dual state the strength and exercise of their spiritual capacities -the kind of food, which they severally require for the nourishment of the Christian life, according to their infantine, growing, or adult state-their special hindrances or advantages-their advance, apparently stationary condition, or visible decay, in the ways of God. The treatment of these several individualities demands a deep and well-digested acquaintance with the methods of the grace of God, in order to administer a seasonable and effective distribution of the word. The Apostle marks also the gift of "utterance" as a spiritual endowment in the dispensation of the word-enabling us to address our people with "opened mouth" and "enlarged heart; " to "speak as the oracles of God"-in mode as well as in matter-in "sound speech" as well as in "sound doctrine;"3 delivering our testimony with holy confidence, "not as the word of man, but in truth the word of God—” in a manner suitable to the dignity of the pulpit, and yet plain to the weakest capacity. The natural powers of clear thinking and arrangement of matter, of aptitude of expression, and of familiar and appropriate illustration, are often used as sanctified instruments of conveying the life-giving power of the Gospel with increasing acceptance and powerful application. Not however that these abilities are communicated. by an extraordinary or sudden afflatus, or that they necessarily accompany in an equal measure the efforts of diligence. The diligence of faith will ever receive its measure of encouragement in the growth, increase, and improvement of Ministerial gifts. Yet we must not intrench upon the exercise of the Divine sovereignty; remembering, that "all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." 5 'It is not to be supposed' therefore, (to use the words of a sensible writer) that such an office can be easily filled. It

2 2 Cor. vi. 11.

4

a Titus ii. 1, 7, 8.

1 Eph. vi. 19. Bishop Sanderson observes-'It was Simon Magus' error to think, that the gifts of God might be purchased with money; and it has a spice of his sin, and so may go for a kind of simony, to think that spiritual gifts may be purchased with labour. You may rise up early and go to bed late, and study hard, and read much, and devour the marrow of the best authors; and, when you have done all, unless God give a blessing to your endeavours, be as lean and meagre in regard of true and useful learning, as Pharaoh's lean kine were, after they had eaten the fat ones. It is God, that both ministereth the seed to the sower, and multiplieth the seed sown: the principal and the increase are both his.' Sermon on 1 Cor. xii. 7.

51 Cor. xii. 11.

demands not merely some, but many, nay, all excellences, in happy combination. A person may, in a general way, be said to be qualified for the Ministry, who has talents for preaching, though not fitted for profitable private intercourse, or the affairs of Church Government. But this is evidently not a complete adaptation to the work. It is, on the contrary, a very imperfect one, and one with which no man should be content. For, all the aspects of Ministerial labour are, if not equally, yet highly, important; every one of them far too important to be trifled with. The right performance of each affords facilities for the rest, and gives additional beauty and efficacy to all. To be fit for only one department, cannot but greatly impede our activity, and diminish our success. To fill the Ministerial office with a degree of satisfaction and benefit commensurate with its capabilities, or with the desire of a heart awake to its importance, we must be all that it demands-men of God, perfect, completely furnished to every good work." This is an elevated standard. He that aims highest will most approximate to it.

CHAPTER VII.

PREPARATION FOR THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.

WE have already seen, that the weight of Ministerial responsibilities renders the work apparently more fitting to the shoulders of angels than of men. It is therefore a matter of the deepest regret, that any should intrude upon it, equally un

1 Hinton on Completeness of Ministerial Qualifications, pp. 11, 12. 'It will not fail to be objected remarks Mr. Ostervald—that if none were to be admitted into holy orders, except those who are possessed of every necessary qualification, there could not possibly be procured a sufficient number of Pastors for the supply of our Churches.' To which I answer, that a small number of chosen Pastors is preferable to a multitude of unqualified teachers. At all hazards we must adhere to the command of God, and leave the event to Providence. But in reality the dearth of pastors is not so generally to be apprehended. To reject those candidates for holy orders, whose labours in the Church would be wholly fruitless, is undoubtedly a work of piety. Others, on the contrary, who are qualified to fulfil the duties of the sacred office, would take encouragement from this exactness and severity; and the Ministry would every day be rendered more respectable in the world.' Ostervald on Sources of Corruption.

2 Onus Angelicis humeris formidandum.-Augustine.

qualified for its duties, and unimpressed with its obligations. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' But though many see little necessity for preparation; here, if ever, labour, diligence, observation, and intelligence, are needful to produce a "workman that needeth not to be ashamed."

The influence also of selfish or secular motives awfully blinds the conscience to the sense of the present necessity, and to the anticipation of the day of account; while young men of ardent feelings and promising talents, but with unfurnished minds and unrenewed hearts, are thrust forward by the persuasion of injudicious friends, or by the excitement of some momentary bias, into the sacred office. The Church has severely suffered from this woeful inconsideration; and the victims of this self-deluding impetus have felt to their cost its bitter fruit in the disappointment of their Ministry, and the discomfort—if not the ruin— of their own souls. In other cases, the precious time for gathering in the store has been either wasted in feebleness and sloth; or misapplied in studies which have no direct tendency to form a solid, judicious, and experimental Ministry; so that, with every advantage of deliberation, but a slender stock of spiritual or intellectual furniture is ready to meet the successive and daily increasing demands.?

We may confidently anticipate an efficient Ministry, when the momentous cost has been considerately calculated: because then the work is contemplated,-not in the colouring of a self-indulgent anticipation, but in its true light, as warranted by Scripture, and confirmed by the experience of every faithful labourer—a work not of ease, but of self-denial-not of hasty effort but of patient endurance-not of feeling and impulse, but of faith, prayer and determination.

Nulla ars doceri præsumitur, nisi intenta prius meditatione discitur. Ab imperitis ergo pastoribus magisterium pastorale suscipitur in magna temeritate, quoniam ars est artium regimen animarum. Greg. de Cura Pastor. cap. 1.

2 Quesnel's remarks are in his own style, but are well worthy consideration. The duties of an evangelical Preacher, before he begins his ministry, are, 1. To grow in piety, by feeding on the bread of prayer (gathered in by prayer.) 2. To give his zeal time to wax strong by reading the Holy Scriptures and Fathers. 3. To continue in silence and retirement, till God is pleased to bring him out, and show him to the world; men deceive themselves, when they imagine, that they ought to produce and employ their talents without delay, and that they cannot hide them without violating the command of God. On the contrary, they violate it in not waiting his proper time, but making the wants of their neighbour alone a sufficient call.' On Luke i. 80.

A season of preparation-employed in storing the mind with Christian doctrine, and in directing it to devotional and practical purposes-in habits of self-communion and converse with God, and in the exercises of active godliness, will turn to most profitable account throughout the course of a protracted Ministry. We shall venture to offer a few suggestions on the subject under the divisions of-Habits of General Study-The Special Study of the Scriptures-Habits of Special Prayer-and employment in the cure of souls.

SECTION I.

HABITS OF GENERAL STUDY.

"GIVE attendance to reading" is the Scriptural rule for Ministerial study. It is obviously of a general character; nor is there any reason for restricting its application to the Sacred Volume. "Paul the aged," in sending for his "books and parchments," (which, it may be presumed he wanted for perusal,) exemplified the comprehensive extent of his own rule. Indeed who can doubt, that the Church is built up by the Ministry of the pen as well as of the mouth; and that in both ways "the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal?" 3 We cannot suppose that God would suffer the labours of his servants, in communicating the results of exercised, deep, and devotional study, to be in vain. The experience of men of God, like that of diligent travellers, is a public benefit; and the fruit of it in successive ages is preserved as a most valuable store of important knowledge to the Church.

The Apostle's own practice again explains his rule to embrace the wide field of General Study. His introduction of

22 Tim. iv. 13.

3 1 Cor. xii. 7.

11 Tim. iv. 13. 4 Mr. Scott refers this rule to the study of the Scriptures, or of any other books which could add to his fund of profitable knowledge.' His earlier notions on these subjects (he candidly confessess) were too contracted. Mature consideration, however, formed his studious life upon more enlarged principles, which he never failed strongly to inculcate; marking at the same time, the importance of a due subordination to the main end. The object of all your studies,' (he writes in one of his letters) should be, neither celebrity, advantage, nor knowledge, for its own sake, but furniture to enable you to serve God in your generation.' Life, pp. 102, 103, 330. A Minister of the present day said

D

2

heathen aphorisms in the illustration or application of sacred truth 1 proves, that he apprehended no necessary debasement of its purity from an intermixture of human learning. Stephen mentions it to the honour, not to the discredit, of the Jewish Lawgiver, that he was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." The illiterate owe a mighty debt to human learning, for a translation of the Scriptures, which otherwise would have lain by them as a dead letter in an unknown tongue. The intelligent reader is indebted to the same source for the explanation of its difficulties; and for many powerful defences of its authority, which enable him "with meekness and fear,' but yet with confidence, to "be ready always to give an answer to every one that asketh him, a reason of the hope that is in him."3 At the Reformation, learning and religion revived together. The Reformers combined deep study with active Ministry. Erasmus's learning (notwithstanding its too great alliance with "philosophy and vain deceit " 4) was a material assistance to Luther in his great work. 'We are taught by St. Paul's Epistles, that we may avail ourselves of every human aid to dispense the blessings of the Gospel. All these human aids are valuable gifts of God, and only cease to be blessings by the abuse of them. It is true, that the Gospel may be preached with great energy by Ministers possessing very inconsiderable attainments in literature. It sometimes happens, that the most successful Ministrations are conducted by men of very moderate acquirements. And indeed the character of the Gospel seems to require, that in most cases (where the true doctrine is preached) it should give more honour to zeal and diligence than to genius and learning. But it is also true, that God is pleased to make himself known by the use of means. And when the means are used in subordination to his grace, he will honour the means. Let us then honour human learning. Every branch of knowledge, which a good man to a friend, who found him reading Gibbon's History-that he read every thing with a particular view to his Ministry, that he collected some materials for the pulpit from books of almost every description, and that he made all his readings contribute something towards what was needful for the Sunday.' Christian Observer, Oct. 1828, p. 608. Indeed, to restrict our reading to matters of immediate connection with our grand subject, would exclude us from much valuable collateral knowledge, and expose us to prejudice and misconception. 2 Acts vii. 22.

1 Such as Acts xvii. 28. 1 Cor. xv. 33. Titus i. 12. 31 Peter iii. 15.

4 Col. ii. 8.