"Entertain no persons (says Bishop Taylors, wisely), into your assemblies from other parishes, unless on great occasions, or in the destitution of a minister, or by contingency and seldom visits, or with leave lest thy brother be discouraged, and thyself be thought to preach Christ out of envy, and not of good-will."* On the other hand, we must not content ourselves with selecting some certain persons from among our own parishioners -whether for their readiness to receive us, or for their agreement with us in religious sentiment, or for any other cause-so as to bestow our attention upon them, to the comparative neglect of others. We are charged with the least hopeful, and the least respectful-with the ignorant, and the obstinate, and the scornful, and with those who are farthest off from the kingdom of God at present, as well as with those who have already entered. But many whom it is our duty to win to Christ, will assuredly be much grieved and offended by anything in our habits or behaviour which has an appearance of exclusiveness. Again, let us ever recollect the terms in which our promise of all faithful diligence was given. "I will do so by the help of the Lord." Might I ask a special blessing in order to the qualification of any of us for our *Taylor, Advice to Clergy, § xxxvii.

ministry, it should be that the great apostle's saying might evermore be written on our hearts: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God."* For we have a great work before us, and we have need to be kept both from presumption and from fainting.

And now, in the church or congregation it is our office to pray with and for the people, to administer the sacraments, and to preach the word.

The form of worship is prescribed, and there

can be no deviation from it. But still much rests with ourselves that the people may be edified. The grand point is, that the words be not merely articulately read, but that they be really prayed; and therefore that we enter upon the work with very serious thoughts, set the Lord explicitly before us, and have the people upon our hearts, so as to be actually and earnestly begging a blessing for them. This will not fail to produce outwardly such a tone and manner as will tend much to excite a praying spirit in the congregation, and to prevent wandering and formality on their parts. And if, besides, we would sometimes expound the Liturgy, or parts of it, in our sermons, or catechetical lectures,-exhort the people to study it, and to bear their part orally

* 2 Cor. iii. 5.

as well as mentally-and if, further, we would make a frequent practice of quoting it in our discourses, so as, by quoting, to illustrate and draw attention to it-besides the direct answer we should get to our own supplications and intercessions in the use of it, we should do much to help others to follow it and be engaged in it— to love it, and to profit by it.

For the sacraments-let me call your attention to one word of Bishop Horsley, which, though he is speaking principally of one of them, bears, in "I am confident," he says, part, on both. referring to the Lord's Supper, "that the oftener it is administered, the more numerous the communicants will be. But," so he proceeds, "the frequency of the celebration will be of little use, unless your people are well instructed in the nature and use of this holy and mysterious ordinance. If they are suffered to consider it as nothing more than a rite of simple commemoration of Christ's death-a mere external form of thanksgiving on the part of the receiver, they will never come to it with due reverence. You will instruct them, therefore, in the nature of a sacrament-that the sacraments are not only signs of grace, but means of the thing signified: the matter of the sacraments being, by Christ's appointment and the operation of the Holy Spirit, the vehicle of grace to the believer's soul. The

Lord's Supper is, in this sense, a sacrament in the very highest import of the word for you will remember that the Church of England, although she reject the doctrine of a literal transubstantiation of the elements, which is taught in the Church of Rome, denies not, but explicitly maintains, that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken by the faithful in the Lord's Supper; though they are taken after a spiritual manner, and the mean by which they are received is faith."*

I come now to preaching. Upon this I must dwell longer. Not because I would " compare one ordinance with another to the disparagement of either," but because we are more left to ourselves in this case, and there are, besides, some peculiar temptations to ensnare us, as well as some very serious difficulties in the work itself.

And here, my reverend brethren, though I am not altogether disposed to disagree with those who have advised young men to avail themselves of the written discourses of the learned and pious who have gone before them—yet I would observe, first, the assistance which the humble-minded will seek and which the wise may very well accept, is something very different from a general habit of subsisting on borrow

* Charges, p. 161. *Taylor, Advice to Clergy, § lxiii.

ed stores, which I will take leave to say, is such a refuge of idleness as cannot but be very fatal to our usefulness. "The country parson hath read the Fathers and the school-men, and the later writers, or a good proportion of all, out of which he hath compiled a book and body of divinity, which is the storehouse of his sermons, and which he preacheth all his life, but diversely clothed, illustrated, and enlarged. For though the world is full of such composures, yet every man's own is fittest, readiest, and most savoury to him."*

So writes the excellent Herbertnor can I differ from him. For sure I am, the genuine fruit of a man's own meditation and prayer, and search of God's word, though in print it should very ill bear comparison with the writings of many others, will yet tell better, and be far more effective, than anything else, as orally delivered by himself to the people of his own charge among whom he is daily conversant. While, on the other hand, such as never write, will usually never study-and so will seldom acquire even as much knowledge of the christian scheme, as may enable them to judge of other people's discourses, or to preserve, in their selections from them, such a consistency either of manner or statement, as may make what they preach profitable, or even intelligible to their

* Chap. v.