and held up to scorn, by those who secretly hate our profession, and delight to revile us. Nor is this altogether confined to the profane, or to those who dissent from our communion. But among those who stand high in their professed attachment to our Church, too many, alas! there are, extreme to mark our foibles, and to put uncharitable constructions upon our motives, whenever we differ from them in our opinions or practices. Thus by some, if we run not with them to the same excess of enthusiasm, and of popular, but, as we think, mistaken doctrines, and of hazardous schemes for propagating religious knowledge and instruction, then we are denounced as lukewarm and bigoted. By others, too fastidious to be pleased, and too wise in their own conceits to be instructed, we are on the one side aspersed as not being true preachers of the Gospel, and on the other side as being too exclusively doctrinal or mystical. If we attend much to parochial business, or if we would maintain our just rights and privileges, and are content to demand even much less than is lawfully our own,-then we are not seldom called too secular, or pertinacious, or illiberal, or avaricious. Did such reproaches only thwart us in our own wills, or tend to our own disadvantage only, it might be our wisdom but little to regard them; since to our own omniscient and gracious Master we stand or fall, and Him alone we need much care to please. But when we consider that by these means the credit of our Church, and

the cause of true religion, is impugned; our spiritual influence impaired; and our best advice and public instructions ill received, or rejected;-(that is, in other words, the eternal welfare of those who are placed under our care fearfully endangered);— then, surely, they admonish us to be most scrupulously exact, discreet, and watchful over ourselves, so as, if possible, to give "no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed; but striving in all things to approve ourselves as the ministers of God; in much patience;" in resolute self-denial and mortification, with regard to indulgences or amusements, otherwise ever so harmless and lawful; by avoiding, as far as possible, even any appearance of evil; "by pureness; by knowledge; by long-suffering; by love unfeigned; by the word of truth; by the armour of righteousness, on the right hand and on the left 1."

This advice, you know, we have inculcated in an Apostolical charge. "I charge thee," says St. Paul to Timothy, (and in him to every other minister of the Gospel, whatever be his station in the Church)" I charge thee, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine 2." "Be thou an example of the believers,

1 See 2 Cor. vi. 3, 4.

2 * 2 Tim. iv. 1.

in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." "Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine." "Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all." "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 1."

That such, my Reverend Brethren, may ever be our aim, that such may be our success,-that such may be our reward,-God, of His infinite mercy, grant, for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, three persons and one God, be ascribed, as is most due, all honour, and glory, thanksgiving, and praise, now and for evermore. Amen.

1 Tim. iv. 12, 13. 15, 16.

NOTES.

(See page 17.)

As this Sermon may probably fall into the hands of some of the Laity who are not conversant in these privileges of the Christian Priesthood,-lest they should imagine I have "magnified" our "office," or should misapprehend my meaning, — I have added the few notes following.

"The Church of England, wisely guarding against the errors of the Church of Rome, on the one hand, and against those of such as have hastily gone into the contrary extreme, on the other; and, appealing to Scripture for the truth of her doctrine,-maintains that some power of absolving or remitting sins, derived from the Apostles, remains with their successors in the ministry: and accordingly, at the ordination of priests, the words of our Saviour, (John xx. 21-23,) on which the power is founded, are solemnly repeated by the bishop, and the power at the same time conferred. We do not pretend it is in any sort a discretionary power of forgiving sins; for the priest has no discernment of the spirits and hearts of men, as the Apostles had; but a power of pronouncing authoritatively, in the name of God, who has committed to the priests the ministry of reconciliation, His pardon, and His forgiveness, to all true penitent, and sincere believers. That God alone can