which you have opposed to all the truths hitherto heard; that he fix those momentary feelings which you have so often experienced while listening to us, but which have never been productive of any consequences toward your salvation; that to us he give that zeal, that wisdom, that dignity, that fulness of his Spirit, those piercing lights, that divine vehemence which carries conviction to the heart, and which never speaks in vain; that he form in our hearts the relish of those truths which he putteth in our mouths; that he render us insensible to your praises, or to your censures, in order that we may be more useful to your wants; that the ardent desire to accomplish your salvation fully compensate the want of those talents denied to us by nature; and that we honour our ministry, not by seeking to please, but to save you.
And, surely, if the Israelites, before approaching Mount Sinai to hear the words of the law which the angel was to announce to them, were obliged, by the order of the Lord, to purify themselves, to wash their garments, and even to abstain from the holy duties of marriage, in order to prepare themselves for that grand operation, and to carry nothing to the foot of the mountain unworthy of the sanctity of the law they went to hear; is it not, says a holy father, much more reasonable, when you come to hear the words of a more holy law, that you bring there at least those precautions of faith, of piety, of external respect, which mark in you a sincere desire of conforming your manners to those maxims which we are to announce to you? What, my brethren! are the precepts of Jesus Christ, the words of eternal life, to be listened to with less precaution than the ordinances of a figurative law? Is it because they are no longer announced to you by an angel from heaven? But are not we equally as he, the instruments of God to promulgate his word, and, like him, do we not speak in his place? Did the angel upon the mountain bear more the mark of Divinity than we bear of him? He wrote the law upon tables of stone; the grace of our ministry engraves it on hearts. He promised milk and honey; and we announce real and everlasting riches. The thunders of heaven, which accompanied his menaces against the transgressors of the law, overthrew the people struck with terror at the foot of the mountain; but what were these threatenings and temporal maledictions, their cities demolished, their wives and children led into captivity, when compared to that eternal misery which we are instructed continually to foretel to the violaters of the law of God? Separate what we are from the ministry which we fill, and what is there here, either less awful or less respectable than upon Mount Sinai?
And, nevertheless, what preparations accompany you to an action so holy and so worthy of respect? A vain curiosity which you wish to gratify; an irksome leisure which you are well pleased to have amused; a religious spectacle, the pleasure of which you wish to share; a custom which you follow, because the world hath adopted it? What do I know? The pleasure, perhaps, of pleasing a master, by imitating his respect for the word of the Gospel,
