---
title: 'Edward Mack on the Example of Samuel Davies as Minister'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2024-06-10
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2024-edward-mack-on-the-example-of-samuel-davies-as-minister
---

# Edward Mack on the Example of Samuel Davies as Minister

“This great Virginia Presbyterian challenges us, who live so near to the scene of his mighty labors, to follow in his train. Here is the model of a great preacher. Nothing less should satisfy us. Let me speak now to our rising ministry, here in such force within earshot almost of [Samuel Davies’](/authors/samuel-davies) majestic and surpassing sermons. How can we dare to be dull, drab, mediocre! How can we lift our faces to God and fellowmen if craven indolence consume our days! I have called to mind that the founders and leaders of our Virginia Presbyterianism were great scholars and great minds as well as noble souls. You dare be nothing less. There is a lazy notion abroad that any kind of an uneducated man may be a preacher, that mere fervor of spirit has abrogated the might of moral intelligence. But it is a sad mistake. Once indeed God used the jawbone of an ass to overwhelm a thousand men. But it is too much to require of Him a repetition of this miracle every day. When Samuel Davies was asked why, with all his wide learning and power of ready extemporaneous speech, he never entered the pulpit without a carefully prepared and written sermon, he replied that he could not ask God to bless a sermon which had not cost him the utmost labor of which he was capable. If a man has ventured to enter the ministry of souls without mental preparation, he must, like Samuel Davies, recoup his loss with the gain that is earned only by a life of unremitting mental toil.” — [**Edward Mack**](/authors/edward-mack-sr), *Our Presbyterian Heritage in Eastern Virginia: A Sermon Delivered in Schauffler Hall on February* 3, 1924