I sometimes seem to see in my own mind what true preaching should be: how pure and clear in doctrine, how sound and deep in experience, how firm and faithful in precept. I have a view before the eyes of my enlightened understanding what the ministry of the Spirit is, as distinct from the ministry of the letter. I see that there is a power, a savour, an unction, an authority, a weight and a reality in the ministry of men sent and taught of God, which is as distinct from the ministry of men unsent and untaught, as the miracles of Moses were distinct from the miracles of the magicians, or the preaching of Paul from that of the seven sons of Sceva.
Let none here mistake my meaning. I do not wish to set up my preaching as that in which I see the ministry of the Spirit in His fulness. I desire with all my heart that it should be such; it is enough to make me quake and tremble with fear to think that it is not so; for there are no half-ministers as there are no half-Christians. An “almost minister” is as far from the ministry as an almost Christian is from Christianity. But I believe that the sovereignty of God is as much displayed in choosing ministers to preach as in choosing men to be saved. And if, in the exercise of that sovereignty, the Lord called me from Academic halls and seats of lettered ease to preach His truth amongst His people, He surely had as much right to do so as to call others of His servants from the plough or from the loom.
It amounts to this: what any of us who are ministers are worth being; what we have worth possessing; what we know worth proclaiming; what we preach worth hearing – we are indebted for those things to sovereign grace, and to sovereign grace alone. On this point I will yield to none. Let some of my brethren in the ministry have more grace; others a deeper experience; others more ministerial ability; others more unction and savour. I will willingly yield to them the palm in all of these things, so far as I see that they are thus blessed and favoured. But I will not yield to them in this one point, that what we are, we are by sovereign grace.
On this ground we may safely meet. Here, Ephraim envies not Judah. Here, pride and self-exaltation – fall here, self-drops into its right place – the dust; and here Jesus is exalted to His rightful place as Lord of all.