tion can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

When we come in silence and sincerity to sum up our account, at the close of our labours, as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God, and when we hold in anticipation the award which awaits us at the great day of final reckoning, we shall indeed feel the utter insignificance of even the highest attainments of mere human applause and of mere personal popularity. We shall then feel in perfect unison with St Paul, when he says, in reference to his own ministry and stewardship, "But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart; and then shall every man have praise of God,"-1. Cor. iv. 3, &c.

Rash judgment, whether it be friendly or censorious, is always dangerous. It originates

in ignorance and prejudice. It leads to error, and error always leads to evil. The ministers of Christ, in every age, have been peculiarly subject, and, in the special exercise of their office, to rash, and frequently to censorious judgment, greatly injurious to them and to the influence of their ministry, but much more injurious to those who thus habitually disobey the express command of God; "Judge not, that ye be not judged."-Matth. vii. 1, This evil has increased of late years both in magnitude and in malignity. Ministers the most orthodox, and stewards the most faithful, are subjected to the severest and most censorious judgment by persons who are in all respects incompetent, who, in utter ignorance, and under the influence of the most perverted views, accuse all who stand beyond the range of their peculiar circle, of hostility and opposition to that blessed gospel of which they are the ministers. For myself, I can scarcely even conceive a minister of our church who is not, in the proper sense of the term, a gospel minister. If he be tolerably instructed in professional knowledge, and, at the same time, honest and sincere, he cannot

fail to be such for the essential truths of the gospel, in all their practical plainness, and in all their systematic symmetry, are ever before him in the sacred services which he is required to celebrate. They are, as our Church is happily constituted, the materials of his ministry. Every thing is evangelical, in the highest and best sense of the term; and this evangelism is practical, not controversial. If the people duly attend to the system by which we are necessarily guided in all our ministrations, we can never, in any important matter, seriously mislead them.

Those partial views of gospel truth, which are now so commonly urged on Christian attention, have bred much mischief in the Church. In their exclusive and emphatic announcement they are generally combined with an eager spirit of controversy, which receives its aliment from many carnal passions, even when the language in which they are urged is most spiritual in sound and most sacred in pretension: while the spirit in which they are thus supported is essentially opposed to that unity of principle, and therefore to that peace and purity of practice which are univer

sally enforced in the word of God. The gospel, as it embraces all Christians, is practical, or to them it is nothing. When the spirit of the gospel comes into full operation, it changes the heart; and when the heart is thus changed, a new impulse is given to all the moral powers of the renewed Christian, imparting peace of mind, purity of purpose, and correctness of conduct. These effects he happily feels. They are the evidence of his condition: for, in every Christian really renewed, they are in active and in uniform operation. He feels, at the same time, that he is the happy agent. He feels, also, that he owes the power of this happy agency wholly to the guidance of that spirit which the gospel reveals and imparts. If Christians, yielding to the guidance of this spirit, would learn to devote themselves more to practice than to speculation, their religious knowledge would, in all respects, become more comprehensive and more correct, in proportion as those carnal appetites and wayward passions, which obscure our knowledge as they impede our practice, become gradually subdued, and give place to increasing purity of purpose and propriety of

conduct. If Christians would devote themselves earnestly to their own personal duty, to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, in the certain conviction that it is God which worketh in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure, instead of rashly judging their neighbours, the influence of the gospel on our hearts and on our lives would be greater and more salutary than it is. "Lord, and what shall this man do?" is a question which we are not entitled to ask,-to which the only proper answer is, "What is that to thee? follow thou me." The duty of each individual is plain, and the aid which he requires is ever ready and sufficient, if he be willing to yield himself to the faithful performance of all his Christian obligations.

That practical purity, curing by God's help the corrupt and carnal affections of our mortal nature, is the great aim and object of the Christian institution, whereby we are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,-Col. i. 12.-will appear from a rapid view of the import of my text, compared with the other scriptures which combine the fundamental principles with the indis