than forty-five
years it has pleased the Lord, in general at least, to keep me in peace
about it. What I do is, to go on with my regular reading of the
Scriptures, where I left off the last time, praying (whilst I read) for a
text, now and then also laying aside my bible for prayer, till I get one.
Thus it has happened, that I have had to read five, ten; yea twenty
chapters, before it has pleased the Lord to give me a text: yea, many
times I have even had to go to the place of meeting without one, and
obtained it perhaps only a few minutes before I was going to speak; but I
have never lacked the Lord's assistance at the time of preaching, provided
I had earnestly sought it in private. The preacher cannot know the
particular state of the various individuals who compose the congregation,
nor what they require, but the Lord knows it; and if the preacher
renounces his own wisdom, he will be assisted by the Lord; but if he will
choose in his own wisdom, then let him not be surprised if he should see
little benefit result from his labours.

Before I leave this part of the subject, I would just observe one
temptation concerning the choice of a text. We may see a subject to be so
very full, that it may strike us it would do for some other occasion. For
instance, sometimes a text, brought to one's mind for a week-evening
meeting, may appear more suitable for the Lord's day, because then there
would be a greater number of hearers present. Now, in the first place, we
do not know whether the Lord ever will allow us to preach on another
Lord's day; and, in the second place, we know not whether that very
subject may not be especially suitable for some or many individuals
present just that week-evening. Thus I was once tempted, after I had been
a short time at Teignmouth, to reserve a subject, which had been just
opened to me, for the next Lord's day. But being able, by the grace of
God, to overcome the temptation by the above reasons, and preaching about
it at once, it pleased the Lord to bless it to the conversion of a sinner,
and that too an individual who meant to come but that once more to the
chapel, and to whose case the subject was most remarkably suited.

2. Now when the text has been obtained in the above way, whether it be
one or two or more verses, or a whole chapter or more, I ask the Lord that
He would graciously be pleased to teach me by His Holy Spirit, whilst
meditating over it. Within the last fifty years, I have fou