is arrived, when "the knowledge of the Lord should cover the world as the waters cover the sea." And, in a literal sense, it certainly cannot be pretended that the majority of Christians enjoy such a communion with their Maker, as that none should need to teach his neighbour, seeing that all were taught of God. Not yet the harvest of the Son of Man is reaped, nor has the number of His labourers been, as yet, at any time, adequate to the accomplishment of the aweful work before them. Besides the boundless extent of heathen nations, which even now are ready for the sickle, and who chide, even now, the delays which detain the missionary from their neglected furrows, in those lands which Heaven has most favoured, and which have been most abundantly traversed by Heaven's appointed labourers, how vast a gleaning yet remains of the souls who have escaped our diligence, how abundant a crop is daily rising round us, on which the diligence of our successors must be exerted!

They are not the heathen only, they are not those whom the grosser darkness covers, and who have abided, thus far, in the land of the shadows of death; they are not these alone who wait for our aid, and in whose behalf we need new helpers. There are those who, already regenerate, require renewal and confirmation; who, having once enjoyed the light of truth, have shrunk back into the shades of ungodliness; who panting after the waters of comfort, have sought for them in strange and broken cisterns, and whom it behoves us to

conduct to that true and living well, of which whoso drinketh, shall thirst no more.

So long as these iniquities abound, so long as these errours prevail, so long is it our part, our interest, and our privilege, to ask light for them that sit in darkness, and support for them that are weak; refreshment for them that travail and are heavy laden; and, in order to these ends, to pray the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth to His field, the needful supply of spiritual husband

men.

Accordingly, so far was the Author of our religion from countenancing any such hope of universal and equal illumination, that, when, on his own departure from the world, he gave commission to His apostles to preach the Gospel, He assured them, at the same time, that His spiritual presence and aid should remain with them till His second and

visible advent in glory. "The end of the world" was first to come, before His assistance was to be withdrawn, and, since this assistance was promised them not generally as Christians, but in their appropriate character of ministers of the Gospel, it follows, that their ministry, or the ministry of others like themselves, was not to find an end till the great and final sabbath of nature.

It is not, indeed, the prevalent errour of the present times, either to deny the necessity or underrate the importance of the evangelical office, or of that constant supply of labourers which the wants of Christ's harvest continue every day to call for with

increasing earnestness. On the other hand it is rather to be lamented that, while many causes operate to deter men from seeking an admission into the ministry by the regular and legitimate channel, the fences of the sheep-fold are scaled on every side by a crowd of well-meaning but ill-informed volunteers in the cause, who intrude themselves with unfortunate rashness into an office, the labour and anxiety of which are only to be learned by experience; and incumber by their disorderly efforts, the work which, I willingly bear them witness, it is their earnest desire to forward.

This errour (for such I hope to prove it) is in a great degree, of modern origin. The ancient opponents of our Church, in the days of James and Charles, were, for the most part, as fully convinced as ourselves, of the necessity of Church union, and the advantages of a legitimate ministry; though they denied to the Church of England the character of a true Church of Christ, and though their ordination wanted, in our opinion, the sanction of apostolic authority. But the question then agitated between us was not whether a schism, or unnecessary separation from the body of the Church was not sinful (since both parties allowed that it was a sin of no ordinary dye), but whether the Church of England was so corrupt and idolatrous as to have forfeited the allegiance of her members; not whether an external authoritative call from the rulers of the Church was needful to designate a Christian minister, (for both sides were by far too well read

in the Scriptures and ecclesiastical antiquity to make a doubt about the matter), but whether this power of admission and ordination resided with the presbytery or with the bishop, and whether the authority of this last was an usurpation of the darker ages, or really founded on inspired and apostolic precedent.

At present, by far the greater number of those who have separated from our Church appear, so far as I have conversed with them, to find little, if any, fault with her doctrines, and to regard her discipline with perfect indifference. Ask any member of an ordinary dissenting congregation the grounds of his secession from the worship of his forefathers, and he will most probably answer that he has some personal objection to his parochial minister, that he prefers the style of singing, or the extemporaneous eloquence of the place which he frequents, and that he has had no more thought of asking his new teacher by what authority he dispensed the word of God and His Sacraments, than of demanding similar credentials from a performer on the stage. Even among the preachers themselves, and the best informed of their number, it is not unusual to find individuals who are singularly blind to the guilt of schism, and the existence of the Church as a visible and regular society. Far from thinking communion with us unlawful, they are often ready to do ample and liberal justice to the purity of our creed, and the majestic forms of our ritual. If asked the reason of their separation

from us, it is not unusual to hear them reply, that, having a sincere desire to serve God in the work of His ministry, they applied to that religious society where admittance was most easy, or where they anticipated the most advantageous field for their abilities. That they regard the form of ordination, and the persons by whom it may be conferred, as a question of decency and human expedience only; that every thing essential is, in fact, bestowed when God has given the talents and the will to preach the Gospel; and that the teacher who faithfully proclaims the good tidings of salvation, and whose ministry is owned by God in the effects which it produces on his hearers, by whomsoever he may have been ordained, and whether he be ordained or not, is a sound member of the Catholic Church of Christ, and a legitimate labourer in His harvest.

Nor can we wonder, when such opinions are so openly avowed and so widely disseminated, that the consequence should be a multiplicity of masters beyond all which Babel itself could show; that abuses take place which the well-meaning men whom I have mentioned are themselves among the first to deplore; that a bold tongue and fluent utterance are the only requisites needful to attract disciples; and that, while our hearers fluctuate as choice or chance shall guide them amid these various rival establishments, the preacher, of whatever sect, too late begins to discover that, instead of being able to give an account with joy of the