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duct them, we must seem in some degree, to imitate their customs, and adopt their manners.

Our ministry, indeed, necessarily occasions an intercourse with men; and if we would avoid all society with sinners, we must, as the Apostle speaks, "go out of the world;" but the spirit of the Christian priesthood leads us to conquer its temptations, by withstanding, and not, by personal flight, to escape them.

It is not, indeed, the love of the world which pleases by its kindness, and engages by its attentions, that I shall now either combat with argument, or reprehend with severity. No! it is that love of the world which exposes us to shame, which familiarizes us to dissipation, dishonors the priesthood, and gives offence to every pious mind; it is that powerful attachment to its cares and pleasures, which weans us from the holy duties of the sanctuary; it is that useless, idle, worldly life, which hurries us from one folly to another; enchains us to the conviviality of sinners, to the delights of their conversation, and the allurements of their voluptuousness; and leads us, by imperceptible degrees, from the engagements of the world to its amusements, from its amusements to its dangers, and from its dangers to its sins*. Now nothing, surely, is so incompatible

* "If practical Christian Piety and Benevolence, and Self Government, with constant Zeal to promote them all upon

with the holiness of our calling, and the spirit of our ministry, as this life of dissipation, of perpetual engagements, of general inattention, pursued, it may be, without the remotest design of evil. Let us illustrate this truth it is sufficiently impor tant of itself to form, not a principal part, but the sole object, of this exhortation.

The spirit of our ministry is a spirit of Separa tion from the World; of Prayer; of Labour, of Zeal; of Knowledge; of Piety :-let us observe each of these characteristics. Now, they all become extinct amidst worldly avocations, and secular engagements.

I. A spirit of Separation from the World. I mention this first: the ministerial office consecrates us to whatever concerns the reality, or the appearance, of Religion, and exempts us, at the same time, from a discharge of many of the public offices of society. From the period we are ordained we cease in one sense, to be citizens and members of the state: united with other men, by general duties, to its interests, we form a separate

Earth, are not the first and chief Qualities, which your Parishioners and acquaintance will ascribe to you; if they will speak of you as noted on other accounts, but pass over these articles; and when asked about them be at a loss what to say, excepting possibly that they know no harm of you; all is not right: nor can such a Clergy answer the design of its institu tion any where; or even maintain its ground in a country of freedom and learning, though a yet worse may in the midst of slavery and ignorance."-Abp. SECKER.

people. It is not that we plead exemption from obedience to the laws, and "the powers that are ordained of God;" we are to exhibit to the rest of men an example of allegiance; we do not cease to be members of the state, because we are not called upon to discharge the civil offices it requires of the rest of its members. The celebration of the Ordinances of Religion becomes our chief, and, almost, our only, duty; works of piety and charity, as far as is in our power, our indispensable obligations, thereby recommending our characters, and adorning our lives; the study of the Holy Scriptures, our highest pleasure, and professed avocation.

In a Minister of the Gospel, then, every thing is holy and separated from common use: a Clergyman ought to be distinguished by inherent gravity, the more readily to command respect from others, and by that degree of veneration which is necessary to give solemnity to his admonitions, and effect to his exhortations.

II. The spirit of our ministry is, in the second place, a Spirit of Prayer*: prayer is the ornament of the priesthood, the leading principle of our character; without prayer, a Minister is of no use to the Church, nor of any advantage to mankind : he sows, and God gives no encrease; he preaches, and his words are only like "sounding brass, or

* Vide, Charge XIV.

tinkling cymbal :" he recites the praises of God, "whilst his heart is far from him." It is prayer alone, then, which gives the whole strength and efficacy to our different administrations; and that man ceases, if I may use the expression, to be a public Minister, from the time he ceases to pray: it is prayer which supplies him with consolations in all his labours; and he celebrates the Ordinances of Religion as the hireling performs his work-he considers them as a heavy task, or a severe imposition-if prayer doth not assuage its troubles, or console him for the want of success.

It will not be considered a deviation from the subject to examine-Whether, after departing from a profane assembly, where many dangerous objects have fastened on your mind-whether, after withdrawing from a scene of noise and riot, where every thing was unlike Religion, you felt in yourself those dispositions to piety, and attach ments to godliness, by which a Christian minister should, invariably, be distinguished-whether your mind did not hold a closer converse with the world than with God-and whether, of course, your ministry, which ought to be a ministry of reconciliation and of life, will not become a ministry of condemnation and of death? Appeal to your own hearts. As soon as the world shall have extinguished in you the spirit of prayer, you will lose, by little and little, all regard to the duty, and all delight in the exercise, of it; you will perform it seldom; you will be careless and irreverent

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whilst you are employed in your devotions, and will soon entirely neglect to fulfil them;-you, whose indispensable duty it is, "to weep between "the porch and the altar," for the sins of your people, you will not even be concerned for your own: you will extenuate the vanities, and justify the pleasures, of the world, by partaking of them; and instead of alarming your piety, and awakening your zeal, they will flatter your taste, and corrupt your innocence*.

III. The spirit of our ministry is also a spirit of Labour; the priesthood is a laborious dignity; the Church, whose ministers we are, is a vine, a field, an harvest, a building not yet finished, an holy warfare; all which expressions indicate trouble, and imply diligence; they are all so many symbols of application and industry. A Clergyman is placed in the Church, as our first parent was in paradise, to till, and to defend it.

Thus, a Minister of the Gospel is accountable to society for his time: every part which he em

"I do not say that Recreations, lawful in themselves, are unlawful to us; or that those which have been formerly prohibited by ecclesiastical rules, merely as disreputable, may not cease to be so by change of custom. But still not all things lawful are expedient, and certainly these things, further than they are in truth requisite for health of body, refreshment of mind, or some really valuable purpose, are all a misemployment of our leisure hours, which we ought to set our people a pattern of filling up well. A Minister of God's word, attentive to his duty, will neither have leisure for such dissipations, public or domestic, nor liking to them.-Abp. SECKer.

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