earnest and laborious. Let it be distinctly understood that I pronounce no opinion about the existing ministry, young or old. Assuredly I stand not here as the accuser of my brethren; and it is no part of my present duty to defend them. My object is simply to convey to your minds the idea which is in my own of the kind of ministry which the characteristics of the times appear to require. dismiss it: no other appeared so suitable. | tory studies, at once humble and spiritual, I mention the circumstance as serving to show the importance of the subject: it presents itself just now spontaneously, and almost inevitably, to different minds; forcing itself on thought, and refusing to give place to any other. The time allotted for the preparation of the address, originally too limited, has been, I am sorry to say, seriously lessened by engagements and anxieties not anticipated, and not to be foregone. I trust, therefore, you will receive with candour the few thoughts to be submitted to your consideration; and accept "the will for the deed" as to what, in other circumstances, might have been better. That the times are marked by peculiar characteristics, many of which will be noticed in the progress of this exercise; that they are specially important, viewed in relation to what they destroy, and produce, and re-produce as the crisis to which the world has long been coming, to be followed, it is hoped, by a healthier and happier condition- -as the grand connecting link between the preparatory past and realizing future; and that it is of the last importance to their right guidance and ultimate issues that the Christian ministry should be suited to their exigencies, are points which may be assumed-which need not be argued or illustrated. The kind of ministry which is suitable is the point to which it is deemed important, just now, to direct your attention. A valuable end will be gained if you can get a definitive and vivid apprehension of the sort of men you are expected to become, and must become, if you are to " GENERALLY, THAT THE TIMES REQUIRE I. IT MAY BE OBSERVED FIRST, AND A MINISTRY NOT ONLY DECIDEDLY, BUT EMINENTLY PIOUS. require piety. Some other qualificaAll times, indeed, tions very desirable,-nay, desirable in the highest degree, may be dispensed with; this is indispensable. Talents however brilliant, genius however fascinating, learning however profound, eloquence however commanding, supply no adequate substitutes for decided personal religion. Where this is wanting-the spirit, the unction, which pervades true ministerial life is wanting; the motive to action is rotten; and it is impossible, in the nature of things, that ministerial work should be suitably, completely, efficiently done. All charges to ministers, therefore, all addresses to students, give deserved emphatic prominence to the indispensableness of earnest piety. A little serious reflection on some of the characteristics of "this time" will show that eminent personal religion is required now; that the minister should not only be a Christian indeed, but intensely a Christian. Selfishness, though serve your gene-cloaking itself under a thousand specious ration by the will of God." A proper standard of ministerial character and qualification, in harmony with the duties and conflicts which await you, will assist to elevate your conceptions of the magnitude of your future work; and make you, in the pursuit of your prepara VOL. XV.-FOURTH SERIES. disguises, is seen, even by those under its influence, to be the prevailing principle. If Christian ministers, instead of largely sharing, are to be comparatively free from it, and able with the power of consistency both to denounce it and recommend the opposite principle, their hearts must be filled to overflowing people to give, practical exhibitions of with the love of God and souls. It is generally admitted, by many deplored, that the church is grievously pervaded by a worldly spirit, and characterized by worldly conformity; that the tide of worldliness has set in so strongly as well nigh, in many directions, to have broken down the wall of separation between the people of Christ and the men of the world. If Christian ministers are not themselves to be carried away with it; if they are to stem the torrent, and turn it back, they must emphatically live and labour under the "powers of the world to come." Besides having to engage in works of evangelical, ministers have to take their part in works of general benevolence; much public business is thrown upon them; they are looked for in the social circle, and are expected to be largely acquainted with the current literature. Every day they meet with much which tends to dissipate and secularize the mind. How necessary that there should be a deep well-spring of piety in the soul, continually replenished by intercourse with the great fountain of purity and power. If by intellectual activity, the times are also characterized by intellectual pride. Never before, perhaps, was it at once so intense and generally diffused. Ministers are in special danger from this quarter; the more so, as the first and chief inquiry in many of the churches is for an intellectual ministry. How can they escape the danger, as subtle in its workings as it is disastrous in its effects, but as they abound in the grace of God? By multitudes the old Christian evidences are unheeded and despised; if convinced at all it must be by living proofs of the vital power of Christianity. The church of Christ must embody in the most attractive forms the religion of Christ. Verily mi nisters need be Christians in the highest style, if they are to give, and lead their the genius and influence of Christianity adequate to the demands of such times as these. I might, as you are aware, carry this train of remark much further; but sufficient perhaps has been advanced to show, in general, that the times require an eminently godly ministry. II. THE TIMES REQUIRE A MINISTRY INTELLIGENTLY AND CORDIALLY ATTACHED TO EVANGELICAL TRUTH. In other words they require an eminently Christian ministry to teach emphatically Christianity. An intelligent attachment to evangelical truth implies that it has been studied carefully and devoutly in the pages of the New Testament itself, aided by the lights of modern criticism. The thing required is a comprehensive knowledge of the gospel, not according to some human version of it; not as taught by Calvin or any other favourite divine; not as exhibited in the creed of this or the standards of the other church, but as communicated in its purity and glory in the writings of inspired men. At all times important, an intelligent acquaintance with the gospel is specially important at " this time." The age distances in general intelligence all preceding ages; it would be utterly incongruous, therefore, if Christian ministers had other than an intelligent and comprehensive knowledge of the gospel. As many, who reject, are doing their utmost to undermine Christianity, it is of consequence that its defenders should understand and assert it in its scriptural simplicity, breadth, and harmony; that men may have no excuse for boasting that they have overthrown it when they have only overthrown human versions of it, more or less spurious and untrue. To the pride of the human heart the truth itself is sufficiently unpalatable; its unacceptableness need not be gratuitously aggravated by worn-out technicalities not essential to its clear and full announcement, and which serve only to confirm hostility and dis- covertly, assail it; it can only be ade like. Cordial attachment is equally indispensable. Only as cordially held, in a firm persuasion of its divine origin, in believing loving hearts which have experienced its power will the gospel be proclaimed, at any rate with the fulness and zeal necessary to success; only as it is proclaimed can men be saved! It is the sole divine remedy for the corrupt and perishing; catholic, as adapted and to be made known to all; exclusive, as permitting no substitute and no rival. Men are to be rescued from the thraldom and consequences of sin, neither by the heathenism of ancient Greece nor of modern Germany. Their case is to be met not by mysticism, but by the divine mysteries of the incarnation and the cross; not by transcendentalism, but by what the Spirit of God has plainly taught; not by some modification of Carlyleism, Emersonianism, or "philosophy falsely so called," but by the revelations of the New Testament. Even the ethics of the Christian system shifted from their proper place, given other than their appointed work, will be of no avail. Christian practice is the product of Christian principles; and these of Christian doctrines. To expect the manifestations of Christ's life apart from Christ's truth, is to look for the effect without the cause; fruit without vital juices; a superstructure without a foundation. We are not to be satisfied even with the Christianity of the transition class of German divines who, all honour to them, are nobly working their own way and leading their countrymen back from rationalism to true Christianity; we are to be satisfied with nothing short of the gospel in its scriptural completeness and glory. The cordial attachment to evangelical truth, necessary at all times, is particularly necessary at "this time." Many earnestly, though for the most part earnestly and intelligently attached to quately defended therefore by those it. Some who would pass for its friends, instead of giving it prominent place in their ministrations, seldom mention its distinctive doctrines. Because preaching has been too exclusively doctrinal, going to the opposite extreme, they make it too exclusively practical. Not a few want to banish, not only technicalities and human additions, but the characteristic and essential truths of the Christian system. They would have not merely more accurate statements and fresh illustrations; but quite new teachers and new truths, dignified and passed off with the Christian name. Under these circumstances, if the great ends of the ministry are to be secured; if Christ is to be honoured; if the lost are to be saved; it is all-important that Christian ministers should hold fast, and hold forth the great verities of the gospel, intelligently, firmly, lovingly, and continually; that, however large their views and wide their excursions, the cross should be the centre from which they start, to which they return, and of which in their progress they never lose sight. Europe was evangelical truth implies like attachCordial and intelligent attachment to ment to the inspired book that reveals it. At a time when loose and erroneous views of inspiration, the fruits of a false philosophy, are prevalent, this is of great importance. recovered to a true Christianity through the zealous agency of men who profoundly revered, earnestly studied, thoroughly submitted to, and were penetrated through their whole being with the spirit of the bible; and only by the scriptures, intensely revering and loving agency of similar men, born of the the scriptures, "mighty in the scriptures," can a true Christianity, in such times as these, be maintained and ex tended in the nation and in the | be familiar with man's physical strucearth. III. THE TIMES REQUIRE A MINISTRY WHICH UNDERSTANDS AND SYMPATHISES WITH HUMAN NATURE. They are proverbially marked by mental activity and the spread of general information. Never was there so much thinking, although much of it of course is sufficiently crude. Never was there such a demand for knowledge; never such a supply. Thousands are occupied in producing it, brains, pens, printing presses, night and day, all are at work; tens of thousands in acquiring it. No longer confined to the professions, or to men of learned leisure, it not only ascends the heights, but descends to the very depths and dregs of society. Christian ministers, therefore, to be efficient must be able to deal with working mind; keep abreast, and even in advance of the general intelligence; and be competent to draw with facility and accuracy facts, reasonings, illustrations, from the ever widening range of science, philosophy, and general literature. But the knowledge of human nature is to the Christian minister specially necessary. Throughout his whole course he has to deal with and act upon it; to instruct it; as a sub-ordinate agent, to change it; to defend it from danger; and guide it to "glory, honour, and immortality." His mission is to recover, elevate, bless humanity. How important that he should understand it, mentally considered, and morally, and physically, at least in these two relations; that he should be well acquainted with its powers, aptitudes, and susceptibilities; that he should be thoroughly convinced of its corruption; and both know its errors, prejudices, subterfuges, and how it may be most successfully approached, reasoned with, influenced, and gained over to the cause of God and its own best interests. Not more necessary is it that the physician should ture, and diseases, and the remedies adapted to recover him, than that the Christian minister should master all that can be known of the structure, condition, and workings of man's moral nature. Such knowledge can least of all be dispensed with at "this time." It is one of the many strange and apparently inconsistent characteristics of the day that, notwithstanding their worldliness and scepticism, men want religious teachers to deal with them as men; to address their reason, their conscience, their souls. They are tired of mere abstract disquisitions, and doctrinal essays. They want in the pulpit not long and profound trains of reasoning, to be mastered only in the study and in books; not brilliant coruscations which dazzle and confound; but plain, strong, rapid logic; vigorously, pungently, sent right home to the conscience and the heart. That ministers may be qualified to deal thus directly and closely with men, they must understand human nature as it may be understood from philosophy, observation, selfinspection, and above all from the word of God. Sympathy should ever accompany knowledge; the latter being of little avail without the former. Knowledge, indeed, is power; but knowledge fired and directed by sympathy is immensely greater power. Men are so constituted as to be addressed effectually only by those who, besides understanding their case, deeply feel for them, and earnestly desire their recovery and happiness. It is on this principle that men are employed, not angels, -men who can speak from experience of the necessity and power of the "great salvation;" who have felt the workings both of the impenitent, and of the penitent and believing heart. It is on this principle they are sent to preach the gospel; the appeal from sympathy to sympathy, from heart to heart, being much more rapid, vivid, and effective by this than by any other process. It is on this principle that there is such divine adaptation in the love of Christ to "constrain" men. It is the love of one who has condescended to identify himself with our nature; who is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities;" who was "tempted as we are, yet without sin." At "this time" sympathy is pre-eminently necessary. Reasonably or unreasonably, many have the conviction that we are indifferent to their social condition; and they are alienated from Christians and Christian ministers accordingly. What so likely to win them to a more cordial state of mind as the natural, healthful, sustained manifestation, as opportunity offers, of largeviewed and large-hearted sympathy? It is one of the most noticeable features of the times that certain classes are beginning to inquire and enter into the condition of classes below them in the social scale. It is not enough that Christian ministers should follow in this direction, they should lead, and lead they will in proportion as they are imbued with the spirit of Jesus, who entered into all the wants and woes of humanity; and who, without any ostentation of sympathy, benefitted largely and continually the physical and social condition of the people, while he sought, with unparalleled quiet earnestness, the everlasting salvation of their souls. IV. THE TIMES REQUIRE A MINISTRY GIFTED WITH DISCRIMINATION AND MORAL COURAGE. Discrimination is necessary in the perusal of general, and in the study of biblical and theological literature, particularly the foreign and philosophical, that the precious may be separated from the vile, the gold from the dross; that there may not be, on the one hand, wholesale rejection and condemnation, nor, on the other, un qualified adoption and praise. Discrimination is necessary that it may be seen when and how far, all things considered, it may be right to take action in the great social and politico-religious questions, the agitation of which is a significant sign of the times; so that zeal may not outrun discretion, nor discretion hinder the due assertion and carrying out of principle. Discrimination is necessary that change may not be mistaken for improvement; that it may not be made from mere sympathy with the restless spirit of the age; that the useless or injurious may not be spared because of its antiquity; and that the novel may not be adopted and lauded simply in consideration of its novelty. Discrimination is necessary, that there may be clear conceptions as to what amount of time should be devoted to study, and what to active effort; when, and how far, the press should be made auxiliary to the pulpit; what style of preaching may be suited to the times generally, and to given places and circumstances in particular; when academic rules should be strictly adhered to, and when for the sake of impression relaxed, as they sometimes may be very effectively; and that there may be a manly independence of tastes and criticisms beyond precedent varied and conflicting; the old and the young, the rigidly orthodox and the movement party, the intellectual and the simply pious, those who are looking for instruction and those who are in quest of excitement, all having their distinctive preferences, and each claiming that he may be satisfied and pleased. Discrimination is necessary to a right apprehension of what is fitting in pastoral relations; that admonition, reproof, encouragement, may be administered in the most efficacious manner; that the right thing may be said, at the right time and in the right way; and that while the democratic principle is allowed |