ample of a preacher, and "he was a burning and a shining light." We
preachers must give you doctrine which not only shines but also burns,
we must not only enlighten your minds by teaching, but also burn your
consciences. We must instruct the intellect, and warm and fire the
heart. That is requiring a great deal of us. "He maketh his ministers
a burning fire," says David, and S. Paul quotes his words approvingly.
It is a pleasant thing to enlighten, but to burn is not so pleasant.
Yet that is what we preachers are bound to do, we must not speak to you
smooth things, but those things which will sting you and make you arise
and cry out. Not only what you like, but a great deal that you do not
like. That is what is demanded of a preacher.

Then again he must not "use the Word of God deceitfully," twisting it
to enforce what is not God's truth, but his own fancy. We read that at
the trial of Christ there were found two false witnesses who declared
that Christ had said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days will I
build it up." Now when we look at S. John's Gospel we find that He did
say this. How, then, were they false witnesses? They were false
witnesses because they gave His words a meaning He never intended them
to have. He spoke of the temple of His body; they made His words apply
to the temple of Jerusalem.

Moses desired that his preaching might be as the dew. "My doctrine
shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small
rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass" (Deut.
xxxii. 2.) Very pleasant it would be to speak so that one's words came
down like the dew, or even as the small rain on the tender grass. You
would like that, and so would I. You would hold up your heads like the
flowers, and drink the dewy doctrine in. But stay! "As the showers
upon the grass" as well, says Moses. It will not do for the preacher
to speak only gently; his words must come pattering about your heads
like a driving April shower, when you will shrink from the rain and
hide to get out of the way. The preacher must pour out on you a good
strong shower of hard words.

But that is not all. He must use the Word of the Lord as a sword.
"The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and of spirit, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." How will the
hearers like that? The preacher must