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superstition, and error of every name.

Going forth in the armour of light, like the sun in the morning, the shades of night retired from their presence, and the cheerful beams of day so gladdened the eyes and hearts of their converts that they loved darkness no more. Let us go and do likewise.

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An intimate acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures is the first qualification for a Preacher of the Gospel, the best furniture for regenerating men. St. Augustine, in his celebrated Treatise on Preaching, thus writes:He, then, who handles and teaches the word of God, should be a defender of the true faith, and a vanquisher of error: he should both teach what is good, and unteach what is bad: and in accomplishing this, which is the object of Preaching, he should conciliate the adverse, excite the remiss, and point out to the ignorant their duty and future prospects. When, however, he finds his audience favourably disposed, attentive, and docile, or succeeds in rendering them so, then other things are to be done, as the case may require. If they are to be instructed, then, to make them acquainted with the subject in question. narration must be employed: and to establish what is doubtful, recourse must be had to reasoning and evidence. If they are to be moved rather than instructed, then, to arouse them from stupor in putting their knowledge into practice, and bring them to yield full assent to those things which they confess to be true, there will be need of the higher powers of eloquence; it will be necessary to entreat, reprove, excite, restrain, and do whatsoever else may prove effectual in moving the heart.

"All this, indeed, is what most men constantly do, with respect to those things which they undertake to accomplish by speaking. Some, however, in their way of doing it, are blunt, frigid, inelegant: others ingenuous, ornate, vehement. Now, he who engages in the business of which I am treating, must be able to speak and dispute with wisdom, even if he cannot do so with eloquence, in order that he may profit his audience; although he will profit them less in this case, than if he could combine wisdom and eloquence together. He who abounds in eloquence without wisdom, is certainly so much the more to be avoided, from the very fact that the hearer is delighted with what it is useless to hear, and thinks what is said to be true, because it is spoken with elegance. Nor did this sentiment escape the notice of those among the ancients, who yet regarded it as important to teach the art of rhetoric: they confessed that wisdom

without eloquence profited states but very little; but that eloquence without wisdom profited them not at all, and generally proved highly njurious. If, therefore, those who taught the precepts of eloquence, even Chough ignorant of the true, that is, the celestial wisdom which cometh down from the Father of Lights,' were compelled, by the instigations of truth, to make such a confession, and that, too, in the very books in which their principles were developed; are we not under far higher obligations to acknowledge the same thing, who are the sons and daughters of this heavenly wisdom? Now a man speaks with greater or less wisdom, according to the proficiency he has made in the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures. I do not mean simply in reading them and committing them to memory, but in rightly understanding them, and diligently searching into their meaning. There are those who read them and yet neglect them -who read them to remember the words, but neglect to understand them. To these, without any doubt, those persons are to be preferred, who, retaining less the words of the Scriptures, search after their genuine signification with the inmost feelings of the heart. But better than both is he. who can repeat them when he pleases, and at the same time understand them as they ought to be understood ”—Augustinus de arte Præ· dicandı. Translated from the Latin.

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Luther s favourite maxim was " Bonus Textuarius, Bonus Theologus," "One well acquainted with the Scriptures, makes a good theologian." There is one thing, above all others, which ought never to be lost sight of by the man who aspires to be "an able minister of the New Testament." This all-important consideration is, that the end and object of all his labours is to recover man from his lapsed state, and to impress the moral image of God upon the moral nature of man. To draw this image upon the heart -to transform the minds of men into the likeness of God in all moral feeling is the grand design of God in the Gospel of his noble end he has instituted the ministry of the word. which the minds of men are to be cast is the Apostles' doctrine; or the seal by which this impression is to be made is the testimony of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ. The Gospel facts are like so many types which when scientifically arranged by an accomplished compositor, make a complete form, upon which, when the mind of man is placed by the powerful energy of the Holy Spirit, every type makes its full impression on the heart. We borrow this similitude from the Apostle Paul, Ro

Son, and for this

The mould into

mans, vi. 17. There is written upon the understanding and engraved upon the heart, the will, or law, or character, of our Father who is in heaven.

The Apostles were those accomplished compositors, who gave us a perfect" form of sound words." Human instrumentality consists in bringing the minds of men to this form, or impressing it upon their hearts. To do this most effectually, the Preacher must have the Word of Christ dwelling in him richly, in all wisdom; and he must "study to shew himself an approved workman, irreproachable, rightly dividing the word of truth." He that is most eloquent and wise in the Holy Scriptures; he who has them most at command, will have the most power with men; because, being furnished with the words of the Holy Spirit, he has the very arguments which the Spirit of God chooses to employ in quickening the dead and turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. For to the efficiency of the living and powerful Word of God, the Apostles bear ample testimony. "Of his own will," says James," he has begotten us by the word of truth." James, i. 18. "Being born again," says Peter, "not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which abideth for ever." 1 Peter, i. 23. And to the fruits of his labours, such a Preacher may say, with Paul, "To Jesus Christ, ihrough the gospel, I have begotten, or regenerated you.” 1 Cor. iv. 15.

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