"In Everything Set Them An Example By Doing What Is Good."

Murder all his hearers at once!
(Thomas Brooks, "The Crown and Glory of Christianity, 
or, HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness", 1662)

"The leaders of the people have led them 
down the path of destruction!" Isaiah 9:16

Take heed of settling yourselves 
under an unholy minister--
of one whose life gives the lie 
to his doctrine. An unholy preacher is 
the greatest destroyer of the souls of men! 

He who preaches well, but lives bad--
does what he can, to murder all 
his hearers at once! 

There is no greater bar to holiness, 
than ministers' unholy lives. An unholy 
life mars the soundest and the sweetest 
doctrine. The sins of teachers are 
the teachers of sins! 

An unholy minister is the greatest pest, 
the worst plague, and the greatest mischief--
that can be to a people; for his enormities, 
his wickednesses, will have the strongest 
influences upon the souls and lives of men--
to make them eternally miserable. 

His falls will be the fall and ruin of many; 
for people are prone to . . .
  live more by examples--
     than by precepts;
  mind more what the minister does--
    than what he says;
  eye more how he walks--
than how he talks. 

Let a minister be ever so learned, 
solid, quaint, elegant, zealous, 
judicious, sententious, etc.--
yet if he is carnal, covetous, 
worldly, vain, and loose in his life 
and walk, his hearers will rather slight 
and abhor the holy things of GOD.

When the preacher departs out 
of the way of holiness, the people 
will quickly wander from all that 
is good. He whose life is not 
a standing reproof to sin--
will, by his life, encourage sinners 
more and more in a way of sin. 

There is nothing which keeps men 
so off from the love of holiness, and 
from the pursuing after holiness--
than the unholy lives of their ministers.

"Watch your life and doctrine 
closely." 1 Timothy 4:16

"Set an example for the believers 
in speech, in life, in love, in faith 
and in purity." 1 Timothy 4:12 

"In everything set them an example 
by doing what is good." Titus 2:7

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