Avoid contention

But whatever any may judge of the secrets of my heart, with regard to the principles that I have

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been influenced by, in what I have now said; it is enough for you to whom I have spoke it, that I have demonstrated that what I have delivered is the mind of God; and also (if there be any truth in his Word) that what I have recommended is not only for the temporal interest of your minister, but also for your own both temporal and spiritual interest.

Another article of advice that I would give you, is, to beware that you don't weaken your minister's hands, and wound yourselves by contention. You are but a small people, and you'll be a very foolish people indeed if you are divided against yourselves. Contention among a people hinders all manner of comfort and prosperity either of soul or body; it makes 'em a torment to themselves and one another; it puts 'em every way under disadvantages, and weakens the whole body like a consumption.

There are two sorts of contention I would warn you against,

First. Avoid contention among yourselves about your own temporal affairs. This will exceedingly tend to render a minister's labors ineffectual; and it is what greatly damps the spirit and discourages the heart of a minister, to see his people divided into parties, and envying one another, and entertaining mutual prejudices, jealousies and grudges, and so backbiting and reproaching one another, and carrying on secret plots and designs one against another.

Second. Avoid quarreling with your minister in matters of church discipline. This is a common thing, but a most unchristian thing, and tends greatly to weaken the hands of a minister in the whole of his work, and render all to no purpose. The exercise of the discipline of God's house is the most difficult part of that great work that a minister has to do; and it becomes a Christian people to their utmost to strengthen their minister's hands in this difficult business, and say as the people said to Ezra the priest, with respect to the affair of purging the church of Israel from the scandal of those that had married strange wives, Ezra 10:4, "Arise; for this matter belongeth to thee; we also will be with thee: be of good courage, and do it."

To conclude, if you would have your minister successful among you, and a blessing to you, and if you would be a happy people, then love one another and love your minister. There are some professors, in some of our towns, that are anti-ministerial men; they seem to have a disposition to dislike men of that order; they are apt to be prejudiced against them, and to be suspicious of them, and talk against them; and it seems to be as it were natural to 'em to be unfriendly and unkind towards their own ministers, and to make difficulty for them. But I don't believe there is a

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true Christian on earth that is of this character; on the contrary the feet of them that bring good tidings, and publish the gospel of salvation are beautiful in the eyes of all the true children of Zion; and everyone that receives Christ, and whose heart is governed by a supreme love to him, has a disposition to receive, love and honor his messengers. 

It was the distinguishing mark by which God manifested the person he had chosen to be the wife of Isaac, that type of Christ, that it was the damsel that should give kind and friendly entertainment to Abraham's servant or steward that was sent to espouse her and bring her home to Isaac; and therein was a type of the gospel ministry, Genesis 24:14, etc. See to it that you thus entertain the steward of the house of God that comes on this blessed errand to you.

If you and your minister thus live in peace, it will be the way for you to be a happy society, to flourish and prosper with all manner of prosperity, to have Christ dwelling among you; and for things to be brought to so blessed an event at last, as that he that is the great Shepherd of the Sheep, that purchased the souls of men with his blood, and your pastor that has the care of your souls committed to him, and yourselves and children, all should rejoice together in another world, agreeable to John 4:36, "And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together."