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therefore, to read from the press those sentiments which, upon the solemn occasion of entering on the cure of souls in this place, I thought it my duty to express, but which you had no opportunity of hearing. If it should please God to restore me to any measure of health, it will be my delight to reside constantly amongst you, and to labour with my whole heart "for your furtherance and joy of faith." In the mean time, I commend to your candid indulgence this plain and familiar Discourse, which appears nearly in the very words in which it was delivered; and I beg the benefit of your prayers, that I may be enabled to discharge with affectionate solicitude, so far as future circumstances may allow, the honourable and arduous office to which I have just been instituted.

I am,

MY DEAR PARISHIONERS,

Your faithful Minister,

DANIEL WILSON.

BARNSBURY PARK, ISLINGton,

July 20, 1824.

A

SERMON,

&c.

1 PETER, V. 2, 3.

Feed the flock of God which is amongst you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

THE CURE OF SOULS involves important, honourable, and most difficult duties. Those who have maturely weighed what the Scriptures teach on this subject, will best understand what ought to be the feelings and apprehensions of a minister on entering upon the charge of a populous and extensive parish. It is in order to impress my own mind with a just conception of the responsibility of this office, and to lead you to more adequate ideas of the character of a faithful pastor, that I would now invite your attention to the words of

my text, in which the Apostle, who had been a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and was soon to be a partaker of the glory which was to be revealed, solemnly exhorts the bishops and pastors of the church to the discharge of their peculiar duties.

The language of the text is metaphorical. The image is taken from the watchful compassion and patient care of a shepherd over his flock-an office which throughout the Scriptures is associated with far higher ideas of importance and dignity than might be supposed from considering our modern usages and man

ners.

The character of the Apostle's injunctions is tenderness; and the chief points relate to the DUTIES and the TEMPER of the Christian shepherd.

I. Let us consider THE DUTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN SHEPHERD. These are two: a specific and primary one, Feed the flock of God: a general and subsequent one, Taking the oversight thereof.

The specific and primary duty of a shepherd, that without which all other duties would be out of place and inefficient, is to feed his flock. For, however diligently a shepherd might busy himself with subordinate matters, yet if he neglected this first duty, he would act the most

cruel part, and violate the highest obligations of his office.

Accordingly, our Saviour, when he had thrice interrogated the very Apostle whose words we are considering, whether he supremely loved him, thrice added, as the best proof and primary effect of that love, Feed my sheep, feed my lambs. And when St. Paul exhorted the elders of Ephesus to take heed unto all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers, he charged them, as the most indispensable part of their sacred calling, to feed the church of God which he had purchased with his own blood.

The food which the Christian shepherd is to dispense to his flock is the doctrine of the Holy Gospel; all the truths of that revelation which the mercy of God has bestowed upon fallen man to guide him to happiness and heaven. These doctrines are as much adapted to instruct and save the soul, as the green pastures and the still waters to nourish the tender sheep. The minister is to study deeply the Holy Scriptures for himself, and then to feed his people with knowledge and understanding according to them. He is not to set before them the unwholesome nutriment of human opinions, or the dogmas which may happen to be fashionable in his own age. He is not to propose doubtful notions, subtle refinements, critical

disquisitions, or affected novelties. He is not to dwell principally on topics of natural religion, of cold ethics, or moral suasion. He is not to detail subordinate points of scriptural truth, or make overstatements on the sacraments and outward rites of Christianity, or present a confused and dangerous mixture of the law and the Gospel. All this would be to starve and poison, not to feed, the flock. But he is to set before them those plain, solid, undoubted, and most wholesome truths of God's word by which they may be nourished to everlasting salvation; and he must propound these truths without fear, without concealment, without addition, without mutilation; in the proportion and for the ends in which they lie in the inspired volume.

These main doctrines may be reduced to two great heads-the RUIN and the RECOVERY of man. His ruin by sin, his recovery by divine mercy. His ruin in the first Adam, his recovery in the second. His ruin by his own folly and guilt, his recovery by the stupendous redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

In explaining the RUIN and misery of man, the minister will have to unfold the doctrines of man's reasonable and accountable nature, of the holy, just, and good law of God, of the evil and penalty of sin, of the unnumbered transgressions of every human being, since the fall of our first