in the salvation of our respective flocks. A honest heart is always warm; and surely if there is any warmth in the heart, it cannot be cool in such a cause, in the cause of God, of truth, and of man's eternal happiness. Did Christ die for the souls of men? Did he trust those souls, thus purchased with his precious blood, to our care? And can we say, we are faithful, if we are remiss or indifferent under so great a charge? Let us consider our Master, our work, and our reward; and we shall quickly perceive, that, if we want zeal and ardour in such a service, we must be scandalous traitors, traitors odious in the eyes of God, and despicable in those of men.

Again, we cannot say, we are either faithful or zealous, if we are not diligent, if we take our ease, and suffer the sheep of Christ to live and die, as ignorant of him and his religion, as the Cafres or Greenlanders. What a faithless,

what an ungrateful, what a stony-hearted wretch is he, who sees God's people perishing for lack of knowledge, and, contenting himself with a pitiful system of mere legal duties, forgets the precept of St. Paul to Timothy, 'I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. Watch then in all things; endure afflictions; do the work of an evangelist; make full proof of thy ministry.' Is there nothing here but a cold irreverent reading of prayers, a rambling over a stupid harangue once a week, or now and then christening a child, and burying a corpse? What, in the name of God, and of common decency, must our lay brethren think of us, if they see us going to a canon, or an act of parliament, and not to the word of God, and the nature of our office, for the rules of our duty?

But farther: Let us not presume to say, we have the least mite, either of fidelity or zeal, if we do not, in such parts of our office, as require it, demonstrate a clear courage, and an undaunted resolution. Shall a poor soldier, in the service of a worldly prince and cause, and for a few pence by the day, stand the fire of fifty thousand men ?" And shall the soldier of Christ, with the two-edged sword of God's word' in his hand, by which the cause of God and heaven

is to be maintained, with plentiful pay in this world, and with a crown of endless glory in view, fear to attack error in the midst of its numerous bigots, or vice in its highest pomp and power? How dare he be a coward, who hath an almighty arm to back him? There is not a baser wretch than he, who, because the times are loose and libertine, because it is the fashion to cant up new opinions, instead of ancient truths, is afraid to insist on his creed. His poor stammering tongue is ever employed in mincing what ought to be swallowed whole, and in dodging miserably between truth and falsehood. His cloven tongue is very different from that which rested on the apostles; it is not of fire, but of ice; it is also very differently employed; for, while one half of it whispers truth in this company, the other prattles heresy in that; and both together deliver from the pulpit (what shall I call it!) an artfully qualified truth, or a guarded heresy, or an ambiguous mixture of both, with a dose of poison for the ignorant, and a cunning salvo for the orthodox hearer. Now this the fool takes for prudence, as if none were to hear him but men! Woe be to the fearful hearts, and faint hands, and the sinner that goeth two ways; for it will be more tolerable, in the day of judgment, for that other fool, who saith in his heart, there is no God, than for him.'

Of all the qualities requisite in a good clergyman, there is not one that tends so directly to aggrandize the character of his function, as this of a honest courage. If, like his great Master, without partiality, without hypocrisy, without fear or respect of persons, he speaks out freely, reproves vice boldly, and shews he is awed by nothing, but the dread of failing in his duty, his person will soon be revered, and his ministry appear majestic, in the eyes of all who know him; although his poverty should render the attainment of this desireable end somewhat more tardy in him, than in one whose temporalities set him higher in the world.

There cannot be a grosser mistake, than the common notion, that prevails too much both among the laity and clergy, that a clergyman is to speak with freedom and resolution, only proportionable to his rank and fortune. What, do you give the lie to Christ? Is Christ's kingdom of this world? Or do his ministers, as such, derive their authority

of speaking from any but him? Do they derive it from mammon, that enemy of Christ and his religion? I will venture to say, the dignity of the ministry will never be retrieved, till it ceases to be put on a worldly footing, and is founded again in Christ; for other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.'

Again, a clergyman can in nothing demonstrate a greater dignity of soul, nor a more exalted spirit, than by a settled contempt of that, which the rest of mankind are so miserably enslaved to; I mean, the riches and honours of the world. But if, while he preaches up things above, his affections appear to be nevertheless riveted to things below, he gives but a sorry proof of his fidelity to Christ, and his zeal for the honour of a function, so properly, so purely spiritual. If all the ardour of his heart is exhausted in hunting after preferment, and doubling on the scent of worldly interests, let us not blame the laity for calling him a renegade and a deserter from Christ. If we believe our blessed Saviour, we must be satisfied, 'No man can serve two masters; and, if we believe our own eyes, we must be convinced, this man is serving mammon, and therefore cannot be serving Christ; who hath assured us, 'No man can serve God and mammon.' What a light does he set himself in to all men, and even his holy function to the undistinguishing, who thus, like another Judas, sells his master to a new cross, for some pieces of silver.

In the next place, that such men only may be admitted into the ministry, as are qualified to advance its credit, all possible care should be taken to examine into the piety, the virtue, the learning, of those who stand candidates for holy orders; that none but chosen men may be ordained; and that the church may no longer be a sink and a receptacle for wretches, every way too contemptible to do honour to any other employment. What account shall they give at the last day, who are more nice in the choice of their own, than of God's servants.

And the better to answer the intention of this care, as soon as these men are ordained and employed, their conduct ought to be closely inspected, that the good only may be advanced, and the worthless kept down, or discarded. By

this management, the work of the ministry will be soon brought into able and honourable hands, the clamours of our enemies silenced, and the credit of our holy function restored to its primitive dignity. But, without this, I will be bold to say, no art, no policy, no power of this world will be able to prevent our tumbling headlong into a still greater degree of contempt.

Lastly, in order to restore the dignity of our employment, and, with it, the credit of Christianity itself, union or uniformity is absolutely necessary. But here I mean not uniformity in the common acceptation, as applied to ceremonies, and the constitutions of particular churches. No; more dangerous and more pernicious differences, than such as end in schism, bad as they are, call for our attention. We need no longer shew a concern to see Christ's seamless garment divided, when our eyes are summoned to a more rueful spectacle, to see his very body torn in pieces, and that by such means-O that it were possible to speak of them with any tenderness towards those who use them, and yet at the same time not to forget, that Christ is thereby crucified afresh!

There are those among us (may God avert the dreadful evil) who begin to lay new foundations; who, although as yet a little covertly, indeed, insinuate a set of doctrines diametrically repugnant to others, that have been hitherto esteemed, by all the churches, most necessary and sacred. Hence it comes, that while one preaches up the doctrine of the Trinity, another denies it; while one insists on the atonement made in the death of Christ for the sins of all men, another calls us off, and bids us trust in our own righteousness for our eternal salvation; while one bids us pray for, and rely on, the assistance of God's grace, in order to faith and reformation, another bids us lean entirely to our own strength for both; while one frightens us with the menaces of eternal torments for our unrepented sins, another sooths us with assurances, that our punishments shall be only temporary.

What shall our unhappy hearers do in this dilemma? Shall they follow him who leads to the south? Or him who beckons them to the north? Or shall their faith waver in

suspence, till obstinacy becomes pliant, and conceit blushes for its own ignorance; or till they themselves become better casuists than their teachers?

But the abettors of new opinions will say, what would you have us do? Is it possible for all men to think one way? We must follow our own reason, not yours; and if superior reason leads us to principles contrary to yours, or not universally believed in former times, you have no right to condemn us for publishing such principles, as truths, since you carry the importance of those principles, whether embraced, or rejected, farther than we do.

Why, herein now is a most marvelous thing!' that we should disagree about such matters, as of all things ought to be most plain, and which the Spirit of God judged he had made sufficiently plain; or he would never, by St. Paul, have told us, that there is but one faith; commanding us to stand fast in that faith, to stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;' he would never so pathetically have besought us, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we should all speak the same thing, that there should be no divisions among us; but that we should be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment.' Shall a Christian, after hearing these words of God, still insist, that there is nothing in which all men can judge alike? Or, at least, that points, essentially related to the very object of our worship, to the very foundation of our hopes, are so obscurely set forth in holy Scripture, as to leave room for sensible and honest men to differ so widely about them?

If it is fundamentally necessary to think rightly on these points, they must be clearly revealed, or revelation must have somewhat in it very foolish and defective. If they are not necessary, if they are not fundamental, then, in whatsoever establishment the one side or the other shall happen to be embraced, it is better for those, who look on them as unnecessary, and who cannot, merely by their private judgment in expounding Scripture, digest the determinations of that establishment, either honestly to stay out of it, or modestly to distrust their own understandings, and to acquiesce in that of the church, than to destroy its peace by vending contrary opinions; for peace is as confessedly