which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands."

Yes, my brethren, our subject has led us to speak of the treasure of the Ministry being placed in earthern vessels; of the conformity of this arrangement with the rest of God's plan, and of its great advantageousness. But let us not in the human and earthly element of the Ministry forget that element of it which is heavenly and divine. If we were to drop the divine element from those arrangements, which we have shown to be analogous, we should be led to question the inspiration of Holy Scripture, and even the Godhead of our Lord. And indeed the three denials would have a marvellous and awful consistency; in God's Ambassadors nothing but fallible and sinful men; in God's Scriptures, nothing but the loftier efforts of the human mind; in God's Son, nothing but a human soul and a human body. Ah! my brethren, the Ministry is human indeed, in order that it may meet our wants, and attract our sympathies; but in order that it may lift us up with an arm of power out of our moral degradation, it is divine also. The commission which we hold we believe to be neither of men nor by men; we trace it up to the hands of the Eleven, and to the mountain of the Ascension. Nor can we admit that it is a mere commission without a qualifying gift; or, in other words, a simple responsibility without the power to discharge it. The passages just quoted contradict in the most emphatic terms that utterly disheartening view of ministerial obligation. We believe that not merely our commission, but "our sufficiency" also is of God; that the Breath of Christ, which He breathed on the

Apostles when He said to them, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," vivifies and animates the Christian Ministry to the end of time, and makes it not an honourable office merely, not a judicious arrangement merely, but a living function. For the Church is a living body, pervaded by the life of Christ'; and a living body cannot be otherwise served than by a living function. Having then a gift granted to you "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ," whatever gift it be,— whether of preaching, or of instructing children, or of superintending, or of private counselling, or simply of influence, go forth to exercise it with the single aim of glorifying the Giver, and extending His kingdom. See that ye stir it up; for as a limb never exerted withers, as a flame never roused collapses, as a treasure of gold or silver never thrown into currency rusts; so, assuredly, we lose our gifts, if we never exercise them. Be good stewards then of the manifold grace of God. Let all your thought and energy be expended on making it bring in the largest revenue to the glory of our divine Master. So when He taketh account of us, to know what every man hath gained by trading, we shall have a largely augmented talent to render back into His hands, and shall be acknowledged by Him as good and faithful servants, and bidden to enter into the joy of our Lord.

SERMON XIX.

THE STOLEN TESTIMONY.

Preached at an Ordination of the Lord Bishop of Oxford, 1846.

"Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preacheth.

“And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so.

"And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus E know, and Paul E know; but who are ye?

“And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”—ACTS xix. 13-16.

Or the large mass of edifying topics which come crowding in upon the mind on an occasion like the present, and which afford more than abundant materials of exhortation to the preacher, it is not a little difficult to say which stands foremost in point of importance. Among the foremost, however, even if it cannot challenge the very first place, is that to which, after prayer for the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, I have determined to direct your thoughts; an examination into the causes of failure incidental to our Ministry.

Here again, however, the field is far too wide for satisfactory treatment in the limits of a single dis

course and out of many causes of ministerial failure— such as, want of singleness of aim, want of dependence on His grace, who alone can give the increase, want of activity and patient perseverance—I must confine myself mainly to the consideration of one, which we are persuaded lies at the very root of many an inefficient ministry-want of personal experience of the power of the Gospel. And this cause I purpose, under the Divine blessing, to discuss in connexion with the narrative which I have read to you.

1. Let me represent to you, in the first place, the resemblance which subsists between the powers which the seven sons of Sceva professed to wield and those which Christian Ministers are called upon to exercise. You then who propose to-day to assume the responsibilities of the sacred office, are going forth in God's might to dispossess Satan of His strongholds, to liberate those who shall be committed to your charge from that thraldom of ignorance and sin, in which our spiritual adversary holds spell-bound the great mass of mankind. This, and nothing short of this, is the end which Ministers should set before them in the exercise of their Ministry and yet how many of us are there who contentedly acquiesce in-nay, habitually aim at-effecting much less! How many are there who are well content, if they can only make clean the outside of the cup and platter, if they can only witness a superficial reformation brought about among their people by their instrumentality, without even looking, much less labouring, for radical renewal of their hearts. That the Lord's Day should be generally respected in the parish, that the Lord's Table should be attended by a decent number of communicants, that the places of public entertainment should be respectable in their character,

:

that there should be a flourishing parochial school, a Bible on the shelf of every cottage, and a regular dispersion of useful tracts,-how prone are our corrupt hearts to conceive of these external improvements as answering the great end of our Ministry, and to compliment us with many smooth flatteries, if only we have been instrumental in achieving them!

But assuredly if we expect no higher results than such as I have specified, to follow from our exercise of the ministerial office, we have altogether misconceived the design and object of that office. Its design is not to apply an outward palliative to the symptoms of spiritual evil, but to correct those symptoms from within by striking at the root of the disease: not to gild, and varnish, and gloss over the surface of society, but gradually to change its aspect, by impressing with mighty influences the hearts and characters of individuals; not to dam up the strong current of evil by an artificial embankment, but rather to drain it dry at its very fountain-head.

And where is the fountain-head of evil? We gladly seize the opportunity of answering this question in your hearing, and so of placing before you the nature of that opposition which, if faithful to your high trust, you will have to encounter. That opposition, wheresoever and in what form soever it may manifest itself, and whatever instrumentality it may use for the purpose of its development, has its source in the active agency of living and powerful persons. In order to form a correct estimate of the arduousness of the work which you are about to undertake, you must regard it rather in the light of a conflict against evil spirits than against evil influences and vicious principles. For such is the Apostle's representation of the Christian conflict: and