expect perfection.  Bear with their infirmities.  Receive their instructions as the bread which your heavenly Father has provided for the nourishment of your soul.  Do not ungratefully spurn it from you.  What would you think, to see a child throwing away the bread his mother gives him, because it does not suit his capricious notions?  Surely, you would say he did not deserve to have any.  But, if your minister is cold and formal, and does not exhibit the truth in a clear, pointed, and forcible manner to the conscience, mourn over the matter in secret, before God.  You will do no good by making it a subject of common conversation.  It will lead to the indulgence of a censorious spirit, to the injury of your own soul, and the wounding of the cause of Christ.  If you speak of it at all, let it be in a spirit of tender concern for the welfare of Zion, to some pious friends, who will unite with you in praying for your pastor.  You recollect the conversion of Dr. West,[J] in answer to the prayers of two pious females.  So you may be instrumental in reviving the heart of your pastor. (4.) Hear with self-application. From almost any passage in the Bible the Christian may draw a practical lesson for himself.  Some truths may not be immediately applicable to your present circumstances; but they are, nevertheless, calculated to affect your heart.  Even a sermon, addressed exclusively to impenitent sinners, is calculated to rouse up the most intense feelings of the Christian’s soul.  It reminds him of the exceeding wickedness of his past life; it shows him what an awful gulf he has escaped; it leads him to mourn over his ingratitude; and it calls forth his prayers and tears in behalf of perishing sinners.  Strive to bring home the truth, so far as it is applicable to yourself, in the most searching manner.  Examine your own heart diligently, that you lose nothing which belongs to you. (5.) Do not hear for others. Let every one make his own application of the truth.  Many persons are so intent on finding garments for others, that they lose their own. (6.) Hear with a prayerful frame of mind. If any part of the discourse is intended for professors of religion, let your heart continually ascend to God, for the Holy Spirit to apply it to your own heart, and to the heart of every Christian present.  If any part of it is designed for impenitent sinners, let your soul put forth an agony of prayer, that it may be blessed for their conversion. (7.) Remember and practise what you hear. This is of great importance; and, unless you attend to it, every other direction will be of little avail.

  [Footnote J:  See page 64.]