tain the purest doctrines of grace, as contained in the Bible and stated in the 39 Articles; let them raise up on high, and firmly wave that glorious standard, and the evil spirits will flee away."]

But it is not only necessary that we preach plainly and faithfully these great Gospel truths. This we must do ; but something more is needful, if we would be successful minis ters, than a mere development of leading truths. Abstract truths may influence the understanding, but close and practical statements are required to affect the conscience and save the soul. We must, therefore, apply the truths we preach, practically and individually. As Nathan said unto David, "Thou art the man;" so, if we would preach an effective Gospel, we must endeavour to bring the truths home to the consciences of our hearers individually; to make them feel, as far as human instrumentality can go, their own interest, their own concern in these truths. The great truths of the Gospel must be plainly declared to each, but in special reference to the sins, the trials, the responsibilities, the duties of each. Otherwise, there will be no self-examination, no individual application. We must seek to convince each individual of sin; of his own sin; that he is involved in the guilt and ruin of the fall; by nature and by practice a child of wrath, and an enemy to God; and that if he would escape the punishment due to his sins, and obtain eternal life, he must with broken heart and contrite spirit, seek for reconciliation with the Father, through the death of the Son; and for the renewal of his heart unto holiness, by the sanctifying influence of the Holy Ghost. We must, in our ministry, imitate the great Apostle, "warn every man, and teach every man," and that not only publicly, but from house to house, " that we may present every man perfect in Christ."

But a Christian Minister is to take heed to the manner

and spirit of his preaching, as well as to the matter.

This division of our subject embraces a variety of particulars, on which much might be said with profit, but we confine our attention to one, which is in truth, the principal, and includes all the rest.

As the Gospel we preach is emphatically a message of love, so is the spirit with which we deliver it, to be a spirit of love. This is to be the grand peculiarity as to the mode of the delivery of our message. We must indeed take heed and “shun not," through the fear of man, "to declare the whole counsel of God;" instructing the ignorant, arousing the careless, rebuking the ungodly, as well as strengthening the weak and comforting the mourners in Zion. But our faithfulness as to the subject matter of our teaching, must be tempered with lore, in the manner and spirit of our teaching. Much of the acceptance, and consequent efficiency of our ministrations depends on this, "speaking the truth in love;" in "meekness instructing those that oppose themselves," to our teaching. There is such a thing as unfeeling fidelity. But the truths we preach will lose half their force if they be not spoken from a feeling and affectionate heart; not indeed from an affectation of feeling, but from genuine feeling, as knowing the value of an immortal soul, and the price at which it has been redeemed. If indeed our hearts be in unison with our calling; if we have ourselves felt the power of the Gospel of Christ in delivering our own souls from the ruin they deserved, we shall feel, that any other spirit, than a spirit of tenderness and love, but ill becomes us in proclaiming the same blessed Gospel, even in its solemn denunciations against sin, to our fellowsinners. Dependent ourselves on the same Giver and means of grace, as the meanest and guiltiest of those to whom we preach, and if saved at last, entering the same gate of Heaven as they, how shall we indulge any other feeling

than that of tenderness and compassion, even in our warnings and our rebukes? If faithfulness calls us to reprove the lukewarmness or inconsistencies of those of our flock who once seemed to run well, but now to be drawing back, our reproof will be in the spirit of the Apostle to the Galatians, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, till Christ be found in you." Or if we be constrained to use sharpness in exposing the lying refuges of the hypocrite and the ungodly, it will be in the spirit of the same Apostle, in that affecting declaration, "Many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping." Yea, we have a higher than any merely human example, the example of Him, who is a perfect pattern of faithfulness, and yet in his most awful strain of denunciation against sinners, could not suppress the yearnings of his compassion. He wept over sinners, even while denouncing judgments against them. "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." Even such is the spirit in which his ministers are to enforce his word and warnings, his promises and his threatenings. And perhaps, it is not too much to say, that those ministers who have had most of this spirit of their compassionate Master, have been most honoured of God. It is not the most eloquent, the most brilliant, that have been most successful, but the most affectionate and these will ever be the most prayerful. For where the spirit of love exists towards the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made us overseers, that spirit will manifest itself more in nothing than in our unceasing prayers on their behalf. Amidst our greatest discouragements, its language will ever be, not only "God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ," but also, "God forbid, that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you."

The Apostle adds, "continue in them," having reference, no doubt, to the former part of his exhortation in the foregoing verses, on the ministerial work, as well as to that contained in the text. As that only is true religion which "endures to the end," so that alone is accounted a faithful, or is likely to be a successful ministry, which perseveres in the work, in spite of all discouragement. It is not to be denied, that there is often much to discourage and disappoint the faithful, zealous minister, in the work of his ministry. Often, as he looks around him, in his own appointed sphere, does he feel constrained to mourn over the little success that seems to attend his labours, and to cry, "Who hath believed our report ;""I have laboured in vain ; I have spent my strength for naught and in vain.” And under the influence of this feeling is he in danger of relaxing the active energy with which perhaps he first entered on his work. Hopes of success not realized, expectations not fulfilled, have damped his early ardour; his love begins to grow cold, and his hands to grow weary in well-doing. The Apostle knew that amidst a world that lieth in wickedness, there would be these trials of our ministerial steadfastness. And therefore he exhorts to perseverance. 66 Continue in these things." Through evil report and through good report, whether your message be received with favour, or rejected with scorn; whether your labours be crowned with present success, or seem to be expended on a barren soil that yields no return, still persevere, sustained by the consideration, that to employ the means is your's, to accomplish the end is God's!

II. But let us proceed to consider the motive by which the Apostle enforces his exhortation. And here, but few remarks must suffice. "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee."

The motive is two-fold.-I. Our own salvation is involved in it. II. The salvation of our people. I. Our own salvation. Thou shalt save thyself. We might, with some, unperstand this expression, as signifying "thou shalt save thyself from the guilt of other men's sin and ruin, if thou be faithful in thy ministry. Thou shalt save thyself from the blood of lost souls." As when the Lord said to his prophet (Ezekiel,) in the case of unsuccessful faithfulness, "thou hast delivered," or saved "thy soul;" and on the other hand, in the case of unfaithfulness, "his blood," (ie) the blood of the perishing soul whom thou hast not warned, "will I require at thy hands." And, awful indeed is this consideration,—that we, as ambassadors from God, thus "watch for souls as those that must give account," of the souls to committed to our trust! It is Chrysostom who tells us of the deep consternation that he felt on the perusal of these words, a consternation which he compares to the shock of an earthquake. And it argues but little knowledge and but little feeling of our pastoral responsibility, if we can read these words unmoved and unhumbled, "We watch for souls!" How earnestly and how fervently should we seek for grace from above, so faithfully to fulfil our trust, as to be able to say to our flocks, in the words of the Apostle, "I take you to record, that I am pure from the blood of all men; for I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God."

But the words here "thou shalt save thyself," rather denote this, that faithfulness in the work to which we are called, as ministers of the Gospel of the grace of God, will tend to secure our own eternal salvation, as well as that of others. It will do so, I need not say, in our own case, as in theirs, instrumentally, not meritoriously. The work of the minister's own salvation is interwoven, so to speak, with the faithful discharge of his ministry to others. I have