A Weighty Responsibility

William Allen in dealing with the pastor's responsibility to know the Word of God beyond that of his people says, "For while this way of a studious laboring in the Word, is omitted or neglected, whether through any wry opinion in the teacher, as if there were no necessity of such a thing; or through his idleness and laziness, as the bottom of it; or through the fault of the Church in with-holding that outward supply and support, without which few have the opportunity, though they should have the will; I say where this omission or neglect is, however it comes about, this usually is among the rest, one evil naughty consequence of it, viz. the little and low esteem which the people have of their Pastors, to their own great detriment and spiritual loss. For while the Elders shall but observe the common course of daily meditation in the Word, which is every common Christians duty, they will be able to speak but little more to the edification of the people, than other common Christians which are in no such office, can do. And if the Elders preaching, prove little more to the edification of the people than the common exhortations of Brethren do, which cost them little or no study, (not to mention the mischief of such brethrens being sometimes puffed up hereby, to their fall,) it will be a hard matter to raise an extraordinary building upon a common foundation; it will be hard for the people in this case to vouchsafe those extraordinary respects of singular love & double honor, which the Scripture with a loud voice calls for from them towards those that are over them in the Lord, and which labor in the Word and Doctrine, 1Thes.5:13, 1Tim.5:17. For it is not to be imagined that that extraordinary debt of love and honor which the Lord hath imposed upon the people as due from them towards those that feed the Flock of God, above what is due from them to other of their fellow brethren, should be founded upon anything less, then the extraordinary benefit they may or do receive by their Ministry."

William Allen, A Glass of Justification or the Working of Faith with Power (London: G. Dawson, 1658), Preface Dedicatory. (emphasis mine)