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for extraordinary , not for common occasions, that the apostles them- selves were told, 1 Be not careful what ye shall speak and that, when a preacher forbears to do that for which he has natural ability, becauses he wishes to preach Christ more clearly, such a man will find an abundant blessing in his work.” He took great pains about the close of a sermon ; for he considered that a preacher who can come to a close when and how he pleases, is able to preach the whole ser- mon with much greater ease. Rhetorical flourishes, and aiming at popularity, he regarded as sinful, and quaint low sayings objection- able. He desired throughout to maintain that gravity ((Ts^vgVtjs) wffiich Holy Scripture enjoins. He advises the young minister to 66 make a beginning for preaching the next sermon immediately after preaching the last, whilst your spirit is still warm and stirred within you.” As to spiritual qualification, he remarks, that u every candidate for the ministry ought to be able to exhibit the credentials of his spiritual birth, because an unconverted minister, being not a man of prayer, must be as inefficient as a bird "with one wing.”
As to the need of a duly ordained ministry he says, u The awaken- ing which is wrought by the power of the Divine Word in individuals, without the instrumentality of the regular ministry, is one thing ; but whether, without such instrumentality, we are to expect a whole church to be planted, is another. To be ever so true a believer, is insufficient of itself to confer a right to all the offices of the Church of God. Ordination is needed. This is the declared will of the Lord, and the practice of His apostles in all the churches. Our separatists consider themselves experienced Christians, and we must put up with it. There is, however, in the greater part of them, much self-will and pugnacity. If, as a body, they had some good thing among them at first, the good was intermixed with so much alloy, as gradually to have disappeared. The righteous among them are chiefly to be sought in the first generation : children and children’s children commonly degenerate. God, however, uses separation as a standing protest against the corruptions in our Church. Still ministers and people may serve God with a pure conscience in the verv heart of our degenerate Church : and I find a larger number of such pious persons in it than among our separatists. At the same time, as a minister of a parish, I would live and teach so as to give none any occasion of stumbling ; I would warn my people to use no harsh language against them, and not to judge them ; I would try to show them that blameless persons can still be found in the Church, and can conscientiously remain in it.”
In his latter years honours were conferred on him, which he had never ambitiously sought. His chief care had always been to do faithfully whatever his hand found to do. “ We may , and ought” said he, u to offer ourselves to God for any commission, with which He may be pleased to entrust us ; only we must wait, until He send us : the less we mingle with His work what is merely ours — i.e.