When modern Pharisees

tor of attempting to form a particular sect. observe the strict union which reigns among true believers, a union which every faithful minister labours to establish among his people, as well by example as by precept; when they behold penitent sinners deeply sensible of their guilt, and frequently assembling together for the purpose of imploring the blessings of "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," they immediately take the alarm, and cry out, "These men do exceedingly trouble our city, teaching customs which are not lawful for us to receive," and maintaining such a conduct as is most inconvenient for us to follow, Acts xvi, 20, 21.

Happy are those cities in which the minister of Christ is able to discover a Nicodemus, a Gamaliel, or some worshippers possessed of as much candour as the Jews of Rome, who desired to hear what the persecuted Paul had to offer in behalf of that newly-risen sect, which was "every where spoken against," Acts xxvii, 22. Till this amiable candour shall universally prevail among the nominal members of the Church, true Christianity, even in the centre of Christendom, will always find perverse contradiction, and sometimes cruel persecution.

TRAIT XIV.

His rejection of praise.

THE minister of the present day labours chiefly with a view to his own advantage and honour. He endeavours to please that he may be admired of men. "He loves the chief seats in synagogues," public greetings, and honourable titles, Matt. xxiii, 6, 7, thus tacitly challenging, by his unreasonable pretensions to the respect and homage of men, a part of that glory which is due to God alone.

A totally different character is maintained by the true minister. His discourses, his actions, his look, his deportment, all agree to say, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake," Psalm cxv, 1. If the arm of the Omnipotent enables him to perform any extraordinary work, which the multitude do not immediately refer to the "Author of every good and perfect gift," he cries out with St, Peter, "Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness" we had performed what appears to excite your astonishment? "The God of our fathers hath," upon this occasion, glorified his Son Jesus; and the faith, which is by him," hath effected this extraordinary work in the presence of you all, Acts iii, 12, 13, 16. On all occasions he can say with the great apostle, "Do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men," unless for their edification, “I should not be the servant of Christ," Gal. i, 10. "With me it is a very small thing, that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment," 1 Cor. iv, 3. "But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth our hearts. Neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know; nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others," 1 Thess. ii, 4, 6. By such a conduct he distinguishes himself as a faithful ambassador of the blessed Jesus, who expressed himself in the following lowly terms to those who had reproached him with a spirit of self-exaltation: "I do

nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. I seek not my own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth. If I honour myself, my honour is nothing. It is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say that he is your God," John viii, 28, 50, 54.

There may be peculiar cases in which a ministering servant of God may be allowed to call upon Christians for a public testimony of their approbation; and when this is refused, he is justified in modestly calling their attention to every past proof of his integrity and zeal. Thus St. Paul, as a proper mean of maintaining his authority among the Corinthians, who had manifested an unjust partiality toward teachers of a very inferior order, entered into a long detail of those revelations and labours, which gave him a more than ordinary claim to the respect of every Church. But whenever he commended himself, he did it with the utmost reluctance, as one constrained by the peculiarity of his circumstances to act in immediate contrariety to his real disposition. Hence, whenever he recounts the particular favours with which God had honoured him, he speaks in the third person, as of another man: "Of such a one will I glory; yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities," 2 Cor. xii, 5. "For we dare not make ourselves of the number of those who commend themselves, measuring themselves by themselves," without any reference to the excellent graces and endowments of others. "But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth," 2 Cor. x, 12, 18.

Nothing affords greater satisfaction to false apostles than commendation and praise; while the true minister shrinks with horror from those very honours which they assume all the forms of Proteus to obtain. When the multitude, led by their admiration of a faithful preacher, follow him with unsuitable expressions of applause, he meets them with unfeigned indignation, arrests their impious plaudits, and rejects their idolatrous adulations, crying out with St. Paul, "Sirs! why do ye these things? we also are men of like passions with you; and preach unto you, that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God," Acts xiv, 13, 15. We are neither the way, the truth, nor the life: but we point to you that way which the truth has discovered, and through which eternal life may be obtained, entreating you to walk therein with all simplicity and meekness. And remember, that instead of affecting in our discourses that vain wisdom, which the world so passionately admires, we faithfully proclaim Christ: and, to humble us the more before God and man," we preach Christ crucified," 1 Cor. i, 23.

By this humble carriage the ministering disciples of Christ are principally known. By this they copy the amiable example of John the Baptist, who cheerfully humbled himself that Christ might be exalted, crying out in the language of that self-renouncing teacher, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world! There standeth one among you whom ye know not, whose shoes' latchet we are not worthy to unloose. We baptize with water; but he baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." Beware then of entertaining too high an idea of our ministry; and remember, that " He must increase" in your estimation, "but we must decrease," John i, 26, 33; iii, 30.

After beholding John the Baptist, who was accounted greater than any of the prophets, abasing himself in the presence of Christ; and

after hearing St. Paul, who was far superior to the Baptist, exclaiming in the humility of his soul, "I live not; but Christ liveth in me," how can we sufficiently express our astonishment at the conduct of those titular apostles, who either set up a vain philosophy in the place of Christ, or employ the cross of their Lord as a kind of pedestal for the support of those splendid monuments, by which their pride is endeavouring to perpetuate the memory of their eloquence. Self-conceited orators! When shall we rank you with the faithful ministers of the humble Jesus? When shall we behold the character you have assumed, and the conduct you maintain, sweetly harmonizing with each other? When shall we hear you addressing your flocks with the unaffected simplicity and condescension of the great apostle: "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and," far from elevating ourselves above you, on account of the commission we have received, "ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake," 2 Cor. iv, 5. Then we might with propriety salute you as humble imitators of St. Paul, as zealous ministers of the Gospel, and as faithful servants of that condescending Saviour, who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," Matt. xx, 28,

TRAIT XV.
His universal love.

TRUE Christians are distinguished from Jews, Mohammedans, and all other worshippers, by that spirit of universal love, which is the chief ornament and glory of their profession. But among evangelical pastors this holy disposition appears in a more eminent degree. They feel for the inconsiderate and the sinful that tender compassion of which Christ has left us an example. Their conduct answers to that beautiful description of charity with which Paul presented the Corinthian Church, and which may be considered as an emblematical representation of his own character from the time of his conversion to the Christian faith. Universal love is that invigorating sap, which, passing from the true vine into its several branches, renders them fruitful in every good work. But this Divine principle circulates through chosen ministers with peculiar force, and in more than ordinary abundance, as so many principal boughs, by which a communication is opened between the root and the lesser branches.

The faithful pastor entertains an affecting remembrance of those benevolent expressions which the good Shepherd addressed to the Apostle Peter, and in the person of that apostle to all his successors in the ministry, repeating them even to the third time: "Lovest thou me ? Feed my sheep." As though he had said, The greatest proof you can possibly give of your unfeigned attachment to me, is, to cherish the souls which I have redeemed, and to make them the objects of your tenderest regard. Such is the affectionate precept which every faithful minister has received together with his sacred commission, and to which he yields a more ready and cheerful obedience, from a firm dependence upon the following solemn declaration of his gracious Master: "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, he shall say" to all the children of love, "Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done good

unto one of the least of these my brethren," whether their wants were corporal or spiritual, "ye have done it unto me," Matt. xxv, 31, 40.

The love of the evangelical pastor, like that of St. Paul, is unbounded. "God," saith that charitable apostle, "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth: I exhort, therefore, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men: for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour," 1 Tim. ii, 4. But not content with submitting to the exhortation of St. Paul, with respect to the duty of universal prayer, he endeavours to copy the example of that apostle in labouring for the salvation of all men: "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some," 1 Cor. ix, 22. Being by regeneration "a partaker of the Divine nature," 2 Pet. i, 4, he bears a lovely, though imperfect resemblance to his heavenly Parent, whose chief perfection is love. Like the High Priest of his profession, he breathes nothing but charity; and like the Father of lights, he makes the sun of his beneficence to rise upon all men. To describe this lesser sun in its unlimited course, and to point out the admirable variety with which it distributes its light and its heat, is to delineate with precision the character of a faithful pastor.

TRAIT XVI.

His particular love to the faithful.

THE universal love of the true minister manifests itself in a particular manner, according to the different situations of those who are the objects of it. When he finds the whole conduct of professing Christians conformable to the nature of their sacred profession, "he loves them with a pure heart fervently," 1 Pet. i, 22, and giving way to the effusions of holy joy, he expresses his affection in words like these: "Brethren, we are comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith for now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord." And "what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before God," 1 Thess. iii, 7, 9. In these expressions of St. Paul an astonishing degree of affection is discovered. "Now we live ;" as though he had said, We have a two-fold life, the principal life which we receive immediately from Christ, and an accessory life, which we derive from his members through the medium of brotherly love. And so deeply are we interested in the concerns of our brethren, that we are sensibly affected by the variations they experience in their spiritual state, through the power of that Christian sympathy which we are unable to describe. Thus when sin has detached any of our brethren from Christ, and separated them from the body of the faithful, we are penetrated with the most sincere distress: and, on the contrary, whenever they become more affectionately connected with us, and more intimately united to Christ our common head, our spirits are then sensibly refreshed and invigorated with new degrees of life and joy.

Reader, dost thou understand this language? Hast thou felt the power of this Christian sympathy? Or has thy faith never yet produced these genuine sentiments of brotherly love? Then thou hast spoken as a person equally destitute of sensibility and truth, whenever thou hast dared "I believe in the communion of saints."

to say,

TRAIT XVII.

His love to those whose faith was wavering.

WHEN a minister, after having been made instrumental in the conversion of sinners, perceives their faith decreasing, and their love growing cold, he feels for them what the Redeemer felt when he wept over Jerusalem. Not less concerned for the remissness of his believing hearers, than St. Paul was distressed by the instability of his Galatian and Corinthian converts, he pleads with them in the same affectionate ' terms: "Ye know," ye who are the seals of my ministry, "how I preached the Gospel unto you at the first. And ye despised me not, but received me as an angel of God. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? For I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you," I tell you with sorrow, that after all my confidence in you, "I · stand in doubt of you," Gal. iv, 13–20. "Our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same (I speak as unto my children) be ye also enlarged. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. We beseech you, therefore, brethren, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain," 2 Cor. vi, 1, 11-18.

This language of the Christian pastor is almost unintelligible to the minister who is merely of man's appointing. Having never converted a single soul to Christ, he has neither spiritual son nor daughter, and is entirely unacquainted with that painful travail which is mentioned by St. Paul. His bowels are straitened toward Christ and his members, and having closely united himself to the men of the world, he considers the assembly of the faithful as a company of ignorant enthusiasts. But, notwithstanding the spiritual insensibility of these ill-instructed teachers, who never studied in the school of Christ, there is no other token by which either sincere Christians or true ministers can be discerned, except that fervent love which the Galatians entertained for St. Paul before their falling away, and which that apostle ever continued to entertain for them. "By this," saith our Lord, "shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another," John xiii, 35.

TRAIT XVIII.

His love to his countrymen and his enemies.

ST. PAUL, like his rejected Master, was persecuted even to death by the Jews, his countrymen, while he generously exposed himself to innumerable hardships in labouring for their good. These furious devotees, inspired with envy, revenge, and a persecuting zeal, hunted this