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That the Christian ministry is a Divine institution, no man, I apprehend, can doubt, who regards the Bible as the word of God. But who are authorized to act under that commission, and what is a sufficient authority for their acting, are questions, about which there is no small stir in the present day. Some hold that ordination of a particular kind, involving a direct, lineal, ecclesiastical descent from the apostles, is essential to constitute a duly authorized preacher of the gospel and pastor in the Church, and that all beside are intruders into the sacred office, only pretenders to holy orders, and that the ministrations and ordinances of such are invalid. But with regard to this chimera of apostolical descent, it would be no very difficult task to show that to trace it is a thing all but impossible; that to do it, you must include in the line some persons of no very apostolic character; and that after all, a lineal descent of this description is little worth, unless it secure along with it a transmission of "the truth as it is in Jesus," in all the simplicity and power of its essential principles and sanctifying influence. What good is it, that a man has received ordination after the fashion or within the pale of this church, or that, if his doctrine is unsound, if his life is unholy? Better, sure, be conducted to heaven by the instrumentality of one who preaches and who lives the truth, however unauthorized and irregular his ministrations in the estimation of some, than be dragged down to perdition by the false doctrine and pestilential example of a man who boasts a valid ordination, an apostolic descent.

But is it irrelevant, on such a topic as this, to appeal to the test which our Lord has announced By their fruits ye shall know them?" If the validity and efficiency of a ministry be in souls saved unto God, in sinners repenting, and "bringing forth fruits meet for repentance," then are there multitudes who neither claim for themselves, nor desire for themselves, nor grudge to others, the credit of such apostolical descent, whose ministry is honored by seals of this description, as abundant in number and decided in character as many by whom they are disowned can boast.

We hesitate not to say, then, that all who are duly qualified with gifts and graces for the work, and are laboring simply and zealously, with a single eye to the Divine glory, in erecting this spiritual building, adding immortal and living stones to this building, are duly authorized and accredited workmen, and will assuredly at last, if found "faithful unto death," receive of him the promised reward; for as he employs the workmen, he also pays them their wages. Souls for their hire, seals to their ministry, constitute their present recompense; and byand-by, in the presence of assembled worlds, when the chief Shepherd,

when the Master-builder shall appear for that purpose, "a crown of glory, that fadeth not away." And what mitred abbot, what crosiered ecclesiastic, what titled dignitary, what impurpled prelate, does he need to envy, to whom, though persecuted and despised on earth, his Lord shall say, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord?” "Well done!"-oh! it shall ring through all the regions of the blest; and the joy which it awakens shall infinitely more than compensate for a life of ceaseless sacrifice and toil, though a thousand such lives were compressed into one, and that one life lengthened out to the days of Methuselah.

3. Christ is the foundation, Christ is the architect; and now, thirdly, Christ is the proprietor of the Church: "On this rock," he says, "I will build my Church."

He calls it his. Every living stone in that building is the purchase of his blood as well as the work of his hand, given to him by his Father, in covenant engagements, for this express purpose, that from such materials he might construct "a glorious church," and finally "present it to himself without spot or blemish, or any such thing." We talk of this church and of that, of your church and of my church, of the Church of England, and the Church of Ireland, and the Church of Scotland; but the true church is the Church of Christ. It is the property of no party, of no country, of no body, of no class or community or nation under heaven, but the property of Christ, composed of the holy and the excellent from among them all, and to be allowed and recognized and honored as his property, when all the communities who have laid claim to it on earth shall have ceased for ever to exist, when he shall come to be "glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe."

4. Finally, while Christ is the foundation, the architect, and the proprietor of the church, he is also the guarantee of its stability: "On this rock," he says, "I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

By" the gates of hell" are meant the powers of darkness, the thrones, the principalities, the princedoms, the dominations of the infernal world and all the forces that superstition, infidelity, and antichrist, in all their varied forms, can supply and league with them. These powers of darkness shall not prevail against it. Let them combine, let them make the effort; let them combine with all their art and cunning and sophistry, as they ever have done, as they are doing now, as they will still continue to do; let them do the utmost which ingenuity can suggest, which policy can approve, which power can execute; let them summon learning to their aid, and array themselves with the decrees of councils and

the acts of legislation; let them nerve afresh the old arm of persecu tion; let them open again the dungeons of the Inquisition; let them kindle anew the fires of Smithfield; let them ply their racks; let them thunder their anathemas and mutter their curses; as in time past, so in time to come, all shall prove impotent and vain; like the storm, that only roots the monarch of the forest still further in the soil, or the billow, that leaves unmoved the rock at whose base it has broken.

"What though the gates of hell withstand,

Yet must this building rise."

They never have

"The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." prevailed against it; they may have seemed to do so for a season, but they never have in reality. Is the sun plucked from the firmament because sometimes it is obscured by clouds? Are stars quenched in their orbit, because there are nights of darkness in which they fail to shine? Clouds sometimes have hung around the Church, and there have been periods in her story when the enemy has seemed to triumph; but those periods, like the summer cloud, have passed away, and from that temporary gloom the Church has emerged with augmented splendor. Did they prevail against the Church of Calvary? They thought to do so; they imagined that they had; and all seemed lost, when the stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre, when the seal was fixed and the Roman guard was set. But see what "a show he made of them openly," and how he triumphed over them in his cross, when, having burst the barriers of the tomb, "He ascended up on high, leading captivity captive;" and as he entered the celestial world amid the anthems and hallelujahs of cherubim and seraphim, and countless myriads of "the morning stars," the powers of darkness were seen prostrate and crushed beneath his feet, and writhing in anguish for their previous overthrow. Did they prevail against it at the Reformation, with their racks, and their dungeons, and their bulls and all their instruments of torture? They seemed to think they had; but like the phoenix, the Church has risen from the flame, and, in reaction against the powers of darkness, has been augmented and gaining strength from that period to the present hour. Do they now? Are the powers of darkness prevailing against the Church in these days in which we live? They struggle, they boast, they utter great swelling words of vanity, but do they prevail? Where is the evidence? Where is the proof? Is it in the twenty-seven million copies of the word of God, which the Bible Society alone has printed and sent abroad in every tongue and dialect of the world's vast family? Is it in the noble army of missionaries, who are gathering materials for this

building from almost every region under heaven, and adorning the goodly structure with every variety of color the human countenance presents? Is it in the planting of missionary churches abroad, or in the idols abandoned by their former worshippers, that grace our missionary museum at home?

And if "the gates of hell" have never yet prevailed, if the gates of hell are not prevailing now, shall they ever prevail? No; they never shall. The truth of prophecy, the faithfulness of God, the certainty of the covenant, the rectitude of the Divine administration, the atonement of Christ, the value of his blood, the privileges of his intercession, all forbid. Instability there may be in all other things: "the mountains may depart, and the hills may be removed;" thrones may totter, the heavens may be wrapped together as a scroll, the elements may "melt with fervent heat," the earth and all its works may "be burned up;" palaces and pyramids, the noblest works of man, the Alps and the Andes, the mightiest works of God, may only serve as fuel to the general flame, and ruin once more drive her ploughshare over the creation; but the word of our God shall endure for ever; and ere the powers of darkness, ere "the gates of hell shall prevail against the Church," the pillars that support the eternal throne must fall, and the being of a God be blotted out from the universe which he has made.

SERMON VI.

INDUSTRY.

BY REV. JAMES HAMILTON.

"Not slothful in business."- ROMANS, xii. 11.

Two things are very certain, that we have all got a work to do, and are all, more or less, indisposed to do it: In other words, every man has a calling, and most men have a greater or less amount of indolence, which disinclines them for the work of that calling. Many men would have liked the gospel all the better, if it had entirely repealed the sentence, "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread;" had it proclaimed a final emancipation from industry, and turned our world into a merry play-ground or luxurious dormitory. But this is not what the gospel does. It does not abolish labor; it

gives it a new and a nobler aspect. The gospel abolishes labor much in the same way as it abolishes death; it leaves the thing, but changes its nature. The gospel sweetens the believer's work; it gives him new motives for performing it. The gospel dignifies toil: it transforms it from the drudgery of the workhouse or the penitentiary, to the affectionate offices and joyful services of the fire-side and the family circle. It asks us to do for the sake of Christ many things which we were once compelled to bear as a portion of the curse, and which worldly men perform for selfish and secondary reasons. "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord." "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord." "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ." The gospel has not superseded diligence. "Study to be quiet and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.” “If any man will not work, neither let him eat." It is mentioned as almost the climax of sin, "And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not:" as on the other hand, the healthy and right-conditioned state of a soul is "not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."

I. This precept is violated by those who have no business at all. By the bounty of God's providence, some are in such a situation that they do not need to toil for a subsistence; they go to bed when they please, and get up when they can sleep no longer, and they do with themselves whatever they like; and though we dare not say that their's is the happiest life, it certainly is the easiest. But it will neither be a lawful life nor a happy one, unless it have some work in hand, some end in view. Those of you who are familiar with the sea-shore, may have seen attached to the inundated reef, a creature, whether a plant or an animal you could scarcely tell, rooted to the rock as a plant might be, and twirling its long tentacula as an animal would do. This plantanimal's life is somewhat monotonous, for it has nothing to do but grow and twirl its feelers, float in the tide, or fold itself up on its foot-stalk when that tide has receded, for months and years together. Now, would it not be very dismal to be transformed into a zoöphyte? Would it not be an awful punishment, with your human soul still in you, to be

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