speaking unto loose discourses, and take occasion from thence to vent their own spleen and passions: men of intemperate spirits and virulent tongues, troublers rather than teachers of the people, whose tongues are indeed cloven tongues of fire, but not such as the apostles were endowed with from above, as serving to burn, rather than to enlighten, to kindle the flames of faction, strife, and contention, rather than those of piety and charity in the church of God. And, indeed, the direful and tragical effects, which the apostle in this chapter ascribes to the evil tongue, as that it is a fire, a world of iniquity, defiling the whole body, setting on fire the course of nature, full of deadly poison, &c. are such as are not so easily producible by the tongue of a private man, as of a teacher: "Whose discourse (saith Erasmus) spreads its poison by so much the more gene"rally and effectually, as the authority of the speaker is "greater, and his advantage also of speaking to many 5." 66 Having removed this seeming rub in the context, I return again to the text itself; wherein you may please to observe, 1. A serious dissuasive from the rash undertaking of the pastoral office; My brethren, be not many masters, or teachers. 2. A solid argument or reason to enforce it, drawn from the difficulty and the danger thereof; knowing that we shall receive, &c. peilov xgíua, a greater or severer judgment; i. e. God will require more of us that are teachers, than of others; we shall not escape or be acquitted in the divine judgment at so easy a rate as they. There is a place in the excellent Book of Wisdom 1, that is exactly parallel to my text, and gives great light to it, A sharp judgment shall be to them that are in high places. Where the oi Tepexovтes, those that are in high places in the state, answer to the didάoxaλo in my text; the teachers in the church: the xpiois ànóтoμos, the sharp, or, the precise and severe judgment, to the μsigov xpípa, the greater judgment in the text. I shall not at all insist on the first branch of the division, the dissuasive; as remembering that I am to preach not an ordination, but a visitation sermon; and to discourse not to candidates of holy orders, but to such as are already engaged in that sacred profession. I come therefore to f Φλογίζουσα τὸν τρόχον τῆς γενέσεως. 8 Cujus sermo hoc latius ac periculosius spargit suum venenum, quod auctoritate dicentis commendetur. h Wisd. vi. 5. · Κρίσις ἀπότομος ἐν τοῖς ὑπερέχουσι γίνεται. the reason or argument in the text, (as of very much concernment to all that are in the priestly office,) drawn from the great difficulty and danger thereof. To represent both which, as fully as my short allowance of time, and much shorter scantling of abilities will permit, shall be my present business. And first, as to the difficulty of the teacher's office, it is a very great difficulty fully to explain it. So many are the branches of his duty, that it were a tedious labour to reckon them up: Lord, what a task is it then to discharge them! I shall content myself therefore rudi Minerva, briefly and only in general to describe the chiefest requisites that are necessary to constitute a complete teacher in the church of God; and even by that little which I shall say, I doubt not but it will appear how very formidable, how tremendous an undertaking that function deserves to be accounted. The teacher's office then requires a very large knowledge, a great prudence, an exemplary holiness. And surely much is required of him, of whom these things are required. 1. Then, the first requisite to the office of a teacher is a very large knowledge. The very name of his office implies this; he is didácxaños, a teacher; and he that is such must be, as the apostle requires k, apt or fit to teach. And this he cannot be, unless he be well learned m and instructed himself, and furnished with a plentiful measure of divine knowledge. God himself, by the prophet Mala-chi, requires that the priest's lips should keep or preserve knowledge". Methinks the expression is more emphatical than is ordinarily conceived. It seems to imply that the priest should be a kind of repository or treasury of knowledge, richly furnished with knowledge himself, and able also abundantly to furnish and supply the wants of those that shall at any time have recourse to him for instruction. And therefore it presently follows: And they (that is, the people) shall seek the law at his mouth. Yea, the words import that the priest should be a treasury of knowledge not to be exhausted. He must have knowledge not only to spend, but to keep; not like those that live from hand to mouth, or whose stock of knowledge is quickly spent in a few sermons, but he must have something still reserved and laid up in store. Methinks our Saviour doth excellently expound this text, k 1 Tim. iii. 2. m Aidantos, doctus. 1 Aidanrinds, aptus sive idoneus ad docendum. though it be by a parable, Every scribe that is instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. Where the ypaμμaτeus, or scribe, is the same among the Jews, with the voμodidãoxaños, the teacher or expounder of the law. And it is the usual custom of our Saviour, as Grotius observes, " by names in use among the "Jews, to express such offices, as were to be in the Chris"tian church P." The ypaμpareùs then, or scribe, is the same with the didάoxaños, or teacher, afterwards in the church of Christ. This scribe is said by our Saviour to be instructed unto or for the kingdom of heaven, i.e. well prepared, provided, furnished for the preaching of the gospel. And, to shew that he is so, he is compared to the householder, who for the maintaining of his family, and the entertainment of his guests all the year long, is supposed to have an anothxn, or repository for provisions, (called here his Ono avgòs, his treasure,) and there to have laid in provisions xawà xal mahaia, both new and old, i. e. a great store and abundance, provisions of all sorts and kinds. As the spouse in the Canticles tells her beloved, At our gates are all manner of fruits, both new and old, which I have laid up for theer. This kind of hospitality (however by the iniquity of an ungrateful sacrilegious age he may be disabled from exercising the other) is the indispensable duty of the pastor or teacher. He must keep a table well furnished with these heavenly provisions for all comers. The knowledge of a teacher, we shall easily grant, extends itself into a very large compass, if we consider what that science is that he is to teach; theology," the art of "arts, and the science of sciences," as Nazianzen speaks; the queen and mistress of all other disciplines, to which they do all but ancillare, perform the office of handmaids, and yet in so doing they are of use and service to her. And upon that account, the divine, if he will be complete, must be avεдiστýμwv, must have compassed the yxuxλoraidsía, in the modern and more noble signification of the word; i. e. the whole circle of arts and sciences. And he that hath so done, illi des nominis hujus honorem, let • Matth. xiii. 52. P Nominibus apud Judæos receptis significare munia, quæ futura erant in ecclesia Christiana. 4 Μαθητευθεὶς εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν. him pass for a perfect divine, he only is adequate to so ample a title. But, God be thanked, this is only the heroic perfection, not the necessary qualification of a teacher. A man may very well content himself to sit in a much lower form, and yet sit safely; he may move in a far inferior orb, and yet give much light, and communicate a benign and useful influence to the church of God. Let us view therefore the necessary parts of theology itself, wherein the teacher cannot be ignorant or uninstructed, but to the very great detriment of his disciples, and his own greater shame and hazard. How ample a field have we still before us! Here is theology positive, polemical, moral, casuistical, and all most necessary for the teacher. As for positive divinity, or the knowledge of those necessary speculative truths that are revealed in scripture, a man can no more be a divine, that is unacquainted with this, than he can be a grammarian, that understands not the very first elements of grammar. And yet of so abstruse, so sublime a nature are even these truths, that for a man rightly to apprehend them, and clearly to explain them, especially to the capacity of his duller hearers, is no very easy matter. X Polemical or controversial divinity is theologia armata, or that part of divinity which instructs and furnisheth a man with necessary weapons to defend the truth against its enemies. Now the good shepherd's office is not only to feed his sheep, but to secure them from the wolves; or else his care in feeding them serves only to make them the fatter and richer prey. And therefore St. Pault requires, that the teacher should be able, " both by sound doctrine to exhort his hearers, as also to convince or refute gainsayers or opposers. Hæc non sunt roŨ TUXÓVTOS, (as Grotius well glosseth on the text,) every man cannot do this, and yet every teacher must. The times wherein we live do much heighten the necessity of this study: for we may enforce this duty on all teachers, by the same melancholy argument that St. Paul doth in the forementioned text. The teacher, saith he, must be able to convince gainsayers: why so? He gives the reason, There are many unruly and vain teachers and deceivers, &c. whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought noty. These unruly and vain teachers, these deceivers, were never certainly in a greater number t Titus i. 9. * Καὶ παρακαλεῖν ἐν τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ τῇ ὑγιαινούσῃ. * Καὶ τοὺς ἀντιλέγοντας ἐλέγχειν. than now they are. These men's mouths must be stopped, there is a necessity for it; for otherwise they will subvert whole houses, yea and pervert whole parishes. Not that we have any hopes in this age to stop the mouths of our opposers, so as to make them cease speaking, (for bawl they will to eternity; they are, as the apostle somewhere speaks, unreasonable men, that understand not, admit not of any topics; no argumentation, though never so convincing, will make them give back ;) but so at least, as that they shall be able to speak little to the purpose, so as to satisfy sober, humble, docible persons, who have not passionately espoused an error, or, to speak in the apostle's phrase, that are not given up to strong delusions, to believe lies, that they may be damned. In a word, our fate in these days is much like that of the rebuilders of Jerusalem after the captivity, that were necessitated every one with one of his hands to work in the building, with the other to hold a weapona. With one hand we must build up our people in the doctrine of piety, with the other we must resist heretical opposers, who otherwise will demolish as fast as we build. And to quicken us to this part of our study, methinks no consideration can be more forcible than this; to observe, where ministers are defective therein, with what triumph and ostentation deceivers carry souls captive, to the disgrace not only of the persons, but also of the function of the teachers, yea and of truth itself, which is wounded thus through their sides, and bleeds through their weakness and folly. But let us leave this thorny field of controversial, and step a little into the other more fruitful, of moral or practical divinity. Of this one speaks most truly: "The know"ledge of controversies is made necessary by heretics, the "study of piety by God himself b." Theology is doubtless a practical science, nothing in it but what aims at this end. And therefore he that neglects this practical part of it understands not the very design of his own profession. Without this a man deserves no more to be accounted a divine, than he a physician that understands little or nothing of therapeutics. It is true, there are some (otherwise not unlearned men) that despise this part of theology, as a vulgar, trivial, easy, obvious thing. But sure they very much disparage their own judgment, who let the * Ανθρωποι ἄτοποι. a Nehem. iv. 17. b Controversiarum scientiam necessariam fecerunt hæretici, studium pietatis Deus ipse mandavit. |
