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CHAP. IX.

We shall now bestow a few thoughts on the duties of the clergy. In the first place I assume, that if a clergyman would secure any probable chance of the majority of his flock profiting by his ministry, he should, as the Archbishop has so emphatically urged, take some pains to become acquainted with them. on the week days, as well as collectively on Sunday. The spiritual state of no one under his ministry should be a secret to him. If he is a true Apostle, he will consider it as essential a part of his duty to seek as to be sought after. Our blessed Saviour continually went about doing good; "to seek and to save those that were lost." Guided by his example, his immediate followers encountered voluntarily the

utmost hardship, sufferings, and danger, braving death itself in its most horrible forms, so that they might only be instrumental in propagating the truths of the Gospel. "Ye know," says the Apostle of the Gentiles, "from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations; and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there; save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know

that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers (Bishops), to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure, shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears." What an awful contrast is here to the doctrine and practice of the successors in office of those holy Apostles!

What a reproach to our hierarchy, that with the means they possess of propagating knowledge, there should exist one individual, come to the age of reflection, unprovided with a

competent acquaintance with the leading doctrines of his Bible! While we are fussing and squabbling about sending missionaries to every remote part of the earth, in the heart of the Archbishop of Canterbury's see will be found, as they are to be found in every other part of this most Christian country, numerous persons of both sexes as destitute of any knowledge of the scheme of their redemption, and as unfurnished with any reasons for the hope that is in them, as if they were the inhabitants of Tombuctoo. It has often occurred to me, that it would be well worth the trouble to take a census of the number of persons in each parish who have any correct understanding of the faith they profess. In the neighbourhood of Gloucester, and in a part of the country where clergymen abound, I can produce men, if required, who know no more of Jesus Christ than by the name; and one of them, nearly fifty years of age, literally had not advanced so far. Yet a clergyman has no hesitation in telling an assembly of the most illiterate persons in his parish, that unless they believe the Scriptures,

they are in danger of eternal damnation; while he is conscious, at the time he is pronouncing this anathema, that he has never moved as far as from the vestry to the pulpit, beyond the routine of his church, to assist them in the work. He scruples not to inveigh against popery in terms the most vehement, and with a license of antipathy that would do honour to a Puritan in his sourest mood; and yet the bulk of his auditory know no more about the doctrinal difference between Popery and Protestantism, than between Pelagianism and Arianism, Socinianism and Antinomianism, or any of the other endless varieties of ism, with which bigotry and party zeal teem in the sects of Christendom. Can any absurdity much exceed this? I venture to assert, that not one half of any parish in England, taking the whole aggregate population, from the highest to the lowest, have ever bestowed the least serious. attention on the Scriptures, nay not many even of those who make a shew of attending places of public worship; while there is a vast number as completely unread in the Bible as

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