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infidelity, destroy their health in the cold swamps of moral formality, or else are scattered and lacerated by the howling and ravening wolves.

In opposition to this unprofitable service, St. Peter exhorts the elders of the church to discharge their pastoral office with a prompt and willing disposition of mind-with a lovel of the cause in which they are engagedwith a due respect to the authority of God, to their own awful responsibility, and to the spiritual edification of the flock.

This temper and disposition, in a minister of Christ, will suggest the necessity of be: coming useful to the advancement of the church in every way, and by all means that may be practicable, within the limits of good and lawful discipline. It will, consequently, lead to the performance of many local and particular duties which could not have been provided for and enforced by general rules; and to the revival and improvement of many others which, though expressly enjoined, have gradually fallen into disuse.

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Particularly, this temper of mind will dispose the worthy pastor to a more frequent

and diligent instruction of the poor and ignorant, in the principles of revealed religion; to make it his constant study, to give the most illiterate a true apprehension of his Christian faith, and his Christian duty; as being fully aware that, in the sight of God, the soul of the meanest of his brethren is as precious as his own soul. In preaching the Gospel to the poor, he will, especially, inculcate the necessity of a regular attendance at the solemnities of public worship, and the religious observance of the Lord's-day. In declaring the doctrines and enforcing the precepts of the Gospel to all ranks of his congregation, his manner will be so solemn, so earnest, so impressive, as to shew the full engagement of his own mind, and to influence the minds of others.

With a zeal tempered by discretion and by charity, he will maintain the faith and discipline of the church, so as to stop the mouths of adversaries and gainsayers, with out inflaming the passions of any by angry reproach. And these duties he will perform with such a manifest feeling of their im portance, such generous allurement of brotherly love, such amplitude of Christian

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charity, as to engage the attention and win the affection of his hearers. Thus, he will make it their chief delight to walk in the path of righteousness, in which their minister walks before them. Such is the influence of the elder who feeds the flock of God, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly.

To this degree of usefulness, however, none can attain but he who is influenced by the purest and most disinterested motives. The apostle, therefore, in the next place, exhorts the elders of the church to apply themselves to the duties of their office, not from the motive of filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.

The prohibitory part of this sentence demands particular notice; for the clergy have been subjected to much undue and uncharitable censure, owing to the misap prehension, or misrepresentation, of this and the like passages of Scripture: and; on the other hand, it is to be feared that they have occasionally laid themselves open to just reprehension, for want of a due regard to the apostolical prohibition...

By many of the adversaries of our church,

it has been imputed as a reproach to its ministers, that they claim and receive any temporal advantage whatsoever, as a reward of their spiritual labours: but this censure is not more unreasonable than it is unchristian.

When our Lord sends forth his twelve apostles to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to impart freely, and impartially, those spiritual gifts which they had freely received, he does not mean, by the precept freely give, that they were to receive no present recompence: for he commands them at the same time, Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass, in your purses, nor script for your journey; neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. (Matt. x. 9, 10.)

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They are also directed-In the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house procure not your support by collecting alms as mendicants, but receive it as your merited reward; and into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. (Luke, x. 7, 8.)

Here the ministers of Christ are forbidden,

when they enter upon their public office, to furnish themselves with such provision or apparel as may be necessary for them in the discharge of that office; nor are they to provide themselves with money, as the means of procuring such necessaries. All that is requisite for their due support, in the work of the ministry, they are, by our Lord's appointment, to receive from those to whom they minister in the Gospel. It is, there fore, the ordinance of our divine Master, that Christian ministers should receive-and, consequently, it is lawful for them to receive such convenient provision as is made for them; and to receive it as the reward of their ministry.

The exact measure of that provision, which was intended for the ministry in succeeding ages, is not declared in the New Testament; because in the days of our Lord and his apostles Christianity had not the support of a civil establishment, and the Levitical priesthood was not, as yet, arrived at its final period. We cannot, however, but observe the analogy between the condition of Christ's ministers, who are

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