Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
... Fathers and Brethren, we unfeignedly reverence you, we magnify the grace of God in and unto you. Did not we reverence your Parts, Gifts and Graces, and esteem them every way so useful to the Churches, we should contentedly see you sit still, and never be at the pains to excite you. But our high value of you, hath made us humbly bold to expostulate the case a little with you, and passionately to beseech you, to remember how great a work it is that lies upon you, and to set your hands to it in this time of difficulty. ...
Is not this the Work of your Office and Calling, To watch in all things, to suffer afflictions, and thereby to make full proof of your Ministry, and, as good Soldiers of Jesus Christ, to endure hardness? Shall you with Jonah, fly to Tarshish, when the Lord sends you about your work? will you not rather say, with resolution, as holy Nehemiah, Shall such a man as I flee? Who is there, that being as I am, would flee? &c. And as the Apostles, your Leaders, when in your case; And now, Lord, behold their threatnings, and grant unto thy Servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy Word. ...
For more, see Joseph Alleine on ministers not preaching for fear of persecution.
Is not this the Work of your Office and Calling, To watch in all things, to suffer afflictions, and thereby to make full proof of your Ministry, and, as good Soldiers of Jesus Christ, to endure hardness? Shall you with Jonah, fly to Tarshish, when the Lord sends you about your work? will you not rather say, with resolution, as holy Nehemiah, Shall such a man as I flee? Who is there, that being as I am, would flee? &c. And as the Apostles, your Leaders, when in your case; And now, Lord, behold their threatnings, and grant unto thy Servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy Word. ...
For more, see Joseph Alleine on ministers not preaching for fear of persecution.