And since we have been in the sacred office, what have we been about? How have our hearts been towards our Saviour? How have we studied our Bibles? How have we persevered in the spirit of prayer? How have we watched against the world? How have we sought to overcome the wicked one? How have we honoured the Holy Ghost? How have we glorified Christ our Lord? What have we done with our time, our talents, our opportunities, our influence, our various means of doing good to ourselves and others? I do not speak of infirmities and smaller errors merely, from which none are exempt, nor of the effects of momentary temptations; but I speak of the strain and course of our ministry, of our character and spirit. O what cause have we for the deepest humiliation before our God!

But let us enter yet further into details, that thus our hearts may be filled with godly compunction.

1. What has been the STATE OF OUR HEARTS during the course of our ministry? Have there been no declines there? Have we been advancing in love to Christ, in humiliation, in prayer, in communion with God, in devotional study of the Bible, in selfexamination? Have we been "growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ?" Have we been "in the love of God?" Have we felt as the ministers of Christ? Alas! brethren, if one may speak for another, we have too much departed in heart from the Lord! There has often been a mortal coldness, a decay in the springs of life. The source of all our failures has been in a spiritual torpor and indifference as to Christ, and salvation, and the divine life, within ourselves. We

have sunk too much into the creature, into selfishness, into human wisdom, into the world. God has not had our hearts. We have not loved our Lord

Jesus Christ in fervour and sincerity. Hence our

other evils.

2. What have been THE STYLE AND CHARACTER OF OUR PUBLIC PREACHING? Has it been, in the full sense of the terms, evangelical, close, affectionate, appropriate, searching? Have we preached "Jesus Christ, and him crucified ?" Have we pleaded with souls? Have we aimed simply, intensely at their salvation? Have we followed the model of the holy Apostles? Have we been "instant in season, out of season ?" Have we been earnest, affectionate, importunate, with our hearers? On all these points, God knows what sins we have been committing! God knows how we have "preached ourselves, instead of Christ Jesus the Lord." God knows what tame subordinate topics, what human inventions, what commandments and opinions of men, have sometimes weakened and deformed our public ministry!

3. Our PRIVATE DILIGENCE amongst the families and individual members of our flocks, what has it been? This is the question which Baxter thought he had the greatest occasion to press in the year 1655; and is it not much more applicable in 1829? Have we been as shepherds amongst their flocks? Have we looked after each individual sheep with an eager solicitude? Have we denied ourselves, our own ease, and pleasure, and indulgence, in order to "go after Christ's sheep, scattered in this naughty world, that they might be saved in Christ for ever?" What do the streets and lanes of our cities testify concerning us? What do the

highways and hedges of our country parishes say as to our fidelity and love to souls? What do the houses, and cottages, and sick chambers of our congregations and neighbourhoods speak? Where have we been? What have we been doing? Has Christ, our Master, seen us following his footsteps, and "going about doing good?" Brethren, we are verily faulty concerning this. We have been content with public discourses, and have not urged each soul to the concerns of salvation. We have not brought Christ and his offers, and placed them full before the view of each perishing sinner. We have not pressed these offers upon their acceptance, with the frequency, the affection, the importunity, which the case demanded.

4. But let us enter our studies, and remember all our sins in OUR PRIVATE DUTIES; in our preparation for our public work, in our prayers, in the devotional and close application of truth to our own consciences. O, what do our libraries, and closets, and places of study and preparation say! What has become of all those hours, which we professed to spend in prayer before God, with the Bible in our hands, and our ministry in our hearts! How much time have we frittered away in vain reading; in the gratification of curiosity; in pursuing "oppositions of science falsely so called;" in reading the last new book on divinity; in examining the last new criticism; in amusing our minds with the last review, the last piece of history, the last philosophical dissertation! I speak not against any department of sound and mauly knowledge; in its place, and to certain ministers, at certain times, each is indispensable. But have we kept these things in their places? Have they not superseded

other more immediate duties? Has not our reading been too much governed by inclination, rather than conscience, and a sense of duty? And in the preparing of our sermons, alas! how cold, how formal, have we often been! Prayer has been the last thing we have thought of, instead of being the first. We have made dissertations, not sermons; we have consulted commentators, not our Bibles; we have been led by science, not by the heart: and therefore have our discourses in public, and our instructions in private, been so tame, so lifeless, so uninteresting to the mass of our hearers, so little savouring of Christ, so little like the inspired example of St. Paul.

5. Suffer yet further the word of exhortation, brethren; and let us review our WALK BEFORE MEN, our general carriage, our conduct in our families, our behaviour in the sight of others, our arrangement of our days and hours, our diligence and perseverance in the several branches of our calling. Can we answer before God the questions arising from topics like these? Have we been "wholesome examples of Christ" to our people? Have we been separate from the spirit, fashions, maxims of the world? Have we shown to our people "the more excellent way?" Have we lived, as well as preached, the Gospel of Christ? Have we given an assurance to every one, of sincerity in our doctrine, by our habitual walk? Has our "conversation been in heaven ?" Have we led the way to others in heavenly-mindedness, humility, self-denial, spiritual affections, superiority to the frowns and allurements of the world? willing to bear reproach for Christ? lowed our crucified Saviour to his glory,

Have we been

Have we fol

with our

cross upon our shoulders? Blessed Jesus! Thou knowest the guilt of thy ministers in this respect, above all others! We have been divines, we have been scholars, we have been disputants, we have been students, we have been every thing but the holy, self-denying, laborious, consistent ministers of thy despised Gospel! We have been courting the world; we have been trying to serve God and mammon; we have loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. The state of our hearts has been cold; our public preaching has been defective; our duties amongst our flock, our studies, have been full of evil; but our walk before men, when compared with the spirituality of thy holy example, and the standard of our profession, has been worst of all. It is into this sewer and receptacle that all our secret corruptions have been flowing; it is here they have been poured out. And now, in the review of these instances of our departure from thee, O our God! we would humble ourselves, in an unaffected abasement of soul! But we would not stop here: we would go on to confess before Thee the sad effects of these evils in the general condition of thy church.

6. For our humiliation, beloved brethren, will be far from complete, unless we look our whole state full in the face. Let us consider what have been the consequences of the above more private and personal evils. Let us look back, each of us, on our past history. Let us remember those times of PECULIAR GUILT AND BACKSLIDING, which have dishonoured our God; when Satan has come in like a flood; when we have shamefully yielded to temptation,-disgraced our sacred profession,-grieved, and almost caused