sequences of his doing so, must be left to the management of Him who sent it. In all cases preachers of the Gospel are witnesses for God. A common delusion which attacks ministers is, that it is their business to convert men. It is their business to declare all the truth of God that they know; whether men are converted by it or not, is no business of theirs.

A notion has crept in amongst persons professing evangelical religion, that they, as laymen, can interfere with, and ought to control, the ambassadors of Christ, in the message which these, in His name, announce to the people. This has probably grown out of an abuse which arose at the time of the Reformation, by which the right of presentation to livings in the Church of England, were allowed to come into lay hands, and be a matter of sale. The evil, however, in the case of chapels, both in the Church of England, and amongst dissenters, is carried to a much greater length. The people who exercise control over ministers cannot be blessed. It is essential to the holiness of God, and to

the sanctity of His ordinances, that He should curse such congregations, as that he should curse a family in which the husband or wife lived in adultery; or where children were brought up in disobedience to their parents; or where they and the servants were uninstructed, and allowed to commit iniquity unrestrained. This alone is suffi

cient to account for the low state of religion. in dissenters' congregations. As God's blessing must follow the observance of His ordinance, so must His curse follow its violation. We are constantly in the habit of calling on the faithfulness of God to fulfil his promises of blessings on the observance of his ordinances, whilst we commonly forget that the same faithfulness must make him curse their violation. Whereas we act as if God were a positive in respect to what we like to do, and only a negative with respect to what we neglect.

It is owing to the blessing attending THE ORDINANCE, and not the character of the man, that the successes which attend the labours of a minister are so various. We

often see many turned to the service of God, by the preaching of one whose knowledge of divine mysteries is slight, and whose powers of expression are feeble, while no such effect attends a superior divine, and more eloquent orator. In the latter case, both preacher and hearers are apt to be drawn away from the ordinance to the individual: in the former, conscious weakness produces more frequent and more fervent aspirations for support from on High; more distrust of ingenious expedients, and of plans for making Christians; and more unreserved proclamation of all the truths that God has taught. Wherever there exists amongst a congregation a spirit of sitting as critics upon their minister, it is impossible that that congregation can grow in grace, because they thereby prove, that they are not looking to the ordinance of God, but to the talents and powers of man. This is a new evil which has appeared in the Church in the present day; and amongst non-conformists that plague is universal which they charge upon Established Churches, namely, that laymen exercise power over the priest's office. In

America, the people hire a minister for a few months; in Guernsey, though professing to be members of the Church of England, they hire one on a lease for five years. In the Isle of Man a Minister of an Independant Chapel was dismissed by the congregation, because he taught them a portion of divine truth with which they were previously unacquainted.

The root of all these evils which are now overrunning the Church, is in not perceiving that it is THE ORDINANCE which God blesses, and not the individual. One great delusion of popery consists in transferring that power which belongs to the invisible, to the visible; and Protestants fall into similar errors, who, instead of looking to the ordinance, look to him who performs its functions. Thus the Papists see in the priests that power of absolution, which resides only in the Church; that efficacy in the water of baptism which belongs only to the rite; that flesh in the wafer, which can only be eaten by faith. In like manner, Protestants often look to that

efficacy, from the talents of a preacher, which is only to be found in his office; and the preachers themselves are too apt to cherish a delusion which flatters their vanity by becoming mountebanks, in order to attract the admiration of a crowded auditory; while the people attend them as critics, rather than as persons receiving a message from Christ to their souls.

It is quite common to hear it enquired whether a minister was much blessed: by which question is meant, whether he attracted a crowd of hearers, and whether he gained many persons to assent to his doctrines. If the minister has been honestly stating all that he knew and believed to be truth, without holding back any portion of it from a false suggestion of Satan, that he would thereby better serve God, he ought not to doubt but God has effected, by his ministry, whatever it was His purpose to effect. The Church has ever held that the character of the minister or person who administers an ordinance, did not in any wise affect the