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comparatively unimportant, we cannot innocently defer or postpone the performance of them to the claims of social life. "No man that warreth, entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." Even the obligations of friendship, the tender ties of kindred, the bonds of parental and filial affection must succumb to the paramount duties of our calling, if it should so happen that they are brought into competition or rivalry with each other. Happily for us, however, we live in times when no such sacrifices are required of us; our duties and our happiness go hand in hand together, but we know not to what painful trials we may yet be reserved; we know not to what test our ministerial integrity may hereafter be subjected. Remembering therefore, that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world," it becomes us to "stand firm, having our loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righteousness." If perverse inclination, if mistaken notions of expediency, if the tyranny of fashion, misguided enthusiasm, or the maxims of worldly policy attempt to exercise domination over our too readily prostrated spirits, we must refer to first principles, we must have recourse to that infallible guide, who addressed the wavering disciple in those memorable words, "Let the dead bury their dead."

If we sink under such temptations, if we submit to the ascendancy of such undue control, it will not be for want of instruction, or caution, or the gracious means of divine support. If any earthly consideration could excuse a breach of the rule before us, surely it would have been such as that which we here find proposed to the Lord of the Vineyard himself, "Suffer me first to go and bury my father." Whether we regard this conditional assent as referring to the attentions due to an aged and declining parent, or to the last earthly claims of filial love, nothing, abstractedly considered, could be more reasonable than such a proposal, but it is obvious that this extreme case was adduced, in order the more pointedly to enforce the position, that no earthly consideration whatever can justify our neglect of the positive and ascertained duties of our holy calling. Christ will not share a divided empire, if we will be his accepted and approved disciples, we must propose to ourselves no reservations, we must make no stipulations, we must ask no conditions ;-"Go thou and preach the kingdom of God."

III. Let us now proceed to a consideration of the guilt and danger of "looking back," or in any degree departing from the full measure of duty incumbent on the Christian Minister. We have the positive authority of the Son of God himself for saying, that "no man having put his hand to the

plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God;" and the circumstances connected with our Lord's utterance of these words, remove all doubt, if doubt there could be, of their proper application. It is a strong expression,-it is a denunciation, in fact, not less awful in its import, than it is incapable of being misconstrued. It is hardly possible to imagine that any one can be insensible to the guilt and danger of ministerial delinquency, but considering the frailty of our nature, and remembering that we are subject to like passions with other men, it need not excite surprise (however we may lament the fact) that we should, not unfrequently, deceive ourselves as to the extent and measure of our pastoral duties. We are not left without a sure guide, however, in a matter of such vital importance; we are not left to the vague suggestions of our own fallible judgment, we have ever before our eyes those exalted patterns of faith and obedience, so fully portrayed in Holy Writ, for our instruction, encouragement, and comfort in the duties of our sacred calling; and what is more, we have special promises also, of divine assistance, if we seek it with diligence and devotion. "He that doeth the will

of God, shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God," and we may be assured, that they who are set over the people to watch for their souls as they that must give account, can never be left in ignorance of their duty so long as they humbly strive

by prayer and watchfulness to prove themselves faithful servants of their divine Master.

But what is it to " put our hand to the plough ?" and what is intended by the expression of " looking back?" To put our hand to the plough, in the phraseology of Scripture, is to hire ourselves out as labourers in the heavenly vineyard of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. To serve under Him, and with Him, in striving by all means to further the gracious objects of his divine will, in bringing sinners to salvation. In this blessed work, we, Reverend Brethren, have seriously and deliberately embarked, to this object we are formally and positively pledged, and if at that awful hour when we shall be called upon to give an account of our Stewardship, we should be found wanting, if we should then be numbered amongst those who have "looked back," our doom is already fixed, our judgment is already pronounced;—we are not “fit for the kingdom of God,"-not fit either for the promoting of his kingdom of grace here, or the enjoyment of his kingdom of glory hereafter.

How important is it then that we should always have deeply impressed on our minds the tremendous responsibility of our holy office, and the fearful danger to which the apostate, the wavering, the too confident, and the supine Minister of Christ are exposed! There are various ways in which the spiritual husbandman may be said to "look back"

from the work which he has solemnly engaged to perform, and by which he is rendered obnoxious to the charge, and the punishment also, of an unfaithful servant.

(1.) He who "looketh back," in the primary sense of the expression, is the apostate minister, or he who entirely throws aside the externals, together with the positive duties of his office; who would, if it were possible, revoke the vows he had solemnly plighted at the altar of his God, and who in his heart has virtually renounced his holy calling. Let us hope there are few "lookers back" of this description, who have taken their hands altogether from the plough; yet, whatever weight of guilt they may bring upon themselves, these are not, after all, so dangerous to the welfare of Christ's flock at large, as those unfaithful servants of his, who still retain the profession, while they neglect the duties, of their calling.

(2.) Let us now look at the wavering and unsteady Minister of the Gospel, for he also is a "looker back." Neither his hand nor his eye, neither his understanding nor his heart, are engaged in the work he is about; he has no settled principles of action; he is "tossed about by every wind of doctrine;" he looks not, like a skilful ploughman, in a straight forward line on the furrow which he has begun, but allows any object that presents itself to divert his attention from his proper work.

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