This whole work ought to be required reading for every pastor and would-be pastor (if not every Christian). Here is a snippet (the first sentence and last line- let the same be said of us):
"[M'Cheyne's] soul was prepared for the awful work of the ministry by much prayer, and much study of the word of God; by affliction in his person; by inward trials and sore temptations; by experience of the depth of corruption in his own heart, and by discoveries of the Saviour's fulness of grace. He learned experimentally to ask, "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God!" I John 5:5. During the four years that followed his awakening, he was oftentimes under the many waters, but was ever raised again by the same divine hand that had drawn him out at the first; till at length, though still often violently tossed, the vessel was able steadily to keep the summit of the wave. It appears that he learned the way of salvation experimentally, ere he knew it accurately by theory and system; and thus no doubt it was that his whole ministry was little else than a giving out of his own inward life."
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