preach any other doctrine than is agreeable to the institutions of the Established Church.'

Such a statement is as mischievous as the errors it opposes.A Minister is bound indeed to teach the doctrine of the Church to which he belongs, and nothing else, but how does he justify the taking such an obligation on him? Certainly only by a conviction that the Church of which he becomes a Minister teaches the whole Gospel; or, in other words, that the view which it takes of the scheme of salvation in the Gospel, is that which, after due examination, he in his conscience believes to be true. What sort of a Church would that be which did not teach the whole Gospel? How could any good man become a Minister in it? How can any argument about such a Church be needful?

No. VIII.

On the necessity of Learning in the Ministry.

We are Ambassadors for Christ.'-From which expression it is most evident that the ministry both requires the best and ablest, and deserves them; that the refuse and abjects of man cannot be worthy of it, nor it unworthy of the choicest. It requires able men, because they are to be ambassadors and this will follow of itself. Again, consider whose ambassadors, and in what business? The ambassadors of the King of kings, in the weighty matter of treating peace betwixt Him and mankind. Shall it be said of His ambassadors, as Cato said to those who were sent by the Romans to Bithynia, counting that three wants were amongst them, viz. that they had neither feet, nor head, nor heart? It is true God may, and sometimes, especially in extraordinary times, does make use of unlettered and unqualified men, but then he inlays their defects by a singular

supply, therefore that is no rule for us in the ordinary vocation. It is a piece of God's prerogative to use unlikely means without disadvantage: any thing is a fit instrument in his hands; but we are to choose the fittest and best means, both in our own affairs, and in his service; and if in any, this eminent service of embassy requires a special choice. If bodily integrity was necessary in

the servers at the altar under the law, shall we think that the mentally blind and lame are good enough for the ministration under the Gospel, which exceeds in worth and glory? Who is sufficient for these things? saith the great Doctor of the Gentiles. Our practices seem to answer, any body.'-Leighton's Works, Vol. iii. p. 470.

'I confess,' says the great South, God has no need of any man's parts or learning; but certainly then he has much less need of his ignorance and ill behaviour.'-Sermons, Vol. i. p. 149. This remark is followed by some others in his most caustic vein on the evils of admitting ignorant men into the ministry; and the concluding ones shew what he thought of this separation of learning and piety:-'We have had almost all sermons full of gibes and scoffs at human learning. Away with vain philosophy, with the disputer, &c. Thus divinity has been brought in upon the ruins of humanity, by forcing the words of the Scripture from the sense, and then putting them to the worst of drudgeries, to set a jus divinum upon ignorance and imperfection, and recommend natural weakness for supernatural grace.'-South's Sermons, Vol. i. p. 153.

Jerome (Ep. 2. ad Nepotianum) certainly says, 'Multo melius est e duobus imperfectis rusticitatem sanctam habere quam eloquentiam peccatricem,' a remark to which all must subscribe. But if the sentence itself did not mark Jerome's recognition of the imperfection of both states, the preceding one would, where he says, 'Nec rusticus et tamen simplex frater ideo se sanctum putet si nihil noverit; nec peritus et eloquens

in lingua æstimet sanctitatem.'

So Chrysostom (de Sac. iv. 8 and 9.) expressly teaches that both a holy life and learning are required in a Priest-that each have their part in his office, and are necessary to assist each other in order to consummate men's edification.' He goes on to ask, what a good life can avail, if controversy as to doctrine arises, and Scripture is pleaded in behalf of error? Besides which he alleges, that if the people see their minister defeated in argument from his ignorance, they will think it is the badness of his cause which has caused his defeat. See too the passages quoted from Gregor. Naz. Orat. I. de Fuga (T. i. p. 22.) in Bingham, Book vi. ch. 3.

Bishop Reynolds' words deserve to be transcribed—' When I consider all these things, I cannot but believe, that the more learned men are (having gracious hearts, as well as learned heads) the more sensible they are of their own insufficiency for so tremendous an employment as the sound, solid, and judicious preaching of the Word of God, and are more dismayed at the sense of their own wants for so weighty and arduous a service; that they do wonder at the boldness of illiterate men, who therefore venture with more confidence upon it, because they know not that variety of learning, as well as of spiritual wisdom and grace, is requisite unto such an able discharge of it, as whereby a man may appear to be "a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”—Bishop Reynolds, Serm. x. Works, Vol. v. p. 38.

Bishop Jebb has stated this with his accustomed power of thought and eloquence. (Practical Theology, Vol. ii. pp. 190— 192.) 'I am aware, indeed, that some of our profession hold the opinion, or at least, act as though they held the opinion, that professional studies are to cease with the period of our admission into holy orders; and that thenceforward it is requisite to perform only the more active duties; that in fact the performance of those duties is incompatible with a life of studious

application; and that a clergyman is at liberty to read little, provided he works much. Not such, however, was the opinion of St. Paul: for we find him exhorting St. Timothy, not only to read, but to read with persevering diligence-St. Timothy, who had not only been raised to the highest order of the ministry, but who had received, in a miraculous manner, the gifts of the Spirit. Not such is the judgment of our Church for we find her requiring, not only her deacons and her priests, but her bishops also, to exercise themselves faithfully in the Holy Scriptures, and to call upon God, by prayer, for the true understanding of the same. Not such is the dictate of common sense for how, at the unripe age of admission into orders, can a stripling rightly understand those oracles of God, in the interpretation of which the wisest and most learned, at the close of a long, laborious life, have felt and confessed themselves to be as little children? Not such is the testimony of experience; for who have been the most exemplary, the most indefatigable of our parish priests? Who-but our Hookers, our Hammonds, our Pocockes, our Beveridges, and our Bulls? Men of whom it has been truly said, that their speculative knowledge, which gave light to the most dark and difficult subjects, was eclipsed by the more dazzling lustre of their practice; men who came forth from the recesses of their well-stored libraries, and from the devout retirement of their closets, like angels on missions of mercy, conveying light and love and consolation to the cottages of the poor, to the chambers of the aged and the decrepid, to the bed-sides of the sick and the dying, to the tender conscience, the wounded spirit, the broken and the contrite heart. Be these then our models: and we shall come to know and to rest assured, that the calling of a Christian minister, is not merely to work much, but to work well; not merely to exercise the body in a routine of outward services, but to come into the scene of action with a full mind and a purified heart: a mind stored with solid,

edifying knowledge, a heart purified through prayer and through the Word of God.

'In our pastoral duties, then, we must be sustained by the fruits of studious application: in our studies we must be animated by the home-felt consciousness of striving, at least, to cure the souls entrusted to our charge. These two God hath joined together: and let no minister of God presume to put them asunder. In his pastoral visits, an ignorant clergyman can drag his inutility from house to house. In his learned researches, a careless parish minister can but offer incense to his own vanity and pride. The former is at best a most unprofitable servant, the latter, it must be feared, is a sacrilegious priest, who desecrates with strange fire the altar of our God.'

Again, Bishop Sanderson: As the times now are, wherein learning aboundeth even unto wantonness, and wherein the world is full of questions, and controversies, and novelties, and niceties in religion; and wherein most of our gentry, very women and all, (by the advantage of a long peace and the customs of modern education, together with the help of a multitude of English books and translations), are able to look through the ignorance of a clergyman, and censure it, if he be tripping in any point of history, cosmography, moral or natural philosophy, divinity, or the arts; yea, and to chastise his very method and phrase, if he speak loosely or impertinently, or but improperly, and if every thing be not pointwise-I say, as these times are, I would not have a clergyman content himself with every mediocrity of gifts, but by his prayers, care, and industry, improve those he hath, so as he may be able upon good occasion, to impart a spiritual gift to the people of God, whereby they may be established, and to speak with such understanding, and sufficiency, and pertinency, (especially when he hath just warning and a convenient time to prepare himself,) in some good measure of proportion to the quickness and ripeness of these present times, as they that love