A with the respects SERMON, DELIVERED At the Ordination OF THE REV. EZRA STILES GANNETT, AS COLLEAGUE PASTOR OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, IN FEDERAL STREET, BOSTON, District of Massachusetts, to wit: District Clerk's office. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the second day of August, A.D. 1824, in the forty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America, DAVID REED, of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit: "A Sermon, delivered at the Ordination of the Rev. Ezra Stiles Gannett, as Colleague Pastor of the Church of Christ, in Federal street, Boston, June 30, 1324. By William Ellery Channing, Pastor of said Church." In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned ;" and also to an Act entitled, "An Act supplementary to An Act entitled, An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints." JNO. W. DAVIS, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. 1 Rift John R. Effenger Margent E. 6-268-1933 6. Heeggard SERMON. MATT x. 16.-BEHOLD, I SEND YOU FORTH AS SHEEP IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES: BE YE THEREFORE WISE AS SERPENTS AND HARMLESS AS DOVES. THE Communication of moral and religious truth is the most important office committed to men. The Son of God came into the world not to legislate for nations, not to command armies, not to sit on the throne of universal monarchy; but to teach religion, to establish the empire of truth and holiness in the souls of men. The highest end of human nature is duty, virtue, piety, excellence, moral greatness, spiritual glory; and he, who effectually labours for these, is taking part with God, in God's noblest work. The christian ministry, then, which has for its end men's spiritual improvement and salvation, and which is intrusted for this end with weapons of heavenly temper and power, deserves to be ranked amongst God's most beneficent institutions and men's most honourable labours. The occasion requires that this institution should be our principal topick. How happy a change has taken place since the words of Christ in the text were spoken! Ministers are no longer sent forth into the midst of wolves. Through the labours, sufferings, and triumphs of apostles, martyrs, and good and great men in successive ages, Christianity has become the professed and honoured religion of the most civilized nations, and its preachers are exposed to very different temptations from those of savage persecution. Still our text has an application to the present time. We see our Saviour commanding his apostles, to regard in their ministry the circumstances of the age in which they lived. Surrounded with foes, they were to exercise the wisdom or prudence, of which the serpent was in ancient times the emblem, and to join with it the innocence and mildness of the dove. And in like manner, the christian minister is at all periods to regard the signs, the distinctive marks and character of the age to which he belongs, and must accommodate his ministry to its wants and demands. Accordingly, I propose to consider some of the leading traits of the present age, and the influence which they should have on a christian teacher. I. The state of the world, compared with the past, may be called enlightened, and requires an enlightened ministry. It hardly seems necessary to prove, that religion should be dispensed by men, who at least keep pace with the intellect of the age in which they live. Some passages of Scripture however have been wrested to prove, that an unlearned ministry is that which God particularly honours. He always chooses, we are told, "the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." But texts of this description are misunderstood, through the very ignorance which they are adduced to support. The wise, who are spoken of contemptuously in the New Testament, were not really enlightened men, but pretenders to wisdom, |