nature can perceive their native splendour and beauty; he contemplates only a mistaken image; for they differ greatly in themselves from the impression made on the minds of such as view them so obliquely. In order to apprehend spiritual things, there must be a spiritual mind. The mysteries of Scripture elude the perspicacity of the most penetrating human intellect; and the natural mind perceives them no more than one sense can receive the objects of a different sense. The Holy Spirit, the great Instructer of the soul, coming in aid of this infirmity, communicates to his disciples a new and heavenly mind, on which he pours a most clear illumination, so that celestial mysteries may be seen in their true light, Together with divine things, he bestows a mind to appreeiate and comprehend them. He grants the things of Christ together with the mind of Christ. Taught in this spiritual and heavenly school, the Theologian not only learns to form correct ideas of divine objects, but is made to participate in these very objects, a treasure truly above all price. The teaching Spirit does not present mere words, and naked dogmas, nor vain dreams and empty phantasms: but, if I may use the expression, the solid and permanent substances of things; introducing them to the soul which truly comprehends them, and embraces them with every affection and every power of the heart. The pupil of this school does not merely know, nor merely believe, but sometimes realizes what is meant by remission of sin, adoption, communion with God, the gracious indwelling of the Spirit, the love of God shed abroad in the heart, the hidden manna, the sweet tokens of Christ's love, and the pledge and earnest of perfect bliss. There are in this mysterious wisdom many things which you can never learn but by having, feeling, tasting them. The new name is known only by him who possesses it. And the spiritual Teacher causes his disciples to taste and see the preciousness of the Lord. He leads them into

his banqueting house, his banner over them is love; he saith, eat my friends, yea drink my beloved; and then crowned, not with heathen garlands, but with those of the Redeemer, they acquire a clear vision of celestial things.

The truths which are thus learned by experience, are so deeply fixed in the soul, that no subtilty of argumentation, no assault of the tempter, shall avail to remove the impression of the seal. To all objections there is a triumphant reply at hand; for it is vain to dispute against experience.

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, will such be able to say, when we have believed "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but have been eye-witnesses of his majesty; and we cannot but believe those things which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled of the Word of life. Since, then, it is only in the school of the Spirit that these things are learned, so clearly, so purely, so happily, is it not evidently necessary above all things, that the Theologian should consign himself to the guidance of this Instructer? To be here received, he must renounce his own wisdom, and in his own estimation, become a fool that he may be wise. The world of Theology is created, like the natural world, out of nothing. By actual love draw near to God, and love will be followed by the communication of his counsels. "If a man love me, my Father will love him, and we will make our abode with him"-is the promise made by the faithful Jesus to his disciples. Lay up the instructions of the Spirit in a retentive mind, and recal them again and again to view by frequent meditation. Pursue this study, not by reading only, but by prayer; by communion not merely with men in ordinary discourse, but with God in supplication, and with the soul in devout thought. The soul of the saint is like a little sanctuary, in which God dwells by his Spirit, and where the Spirit, when sought unto by ardent prayer, often reveals those things which the princes of this world, with all their efforts, are unable to attain. In a word, give all diligence to keep the mirrors of the soul untarnished, and spiritually pure, that it may be fitted to receive that pure Spirit, and his spiritual communication. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. By these several steps, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, the Theologian will at length reach such knowledge, that, in the light of God, he shall contemplate God, the fountain of light, and in God and the knowledge of him, shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

From this celestial teaching of the Spirit, the Theologian will acquire the happy art of instruction, which we have already noted as the second requisite. There is a marked difference between the veteran commander, who has led armies, possessed cities, disclosed the stratagems of the foe, and made himself an adept in all the tactics of war-who has often forced his way through opposing hosts, and by long use has learned

Res gerere et captos ostendere civibus hostes,

and the loud and swaggering Thraso, who, with an unstained shield, wages a war of words, but has beheld battles only in description. Such is the difference between the disciplined Theologian, who, like Paul, has traversed the course of Christianity, and, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, is as dying, yet alive, as unknown, and yet well known, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things:-and the scholastic pedant, and index-learned rhapsodist, who, feeble in mind and heart, but mighty in memory and words, deems himself the very Alpha of Theologians.

It is not enough for the Christian teacher to proclaim truths with which he is familiar, unless he does this with pure love. If he regards with affection the divine Giver of all wisdom, and those committed to his charge, as sons or brethren, and also the truth consigned to him, he cannot but strive with all his powers to gain many for God; that there may be many who, with him, shall adore that sole wisdom, which he can never alone glorify to his own satisfaction.

The same love will prevent him from declaring any thing except what may be sure, sound, solid, promotive of faith and hope, tending to piety, unity, and peace; avoiding all prejudice, abstaining from unfairness and perversion, most sedulously omitting novelties of expression, and unmeaning verbiage; and holding himself aloof from the odious strife of words, and from curious, idle, or irregular controversies, which disturb the minds of the simple, rend the Church, fill it with suspicions and surmisings, within, and present a delightful spectacle to enemies, and to Satan himself without. O man of God, flee these things, nor ever catch at the disgraceful reputation which springs from novelty of inventions! Through divine grace, we possess, in our churches and seminaries, a precious deposit of heavenly truth, so clearly demonstrated by Scripture, so ably defended against every adversary, approving itself to the conscience by so rich an exuberance of consolation, and so great power of promoting holiness, and confirmed by the blood of so many martyrs, beloved of God, that it cannot be doubted, that we have all which is necessary to conduct believers to salvation, and to perfect the man of God for all good works. The mind is ungrateful, and unobservant of its own good, which complains of darkness in the very midst of such evangelical light; and which, in our

reformed Churches, trembles, as if the path lay through manuoiss un visited by the sun,

Et loca senta situ, noctem que profundam.

What, then, shall we say of that unseasonable prurience of innovation, by which truths long since delivered to us safely, plainly, and cautiously, are sometimes destroyed, sometimes deadened, and sometimes implicated in strange and unprecedented forms of expression? We might exclaim to the actors in this work, as did Chrysostom to the innovators of his time: "Let them hear what Paul saith, that they who innovate in the smallest degree, pervert the Gospel."* Let it not however be supposed that we desire to stand in the way of improvement. Nothing can be more delightful to the believing soul, nothing more advantageous to the Church, than to make daily increase of scriptural knowledge, to form more clear ideas of spiritual things, to descry more distinctly the concatenation of salutary doctrines in one chain of admirable wisdom, and with evident and ingenious arguments to corroborate the ancient truth; to shed light upon obscurities, to search with fear and trembling into prophetic mysteries, to apply to the conscience the powerful demonstrations of Christ and the apostles, to compare the symbols of ancient ceremonies with Christ the anti-type, and in this cause to act as a scribe well instructed in the kingdom of heaven, bringing forth from his treasury things new and old. On this point let us concentrate all that we possess, of erudition and diligence. Let this be done, and no good man will object, the Church will rejoice, Satan will be disappointed, the efforts of the saints will be prospered by God, who has predicted that in the latter time many shall investigate and knowledge shall be increased. Yet away with these idle, curious, rash, and perverse speculations, flattering some with the mere charm of novelty, and attempted by others from party zeal, which result in no profit, but rather engender strifes, than "Godly edifying which is in faith."

In seeking this edification, the Theologian should hold the truth in its purity, without the interposition of trifles from human philosophy, which disfigure the oracles of God. The great things of God need not swelling words, but rest on their own strength, and transcend all understanding:

Chrys. ad Galat. I. v. 9. Ακουετωσαν τι φησιν ο Παύλος, ότι το Ευαγγέλιον ανέτρεψαν, οι και μικροτερον καινοτομούντες.

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these should not be reduced to the categorical arrangements of the logicians, nor should the attempt be made to invest the Master with the livery of the servant. The things of God are best explained in the words of God. And he errs, who supposes that he can expound the secrets of theology more accurately, clearly, and efficaciously or intelligibly, than in those terms and phrases, which the Apostles (after the prophets) made use of; terms dictated by him who gave the faculty of language, who formed the hearts of all, and, who therefore best knows, in what manner the heart should be instructed and moved. He that speaketh, let him speak as the oracles of God, not as the idle and repulsive barbarity of the schoolmen, but as the Holy Ghost giveth utterance. Let the man of God believe me, that it is neither for his own honour, nor that of the wisdom which he professes, to vex these august mysteries with the obscure forms of dialectic skirmishing, to bring in the tedious comments, the grandiloquence, the ludicrous expressions, and the sonorous emptiness of the schools, as the very vitals of Theology, and to bind the queen of sciences with pedantic fetters of clanking technicalities.

Speak simply, if you would duly maintain the honour which has been mentioned; not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Aim, in all your instructions, not to fill the minds of your hearers with vain fancies, but to edify them in faith, to excite them in love, that they may shine in holiness, and rise to the likeness of God. O that henceforth that holy method of theologizing, longed for by so many saints, might prevail in the reformed Seminaries, which should not sink into servile musing, nor evaporate in litigious strife, but shine with vivid lustre in the mind, light up living fire in the heart, and transfuse our Nazarites into the mould of heavenly truth! But with what feelings, and with what success, will that man labour, who has not first framed his own life in a manner conformable to God? And this brings us to the last thing mentioned as requisite to complete the Theologian,-an unblemished purity of morals answerable to his profession. It is the Lord's will to be sanctified in all that draw nigh unto him, and that his priests should be clothed with righteousness. Unless they are examples to believers in every Christian virtue, and can say with Paul, "Those things which ye have learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me,