mony of the universe, is the same, by whatever laws its motions may be carried on. They were not physicians or anatomists: because they had the power of curing diseases and healing wounds without medicine or art. But they were profound metaphysicians-the best of moralists-well-informed historians-accurate logicians —and excellent in that strain of eloquence which is calculated for the conveyance of instruction, the enforcement of duty, the dissuasion of vice, the conviction of error, and the defence of truth. And whoever pretends to teach without any of these qualifications, hath no countenance from the example of the apostles, who possessed them all in an eminent degree, not from education, but from a higher source.

St. Paul, indeed, says of himself, that when he first preached the gospel to the Corinthians, "he came not unto them with excellency of speech, or of wisdom;" —that is, he came not, like the false teachers, making an ostentatious display of studied eloquence, nor boasting his proficiency in philosophy: he required not that the Corinthians should receive the testimony of God, which he delivered to them as the testimony of God, because he who delivered it was a knowing man, or an accomplished orator: he rested not the evidence of his doctrine upon mere argument, nor did he think to persuade by mere eloquence; for argument alone, although it might indeed evince the consistency and reasonableness of the doctrine, could never amount to a proof of its heavenly origin; and the apostles had means of persuasion more powerful than eloquence, which by the way, no modern teacher hath: his knowledge and eloquence, however necessary, were still in him but secondary qualifications; and so little was he ambitious of the fame of learning, that he determined not " to know any thing among them, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.".

But consider what this knowledge of the apostle really contained. "To know Jesus Christ, and him crucified," was to know, not simply to believe, but to know in such a manner as to be able to teach others, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah announced by the prophets from the beginning of the world, and to understand that the sufferings of the Messiah were the means appointed by God for man's deliverance from sin and damnation. This knowledge, therefore, of Jesus Christ, and him crucified, to which St. Paul laid claim, contained an accurate knowledge of the ancient prophecies-a clear apprehension of their necessary reference to the Messiah -a discernment of their exact completion in the person of Jesus-and an insight into that great mystery of godliness, the expiation of the actual sins of men, and the cleansing of man's sinful nature, by the shedding of the blood of Christ.

And who is sufficient for these things? That no study can attain this knowledge of Christ, in the degree in which the apostles possessed it, he who confesses not, hath studied Christ to little purpose. But he who imagines that Christ may thus be known by men uninformed both by inspiration and education, or imagines that, when inspiration is wanting, education may contribute nothing at all in aid of the deficiency, that is, to make my meaning very plain, he who imagines that, of uninspired men, the learned and the unlearned are equally qualified to be teachers of the word of God,—he who builds this extravagant opinion upon the terms in which. the apostle speaks of the knowledge of Christ, as the only knowledge to which he himself made pretensions, only proves, that more learning is necessary than he is aware of to the right apprehension of this single text.

Inferences naturally flow from the doctrine which hath been asserted, of high concern to every one in this assembly. We, who, with however weak ability, fill the

high station of the prophets in the primitive church,you, who are this day to be admitted to a share in that sacred office, are admonished of the diligence with which we must devote ourselves to study, and of the assiduity which we must use in prayer, to acquit ourselves of the duties of our calling. The laity are admonished of the folly and the danger of deserting the ministry of those who have been rightly separated to that holy service, in the vain hope of edifying under their instruction, who cannot be absolved of the crime of schism upon any better plea than that of ignorance. To allege the apostles as instances of illiterate preachers, is of all fallacies the grossest. Originally, perhaps, they were men of little learning --fishermen-tent-makers-excisemen; but when they began to preach, they no longer were illiterate; they were rendered learned in an instant, without previous study of their own, by miracle. The gifts, which we find placed by an apostle himself at the head of their qualifications, were evidently analogous to the advantages of education. Whatever their previous character had been, the aposttles, when they became preachers, became learned. They were of all preachers the most learned. It is, therefore, by proficiency in learning, accompanied with an unreserved submission of the understanding to the revealed word, but it is by learning, not by the want or the neglect of it, that any modern teacher may attain to some distant resemblance of those inspired messengers of God.

APPENDIX TO SERMON XIV.

1 CORINTHIANS xii. 8, 9, 10.

THE word of wisdom,—the talent of arguing, from the natural principles of reason, for the conversion of philosophical infide's. The word of knowledge,-the talent of holding learned arguments from the ancient prophecies, and the writings of the Old Testament, for the conversion of Jewish infidels. Faith,-a depth and accuracy of understanding, in the general scheme of the Christian revelation, for the improvement and edification of believers. The gifts of healing, and the working of miracles,-for the purpose of making new converts, and displaying the extent of the power of Christ. Prophecy, or the talent of foreseeing future events,-for the purpose of providing against the calamities, whether worldly or spiritual, that might threaten particular churches,— such as famines, pestilence, wars, persecutions, heresies. Discerning of spirits,-for the better government of the church; and the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues, which seem to have been very generally dispersed, that every Christian might be qualified to argue with the learned Jews in the synagogues, from the original Scriptures, especially when the Jew thought proper to appeal from the Greek of the Septuagint to the Hebrew text.

In these very remarkable passages, the apostle reckons up nine distinct gifts of the Holy Spirit, all of the extraordinary kind. In the 28th verse, he enumerates just

as many ecclesiastical offices. The gifts and the offices, taken in the order in which they are mentioned, seem to correspond.

Helps-Aleis; such as

6. Prophecies, or predictions, {Mark, Tychicus, Onesimus, &c.

7. Dircerning of Spirits,

8. Tongues,

9. Interpretation of tongues,

Governments-Κυβερνήσεις.

Gifted with tongues in various

ways.

The fourth and fifth gifts, miracles and healing, seem to have changed places in the 9th and 10th verses. Miracles, I think, must take place as the genus, and healing must rank below it, as the species. Accordingly, in the 28th verse, miracles, or powers, are mentioned before healings. With this slight alteration, the list of gifts in the 8th, 9th and 10th verses, seems to answer exactly to the list of offices in the 28th: only, it is to be supposed, that as all inferior offices are included in the superior, so all the higher and rarer gifts contain the lower and more common.

Dr. Lightfoot, if I mistake not, hath remarked this parallelism of gifts and offices, in his Hora Hebraica.

END OF VOL. I.