called Methodists, who were seducing so many on all sides." I thought it would be unadvisable to attempt the removal of prejudices, which, in her dying case, were harmless, and which would soon be removed by the light which would beam in on her glorified soul. We had more interesting subjects of conversation, from which this would have led us away. Some persons may tax her with a want of charity: but, alas! I fear they are persons, who, knowing more than she did of the doctrines of the gospel, have so little of its divine charity in their hearts, that, as they cannot allow for her prejudices, neither would they have been the last to stigmatize her as a dead formalist and a pharisee. God knoweth them that are his; and they are often seen by him, where we see them not. Were a benighted inhabitant of Otaheite to feel the wretchedness of his present life, and lift up his soul to the God he worshipped as a Supreme Being for happiness, no doubt God would hear such a prayer. Miscellaneous Remarks on the Christian Ministry. EVERY book really worth a minister's studying, he ought, if possible, to have in his own library. I have used large libraries, but I soon left them. Time was frittered away: my mind was unconcentrated. Besides, the habit which it begets of turning over a multitude of books is a pernicious habit. And the usual contents of such libraries are injurious to a spiritual man, whose business it is to transact with men's minds. They have a dry, cold, deadening effect. It may suit dead men to walk among the dead; but send not a living man to be chilled among the ruins of Tadmor in the wilderness! CHRISTIANITY is so great and surprising in its nature, that, in preaching it to others, I have no encouragement but the belief of a continued divine operation. It is no difficult thing to change a man's opinions. It is no difficult thing to attach a man to my person and notions. It is no difficult thing to convert a proud man to spiritual pride, or a passionate man to passionate zeal for some religious party. But, to bring a man to love God-to love the law of God, while it condemns him-to loath himself before God-to tread the earth under his feet -to hunger and thirst after God in Christ, and after the mind that was in Christ-with man this is impossible! But God has said it shall be done: and bids me go forth and preach, that by me, as his instrument, he may effect these great ends; and therefore I go. Yet I am obliged continually to call my mind back to my principles. I feel angry, perhaps, with a man, because he will not let me convert him: in spite of all I can say, he will still love the world. measure than that of a soldier. He has to encounter the difficulties of a peculiar situation: he is the parent of a family of children, of various tempers, manners, habits, and prejudices: if he does not continually mortify himself, he will bear hardly upon some of his children. He has, however, to endure the hardness of calling his child, his friend, to an account; of being thought a severe, jealous, legal man. If a man will let matters take their chance, he may live smoothly and quietly enough; but if he will stir among the servants, and sift things to the bottom, he must bear the consequences. He must account himself a Man of Strife. His language must be "It is not enough that you feed me, or fill my pocket there is something between me and thee." The most tender and delicate of his flock have their failings. His warmest and most zealous supporters break down somewhere. A sun-shiny day breeds most reptiles. It is not enough, therefore, that the sun shines out in his church. It is not enough that numbers shout applause. A minister may be placed in a discouraging situation. He may not suit the popular taste. He may not be able to fall into the fashionable style. He may not play well on an instrument. Though an effective man, and a man of energy, he may be under a cloud. The door may be shut against him. Yet it is a dangerous thing for such a man to force open the door. He should rather say "I have a lesson to learn here. If I teach the people nothing, perhaps they may teach me." The work of winter is to be done, as well as the work of summer. The hardness which I have to endure is this Here are a number of families, which show me every kind of regard. But I see that they are not right. They somehow so combine the things which they hear with the things which they do, that I am afraid they will at last lie down in sorrow! Here is my difficulty. I must meet them with gentleness; but I must detect and uncover the evil. I shall want real kindness and common honesty, if I do not. Ephraim hath gray hairs; yet he knoweth it not. Ephraim is a cake not turned. But, if I tell him these things, he and I shall become two persons. He must, however, be so touched in private; for he will not be touched in the pulpit. He will say, "I am not the man." A MINISTER must keep under his body, and bring it into subjection, A Newmarket groom will sweat himself thin, that he may be fit for his office: Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we, an incorruptible! is come from college. He has a refined, accurate, sensible mind. Some of our friends wished to get him a station at Calcutta They think him just adapted for that sphere. I differ widely in my view of the matter. A new man, with his college accuracy, about him, ST. PAUL admonishes Timothy to endure is not the man for the dissipated and fashionhardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. It able court at Calcutta. Such a congregation sometimes falls to the lot of a minister to will bid nothing for his acuteness and reasonendure the hard labor of a nurse, in a greatering.-He, who is to talk to them with any effect, must have seen life and the world. He soon detected; but to feel, is the readiest way must be able to treat with them on their own to the hearts of others. ground. And he must be able to do it with the authority of a messenger from God, not with the arts and shifts of human eloquence and reasonings. Dr. Patten said admirably well, in a sermon which I heard him preach at Oxford: “Beware how you suffer the infidel to draw you upon metaphysical ground. If he get you there, he will have something to say. The evidences and the declarations of God's word are the weapons with which he must be combatted, and before which he must fall." LONDON is very peculiar as a ministerial walk. Almost all a minister can do, is by the pulpit and the pen. His hearers are so occupied in the world, that if he visit them, every minute perhaps brings in some interruption. It is a serious question-Whether a minister ought to preach at all beyond his experience.-He is to stand forth as a witness-but a witness of what he KNOWS, not of what he has been TOLD. He must preach as he feels. If he feels not as he might and ought, he must pray for such feelings; but, till he has them, ought he to pretend to them? Going faster than the experience led, has been the bane of many. Men have preached in certain terms and phrases according to the tone given by others, while the thing has never been made out even to their conviction, much less in their experience. THE leading defect in Christian ministers is want of a DEVOTIONAL HABIT. The church of Rome made much of this habit. The contests accompanying and following the Reformation, with something of an indiscriminate enmity against some of the good of that church as well as the evil, combined to repress this spirit in the Protestant writings; whereas the mind of Christ seems, in fact, to be the grand end of Christianity in its operation upon inan. THERE is a manifest want of spiritual influence on the ministry of the present day. I feel it in my own case, and I see it in that of others. I am afraid that there is too much of a low, managing, contriving, manœuvring temper of mind among us. We are laying ourselves out, more than is expedient, to meet one man's taste, and another man's prejudices. The ministry is a grand and holy affair, and it should find in us a simple habit of spirit, and a holy but humble indifference to all consequences. A MAN of the world will bear to hear me read in the desk that awful passage: Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction; and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life; and few there be that find it. Nay, he will approve it :-"The minIt is a most important point of duty in a ister is in the desk: he is reading the lesson minister TO REDEEM TIME. A young minister of the day." But this very man-were I to go has sometimes called an old one out of his home with him, and tell him in his parlor study, only to ask him how he did: there is a that most of those whom he knows and loves tone to be observed toward such an idler: an are going on in that road to eternal destruction intimation may be given, which he will under--this very man would brand the sentiment as stand, "This is not the house!" In order to redeem time, he must refuse to engage in secular affairs: 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. He must watch, too, against a dozing away of time: the clock-weight goes down slowly, yet it draws all the works with it. harsh and uncharitable. Though uttered by Christ himself, it is a declaration as fanatical and uncandid, in the judgment of the world, as could be put together in language. MANY hearers cannot enter into the REASONS of the Cross. They adopt what I think is Butler's grand defect on this subject. He speaks of the Cross as an appointment of God, and THEREFORE to be submitted to: but God has said much in his word of the reasons of this appointment: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth. OWEN remarks, that it is not sufficiently considered how much a minister's personal religion is exposed to danger, from the very circumstance of religion being his profession and employment. He must go through the acts of religion: he must put on the appear- SEVERAL things are required, to enable a minances of religion: he must utter the language ister to attain a proper variety in his manner. and display the feelings of religion. It re- He must be in continual practice: if I were to quires double diligence and vigilance to main-preach but once a month, I should lose the tain, under such circumstances, the spirit of religion. I have prayed: I have talked: I have preached: but now I should perish, after all, if I did not feed on the bread which I have broken to others. ability of preaching. He must know that his hearers are attached to him-that they will grant him indulgences and liberties. He must, in some measure, feel himself above his congregation. The presence of a certain brother chills me; because I feel that I can talk on no A MINISTER must cultivate a tenDER SPIRIT. one subject in the pulpit, with which he is not If he does this so as to carry a savor and unc-far better acquainted than I am. tion into his work, he will have far more weight than other men. This is the result of a devo- THE first duty of a minister is, to call on tional habit. To affect feeling, is nauseous and his hearers to turn to the Lord. "We have much to speak to you upon. We have many duties to urge on you. We have much instruction to give you-but all will be thrown away, till you have turned to the Lord." Let me illustrate this by a familiar comparison. You see your child sinking in the water: his education lies near your heart: you are anxious to train him up so, that he may occupy well the post assigned to him in life. But, when you see him drowning, the first thoughts are-not how you may educate him, but how you may save him. Restore him to life, and then call that life into action. such a man as Traill handling the sovereignty of God, and such high points of doctrine, with a holy and heavenly sweetness; which, while it renders it almost impossible not to receive his sentiments, leaves nothing on the mind but a religious savor. THE grand aim of a minister must be THE EXHIBITION OF GOSPEL TRUTH. Statesmen may make the greatest blunders in the world, but that is not His affair. Like a King's messenger, he must not stop to take care of a person fallen down if he can render any kindness consistently with his duty, he will do it; if not, he will prefer his office. A DISINTERESTED regard to truth should be, what it very seldom is, the most striking character in a Christian minister. His purpose OUR method of preaching is not that by should be to make proselytes to truth, and not which Christianity was propagated: yet the to any thing which may be particular in his genius of Christianity is not changed. There views of it. "Read my books," says one.- was nothing in the primitive method set or "No!" says another, “read mine." And thus formal. The primitive bishop stood up, and religion is taken up by piece-meal; and the read the gospel, or some other portion of mind is diverted from its true nature by false Scripture, and pressed on the hearers, with associations. If the teacher, whom this man great earnestness and affection, a few plain has chosen for his oracle, disgrace religion by and forcible truths evidently resulting from irreligious conduct, he stumbles. He stum- that portion of the Divine Word: we take a bles, because he has not been fixed upon the text, and make an oration. Edification was sole and immoveable basis of the religion of then the object of both speaker and hearers; the Bible. The mind, well instructed in the and, while this continues to be the object, no Scriptures, can bear to see even its spiritual better method can be found. A parable, or father make shipwreck of the faith and scan-history, or passage of Scripture, thus illustradalize the gospel; but will remain itself un- ted and enforced, is the best method of intromoved. The man is in possession of a trea-ducing truth to any people who are ignorant of sure, which, if others are foolish enough to abandon, yet they cannot detract any thing from the value attached to it in his esteem. THAT a minister may learn how to magnify his office, let him study the character, the spirit, and the history of St. Paul. His life and death were one magnifying of his office: mark his object-to win souls!-to execute the will of God! As the man rises in his own esteem, his office sinks; but, as the office rises in his view, the man falls. He must be in constant hostility with himself, if he would magnify his office. He must hold himself in readiness to make sacrifices, when called to do so: he will not barter his office, like Balaam; but will refuse to sell his service, like Micaiah. Like Ezra and Nehemiah, he will refuse to come down from the great work which he has to do. He may be calumniated; but he will avoid hasty vindications of his character: it does not appear that Elisha sent after Naaman to vindicate himself from the falsehoods of Gehazi there appears to me much true dignity in this conduct: I fear I should have wanted patience to act thus. SOME young ministers have been greatly injured, by taking up their creed from a sort of second or third rate writers. Toplady, perhaps, has said that he has found his preaching most successful, when it has turned on the grand doctrines of Calvinism. A young man admires Toplady, and adopts the same notion concerning his own ministry. But let him turn to a master on the subject. He will find it, and of setting it home with power on those who know it; and not formal, doctrinal, argumentative discourses. TRUTH and SIMPLICITY are the soul of an efficacious ministry. The Puritans were still farther removed from the primitive method of preaching; they would preach fifteen or sixteen sermons on a text. A primitive bishop would have been shocked with one of our sermons; and, such is our taste, we should be shocked with his. They brought forward Scripture: we bring forward our statements. They directed all their observations to throw light on Scripture: we quote Scripture to throw light on our observations. More faith and more grace would make us better preachers, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Chrysostom's was the right method. Leighton's Lectures on Peter approach very near to this method In acting on matter, the art of man is mighty. The steam-engine is a mighty machine. But, in religion, the art of man is mere feebleness. The armor of Saul is armor in the camp of the Israelites, or in the camp of the Philistines-but we want the sling and the stone. I honor Metaphysicians, Logicians, Critics, and Historians in their places. Look at facts. Men, who lay out their strength in statements, preach churches empty. Few men have a wisdom so large, as to see that the way which they cannot attain may yet be the best way. I dare not tell most academical, logical, frigid men, how little I account of their opinion, concerning the true method of preaching to the popular ear. I hear them talk, as utterly incompetent judges. Such men would have said St. Paul was fit only for the tabernacle. What he would have said they were fit for, I cannot tell. They are often great men -first-rate men-unequalled men-in their class and sphere: but it is not THEIR Sphere to manage the world. Ir a minister could work miracles, he would do little more than interest the curiosity of men-"I want to eat, and I want to drink, and I do it; I get on with difficulty enough, as things are; and you talk about treating with heaven! I know nothing of the matter, and I want no such thing"-This is the language of man's heart. A FUTURE thing! An INDEFINITELY FUTURE thing! No! if a man could even authoritatively declare that the day of judgment would be this day seven years, he would have little influence on mankind. Very few would be driven from the play-house-very few from the gaming table-very few from the brothel.— The din on 'Change would be very little diminished. I frequently look back on the early periods of my life, and imagine myself treating with such a character as I know I then was. I say to myself, "What now can I possibly say, that will affect and interest that young fellow of eighteen ?" seem to be laid by, in any measure, as an instrument—if the love of his hearers to his person and ministry decay-this is a severe trial: yet most of us need this trial, that we may be reduced simply to God, and may feel that the whole affair is between him and ourselves. A dead fish will swim with the stream, whatever be its direction. But a living one will not only resist the stream: but, if it chooses, it can swim against it. The soul that lives from God, will seek God, and follow Godmore easily and pleasantly, indeed, if the stream flow toward the point whither God leads; but still, it will follow God as its sole rest and centre, though the stream of men and opinions would hurry it away from him. GRAVITY is, doubtless, obligatory on ministers. The apostle connects it with simplicity. Yet it must be natural-not affected. Some men give every thing in an oracular style: this looks like affectation, and will disgust others: they will attribute it to religion: but this is not a sanctified gravity. Other men are always disposed to levity: not that a man of original fancy is to be condemned for thinking in his own way but the minister must consider that he is a man of a consecrated character: if it should not be difficult to himself to make transitions from levity to gravity, it will be difficult to carry others with him therein. Who has not felt, if God brings him into a trying situation, in which he sees that it is an awful thing to suffer or to die, that gravity is then natural? SOME Christian ministers fail in their effect on their hearers, by not entering as philosophers into the state of human nature. They do not consider how low the patient is reduced -that he is to be treated more as a child-every thing else is offensive! That, too, is evil that he is to have milk administered to him, instead of strong meat. They set themselves to plant principles and prove points, when they should labor to interest the heart. But, after all, men will carry their natural character into their ministry. If a man has dry, logical, scholastic turn of mind, we shall rarely find him an interesting preacher. One in a thou-alizes on every thing, is a fool and a grave sand may meet him, but not more. THE Christian will sometimes be brought to walk in a solitary path. God seems to cut away his props, that he may reduce him to himself. His religion is to be felt as a personal, particular, appropriate possession. He is to feel, that, as there is but one Jehovah to bless, so there seems to him as though there were but one penitent in the universe to be blessed by Him. Mary Magdalene at the sepulchre was brought to this state. She might have said, "I know not where Peter is: he is gone away-perhaps into the world-perhaps to weep over his fall. I know not where John is. What are the feelings and states of my brethren, I know not. I am left here alone. No one accompanies and strengthens me. But if none other will seek my Lord, yet will I seek him!" There is a commanding energy in religious sympathy. A minister, for example, while his preaching seems effective, and life and feeling show themselves around him, moves on with ease and pleasure. But there is much of the man here. If God change the scene-if discouragements meet him-if he which lets down the tone of a company when a minister loses his gravity, the company will take liberties with him. Yet, with a right principle, we must not play the fool. Gravity must be natural and simple. There must be urbanity and tenderness in it. A man must not formalize on every thing. He, who form fool is perhaps more injurious than a light fool. We are called to build a spiritual house. One workman is not to busy himself in telling another his duty. We are placed in different circumstances, with various talents: and each is called to do what he can. Two men, equally accepted of God, may be exceedingly distinct in the account which they will give of their employ. A REGULAR clergyman can do no more in the discharge of his duty, than our church requires of him. He may fall far short of her requirements; but he cannot exceed, by the most devoted life, the duties which he is prescribed. What man on earth is so pernicious a drone, as an idle clergyman!-a man, engaged in the most serious profession in the world: who rises to eat, and drink, and lounge, and trifle : and goes to bed; and then rises again, to do the same! Our office is the most laborious in the world. The mind must be always on the stretch, to acquire wisdom and grace, and to communicate them to all who come near. is well, indeed, when a clergyman of genius It It sometimes pleases God to disqualify ministers for their work, before he takes them to their reward. Where he gives them wisdom to perceive this, and grace to acquiesce in the dispensation-such a close of an honorable life, where the desire to be publicly useful survives the power, is a loud AMEN to all former labors. and learning devotes himself to the publication A WRITER of sermons has often no idea how of classics and works of literature, if he can-many words he uses, to which the common not be prevailed on to turn his genius and learn-people affix either no meaning, or a false one. ing to a more important end. Enter into this He speaks, perhaps, of "relation to God;" kind of society, what do you hear?" Have but the people, who hear him, affix no other you seen the new edition of Sophocles ?"- idea to the word, than that of father, or brother, "No! is a new edition of Sophocles under- or relative. The preacher must converse with taken?"-and this makes up the conversation, the people, that he may acquire their words and these are the ends of men who, by pro-and phrases. fession, should win souls! I received a most useful hint from Dr. Bacon, then Father of the University, when I was at College. I used frequently to visit him at his Living near Oxford: he would say to me, "What are you doing? What are your studies?"-"I am reading so and so."—" You are quite wrong. When I was young, I could turn any piece of Hebrew into Greek verse with ease. But, when I came into this parish, and had to teach ignorant people, I was wholly at a loss; I had no furniture. They thought me a great man, but that was their ignorance; for I knew as little as they did of what it was most important to them to know. Study chiefly what you can turn to good account in your future life." And yet this wise man had not just views of serious religion: he was one of those who are for reforming the parish-making the maids industrious, and the men sober and honest--but when I ventured to ask, "Sir, must not all this be effected by the infusion of a divine principle into the mind a union of the soul with the great head of influence ?" -"No more of that; no more of that, I pray!" On Infidelity and Popery. INFIDEL Writings are ultimately productive of little or no danger to the church of God. Nay, we are less at a loss in judging of the wisdom of Providence in permitting them, than we are in judging of many other of its designs. They may shake the simple, humble, spiritual mind; but they are, in the end, the means of enlightening and settling it. There are but two sorts of people in the world. Some walk by the light of the Lord, and all others lie in the wicked one in darkness and in the shadow of death. Where there is not an enlightened, simple, humble, spiritual mind, notions and opinions are of little consequence. A WISE minister stands between practical The impudent and refuted misrepresentations atheism and religious enthusiasm. A SERMON, that has more head infused into it than heart, will not come home with efficacy : to the hearers. "You must do so and so: such and such consequences will follow if you do not such and such advantages will result from doing it :"-this is cold, dead, and spiritless, when it stands alone; or even when it is most prominent. Let the preacher's head be stored with wisdom; but, above all, let his heart so feel his subject, that he may infuse life and interest into it, by speaking like one who actually possesses and feels what he says. of infidels may turn a dark mind to some other notions and way of thinking; but it is in the dark still. Till a man sees by the light of the Lord, every change of opinions is only putting a new dress on a dead carcass, and calling it alive. The grace of God must give simplicity. Wherever that is, it is a security against dangerous error; wherever it is not, erroneous opinions may perhaps less predispose the mind against the truth of God in its lively power on the soul, than true notions destitute of all life and influence do. with caution and fear. There are cold, intel- |