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did not receive, and must not account for to the owner? All he possesses is borrowed, and must be restored; nay, he does not even belong to himself. Let him give back to God his natural talents, his beauty, his strength, his riches, his worldly pomp and power; let him restore to men the little knowledge he received by instruction; let him render to the beasts his cloathing, to the worms his finery, to the earth and the dunghill his delicacies, to the rocks his shining stones; and what is left? An ignorant and vicious mind, a naked and starving body, a wretch, precarious, dependant, infirm, and helpless; whom any beast, nay, the smallest insect, or a blast of wind, can destroy; who feeds on dirt, and subsists on a momentary supply of air. Shall we call him ashes, or dust, or smoke, or dirt? This, as St. Chrysostom observes, will only represent his vileness and infirmity; but, to paint that, and his swelling vanity too, let us say he is a bubble, puffed up with the wind of other bubbles, which with difficulty he contains for a while in a frail bladder of water; and, being tossed to and fro on the tide of life, soon vanishes, and is seen no more.

Come down, vain man, from the throne which thy vanity and thy flatterers have erected for thee in thy own imagination, and behold thyself springing from the dust, and borrowing all thou art so highly vain of from the same original. Behold thy heart polluted and enslaved by mean appetites, and brutal passions; and thy boasted reason imposed on by slight appearances, hoodwinked with childish ignorance, and misled by shameful errors. Behold thy body subject to accidents, afflicted with sickness, and destroyed by death, which stands at thy side, waiting for the signal to strike thee down. But, above all, remember thy sins, thy many open and secret.sins, and behold thyself led by them, like a slave, far from thy known happiness, through a course of life condemned by thy own reason and conscience to endless disgrace and misery. Behold this picture of thyself; consider it attentively; and then tell us, canst thou be proud? No, surely; it is impossible: And therefore,

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'Not unto man, O Lord, not unto man, but unto thy holy and glorious name,' be ascribed all honour, and dignity, and majesty, for ever. Amen.

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DISCOURSE XXXVII.

THE DIGNITY OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.
Preached at a Visitation in 1751.

ST. MARK X. 43, 44.

Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister ;
And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.

FEW subjects beter deserve the attention of a true believer (and to such only I speak in this Discourse) than the dignity of the Christian ministry. It is true, it concerns us above all things to think attentively, in order that we may think rightly, on the fundamental principles of our religion. But, as those principles are conveyed to us through the clergy, we see they generally partake of that esteem or contempt, wherewith the clergy are regarded.

Hence it comes to pass, that the opinions people entertain of their teachers do very materially assist, or obstruct, their own edification; unhappily for the most part obstruct it, sometimes by sweetening the errors of a favourite teacher; but infinitely oftener by imbittering the truth in the ears of such as are forced to hear it from persons they do not like.

It were to be wished, indeed, that all men could think of our religion, as it is in itself, invariably wise, holy, and awful; without attending, so much as they do, to the good or ill qualities of its preachers, which have little more connexion with its truth or falsity, than the good or ill qualities of other Christians. But that the case is otherwise, in fact, daily experience may convince us. It will by no means content the world, that we appear to be properly commissioned, unless they have reason also to think us duly qualified. Whatsoever degree of respect, or disrespect, they may entertain for our pretensions to Scriptural institution, if they hold our understandings and morals in esteem, they will listen to us; if in contempt, they will turn a deaf ear to all we can say; for they know, as well as we do, that the bulk

of what we say to them, being the produce of our own minds, may, according to the degree of our honesty, and of our ability in the Scriptures, be more or less agreeable to the mind of God. If therefore the Clergy are respected, they will be heard, not otherwise.

Now, pursuant to what hath been premised, the respect paid to them, so far as piety is permitted to interfere in the matter, will be in proportion to the character they appear to be invested with in the holy Scripture; and so far as their hearers are governed by observation, or experience, according to the character they give themselves by the moral part of their behaviour, and by the discharge of that sacred office they assume.

And first, as to the ministerial character setforth in holy Scripture, it is expressed in terms, that intimate, as you may observe, an equal degree of humility and dignity. 'Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister, and whosoever will be chiefest, shall be servant of all.' Here is plainly signified a certain dignity and pre-eminence of some, who are to be greater than others, and chief among their bretheren; and yet, at the same time, with this dignity is joined a proportionable humility, on which the very dignity is founded; for, in order to his future exaltation, the messenger of Christ must humble himself here; must of himself take the lowest seat, before his Master will promote him to one that is higher; must make himself little and inconsiderable in one respect, in order to be great and chief in another; that is, the higher he is advanced in spiritual, the more regardless he ought to be of mere worldly pre-eminence; for the same reason, perhaps, that a king thinks that precedency not worth his claiming, which the lowest of mankind yields to him, who is but one degree above him. Indeed he who hath ever tasted that internal grandeur, which springs from the consciousness of real worth, of religious honours, will have little relish for outward pomp and parade; his soul will soar above it, to the dignity of Christian humility. Thus we see, in these words of our Saviour, that we must all be servants one to another; and that, in order to gratify the highest ambition we are permitted to entertain.

If all the passages of Scripture, relating to the dignity of our function, are fairly weighed and compared together,

none will be found to do us more honour, than those in which we are stiled 'the servants of Christ;' and yet none more strongly inculcate the humility essential to that function; for even our Master 'took on him the form of a servant,' and 'came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.' To minister to whom? Why, to the soul of the very meanest man, that should believe on him. Accordingly, what can be more humble, what more ministerial, than the carriage of this exalted Being? This 'King of kings,' submits himself, not only to the majesty of his Father, but to every ordinance of man.' This 'Lord of lords girds himself with a towel, and washes the feet of his disciples.' This Creator of all things, this Ruler of heaven, is contented to be 'spit on, buffeted, crucified.' And in all this recommends his example to us his servants, with a reason, which all the evasions of pride can never parry; 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent, greater than he that sent him. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you.'

With such an example, set us by the Son of God himself, set us, who are but dust and ashes, we must be lost to common sense, and common modesty, if we presume to carry ourselves above either the humblest duty of our office, or the meanest mortal to whom that duty may be due.

But, since the office of the clergy appears to be set so low in holy Scripture, it may now be asked, wherein the dignity of that office consists, as set forth by the same Scripture?

The dignity of this sacred office is represented to us in terms so strong, and in a stile so high, by the holy Spirit, that, were not the words dictated by that very Spirit, and did not the necessity of the thing press me to it, as I am unworthily vested with that awful office myself, I should choose, conscious of my own miserable unfitness for so holy a function, to be silent on a subject, much fitter for the minds of the laity, than the mouths of the clergy. However, before I have done with it, I hope to set it in such a light, as may induce my brethren and myself to draw arguments for humility, nay, for fear and trembling, rather than for pride and presumption, from that very dignity.

So necessary is the ministry to the propagation of Christian knowledge, and, by that means, to the reformation.

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and eternal happiness of mankind, that our blessed Saviour himself calls those, who are honoured with it, 'the salt of the earth,' without which it must become corrupt and fetid before God; and the light of the world,' without which it must still sit in darkness, in the darkness of idolatry and wickedness. Let a Christian (I speak to the reason, the faith, the conscience of a real Christian), ask himself, how he can hold those in contempt, whom his Saviour emblazons with so noble a coat, and not remember, at the same time, the other words of our Saviour, 'He that despises you, despises me; and he that despises me, despises him that sent me.'

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Again, the clergy are in holy Scripture called' shepherds,' the shepherds to whose care that flock is committed, which God hath purchased with his own blood.'

Again, they are called 'teachers,' teachers of heavenly wisdom, and saving righteousness, to a people, who, if destitute of such instructors, must spend their days in shameful ignorance, and horrible wickedness; and die at last like the beast that perisheth.'

Again, they are called stewards, stewards of the manifold grace, and the mysteries of God;' without whose intervention, as Christ hath pleased to constitute his church, neither the Spirit of God, nor the seal of the covenant, administered in the holy sacrament, can be conveyed to any man; for no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God.'

And to raise their character still higher, they are dignified with the title of Christ's apostles, and even with that of ambassadors and angels from the high God, who speaks to the people by their mouths, who washes away their sins, and holds forth the precious body and blood of his Son, by their hands.

If, from the Scriptural characters, we descend to the execution of their office in its various branches, we shall be struck with a most exalted idea both of its beauty and dignity.

What reverence is due to those, who faithfully deliver, and ably defend, that word, of which its great Author says, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.'.

How tenderly ought they to be loved! how highly ought

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