# Jonathan Edwards on the error of lay preaching



## Reformed Covenanter (Apr 11, 2022)

... I know you to be a person of good judgment and discretion, and therefore can with the greater confidence put it to you to consider with yourself what you can reasonably judge would be the consequence, if I and all other ministers should approve and publicly justify such things as laymen’s taking it upon them to exhort after this manner? If one may, why may not another? And if there be no certain limits or bounds, but every one that pleases may have liberty, alas! what should we soon come to? If God had not seen it necessary that such things should have certain limits and bounds, he never would have appointed a certain particular order of men to that work and office, to be set apart to it in so solemn a manner, in the name of God: the Head of the church is wiser than we, and knew how to regulate things in his church.

’Tis no argument that such things are right, that they do a great deal of good for the present, and within a narrow sphere; when, at the same time, if we look on them in the utmost extent of their consequences, and on the long run of events, they do ten times as much hurt as good. Appearing events are not our rule, but the law and the testimony. ...

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