had understood that they were unlearned". But beholding also the man that was healed standing by, they had nothing to say, says that story. The insufficiency of the instrument makes a man wonder naturally; but the accomplishing of some great work brings them to a necessary acknowledgment of a greater power, working in that weak instrument. For if those apostles that preached, had been as learned men, as Simon Magus, as they did in him, (This man is the great power of God, not that he had, but that he was the power of God) the people would have rested in the admiration of those persons, and proceeded no farther. It was their working of supernatural things, that convinced the world. For all Paul's learning, (though he were very learned) never brought any of the conjurors to burn his books, or to renounce his art; but when God wrought extraordinary works by him, that sicknesses were cured by his napkins, and his handkerchiefs', (in which cures, Paul's learning had no more concurrence, no more co-operation, than the ignorance of any of the fishermen apostles) and when the world saw that those exorcists, which went about to do miracles in the names of Jesus, because Paul did so, could not do it, because that Jesus had not promised to work in them, as in Paul, then the conjurors came, and burnt their books, in the sight of all the world, to the value of fifty thousand pieces of silver. It was not learning, (that may have been got, though they that hear them, know it not; and it were not hard to assign many examples of men that have stolen a great measure of learning, and yet lived open and conversible lives, and never been observed, except by them, that knew their lucubrations, and night-watchings, to have spent many hours in study) but it was the calling of the world to an apprehension of a greater power, by seeing great things done by weak instruments, that reduced them, that convinced them. Peter and John's preaching did not half the good then, as the presenting of one man, which had been recovered by them, did. Twenty of our sermons edify not so much, as if the congregation might see one man converted by us. Any one of you might out-preach us. That one man that would leave his beloved sin, that one man that would restore illgotten goods, had made a better sermon than ever I shall, and 14 Acts xix. 11.

18 Acts iv. 13.

13 Acts viii. 10,

should gain more souls by his act, than all our words (as they are ours) can do.

Such men he took then, as might be no occasion to their hearers, to ascribe the work to their sufficiency; but yet such men too, as should be no examples to insufficient men to adventure upon that great service; but men, though ignorant before, yet docile, and glad to learn. In a rough stone, a cunning lapidary will easily foresee, what his cutting, and his polishing, and his art will bring that stone to. A cunning statuary discerns in a marble stone under his feet, where there will arise an eye, and an ear, and a hand, and other lineaments to make it a perfect statue. Much more did our Saviour Christ, who was himself the author of that disposition in them (for no man hath any such disposition but from God) foresee in these fishermen, an inclineableness to become useful in that great service of his church. Therefore he took them from their own ship, but he sent them from his cross; he took them weather-beaten with north and south winds, and rough-cast with foam, and mud; but he sent them back suppled, and smoothed, and levigated, quickened, and inanimated with that Spirit, which he had breathed into them from his own bowels, his own eternal bowels, from which the Holy Ghost proceeded; he took fishermen, and he sent fishers of men. He sent them not out to preach, as soon as he called them to him; he called them ad discipulatum, before he called them ad apostolatum; he taught them, before they taught others. As St. Paul says of himself, and the rest, God hath made us able ministers of the New Testament: idoneos, fit ministers, that is, fit for that service. There is a fitness founded in discretion; a discretion to make our present service acceptable to our present auditory; for if it be not acceptable, agreeable to them, it is never profitable.

As God gave his children such manna as was agreeable to every man's taste", and tasted to every man like that, that that man liked best: so are we to deliver the bread of life agreeable to every taste, to fit our doctrine to the apprehension, and capacity, and digestion of the hearers. For as St. Augustine says, That no man profits by a sermon that he hears with pain, if he do not stand easily; so if he do not understand easily, or if he do not

15 2 Cor. iii. 6.

16 Wisd. xvi. 20.

assent easily to that that he hears, if he be put to study one sentence, till the preacher have passed three or four more, or if the doctrine be new and doubtful, and suspicious to him, this fitness which is grounded in discretion is not showed. But the general fitness is grounded in learning, St. Paul hath joined them safely together, Rebuke and exhort with all long-suffering, and learning”. Show thy discretion in seasonable rebuking; show thy learning in exhorting. Let the congregation see that thou studiest the good of their souls, and they will digest any wholesome increpation, any medicinal reprehension at thy hands, Dilige et dic quod roles 1. We say so first to God, Lord let thy spirit bear witness with my spirit, that thou lovest me, and I can endure all thy prophets, and all the vas, and the woes that they thunder against me and my sin. So also the congregation says to the minister, Dilige et dic quod voles, Show thy love to me in studying my case, and applying thy knowledge to my conscience, speak so, as God and I may know thou meanest me, but not the congregation, lest that bring me to a confusion of face, and that to a hardness of heart; deal thus with me, love me thus, and say what thou wilt; nothing shall offend me. And this is the idoneity, the fitness which we consider in the minister, fitness in learning, fitness in discretion, to use and apply that learning. So Christ fits us.

18

Such men then Christ takes for the service of his church; such as bring no confidence in their own fitness, such as embrace the means to make them fit in his school, and learn before they teach. And to that purpose he took Andrew and Peter; and he took them, when he found them casting their net into the sea. This was a symbolical, a prophetical action of their future life; this fishing was a type, a figure, a prophecy of their other fishing. But here (in this first part) we are bound to the consideration of their real and direct action, and exercise of their present calling; They cast their net, for they were fishers, says the text. In which for, (as we told you at first) there is a double reason involved.

First, in this For is intimated, how acceptable to God that labour is, that is taken in a calling. They did not forbear to cast their nets because it was a tempestuous sea; we must make account to meet storms in our profession, yea and temptations

17 2 Tim. iv. 2.

18

Augustine.

A man must not leave his calling, because it is hard for him to be an honest man in that calling; but he must labour to overcome those difficulties, and as much as he can, vindicate and redeem that calling from those aspersions and calumnies, which ill men have cast upon a good calling. They did not forbear because it was a tempestuous sea, nor because they had cast their nets often and caught nothing, nor because it was uncertain how the market would go when they had catched. A man must not be an ill prophet upon his own labours, nor bewitch them with a suspicion that they will not prosper. It is the slothful man that says, A lion in the way, a lion in the street". Cast thou thy net into the sea, and God shall drive fish into thy net; undertake a lawful calling, and clog not thy calling with murmuring, nor with an ill conscience, and God shall give thee increase, and worship in it, They cast their nets into the sea, for they were fishers; it was their calling, and they were bound to labour in that.

And then this For hath another aspect, looks another way too, and implies another instruction, They cast their nets into the sea, for they were fishers, that is, if they had not been fishers, they would not have done it; intrusion into other men's callings is an unjust usurpation; and, if it take away their profit, it is a theft. If it be but a censuring of them in their calling, yet it is a calumny, because it is not in the right way, if it be extrajudicial. To lay an aspersion upon any man (who is not under our charge) though that which we say of him be true, yet it is a calumny, and a degree of libelling, if it be not done judiciarily, and where it may receive redress and remedy. And yet how forward are men that are not fishers in that sea, to censure state councils, and judiciary proceedings? Every man is an Absalom, to say to every man, Your cause is good, but the king hath appointed none to hear it; money brings them in, favour brings them in, it is not the king; or, if it must be said to be the king, yet it is the affection of the king and not his judgment, the king misled, not rightly informed, say our seditious Absaloms, and, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man might come unto me, and I would do him justice, is the charm that Absalom hath taught every man. They cast their nets into a deeper sea than this,

and where they are much less fishers, into the secret councils of God. It is well provided by your laws, that divines and ecclesiastical persons may not take farms, nor buy nor sell, for return, in markets. I would it were as well provided, that buyers and sellers, and farmers might not be divines, nor censure them. I speak not of censuring our lives; please yourselves with that, till God be pleased to mend us by that, (though that way of whispering calumny be not the right way to that amendment) but I speak of censuring our doctrines, and of appointing our doctrines; when men are weary of hearing any other thing, than election and reprobation, and whom, and when, and how, and why God hath chosen, or cast away. We have liberty enough by your law, to hold enough for the maintenance of our bodies, and states; you have liberty enough by our law, to know enough for the salvation of your souls; if you will search farther into God's eternal decrees, and unrevealed councils, you should not cast your nets into that sea, for you are not fishers there. Andrew and Peter cast their nets, for they were fishers, (therefore they were bound to do it) and again, for they were fishers, (if they had not been so, they would not have done so.)

These persons then thus disposed, unfit of themselves, made fit by him, and found by him at their labour, labour in a lawful calling, and in their own calling, our Saviour Christ calls to him; and he called them by couples, by pairs; two together. So he called his creatures into the world at the first creation, by pairs. So he called them into the ark, for the reparation of the world, by pairs, two and two. God loves not singularity; the very name of church implies company; it is concio, congregatio, cœtus; it is a congregation, a meeting, an assembly; it is not any one man; neither can the church be preserved in one man. And therefore it hath been dangerously said, (though they confess it to have been said by many of their greatest divines in the Roman church) that during the time that our blessed Saviour lay dead in the grave, there was no faith left upon the earth, but only in the Virgin Mary; for then there was no church. God hath manifested his will in two Testaments; and though he have abridged and contracted the doctrine of both in a narrow room, yet he hath digested it into two commandments, Love God, love