in proportion to the population, but with few exceptions, are prohibited from cultivating the powers which they possess. Remote from literary society; without libraries; without leisure to use what books they have; distracted with anxiety for their immediate subsistence; doomed to the plough or some other secular business, to keep themselves fed and clothed, their intellect becomes enfeebled; their acquisitions are dissipated; their ministry grows barren; their people indifferent; and the solid interests of Christianity are gradually, but effectually, undermined. Let the churches be warned. They have long slept on the edge of a precipice; the ground is caving in below them; and still they are not aware. Not a place of any importance is to be filled without the utmost difficulty. The search must be made from Dan to Beersheeba; often, very often, unsuccessfully; and when successful it is only enriching one church by the robbery of another. The population of our country is increasing with unexampled rapidity; very incompetent means are used to furnish an efficient ministry; and the people themselves are throwing the most fatal discouragement in the way. All denominations seem to be engaged in a practical conspiracy to starve Christianity out of the land. Let them tremble at their deeds; let their loins be loosed, and their knees smite to

gether, at the bare possibility that they MAY SUCCEED.

But it is not the people only who are in fault for,

t;

(2.) Much of the guilt of decayed Christianity lies at the doors of the ministers and judicatories of the church.

It is not arguing for the divine right of a stated ministry; it is not boasting about the excellence of "our church;" it is not lamenting over the supineness of the public, that will cure the evil. It is the procuring a ministry which shall render attendance upon their ministrations the interest of both the understanding and the heart. Without this, every effort is vain: and this belongs to Christian judicatories. Let the world see and feel that there is an immense superiority of the regular over an irregular ministry, and there will be no more laypreaching; nor so much difficulty in getting a decent support. But it cannot be concealed, that little as congregations give, they often give to the uttermost farthing, "for value received." The mischief is, that the rule of abridgment becomes general, and the "workman who needeth not to be ashamed," must share the fate of him who is no workman at all. Ministers have themselves to blame for much of this evil. They have lowered the standard of ministerial qualifications. They usher into their high office men who have neither

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head nor hands for any thing else. The apostolic directions, (in 1 Tim. 3.) are almost totally disregarded. Instead of " laying their hands suddenly on no man," they have been too much in the habit of laying hands upon every one they can findnovice or no novice-fit to teach or unfit-able to govern or unable; all are accepted-nothing, or next to nothing, is refused. An absurd tenderness; a fear of hurting the feelings of a young man or of his friends; an infatuated haste to meet "the wants of the churches;" has poured fourth a stream of ignorance and incapacity, which now threatens to sweep away the harvest it was designed to water. In the degradation of the pulpit; in the butchery of the scriptures; in the defaced beauty, and tottering pillars of the Christian fabric, is to be seen the reward of timid indulgence and chimerical hope. If the ministry, as a public order, is to regain its credit, its own mismanagement must be radically cured.

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CHURCH OF GOD.

No. IX.

Ministry.—Qualifications.

THE uses of the Christian ministry, which was our first point, are, in several respects, so blended with its qualifications, which is our

2d point; that we cannot treat of the one without demonstrating the other.

. It is the business of a Christian minister to instruct his people in what they are to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of them. His first qualification, therefore, is prety.

We are sinners. The characteristic principle in the religion of sinners, that, without which it is absolutely worthless to them, is SALVATION by a REDEEMER. Remove this-take away the incarnation and atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, give us any thing as the ground of our hope but redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, and there is no more Christianity. Now for men, calling them