perfection, by the hand of faith, in the worship of the Church; receiving, in its prayers, its psalms, the order and objects of its offices, its round of holy festivals and solemn fasts, and its selections of Scripture, as they are connected with each other, and with the forms and offices in which they occur, at once a training for understanding the Scriptures, and a continued commentary on their meaning. As from time to time they meet with error in various forms, or it arises in some new shape, they are assisted to detect it, and to put it down, by the definitions of the Church in Articles of Religion, or express enactments, in the form of Constitutions, Rules or Canons.

These are all subservient to the wants of every member. They make up the common corporate teaching of the Church. But in aid and application of that general instruction, the work of the ministry is to teach and premonish, to instruct, exhort and reprove. By those who hold that office the provisions which subserve the wants of the rest, are to be made subservient to those wants. Creeds, Catechism, Liturgy and Articles are to be doubly their rule, as the guide and objects of their own belief, and as their instruments for guiding and forming that of others.

Their own belief is, in the very nature of the case, a necessary pre-requisite to their guidance of others. The man who doubts or hesitates is unfit to lead. The hand that administers discipline, must be palsied by no misgivings as to its right or the fitness of its action. The tongue that offers worship must not stammer forth in

perfection, by the hand of faith, in the worship of the Church; receiving, in its prayers, its psalms, the order and objects of its offices, its round of holy festivals and solemn fasts, and its selections of Scripture, as they are connected with each other, and with the forms and offices in which they occur, at once a training for understanding the Scriptures, and a continued commentary on their meaning. As from time to time they meet with error in various forms, or it arises in some new shape, they are assisted to detect it, and to put it down, by the definitions of the Church in Articles of Religion, or express enactments, in the form of Constitutions, Rules or Canons.

These are all subservient to the wants of every member. They make up the common corporate teaching of the Church. But in aid and application of that general instruction, the work of the ministry is to teach and premonish, to instruct, exhort and reprove. By those who hold that office the provisions which subserve the wants of the rest, are to be made subservient to those wants. Creeds, Catechism, Liturgy and Articles are to be doubly their rule, as the guide and objects of their own belief, and as their instruments for guiding and forming that of

others.

Their own belief is, in the very nature of the case, a necessary pre-requisite to their guidance of others. The man who doubts or hesitates is unfit to lead. The hand that administers discipline, must be palsied by no misgivings as to its right or the fitness of its action. The tongue that offers worship must not stammer forth in

broken accents a heartless service. The doctrine that is dispensed must be qualified by no reservations or forced constructions. Honest, hearty persuasion that we are right, is indispensable to faithful labor. Our heart must be in our work, to do it well: and he who is not fit to do it well, is unfit for it at all.

Therefore it is, that every branch of the Church, before admission to its ministry, ascertains and receives a pledge of the individual belief of the candidate for office. It is a necessary mode of qualification for the office. Not only because right faith and sound judgment are integral parts of that personal character which must belong to every one advanced to the high trust of ministerial responsibility, but because their exercise in the adoption and maintenance of the faith and judgment of the Church are pre-requisites for appointment to ministerial office in order to its discharge, as preparatives for it, or as elements without which the individual is incapable for its due performance. Hearing, sight and speech are less necessary; for their absence may, in some way or other, in more or less degree, be supplied: but there is no substitute for an absent acquiescence and interest in the belief and practice which the minister is to implant and cherish in those for whom he ministers.

Of such acquiescence and interest in the belief and practice of the Church in which we minister, we, my brethren, have given our pledge in ordination and in the previous examination. It was the security taken by the Church that we were fit as well as ready for the minisable to discharge its duties faithfully and zealously,

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because true and hearty in our own allegiance. At the solemn moment when we received the irrevocable trust of our sacred office, we deliberately made the promise by which we all are bound "always so to minister the doctrine and Sacraments, and the discipline of CHrist, as the LORD hath commanded, and as this Church hath received the same, according to the commandments of GOD; so that we may teach the people committed to our care and charge, with all diligence to keep and observe the same."

The Church knows only of CHRIST's doctrine, sacraments and discipline; and knows of all, equally, as commanded by CHRIST, and to be kept and observed by His people; implying not choice but duty — a duty, when faithfully rendered, becoming choice; but choice, because it is duty, — not, due in so far only as it is chosen.

But whatever might be the condition of a man free from ties and obligations, in view only of the absolute facts of the existence of the Gospel and its institutions, and of his own contact with them in a state of probation under the responsibility of eternal consequences

ours is no such condition. We are under a most sacred pledge-voluntarily given, but given under the profession of a belief that we were divinely called to do so, and that we gave it according to the will of our LORD JESUS CHRIST to hold and teach a certain doctrine- not our doctrine, or a doctrine; and to minister certain sacraments and discipline -not of our invention or device, but "as received by the Church, of the command of CHRIST." Having recognized the Scriptures as the only fountain of our doctrine, and promised to teach