INAUGURAL ADDRESS.*

I

HAVE been requested by the Heads of this In

stitution to offer, on this occasion, a brief address to my younger brethren in the ministry, upon the resumption of their preparatory studies in this new and elegant abode. I see before me a much larger audience, and of a more miscellaneous description, than I had been led to anticipate, and am prepared to address. I shall, however, be excused, I hope, if I confine myself to the momentous topic of the Christian ministry, as that in which all sincere Christians take a deep interest, whether they are students of general literature, or hearers of the preached word, or preparing for the sacred office of preachers of Christ's gospel.

* As this address was partly extemporaneous, I have been glad to avail myself, in the publication of it, of the notes that were taken of it by a short-hand writer who was present at its delivery, and which have been kindly furnished me for that purpose.

B

Were I called upon to answer the question,—What is the great object of the Christian Ministry? I should feel constrained to answer,-It is to set forth Jesus Christ, as he is revealed in the Scriptures; to make him known to men as their Saviour, that they may be drawn to him, and be thereby reconciled to God, and rendered the participants of his favour here, and of his bliss hereafter.

This was

the great object of the ministry of the Apostles, by whom such multitudes were at first converted to God. Such, the greatest and most successful preacher among them frequently. avows to have been his high object and exclusive aim. "I determined," he says to the Corinthians, "to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Elsewhere, speaking to them of himself and his colleagues, he observes-"We preach Christ crucified; unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." To the Colossians he makes the same declaration,-" Christ in you," he says, "the hope of glory; whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."

The divine nature of Jesus Christ is that, I would observe, which forms the basis of his redeeming work, and of his whole mediatorial office. Until we are settled on this point, our preaching of Christ will be of a feeble and wavering character. The representations we make of salvation by him will lack that which invests this salvation with all its true glory, and attracts to it the attention of men, as the great and divine salvation which they need, and which is every way suited to that need. But this fact is a great mystery, designated by inspired authority-" the great mystery of godliness." It is not to be fathomed by human reason, but must be received solely on divine testimony. It is "dark through excessive brightness," and bewilders those who would pry into it too curiously. It involves the mystery of the divine nature, and is necessarily inscrutable in its own right. Inquiring minds may, indeed, be for awhile perplexed about it, for which they are not to be hastily condemned, if willing to abide by the obvious testimony of Scripture. I was once for a time in doubt myself on the subject of the Trinity, and especially on the divine nature of Christ; and I obtained relief solely by this method. I read those texts which simply and explicitly asserted the Godhead of

Christ, and if they meant not that, could mean nothing; in distinction from those which asserted, with equal truth and certainty, his perfect humanity, and subordination in office to the will of his Almighty Father. My faith in the doctrine stood thus, not in the wisdom of men, but in the word of God. And, as we are most confirmed in the truth we have once doubted, and been led by our doubts to sift out for ourselves, I have ever since been firmly established in this great doctrine, to the joy and rejoicing of my heart.

I met, about that time, with a little work, being part of a larger one, entitled Emanuel or Godman, which was of great service to me. It was written in the seventeenth century, by John Tombes, B.D., a Baptist minister.* In the compass of a few pages, and by a careful comparison of Scripture with Scripture, it dispersed the metaphysical subtilties with which the doctrine had been clouded in my mind, and scattered the ingenious misinterpretations of the passages connected with it to the winds.

one

* "He was," says Echard, in his History of England, of incomparable parts, well versed in the Greek and Hebrew languages, and a most excellent disputant, so exceedingly apprehensive that he could find out the end upon the first entry of the disputes."