Sciences. Both the one and the other may be employed to the glory of God, and the good of men. But yet I ask, Where hath God declared in his word, that he cannot, or will not make use of men that have it not? Has Moses, or any of the Prophets affirmed this? Or our Lord? Or any of his Apostles? You are sensible all these are against you. You know the Apostles themselves, all except St. Paul, were avdges aɣgauμatoi nai idiwrai, common, unphilosophical, unlettered men.

9." What! Then you make yourselves like the Apostles." Because this silly objection has so often been urged, I will, for once, spend a few words upon it, though it does not deserve that honour. Why, must not every man, whether Clergyman, or Layman, be in some respects, like the Apostles, or go to hell? Can any man be saved, if he be not holy like the Apostles? A follower of them as they were of Christ? And ought not every Preacher of the Gospel, to be in a peculiar manner like the Apostles, both in holy tempers, in exemplariness of life, and in his indefatigable labours for the good of souls? Woe unto every Ambassador of Christ, who is not like the Apostles in this! In holiness; in making full proof of his ministry; in spending and being spent for Christ! We cannot, and therefore we need not be like them, in working outward miracles. But we may and ought, in working together with God for the salvation of men. And the same God who was always ready to help their infirmities, is ready to help ours also. He who made them workmen that needed not to be ashamed, will teach us also rightly to divide the word of truth. In this respect, likewise, in respect of his having help from God, for the work whereunto he is called, every Preacher of the Gospel is like the Apostles. Otherwise he is of all men most miserable,

10. And I am bold to affirm, that these unlettered men have help from God, for that great work, the saving souls from death; seeing he hath enabled, and doth enable them still, to turn many to righteousness. Thus hath he "destroyed the wisdom of the wise, and brought to nought

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the understanding of the prudent." When they imagined they had effectually shut the door, and locked up every passage, whereby any help could come to two or three Preachers, weak in body as well as soul; who they might reasonably believe would, humanly speaking, wear themselves out in a short time: when they had gained their point, by securing (as they supposed) all the men of learning in the nation: He that sitteth in heaven laughed them to scorn, and came upon them by a way they thought not of. Out of the stones he raised up those who should beget children to Abraham. We had no more foresight of this than you. Nay, we had the deepest prejudices against it untill we could not but own, that God gave wisdom from above to these unlearned and ignorant men; so that the work of the Lord prospered in their hands, and sinners were daily converted to God.

Indeed in the one thing which they profess to know, they are not ignorant men. I trust there is not one of them who is not able to go through such an examination, in substantial, practical, experimental Divinity, as few of our Candidates for holy Orders, even in the University (I speak it with sorrow and shame, and in tender love) are able to do. But, oh! what manner of examination, do most of those Candidates go through? And what proof are the Testimonials commonly brought (as solemn as the form is wherein they run) either of their piety or knowledge, to whom are intrusted those sheep which God hath purchased with his own blood!

11. "But they are Laymen. You seem to be sensible yourself, of the strength of this objection. For as many as you have answered, I observe you have never once so much as touched on this." I have not. Yet it was not distrust of my cause, but tenderness to you which occasioned my silence. I had something to advance on this head also: but I was afraid you could not bear it. I was conscious to myself, that some years since, to touch this point, was to touch the apple of my eye. And this makes me almost unwilling to speak now; lest I should shock the

prejudices I cannot remove. Suffer me, however, just to intimate to you some things, which I would leave to your farther consideration. The Scribes of old, who were the ordinary preachers among the Jews, were not Priests; they were not better than laymen. Yea, many of them were incapable of the Priesthood, being of the tribe of Simeon, not of Levi. Hence probably it was, that the Jews themselves never urge it as an objection to our Lord's preaching, (even those who did not acknowledge or believe, that he was sent of God in an extraordinary character,) that he was no priest after the order of Aaron. Nor indeed could be; seeing he was of the tribe of Judah. Nor does it appear, that any objected this to the Apostles. So far from it, that at Antioch in Pisidia, we find the Ruler of the Synagogue sending unto Paul and Barnabas, strangers just come into the city," saying, Men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on," Acts xiii. 15.

If we consider these things, we shall be less surprised at what occurs in the 8th chapter of the Acts; "At that time there was a great persecution against the church, and they were all scattered abroad:" [i. e. all the church, all the believers in Jesus throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria,] (ver. 1.) “Therefore they that were scattered abroad, went every where preaching the word," (v. 4.) Now what shadow of reason have we to say, or think, that all these were ordained before they preached?

12. If we come to later times; Was Mr. Calvin ordained ? Was he either Priest or Deacon? And were not most of those whom it pleased God to employ in promoting the Reformation abroad, laymen also? Could that great work have been promoted at all in many places, if laymen had not preached? And yet how seldom do the very Papists urge this, as an objection against the Reformation? Nay, as rigorous as they are in things of this kind, they themselves appoint, even in some of their strictest orders, that "if any lay brother believes himself called of God, to preach as a Missionary, the Superior of the Order, being informed thereof, shall immediately send him away.”

In all Protestant churches, it is still more evident, that Ordination is not held a necessary prerequisite of preaching for in Sweden, in Germany, in Holland, and, I be lieve, in every reformed Church in Europe, it is not only permitted, but required, that before any one is ordained, (before he is admitted even into Deacon's orders, wherever the distinction between Priests and Deacons is retained) he should publickly preach a year or more, ad probandum facultatem. And for this practice, they believe they have the authority of an express command of God: "Let these first be proved: then let them use the office of a Deacon being found blameless," 1 Tim. iii. 10.

13. "In England, however, there is nothing of this kind; no layman is permitted to speak in public." No! Can you be ignorant, that in a hundred churches they do it continually? In how many (particularly in the West of England) does the parish-clerk read one of the lessons? (In some he reads the whole service of the church, perhaps every Lord's day.) And do not other laymen constantly do the same thing, yea, in our very cathedrals? Which being under the more immediate inspection of the Bishops, should be patterns to all other churches.

Perhaps it will be said, "But this is not preaching.' Yes, but it is, essentially such. For what is it to preach, but prædicare Verbum Dei? To publish the word of God? And this laymen do all over England; particularly under the eye of every Bishop in the nation.

Nay, is it not done in the Universities themselves? Who ordained that singing man at Christ-Church? Who is likewise utterly unqualified for the work, murdering every lesson he reads? Not even endeavouring to read it as the word of God, but rather as an old song! Such a layman as this, meddling at all with the word of God, I grant is a scandal to the English nation.

To go a step farther.-Do not the fundamental constitu tions of the University of Oxford, the statutes, even as revised by Archbishop Laud, require every Bachelor of Arts, nine in ten of whom are laymen, to read three public

lectures in Moral Philosophy, on whatever subject he chooses? My subject, I well remember, was, the Love of God. Now, what was this but preaching?

Nay, may not a man be a Doctor of Divinity even in Oxford, though he never was ordained at all? The instance of Dr. Attwell, (late) Rector of Exeter College, is fresh in every one's memory.-These are a few of the considerations that may readily occur to any thinking man on this head. But I do not rest the cause on these. I believe it may be defended a shorter way.

14. It pleased God by two or three ministers of the Church of England, to call many sinners to repentance; who, in several parts, were undeniably turned from a course of sin, to a course of holiness. The ministers of the places where this was done, ought to have received those ministers with open arms; and to have taken them who had just begun to serve God, into their peculiar care; watching over them in tender love, lest they should fall back into the snare of the devil. Instead of this, the greater part spoke of those ministers, as if the devil, not God, had sent them. Some repelled them from the Lord's table: others stirred up the people against them, representing them even in their public discourses, as Fellows not fit to live: Papists, Heretics, Traitors; Conspirators against their King and Country.

And how did they watch over the sinners lately reformed? Even as a leopard watcheth over his prey. They drove some of them also from the Lord's table; to which, till now, they had no desire to approach. They preached all manner of evil concerning them, openly cursing them in the Name of the Lord. They turned many out of their work; persuaded others to do so too, and harrassed them all manner of ways. The event was, That some were wearied out, and so turned back to their vomit again. And then these good pastors gloried over them, and endeavoured to shake others by their example.

15. When the ministers by whom God had helped them before, came again to those places, great part of their work was to begin again, if it could be begun