2 Cor. iv. 4 — 6. The God of this toorld hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For tve preach 7iot ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord ; and ourselves your servants for Jesus sake. For God, who com- ma7ided the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
THE office of the ministry, if conscientiously dis- charged, is the most honourable and useful that a human being can execute : but, if perverted to carnal ends and purposes, it debases a man's character, and renders him more injurious to society than a raging pestilence. A minister, if he be upright before God, will not seek his own honour or interest, but the sal- vation of his people : he will be the servant of men for Christ's sake : he will employ all his time and talents in the line of his own peculiar profession; and will gladly sacrifice, not his reputation only or his interests, but his very life, if need be, in the service of his fellow-creatures : feeling the importance of his work, he will never degrade the pulpit by making it a theatre whereon to display his own abilities ; but will commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God, and exert himself to the utmost to rescue sinners from the jaws of the devouring lion. St. Paul, in the passage before us, labours to impress this thought on our minds. Speaking of the blind- ness of men, not only under the law, but even under the clearer light of the Gospel, and having ascribed it to the agency of Satan, he affirms, that his one employment as a minister was, to co-operate with God in defeating the purposes of that wicked fiend.— Not content with having declared this sentiment in the verses preceding the text, he interrupts, as it were, the thread of his discourse, to repeat it ; intimating thereby, that as he could not repeat it too often, so they who should follow him in the ministerial office