§ 7. How thin are those ministers that are serious in their work! Nay, how mightily do the very best fail in this! Do we cry out of men's disobedience to the gospel _in the demonstration of the Spirit_, and deal with sin as the destroying fire in our towns, and by force pull men out of it? Do we persuade our people, as those should, that _know the terrors of the Lord_? Do we press Christ, and regeneration, and faith, and holiness, believing that, without these, men can never have life? Do our bowels yearn over the ignorant, careless, and obstinate multitude? When we look them in the face, do our hearts melt over them, lest we should never see their faces in rest? Do we, as Paul, _tell them weeping_, of their fleshly and earthly disposition? _And teach them publicly, and from house to house, at all seasons, and with many tears?_ And do we entreat them as for their soul's salvation? Or rather, do we not study to gain the approbation of critical hearers; as if a minister's business were of no more weight but to tell a smooth tale for an hour, and look no more after the people till the next sermon? Does not carnal prudence control our fervor, and make our discourses lifeless, on subjects the most piercing? How gently we handle those sins, which will so cruelly handle our people's souls? In a word, our want of seriousness about the things of heaven, charms the souls of men into formality, and brings them to this customary, careless hearing, which undoes them. May the Lord pardon the great sin of the ministry in this thing; and, in particular, my own!