"Oh, remember that while our office is honorable, useful and scriptural, it is also one of deep and painful responsibility! We watch for souls as those who must give account at the judgment day (Heb. 13:17). If souls are lost through our unfaithfulness, their blood will be required at our hands. If we had only to read services and administer sacraments, to wear a peculiar dress and go through a round of ceremonies and bodily exercise and gestures and postures, our position would be comparatively light. But this is not all. We have got to deliver our Master's message, to keep back nothing that is profitable, to declare all the counsel of God. If we tell our congregations less than the truth or more than the truth, we may ruin forever souls. Life and death are in the power of the preacher's tongue. 'Woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel!' (1 Cor. 9:16)."Once more I say, pray for us. Who is sufficient for these things? Remember the old saying of the fathers: 'None are in more spiritual danger than ministers.' It is easy to criticize and find fault with us. We have a treasure in earthen vessels. We are men of like passions with yourselves, and not infallible. Pray for us in these trying, tempting, controversial days, that our church may never lack bishops, priests, and deacons who are sound in the faith, bold as lions, 'wise as serpents, and yet harmless as doves.' (Matt. 10:16). The very man who said, 'Grace is given me to preach,' is the same man who said, in another place, 'Pray for us, that the Word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified . . . and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not faith.' (2 Thess. 3:1-2)."
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