not his coat may yet approve his labours.'-3d Sermon ad Clerum, p. 48. on 1 Cor. xii. 7.

Eachard has an admirable passage on this point: Does he think that ignorance will outpreach learning? He is to remember that into want of learning I put also indiscretion and want of the use of learning, and also consideration of the capacity of the auditors; and there be many other things besides Greek and Latin hard words, and some mysterious points, which to preach to common people you had as good give them a lecture about squaring the circle. And therefore he did not hear me say, that the greatest mere scholar is always either the most admired preacher, or really does the most good, because many other circumstances are required upon which the fame and success of a preacher do sometimes depend. But yet thus far I durst venture to say, that he that understands the Holy Scriptures best, and therein the mind of God explained, (under which I comprehend all learning requisite for the same); he also that has the command of true and useful rhetoric, discerning what words are most proper and intelligible, and how they are to be so ordered as they shall not make any harsh or unpleasant noise, nor be difficultly understood; and that has besides an audible and graceful voice, a comely and unblameable gesture: if this man, thus accomplished, be not more respected, and likely to do more good in general than he that wants all, or has but some few of these, then it is a most rash and idle thing to wish the very meanest we have of the clergy, to have had the opportunities of any better improvement.'-Some Observations on the Answer, &c. p. 19. (seventh edition, 1705.)

1

The necessity of learning for the ministry is no where more

1 There is an argument which I do not altogether understand in a work, of many parts of which I could not speak in stronger terms of admiration than my feelings dictate, Dr. Chalmers' Christian and Civic Economy of great towns. I refer to Vol. i. ch. viii. It is unnecessary to say, that a

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fully argued than by Bishop Bull, in that incomparable Sermon called The Priest's Office difficult and dangerous:' it ought to be made a manual by the candidate for orders.

The first requisite to the office of a teacher, is a very large knowledge. The very name of his office implies this; he is dicάokalos, a teacher, and he that is such must be as the Apostle requires, (1 Tim. iii. 2.) fit to teach. And this he cannot be unless he be well learned and instructed himself, and furnished with a plentiful measure of Divine knowledge. God himself, by the prophet Malachi, (ch. ii. 7.) requires that the priest's lips should keep and preserve knowledge. Methinks the expression is more emphatical than is ordinarily conceived; it seems to imply that the priest should be a kind of repository or treasury of knowledge, richly furnished with knowledge himself, and able also abundantly to furnish and supply the wants of those that shall at any time have recourse to him for instruction. And therefore it presently follows, " And they, (i. e. the people)

man like Dr. Chalmers, so far from depreciating human learning, extols its advantages, and considers the high ground which Christianity holds in the consideration, at least, of the upper classes, as owing to the learning of the ministry. But in the chapter in question he is arguing on the advantages which the ministry may derive, in their peculiar duties, from lay assistants, and wishes to show that learning is not necessary to enable men to teach pure Christianity with great effect. His argument, which is stated with his usual eloquence, appears to me rather to prove that unlettered men are, or may be, fully qualified for accepting Christianity, a precious truth which I hold with as much earnestness as Dr. Chalmers. Dr. Chalmers shows very clearly (p. 310.) that all the forces which mere humanity can muster may be brought to teach Christianity in vain, and that then the Spirit of God may undertake the office of an enlightener, taking the Bible as his sole instrument; and that thus a workman of humble scholarship may be transformed, not into an erratic and fanciful enthusiast, but into a sound scriptural Christian, without one other religious tenet in his understanding than what is strictly and accurately defined by the literalities of the written word.' This, however, surely does not prove that he would be an able teacher.

shall seek the law at his mouth." Yea! the words import that the priest should be a treasury of knowledge not to be exhausted.'

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After shewing, with great beauty, that our Lord himself expects the teacher to be like a householder, who, for the maintaining his family and the entertainment of his guests all the year round, is supposed to have an άжоlýкη, or repository for provisions, and there to have laid in a great store and abundance of provisions of all sorts and kinds,' he goes on to say, that as all sciences perform the office of handmaids to theology, the art of arts, and science of sciences, as Nazianzen speaks, the complete divine ought to be master of all arts and sciences. ' But,' he adds, God be thanked this is only the heroic perfection, not the necessary qualification of a teacher. A man may very well content himself to sit in a much lower form, and sit safely; he may move in a far inferior orb, and yet give much light, and communicate a benign and useful influence to the Church of God. Let us view, therefore, the necessary parts of theology, wherein the teacher cannot be ignorant or uninstructed but to the very great detriment of his disciples, and his own greater shame and hazard. How ample a field have we still before us! here is theology positive, polemical, moral, casuistical, and all most necessary for the teacher. As to positive divinity, or the knowledge of those necessary speculative truths that are revealed in Scripture, a man can be no more a divine that is unacquainted with this, than he can be a grammarian that understands not the very first elements of grammar. And yet of so abstruse, so sublime a nature are even these truths, that for a man rightly to apprehend them, and clearly to explain them, especially to the capacity of his duller hearers, is no very easy matter.'

He then explains at great length the necessity of the three other parts mentioned, and adds, I have all this while spoken nothing of the Holy Scriptures, that deep and unsearchable mine

from whence the divine is to fetch all his treasures, from whence he is to borrow the principles of all theology, positive, polemical, moral, casuistical; and therefore 'tis evident, that unless he be well studied in these he must needs be defective in all the rest; he must needs be a weak divine that is not mighty in the Scriptures. And, Lord! how many things are necessary to give a man a right understanding of these sacred writings?— Rightly to understand the Scriptures is a very difficult thing, especially for us who live at so great a distance from those times wherein they were written, and those persons and churches to whom they were directed: 'tis no slender measure of the knowledge of antiquity, history, and philology, that is requisite to qualify a man for such an undertaking. They know nothing of the Holy Scriptures that know not this.'-Bull, Some Points, &c. i. 233-249.

The third of Jeremy Taylor's rules (given that the clergy, in their duty and their charges in the provision made for them may be more secure,') is- It is necessary that you be very diligent in reading, laborious and assiduous in the studies of Scripture, not only lest ye be blind seers and blind guides, but because, without great skill and learning, ye cannot do your duty. A minister may as well sin by his ignorance as by his negligence, because when light springs from so many angles that may enlighten us, unless we look round about us, and be skilled in all the angles of reflection, we shall but turn our backs upon the sun, and see nothing but our own shadows.'—J. Taylor, vi. p. 519, 520.

If by that which is generally first and requisite we measure what knowledge there should be in a minister of the Gospel of Christ, the arguments which the light of nature offereth, the laws and statutes which Scripture hath, the canons that are taken out of ancient synods, the decrees and constitutions of sincerest times, the sentences of all antiquity, and, in a word,

even every man's full consent and conscience, is against ignorance in them that have charge and cure of souls.'-Hooker, v. 81. See the testimony of Bishop Jebb on this important subject, in the note on p. 116.

No. IX.

On the necessity of a Confession of Faith'.

It is certain that no Church is bound by any direction in Scripture to compose a Confession of Faith, or require subscription to articles. It is bound only by Scripture, as well as by common sense, to see that its ministers speak the same thing, and that this " same thing' should be the pure and everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ. But the external means of securing such unity in the truth seem certainly to be left to the discretion of man.— I am at a loss to imagine, indeed, what arguments can be alleged against this position. That for many ages all direct interposition has been withdrawn-that the religion of Jesus Christ is nevertheless to be carried on-that its furtherance is, consequently, left to human agency-that all human efforts will come to nothing, where there is no wisdom in devising means and no steadiness in using them-that Scripture has nevertheless not pointed out the means required for effecting this great purpose farther than the establishment of a ministry—and that the means, therefore, of preserving and spreading Christianity are to be devised as well as used by man, appear to be propositions admitting of no dispute. They are certainly propositions which in no way interfere with the firmest belief that it is to God, and

1 From a Letter to the Lord Bishop of London,' by the author of this work. The same subject is most admirably treated by Jones of Nayland in the second chapter of his 'Remarks on the Confessional.'