Richard Baxter, in his The Reformed Pastor, has the following to say about pastors who would avoid suffering by avoiding their duties. This is nothing short of a blaring alarm to not take the task of ministering lightly.
"...the common way of escaping suffering [is] to neglect the duty that would expose us to it. If we did our duty faithfully, ministers would find the same lot among professed Christians as their predecessors have done among Pagans and other infidels. But if you cannot suffer for Christ, why did you put your hand to his plough [sic]? Why did you not first sit down and count the cost? This makes the ministerial work so unfaithfully executed, because it is so carnally undertaken; men enter upon it as a life of ease, and honour [sic], and respectability, and they resolve to attain their ends, and have what they expected right or wrong. They looked not for hatred and suffering, and they will avoid it, though by avoiding of their work."
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