Thomas Brooks
[4.] As they are to preach the Lord Jesus Christ humbly, so they are to preach him wisely. “He that winneth souls is wise” (Prov 11:30), and indeed the greatest wisdom in the world is requisite to the winning of souls to Christ. He that wins souls, or he that catches souls – as the fowler catches birds (as the Hebrew word suggests), or as the fisherman fishes – is wise. There is a holy and heavenly craft required in winning souls to Christ (2 Cor 12:16). “Nevertheless, being crafty,” says the Apostle, “I caught you with guile.” He speaks of a holy and heavenly craft.
It is written of the fox that, when he is very hungry after prey and can find none, he lies down and feigns himself dead, and so the fowls alight on him, and then he catches them. Paul, hungering after the welfare of the Corinthians’ souls, makes use of his heavenly craft to catch them. A great deal of wisdom is required to hold out Christ to the people, not only as a good, but as the greatest good, as the choicest good, as the chiefest good, as the most suitable good, as a changeless good, as an independent good, as a total good and as an eternal good. Christ must thus be held forth to draw souls to fall in love with Him, and to work their hearts to run out after Him.
Wisdom is required to answer all the cavils and objections that keep Christ and poor souls asunder. Wisdom is required to take souls off all the false bottoms that they are apt to build upon. Wisdom is required to present Christ freely to souls, in opposition to all unrighteousness and to all unworthiness in man. Wisdom is required to suit things to the capacities and conditions of poor souls, to make dark things plain and hard things easy. Ministers must not be like him in the allegory that gave straw to the dog and a bone to the ass, but they must suit all their discourses to the conditions and capacities of poor creatures, or else all will be lost: time lost, pains lost, God lost, heaven lost and souls lost for ever.
[5.] They must preach Christ zealously and boldly, as well as wisely. When they had charged the disciples that they should preach no more in the name of Christ, they say, What do you tell us of the whip, or of prisons, or of this and that? “We cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). So “Thy word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay” (Jer 20:9); “Cry aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Israel their sins (Is 58:1). And Isaiah had his tongue
1Taken, with editing, from Brooks’ The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, in Works, vol 3. The first three “rules” were printed in the June issue.
touched with a coal of fire from the altar (6:7). And when the disciples were to go and preach the gospel, the fire sat on their heads (Acts 2:3).
The worst of men are in a dead sleep, and the best of men are too often in a sinful slumber, as the spouse (Song 5:2) and the wise virgins (Mt 25). Therefore faithful ministers need to cry aloud; they need to be courageous and zealous, to awaken both sinners and saints, that no one may go sleeping to hell. Every coward is a murderer, as the philosopher2 well observed. The cowardice of the minister is cruelty; if he fear the faces of men, he is a murderer of the souls of men. Ministers must say, as Hector in Homer, “I will combat with him, though his hands were as fire, and his strength as iron”. Let men’s hands be as fire and their strength as iron, yet ministers must deal with them, and strive to conquer them (Ezek 2:3-7).
Luther professed that he had rather be accounted anything than be accused of wicked silence in Christ’s cause. “Let me be accounted proud,” says he; “let me be accounted covetous; let me be accounted a murderer, yea, guilty of all vices, provided I am not proved guilty of wicked silence for the Lord Jesus Christ.” Says Augustine, “He is no friend to God that is not zealous for Him”.
[6.] They are to preach Christ labouriously, painstakingly, frequently. A minister must be like the bee, which is still flying from one flower to another to suck out honey for the good of others. Should not that dreadful word make every idle shepherd tremble: “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently”3 (Jer 48:10), “Be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58). O the dreadful woes that are pronounced in Scripture against idle shepherds!
The great Shepherd of our souls, the Lord Jesus, continued to feed His flock and to do much to provoke others to the same work: “Feed My lambs . . . feed My sheep (Jn 21:15,16); “Preach the Word in season, and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2). Christ wept for souls and bled for souls and prayed for souls, and shall ministers not sweat much for souls and work much for the good of souls? Doubtless they will give but a sad account to Christ that make anything serve to fill up the hour, that spend two or three hours at the end of a week to fit themselves for Sabbath exercises. Idleness is hateful in anyone, but most abominable and intolerable in ministers; none shall pay so dear for it as they will, sooner or later. Witness the frequent woes that are denounced in Scripture against them. Where should a soldier die but in the field? And where should a minister die but in the pulpit?
2Aristotle, a prominent philosopher in ancient Greece.
3AV Marginal reading.
Pompey4, in a great dearth at Rome, provided a store of provisions for his citizens that were ready to perish; being ready to put to sea, he commanded the captain to hoist sail and be gone. The captain told him that the sea was tempestuous, and that the voyage was like to be dangerous. “It does not matter,” said Pompey; “hoist up sail; it is not necessary that we should live; it is necessary that they should be preserved from ruin and famine.” So ministers should say, It is not necessary that we should live, but it is necessary that poor souls should live and be happy for ever; it is necessary that they should be acquainted with the things of their peace; it is necessary that they should be delivered from the power of Satan and from wrath to come; therefore it is necessary that we should be frequent and abundant in the work of the Lord, and not plead that there are storms and tempests, or that a lion is in the way. Vespasian the Emperor said, “An emperor ought to die standing”, and it may well be applied to ministers.
[7.] As they are to preach Christ painfully, so they are to preach Christ by their example. “Be thou an example to the flock” (1 Pet 5:3). They must preach Christ in their life as well as in doctrine. Ministers must not be like the drugs that physicians say are hot in the mouth and cold in operation – hot in the pulpit, and cold and careless in their lives. They must say, as Gideon said to his soldiers: “Look on me and do likewise” (Jdg 7:17); “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Mt 5:16). They are called angels, and they are called stars, because they should shine in righteousness and holiness.
What Caesar once said of his wife, that it was not enough for her to be without fault but she should be without all suspicion of fault, may well be applied to ministers – who, of all men in the world, should be most free from the very appearance of evil. The lives of ministers often convince people more strongly than their words; their tongues may persuade, but their lives command.
“Talk not of a good life,” said a heathen, “but let thy life speak.” God appointed that both the weights and measures of the sanctuary should be twice as large as those of the commonwealth, to show that He expects much more of those who wait on Him in the sanctuary than He does of others. Ministers should be like musk among linen, which casts a fragrant smell, or like that box of spikenard which, being broken open, filled the house with its odour.
Gregory says of Athanasius that his life was a continual sermon wooing men to Christ. Aristotle requires an orator to be a good man; how much more then should God’s orators be good and gracious! When Eli’s sons were
4Political leader in Rome in the first century BC.
wicked, the people abhorred the offering of the Lord (1 Sam 2:17); and what renders the things of God so contemptuous and odious in the eyes of many people in this nation as the ignorance, looseness, profaneness and baseness of those that dispense them? Unholy ministers pull down instead of building up. O the souls that their lives destroy! By their loose lives, these men lead their flocks to hell, where they themselves must lie lowermost.