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SERMON I.

MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL WORKERS
TOGETHER WITH GOD.

2 COR. VI, 1.

"We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.” THROUGHOUT the whole course and tenor of his apostolic teaching, St. Paul seems to have been actuated by a twofold principle; his efforts are equally directed to humble and depress the sinner -to exalt and magnify the Saviour. Nor is the former part of this assertion in any degree invalidated by the importance and dignity which he constantly attaches to the ministerial character and functions, by himself so ably sustained and so assiduously discharged; since at such times he carefully discriminates between the office and the person. Thus, while he declares on one such occasion, "I magnify mine office;" on another he appropriates to himself the title of "the chief of sinners." But as the water from the fresh transparent stream is equally pure, whether it be 5

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familiarly offered to a peasant in an earthen vessel, or reverently presented to a monarch in a gilded and jewelled cup-and as the light is equally excellent in its essence and in its properties, whether it be diffused from silver lamps through stately palaces, or from the glimmering taper through the poor man's cottage-so the water and the light of life receive no pollution, admit no change, from the varying character and abilities of those by whom they are conveyed; the one is equally refreshing, the other equally quickening and reviving: if we have "the treasure in earthen vessels, it is that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." Consequently, it is of some moment to our hearers, and still more important to ourselves, that the grounds on which we claim deference and attention as ministers of Christ, should be rightly understood and appreciated;-lest our infirmity should prevent the due acknowledgment of our office, and thus betray men at once into negligence of their duty, and forgetfulness of their interest. Such we acknowledge is the magnitude of the interests which are at stake, and such the difficulties that oppose themselves to a proper discharge of the arduous office of the ministry, and such the apparent inadequacy of the instruments to the work in which they are engaged, that our hearers may well demand of us, "Why

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