempers. Nor, next to prayer, do I find anything more quickening than studying a sermon, and endeavouring after a preaching frame, and to hear what God would have me to say. 5. Before I engaged with the office of the ministry, I was engaged in a multiplicity of affairs, entangled and burdened with great debts on my father's account, and several intricacies, which made me for some time delay my entering into the ministry. But, when I delayed, matters grew worse; and, since I resolved, the Lord hath been pleased to deliver me out of all my intricacies, so as I may, without being burdensome to any, or great distraction, attend upon

up.

my work, which is a very great encouragement to me. 6. I many times am employed in business for others, against my will truly; but ordinarily nothing that I meddle in of others' concernments, if it be a civil business, doth prosper; and yet I prosper in all my own affairs, except when I am excessively and unseasonably taken 7. As discharging of my duty faithfully is my generation's work; so I look upon my great neglect and omissions of, and slightness in, this work of the ministry, to be, as it were, my only evil, the foundation of any breaches in my soul. Here, when I reform, must I begin. 8. I seldom preach as I ought, or to my own contentment, but after sermons see need of fleeing unto the blood of sprinkling for pardon, and before this altar to mourn, grieve, and be humbled, and seek to preach better and more holily, and to be under a greater sense of what I preach, and whose words I preach, and of those to whom I speak. 9. I find multiplicity of points, though counted material preaching and quick speaking, not so refreshful to my soul, or profiting to others, as a few points well pressed and insisted upon, and gravely and slowly delivered. And therefore of late I use but slow delivery, and a few points. 10. I can speak with better utterance in prayer than in preaching. 11. I usually, especially when in a good frame, use many similitudes. 12. God doth not call all to the ministry in a like manner: as some, and ordinarily most, are very unwilling to undertake the charge, and therefore must be "thrust out," as the word is; so others do express more willingness, readiness, and inclination to it. Hence some are said to "desire the office of a bishop;" and Isaiah saith, "Send me," and offers himself to go; whereas Moses and Jeremiah are hardly brought over. 13. Ordinarily, before a minister's closing with the work of the ministry, there is an exercising of the person with great and various tentations, and regeneration, (as one calls it,) that the person, as it were, passes under a new work of conversion, of conviction of sin, and pardon and justification intimated unto his conscience, without which a gracious soul will be very loath to engage in such a work. So Isaiah was really humbled under a sense of guilt, and made to cry out, until by a comfortable voice he be assured that his iniquity is

pardoned and himself justified. 14. There is not only need of a gift and endowment to preach, but great need of the actual breathing of the Spirit to stir up and excite the gift that is in them; without which, though the Lord has been pleased to give some small measure of talents, yet can they not preach more than a child. 15. To draw souls to, and build them up in Christ Jesus, is and ought to be the great end and scope of all faithful ministers. Christ is the Alpha and Omega of preaching, he is the centre where all the lines ought to meet; and, where Christ is not the sense and life of preaching, we lose the text. 16. No secret or mystery is more needful, and a minister should be versed in or acquainted with, than the depth of the covenant of grace, Christ and faith, the promises and the law.

CHAPTER X.

Of my Marriage, and the Lord's Providences towards me during the time of my Marriage, which was in the year 1672, and for some time thereafter.

At that time the Church of Christ had great rest and liberty from persecution through variance amongst the statesmen, and preachers were frequent, yea, the curates were beginning to leave their pulpits. I was as busy as I could amongst others, and in August had gone North, and despatched some business there; the most was to take course with some debts. I returned South, but a violent persecution had broken out, and then there began to be fining, imprisoning, taking and summoning of persons, disturbing of conventicles with soldiers. But yet the Gospel prevailed more and more, and we were like the "Israelites in Egypt, the more we were afflicted, the more we grew and multiplied." Some hot-heads were for taking the sword, and redeeming of themselves from the hands of oppressors; at least I had ground to fear it but I opposed rising in arms all I could, and preached against it, and exhorted them to patience and courageous using of the sword of the Spirit; and I

did not see they had any call to the sword, that their "strength was to sit still." And if they did stir and take the sword, they would therewith perish; but if they patiently suffered and endured, God would himself either incline to pity, or some other way support and deliver them. I had influence with the people, being popular; and whilst I was at liberty, I did what I could to keep the people peaceable. The truth is, there were great provocations given, so that we concluded it was the design of some rulers to stir us up that we might fall. Ministers still preached and laboured amongst the people, conventicles increased, many were brought in; the work of God in the midst of persecution did always prosper, until we destroyed ourselves, first by needless divisions and difference in opinion happening by reason of the Indulgence, and thereafter by rash and unwarrantable taking up of arms most unseasonably in the year 1679; when the dissenting party, a good number of them meeting at a conventicle to worship God, being assaulted by armed men, and defending of themselves, did kill about thirty men of their enemies. With this success both engaged and heartened, great numbers gathered together, but not in the Lord's strength; and there, by their unseasonable divisions, and folly of some, they were made a prey to their enemies, as is fully known. The persecution became so hot in the latter end of the year 1674, and beginning of 1675, and always after that, that sometimes I was in hazard to be taken preaching. It was then I was intercommuned, with some other ministers, gentlemen, and women, yea, some persons of quality; but the Lord suffered not this ball, though it hit me, to do me harm. The Gospel still spread, and the people of all sorts ventured on converse with intercommuned persons. O let "my soul bless the Lord, and not be forgetful of his benefits; let me not conceal his loving-kindnesses, but show them to the sons of men." Although the Lord afflicted me, and kept the cross still upon my back, as I said; yet did he likewise remember mercy, his mercies were "renewed every morning" to me. And, 1st, the Lord showed his mercy to me, in giving me a comfortable and suitable yoke-fellow, who did me good and not evil all the days of