God; and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ*." Never, surely, could it have been essential to a spiritual dispensation to address the senses however powerfully, without further aid, in order thus to reach and affect the heart; nor to offer mere temporal motives, whether of terror or of interest, for the enforcement of a religion expressly internal, and heavenly in its purposes and results.-"The Jews," our Apostle says, "require a sign.”

Nor yet is he to be considered in the text as alluding only further to the intellectual power of the doctrines of Jesus Christ. It is not "in word"-or, as the expression may be rendered, by force of argument, or of eloquence—that the kingdom of God is to be maintained in the world, or in the heart. The evidences of Christianity however well founded; its principles however recognised by human wisdom, or by Divine inspiration; its sanctions however embracing all that is attractive on the one side, and terrific on the other; still offer to frail unthinking mortals no call of power sufficient either to awaken attention, or to ensure belief. To believe with the whole heart, were to be converted and to live. But who shall awaken that belief? who shall introduce or seal instruction to the heart? Not the force of words; not the utmost efforts

* 2 Cor. x. 4, 5.

of human wisdom or authority; not even, be it said, the mere scientific examination and unblest reading of the letter of the Sacred Volume itself." The Greeks," our Apostle adds, “seek after wisdom.”

The power of the Gospel is unquestionably a spiritual power: evinced, it is true, no longer by miraculous and visible agency, but fully embracing the real and effective ministration of the Spirit in the hearts of men. And St. Paul in the text, and the whole body of the sacred record will direct us to a twofold spiritual power, as permanently imparted and essentially belonging to the kingdom of Christ upon earth:

First, A SPIRITUAL SANCTION VOUCHSAFED

TO AN APOSTOLICAL MINISTRY:

Secondly, A SPIRITUAL EFFICACY IMPART

ED TO APOSTOLICAL DOCTRINES.

The first of these clearly points out to us the commission given by our Lord to the preachers of his word. "Go ye into all the world," said the Lord to his disciples," and preach the Gospel to every creature *.' At another time "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose

Mark xvi. 15.

soever sins ye retain, they are retained *.' Finally, he pronounced, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world t." Words these, which, if they do not essentially convey the occasional power of working miracles, and much less the Divine and incommunicable privilege of forgiving sins; yet expressly confer an authority to preach the word, and to proclaim the terms of mercy and of judgment, with an assurance of the presence and power of the Lord Jesus with his servants to the end

of time.

However, in the exercise of this authority, the Apostles themselves might by immediate inspiration utter more forcibly the doctrines they revealed, or the sentence they pronounced in the church; still this superiority could never, in the very nature of things, render void or unnecessary the commission of their successors. The exigency of the case, no less than the language of the Apostles, fully proves that to others the same office, the same authority must be committed for edification, and not for destruction:" and at no period of the church could the admonition against the contemner of the sacred ministry be supposed to lose its application; "He therefore that despiseth, despiseth

* John xx. 22, 23.

+ Mark xxviii. 20.

not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit *."

Nor was it authority only, but ministerial efficiency also, which was assured to us in those words of Christ. 'Inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost' to take upon himself the sacred office, we believe that the faithful minister of the word is never unaccompanied with "the gift that is in him, which was given him by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery +." He becomes from that moment the subject of a peculiar and Divine assistance; and, having received his commission as if from the hands of Christ himself, the prayer of Christ becomes availing on his behalf: "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth t." There is an influence in truth; there is a power accompanying it from above, to enlarge, ennoble, and exalt the human mind, which those, who by their own peculiar office handle the word of God, and should pre-eminently prove. It is not only "the word" they handle, but "a power'

may

* 1 Thess. iv. 8.

+ 1 Tim. iv. 14.

Jolin xvii. 17-19.

within them, which prompts at once the zeal to preach, the fervour to pray, the diligence to search the Scriptures, the judgment to decide, and the honesty to act according to their decisions in all the great responsibilities of their sacred function.

It was doubtless a charge accompanied with the invocation of such a power from on high, which the great Apostle himself addressed to the first Bishop of the Ephesian Church: "I charge thee, therefore, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;" -a charge, be it observed, belonging in all its native and essential force even to ourselves; "Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine *.”- Who," we may justly ask, "is sufficient for these things?" And the answer of the Apostle at once illustrates and confirms the whole case before us : "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God: who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament: not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth; but the Spirit giveth lifet."

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* 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2.

+ 2 Cor. ii. 16; iii. 5, 6.