tues of mankind, than any other order of men in the world. This, every Christian people are obliged to own, and especially the people in New England. We have long sustained, and perhaps in some measure still sustain the character of a sober, virtuous and religious people. But this, under God, must be chiefly ascribed to the succession of able and faithful ministers, who have planted and watered our churches, and who have so firmly fixed us in the faith once delivered to the saints, that no deceivers have been able to eradicate from our minds the first principles of virtue and religion, or to turn us aside from the fundamental doctrines of divine revelation.* We, therefore, have no reason to complain of the ministerial office, from which we have derived, and do still derive such precious and important advantages. But, on the other hand, we have every reason to venerate the divine institution, to esteem the ministers of Christ highly in love for their work's sake, and to give them a support, which is the best suited to render them the most extensively useful.

Fourthly: The ministers of the gospel ought to give themselves wholly to the duties of their office. Do they love their office? Are they thankful for their office. Do they esteem their office a peculiar privilege? Then surely they ought to exert themselves, with unwearied diligence, in the faithful discharge of all its duties. These are various and important enough to employ all their time and all their abilities. The greatest and best of men have found themselves unequal to the arduous task, and felt themselves ready to sink under the weight of their sacred work. Even Paul was so sensible of the difficulty and importance of ministerial duties, that he cried out, under a deep sense of human weakness and imbecility," Who is sufficient for these things?" Ministers have no time to spare for amusements, for diversions, or for the peculiar studies of any other profession than their own. And if they had time, the nature of their office forbids them to dissipate their minds by the cares, the pleasures, or the pursuits of the world. But some, perhaps, may plead necessity for neglecting the duties of their office. This necessity very seldom takes place. Let ministers therefore consider their solemn vows to Christ, and by a faithful discharge of their office, convince their people that they are entirely devoted to their service; and then, if their complaints be not removed, their consciences will be eased. This however, is certainly that course of conduct which Paul directs

* See the Westminster Catechism, which has been generally adopted; the Massachusetts Confession of Faith; and the writings of Hooker, Shepard, Stoddard, Edwards.

Timothy, and every other minister of the gospel, to pursue. "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth, entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." "Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all."

Fifthly, The ministers of the gospel should cheerfully submit to that state of self denial, in which the nature of their office requires them to live. Their peculiar station deprives them of many worldly enjoyments, and naturally subjects them to a life of self denial. They have no grounds to expect that honor, that ease, that affluence, or that independence, which attends many other employments of life. These alluring prospects they are called to renounce, and cheerfully submit to more humble and self denying circumstances. To such a state of humility and self denial Christ and the apostles cheerfully subjected themselves, through the whole course of their ministry. Paul, in particular, made great sacrifices to his office, and readily submitted to all the scenes of self denial which he knew would attend the preaching of the gospel. He says, "When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." Flesh and blood would naturally say," Spare thyself, and plunge not into all the dangers and mortifying circumstances, which overwhelm the despised preachers of the cross. But, resisting these solicitations of nature, and yielding to the motions of grace, he resolved to obey the call of Christ, and preach the gospel at the hazard of every worldly interest. This was a signal act of self denial. For he was a young man of shining talents, and of great expectations; at least, the great men of the nation had fixed their eyes upon him, and had given him a mark of their particular esteem and regard, by granting him a commission to execute a very important design. But all these flattering prospects he cheerfully gave up, for the sake of the ministry. And when he was called to the trial, he made good his resolutions, and courageously endured the afflictions of the gospel. The account of his trials and sufferings, is enough to make the first clergymen in Europe, the prelates of all established churches, and all who sustain the ministeral character, ashamed of themselves, whenever they complain of the burdens of their office. He was "in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews," says he "five times I re

ceived forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness, and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." Yet after all this, in the close of his life he could sincerely say, "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry." He always maintained such a grateful sense of the distinguishing privilege of being a minister of the gospel, that he felt as though he could never do nor suffer enough, to promote the cause of Christ and the salvation of sinners. Surely then we, who sustain the same office, ought to feel the same spirit, and cheerfully go through all the trials that attend us in the course of our ministry. If we love our office, if we are thankful for it, how readily should we take up the cross, despise the pomp and splendor of the world, and silently walk in the low vale of obscurity, neglect and dependence.

Sixthly: Christ has laid his ministers under the most endearing obligations to be faithful in their office. He has raised them up. He has given them their noble powers and faculties. He has enriched their minds with all their treasures of knowledge and grace. And besides all this, he has put them into the highest and best office in his kingdom. They are bound therefore by their office, by their gifts and graces, and by all the ties of love and gratitude, to preach the gospel with the utmost plainness and fidelity. Paul felt the weight and influence of all these tender motives, and accordingly chose to be the servant of Christ rather than the servant of men, and to displease all the world rather than to displease him, who had put him into the ministry. He renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. He walked not in craftiness, nor handled the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth, commended himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. In all his epistles, but especially in those to the Romans and Ephesians, he inculcates, without the least palliation or reserve, the doctrine of native depravity, of regeneration, of election, of divine sovereignty, and of divine operation in forming the vessels of mercy and the vessels of wrath. And this faithful discharge of his office, he tells us, gave him peculiar comfort and satisfaction in the nearest views of eternity. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the

Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."

Now, my Fathers and Brethren, if we are the ministers of Christ, we shall likewise feel the force of these strong and tender obligations, to be faithful in our office. We shall not seek to please men, but we shall seek to please Christ. We shall tell men the truth, even though they should become our enemies for telling them the truth. We shall plainly lay open the depravity and corruption of the human heart. We shall aim to strip sinners of their self righteousness, and drive them from all their refuges of lies. We shall endeavor to make our hearers understand and feel the most disagreeable, which are indeed the most important and profitable doctrines of the gospel. And we shall labor to lodge in their consciences as well as in our own, a lasting evidence that, having declared the whole counsel of God, we are pure from the blood of all men.

What

Seventhly: It is a privilege to hear, as well as to preach the gospel. It was a privilege of the Gentiles to hear Paul, as well as a privilege of Paul to preach to the Gentiles. And it is a privilege of the people now to hear the ministers of Christ, as well as a privilege of the ministers of Christ to preach to the people. Indeed, the opportunity of hearing the gospel is one of the highest privileges that mankind can ever enjoy. greater privilege can Christ bestow upon any people, than to raise up an able and faithful minister, and furnish him with his richest gifts and graces, and send him among them, "to open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God?" This great and invaluable blessing, my hearers, you all enjoy, who enjoy able and faithful ministers. How then will you be able to answer it to Christ at the day of judgment, if you esteem it a burden rather than a privilege, to hear them preach; and from Sabbath to Sabbath, neglect to appear in the house of God, to seek the law at their mouth? You had better misimprove any other day in the week, than misimprove the Sabbath. You had better misimprove seed time and harvest, than misimprove the precious season of hearing the word of God. You had better absent yourselves from any other place, than from the place of public worship, where God manifests his presence, and displays his pardoning mercy. You had better therefore abuse any other privilege you enjoy, than abuse the privilege of hearing the gospel; for if you abuse this privilege, you will abuse light; which above all things will enhance your guilt, and aggravate your everlasting ruin. For says Christ himself, "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light."

To testify the gospel of the grace of God. — Acts, xx. 24.

PAUL, in his passage from Greece to Rome, having landed at Miletus, sent and called the elders of the church of Ephesus. When they were come together, he addressed them, with peculiar solemnity and affection, on the important subject of the gospel ministry. And to make the deeper impression on their minds, he not only recalled to their remembrance his former manner of life and preaching among them, but expressed, in the most feeling manner, his present views of the nature and importance of the gospel, which both he and they were under solemn and inviolable obligations to preach. "Ye know," says

*The author believes that every man has a right to judge for himself in matters of religion; but yet he believes that no man has a right to judge for,himself, even in these matters, contrary to the dictates of reason and scripture. He believes that argument and church discipline are the only proper weapons to be employed against heretics; and absolutely reprobates the cruel and absurd notion of torturing men's bodies, in order to enlighten and convince their minds. He approves the genuine candor which overlooks small errors, and the noble catholicism which embraces truth, in whatever denomination it is found; but he abhors the false and blind charity, which sees no difference between truth and error. He entertains a high opinion of the superior abilities of Mr. Locke, Dr. Price, and Dr. Priestly; he gratefully acknowledges the eminent services they have done to the Republics of Liberty and of Letters; and he especially admires the noble and independent spirit with which they have expressed their sentiments upon some of the most important subjects in divinity. But yet he believes that they have done great and extensive injury to the distinguishing and fundamental doctrines of the gospel; and therefore he wishes to expose, to the utmost of his power, the false and dangerous principles which they have endeavored to establish. And he has no doubt but all who possess their noble and independent spirit, will readily grant that he has neither transgressed the rules of decency, nor violated the laws of Christianity, in attacking their public opinions, while he has treated their characters with all proper deference and respect.