SECTION II. 591 and powers, to enable you to go through all the difficulties and labours of your sacred office. 4. Hereby, when you come among men in your sacred mi- nistrations, you will appear, and speak, and act like a man come fromGod; like Moses with a lustre upon his face, when he had conversed with God ; like a minister of the court of heaven em- ployed in a divine office ; like a messenger of grace who bath just been with God, and received instructions from him ; and the world will take cognizance of you, as they did of the apostles, that they were men who had been with Jesus ; Acts iv. 13. 5. This will better furnishyou for serious converse with the souls and consciences of men, by giving you experimental ac- quaintance with the things of religion, as they are transacted in the heart. You will learn more of the springs of sin and holi- ness, the workings of nature and grace, the deceitfulness of sin, the subtilty of temptation, and the holy skill of counterworking the snares of sin, and the devices of Satan, and all their designs to ruin the souls of men. You will speak with more divine com- passion to wretched and perishing mortals ; with more life and power to stupid sinners ; with more sweetness and comfort to awakened consciences, andwith more awful language and influ- ence to backsliding christians. You will hereby learn to preach more powerfully in all respects for the salvation of men, and talk more feelingly on every sacred subject, when the power and sense and life of godliness are kept up in your own spirit. Then on some special occasions it may not be improper to borrow the Ian gunge of David the prophet, and of St. Paul and St. John, two great apostles, though it may be best in public to speak in the plural number, We have believed, therefore we havespoken; what we have heard and learned from Christ, we have declared unto you ; what we have seen and felt, we are bold to speak ; attend and we will tell you what God has donefor our souls. You may then at proper seasons convince, direct and comfort others by the same words of light and power,_ of precept and promise, of joy and hope, which have convinced, directed and comforted you -: a word coming from the heart will sooner reach the heart. SECT. 11. -Of a Minister's private Studies. The second general head of exhortation relates to your own private studies: take heed to these, that you may better fulfil your ministry. .Give yourself (said). St. Paul to Timothy) to reading, to meditation, that your profiting may appear to all; 1 Tim. iv. 13, 15. These private studies are of various kinds, whether you consider them in general, as necessary to furnish the mind with knowledge for the office of the ministry ; or in particular, as necessary to prepare discourses for the pulpit. 1st, Those general studies may be just mentioned in this
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