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2Cor. 6.7. The following extracts from the diaries of two excellent Ministers will give a graphical delineation of painful exercises, familiar to many of us. ‘I almost constantly find the following temptations, the one or the other, assaulting me in the discharge of my office as a Minister. 1st. If I think that I am unsuccessful, I am in danger, through an unbelieving despondency, of being discouraged, of becoming remiss, and cold, and more indifferent respecting the success of my ministry. Though this should have a quite contrary effect, yet this is the use which the devil and my own corruptions try to make of it. 2ndly. If I am, or think I am, successful, this also has a tendency to take me off my guard, and to make me less careful in watching against sin, and in mortifying universally its whole body. Spiritual pride, I suppose, comes in through my success and applause, by drawing a favourable comparison between me and others, as if I were better than they. And in proportion to my lack of constant thoughts of my own vileness in the sight of God, and to the good opinion I have of myself, is always my remissness, and lack of vigilance and exertion to press forward. I see now the wisdom of the caution which the Apostle gives to Timothy, not to admit “a novice,” (1Tim. 3.6) one who has but little experience of the workings and deceit of sin, and has made but little progress in the ways of God—not to admit such into the office of the Ministry, “lest he should be lifted up with pride, and fall into the condemnation of the devil.” The Apostle himself was not without some danger from this quarter. (2Cor. 12.) Considering the greatness of my danger, how should I “work out my salvation with fear and trembling?”None but the Lord can keep me.’ Life of the Rev. T. Charles, of Bala, pp. 133, 134. ‘I saw on the Sabbath four evils which attend me in my Ministry. First, either the devil treads me down by discouragement and shame; from the sense of the meanness of what I have provided in private meditations. Or, secondly, carelessness possesses me; arising because I have done well, and been enlarged, and been respected formerly; hence it is not such a great matter if I am not always alike. Thirdly, infirmities and weakness, such as lack of light, lack of life, lack of a spirit of power to deliver what I am affected with for Christ; and hence I saw many souls that were not set forward, nor was God felt in my Ministry. Fourthly, lack of success, when I have done my best.’” From the diary of Mr Shepard, of New England, author of several valuable treatises upon experiential divinity—Mather’s New England, book iii. p. 91.