should, who satisfied you that you could then command that grace which you have so long despised, and without which both repentance and faith are impossible? O act a wiser part than thus madly to hazard your eternal welfare; and to-day, while it is called to-day, harden not your heart.

I cannot conclude without one word to the really RIGHTEOUS, to the true believer in Christ, of whatever age he may be. The world, my brethren, will sneer and scoff at your religion, will sometimes, perhaps, try to argue you out of it, and represent it as nothing but a delusion. But such an instance as that before us of its power will serve, through divine grace, to render you superior to any such attempts as these. The person of whom we have been speaking, used to observe, that, doubtless, God had some good reasons for continuing her so long in a state of suffering. This we may conceive to have been one of his reasons, to show us how able he is to administer effectual support under the severest affliction, and to afford encouragement to those who are treading in the steps of the departed saint. Let not, then, this example be lost upon you; let not slip the encouragement which it is calculated to afford; let it animate you to proceed with in

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creased alacrity in your christian course. from it, especially, to lose no favourable opportunity which offers of throwing out a serious hint to those whom the providence of God may bring in your way; considering that, as in the case before us, and, doubtless, in a multitude of similar cases, you may, by means of such hint, be the happy instruments of producing the greatest good to the person to whom it is addressed. You may by this means, through the divine blessing, make a salutary impression on the mind of one, who has hitherto neglected the Gospel of Christ, who may, perhaps, studiously keep out of the way of the faithful preacher, or, if he come within sound of his voice, contrives to harden and arm himself against all his remonstrances. A cursory hint may seize hold of such an one, when he is, as it were, off his guard, and make that impression which a hundred sermons have failed to produce. In conclusion, brethren, with full purpose of heart cleave unto the Lord; and while we exhort you "never to let go your trust in him,” let your hearts, in reliance on divine grace, reply, "NO, NEVER!" Thus shall death, with all its frightful circumstances, prove to you, as it did to our departing sister, nothing more than the mere "shadow of death." In death In death you shall possess

the hope of the righteous, and, after death, enter into the joy of your Lord.*

The latter part of the above sermon was communicated, not long after its delivery, to the Christian Guardian, and was inserted in the numbers of that miscellany for June and July, 1814. It may be found at pp. 202– 205 and 236–238 of the volume for that year.

359

SERMON XX.

INSTANCES IN WHICH CAUTION IS NECESSARY TO THE FULFILMENT OF OUR MINISTRY.

A VISITATION SERMON.

Preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, on occasion of the Visitation of the late Ven. Phineas Pett, D.D., Archdeacon of Oxford, May 22nd, 1810.

COL. iv. 17.

"Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it."

It is a truth sufficiently obvious, that the necessity for caution in him, who administers any office whatever, is proportioned to the importance of the charge with which he is entrusted, and to the weight of responsibility which attaches to him. It was under the impression of this truth, in its particular application to the

christian ministry, that St. Paul sent to Archippus the message contained in the words of the text; that he exhorted Timothy to take heed to himself and his doctrine, and the Ephesian elders to take heed to themselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers. (1 Tim. iv. 16; Acts xx. 28.) And as, notwithstanding change of times and circumstances, the christian ministry is, in all essential particulars, the same in every age of the church, the same views may well lead us also to take heed to the ministry, which we have received in the Lord, that we fulfil it.

"Exhort one another daily," saith St. Paul, "while it is called to-day." (Heb. iii. 13.) · If Christians, in general, are called upon to perform this duty to each other, it would be difficult to show why those of us, who are in the ministry, should not exhort one another in like manner. In the exhortations, therefore, to which I may be led in the consideration of the words of the apostle which I have read to you, I trust I shall not incur the charge of presumption. Indeed, will not every one acknowledge that exhortation to further diligence, zeal, and faithfulness, is far better suited to the sacred place in which I stand, than anything like adulation on the ground of exertions, be they what they may, already