DISCOURSE IX.

THE MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH, THEIR ANSWERS AT ORDINATION.

An Address to Candidates for Holy Orders.

GENTLEMEN,

YOUR examination, which has been undertaken in obedience to the directions of the Church, for the purpose of ascertaining your fitness to be admitted to that Order for which you are respectively candidates, being now completed, I consider that it may be neither unbecoming in me, nor unprofitable for you, if I address to you a few words of exhortation, with respect to the obligations which you are now incurring, and which some of you have already partly incurred. I shall, therefore, beg your attention, whilst I advert, in as summary a manner as the case will admit, to the chief of those obligations, suggested as they are by the

ordination services, and to which your express assent will be, or has been already, required in the face of the assembled congregation.

You have been engaged in this room in a private examination, that you might therein give proof of the sufficiency of your information and the correctness of your principles in religious knowledge, for the satisfaction of us who are intrusted with the charge of ordaining you. But another and a publick examination still awaits you, in which you will be required to "answer plainly to those things, which we, in the name of God and of his Church, shall demand of you, touching" your future duties.

It is in a practical view that I purpose to lay before you some particulars of such your appointed examination. And in the observations, to which I am inviting your attention, I shall not be studious to distinguish between those engagements which are formed respectively by the candidates for Deacons' or for Priests' Orders, forasmuch as those, who are now candidates for the latter, have already incurred the obligations specially belonging to the former order; and as those, who are now desirous of being admitted into the Order of Deacons, are doubtless looking forward to the period, when they may be qualified for admission to the Order of Priesthood. I shall have an eye therefore rather to the duties of the sacred pro

fession generally, than to those of one or the other of these two orders of it.

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I. It is much to be remarked, that the first question, which the Church by the mouth of one of her governors propounds to the candidate for her ministry, has reference to the motive by which he is actuated to engage in it. "Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost, to take upon you this office and ministration, to serve God for the promotion of his glory, and the edification of his people?" To which the candidate is directed to answer, "I trust so:" an answer which no candidate can safely render, unless he be fully resolved in the discharge of his office and ministration to labour as a faithful servant of God, to study to promote God's glory, and to advance the spiritual welfare of those of God's people who may be committed to his charge. He, who enters upon the ministry with such a resolution, may I think safely venture to entertain and express a well-grounded confidence, that the inward motion, which actuates him to the undertaking, is from the Holy Ghost. But remember, I pray you, and let it be never banished from your minds, that a reference to this exposition of the question will supply you at all times with an evidence to the fact of your being, or of your not being, under the influence of God's Holy Spirit. Let it be a con

tinual subject of your inquiry, whether your conduct is such as becomes the servants of God; whether it is directed to the promotion of God's glory, and to the edifying of his people. If it be such, continually acknowledge with grateful hearts the influence of the good Spirit of God; and support yourselves, or rather beg of him to support you, in the performance of your duty, by the consolatory, the encouraging, and animating reflexion, that you are still actuated in the discharge of your office and ministration by the same Divine power, by which you trusted that you were moved to take it upon you. But if your conscience condemn you of abandoning or neglecting God's service, of being indifferent to his glory, or being careless of the souls of his people, you have too sufficient reason to be assured that you have "neither part nor lot in this matter," and that "your heart is not right in the sight of God 1."

II. The next question proposed to you is, whether "you think in your heart that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the due order of this realm," or, "of the United Church of England and Ireland, to the ministry of the Church?" I notice this question more especially for the purpose of remarking to

'Acts viii. 21.

you, that your ordination is to be understood as admitting you to the ministry of that particular part of the Church of Christ established in this kingdom, upon the faith of your avowed conviction of the genuineness of the ministerial commission, as conferred in that particular part of Christ's Church. Upon the declared principles of our national Church, it is not a matter of indifference, whether or not a man have an outward call to the ministry, nor by whom or in what manner he be called. On the contrary, whatever be his presumed inward call, she judges that an outward call also is necessary, and that such outward call must be given by persons who have lawful authority to give it and she has accordingly provided a “due order" for thus calling men to the ministry in a manner agreeable to the word of God. In pursuance of this she deems it requisite to be declared by her ministers, that they "think themselves in their hearts to be truly called to the ministry," not only "according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ," but "according also to the due order of this realm and Church." A persuasion of the necessity of an external commission, and of the lawfulness and validity of the provisions by which you are to be admitted to your ministry; of the apostolical authority of the person by whom, and of the scriptural excellence of the form and manner by which, you are admitted, ought to be