have thought that this office would best have become them, but us men. Angels could not have spoken in the same manner as sinners who had tasted the bitterness of sin, and the sweetness of mercy. We, my brethren, whom God condescends to use, are of the same nature as yourselves, born in sin, children and vessels of wrath in ourselves; vessels of mercy by the alone grace of God. We were ene mies and alienated in our minds by wicked works; but God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, and sent us to say to our fellow-sinners, "Be ye also reconciled to God." We are men of like passions with you; not men of like passions in the sense of being men under the influence of sinful affections like the worst of mankind, but men of the same fallen nature with you; the same evil propensities, the same appe. tites, the same sin dwelling in them, the same dislike of shame, hard ship, reproach, and pain as others; men just like others, except as the grace of God has made them to differ, and as they possess qualifications for their peculiar work.

But many of us have not been like Samuel, John the Baptist, and Timothy, who served God from their earliest infancy, and entered on their ministry with all the advantages of long habits of piety, and with a previous stock of knowledge, and who had happily been preserved from sinful habits and connexions. Many of us have entered the ministry with corrupt and worldly motives, and have afterwards been awakened to a sense of our duties. Or, if we have begun our ministry in some measure aright, yet we have to look back with shame on our youth wasted in folly and sin; and thus, though we have to adore that grace of God which first converted and pardoned us, and then condescended to send us out for the conversion and salvation of others; yet we have to lament

opportunity and time lost beyond recovery, and mischief done to our selves and others.

noble are

The reason why we have this treasure of the Gospel in earthen vessels is, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of man; and this excellency often appears most clearly when the frailty and weakness of the instrument are most apparent, perhaps even when the vessel itself is broken to pieces. "Not many wise, not many mighty, not many called." There are a few ministers in every age who are men of considerable talents and learning, and some have natural powers of persuasion and eloquence; but in general ministers are men of an ordinary stamp, and not remarkable for ge nius, learning, or accomplishments. I doubt much whether St. Paul had the extraordinary genius which it is the fashion to ascribe to him. He was undoubtedly a man of sound understanding, a conclusive reasoner; and capable of delivering his message in a commanding and most impressive manner. The force of his language is also at times surprising. But he does not appear

to me to have been a man of brilliant genius and first-rate talents. He tells us himself that he was rude in speech. This plainness of speech arose, no doubt, in part from his determining to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified; but I confess I see nothing in his natural endowments beyond what was solid and manly. I find something like the energy of Demosthenes in his writings, but little of the splendid genius of some other writers.

In this indeed I may be wrong; but it is quite certain that the mimisters of God in general are not men of very great learning or attainments, as to worldly matters. God never indeed sent a man on a message who was naturally incompetent to the delivery of it, and all means of study and improvement are to be diligently used: but our

trust is not in the flesh; we claim no human ability or skill, but are content to be poor and lowly. If there are two ministers; the one brilliant and admired, the other of inferior parts, but fervent devotion; the more pious man will on the whole be decidedly the most useful-and for this plain reason, that the excellency of the power is of God, and not of men.

Still, if we united all the wisdom of Solomon, with all the meekness of Moses, and all the courage and zeal of St. Paul; if we possessed besides all the talents and learning and powers of persuasion-and, what is more, all the holiness and love to the Saviour of all the saints in every age; we might even yet well exclaim, "Who is sufficient for these things?"

I come now to shew,

III. The effect which these considerations should have, not to dismay us, but to humble us, and to teach us that our sufficiency is of God.

What we have been stating should not lead to despondency or distress, but should quicken us from our sloth and self-dependence, and shew us where our sufficiency must be, and excite us to diligence and prayer. You cannot derive your sufficiency from universities and schools of learning; nor, on the other hand, from an untaught genius which despises them. It is not the learning, nor the want of learning, which is dangerous in itself. It is the pride of learning, and the pride of talent which form the disqualification-not the learning, but the pride of it; and accordingly those who have superior abilities and attainments have generally need of greater trials, sufferings, thorns in the flesh, messengers of Satan to buffet them, lest they should be exalted above measure. They are thus kept un-der by severe discipline.

Ministers are officers and soldiers of Christ: they lead on the army, and therefore are peculiarly the

object of Satan's enmity and opposition. And God permits this state of temptation and difficulty, in order to humble us and prove us, and also to teach us to speak a word in season to him that is weary.

"Our sufficiency is of God." We must become as little children; we must "be fools, that we may be wise;" we must sit down and learn at the feet of Christ, if we would teach others. A minister must be a learner himself as well as a teacher. He who is always spending and never collecting, will soon be a bankrupt. The more a minister teaches, the more he must learn of his Master; and this not only for a few years, but he must be a scholar in Christ's school all his life: he must be in the posture of one who says, "" Lord, I have no wisdom, I have no strength, I have no power in myself: supply me with all I need out of thy fulness!"

A beautiful passage in one of our collects expresses exactly what I mean: "Without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy." The unsearchable riches of Christ are our only resource. We want no other supply. We go not to schools of learning or philosophy. We want no new revelation, we trust to no wild and enthusiastic spirit. We apply humbly to God alone, believing that he will supply all our need out of his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

"Sufficient"---but for what? To be apostles and evangelists? No.-We claim no miraculous powers nor extraordinary commission. We are ordinary, humble ministers of God's word. We pray to be sufficient for the quiet and retired duties of our country parishes, where most of us are placed. God gives each minister a sufficiency for the post to which he has called him. A man may be equal to a village church, and not to one in a populous town. Many ministers have erred woefully by forgetting this They were humble, and useful, and sufficient

we explain what Christianity is, you may exhibit what it is, in your spirit and conduct. Ye should be our epistles, known and read of all

men.

2. My brethren in the ministry, I turn to you. I know I cannot say to you absolutely, as St. Paul did, "I shall see your face again. no more;" but I think it most probable I never shall. I may see the face of some of you individually; but I shall never meet you as a society again. I have no right to speak to you. I need to be exhorted myself. But I must express the joy I feel in once more addressing you. I bless God I have lived to see this day; and I pray Him to strengthen me this once in speaking to you. I ought not perhaps to speak of myself; but as an old man I may be allowed to say, that it has always been my earnest desire to encourage and strengthen my younger brethren by every means in my power. I rejoice that the number of those who preach Christ crucified, and live to his glory, is so greatly increased. My prayer is, that while I decrease, they may increase in number, wisdom, courage, meekness, disinterestedness, heavenlymindedness, and zeal, a thousand fold, they and their children.

I would wish to encourage you now this last time. I would I could say more in the spirit of the Apostle, "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 glory which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me in that day." On looking back, I view my past life very differently from what I did some years ago. I have not been zealous enough, nor diligent enough. I have not lived as I could wish, as I ought, to the glory of him who loved me and gave himself for me. Beware, O beware, my brethreu, of blotting your ministry, and dishonouring it by your inconsistent spirit or conduct. A holy life is the minister's strength. And if

you lost your time in early life, before you knew the grace of God, redeem it now by walking circumspectly, because the days are evil. Alas! in my own case, though I have been now serving God so long, yet I served sin almost as long before I began.

It is above forty years since God of his mercy brought down my stubborn heart to true repentance. The first sermon I preached afterwards was from Gal. iii. 22. "But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." This very discourse was the means of bring ing some of my people to feel their danger, and to come to me saying, "What shall I do to be saved?" when I hardly knew how to an swer the question. Begin, my brethren, and continue in the same way. Shew the people that they are concluded under sin. Tell them plainly of their lost condition. Till they feel this, nothing is done. Then exhibit to them, the promise by faith of Jesus Christ." This will heal the broken heart.

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In this great doctrine, together with the practical consequences of it, I have persevered ever since; and, as I come nearer death, I am more and more convinced of its truth and importance. I have been tossed about during my life. I have been engaged in controversy.. I have been misrepresented. Sometimes I have been called a Calvinist, and sometimes an Arminian; but I thank God I have never varied in my great views of Divine truth since I first published my sentiments on the subject above forty years ago; and now I would bear my public testimony once more, that "this is the true grace of God by which you stand."

Brethren, pray for me. Do not pray for me, as if my life was to be continued, nor as if I were a minister of any attainments and consequence in the church; but pray for me as a poor, weak, frail

sinner, who has not yet done with temptation and conflict, and who finds it difficult to be patient in tribulation, and cheerful under long continued weakness and suffering. I need much the prayers of all my friends; but most of all I need the supporting grace of God, that I may be carried through all my remaining trials, and may at length finish my course with joy. "And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified."

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. YOUR readers have been often called upon to admire the strenuous and successful efforts of the excellent Leander Van Ess, in circulating the holy Scriptures among his Roman Catholic brethren on the continent: but they may not be generally aware that he some time since published a valuable work in German, on "The Necessity and Utility of Reading the Sacred Scriptures;" which work has been recent ly translated into French, and printed at Brussels, and I hope extensively circulated on the continent. A very important part of M. Van Ess's publication, is the vast body of evidence which he has collected from the writings of the Fathers relative to the duty of an unrestricted circulation and perusal of the sacred Scriptures: a few extracts from which I shall take the liberty of laying before your readers, after first adverting to a highly liberal review of the translation, in a late Number of a respectable French periodical publication, the "Chronique Religieuse," (tome VI. ii. cabier, p. 124) The sentiments in the review derive greater weight from the circumstance of the article having been written, as I have reason to believe, by a zealous French Catholic Bishop, who, like M. Van Ess, bas exhibited a striking excep tion to the unscriptural prejudices

which have induced so many of the members of the Church of Rome to restrict the circulation of the Bible among the laity. The reviewer begins with lamenting it as "a scandal which cannot be too much deplored, that a multitude of preachers, bishops, and instructors, have dared to maintain, contrary to the doctrine of the holy fathers, of the Apostles, and of Jesus Christ himself, that private Christians are not permitted to read the sacred writings ;" and exclaims with just surprize and indignation, "Are not the holy Scriptures then the same that they were in the brighter days of Christianity? Has the character of the human understanding, or the human heart changed in subsequent ages; or have we discovered for the prevention or cure of the maladies of the soul, a remedy the very contrary to that which our Divine Guide has prescribed in these words: Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me?" The review speaks in the highest terms of the work of M. Van Ess, as demonstrating beyond the possibility of doubt, that from the period of the ascension of Jesus Christ to the present time, the universal church has never ceased to enforce the command contained in the text just mentioned. The reviewer also refutes several of the objections commonly urged by members of the communion of Rome, against the promiscuous perusal of the Scriptures. "It is alleged," he remarks, "that the people have instructors and preachers; but St. Jerome answers that objection: teachers and preachers are charged by God himself to explain the Scriptures; but it does not therefore by any means follow, that the people ought not to read them: indeed, rather the

• The French translation of this text is more forcible than our own. "Lisez avec soius les écritures; vous croyez avec raison, y trouver la vie éternelle; elles rendent temoignage de moi