How delightful the thought, when slavish fear has not chased away hope, that we minister in the very presence of our Master. If we are in our study he is there, or on our knees he is there, or in the consecrated pulpit, he is there; to know our embarrassments, lay our fears, raise our hopes, and pour consolation into our hearts. From what duty can we shrink, of what foe be afraid, by what sufferings be disheartened, while we serve a God at hand and not a God afar off, and may at any moment roll over our cares upon One who careth for us. He who had not rather be a minister of Christ with all its trials, than wear a crown, knows not the pleasures of the service.

REMARKS.

1. The subject is very humiliating to Christ's ministers. We enter the office by mere sufferance. We were under a sentence of condemnation, and any thing short of perdition is mercy, and yet so honoured! Hence no position becomes us but that of the most complete prostration of soul. Our appropriate prayer is, "God be merciful to me a sinner." From no station of usefulnesss, enjoyment, or honour, can we fail to look back to the rock whence we were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence we were digged. None were more unworthy of the office than we, none more richly deserved perdition, or if we reach heaven will celebrate our escape from death in sweeter Alleluias. How free, how sovereign, and how rich the grace that could raise such beings to a station so distinguished!

2. The subject will help us to judge, who are the true ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, do not walk

in craftiness, nor handle the word of God deceitfully. In the aspect of their whole moral deportment there is seen the open ingenuousness of truth. When they have known the mind of God they dare divulge it; they dare, even if the message be unpleasant. If faithfulness should endanger their interest, offend their benefactors, cut off supplies from their table, and make their children barefoot and houseless, still in their message will be seen the truth, the whole truth, the truth simple, and unadulterated, as it dropped from the lips of Jesus. If they must be lodged in a dungeon, and see kindled the fires that are to consume them, still supported by his presence who said, "I will never leave thee," it is presumed you would see associated with their rags, and their wretchedness and martyrdom, a soul too honest to betray the truth.

But we see, occasionally, the opposite of all this. The man presents himself in the attitude of Christ's minister, but makes it his great object to accommodate his message to the taste of the poor dying creature whom it should be his object to awaken and sanctify. He believes many a doctrine, and reads many a precept that he dare not urge upon his people, and sees approaching dangers against which he dare not warn them. His first concern is to secure to himself the honours and the emoluments of his office, even should it require the compromise of the divine authority, and the divine glory. It grieves us to know that he is likely to perish himself, and his deluded hearers with him. And moreover, he generates a contagion that spreads like the plague through all the churches, and brings the reproach of the whole apostacy upon the men who have a less pliant conscience, and courage enough to do their duty; producing a fastidiousness of taste, that prepares men to

resist the pressure of truth, till they have reached perdition, And it should greatly grieve us to apprehend that our children, when we are dead, may be thrown under such a ministry; may imbibe the contagion, may deny the Lord that bought them, may hate the doctrines that should sanctify them, and under the influence of a smooth and fair and popular religion, glide down gently and smoothly to the place of torment.

3. In a work so dignified, so responsible, and so perilous, we ought to expect the confidence, the affection and the aid, of those for whose salvation this ministry is established.

It should secure us their confidence to know that our ministry admits of nothing concealed and mysterious, but is open, undisguised, and ingenuous. We spread before the people our whole commission, make our design known, and open to them our whole hearts. We are willing to earn the confidence we ask, and would say to the world, if on any point we betray your interest, believe any doctrine, or credit any precept that we do not urge, or hide the danger that approaches you, then be distrustful and jealous, believe that we have run before we were sent, and that under the guise of the lamb, there rages the appetite of the wolf. If otherwise, we deserve your assurance. The office that God instituted, that Christ personally honoured, should hold a place very sacred, and very high, in your esteem.

I know there are sections of Christendom where the vilest of men, who do not deserve esteem, serve at the altar. But by their fruits ye shall know them. If they deal in the hidden things of dishonesty, or walk in craftiness, or handle the word of God deceitfully, you are not

obligated to esteem them the ministers of Christ. And still it sometimes happens that a false and deceitful ministry is more popular than the one that Christ approves. It aims to commend itself, not to the conscience but to the unsanctified heart. It prophecies smooth things, heals the wounds of the awakened conscience slightly, and assures the wicked that it shall be well with them. It covers the pit over, and makes great efforts to lay the cry of alarm. The men whom you may trust, expose your danger, and depict your depravity, lead you to search your hearts, and try your hopes; and they deserve and need your confidence. They have trials enough, when their people rally about them, and confide in their integrity.

Let me say to all the lost, it is equally your duty and your interest to love the ministers of Jesus Christ. They come to you on an errand the most kind, and it may happen, and God may know it, that when they disturb you the most, they feel the most tenderly. When it has seemed to you that they must hate you, they have gone home and wept over you, and interceded with God in agonized prayer for your eternal life. So your child thought you cruel, when you tore the thorn from his wounded hand; but was you not kind?

One thing it is easy to know, he who so presses home upon your conscience the doctrines and duties of the gospel as to offend you, is not probably governed by selfish motives. His interest, when no reference is had to the last day, would lead him so to soften his message as not to give offence. You would then the more gene rously fill his board. Still, when you find him unbendingly faithful, he deserves your esteem the more.

Else

you tempt him to betray your interest. When you move him from his integrity, he but goes down with you to the pit; or if God forgive him, and he is saved, he may first have destroyed you and your children. Let him then be faithful, and still have your affection, then his work will be pleasant, and your danger diminished.

And the ministers of Christ will also need your help. The enterprise in which they are employed is the redemption of men from eternal misery. And they have all the weaknesses of other men, and need in a work so awfully grand, the prompt co-operation of all who value the soul. The seed they sow must be watered with prayer, their duties must be made easy by your friendship, and their trials be softened by your sympathies. When the burdens of the ministry are thus lightened, they are still weighty enough for the shoulders of an angel. Our constant exclamation is, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Next to him who in the very work itself has continued faithful unto death, the high reward of heaven will be his, who has aided our efforts, and has laboured with us in the gospel. If you could have helped in building the world, it would have been a service less honourable than that of helping to redeem it. It was built of clay, but must be redeemed with blood; it took its form in a week, but its redemption has been progressing these six thousand years.

You may contribute to save a soul from death, and cover a multitude of sins; may snatch a spirit that can · never die, from perdition, and elevate it to a seat high in bliss may substitute the glories of heaven for the darkness and horrors of the pit; and change the wailings of the damned into anthems of Alleluia. By mo