Address to a Congregation

by Ebenezer Erskine at an Induction

To the hearers.

1. Remember that there is a covenant between you and your minister. As he is engaged to fulfil all the parts of the ministerial office towards you, so ye are engaged on your part to submit to the laws of the King of Zion and to fulfil all the duties of the Word of God required of you toward your minister. Not only covenants between God and man but covenants between man and man are sacred things and God resents the violation of them, as you see Ezek. 17. You are not now at liberty to throw up and desert his ministry or turn your back upon him, particularly not

by running back to that corrupt body from whom both you and he have made a secession.

1. In order to your fulfilling your part of this day’s transaction between you and him, I advise you to attend carefully and diligently upon his ministry, particularly upon the preaching of the Gospel, the dispensation of the ordinances, diets of catechising, and when he teaches from house to house. When you come to hear the Word, remember that that Word will take hold of you and issue either in the life or the death of your immortal souls; and what will all the world profit a man if he lose his soul?

2. Mingle faith with your hearing of the Word preached by your minister, as the message of his Master, God’s Anointed. We are told that, “the word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” (Heb. iv, 2). Let not your minister have occasion to take up that complaint against you, “Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” He comes to preach “a Saviour, and a great one,” able to deliver from sin and wrath. O beware of despising God’s herald and Him that sent him. Christ, when sending His apostles abroad to preach the Gospel, said, “He that despiseth you despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me.”

3. I advise you to submit to your minister and elders in the administration of the keys of discipline, they being a radical court of Christ constituted in the Name of Christ for that very end. This is expressly commanded of God, “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken to you the Word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.” “Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as they that must give account: that they may do it with joy and not with grief.” (Heb. xiii: 7, 17). Obedience in the Lord is an indispensable duty of people towards those that have the keys of the kingdom of Heaven committed to them, for “whatsoever they bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and what they loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” (Matt. 18, 18).

4. I advise you to pray much for your minister that is come to bear the gospel-lamp among you. “Brethren, pray for us,” says the apostle. Pray that the soul of your minister may be refreshed daily with the oil of God’s Anointed, that so the lamp may be brightened and he may come forth to you daily in the demonstration of the Spirit and with power; and that like a scribe well instructed in the mysteries of the kingdom, he may bring forth things new and old for the edifying of your souls. Pray that a

door of utterance may be given him, that he may declare the mysteries of the Gospel, that he may feed (rule) in the strength of the Lord and in the majesty of the Lord his God. Oh, pray that he may not only get the furniture but be blessed with success in his work; for although Paul were to plant and Apollos water, yet their ministry would be ineffectual unless God gave the increase. Pray that God may give him the art of winning souls and that his Master may direct him so to cast the gospel net as that a multitude of souls may be gained. Pray that he may be made a “sharp threshing instrument having teeth, to thresh the mountains and beat them small, and to make the hills as chaff.” (Isa. 41, 15).

1. Encourage God’s lamp-bearer, (1) by receiving his Master and his message. (2) By strengthening his heart and hand, especially at this time when there are so many enemies, and many arrows of reproach and calumny may be cast at him. (3) By “endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” among yourselves. Jars, divisions, animosities among a people, are a heartbreak to a minister of the Gospel of peace; whereas it is his great comfort to find them of one heart and one way in the Lord. (4) By providing suitable maintenance for your minister. Oh, remember what a valuable blessing the Gospel is to a land or people. It is a lamp to discover the way how you may come to God’s Anointed and so get your souls for a prey. They that know the worth of their souls and have any concern about their salvation, cannot but prize the Gospel in its purity above all other concerns in the world, for it is “better than gold, yea than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey or the honey-comb.”

I might offer some brief considerations to raise your esteem of the glorious Gospel.

1. The Gospel lamp lets men see where they are and how far they have departed from God and how near they are to utter ruin, like the prodigal in a far country, without God, without Christ, without help or hope, without light, without life, no eye to pity, no hand to help; in a state of distance, darkness, enmity, every moment liable to wrath and condemnation, yea, condemned already.

2. The Gospel-lamp discovers a “Saviour and a great One” who is “able to save to the uttermost.” “I have laid help upon One that is mighty: I have exalted One chosen out of the people, even David, My servant: with My holy oil have I anointed Him (Isa. 19, 20; Ps. 89: 19, 20).

3. In the light of this lamp the sinner may see a ransom found, that he may not go down to the pit, even the blood of Jesus, that

sweet-smelling sacrifice whereby the wrath of an angry God is turned away.

1. By this lamp we may see a holy God reconciled and declaring Himself a God of peace and that fury is not in Him. Here we may see the olive branch of peace held out and God saying, “I create the fruit of the lips; peace, peace to them that are afar off, and to them that are nigh (Isa. 57: 19).

2. By the light of this lamp, sinners that are beggared and bankrupted by the fall of Adam, are led to a mine of unsearchable riches which they may lay hand on and make their own without theft. The cry of the Gospel is, “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire that thou mayst be rich . . . buy without money and without price.” (Rev. 3: 18; Isa. 55: 1). “Unto me,” says Paul, “who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” (Eph. 3: 8).

3. By this Gospel-lamp we may see a house of mercy reared and opened, and all manner of provision in plenty made ready for the poor, the halt, the withered and lame. “I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever.” “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars, she hath killed her fatlings, she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens, she crieth in the high places of the city: whoso is simple, let him turn it hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled.” In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined (Prov. 9: 1-4; Ps. 89, 2; Isa. 25, 6).

4. By this Gospel-lamp we may see not only meat but medicine prepared for the poor diseased soul that is ready to perish of its wounds and leprosy. Here you will see the Balm in Gilead and the great Physician there. Here you will see the mystical brazen serpent, by a look of which the venom of the old serpent is stayed and the hurt of it prevented. Here is to be seen the “Tree of Life which bears twelve manner of fruits every month, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.”

5. By this lamp is to be seen the Rock that follows Israel through the wilderness to Canaan; you may see the clefts of the Rock that were made by the rod of God’s anger; you may see living water gushing out of the smitten Rock and a cry made, “Whosoever will, let him come, and drink of the water of life freely.” You may see the shadow of the Rock to refresh the weary traveller in his way to glory; you may see God’s doves

lodging in “the clefts of the Rock, and the secret places of the stairs.”

1. By this lamp you may see and find a chariot of the wood of Lebanon with its golden bottom, purple covering, paved with love for the daughters of Jerusalem. By which I understand the covenant of grace and promise which is everlasting, well-ordered and sure. The Gospel lets you see that you have free access into this chariot of salvation in which you may ride in safety through all dangers, unto Glory: “Thus saith the Lord, unto them that take hold of My covenant, even to them will I give in Mine house and within My walls, a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Even them will I bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer.” (Song 3: 9, 10; Isa. 56: 5-7).

2. By this lamp we may see a ladder reaching between Heaven and earth by which you may have access to that Heaven of Glory which we fell from when we broke the first covenant in Adam. Here is a new and living Way into the holiest of all.

3. Here you may see and find a city of refuge from the avenger of blood.

4. Here you will find the true Ark in which you shall be saved from the deluge.

5. Here you may see chambers where you may hide yourselves in a day of wrath until the indignation be overpast.

6. Here by this lamp we discover a confirmed testament securing to us the inheritance of eternal life which was lost in the first Adam, and much more than ever we lost. Here we may find our God saying, “I am the Lord thy God.”

It was not without ground that the Psalmist cried out in view of the great, glorious, and beneficial discoveries made by the Gospel, “Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound; they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance.” (Ps. 89,15). I conclude by reading a portion of Scripture to you containing a bundle of necessary duties both towards yourselves and your minister and elders, and one another. (Read 1 Thess., v. 12-28).