We desire to become public, not that we
may profit many, but because we have not learned how to be private. We
seek for divers employments, not that we may avoid idleness, but that we
may come into people's knowledge. We despise a small number of hearers,
and such as are poor, simple, and rustical, and let fly our endeavours at
more eminent chairs, though not in apparent pursuit; all which is the
plain argument of a corrupt intention. O ye that wait upon religion, O
ministers of God, this is to sell most transcendent wares at a very low
rate--nay, this is to cast them, and yourselves too, into the fire.'
There are some outstanding temptations to insincerity in some ministers
that must be pointed out here. (1) Ministers with a warm rhetorical
temperament are beset continually with the temptation to pile up false
fire on the altar; to dilate, that is, both in their prayers and in their
sermons, upon certain topics in a style that is full of insincerity.
Ministers who have no real hold of divine things in themselves will yet
fill their pulpit hour with the most florid and affecting pictures of
sacred and even of evangelical things.
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