that sort of spirit which presumes upon the electing love of God, and so soon as I began to think I was a Christian, I saw in my secret devotions, as well as in my public exercises, a good degree of likeness to him who said, "I thank thee, O Lord! that I am not like other men-I fast and pray," &c. But now I am content with my lot, thank the Lord for what I have, and pray to him that I may be a good steward of what he has committed to me already : I feel the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; and, therefore, I hold everything as a tenant at will does of his landlord. I find it is more blessed to give than to receiveI know none of those little sectarian feelings which I once felt. I rejoice in the Lord, and in his people, and feel that everything that affects his honour and glory affects mine. I feel the same sort of interest in my Saviour's kingdom I used to feel in my father's character and estate; whatever added to either I thought added to my fortune and fame ; and now I feel that whatever advances the interest and reputation of the kingdom of my sovereign adds to my individual gain and honour. I feel myself his, and him mine: and I would rather be the meanest soldier in his army, than the greatest potentate on earth. I do rejoice exceedingly in him all the day and when I walk in the fields, or sit by the fire, my heart wanders after him; when travelling along the way, I sometimes speak out to him as if I were conversing with him: and the very idea that the eyes of the King of kings are upon me, makes me bold in danger, and active in all the obedience of faith. I sometimes retire from the best company, to talk a few minutes to my Lord, and nothing is sweeter to my taste than is an interview with him who pardons my sins, takes me into his family, and promises to take me home to his own glorious abode by and by. I think no more about tenets or doctrines, but upon the love of God, the death of Jesus, his resurrection from the dead, his coming to judge the world, and the resurrection of the just. This is the spirit I have received and enjoyed since I put on the Lord. Now tell me, is this the Holy Spirit promised? BIBLICUS.

THE CLERGY.-No. II.*

[From the Christian Baptist, Vol. I.]

As the clergy have occupied a most conspicuous place in the Egyptian, Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, Roman, and Anti-Christian empires, common courtesy requires that we should pay them more than common attention. Our present number shall be devoted to their training and consecration.

A lad, sometimes of twelve or fourteen years, is, by his parents, destined for "holy orders." To the grammarschool he hies away. In the course of two or three years he is initiated into the Latin tongue. The fables of Æsop, the Viri Roma, the wars of Cæsar, the metamorphoses of Ovid, the conspiracy of Cataline, the wars of Jugurtha, the pastoral songs of Virgil, with his Georgics and Æneid; the amorous and bacchanalian odes of Horace, his satires and epistles; the sapient invectives of Juvenal and Perseus; the amours, the debaucheries, the lecherous intrigues, the murders, and suicides of real and fictitious heroes and heroines; the character and achievements of Jupiter, Juno, Bacchus, and Venus, well relished and well understood, prepare him for introduction to the Grecian tongue. Now subjects of a similar character, written in a different alphabet, but written by men of the same religion and morals, command his attention for a year or two longer. He now enters college, perfects his knowledge in the pantheon, admires the beauties of Anacreon, is charmed with the sublimity of Homer, reveres the mythology of Hesoid, and scans with rapture the flights of Pindar. From the inspiration of the Muses, from the summit of Parnassus, he descends to the frigid contemplation of triangles, squares, and curves. For this he acquires a taste also. The demonstrations of Euclid, the algebraic process, and Newton's Principia, captivate his powers of ratiocination. The logic of Aristotle, the rhetoric of Longinus and Quintilian, the ethics of Plato, and the metaphysics of the Gnostics, elevate him to very high conceptions of himself. So far the candidates for

For No. I, see pp. 111-120.

Each of

law, physic, and divinity accompany each other. these, having got his diploma of Bachelor of all these Arts, shakes hands with his class-mates, and enters into a department of preparation consentaneous to his future destiny. One puts himself under a Doctor of Law, another under a Doctor of Physic, and the pupil with whom we set out puts himself under a Doctor of Divinity. His former classmates, with whom he was once so jovial, retain their former jocularity or sobriety-there is no alteration on their visage. But my young priest gradually assumes a sanctimonious air, a holy gloom overspreads his face, and a pious sedateness reigns from his eyebrows to his chin. His very tone of voice participates in the deep devotion of his soul. His words flow on with a solemn slowness, and every period ends with a heavenly cadence. There is a kind of angelic demeanor in his gait, and a seraphic sweetness in all his movements. With his Sunday coat, on a Sabbath morn, he puts on a mantle of deeper sanctity, and imperceptibly learns the three grand tones -the Sabbath tone, the pulpit tone, and the praying tone-these are the devout, the more devout, and the most devout.

Meantime he reads volumes of scholastic divinity, and obtains, from sermon books and skeletons of sermons, models for future practice. Bodies of divinity, adapted to the sect to whom he looks for maintenance, are closely studied; and the Bible is sometimes referred to as a book of proofs for the numerous articles of his creed. A partial acquaintance with church history is formed, and a minute attention is paid to the rules and manner of proceeding in ecclesiastical courts. Now he can descant upon “natural” and “revealed" religion; now the mysteries of scholastic Divinity, viz. "eternal generation," "filiation," "the origin of moral evil," "the eternal compact," "the freedom of the human will," "eternal unconditional election and reprobation," "the generality or speciality of the atonement," &c., are, to him, as common-place topics. After being a year or two at the feet of this Gamaliel, he appears before the presbytery or some other ecclesiastic tribunal; he delivers a sermon on which he has spent two or three months, first in collecting or inventing documents, then in writing, and

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lastly in memorizing the whole. When he has it well committed, the only thing preparatory, yet remaining, is to fix upon the proper attitudes of body, tones and gestures suited to the occasion; and, above all, he endeavours to conceal all art, that it may appear to flow from unfeigned sincerity. The sermon is pronounced and approbated with a small exception or two. On the whole, it was a finished piece of mechanism. He lifts his indentures, and, after another specimen or two, receives a license, which places him on a footing with those of other trades called journeymen. Indeed he is for a time hired by the day, and sent hither or thither at the will of his superiors. This, however, contributes to his ease, inasmuch as it saves him the toil of preparing new sermons, the same discourses being always new to a strange congregation.

Such is the common training of a clergyman. It may not be so extensive, or it may be more extensive: he may commence his studies at an earlier or later period; he may be sent by his parents or by others, or he may go of his own accord; he may be a beneficiary, or he may be able to pay his way. These circumstantial differences may and do exist, yet the training of a clergyman is specifically the same in all cases.

To this course, which is, with some very small differences, the course pursued by Romanists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians of every grade, Congregationalists, and, perhaps, by some others, it has been objected that there is not much grace nor much dependence upon grace in this plan. This is, perhaps, a futile objection; for what need is there of grace, or what cause for dependence upon the grace of God, in a person so well qualified by art for this reverend office? A clergyman, thus qualified, can deliver a very popular and orthodox sermon without any grace-as easily too as a lawyer can plead the cause of his client without grace. If a lawyer can be so much interested in the cause of his client as to be warmly eloquent; if his soul can be so moved by sympathy, as it often is, even to seek relief in copious tears, without the influence of grace or supernatural aid, why may not a clergyman be elevated to the same degree or to a higher degree of zeal, of warmth, of sympathy,

of deep distress, in his pathetic addresses from the pulpit? Again, if one so well versed in theology, as to be able to comprehend, in one view, all the divinities, from the crocodiles, the gods of Egypt, up to Olympic Jove, or the venerable Saturn, as any clergyman from his youthful studies is; if a competent acquaintance with the sublimities of natural religion, and with the philosophical mysteries of scholastic divinity, cannot be eloquent, animated, and orthodox, without grace, he must, indeed, be as stupid as an ox and as brutal as an ass.

But there are some who think that there is some kind of an almost inseparable connexion between clerical acquisitions and the grace of God-that none can be eminently possessed of the former, that does not possess a competent portion of the latter. How can this be? If a parent who has three sons, A, B, and C, educates A for a divine, B for a carpenter, and C for a doctor of medicine, why should A possess the grace of God or the faith of the Gospel rather than B or C? If such were the case, how could it be accounted for? Has the parent any divine promise that A shall possess the heavenly gift rather than B or C ? Is there any reason in the nature of things, that the training of A, B, and C, will secure grace to A rather than to B and C? If so, then there is a connexion between Latin and Grecian languages, mythology, science, and the grace of God, that does not exist between the education of a carpenter or a medical doctor, and that grace. If the education of A secures the boon of heaven, then it becomes the imperious duty of every father thus to educate his sons. But this is impossible. He has not the means. Then the gift of God is purchased with money!!! It is, then, unreasonable to suppose that the training of a clergyman can, in any respect, contribute to his possessing the grace of God, even in the popular sense of that grace. Indeed we would cheerfully undertake to prove that the training of a carpenter or mason is more innocent and less injurious to the human mind, than the training of a clergyman in the popular course, and that there is more in the education of the latter to disqualify him to enter into the kingdom of God, than there is in the education of the former to unfit them for ad