living God.” St. Peter therefore asserts these three things of Jesus: that he was Christ,--that he was the Son of Man,--and that he was the Son of God. The Son of Man, and the Son of God, are distinct titles of the Messiah. The title of the Son of Man belongs to him as God the Son ;~the title of the Son of God belongs to him as man. The former characterizes him as that one of the three persons of the ever blessed Trinity which was made man ;-the other characterizes him as that man which was united to the Godhead. St. Peter's confession, therefore, amounts to a full acknowledgment of the great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, to destroy the works of the Devil; and the truth of this faith is the rock upon which Christ promises to build his church.

Upon the second article of the promise to the church, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” the time compels me to be brief. Nor is there need I should be long. In the present state of sacred literature, it were an affront to this assembly to go about to prove that the expression of “ the gates of hell” describes the invisible mansion of departed souls, with allusion to the sepulchres of the Jews and other eastern nations, under the image of a place secured by barricadoed gates, through which there is no escape, by natural means, to those who have once been compelled to enter. Promising that these gates shall not prevail against his church, our Lord promises not only perpetuity to the church, to the last moment of the world's existence, notwithstanding the successive mortality of all its members in all ages, but, what is much more, a final triumph over the power of the grave. Firmly as the gates of Hades may be barred, they shall have no power to confine his departed saints, when the last trump shall sound, and the voice of the archangel shall thunder through the deep.

I have now gone through the exposition of my text, as much at large as the time would allow, though more briefly than the greatness of the subject might deserve. To apply the whole to the more immediate concerns of this assembly, I shall conclude with two remarks.

The first is, That the church, to which our Lord promises stability, and a final conquest over the power of the grave, is the building raised by himself, as the master-builder,—that is, by persons commissioned by him, acting under his directions, and assisted by his Spirit, upon the solid rock of the truth of St. Peter's faith. That faith was a faith in the Mediatorial offices of Christ, in his divinity, and in the mystery of the incarnation, Whatever may be raised by man upon any other foundation, however it may assume the name of a church, is no part of Christ's building, and hath no interest in these glorious promises. This deserves the serious at. tention of all who in any manner engage in the plantation of churches, and the propagation of the gospel. By those who have the appointment of itinerant missionaries. for the conversion of the heathen, it should be particu. larly attended to, in the choice of persons for so great an undertaking; and it deserves the conscientious attention of every such missionary, in the prosecution of his work. Whatever may be the difficulty of giving a right apprehension of the mysteries of our religion to savages, whose minds have never yet been raised to the con'templation of any higher object than the wants of the animal life,—the difficulty, great indeed, but not inseparable to him that worketh with us, must be encountered, or the whole of the missionary's labour will be vain. His catechumens are not made Christians, till they are brought to the full confession of St. Peter's faith; nor hath he planted any church, where he hath not laid this foundation. For those who presume to build upon other foundations, their work will perish; and it will be as by fire, if they themselves are saved.

The second remark I have to make is no less interest. ing to us. The promise of perpetual stability, in the text, is to the church catholic: it affords no security to any particular church, if her faith or her works should not be found perfect before God. The time shall never be, when a true church of God shall not be somewhere subsisting on the earth; but any individual church, if she fall from her first love, may sink in ruins. Of this, history furnishes but too abundant proof, in the examples of churches, once illustrious, planted by the apostles, watered with the blood of the first saints and martyrs, which are now no more. Where are now the seven churches of Asia, whose praise is in the Apocalypse? Where shall we now find the successors of those earliest archbishops, once stars in the Son of Man's right hand ? Where are those boasted seals of Paul's apostleship, the churches of Corinth and Philippi? Where are the churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria? But is there need that we resort, for salutary warning, to the examples of remote antiquity? Alas! where, at this moment, is the church of France ?-her altars demolished-her treasures spoiled

her holy things prophaned-her persecuted clergy, and her plundered prelates, wanderers on the earth! Let us take warning by a visitation that is come so near our doors. Let us not defraud ourselves of the benefit of the dreadful example, by the miserable subterfuge of a rash judgment upon our neighbours, and an invidious comparison of their deservings with our own. Let us not place a vain confidence in the purer worship, the better discipline, and the sounder faith, which, for two centuries and an half, we have enjoyed. These things are not our merits: they are God's gifts ; and the security we may derive from them will depend upon

the use we make of them. Let us not abate-let us rather add to our zeal, for the propagation of the gospel in distant parts; but let us not forget that we have

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duties nearer home. Let us of the ministry give heed to ourselves and to our flocks;- let us give an anxious and diligent attention to their spiritual concerns. Let us all—but let the younger clergy more especially, beware how they become secularized in the general cast and fashion of their lives. Let them not think it enough, to maintain a certain frigid decency of character, abstaining from the gross scandal of open riot and criminal dissipation, but giving no farther attention to their spiritual duties than may be consistent with the pursuits and pleasures of the world, and may not draw them from a fixed residence in populous cities, at a distance from their cures, or a wandering life in places of public resort and amusement, where they have no call, and where the grave dignified character of a parish priest is ill exchanged for that of a fashionable trifler. We know the charms of improved and elegant society. Its pleasures in themselves are innocent; but they are dearly bought, at the expense of social and religious duty. If we have not firmness to resist the temptations they present, when the enjoyment is not to be obtained without deserting the work of the ministry, in the places to which we are severally appointed, because our lot may have chanced to fall in the retirement of a country town, or perhaps in

a the obscurity of a village, the time may come, sooner than we think, when it shall be said, Where is now the church of England ? Let us betimes take warning. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten,” said our Lord to the church of Laodicea, whose worst crime it was, that she was “neither hot nor cold.” “Be zealous, therefore, and repent. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

SERMON XIV.

1 CORINTHIANS ii. 2.

For I have determined not to know any thing among you,

save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.*

AMONG various abuses in the Corinthian church, which this epistle, as appears from the matter of it, was intended to reform, a spirit of schism and dissension, to which an attempt to give a new turn to the doctrines of Christianity had given rise, was in itself the most criminal, and in its consequences the most pernicious. Who the authors of this evil were, is not mentioned, and it were idle to inquire. They were run after in their day, but their names have been long since forgotten; nor is any thing remembered of them, but the mischief which they did. The general character of the men, and the complexion of their doctrine, may easily be collected from this and the subsequent epistle. They were persons, who, without authority from heaven, had taken upon themselves to be preachers of the gospel. The motive from which they had engaged in a business for which they were neither qualified nor commissioned, was not any genuine zeal for the propagation of the truth, or any charitable desire to reclaim the profligate, and to instruct the ignorant; but the love of gain--of power

Preached in the Cathedral Church of Gloucester, at a Publio Ordination of Priests and Deacons.