SERMON XXIV. Responsibilities of the Christian Ministry. 2 CORINTHIANS II. 16. WHO IS SUFFICIENT FOR THESE THINGS? THE Christian Ministry, viewed in its immediate, separate from its more remote and important consequences, exerts an influence upon society, at once the most commanding and salutary. By a full and accurate exhibition of divine truth, it discloses the only appropriate foundation of all sound morality, and furnishes those sanctions, by which alone its practice can be successfully enforced. It developes those relations and urges those duties, which are essential to the well being of communities-relations which otherwise would not be perceived duties which otherwise would not be enjoined. The justness of this remark is abundantly illustrated by reference to facts. Within the circle of daily observation, may be discovered proof of the happy influence of a preached gospel in regulating the manners, improving the morals, and promoting the secular interests of the community. But it has a higher object than merely the reformation of morals, and the promotion of the decencies and felicities of the present life. Its scope and design partake of that characteristic grandeur, which invites to all the plans of him who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. Its aims are the perfection of that stupendous dispensation of grace for whose accomplishment the Saviour suffered and died, and which, for sixty centuries, has been the object of Jehovah's providential care. It looks be yond the fleeting visions of time, and concerns the unchanging realities of eternity. However directly and immediately the present welfare and concerns of men, the interests and conduct of states and empires, may be affected by the christian ministry, its grand and ultimate purposes respect an object of a nature inconceivably more interesting and important. Its business is with the undying soul. It seeks its recovery from those inherent pollutions, which would ensure its eternal separation from the only source of life and good. This is the sphere for its efforts. Here it labors to form a spiritual dominion-to introduce a saving principle-to give vitality to moral death-to" pour celestial day upon eyes oppressed with night"-to raise the desires from earth to heaven-to turn the affections from the power of satan, to God. Such briefly, is the tendency and design of the christian, ministry. And who that is invested with the office, and consecrated to its services, does not tremble? Who can contemplate the dignity of man's original elevation and the depth of his present debasement, the infinite distance between sin and holiness, the terrors of hell and the joys of heaven, without deep solicitude and alarming apprehensions, when he considers himself as the constituted instrument of bringing back an apostate creature into an allegiance to his Creator, and of restoring the sinner to the resemblance and favor of God? Who can view the glorious display of divine perfections exhibited in the wondrous scheme of redemption, and think what he himself is, who has undertaken to be a minister of reconciliation, and the ambassador of Christ, and not be led to ask with the deepest abasement-WHO IS SUFFICIENT FOR THESE THINGS? In view of considerations so affecting, who does not in some degree, realize the situation, and catch the spirit of the devout Isaiah, when he beheld Jehovah sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filling the temple, and with him exclaim in the language of unaffected humiliation-Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips? Under a sense of unworthiness and insufficiency so overwhelming, what minister of the gospel does not pray that some seraph might, as it were, be commissioned to touch his lips with a living coal from off the altar of God? Having the last week passed the anniversary of my settlement in the ministry among you, I deem it not unsuitable, while standing on a point where the past and the future gather with so much interest into one view, to ask you to pause with me, and for a little season, to endeavor to represent to our minds as far as practicable, according to its true dimensions, the greatness of the design proposed by the gospel ministry. It may be less necessary for you than for myself, but it cannot be entirely unseasonable or inappropriate for you to contemplate with me some of the duties, the discouragements, and the supports of the christian minister in his pastoral relations. I. A concise view will be taken of the most prominent duties of the ministry. To notice even cursorily the various duties connected with this holy occupation, would exceed the customary limits of a discourse. Those only can be mentioned, which have an intimate relation, and are peculiarly subsidiary to the great business of the ministry-the public preaching-the plain exhibition of divine truth. In order then, successfully to preach to others, a minister of the gospel must cultivate a deep and thorough acquaintance with himself. Without this he may speak with the tongue of angels, but will not speak to the hearts of his hearers. Destitute of this, he may understand all mysteries and knowledge, but he will not understand the avenues to conviction. He may have a faith to remove mountains, but will not move the hearts of sinners. He may give all his goods to feed the poor, and his own body to be burned, but will leave the hungry soul to famish, and the impenitent to endure the fire that is never quenched. Unless he has been made to feel the desperate malady which sin has introduced into his own, and the souls of his hearers-unless from his experience of its efficacy, he is able to testify the sufficiency of the remedy proposed in the gospel, and its suitableness to their case, however extensive and varied may be his attainments, he must nevertheless be a physician of no value. How shall he, who is slumbering in false security, and unconscious of the number and extent of his own departures from the narrow path that leads to heaven, awaken the stupid and thoughtless to a perception of their danger, or reclaim the backslider from his fearful wanderings? How shall he bind up the broken hearted, and comfort those that mourn, who has never felt the guilt and burden of sin, or been grieved at his own disunion with the only source of perfection and blessedness? No one can faithfully execute the dread commission of the gospel ministry, who does not habitually and deeply study the plague of his own heart-its native alienation from God-its strong disinclination to converse with spiritual objects its grovelling attachment to objects of sense, and its unfaithfulness to salutary religious impressions. Without such a communion with himself, and a spirit of prayer for divine assistance, no one can be qualified to address the awakening denunciations of God's holy law, to those who are slumbering on the brink of endless ruin; or to apply the promises of the gospel to those who have awaked to righteousness and put on the armor of light. Self-acquaintance then, leading to the cultivation of a deep, vital piety, is the grand secret of ministerial usefulness; and its attainment becomes an indispensable duty in him who ministers in holy things. 2. It is the duty of the christian minister to be a man of studious habits-to be continually extending his acquaintance with those branches of knowledge, that have a direct or collateral bearing upon the sacred functions to which he is devoted. This duty clearly results from the explicit injunctions of Scripture. The minister of the gospel is directed to meditate on all things connected with his office-to give himself wholly to them, that his profiting may be manifest to all! He must be apt to teach, and therefore, diligent to learn. He must not be a novice, and therefore must be extensively and familiarly acquainted with all the great subjects connected with his profession. He must acquire comprehensive views of the great system of divine truth; the bible, therefore, must be his constant guide and instructer. He is a consecrated almoner of a spiritual dispensation; from the Holy Scriptures, therefore, as an exhaustless treasury, he must bring forth things new and old. The word of God, then, must be the prime object of his studious attention. To understand its sacred contents, he must not only study it intensely, but he greatly needs, and must carefully use, every possible help. As subservient to this end, it is requisite that he be acquainted with the history of man, and especially of the church— be familiar with the writings of pious, wise, and learned expositors of the sacred volume-that he cultivate a correct literary taste, and keep pace with the progress of literature and science. And in short, that he possess all that knowledge, which by enlarging and invigorating his mind, will tend to render him as a minister, more able and judicious; and his ministrations more interesting, instructive and beneficial to his hearers. To compass so much-to make attainments so varied and extensive, and to bring them all to the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ, requires integrity of heart united with an active, vigorous mind, intensely devoted to moral and intellectual improve ment. Without efforts of this kind, unless the moral |