Church discipline

Let it be your prayer, that there may be a succession of faithful ministers of the gospel granted to us by the head of the church. The prophets, the apostles, the most eminent and useful servants of Christ do not continue by reason of death; but the Lord who sent them is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Ministers die, but the chief Shepherd lives, and by him this ministry is preserved. He takes the children instead of the fathers, and employs them in his service. He makes the spirit of those who are taken away, to rest on those who succeed them. He calls forth those who were most unlikely, and fits them for his work. Paul was once a blind Pharisee. Augustine was in his younger years an heretic of the worst kind, in his opinions, and a mere slave to the pleasures of sin in his life. Luther was for a long time a devoted servant of Antichrist, ready as he owns to destroy any one who would have spoken but a word against that Man of Sin. Other eminent lights who labored in the great work of the Reformation were in like manner taken out of the dark kingdom of the beast. Our Lord Jesus will send by whom he will send; from him we ought to ask the continuance of this ministry among us, and heavenly influence to accompany it.

It is most lamentable that so many in this land live as heathens, utterly despising the ordinances of Christ; that so many are deluded by a false ministry -- by teachers whom the Lord has not sent; that many are led astray by an unfaithful ministry -- by men not upright and steadfast in their Master's cause; and that so many profit nothing by the word of God, though preached to them in some measure of plainness and purity. See that ye my brethren do not provoke the Lord by sinning against the light, to take it away from you. Remember what he did unto Shiloh, for the wickedness of his people Israel. There is many a Shiloh to be seen without going so far as Palestine -- places once favored of the Lord, but now in just indignation, forsaken by him. They are instructive monuments to us, calling us to take heed, lest we perish after the same example of apostacy from God.

The improvement which we all ought to make of this subject is to rely on the mercy of the Lord as sufficient for us in all the service and in all the sufferings to which we may be severally called; we do not glorify him while we think and speak of him as an hard master, requiring much and giving little; he is plenteous in mercy; our afflictions may be severe, but they are of a passing nature; whereas to them who fear him, God's mercy never ends; let us therefore hope in the Lord, and when at any time we are brought into great depths, trust that he will bring us out of them, saying with the Psalmist, "Thou Lord who hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth."