to speak to the Lord's household, as those who are set over them, to give them their portion of meat in due season; and to claim your attention, as a body of men, set apart from the people, in conformity with the intentions of our Saviour, and the directions of his Apostles, to lay before you the doctrines of salvation; to declare unto you the whole counsel of God; to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. And with whatever degree of ability we discharge our functions, if we do it with sincerity and earnestness, we have a right to expect a serious and candid audience. pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto God.

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But I am fully aware, that we may urge this solemn intreaty in vain, if we urge it solely upon the authority of our office, without making the whole of our preaching and living comformable with the character to which we pretend. I am aware, that if there be not a conviction, in the minds of our hearers, that we are, in the first place, qualified to discern the truth, and, in the second place, earnest and serious in setting it forth, our ministry will not be an effectual, a profitable, a fruitful ministry. In order thereto, it is requisite that we be

competently learned. With respect to the first preachers of the Gospel, the absence of human learning rendered more conspicuous and unquestionable the miraculous interposition of the Holy Spirit, by which they were enabled to confound the most acute, to baffle the most learned, to silence the most eloquent of their opponents. It was manifest that God had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which were mighty. The absence of human endowments gave scope for the free and full manifestation of the Spirit in its miraculous energies but the ordinary gifts of the Spirit are to be expected, only in proportion to our pious and humble diligence in cultivating the natural faculties of our mind, with a view to the sacred work in which they are to be engaged.

6

Whatsoever branches of knowledge may be supposed to lie within the circle, which a learned minister of the Word has traversed and explored, there is one to which the humblest must aspire: he must strive to be mighty in the Scriptures. And what is it, to be mighty in the Scriptures? Not merely to repeat verse upon verse, or chapter upon chapter, of the Bible; but to have well

61 Cor. i. 27.

considered and weighed the meaning and coherence of the different parts of Holy Writ; to have sought, by study and prayer, for a right understanding of their intent and application; and to be able to press them upon the minds and consciences of others, with a convincing clearness and justness of reasoning; without any of those forced and unauthorized appropriations, those mystical and unprofitable speculations, which perplex the weak, and offend the strong; but with an earnestness of application to every man's reason and feeling, which does indeed make the learned and discreet minister mighty in the Scriptures; for it enables him to throw down the strongholds of prejudice, and pride, and worldly-mindedness, in the hearts of his hearers; to force open a door for grace, and so to wield the sword of the Spirit, as to give sensible demonstration of the truth, that the Word of God, when rightly applied, is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.

But then it must be the whole counsel of God which we thus recommend and enforce, as delivered in his Word; not some of its features, to the neglect or disparagement of the rest. We

7 Heb. iv. 12.

are not merely to convince men of their own sinfulness; but to persuade them of the free mercy of God. If we teach them the certain but mysterious doctrine, that he has foreknown all things from eternity, the salvation of the faithful, the condemnation of the ungodly; and that what he foreknows, he must have foreordained; we shall but foster a dangerous assurance in the presumptuous, and drive to despair the timid and the tender heart, unless we go on to convince them, that in the revelation of his will and purposes, as well as by that interpreter which he has planted within us, God deals with all men as with free agents, at liberty to choose the good or the evil, and answerable for the choice; able to come unto him through Christ, by the aid of his Spirit; and to work out their salvation, albeit with fear and trembling.

But the theme of our preaching, the basis of our arguments, the ornament of our eloquence, must be Christ; Christ crucified. We tell We tell you that you may come to God; but it must be through Christ; that you may obey him, and please him, but only in Christ; that he has promised to abide in you, but only as you abide

Phil. ii. 12.

in Christ; that you may perform works which are good and acceptable to him; but good, only as they are the fruits and tokens of faith in Christ; and acceptable, only as Christ has purchased their acceptance by the infinite merits of his own obedience and death. I do not advise you to usurp the office of judge, over those whom you are commanded to honour and obey; nor ought you to be offended with the peculiarities of those preachers of the Gospel, whose mode of instruction may be unsuited to your judgment or your taste: but I cannot desire you to resign yourselves to the guidance of those who do not preach Christ, and him crucified. Let no man deprive you of that sure and certain anchor of the soul, that sole foundation of your hopes, as a responsible sinful being, that only real source of strength in this life, and of hope in another.

guage of the great Apostle?

What is the lan

I am not ashamed

of the Gospel of Christ. We preach Christ crucified.10 I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." In the sight of God speak we in Christ.12 preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord,

Rom. i. 16.

111 Cor. ii. 2.

10 1 Cor. i. 23.

12 2 Cor. ii. 17.

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