because without it the Christian religion would decay, and finally disappear. It is essential to its organisation, and to its efficient discharge of its duties; but we believe that it is not necessary that it should be in all things exactly the same as the primitive model. The Christian ministry does not exist for itself, but for the good of the community. Its justification is that it supplies certain definite needs of Christ's body. If those needs are supplied, that is all that is required. But we may fearlessly assert that it is at least probable that that form of Church government which was early adopted, and has generally prevailed, will be found to conduce most to the spiritual edification of Christians; and that any branch of the Church which departs from this model runs the risk of omitting something essential to its well-being. A body partially maimed may yet in other respects be full of vigorous life; but it is only by "the effectual working in the measure of every part," that "the whole body maketh increase unto the edifying of itself in love." (Eph. iv. 16.)

Still our final appeal is not to primitive antiquity, however much we may value its testimony, but to the Bible. We believe that the New Testament contains every principle that the Church will ever require for its guidance, and we use the testimony of primitive times, not as a co-ordinate authority, but as a safeguard from error and one-sidedness, being warned in the New Testament itself, that the unlearned violently twist (σтρeßλovσw) both St. Paul's epistles and the other Scriptures, to their own loss. (2 Pet. iii. 16.) The usefulness, therefore, of the ministry would not suffice for its warrant unless it had scriptural authority. But this authority exists. The ordination of St. Paul and Barnabas by the laying on of the hands of the prophets and teachers at Antioch, is not a mere historical fact, but involves the whole principle of ordination. There was apparently no bishop then at Antioch, but the whole Church, with whom finally all authority rests, and whose representative is the bishop, exercised the right of ordination. St. Paul, together with the presbytery, next lays hands on Timothy, in the presence probably of the whole community. (1 Tim. iv. 14; vi. 12; 2 Tim. i. 6.) Timothy is in the same way to ordain others, (1 Tim. v. 22), and men thus ordained are to have their support provided for them by the laity, (Matt. x. 10; 1 Cor. ix. 11, 14). There is even warrant for our present three

fold division of the ministry, though but for the evidence of sub-apostolic times we might have imagined that many other offices mentioned in the New Testament were equally essential with those which we have retained. The warrant for these things, belonging as they do to the outer organisation of the Church, and not to those truths necessary for salvation committed to her keeping, is given in the way of general principles, and not of express command. And no other way was so fit, remembering as we ought to do, that the New Testament was given as the guide of a universal Church throughout all time, during which she must adapt herself to an infinity of external circumstances. But in the modification and application of these general principles, it would be folly to suppose that every particular Church will use equal wisdom. Of communities, as of men, it is ever the case that some so use God's gifts as to earn with them ten talents, while others stop short at five, or at two. It may even be that the talent may be so misused, as finally to be taken away. One object of the seven messages to the Churches of Asia evidently was thus to show that each Church, as well as each individual, has its own probation, and comes nearer to, or departs farther from, the full measure of perfectness. (Compare Rev. ii. 4, 9, 14; iii. 8, &c.)

Using the New Testament thus as our store-house of principles, we farther find in what way the Church is to provide the means for the maintenance of the ministry, of the poor, and generally of every good work. Every Lord's day each Christian is to lay by him in store a definite portion of his income during the week. (1 Cor. xvi. 2.) Were this order conscientiously observed we should need neither endowments, nor poor laws, nor government grants, nor rates in aid of education, nor missionary societies, nor societies for spiritual aid, or for the promotion of Christian knowledge. A parish must be richly endowed indeed for its endowments and the poor rates together to amount to the sum spent by the labouring class alone in beer-shops, to the detriment alike of body and soul. Of the classes above them, the two hundred and fortieth part of their incomes may fairly be calculated at a million and a half. Were the whole community to set apart the tenth of its income for pious and benevolent uses, not only would the ministers, the schools, the sick, the poor, the widows and orphans of every denomination

be amply provided for, but there would be a surplus for missionary and general use, so large that it would be difficult to expend it wisely.

To expect the Christian Church, however, to act up to the standard of the New Testament is chimerical. Endowments, poor laws, government grants, have robbed us of the grace of giving, and the clergy, instead of devoting their time to the work of the ministry and to prayer, have to manage "charities," as they are called, and to beg trifles from door to door for the support of their schools and parochial institutions. St. Paul would not hear of "any gatherings when he came," nor ought such gatherings to be any part of the presbyter's duty. It is the office of the deacon to take care of and distribute the funds of the Church.

Practically we have no diaconate; the word is applied with us to candidates for priest's orders. This is a modification for the worse. While retaining the name we have lost the reality of one of the three orders of the Christian ministry, and are so far as completely maimed as presbyterian churches are maimed by the loss of the episcopate. The alienation from our Church of so many of the laity, especially among the trading classes, is the loss we suffer. Were St. Paul's principles carried out, every parish would need several deacons to manage its common funds, and attend to the sick, the poor, and the schools. They would be chosen from the most godly and trustworthy members of the community, and would compact it firmly together. At present the presbyter and churchwarden perform the deacon's duties after a fashion by which even the churchwarden is generally excluded from his legal functions. As for the presbyter, he well knows what a miserable part of his labours are those gatherings, with which St. Paul would absolutely have nothing to do, and which are inappropriate, and even an indignity to his office.

There is scriptural warrant, therefore, for the existence of a ministry entirely devoted to sacred duties, warrant also for its consisting of various orders; express command for its maintenance, and ample means provided. We have also asserted that it supplies certain needs of the Church. What are these? In other words what are the duties of the Christian ministry?

Our Church teaches us that they are twofold. The first to

preach the pure Word of God, the second to administer the sacraments duly according to Christ's ordinance. (Art. XIX.) What says Holy Scripture? What is the testimony of primitive antiquity as to these things? The appeal to these "old ways' is the more necessary now because preaching the Gospel is not at present in fashion. Clergymen who attach importance to it are treated as beings supremely ridiculous, who had their little day a few years ago, but are now entirely gone by. But when we turn from the sacerdotal literature, which now issues from the press in floods, to St. Paul's Epistles, we find a very different state of thought prevailing. "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." (1 Cor. i. 17.) "We preach the Word of Faith." (Rom. x. 8.) "We preach Christ crucified." (1 Cor. i. 23.) His leading idea, the one duty he recognised, was preaching; nay, in so doing he did but follow a higher example. "Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the, Kingdom." (Matt. iv. 23.) The risen Saviour even declared that the one object of all revelation was "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached." (Luke xxiv. 47.) And when we come to express commands it is still the same, "A bishop must be apt to teach." (1 Tim. iii. 2.) Teaching in every possible way is the highest duty of the ministry, and the verdict of primitive times entirely agrees in this with the Word of God.

Thus Cyprian, the very model of a bishop, says "the bishop must not only teach, but also learn, because he teaches the better who daily grows and profits by learning better things." The one idea in Chrysostom's treatise on the Priesthood is that every one called to the office must be eloquent as well as versed in the Scriptures, that he may be able to preach and teach the truth and refute heresies. It would be superfluous, however, to bring numerous quotations in proof of what no one can deny, and I shall therefore adduce but one more testimony: St. Ambrose excuses himself for writing a treatise on morals by saying, "We cannot escape the duty of teaching, because this is an obligation imposed upon us by our ordination.Ӡ It

*"Oportet enim episcopum non tantum docere sed et discere, quia ille melius docet, qui quotidie crescit et proficit discendo meliora."-Ep. ad Pomp. ad fin.

"Effugere non possimus officium docendi quod nobis imposuit sacerdotii necessitudo."-De Off., 1. i. 1.

would indeed be a great mistake to suppose that our pulpit ministrations exhaust our office of teaching: far from it. But

it is one of our most powerful means of usefulness, and we & Cook as clergy of the Church of England are untrue to our Church/rned that if we regard it as our secondary duty, and not as our first.

For when we were ordained the Bishop put-not a mass bookA but-a Bible into the hand of every one, and said, "Take thou, ém authority to preach the Word of God, and to minister the Holy untied in or Sacraments." The preaching God's Word is put first, the admi

nistration of the sacraments, as in Article XIX., is the second duty of the priesthood.

But, while human nature remains such as it is, it is impossible that this duty of teaching can be adequately performed except by men specially trained for the purpose, and who afterwards have both the will and the opportunity for study. Teachers who cannot understand the Scriptures in their original tongues, nor read with some degree of ease the writings of the old Fathers, can be at best but blind guides; but in these days, when so many of the laity do study, it does not follow that their hearers will be blind also. And whenever the clergy of any Church neglect "the reading of the Scriptures, and such other studies as help to the knowledge of them "-an obligation imposed upon our clergy by their ordination vows-necessarily the same luxuriant crop of false doctrines and puerilities and superstitions will again spring up which in the middle ages was the result of the general ignorance which then prevailed. Like causes ever produce like effects. A learned clergy is absolutely necessary, if the Church is to continue sound in the Faith. Without learning, the clergy are at the mercy of whatever happens to be at the moment the noisiest party, and will be carried unresistingly along by whatever "movement " happens to be in vogue. But the man who studies his Bible and has made himself acquainted with the history of the Church, and especially of the development of doctrine within her, is not thus at the mercy of every fashionable heresy. For he has a standard for his faith, and finds too many warnings in the past history of opinion to let himself drift with the stream.

Further, it is at least seemly that the public services of the Church should be confided to men especially set apart and ordained for their performance. Although laymen undoubtedly