chapter 2
Their Diversities: Chapter 2 of The Country Parson.
Herbert examines a variety of different offices ministers held during the 1700s. Some serving in a perish, a school or in some in particular homes. Regardless of where one serves the “greatest and hardest preparation is within.” This inner, soul sanctifying work is what Robert Murray McCheyne refers to when he said, “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness.”
Mortifying the lusts of the flesh.
While in our day we have seen large numbers of ministers fail morally. One lust is often overlooked. The lust of promotion. Herbert identifies the same problem in his day when ministers would fail to speak directly and clearly on matters for the sake of maintaining a position or being advanced to a more illustrious office. To such individuals Herbert speaks a damning word, “the remember their earthly Lord, do much forget their heavenly; they wrong the Priesthood, neglect their duty, and shall be so far from that which they seek with their oversubmissiveness, and cringings, that they shall ever be despised. They who for the hope of promotion neglect any necessary admonition, or reproof, sell (with Judas) their Lord and Master.”