cause. Sympathy with the many and splendid virtues of truly worthy men, and gratitude for their devotedness to the Church and their fidelity in most things, make it hard for the preacher to say to such men, "yet one thing thou lackest.' Thus, while the secular arm, when it wielded the most deadly power of persecution, could never silence the pulpit with regard to sins out of the Church; such sins as could get a foothold within the Church have been too easily dealt with. Preaching has always been addressed too exclusively to the impenitent, rather than to those professing godliness. The effort has been rather to raise the world to the standard of the Church, than to bring the Church to the stature of the perfect in Christ Jesus. Conversion has not indeed been labored for too much, but sanctification has been insisted on too little. Jesus has, ever since the Reformation, been set forth as the justifier of the penitent; but it has been recently announced from some of the high places in the Church as a new discovery, that Jesus is the Sanctifier.

There is no sin with regard to which the clergy are so blind or unfaithful, as avarice. This has been the evil demon of the Church; and, though it cannot find seven other spirits more wicked than itself, it has taken with it such evil company as it could into the sacred enclosure, and has for the most part found undisturbed abode there. This is the all-pervading sin of Christendom, the root of all other evil. This is the great source of slavery and oppression. From this come wars and fightings. This feeds the flames of the distillery. This condemns its thousands all over our land to a routine of labor that knows no sabbath. This daily crucifies the Saviour among his false-professing followers, by violating every feature of the spirit in which he lived and died. Other vices the clergy boldly and manfully attack; this they are wont to leave unrebuked in the holy place," the abomination of desolation, standing where it ought not." But in attacking other sins, they lop off only the leaves and twigs of the tree, whose root still lives. The axe must be fearlessly laid to the root of the tree. It was not without leaving us an example that Jesus drove the money-changers from the temple. They must be driven from the Church, or else the Church cannot arise and shine, and show herself the spotless bride of the Redeemer. The clergy cannot wholly free themselves from the charge of compromising between the gospel and their hearers, till they have made the phrase, "a

covetous Christian," or "an avaricious Christian," as palpably a contradiction in terms, as "a blasphemous Christian," or "a licentious Christian," nay, till they made it as impossible for a grasping, overreaching, miserly man to maintain an outward Christian standing, as it is for the drunkard pr the debauchee.

There is one way in which mistaken benevolence on the part of the clergy has led to much of the spirit of accommodation and compromise, of which we are now speaking. There is no more just moral distinction, than that suggested by the familiar line,

"Not what we wish, but what we want.”

Preachers have too often mistaken men's wishes for their wants, their unsanctified tastes for their spiritual yearnings; and, in honestly striving to meet the latter, have catered for the former. They have given, too generally, the impression, that men may have what preaching they desire. And hence there. is no desire so wild, no taste so diseased, no whim so absurd, as not to seek and expect, nay, to find its gratification in the pulpit. At one time, people grow weary of close and pungent appeals to the moral nature, and demand that the judgment alone be addressed; and forthwith the cry goes forth among their spiritual teachers, that it is vain and useless to preach to the affections, and that the heart can be reached only through the intellect. Then perhaps a fit of sickly sentimentality passes over society, and summons the clergy, ever ready to obey, to cease addressing the reason, and to preach only in strains of melting pathos, or of passionate excitement. Then again a cry (a Macedonian cry, as it has been fashionable to say) comes from some quarter for a less strict dispensation of the word than has been enjoyed, for preaching that will bear but lightly upon avocations or amusements, which others have, perhaps too intemperately, denounced. The call is at once responded by good men, who too easily persuade themselves, that, by leaving the wounded conscience to become scarred over, by letting doubtful callings and indulgences go unmeddled with, by becoming all things to all men, they may save some; whereas the true avenue to the hearts of any community is through the thorough and faithful handling of the points upon which the public conscience is already roused.

Thus also the grounds, on which religion bases its claims and its appeals, are made to shift from time to time with the VOL. XXXIII. 3D S. VOL. XV. NO. I.

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current of popular feeling, as a sandbar changes with the tide, instead of remaining the same forever, as a rock against which the storm beats and the ocean dashes in vain. Thus, when the tendencies of the times are mechanical and utilitarian, Christianity is defended mainly on utilitarian grounds; and we have heard it advocated in terms, which seemed to imply that its highest office was to bake men's bread, and clothe them, and to build them houses. This mode of defence is adapted only to deepen and to make more intense the grovelling utilitarianism which demands it; and if it draws any nominal disciples, it can draw only such as those, to whom Jesus said, "Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." Then again, there prevails, as there has of late in some quarters, an unwillingness to receive truth on trust, even on the strongest testimony that God can give. The defenders of the faith are too ready to meet this phasis also of the public mind. They go to those whose consciences are too tender to resign themselves to the guidance of Jesus, and say, "We ask you not to believe in Jesus, because he came from heaven and wrought miracles. But try what he says by your own good sense. See how many things he has uttered, which need not be strained very much to make them correspond entirely with your philosophy. If you will consider his teachings in connexion with the times in which he lived, you can hardly resist the conviction that, had he enjoyed the light of these latter days, his views on all subjects would have been very much what yours are." We have burned with indignation at hearing and reading such apologies for the gospel. Charles Elwood, a work well known to many of our readers, might be cited as a specimen of this tone of writing and of preaching. In this we see Christianity bowing and cringing, making apologies and concessions to Infidelity, who at first turns upon her coldly and cavalierly, but at length, soothed by flattery, consents to forgive her, and shake hands with her. Now this mode of defending Christianity is the very way to make infidels; for it cherishes that unfilial, arrogant spirit, that evil heart of unbelief, without which all the arguments and objections of skepticism are powerless.

These illustrations must suffice for this head. In our view, the times, so far from demanding of the preacher a spirit of compromise, demand more than ever a close, uncompromising adherence to the true grounds and the true spirit of the gospel.

Now that novelty treads on the heels of novelty, and the recent is already old on account of the multitude of things yet newer, we peculiarly need the gospel as an unchanging landmark and point of support, as a standard that shall be neither stretched nor warped. Society, in its mottled surface and tumultuous heaving, resembles the storm-lifted ocean. Shall the gospel dance about upon the waves, like lights upon a phantom-ship, to beguile the mariner to shipwreck and ruin? Or shall it beam, as from a rock-founded Pharos, far and wide over the troubled sea, a star of good omen and of hope? God himself has answered this question, in that he has made his "Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." But there remains for the professed ministers of Jesus a solemn question. Shall they launch out on the deep and hoist their phantomlights; or shall they abide by the eternal beacon-fire, and feed its flame?

In what we have said, we by no means deny that the faithful minister must study and meet men's real wants. Next to the gospel, the necessities of the human heart should be his chosen and constant study. But what or how he shall preach, let him see that he ask of God, and not of man. He is the servant of his brethren in the gospel, and not out of it. It behooves those who would acquit themselves as true men in the work of the ministry, to hear the word of God to his ancient prophet, "Let them return unto thee; but return not thou nuto them. And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall, and thou shalt stand before me, and thou shalt be as my mouth."

3. Once more, the preaching of the gospel has failed to effect all that it ought, because it has been preached with too little faith. We read in the Old Testament, that when the ark was on its way to the city of David, a timid attendant lifted his hand to save it from falling. The hand dropped in the palsy of death; the ark moved on unharmed. Doubt always paralyzes. He who trembles for the ark, might as well cry among the tombs, as preach to living men; nay, he had far better hold his peace; for the spirit of trembling is contagious, and the fearful preacher makes a skeptical congregation. Skepticism betrays itself in the pulpit in various ways. Sometimes it is alarmed for the gospel itself. Seeing iniquity abound and the love of many wax cold, it fears lest the gates of hell may prevail against the Church, forgetting that from a Church, that

could be gathered in "a large upper room," went forth the power, before which old things passed away, and all things became new. Others doubt particular precepts or principles of the gospel, such as those of peace and forbearance, of love unfeigned and of an unworldly temper; and seeing that these principles have no hold upon the popular heart, they are ever ready to account the expression of them by Jesus mere Eastern metaphor or hyperbole. But was his life a metaphor ? Was his loving, forgiving, self-sacrificing spirit a hyperbole? Or was it in the language of Oriental exaggeration that he said, "I gave you an example that ye might do as I have done?" Others who preach the word believe the external facts of the gospel, and the leading features of the gospel economy, but are deficient in spiritual faith. They believe in a state of retribution beyond the grave; but not in that retribution of good and evil, which is going on at all times in the human soul, and which death only consummates and makes manifest. They believe in the obligation of outward duty; but hardly know whether there be any holy spirit. They believe in forms; but as to regeneration, they are ready to ask with Nicodemus, "How can a man be born when he is old?” They believe in a kingdom of heaven, in which there shall be golden streets and jaspar walls; but not in that kingdom of God which is within.

The preacher of the word must, above all things, have faith. He needs a firm historical faith; a faith which not only sees the intrinsic worth of the gospel, and discerns its coincidence with the law and the spirit of heaven; but which beholds its foundations upon earth so deeply laid by the divine hand, that it must abide and grow, while the world endures. He needs a deep, awe-stricken sense of the various modes, in which the arm of the Lord has been revealed. He needs an immovable conviction of the constraining authority of Jesus, of his authentication as a teacher, of his right to be implicitly believed and obeyed, in fine, of those facts with reference to his mission, to which the works that the Father gave him to do can alone bear adequate testimony. This well grounded historical faith will make him of good courage, as he preaches the word of the kingdom, and will raise him above the bondage of fear, when foes abound and friends wax cold or fickle. This faith will also prepare him to receive all that Jesus taught, all that he was, as divine and infallible. He, who thus regards the teachings