“Do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry, 2 Timothy 4:5.

PART 1. In my former discourses on St. Paul’s charge to Timothy, we considered the necessity of true zeal in all the public duties of the ministry, and in our intercourse with the people of the world, and the necessity of watchfulness and enduring afflictions. We come now to enlarge on the two remaining particulars of the charge, “Do the work of an evangelist, “make full proof of thy ministry.” 2. The apostle’s solemn and pointed manner of writing to Timothy, not only for his own sake, but for the benefit of the church in all ages, will appear the more necessary and indispensable, if we recollect that the corruption of the ministry has been alway the grand source of the corruption of a people, of the general depravation of their manners, and of the extinction of all the faith. 3. Those who are acquainted with the religious history of Christendom, well know, that in proportion as the ministers of a church are holy, holiness will reign among the people. The purity of Christianity, wherever it has flourished, never has begun to decay but with the fall of the ministry; and disorder has generally begun at the house of God. Thus it is in a considerable measure we who decide, if I may so speak, on the salvation or damnation of the people: upon us, in some sense, depend the increase or diminution of the reign of Jesus Christ upon earth, the consummation or destruction of his work, the utility or inutility of his blood and mission, the glory or reproach of his religion, and all the designs of God concerning the salvation of man. 4. From the moment we enter on the ministry of the gospel, we become either holy pillars to support the feeble, or stones of offense against which the strong themselves may break in pieces: we become either brazen serpents raised on high, to heal through grace the plagues of the multitude, or golden calves placed in the camp of the Lord, to be an occasion to them of apostasy, wickedness, and idolatry. We are so situated, that we can neither stand nor fall alone: the destiny of those souls over whom we are set is in a considerable degree awfully attached to ours! 5. Now, what a frightful situation is this for an unfaithful pastor! He may continually say to himself, “I am employed in the church to destroy and not to build up: I am become the tempter and murderer of those souls of whom I ought to have been instrumentally the savior and the father. I am charged with a dispensation of the gospel, and yet only make every thing which should facilitate the salvation of souls turn out to their ruin; and I, in effect, employ against religion all that which religion has intrusted me with for its maintenance and support.” Behold here, without exceeding the truth, the character of a bad minister. Certainly, my brethren, a bad minister is the greatest plague which the wrath of God can suffer to spring up among any people. 6. But the more the situation of an unfaithful pastor is to be deplored, the more full of consolation is the character of a true minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. He continues on earth the mission and ministry of his adorable Master. He co-operates with him in the consummation of the happiness of the saints, in the edification of his mystic body, and in the accomplishment of all his designs of mercy toward man. He is instrumentally here below, as Christ himself, a savior of his people, a reconciler of heaven and earth: and when he shall one day appear before the throne of the great Judge of quick and dead, with all his own, he will be able to say to him with confidence, “Behold me, and the children thou hast given me. Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost. I render them back to thee, because thou didst deliver them to me, that they might be sanctified through thy truth, and might sing with all thy redeemed the eternal praises of thy grace.” 7. O what a heavenly calling, my brethren, is ours! But our duties are as great and as heavenly as our vocation. Let us, then, together animate each other, both by the eminence and importance of our ministry, and by the glorious and comfortable fruits which are the consequences of its faithful administration! 8. Can we now be surprised at the repetition, in effect, which we find in the apostle’s charge; or rather the different points of view in which he holds forth the duties of the gospel ministry? 1st. “Preach the word.” 2dly . “Be instant in season, out of season: reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine.” 3dly. “Watch in all things.” 4thly. “Endure affliction.” 5thly . “Do the work of an evangelist.” 6thly. “Make full proof of thy ministry.”

The first four of these we have enlarged upon. We now come to the fifth, — “Do the work of an evangelist.”

The word “evangelist,” in its most comprehensive sense, implies a preacher of glad tidings, or, in other words, a preacher of the gospel, with all his concomitant duties. In the apostolic age, it more particularly signified an extraordinary minister, appointed to assist the apostles in preaching and publishing the gospel — in watering what the apostles planted: and in this sense also it contained a very extensive meaning. But, at present, it is generally applied to those inspired writers who were employed by the Spirit of God to record the life and actions of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must here, however, consider the word in its most enlarged sense; for Timothy was, without doubt, in every point of view, a minister of the gospel. 1. IN CONSIDERING THIS DIVISION OF OUR SUBJECT, WE SHALL, FIRST, TAKE A REVIEW OF THE NUMEROUS ADVANTAGES OF A ZEALOUS GOSPEL MINISTRY. 1. A faithful minister, who consecrates himself to every good word and work, who enters into the minute examination of all the miseries and wants of his brethren, and labors to find a remedy for them all — represent, if you can, all the works of salvation and mercy among men, of which such a minister will be the instrument, through the blood of the covenant and the grace of the Spirit! He heals those hearts which are sick and alienated from God: he pierces the darkness with which shame so often covers the indigent, and in affording them, by the means at least of his benevolent friends, a secret succor, spares them even the confusion of being relieved: useful institutions for the instruction or relief of the poor and the stranger, which come within his circle, find in his care, or in his zeal, resources which establish them, or which preserve them from falling, and give them a new solidity. O what public disorders does he prevent; what occasions of salvation does he improve! He stirs up the pious, and makes them useful in the conversion or sanctification of others; he presides at every holy enterprise; he is, as it were, the soul of piety in his circuit; even the greater part of those sinners who attend his ministry, but still live in sin or vanity, feel a hope that some day they shall be converted by his means. He animates all; he finds remedies for all. There is no public good within his circle, and consistent with his calling, to which he does not sacrifice himself; no good undertaking which he prevents; no sinner who does not appear worthy of his zeal. In short, there is nothing which can quench or stop his divine ardor, or the holy fervor of his love; “and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof,” Psalm 19:6. 2. We read, 2 Kings 13:21, that the corpse of a man being thrown near the dead body of Elisha, it instantly revived; those eyes which death had closed, open again; his tongue is unloosed; and we see him come from the abode of death, and again enjoy life and light. Alas, my brethren, carcasses the most putrefied, souls in which spiritual death and the corruption of sin have reigned abundantly longer, can hardly approach a holy minister, an ambassador of God, dead to himself, to the world and all its hopes, but they instantly, through grace, feel a virtue go from him, a breath of life which begins to reanimate them, to inspire into them good desires, and to rouse them from their lethargy; and which, in those who are faithful to these beginnings, will produce the fruits of grace and salvation. 3. And then his example! His piety, his disinterestedness, his mortified spirit, his modesty, his ministerial gravity, have such a secret, constant, powerful in influence, that he may be truly said to be sent for the salvation of many. It is true, that neither the example nor labors of the holiest ministers can have the least influence in the regeneration or salvation of souls without the unction of the Holy Spirit; but the person, the words, the actions of a devoted ambassador of Christ, are all anointed, and breathe forth the savor of Jesus’ name. What a happiness must it be to a people when God raises among them holy ministers, whose deep piety and crucified lives serve, so to speak, as spectacles to angels and men They are a continual gospel before their eyes! “Do,” therefore, “the work of an evangelist.” 2. FROM HENCE APPEARS THE NECESSITY OF EMINENT ZEAL; IN ORDER TO INFLAME WITH DIVINE LOVE THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE, AND TO BEAR DOWN ALL THE OBSTACLES WHICH OPPOSE THE SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL. 1. Frozen discourses will never set on fire the souls of the hearers. Indeed, how can those ministers even appear to the people as animated with that divine fire which carries the sparks of grace to the coldest and most insensible hearts, who themselves are all ice in the practice of every duty; and who feel not themselves all alive for the salvation of either their brethren or themselves? If we fill up our public duties with an air of custom, of weariness, of reluctance, (which is inseparable from a life of lukewarmness,) and of unfaithfulness in the pastoral office, we shall leave the same dispositions in those who hear us. Our labors will rouse neither our faith nor piety, and will leave the same spiritual death on the minds of our audience. Alas! my brethren, even in a holy and fervent minister, it calls for prodigies of zeal, application, patience, and labor to bear down all the obstacles which the world, the devil, and the present corruption of manners, oppose to the success of his ministry. What then can the cowardly, idle minister promise himself from his baseness and idleness?

What fruit can he expect from a field to which he never puts but a feeble, languishing hand; and which seems to be intrusted to him, to be the sport of his cruel neglect, rather than the object of his care? 2. “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth,” Revelation 3:16, says Christ. If a private professor, who lives in the spirit of lukewarmness, is unfit for the kingdom of heaven, and is rejected out of the mouth of Christ, as a lukewarm and disgusting drink which raises the stomach; what is a minister good for, who does the particular work of God negligently? What an object of disgust for a God who is jealous of his gifts! What an afflicting spectacle to that part of the church of God which beholds it — to see a place in that ministry which is designed for zeal, for labor, and for the salvation of souls, filled by a lukewarm, idle minister, instead of a faithful laborer; instead of one who would have enlarged the kingdom of Jesus Christ who would have snatched from their miseries a glorious number of sinners, who would have edified and built up believers, and been the glory of Christ. 2 Corinthians 8:23. 3. Could the gospel have been spread through so large a part of the world, and the foolishness of the cross have triumphed over numerous and great nations, if those apostolic men who have preceded us had regarded the oppositions which the people, yea, which the whole pagan world, made to the progress of the gospel? Where should we have been, if difficulties insurmountable by human prudence had abated their zeal or suspended their labors; or if, in the persuasion of finding us as we were, savage and rebellious, they had unhappily left us to the darkness of our primitive ignorance? Do you fear inconveniences? But what is there to fear for a pastor who fills up his ministry with edification and fidelity? “What?” it may be answered, “Contempt, reproaches, and contradictions.” But these are his glory, and form part of the present consoling reward of his zeal. “What?” it may be added, “Evil treatment and insults of various kinds.” But these are the most honorable seals of his apostleship. I grant, however, 3dly. 1. That all this zeal should be continually guarded; and that the universal maxim, which binds every private member of the church of Christ, should be particularly written on the hearts of his ministers — “Let your moderation be known unto all men,” Philippians 4:5. There is a modesty which should run through the whole character of a minister of Christ, and should manifest itself in all his words and actions; yea, even upon those occasions when he most unbends his mind. 2. Nothing is of more importance than the moderation and modesty of ministers who are consecrated to the Lord. The same decency, the same circumspection, the same majesty, which accompanies them in their public duties, should follow them everywhere; and as they are everywhere to consider themselves as the ambassadors of Christ, they ought everywhere to support the dignity of this character, in the wisdom of their words, in the chaste decency of their dress, and in the seriousness of all their actions. I have already, in a former discourse, spoken on this subject; but I would wish to enlarge a little farther, on account of its importance. 3. If the sacred writings, by which we shall be judged, make every idle word a transgression; if the gospel exacts from every private Christian such circumspection, reserve, and modesty in conversation — what does it not require from the immediate ministers of Jesus Christ! The lips of ministers are, next to the word of God, the depositaries of divine knowledge, which they are incessantly to administer to the people; and when the Spirit of God calls them to the ministry, he says to them in some sense, as formerly to the prophet, “I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people,” Isaiah 51:16.

That is to say, to the end that you may make — as a new heaven and a new earth, or at least as a part of it, — the people intrusted to your care; that you may accustom them to regard me as the only God who deserves their affections and homage; that they may learn to regard themselves as a holy people, consecrated to me alone; that the heaven and earth which they behold are the works of my liberal hand, which, with all things they contain, deserve not their affections; and that I have prepared for them a heaven infinitely more glorious and eternal, where they shall enjoy, with my redeemed, pleasures for evermore. What follows from hence but that our tongue is no more our own; that it is consecrated to the Word of God, and the edification of the people; that witticisms and vain discourses are unlawful amusements in the mouths of believers; but that they are profanations in ours! 4. Far be it from me to speak against the relaxations of innocent society: but that which I would say, my brethren, is this — that our conversation should be always marked with a peculiar character of piety, gravity, and modesty; that, in conversing, we should with a holy joy endeavor to edify each other; and all around us, with words of love and truth; and that we should banish from our discourse all profane and immoderate joy, and all the low and all the genteel pleasantries of the world. 5. I would just add, that all our relaxations, even when we most unbend our minds, should have in them a peculiarity of decency, reserve, and seriousness. I know that both the soul and body need relaxation but those moments which we give to nature are neither useful nor permitted, but as they dispose us for our duties, and prepare us for farther toil. Repose is appointed for us, to the end that we may gain new strength to continue our course; and therefore every kind of relaxation which tends to estrange us from it, to discourage us, or to inspire us with a distaste of our toil and public labors, is to us improper, yea, criminal. 6. But as for you, my brethren, permit me to finish this head of my discourse with those words of the apostle, “Ye have not so learned Christ,” Ephesians 4:20. No, brethren: it is not thus that you dishonor your ministry: it is not thus that you turn into a stumblingblock the sacred character which you have received from Jesus Christ for their salvation.

Continue, then, my brethren, to conduct yourselves before your people in a manner worthy the holiness and gravity of your vocation. We live in times when infidelity moves with gigantic strides; when the licentiousness of the public manners leaves us nothing to avoid the malignity of suspicion, and the contempt of the world, but this respectable gravity, modesty, and piety, supported throughout the minutest particulars of our conduct and manners.

Irreligion is come to a point; and the world is charmed to find so many ministers like themselves. It seems to be a victory and gain to them, when they can persuade themselves, or when they can perceive, that any ministers tread under foot the duties of their station. They see not that the unfaithfulness and misconduct of ministers consecrated to the service of religion is the greatest judgment God can inflict upon a people, except the entire removal of the candlestick of the gospel. Revelation 2:5. Let none of us then, my brethren, increase the blindness of the world, by confirming it in its errors through our example. O! let none of us become stones of stumbling, and the most grievous plagues to those to whom we should be guides in the way of salvation! 7. In a word, my brethren, feed the flock which is in trusted to your care, with the tenderness of fathers, with the vigilance of guides, and with all the modesty, simplicity, and holiness, which becomes ministers of Jesus Christ. Let your example, under the grace of God, give you assurance of the fruit and success of your ministry: appear not occupied or touched with any thing but their salvation: forget, as it were, your own temporal interests; or never put them in the balance with the interest of their souls. Consider yourselves as theirs. Your calling, your mission, your functions, are only for them: give yourselves then wholly to them, as if you were created only for their benefit. “Do the work of an evangelist.”

PART I now proceed to the last head of my subject “Make full proof of your ministry.” So fulfill the whole, that none may charge you with the neglect of your duty. Let the world see that you make it your own and only work to win souls. 1. How strong and comprehensive is this commandment! Should we not therefore frequently examine ourselves concerning the purity of our zeal and of our motives in respect to all the parts of our ministerial office — whether “we make full proof of our ministry” in the sight of God as well as man?

When we enter on any employment, should we not first inquire, Will God be glorified by this undertaking? Is it his work which I am entering upon?

Is that which I purpose to myself; really my duty? Does divine love influence me to comfort the afflicted, to strengthen the weak, and to bring sinners to Christ? Does divine zeal urge me to cultivate in secret the fruits of my public labors; to support the rising conversation by spiritual discourse; to heal domestic dissensions by the counsels of meekness and wisdom; to reconcile fathers to their children; to restore to wives the affections of their husbands; and to carry the peace of Jesus Christ into all the families I visit?

Does the spirit of ministerial vigilance and holy solicitude lead me into every work of mercy and piety? Do I “make full proof of my ministry?” 2. Do I visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions? James 1:27.

Do I prefer “the house of mourning to the house of feasting?” Ecclesiastes 7:2. Can a father see his children on the point of being taken from him, without running to their succor, and leaving with them at least some farewell marks of consolation and tenderness? And is he a shepherd, or a savage, who sees his infirm, perhaps dying sheep, and condescends not to offer them at least his spiritual assistance? No, my brethren; a pastor who neglects the sick of his flock must have a heart as hard as a stone, or as light as vanity. “I was sick,” will Christ say, “and ye visited me not,” Matthew 25:43.

And if a poor sinner on the verge of eternity, though not a member of our society implore my assistance at that awful period; shall I refuse him my hand? How little must I know of, or at least how little regard, the value of a soul, if I do not fly to his rescue? for who knows but he may be called, even by my instrumentality, at the last hour of the day? And what shall I answer before the tremendous Judge at his awful bar, when all the intricate threads of human events are fully unraveled, if I find that that immortal soul, now lost for ever would have been saved if I had been faithful? Will not his blood, will not his soul, be required at my hands? God enable us to “make full proof of our ministry!” But again, 3. Do I faithfully visit the poor? If such as neglect to feed the poor with material bread, shall on the great day be placed on the left hand of the Judge, how can those escape condemnation whose office is to dispense to them spiritual bread, if they neglect so sacred a charge? I well know that the generality of our traveling preachers are unable, out of their little pittance, to afford much to the poor, for the supply of those temporal remedies or comforts which their miseries demand; and therefore this is not what the gospel particularly requires of them; nor do the poor in general, who know them, expect it from them: though I have no doubt but you, my brethren, give according to your ability, yea, and many of you, as the apostle says, beyond it; softening at least by your cares, your sensibility, your advice, and your prayers, the pains and distresses of your poorer brethren, and suffering and sympathizing with those whom you cannot temporally relieve. We are, you know, ministers of things future; and the riches which God showers upon the people by our means, are the riches of grace and eternal glory.

Let us then be, if possible, more ready to succor, with our prayers and advice, those among our people whose poverty incapacitates them from recompensing our labors, than those who might reward them by temporal kindnesses, and at the same time least need our counsels. Let us not divide our cares among our people according to the means they possess to compensate for them but according to the need they have of the assistance of our ministry. Let the name of the poor be honorable in our eyes. Let us not have the hardness of heart to add to the distresses of their situation that of our neglect and indifference; but let us make ample amends for our want of power to supply their bodily necessities, by our zeal and assiduity in the things which relate to their souls: let us make them conscious that their poverty is a title which only endears them the more to us, as making them more dependent upon us, and ourselves in consequence more responsible for them. Let us consider them as the most privileged part of our flock; as, in their outward condition, most resembling Christ when he abode upon earth in the flesh. Let us consider ourselves happy in a constant interest in their prayers. “The Lord heareth the poor,” Psalm 69:33 says the psalmist. When they are poor in spirit, also, then it is the voice of that dove which is always heard and answered, that groans within them. Let us suffer with them in compassionating their pain: let us remember that our mission, like that of our adorable Redeemer, is peculiarly to the poor. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” says Christ by Isaiah, “because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; and “this day,” says he in the synagogue, “is this scripture fulfilled in your ears,” Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18,21. “Go,” says our Lord to the disciples of John the Baptist, “and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them,” Matthew 11:4,5.

As if he had said to them, Your master is so perfectly acquainted with the nature of the Messiah’s kingdom, and the entire crucifixion to the pomps and vanities of the world which its members must necessarily experience, that one of the strongest proofs to him that I am Christ, will be this — that “the poor have the gospel preached unto them.” Let us then, my brethren, be thankful that we labor among a people who are in general poor; for it is among such that the grace of the Spirit of God is most abundantly shed abroad. We receive, it is true, but little from their indigence; but the harvest is always rich for Jesus Christ! Well did the primitive bishop, on the demand of the Roman emperor, that he should deliver up all the treasures of his church, bring to him the poor indigent members of his flock, who, though destitute of worldly comforts, were rich in faith! So it has been, is, and probably will be, till the great millennial year rushes in upon the world.

Let us then take delight in daily visiting the poor: let none of us manifest so little faith and crucifixion to the world as to regard those ministers most happy who labor among the rich. They may be better paid; but will their usefulness be greater? They may find those who are most ready, because most able to supply their temporal wants; but will they find those who are most ready to profit by their instructions? The thorns and anxiety accompanying riches, generally choke and stifle the word of God. Matthew 13:22. The field may be more adorned, but the soil in general is barren and ungrateful. While, on the contrary, a minister who faithfully labors among a poor people, possessing simple and teachable spirits, penetrated with a love of the great obvious and essential truths of the gospel, and submissive in their indigence to the divine hand which corrects them such a one, I say, has the consolation of daily seeing his ministry abundant in fruits for heaven. Let us then consider it as one of our highest duties to visit the poor: let us not account our labors in any wise recompensed, but when they produce the fruits of life and salvation; and let us not estimate concerning our duties or station, except by the gains we can make thereby for Jesus Christ our Lord. 4. When all these holy duties, privileges and vocations are duly estimated, may not the minister of the gospel profitably enter into some such soliloquy as the following? “I can neither through my unfaithfulness damn, nor through grace save, myself alone. From the time that I enter the holy ministry, I must necessarily be either a plague sent from God, or permitted in his wise providence for the punishment of mankind, or a gift from heaven for their blessing and felicity. I must resemble either that dragon in the Revelation, who, in falling, drew with him the third part of the stars of heaven, or that great antitype of the brazen serpent, Jesus Christ, who being lifted up draws all who believe to himself, and heals all the diseases and infirmities of the people. I have only this alternative. “What a most powerful motive is this for fidelity in my office; for watchfulness over my conduct; for zeal in my ministry; for filial fear in my situation; for a continual renewal in the spirit of my vocation for glowing hope, or confusion, in the expectation of the coming of the great Bishop of souls, who will then demand from me an account of the use or neglect of my talents, and who will present to me those souls which he had intrusted to my care, either as my condemnation, if they have perished through my neglect, or as my glory and crown if they have under his grace found life and salvation by the means of my ministry!” 5 . “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue. and if there be any praise, think on these things,” Philippians 4:8. “Whatsoever things are true,” — hold in its purity that most sacred depository of faith and truth, the holy word of God. Draw from the pure sources, from the Scriptures, all the principles of holiness and morality, by which you should regulate your own conduct, and that of your flocks.

Never depart from those rules of truth, without which all that bears the name of piety is nothing but hypocrisy, and a scandal to others. “Whatsoever things are honest,” — show a due reservedness in your manners and conversations. Let nothing which is in the least degree indecent, or contrary to the sanctity of your ministry, ever escape you. Bear always on your countenance a holy modesty, and that ministerial gravity, which make religion respectable even to those who love it not: avoid all suspicious familiarities; and remember, that your willfully saying or doing any thing which may cause suspicion, is a crime in a minister, which innocence itself cannot justify. “Whatsoever things are just,” — let the most delicate and in violable equity be manifested in all your conduct, disinterestedness in all the exercises of your ministry, prudence and love in your zeal, and an equal affection (as ministers) toward all the faithful who are in trusted to your care, as you are equally the spiritual fathers of them all; no animosity, except against vice; no predilection, but in favor of holiness: no acceptance of persons; but let the wants alone of your flocks regulate all your cares and all your attention. “Whatsoever things are pure,” -- Inspire the people with a due respect for all the ordinances of the gospel, by administering them yourselves in the fear of God and with holy dignity. On all such occasions, appear as the elders before the throne of the Lamb, struck with the majesty of God, and expecting a revelation of his love to your own souls and those of the people; and let such modesty, awe, and depth of piety be manifested in all your administrations, that your people may learn from your whole deportment what dispositions are necessary for themselves on such occasions. But, above all, and in all, and through all, let us press upon every one the necessity of holiness. Let us never forget our calling — that we were called and sent forth to raise a holy people. Let all your doctrines, and all your discipline, all your labors, and all your conversation, center in this. Let this be the grand burden of your testimony — “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” “Whatsoever things are lovely,” — render yourselves amiable in the eyes of your people, if you would be useful to them; amiable, not by improper familiarities, but by partaking of their afflictions, and becoming their comforters in all their distresses. Gain their hearts, and draw their souls to Jesus Christ. Render not your sacred function odious by the rudeness, the moroseness, or the caprice of your humors; nor contemptible, by a baseness of sentiment. Refuse not upon any occasion, to the believers or penitents who are committed to your charge, your assistance or advice, since you owe to them your very life. Be their consolation, and they will be yours; love them as your children, and they will love you as their fathers. “Whatsoever things are of good report,” — Neglect nothing which can preserve your reputation pure and spotless in the judgment of your people. Abstain from every thing, even the most lawful, which can become a cause of offense to your brethren. Remember that the fruit of your ministry is in a great measure attached to the good opinion they have of you. Disgrace not, therefore, our holy religion, by disgracing yourselves.

Let your examples prepare the way for the success of your instructions. Let no one have occasion to reproach you for doing that which you are obliged to testify against to others; and let the sweet savor of your lives spread through your circuits, and become itself a constant censure of the vices or faults of others.