to do the work of evangelists, to make full proof of our ministry. If St. Paul could allude, with the animating fervour of grateful love, to the epistle of commendation written in the hearts of his Corinthian converts, what preacher of the Gospel, of the present day, but must desire to partake of the joy thus imparted by the successful exertions of a faithful stewardship! The day is at hand when the spirits of those among whom we are serving will be separated from each other by an impassable gulf, adjudged, by the sentence of an unerring God, to the just retribution that awaited their deeds on the earth. If the delight of Jehovah, in the mediatorial supremacy of his Son, is so manifested on earth, that zeal and fidelity, in the work of our ministry, may render us "unto God a sweet savour of Christ," as well" in them that perish” as "in them that are saved," what will be the expression of his heavenly approval when the cause of the Redeemer shall have gloriously triumphed, and" He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father," all rule, and all authority, and power, having first been subjected unto him? If our trials are so great as to render the injunction to "endure afflictions" at all times peculiarly appropriate to our calling, may we not indulge the encouraging hope, that "great also will be our reward in

Heaven?" This is the consolation of the faithful minister, and may this consolation, my Brethren, be ours;-that while the fires of Tophet are exhibiting in terror the interest of God in the cause of his Son, the memorial of our zeal may, by the light of Paradise, be read in the hearts of an assembled multitude, who, amidst the fulness of the blessing which themselves have inherited, may be "our joy, our crown of rejoicing," throughout the endless ages of a blessed eternity,

There are many other considerations to which, under the peculiar circumstances of the times in which we are met together, I might, perhaps, be expected to allude. Well might we be pardoned if, in days like the present, the temporal condition of our National Church were partially allowed to engage the attention which is preeminently due to her spiritual efficiency. For how many a prayer which would have ascended as incense to the Throne of Grace, on our behalf, has been checked in its utterance by the false and pernicious notions with respect to this subject, engendered by the maxims and misrepresentations of modern days!

Influenced, however, by feelings connected with the sacredness of the place in which we are assembled, and by motives, I may add, also of personal delicacy on a subject so interwoven

with our worldly interests, carefully would I abstain from any lengthened allusion to those temporal endowments which, bequeathed for our support by the piety and patriotism of bygone days, have, unhappily, in these, become the fertile source of the most groundless prejudice against our order. It has been ordained by God, "that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel ;" and as we are not ashamed to do "the work of the Ministry," neither need we be ashamed, nor ought it to be a reproach to us that we receive its wages. While, therefore, we remember that we are not in the "Priest's office, that we may eat a piece of bread," much less that we may seek great things for ourselves,*"the labourer," we know, "is worthy of his hire,” and, in a secular point of view, the right in our property is as sacred as that of any other individuals in the state. But in this passing allusion to the temporalities of our Church, we would not be understood as opposed to such a change in the distribution of her revenues, as, being consistent with the claims of a most righteous equity, would preserve, unimpaired, the integrity of the Establishment, and promote the advancement of her spiritual efficiency.

Gladly would any measures be adopted by

*Jeremiah xiv. 5.

the Clergy which might tend to reinstate our Ecclesiastical Institutions in their original purity, and, by the judicious removal of their acknowledged defects, conduce to the maintenance of the Established Religion, and secure for its Ministers the veneration and esteem which are due to the sacredness of the office which they fill. To assert the impossibility of any salutary change in the present constitution of our National Church, would be to claim for it a perfection of external symmetry which no human society has cause to boast. But change, we are aware, is not necessarily improvement ; and loudly should we protest against the adoption of a principle which would tend to remodel, without restoring, the Church--which would involve any departure from its original polity, and, for the sake of a worldly and mere temporary expediency, would endanger the stability of a religious establishment, which, for the moral, the social, the political blessings she has been the instrument, under God, of conferring upon our country, claims the reverence and respect, the veneration and attachment, of the English nation.

From those, then, who, actuated by zeal for God, are desirous of improving the efficiency of our Church, the suggestion of any means for

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the attainment of this end would receive from the Clergy the most respectful attention. With regard, however, to those who are hostile to the faith, and opposed, therefore, to the means of its more extensive diffusion, it can hardly be expected but that we view with suspicion the proposal of any measures which must involve in their issue the existence of the Establishment, the stability of her doctrines, and the property of the Clergy. Nor would this feeling of apprehension be diminished by the remembrance of the time when these measures are proposed for adoption. For never, perhaps, did the zeal, the devotedness of the Clergy, shine more conspicuously than at the present day. The fire on the altars of our venerated Establishment now burns brightly on every side. Never were her doctrines more faithfully preached, or the duties she enforces more extensively practised; never, in short, did she present a moral aspect more becoming the Church of the living God, than at the moment when the cry is heard on every side, "Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.' Why, it may be asked, is she thus virulently assailed, at the very time when she is presenting the strongest bulwark in defence of all that is dear, and sacred, and holy? Many good

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