their talents, may surmount all disadvantages; but the order will be contemned. At present, every member of our ecclesiastical establishment communicates with the dignity which is conferred upon a few-every clergyman shares in the respect which is paid to his superiors-the ministry is honoured in the persons of prelates. Nor is this economy peculiar to our order. The professions of arms and of the law derive their lustre and esteem, not merely from their utility, (which is a reason only to few,) but from the exalted place in the scale of civil life which hath been wisely assigned to those who fill stations of power and eminence in these great departments. And if this disposition of honours be approved in other kinds of public employment, why should not the credit and liberality of ours be upheld by the same expedient.

Fourthly; rich and splendid situations in the church have been justly regarded as prizes held out to invite persons of good hopes and ingenious attainments to enter into its service. The value of the prospect may be the same, but the allurement is much greater, where opulent shares are reserved to reward the success of a few, than where, by a more equal partition of the fund, all indeed are competently provided for, but no one can raise even his hopes beyond a penurious mediocrity of subsistence and situation. It is certainly of consequence that young men of promising abilities be encouraged to engage in the ministry of the church; otherwise our profession will be composed of the refuse of every other. None will be found content to stake the fortune of their lives in this calling, but they whom slow parts, personal defects, or a depressed condition of birth and education, preclude from advancement in any other. The vocation in time comes to be thought mean and discreditablestudy languishes-sacred erudition declines-not only the order is disgraced, but religion itself disparaged in such hands. Some of the most judicious and moderate of the Presbyterian clergy have been known to lament this defect in their constitution. They see and deplore the backwardness in youth of active and well-cultivated faculties to enter into their church, and their frequent resolutions to quit it. Again, if a gradation of orders be necessary to invite candidates into the profession, it is still more so to excite diligence and emulation; to promote an attention to character and public opinion when they are in it; especially to guard against that sloth and negligence into which men are

VOL. IV.

R

apt to fall, who arrive too soon at the limits of their expectations. We will not say, that the race is always to the swift, or the prize to the deserving; but we have never known that age of the church in which the advantage was not on the side of learning and decency.

These reasons appear to me to be well founded, and they have this in their favour, that they do not suppose too much; they suppose not any impracticable precision in the reward of merit, or any greater degree of disinterestedness, circumspection, and propriety in the bestowing of ecclesiastical preferment, than what actually takes place. They are however much strengthened, and our ecclesiastical constitution defended with yet greater success, when men of conspicuous and acknowledged merit are called to its superior stations. "When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth." When pious labours and exemplary virtue, when distinguished learning, or eminent utility, when long or arduous services are repaid with affluence and dignity, when a life of severe and well-directed application to the studies of religion, when wasted spirits and declining health are suffered to repose in honourable leisure, the good and wise applaud a constitution which has provided such things for such men.

Finally; let us reflect that these, after all, are but secondary objects. Christ came not to found an empire upon earth, or to invest his church with temporal immunities. He came "to seek and to save that which was lost;" to purify to himself from amidst the pollutions of a corrupt world "a peculiar people, zealous of good works." As far as our establishment conduces to forward and facilitate these ends, so far we are sure it falls in with his design, and is sanctified by his authority. And whilst they who are intrusted with its government employ their cares, and the influence of their stations, in judicious and unremitting endeavours to enlarge the dominion of virtue and of Christianity over the hearts and affections of mankind; whilst "by pureness, by knowledge," by the aids of learning, by the piety of their example, they labour to inform the consciences and improve the morals of the people committed to their charge, they secure to themselves, and to the church in which they preside, peace and permanency, reverence and support. What is infinitely more, they "save their own souls;" they prepare for the approach of that tremendous day, when Jesus Christ shall return again to

the world and to his church, at once the gracious rewarder of the toils-and patience-and fidelity of his servants, and the strict avenger of abused power and neglected duty.

IV.

DANGERS INCIDENTAL TO THE CLERICAL CHARACTER

STATED.

[In a Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, at Great St. Mary's Church, on Sunday, July 5, being Commencement Sunday.]

1 CORINTHIANS IX.-PART OF THE 27TH VERSE.

"Lest that, by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away."

THESE words discover the anxiety, not to say the fears, of the writer, concerning the event of his personal salvation; and when interpreted by the words which precede them, strictly connect that event with the purity of his personal character.

It is extremely material to remember who it was that felt this deep solicitude for the fate of his spiritual interests, and the persuasion that his acceptance (in so far as it is procured by human endeavours) would depend upon the care and exactness with which he regulated his own passions, and his own conduct: because, if a man ever existed, who, in the zeal and labour with which he served the cause of religion, in the ardour or the efficacy of his preaching, in his sufferings or his success, might hope for some excuse to indulgence, some license for gratifications which were forbidden to others, it was the author of the text which has been now read to you. Yet the Apostle appears to have known, and by his knowledge teaches us, that no exertion of industry, no display of talents, no public merit, however great, or however good or sacred be the cause in which it is acquired, will compensate for the neglect of personal self-govern

ment.

This, in my opinion, is an important lesson to all: to none, certainly, can it be more applicable, than it is in every age to the teachers of religion; for a little observation of the world must have informed us, that the human mind is prone, almost beyond resistance, to sink the weakness or the irregularities of private character in the view of public services; that this pro

pensity is the strongest in a man's own case; that it prevails more powerfully in religion than in other subjects, inasmuch as the teachers of religion consider themselves (and rightly do so) as ministering to the higher interests of human existence.

Still farther, if there be causes, as I believe there are, which raise extraordinary difficulties in the way of those who are engaged in the offices of religion; circumstances even of disadvantage in the profession and character, as far as relates to the conservation of their own virtue; it behoves them to adopt the Apostle's caution with more than common care, because it is only to prepare themselves for dangers to which they are more than commonly exposed.

Nor is there good reason for concealing, either from ourselves or others, any unfavourable dispositions which the nature of our employment or situation may tend to generate: for, be they what they will, they only prove, that it happens to us according to the condition of human life-with many benefits to receive some inconveniences-with many helps to experience some trials: that, with many peculiar motives to virtue, and means of improvement in it, some obstacles are presented to our progress which it may require a distinct and positive effort of the mind to surmount.

I apprehend that I am stating a cause of no inconsiderable importance, when amongst these impediments I mention, in the first place, the insensibility to religious impression, which a constant conversation with religious subjects, and, still more, a constant intermixture with religious offices, is wont to induce. Such is the frame of the human constitution, (and calculated also for the wisest purposes,) that whilst all active habits are facilitated and strengthened by repetition, impressions under which we are passive are weakened and diminished. Upon the first of these properties depends, in a great measure, the exercise of the arts of life: upon the second, the capacity which the mind possesses of adapting itself to almost every situation. This quality is perceived in numerous, and for the most part, beneficial examples. Scenes of terror, spectacles of pain, objects of loathing and disgust, so far lose their effect with their novelty, as to permit professions to be carried on, and conditions of life to be endured, which otherwise, although necessary, would be insupportable. It is a quality, however, which acts, as other parts of our frame do, by an operation which is general: hence it acts also in in

stances in which its influence is to be corrected; and, amongst these, in religion. Every attentive Christian will have observed how much more powerfully he is affected by any form of worship which is uncommon than with the familiar returns of his own religious offices. He will be sensible of the difference, when he approaches, a few times in the year, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; if he should be present at the visitation of the sick; or even, if that were unusual to him, at the sight of a family assembled in prayer. He will perceive it also upon entering the doors of a dissenting congregation--a circumstance which has misled many, by causing them to ascribe to some advantage in the conduct of public worship what, in truth, is only the effect of new impressions. Now, by how much a lay frequenter of religious worship finds himself less warmed and stimulated by ordinary than by extraordinary acts of devotion, by so much, it may be expected, that a clergyman, habitually conversant with the offices of religion, will be less moved and stimulated than he is. What then is to be done? It is by an effort of reflection, by a positive exertion of the mind, by knowing this tendency, and by setting ourselves expressly to resist it, that we are to repair the decays of spontaneous piety. We are no more to surrender ourselves to the mechanism of our frame than to the impulse of our passions. We are to assist our sensitive by our rational nature. We are to supply this infirmity, (for so it may be called, although, like many other properties which bear the name of vices in our constitution, it be, in truth, a beneficial principle acting according to a general law,)—we are to supply it by a deeper sense of the obligations under which we lie; by a more frequent and a more distinct recollection of the reasons upon which that obligation is founded. We are not to wonder at the pains which this may cost us; still less are we to imitate the despondency of some serious Christians, who, in the impaired sensibility that habit hath induced, bewail the coldness of a deserted soul.

Hitherto our observation will not be questioned: but I think that this principle goes farther than is generally known or acknowledged. I think that it extends to the influence which argument itself possesses upon our understanding; or, at least, to the influence which it possesses in determining our will. I will not say, that, in a subject strictly intellectual, and in science properly so called, a demonstration is the less convincing for