The Scripture declares that God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil. It is fit that all the concerns and all the behavior of mankind, both public and private, should be brought at last before God’s tribunal and finally determined by an infallible judge. But it is especially requisite that it should be thus, as to affairs of very great importance. Now the mutual concerns of a Christian minister and his church and congregation are of the vastest importance: in many respects, of much greater moment than the temporal concerns of the greatest earthly monarchs and their kingdoms or empires. It is of vast consequence how ministers discharge their office and conduct themselves toward their people in the work of the ministry and in affairs appertaining to it. It is also a matter of vast importance how a people receive and entertain a faithful minister of Christ and what improvement they make of His ministry. These things have a more immediate and direct respect to the great and last end for which man was made and the eternal welfare of mankind, than any of the temporal concerns of men, whether private or public. And therefore it is especially fit that these affairs should be brought into judgment and openly determined and settled, in truth and righteousness, and that to this end ministers and their people should meet together before the omniscient and infallible Judge.

From “Farewell Sermon,” p. 202