I met with a rhyme by Baxter that bears out what I was thinking of, so I will pen it for future perusal.
"A proud unhumbled preacher is unmeet,
To lay proud sinners humbled at Christ's feet;
So are the blind to tell men what Christ saith,
And faithless men to propagate the faith.
The dead are unfit means to raise the dead,
Or enemies to give the children bread;
And utter strangers to the life to come
Are not the best conductors to our home.
They that yet never learned to live and die,
How can they preach to others feelingly?
Oh, if they should preach others to salvation,
Unhappy men to preach their own-damnation!
What statues or hypocrites are they,
Who between sleep and wake do preach and pray,
As if they feared awakening the dead,
Or were but lighting sinners to their bed;
Who speak of heaven and hell as on a stage,
And make the pulpit but a parrot's cage."
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