temptible. Let us consider that, as one of the most important trusts of the state, one of the most respectable posts of society, which is appointed to instill religious principles in our children, to inspire them with piety, to guard them against the snares that they will meet with in the world, and, by these means, to render them dutiful in childhood, faithful in conjugal life, tender parents, good citizens, and able magistrates. The pastors of our churches are our second class of teachers. I know that all our sufficiency is of God, 2 Cor. iii. 5. that though Paul may plant, and Apollos water, God only giveth the increase that holy men, considering the end of the ministry, have exclaimed, Who is sufficient for these things? 1 Cor. iii. 6. Yet the ordinary means which God useth for the conversion of sinners are the ministry of the word, and the qualifications of ministers, for faith cometh by hearing, Rom. x. 17. Now this word, my brethren, is not preached with equal power by all; and, though the foundation which each lays be the same, it is too true that some build upon this foundation the gold and precious stones of a solid and holy doctrine, while others build with the wood, hay, and stubble, 1 Cor. iii. 12. of their own errors, the productions of a confused imagination and a mistaken eloquence. And as the word is not preached with the same power, so it is not attended with the same success. But when the word proceeds from the mouth of a man whom God hath sealed, and enriched with extraordinary talents, when it proceeds from a man, who hath the tongue of the learned and the wisdom of the wise, as the scripture speaks, Isa. l. 4. When it proceeds from a Boanerges, a son of thunder, from a Moses, mighty in words and in deeds, Mark iii. 17. Acts vii. 22. who maintains the dignity of his doctrine by the purity of his morals, and by the power of his good example, then the word is heard with attention; from the ear it passeth to the mind, from the mind to the heart, from the heart to the life it penetrates, it inflames, it transports. It becomes a hammer breaking the hardest hearts, a two-edged sword, dividing the father from the son, the son from the father, dissolving all the bonds of flesh and blood, the connections of nature, and the love of self. What precaution, what circumspection, and, in some sort, what dread ought to prevail in the choice of an office, which so greatly influences the salvation of those among whom it is exercised! There needs only the bad system of a pastor to produce and preserve thousands of false notions of religion in the people's minds: notions, which fifty years labours of a more wise and sensible ministry will scarcely be able to eradicate. There needs only a pastor sold to sordid interest to put up, in some sort, salvation to sale, and to regulate places in paradise according to the diligence or negligence with which the people gratify the avarice of him who distributes them. There needs only a pastor fretted with envy and jealousy against his brethren to poison their ministry by himself, or by his emissaries. Yea sometimes, there needs only the want of some less essential talents in a minister to give advantage to the enemies of religion, and to deprive the truths which he preaches of that profound respect which is their due; a respect that even enemies could not withhold, if the gospel were properly preached, and its truths exhibited in their true point of view. It would be unreasonable perhaps to develope this article now. How How many of our people would felicitate themselves if we were to furnish them with pretences for imputing their unfruitfulness to those who cultivate them? But, if this article must not be developed, what grave remonstrances, what pressing exhortations, what fervent prayers should it occasion? Let the heads of families consider the heinousness of their conduct in presuming to offer impure victims to the Lord, and in consecrating those children to the holy ministry, in whom they cannot but discover dispositions that render them unworthy of it. May ecclesiastical bodies never assemble for the election of pastors without making profound reflections on the importance of the service in which they are engaged, and the greatness of the trust which the sovereign commits to them: May they never ordain without recollecting, that, to a certain degree, they will be responsible for all the sad consequences of a faithless or a fruitless ministry May they always prostrate on these occasions before God, as the apostles in the same case did, and pray, Lord shew whom thou hast chosen, Acts i. 24. May our rulers and magistrates be af fected with the worth of those souls whom the pastors instruct; and may they unite all their piety, all their pity, and all their power to procure holy men, who may adorn so eminent, so venerable a post. What hath been said on the choice of pastors still more particularly regards the election of tutors, who are employed to form pastors themselves. Universities are public springs, whence rivulets flow into all the church. Place at the head of these bodies sound philosophers, good divines, wise casuists, and they will become seminaries of pastors after God's heart, who will form the minds, and regulate the morals of the people, gently bowing them to the yoke of religion. On the contrary, place men of another character at the head of our universities, and they will send out impoisoned ministers, who will diffuse through the whole church the fatal venom which themselves have imbibed. 3. The third cause which we have assigned, of the infancy and noviciate of most Christians in religious knowledge, is the multitude of their secular affairs. Far be it from us to aim at inspiring you with superstitious maxims. We do not mean that they who fill eminent posts in society should devote that time to devotion which the good of the community requires. We allow, that in some critical conjunctures, the time appointed for devotion must be yielded to business. There are some urgent occasions when it is more necessary to fight than to pray there are times of important business in which the closet must be sacrificed to the cares of life, and second causes must be attended to even when one would wish to be occupied only about the first. Yet, after all, the duty that we recommend is indispensable. Amidst the most turbulent solicitudes of life, a Christian desirous of being saved, will devote some time to his salvation. Some part of the day he will redeem from the world and society, to meditate on eternity. This was the practice of those eminent saints, whose lives are The histories of Abra proposed as patterns to us. ham, Moses, Samuel, and David, are well known, and ye recollect those parts of their lives to which we refer, without our detaining you in a repetition now. The last cause of the incapacity of so many Christians for seeing the whole of religion in its connection and harmony: the last cause of their taking it only by bits and shreds, is their love of sensual pleasure. We do not speak here of those gross pleasures at which heathens would have blushed, and which are incompatible with Christianity. We attack pleasures more refined, maxims for which reasonable persons become sometimes apologists :: persons who on more accounts than one, are wor-. thy of being proposed as examples: persons who would seem to be the salt of the earth, the flower of society, and whom we cannot justly accuse of not loving religion. How rational, how religious soever they appear in other cases, they make no scruple of passing a great part of their time in gaming, in public diversions, in a round of worldly amusements; in pleasures, which not only appear harmless, but in some sort, suitable to their rank, and which seem criminal only to those who think it their |