iia*" # ^ o o o o ^3''-^^3 <> if) ! ^ BV 4010 .C65 Cox, Samuel H. 1793-1880, The ministry we need THE MINISTRY WE NEED THREE INAUGURAL DISCOURSES DELIVERED AT Auburii) «7une 18) 1835. 0, //. Ccryi: Act. xviii. 24. NEW- YORK: TAYLOR & GOULD, Brick Church Chapel— opposite the City Hall : H. IVISON & CO. AUBURN. 1835. D. f anibkw, Printer. PREFATORY. The following discourses, published by request of the Prudential Committee, were delivered on occa" sion of inducting the Professor of Sacred Rhe- toric AND Pastoral Theology in the Auburn Theo- logical Seminary. The public exercises were ordered by the Board of Commissioners, to whom apper- tains the general superintendence of the Institution ; who elect all the Officers, Professors, Tutors, Trus- tees, and others entrusted with the immediate admi- nistration of its concerns. The sermon and the charge were delivered by the brethren respectively and re- gularly designated to the service; who have kindly consented, not without some reluctation at the unex- pected request, to submit their manuscripts for publi- cation. The Preacher, an alinnnvs oi" the Seminary, and the brother who officiated as President on the oc- casion — administering the solemnity of inauguration and delivering the consequent charge, were without PREFATORY. ing their common sentiments or the precise topic to be treated throughout; whence the substantial coinci- dence of the whole, may be viewed as more remarka- ble as well as more valuable. We are under no ne- cessity studiously to inquire for the ministry we do NOT NEED comparatively ; since to open our eyes on the present disgracefully contentious and deplorably lacerated condition of some certain and once exem- plary portions of our own church and our own minis- try, is to learn enough for piety and too much for con- solation. Verily there is a fault somewhere, and THAT A great ONE. To whom it properly belongs — there is ONE who knows. May we all learn to say- sincerely, Lord, is it I? The church has no enemies like those in her own bosom ; and she can more hurt herself, than all external enemies combined can hurt her. Why is it that we defer nothing to each other, forbear nothing? Why do we so systematically ela- borate our own weakness, as if a better and hap- pier and holier course of practice could not conso- lidate our forces and augment our strength tenfold ? It would be only a vile affectation here to com- pliment the motives of the disturbers, impeaching only their education and intelligence. We cannot see that godliness is so absurd ; or that the dogma- tism and the love of pov/er, which are universal cha- racteristics — not in equal degrees — of the natural man, might not better account for the disciplined po- hcy of the class in question, whose intolerance seems PREFATORY. 5 to wax prodigious just in ratio as their influence and their numbers progressively wane. We do not mean by this to deny them all claim to piety, but simply to utter vercB voces ah imo pcctore our conviction that genuine piety sustains only a passive and afflicted re- lation to their strife-exciting ways. It is time the pub- lic saw them, as they will not till afterward see them- selves. Our cause bleeds with the wounds of their infliction. Our judicatories are to be tormented, and our churches torn, for future years, with the reckless prosecutions now conducted against some of our wor- thiest and most distinguished ministers by men whose chief distinction in the church or the nation has arisen signally from that origin. This is a cheap way to become distinguished — perhaps not so easily liquidated in the end ! The beginning of strife is as when one leilelh out water : therefore leave off con- tention^ before it he meddled with. It is an honor for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will he meddling. Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof when thy neighbor hath 'put thee to shame. One of the six things which Jehovah hates, yea, one of the seven that are an abomination unto him, is he that soweth discord among brethren. When shall terminate this fratricidal civil war in our spiritual.Israel 1^ Then Ah- ner called to Joab, and said. Shall the sword de- vour FOR EVER ? KNOWEST THOU NOT THAT IT WILL BE BITTERNESS IN THE LATTER END ? An infidel phi- iosopher could make the sane reflection, ' It is an un- 1* 6 PREFATORY. profitable contest to see which can do the other the more harm.' But all thhs may afFect nothing those resolute and committed propugnatorsofa shell of doc- trine, to whom the kernel of goodness is held in less estimation. Perhaps those loho cause divisions and offences, are they who think the least practical for- bearance with their brethren, on almost any points of faith, smaller or greater, to be no virtue at all, but only a sin against their beau ideal of orthodoxy. Let such ponder more largely the constitution of our church ; the general concessions in which it was adopted ; the catholic spirit of its former history ;* as * I extract the following from the Essay t)f the late Dr. Wilson, (James P. of Philadelphia, a truly learned, enlarged, and venerable man,) page 101. When the Westminster Confession and Catechisms were received by the Presbyterian Church in America, and adopted by a Synodical act, in 1729, it was with this pro- viso ; " And in case any minister of the Synod, or any can- didate for the ministry, shall have any scruple, with respect to any article or articles of said Confession, he shall, in time of making said declaration, declare his scruples to the Synod or Presbytery ; who shall, notwithstanding, admit him to the exercise of the ministry, within our bounds, and to ministerial communion, if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruples not essential or necessary, in doctrine, worship, or government." " The act of Synod in 1729, was the basis of union," in 1758. But the discretionary powers of a Presbytery, in trying those whom they are to ordain are secured to them by the word of God, and can neither be taken away nor abandoned. PREFATORY. 7 well as passages like the following, lo which they are referred : Form of Discipline, Chap. IV. 4. Chap. V. 5. 7. 13. 14. 15. Yet even these considerations will be too probably disregarded by men wJio appear to make " the standards " of all possible truth to be, the facts of theology as they understand them, with THEIR philosophy on those facts, and their phraseo- logy on that philosophy: without seeming to know that possibly the want of evangelical virtue, rather than the possession of it, in a remarkably great de- gree, may be quite too intimately connected, with all their error-scenting notoriety, as the standing accusers of their brethren, the lynx-eyed detecters of heresy, and the fomenters of unceasing discord in the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To the Friends and Patrons of Evangehcal Institu- tions in our Country and our Church ; more especially, to the Presbyterians of this large and prosperous State, in all the extent of which Auburn is the only School of the Prophets connected with our own denomination ; and most especially, to those few and far-thinking, as well as generous individuals — our gratitude is forbidden more directly to allude to them, or the public should read their names together with their deeds, whom we must ever thank God for promot- ing as the Benefictors and Distinguished Supporters of this Seminary: to all the favorers on princi])le, ofa pious, sound, educated, scriptural, and accomplished ministry, in the church of God and throughout the whole world, as the ministry we need ; this little 8 PREFATORY. volume, designed alone in subserviency to such a cause, IS most respectfully inscribed, with affec- tionate salutations in our glorious Redeemer, and prayers for his blessing to attend its course, By its editor. Their friend and brother. And servant in the Gospel, Samuel H. Cox. Jit^urrij Jugust 3d, 1836. JfEIHCSIGII I N A u G u R:% L7 E530CO)G I G 5l L BY REV, J. W. ADAMS, A. M. Of Syracuse, New-York. Acts, XX. 31. By the space of three years, I ceased not to xoarn cvei-y one, night and day, with tears. I place much dependence for my discourse to you on this occasion, upon the last two words in this passage. They inform us in one particular how Paul, as a minister of Christ, did his work. It was with tears. No man ever entertained more correct views of the christian ministry than he, nor did any one ever discharge its responsible duties with greater fidelity or success. The world Avould have been evangelized centuries ago, had all who have professed to be Paul's successors in the ministry been anointed for their work as Paul was. He was a learned Jew ; but it was neither his extraction nor his learning that gave him his eminence in the ministry, for many a 10 INAUGURAL SERMON. gentile has been called of God to the same work, possessing stores of learning altogether more extensive and varied than his. He was an apostle, acting on the authority of an extraordinary commission, and endowed with supernatural gifts and powers. His extraordinary commission however did not authorize him to preach an extraordinary gospel, or to enforce its claims by extraordi- nary means. It distinguished him from us chiefly by the plenary authority with which it clothed him, to adjust the ordinances of the infant church. We preach the same gospel which he did, and we have the same facilities of giving it a lodgment in the heart, which he had, if we except the demonstra- tions of miraculous power that were placed at his disposal. But what use did he make of these, and what ends were they intended to subserve ? They were simply visible con- firmations of the divine authority under which he acted^ the bright signets which Heaven put into his hands to accredit his commission. But men were converted un- der his ministry just as they are converted now ; not by miracles, but by the Spirit and INAUGURAL SERMON. U truth of God. He was, to be sure, endowed with an opulence of ministerial gifts, so that from that age to this, the church has not seen his like. But what gave him this distinctive and radiant eminence ? Not his commission as an apostle, not his vision, and revelations, and miracles ; but the burning ardor, the in- vincible energy, and the unparalleled self- devotion which he brought to his work. In these respects he stood alone among apostles, and here he holds a solitary prominence among the stars that have since been set in the firmament of the church. No man has ever bestowed upon the propagation of Chris- tianity the same amount of well-directed zeal, exact fidelity, untiring industry, and unfal- tering courage that Paul did. The beamings of his spirit are seen in that small fragment of his history which I have already recited to you. " By the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every one, night and day, with tears." This was his contribution to a single church. But he spent thirty-three years in the ministry, and the whole period was em- ployed just as he had spent the three years at Ephesus. What a multitude of tears must 12 INAUGURAL SERMON. he have shed in that time ! What a victim to emotion must have been the manly spirit of this flaming herald of the cross — for it is manly to weep where there is occasion for weeping ! The sensibilities of the heart, duly excited, are a fragrant atmosphere investing the soul, and shedding its soft and balmy dews on its powers. They are the silver tissues that are woven into the delicate but immortal texture of the mind. They are the electric fluid that pervades the regions of the heart, throwing its subtle influence upon the springs of thought, and shooting its lightnings through every channel where the mind is wont to give expression to its hidden move- ments. Our apostle could not, under any circum- stances, be subject to a suspicion of mental imbecility or of fanatical weakness, as he was under the control of a governing influence from God. His tears came from fountains which that influence had opened and sanc- tified. There must however exist in his mi- nistry, independently of this influence, ade- quate and perceptible causes for them. These causes, it is my intention, in the sequel of INAUGURAL SERMON". 13 this discourse, to bring out distinctly to your view ; for I have proposed to myself to illus- trate and establish the following proposition ; namely, That emotion in the jjreacher is necessary to an effective and successful proclamation of the word of God ; — And also to answer the following inquiry : By what means may this importaiit attri- bute he secured to our ministry ?■ I have however a few preliminary remarks to oifer ; and, 1. By emotion I do not mean a pathetic tenderness, or a weeping sensibility, only and always pervading the bosom ; but those dif- ferent states of the affections which corre- spond with the import of the different themes on which we dwell, and the nature of the varying circumstances by which we are sur- rounded. Nor when I speak of emotion do I mean those indefinable impulses, or sudden bursts of animal feeling which sometimes flood the soul, carrying away the landmarks of reason and thought, and leaving the mind to the mercy of an irresistible tempest of passion. 2 14 INAUGURAL SEHMd]^. But I mean that deep and holy movement of the affections which has been produced by the energy of truth understood and believed ■ such a state of the feehngs as corresponds with the impoj't of truth. When such emo- tions exist in the preacher's mind, they will depict themselves in his countenance j and find expression in every look and tone and gesture. They will infuse into his manner an earnestness and warmth which will leave to the hearer no alternative but a clear convic- tion of the perfect honesty of the speaker's heart. There will be to his audience visible demonstrations of the preacher's faith. 2. In the economy of salvation, the natu- ral relations of thino;s are not overlooked. All the instruments and agencies which God ordinarily employs to give efficiency to the gospel, have an adaj)tedness in themselves to accomplish the ends for which they are employed. Hence the different degrees of" success which attends the ministry of good men. One has more and better qualifications for his work than the other. His ministry has an adaptedness in it to produce effect which the ministry of the other has not. INAUGURAL SERMON. IB The Spirit of God does not employ our agency to accomplish his purposes in the renovation of human hearts, simply because we are good men. If he did, then piety would constitute the only qualification for our work, and the church might dispense with the services of an ordained and instruct- ed priesthood altogether. But this would accord neither with the requisitions of the gospel, the demands of the church, or the nature of things. Such however is not the course which God pursues in the election of agencies to carry forward his designs. He employs appropriate, and ordinarily no other than those which are seen by us to be appro- priate instruments, to accomplish his pur- poses of grace. Now we have to remark that emotion is necessary to render preaching such an instrument, and without it, this agency cannot possess the adaptedness necessary to give it the greatest effect upon mind. This is the aspect under which I wish to present the subject in this discourse. 3. A susceptibility to emotion is not the only qualification which a preacher of the gospel will need. A slight practical acquaint- 16 INAUGURAL SERMON. ance with the difficult and responsible duties of the ministry will teach a man, if he has not learnt it before, that something besides feeling will be requisite to qualify him skil- fully to handle the word of God. He will soon understand that his office has introduced him into a sphere which, adequately to fill, would require an angel's powers, and what- ever the resources of his mind may be, he will ever see occasion to mourn that he has drunk no deeper at the fountains of wisdom and knowledge. When therefore I speak of the importance of emotion, let it at no time be understood that I speak to the disparage- ment of those other endowments for our work which are to be derived only from a thorough acquaintance both with secular and sacred science. The great interests of the church are never so jeoparded as when committed to the care of men who feel strongly but laiow nothing. But we affirm on the other hand, that not all the endowments which the most profound and varied learning can give, will render a frigid preacher of the truth a suc- cessful one. We are prepared now to pro- ceed directly to a consideration of the propo- INAUGURAL SERMON. ITj sition which we have announced — That emotion is necessary to an effective and suc- cessful dispensation of the word of God. I. It cannot be denied that the themes on lohich the preaclier dwells demand emotion^ and are adapted, to inspire it. The minis- ter of Jesus is a legate of the skies. When he speaks in his official character, he speaks for God, and when he pleads with men, he pleads with them on the behalf of God . The mission on which he is sent is one of mercy, involving however the most extended and multifarious interests. On the part of God he is charged with the vindication of the honors of his throne, and the rights of his government ; and in the prosecution of this high commission is brought up to a near mental view of the ineffable glories of the eternal Godhead, and is conversant with scenes and objects that awe and thrill and charm the heavenly world. When he pleads for God, he is called to a contemplation of the most surprising benignity, the most inimi- table love, and the most affecting condescen- sion, all however misrepresented, and abused, and scorned, in this fallen world ; and when 18 INAUGURAL SERMON. he pleads with man, he pleads with an im- mortal being, convicted of treason against the government of God, and condemned for his crimes to a state of punishment for which, irrespective of the gospel, there is no relief, and to which there can be no termination. He meets him at a moment when, for any thing that is known, the alternative is before the sinner to escape then or never from im- pending ruin. His work with him is the work of an ambassador of God, bearing ac- credited conditions of pardon, and charged to make the overture with every testimony of love, and every demonstration of concern, which a creature is capable of giving, on the behalf of God. To find now that his mes- sage meets with no accordant response from the sinner's heart ; that the apathy of death has spread itself over all his faculties, or the keen resentments of injured pride have pre- pared him for aflat denial of the claims of God, what can be more solemn or impressive than the crisis? What a time to the faithful am- bassador, for the heavings of emotion and the pleadings of love ? Can he view such a scene and maintain a philosophical compo- INAUGURAL SERMON. 19 sure? This is a fellow-man, endowed with the same susceptibility to pain and pleasure with himself. Must he be shut out of heaven ? Must he bear no part in the sweet and im- mortal songs that will be chanted in that happy world ? Must his eye ever weep, and his bosom heave with grief, and the waves of eternal sorrow dash and roll over his fright- ened and fainting spirit ? Here is a pardon written out, and sealed with blood, bearing the impress of the cross, and proffered on terms the most gracious and condescending. But he rejects it. It opens to his soul the only refuge from impending wrath. But he refuses to embrace it. He is standing on the jutting and slippery edge of that deep abyss where billows of fire are rolling, and the slightest breath of God's anger may at any moment sweep him from his position, and bury him in the flood below. Has the mes- seno^er who is sent to warn him of his dangler and plead with him to escape, no reason for emotion ? Is no occasion given to his heart to dissolve and his eye to weep ? The bene- volence of the gospel can execute no com- mission like this, and leave the heart unsoft- ened by its influence. 20 INAUGURAL SERMON. The svfferings of Christ are the central point from which the bright beams of the gospel all radiate and diverge. The preach- er of the gospel must therefore be often at the cross. He must often look upon the bleeding sacrifice, and take account of the doings of that dreadful hour when the powers of dark- ness were unchained, and Christ was devoted a victim to their rage. In the circumstances attending the tragedy of his death— the treach- ery in which it was commenced, the dupli- city and subornation by which it was carried forward, and in the barbarous cruelties with which the horrid scene was closed, there is enough to subdue and melt the hardest heart. But join to these considerations, the perfect and acknowledged innocence of Jesus, to- gether with the fact that he was a vokmtary victim to these tortures, and more than all, endured them for his mortal enemies, not excluding even the incarnate demons that spiked his limbs and danced around his cross, and who can refrain from emotion? Was ever love like this — so pure, so comprehen- sive, so vast, and yet burdened with such sorrows and humbled to such a death ? Its INAUGURAL SERMON. 21 achievements on the cross effected the world's redemption. Here hangs all human hope. How can we handle themes like these, how can we deal with interests so interminable and vast, and not be the subjects of emotion sometimes unutterable, always fervid and deep? " The stupendous magnitude of the objects which the Bible proposes to man, the incom- parable sublimity of eternal pursuits, the as- tonishing scheme of redemption by a Media- tor, the native grandeur of a rational and immortal beings stamped with the impress of God," the ruins which sin has produced, and the renovations which almighty grace achieves, open to the preacher fields of vision and thought, able to awe, and fire, and fill, and sublimate, the most capacious mind. II. It is a demonstrative denial of the truth and iinportance of our message not to have emotion in the proclamation of it. It results from the structure of the human mind, that truths believed will affect in proportion to their importance. Who does not look to have a convict, sentenced to death upon the scaffold, and before whose eyes the prepara- 22 INAUGURAL SERMON. tions for his execution are going forward, agita- ted and convulsed by the prospect before him? Insensibihty under these circumstances would constitute undeniable proof, either of a moral paralysis, or of an invincible unbelief Wheth- er it were the one or the other, all who beheld him would regard him as a monster whom humanity should disown, or a victim to de- lusion over whom humanity should weep. The preacher of the gospel is conversant with truths of the most solemn import both to himself and his hearers ; and when as an ambassador of God he stands in the presence of dying men to give utterance and demon- stration to them, where this side of eternity could he find a position so fraught with re- sponsibility, or surrounded with circumstan- ces so solemn and affecting ? If standing as he does, between the living and the dead, with the world above lending him its sym- pathies, and the world beneath plotting defeat to his aims — himself a messenger of God to those who are objects of strife to both — no kindlings of interest, no throbbings of emotion are felt in his bosom, what must angels, what must devils think ? The scene is one which Inaugural sermon. 23 must strike with amazement the spectators from both worlds. But a more solemn con- sideration is the effect which his apathy must have upon those to whom he addresses his message. For these, what remains but to deduce the conclusion, either that the gospel is a fabrication, or the man who proclaims it, a traitor to his trust ? Whichever alternative is taken, the avenues of conviction will be closed, and the dominion of impenitence be rendered more settled and severe. Let a philosophical indifference surround the man who undertakes to speak in the name of God to his dying fellow-creatures on the concerns of eternity ; let a dozing apathy in- fuse itself into his manner, or let him talk and act like one who has only a professional task to perform, and what can save his mes- sage from the influence of a counter testimo- ny, drawn directly from the living example of its inefUcacy, standing before their eyes J Under these circumstances it will be obvious to his hearers, that he neither believes what he saySj nor is concerned to have them be- lieve it. Not only will he not commend himself to the conscience, but he will bring 24 INAUGURAL SERMON. the influence of his experience to bear against the truth of his message. Who can tell upon how many minds the chains of impenitence have been riveted fast and for ever, by such preaching, even where truth, and truth only, has been proclaimed? A man is said to have been despatched by the citizens of a certain town, to a neighboring city, to obtain help to extinguish a fire. He went in haste ; but when he arrived there, he adjusted his spirit to a temperature of very great deliberation that he might courteously address his friends. He then enquired as usual after their welfare, and interchanged with them the civilities that are common on occasion of meeting friends. His attention was next diverted to a piece of mechanism that stood by, which he very deliberately ex- amined. After this he turned himself to those around him, and without betraying the least emotion, announced to them the object of his visit, and desired that they would, as soon as their convenience would allow, despatch the assistance necessary to extinguish the fire. It is needless to add that the story was re- garded as a fabrication, and his request treat- INAUGURAL SERMON. 25 ed iis all idle whim. The town, in conse- (|uence, was left to be consumed to ashes. Now let me ask, what Avas wanting to obtain credit for the story which he told? Only the evidence of strong emotion. Had he acted like a man who was nnder the influence of a perfect faith in the truth of his own testi- mony, others would have believed him, and he would have obtained the thing that he desired. But his indifference converted truth into falsehood, and what was at first only ignorance in his hearers, became at last an obstinate incredulity. So the truths of the gospel, solemn and momentous as they are, degenerate into idle tales in the hands of a speculative and heartless ministry. " Why," said, an eminent divine to Garrick the trage- dian, " why do we who preach the solemn truths of Christianity have so few to hear or believe us, while you who deal only in fiction have weeping throngs continually hanging on your lips?" '• The reason is," replied the actor, "you represent truth as fiction, we represent fiction as truth." III. The advantages ithich truth has in the hands of a living preacher over the same 3 26 INAUGURAL SERIVION". Irilth oil the "pages of inspiration^ consist onainly in the power which the preacher pos^ sesses of giving expression to the various emotions which truth is adapted to inspire. On the pages of the Bible truth has only an historical or abstract existence. In the per- son of its heralds, it has form and motion and life and speech. In them its spirit has ex- pression, and all its divine lineaments are drawn out in living beauty, and the impress of its lovely image is seen beaming from the preacher's eye. Through this medium a sympathy is begotten in the mind of the hear- er with the things of another world. Preju- dices are dissolved, and indifference broken up, and truth is brought in contact with the heart, and the interests of the mind are insen- sibly aroused, and unseen agencies open a pathway into the recesses of the soul for the entrance of light and truth. These are among the primary reasons why preaching, and not the inanimate page of revelation, has been constituted the grand instrument of conver- sion to God. It possesses an adaptedness to accomplish this end which the Bible does not, and the Bible alone, though circulated through INAUGURAL SERMON. 27 the wide world, would never bring its popu- lation to God. The power residing in the human voice and countenance to give ex- pression to the varying emotions of the mind, is that chiefly which imparts to it this supe- riority. IV. It is true in jjoint of fact ^ that those preachers u-ho have been distinguished for this characteristic have been far more snc- cessful than otJicrs. There is an extraordi- nary unction and power attending the preach- ing of our own day. There is scarcely any portion of mind within the limits of Christen- dom that has not been waked and moved by it. Unnumbered revivals of religion, attend- ed with great power, and bringing multitudes of converts to Christ, have followed it ; and the church has been consolidated, and roused, and strengthened, and marshalled to efficient and systematic action, by its influence. But what is the prominent featnre by which the ministry of the present day is distinguished from that of other and less favored periods of the church ? Not intellectual vigor, or men- tal furniture, but in the fire and unction of its eloquence. It is a practical and impas- 28 INAUGURAL SERMON. sioned ministry, trained to action and baptized into the spirit of its mission. We cannot here call your attention to the comparative merits of individuals among: our cotempora- ries. But we may take a comparative view of the separate organizations of the church. Where has preaching exerted its widest and most captivating influence ? Among the Methodists in America, and the Welch Pres- byterians in England. The eloquence of the Welch pulpit is stately, but impassioned, and for a long period has been celebrated for its persuasive and enchanting powers. Its in- fluence is felt upon every grade of mind, and it has given to the gospel the most complete and signal triumphs which it has any where achieved in modern times. But the distin- guishing feature of the Welch pulpit is emo- tion. It was once remarked of the preachers of the Methodist church, by a learned infidel, that were they only panoplied in the literary armor which is worn by the preachers of certain other sects, they would in five years make a conquest of the world ; — an indiffer- ent compliment indeed to the intelligence of INAUGURAL SERMON. 29 its ministry, but honorable in the highest de- gree to the unction and energy with which it is endowed. If we pass now to other periods of the church, you shall find them fraught with illustrations of the same truth. Who among the cotemporaries of Whitfield will wear in heaven a crown studded with more or bright- er gems than he ? But what were the pecu- liar attributes of his preaching? Lucid illus- tration and fervid thought. The magic power of his eloquence resided in the inimitable pathos that was breathed into it. Baxter was called the apostle of his age, and Barrow the Shakspeare of the church. The former was a weeping prophet, the lat- ter a learned and stately divine. Both of them were good men ; but I had rather wear the crown that will press the brow of Baxter in heaven, than that which will adorn the head of his eloquent and gifted cotemporary. Go on to the age of the apostles. Wlien was the church ever served by such a minis- try, or the world so agitated and moved by the operations of twelve honest men ? They were without patronage, or wealth, or learn- 3* 30 INAUGURAL SERMON. ing,* or friends, but their voice reached the ear of kings, and carried troubled thought into their bosoms, and shook their thrones, and electrified the nations, and changed the spirit and customs of the age. " The weapons of their warfare were not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds." The power of God's truth seemed to be concentrated in their hands, and wher- ever they wielded this sword of heavenly temper it '' pierced to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." " They so spake the wordj that multitudes, both of the Jews and also of the Greeks" and other gentiles, believed. What was the secret of their success ? After the demonstrations of the Spirit which at- tended their preaching, and upon which all success depends, it was the artless manner in which they told the story of the cross, and the honest fervor with which they bore their testimony to its collateral and dependent truths. They were men whose spirit was *When I say they were without learning, I do not mean that tliey were novices, having no suitable qualifications for their work, but that they were not profoundly schooled in the science of the nge. INAUGURAL SERMON. 31 fired and filled with the import of their solemn message. They went forth burdened with the magnitude of their work, keeping their eye on the consequences of their ministry, and remembering always, that " they w^ere unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish ; to the one the savor of death unto death, to the other, the savor of life unto life."' No won- der that the chiefest of them all should have exclaimed, under the pressure of these over- whelming responsibilities, '' Who is sufficient for these things V The ministry of the prophets was charac- terized by the same spirit. '• O," said one of them, when contemplating the sins and the afflictions of the church, " O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people :" and when he saw how the people turned away their ear from hearing the law, he exclaimed in the lanauaofe of unaflfected OTief — " But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in se- cret places for your pride." And as though it were the appropriate business of the Lord's 32 IN'AUGURAL SERMON. prophets to weep, he directed one of them to bear this message to his companions — " Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them." But we have higher authority with which to urge the claims of our subject than the example of apostles or prophets. Our Lord, who was consecrated to an unchangeable priesthood, and held the stars of the churches in his right hand, was for a season the herald of his own gospel. " He was anointed," he tells us, " to preach good tidings to the meek — to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound — to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God." He executed his commission like one who perfectly comprehended its import, with all the amazing consequences that were to result from it. Well might his disciples, when they saw with what inextinguishable ardor he prosecuted his work, call to mind what had been written of him in the prophets— INAUGURAL SERMOX. 33 " The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.*' As a preacher he was simple, grave, and pun- gent, developing fully the emotions of his mind, and always leaving with his hearers undoubted evidence of the perfect benevo- lence of his heart. Who could have stood nnawed, and faced the lightnings that flashed from his eye, when, roused in spirit, he encountered the captious and hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees, and wo after wo was thundered from his lips ? — Or who could have remained unmoved, under the soft beamings of that radiant countenance, when dissolved into pity, he threw his weeping eye over the blood-stained city of Jerusalem, and exclaimed in view of its approaching doom — " If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes." As a preacher, never man spake or felt like Christ. V. The condition of onr hearers is such as calls for emotion. This topic I have al- ready, to some extent, illustrated. I shall therefore here loarely remark, that in the pre- sent state of the world, the preacher of the gospel may oro where he will, and preach to 34 INAUGURAL SERMON. whom he will, his eye must rest on the coun- tenances of some, of whom it will be impossi- ble not to augur sorrowful things for them in another world. He must see and speak to those who, though accountable to God, and destined to an immortal existence, are yet neglecting the concerns of their souls, and to whom he must entertain the most painful apprehensions that his ministry will prove only a savor of death unto death. To know certainly, while he is mingling with them, and making the overtures of mercy to them^ that in a little season he 7riust meet them at the bar of God, and may there take up a wail- ing over them as he sees them going out from the presence of the Lord to dwell with devils and to be consumed with fires, must touch the heart that is not made of flint. On the other hand, if he do but succeed in rousing them up from their delirious dreams, and in bringing them on to the foundations of hope^ with what exulting joy must he anticipate the coronation day, when he shall meet the ran- somed spirits, and the harps of gold shall be strung to their sweetest notes, and the crown all studded and lustrous with these immortal tNAUGURAL SERMON. 35 r^ems, sliall be set upon his temples by tlie hand of Christ. VI. The Spirit of God, as a sanctifying ngent^ exerts hispotver chiefl.y upon the affec- tions^ V)hich are the great sources of emotion. *' The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, orentleness, goodness," and like excellencies. It is not the grand fault of human nature, that it has no mental perception of truth, but that the affections do not correctly?- and ade- quately respond to its imports It is a main design of the inhabitation of the Spirit to cor- rect this evil, and under its influence the af- fections are not only diverted from forbidden to lawful objects, but they are rendered alto- gether more sensitive and vigorous than they were before. It cannot therefore happen, that tiie m.an whose heart is duly subjected to this influence, shall have the sublime and thrilling truths of revelation brought in continual con- tact with his mind, and yet be the subject of no corresponding emotions. The thing is impossible both in philosophy and religion. But has the experience of Christ's ministers corresponded with the truth of our doctrine ? 3(j INAUGURAL .SERMON. Doubtless it has, so far as their experience? has corresponded with the requisitions of the gospel. Look at a single instance. Stephen is described as having been a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. As a consequence, his adversaries were unable to resist the wis- dom and the spirit by which he spake. And if the countenance be regarded as a true in- dex of the heart, what celestial impulses must have throbbed in his bosom, at the moment when "ail that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel?" The mind of this illustrious saint, speaking through " the glory of his countenance," carried burning thoughts into the bosoms of his accusers and judges, and they were awed by the unearthly radi- ance that beamed in his face, more than by the divine eloquence that flowed from his lips. We pass now to a brief consideration of the enquiry connected with this discussion — How may the important attribute of which Ave have been speaking be secured to the ministry ? We have one remark to offer before fur- nishing a direct reply : — If there be any whose INAUGURAL SERMON. 37 natural temperaments are so dull and phleg- matic that their affections can by no labor be disciplined into easy and powerful action, we advise them never to enter the ministry. They may be more useful in any other sphere. Now to the enquiry we reply — 1. Faith is the main spring of all true emotion. There may be sensibility and the excitements of feeling without it, but no deep and intelligent movement of the affections. All excitement produced in any other way, will be evanescent as the morning dews. Faith brings down to the direct view and intimate fellowship of the mind, the things that are unseen and eternal. It gives to the declarations of God, on subjects that are be- yond the cognizance of sense and reason, the influence, and the power of conviction, be- longing to experimental truths. Let the preacher then have faith ; let him credit the truth of the message which he bears ; let him believe in the actual presence, the spotless purity and the infinite knowledge of God ; 4 38 INAUGURAL SERMOK. in short let his faith bring down to his view the judgment day with its awful grandeur^ its terrific scenes, and its changeless issues, and he will have emotion. He will feel and speak like one whose hands are ready to be grasped with those of his impenitent hearers in the weeping adieus of the judgment. 2. The preacher of the gospel must enter- tain profound and practical views of truth, if he would feel an adequate and uniform inte- rest in his work. The great sources of truth are the word and works of God. Here the perfections of the Deity are disclosed. In these, the demonstrations of his Godhead are made, and the glories of his infinite mind unfolded. But the Bible demands the preach- er's first and chief attention. This is the telescope through which the eye of his faith penetrates into distant worlds, and examines with minute attention the character and em- ployments of their inhabitants, and brings back a true report of the laws and statutes and statistics of the kingdom. It is a glorious INAUGURAL SERMON. 39 luminary, hung ont from the moral heavens by God's own liand, designed to iUumine the benighted footsteps of men on their journey to eternity. The book embodies the wisdom of the eternal mind, and every truth which it contains is a gem sent to us from the celes- tial world, and our riches are all treasured up in it. The Bible is therefore filled with truths of such vast interest to us, drawn from foun- tains so deep, and affecting relations so wide and sacred, that it is the proper business of life to study it, and if we study and believe it, we shall feel its pervading influence on every power and passion of the soul. No superficial acquaintance however with this volume, will answer the end which we have here in view. It must be studied, prayerfully, critically, and habitually studied, or many of its divine beauties will forever be concealed from our view, and the freshness which rests on its pages gradually give place to the dull monotony of a cheap and tiresome familiarity. But our work with the Scriptures is not done 40 INAUGURAL SERMON. when we have ascertained their original im- port. There is another and higher object still to be attained, and that is, to imbibe the spirit, and put ourselves in possession of the practi- . cal bearings, of the text. Until this is done the Scriptures will be a dead letter to us, and we may study them forever, and bring to their interpretation the richest stores of learning and the finest powers of criticism, we shall know nothing of them as we ought to know. But whoever studies them to learn his duty, to discipline the aiFections of his heart, and expand his views of the character and works of God, shall find himself the subject of an influence that will fire his soul and endow it with an energy irresistible and divine. 3. Great advantage may be derived from a familiar acquaintance with the writings of such men as Leighton, Baxter, Howe, Ed- wards, and Payson. Purer and brighter spi- rits have never been lodged in tenements of clay. Some of them possessed gigantic pow- ers of mind, and were brilliant luminaries in INAUGURAL SERMON. 41 tlie world of science and letters. All of them '• walked with God," and held familiar and continual intercourse with Heaven. In their writings we have the productions of mature and sanctified minds, enriched by the results derived from a personal acquaintance with the power of Christianity, and disclosing to our view the workings of the heart, when subjected to the ascendant influence of grace. It is impossible to be familiar with their wri- tings without having a glow of holy emula- tion kindled in our bosoms, and experiencing, to some extent at least, an assimilation in temper and habit to them. 4. Parochial labors faithfully performed, will strongly tend to sustain and deepen the interest which we feel in our work. These employments, by bringing us into direct con- tact with the diversified conditions of society, and giving us familiar access to the hearts of our people, will enable us to ascertain, mi- nutely and accurately, the true condition of the souls committed to our charge, and the 4* 42 INAUGURAL SERMON. actual success of our ministry among them. This intercourse will daily bring to our know- ledge facts of the most interesting character, calculated to impress us with a just sense of the importance of our work, and to give us more enlarged and affecting views of the solemn responsibility which it involves. No- thing can more strongly tend to keep a fresh and increasing interest glowing over the field of our labors. 5. To qualify us to speak to others in a spirit that shall commend our message to hem, and reflect honor upon the Master whom we serve, it will be necessary that we make a previous self-application of the truths which we bear to them. This exercise will prepare us to sympathize with our hearers, and I may add, to sympathize with God, as it will imbue our hearts with the spirit of our message and prepare us not only to speak the truth in love, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. 6. I am constrained to remark, that in my INAUGURAL SERMON. 43 jiidgmentj habits of extemporaneous delivery will contribute an important advantage for securing to our preaching the attribute of emotion. Not only are both mind and body sometimes jaded into a state of lassitude by the severe mechanical toil that attends the habitual preparation for manuscriptal preach- ing, but when we come to the labors of the pulpit, there is neither room nor demand for those energetic workings of the mind which are required in extemporaneous delivery. The advantages also which are to be derived from the immediate circumstances of the oc- casion, such as the varying emotions which will find expression in the countenance of the hearer, are nearly lost upon one who is pledged beforehand to a certain train of thought, and can employ only the language in which it is already clothed. But there are imminent dan- gers to be avoided by those who Avould adopt this mode of preaching. It were better to write and re-write every word we have to say, than to fall into those loose and lazy mental 44 INAUGURAL SERMON. liabits, which characterize very many of the extemporaneous preachers of the present day. This is an evil which all the advantages to be derived from extemporaneous preaching cannot counterbalance. But it is an evil which may be avoided, and one for which there can neither be excuse nor apology. Whatever our mode of preaching may be, to secure efficiency and power to our ministry, it will be absolutely necessary that we study much and write much. It will be impossible that we should be either long or extensively useful in any other way. To render habits of extemporaneous preach- ing easy and natural, it will only be necessary that the student address himself to the attain- ment of the art simultaneously with the com- mencement of his other studies ; and pursue it as he pursues them, with a systematic and untiring diligence, and he will have maturity in it when he has maturity in them. Thus the error will be avoided of making room for this habit by breaking down the established INAUGURAL SERMON. 45 dominion of older ones, and of sacrificing to its feeble existence the concord and fellowship which should always exist among them. Let students then not shun, as they sometimes do, but let them court the drilling of professional skill, to secure to them this most important and useful acquisition. After they have once entered the field of their labors, they will never regret any sacrifices of time or patience which they have made to acquire it. Finally ; To give an efficient and sacred unction to our ministry, it will be necessary to accompany it continually with prayer. God is the source, and the only source, whence an influence adequate to this purpose can be de- rived. A holy fervor in his work is the result of an internal anointing of his Spirit. The flame must be kindled at the altar of prayer, and there alone can it be kept burning. He who begins, continues, and ends his labors in prayer, shall assuredly have occasion to re- joice in the last day, that he has neither run in vain nor labored in vain. God will own 46 INAUGURAL SERMON. his ministry, and clothe it with power and salvation. The Theological Institution established in this place, was founded for the purpose of giv- ing to the church such a ministry as we have now imperfectly described, and under the su- pervision of its experienced Faculty, has done all hitherto, which learning, piety, and the most indefatigable industry could accomplish. Some of its graduates are now occupying posts of the highest responsibility in the church at home ; some are traversing the wide wilder- ness of our country, preaching the gospel of the kingdom to its scattered and fainting po- pulation ; and others still are toiling on hea- then shores, breaking the bread of life to them that sit in darkness and in the region and sha- dow of death. Were the institution from this moment to cease its operations and pass out of existence, both the church on earth and the church in heaven would have occasion for- ever to render grateful praise to that benefi- cent Providence which brought it into being. INAUGURAL SERMON. 47 But the task of sustaining its interests and of discharging the difficult and compUcated duties connected with its internal manage- ment, has been hitherto toilsome and onerous to a degree that has loudly called for relief. The venerable men who have shouldered this burden, have borne it without repining, but not without great sacrifices of health and comfort. The present occasion should therefore be one of lively interest and of joyful congratu- lation to all the friends of Zion, not only as it gives to one of her most eminent and venera- ble institutions, an accession of talent, learn- ing, and experience, which cannot fail to deepen the channels through which its re- freshing streams are flowing out to the church, but as it brings relief to the men who have, so to speak, for her sake, jeoparded their lives in the high places of the field. We meet on this occasion, solemnly and officially to induct into office, one who has been chosen by the competent authority to fill the chair of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral 48 INAUGURAL SERMON. Theology in this seminary of sacred science. He brings with him the experience of a long and successful ministry, exercised on one of the lofty and beauteous eminences of Zion ; and, associated with the talent and experience and piety of his distinguished colleagues, will contribute, we trust, to swell that mighty river of salvation, the streams whereof are making glad the city of our God. The post to which he is called is a respon- sible one, as it gives in special charge to him to piould and train the practical and preach- ing talent of our youth. God grant him a fresh and copious anointing of the Spirit, that distant places and distant times may have oc- casion to bless that Providence which lead him to unite his destinies with those of this sacred institution. Brethren in the ministry and members of the churches : This institution will need and must have our patronage and our prayers. The smiles of Divine Providence are indeed beaming INAUGURAL SERMON. 49 sweetly upon it now, but they will not long continue to do so, unless its interests be em- balmed in the affections and nurtured by the prayers of the church. Whatever talent, or learning, or piety, or zeal, may fill its chairs of instruction and of internal police, it will cer- tainly never prosper independently of God's blessing and the patronage of the church. The relations therefore which we hold to it are solenm and responsible. Shall it languish on our hands ? When a cry for the labors of the heralds of the cross is borne to our ears on every breeze, and whole nations are dying in utter ignorance of the way of salvation, shall this institution be suffered to wane and falter for want of our patronage and our prayers 1 God forbid. Let us not cease then to bear its interests to the throne of grace ; and let us by every means labor to enlarge the sphere of its usefulness, and may God grant that its in- fluence may be felt through all time, to the joy of millions of immortal minds, redeemed and saved through its instrumentality. 5 INAUGURAL CHARGE. BY ELIAKIM PHELPS, A. M. Of Geneva, N. York. My Dear Brother, The station which in the providence of God you are now called to occupy, is one of high and peculiar responsibility. You are to take your stand here at this fountain of christian and ministerial influence, and in connection with your associates in office to give direction to the streams which it is to send forth either to fertilize or to curse the heritage of God. You are called to this post at an era of peculiar interest in the history of redemption. The church believes, and is beo^innino: to act on the belief, that she is even now ascending those heights of Zion from whose summit she is to overlook the broad fields of the millennium. Still between the 52 INAUGURAL CHARGE. point at which she now stands, and that on which the eye of her faith is fixed, she sees that a most eventful period is to intervene. Achievements great and grand and glorious beyond any thing that her past history has recorded, any thing of which her present as- pects afford a reasonable promise, are yet to be accomplished, and to be accomplished soon. It is morally certain that on the movements of the church during the present century, one third of which is already gone, on the charac- ter that shall be given to her ministry and the tone of piety that shall obtain among her mem- bers, hangs suspended the history of the mil- lennium ; and on no human instrumentality more than the character of the ministry. The Board of Commissioners of the Au- burn Theological Seminary, by whose ap- pointment and in whose behalf I speak, feel a strong desire to render this Institution emi- nently subservient to the church of Christ by the character which it imparts to her min- istry. They wish to make it all that the most INAUGURAL CHARGE. 53 ardent friends of truth, of benevolence and of revivals can require. They wish to give it a character which shall in all respects cor- respond to the high and broad demand of the age. They have invited you. Sir, to one of its chairs of instruction, in the expectation that your influence will be exerted to give it the character which its friends desire ; and that it may bear a full and honorable part with its sister institutions in giving to the church such a ministry as her present emer- gencies, her anticipations and her prospects demand. Some of the leading traits, which are demanded in the ministry of the present day, I will briefly enumerate. The church needs a jpious ministry. By this I mean not merely that the minister should be a converted man — a christian in the com- mon acceptation of the term ; but piety should be a prominent, an all-pervading feature of his character ; it should be so high and deep and controlling in its influence, as to impart its character to the whole man ; to his heart 54 INAUGURAL CHARGE. and to his life, to his habits of thought and his habits of action — his studies and his min- istrations — to the services of the pulpit, the lecture room — the sick chamber, the person- al and the pastoral visit, to all his business intercourse also with the world, and to all else in which his character will be developed or his influence felt. The church needs in her ministry a piety that is uniform and consistent. Not that which now burns and blazes with a zeal that would consume, and with an ardor that will run mad in all the wildness of frenzy and fanaticism, and then die away in coldness and apathy and spiritual death. We need in all, but in the ministry especially, a piety that glows with uniformly increasing flame, and which will continue to shine brighter and brighter till the perfect day. The church needs in her ministry a piety that is mild and gentle and kind^ while it is at the same time i?iflexible and decided, — piety of such a cast and character as will exhibit INAUGURAL CHARGE. 55 religion in its more lovely and winning and attractive aspects, rather than in those coarse denunciatory features which always excite disgust and offence. The emergencies of the church at the pre- sent day require a learned ministry. She has a warfare to undertake with the Man of Sin, in which all the sophistry and art and cunning which Jesuitry has for ages been devising are to be encountered. She has also to engage in conflict with infidelity, in which learning and talent and wit and wealth and power and combination are to be encountered. She has also to make an onset upon the va- rious forms of false religion. These all deeply intrenched in the depravity of the human heart ; consolidated in many instances by the lapse of ages ; rendered secure by the author- ity of ancient and venerated names ; fixed deep in the heart by the magic power of an early education, and fortified by a perversion of the word of God : — it must in the very na- ture of the case, require skill of no ordinary 56 INAUGURAL CHARGE. character to remove the obstacles which these oppose to the final triumphs of the cross. Every one must perceive that " the pulling down of these strong holds," and of these " high things which exalt themselves."' will require piety not only, and talent and skill, but learning — a sound, thorough, liberal edu- cation, in the minister who can reasonably hope to be successful in such an enterprize. The emergencies of the church require a catholic ministry. By this I mean a ministry divested as far as possible of the spirit of sec- tarianism and bigotry. How much has the church suffered in the estimation of the world ; how have her energies been wasted, her strength reduced to weakness, and her face covered with shame, by her internal conten- tions ; and all or nearly all relating to little things — the mere circumstantials of religion, which have no bearing whatever on the great business of bringing souls to Christ. Whose "ear" has not been "pained," whose "heart" has not been " sick," to witness the petty bick- INAUGURAL CHARGE. 57 erings and contentions in which a portion of the church is even now employed ! Now in the nineteenth century, and in this very world in which and /or which the Savior laid down his life and all this while impenitent sin- ners are dying without the gospel at the rate of sixty thousand in a day ! The church needs for her present and future operations, a min- istry whose views shall extend above and be- yond the little punctillios about which small minds are willing to be engrossed, and who will bring their entire influence to bear solely and wholly upon the great business of bring- ing the world to Christ ; and we desire that it may be constantly impressed on the young men of this institution that they are in a course of training here, not for the arena of religious politics or of religious combatancy, but for the work of converting souls, for the high purpose of becoming co-workers with God in the sal- vation of the world. The emergencies of the church require a pathetic, warm-hearted, affectionate ministry ; 58 INAUGURAL CHARGE. men who have a heart and a soul and a sym- pathy which can enter into the anxieties and soUcitudes, the joys and extacies of a fellow man ; men whose sensibilities have not been chilled and paralized and frozen to death by the influence of their preparatory studies. But as this topic has been so amply and so ably discussed by the brother who preceded me, I will waive what I had intended to say on this particular.* The emergencies of the church require an active^ zealous^ laborious ministry. She heis had her sinecures, and she has had enough of them. She needs no more. Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis, Tempus eget. Her present emergencies call only for work- ing men — in the best sense of the phrase WORKING MEN— men who are willing to * The remaining part of this head was omitted in the dehvery, because the principal thoughts which are deemed important are expressed in the sermon. It is lor the same reason suppressed in the pubhcation. INAUGURAL CHARGE. 59 '* endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ," — wilUng to endure privations and toils, " perils by sea and by land and among false brethren," men who will go into the wil- derness or cross the ocean, who will go to any place or do any thing which the service of Christ may require. If men are needed to go and lay their bones with Fisk and Newell on a foreign shore, or with Munson and Lyman to fall, butchered, by the hand of the savage cannibal, or to waste away to a premature old age under the hardships of the missionary field, we want men who will be ready for the sacrifice, — men who will account no labor too great, no danger too appalling, no privations too severe, to be encountered for the promo- tion of the cause of Christ. Give to the church the right men^ properly trained, and in suf- ficient numbers ; let the church sustain them by her prayers and efi^orts, and the Holy Spirit accompany them by his power and grace, and we may expect that "Jerusalem will soon arise and shine, her light being come." The 60 INAUGURAL CHARGK, jarhngs and jealousies^ which now distfact our bleeding Zion, will be then unknownj and the whole church will thus go forward in solid column and with unfaltering step to the conquest of the world. It was, Sir, in the belief and expectation that your views of what is requisite in the gospel ministry at the present day, accord es- sentially with our own, that we have been solicitous to obtain your services for the chaii" of instruction to which you have now been introduced. To what extent the future histo- ry of this institution may be affected by your influence, I need not inquire. It is proper however that 1 should apprize you that the ex- pectations of the church in relation to it, are high. It is an institution which the churches of Western New- York love and prize. They have labored long and cheerfully to bring it to its present state, and we are happy to con- gratulate the church to-day in seeing the last of its vacant chairs filled in a manner which justifies the high expectations which we en- INAUGtRAL CHARGE. 61 tertain. Most cordially^ Sir, do we bid yoil welcome to Western New- York, and to the labors and responsibilities of the office into which you are now inducted. We pledge to you our cordial support and co-operation, so far as our relations to the Seminary may re- quire, and we expect of you a faithful obser- vance of the Rules and Ordinances of the institution, a conformity in your instructions to the Confession of Faith which you have now subscribed, and to the order of the Pres- byterian Church, and that you will in all things seek the prosperity of this Institution, and endeavor to make it, in all respects, what its friends so ardently desire that it should be, and what its past success encourages them to believe that it may be, a rich blessing to the church of Christ. And now, Sir, we commend you and this Seminary, with all its precious interests, " to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an in- heritance among all them that are sanctified,'^ 6 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. BY SAMUEL H. COX, D. D. Of Auburn. CoMxMISSIONERS AND THE TRUSTEES OF THE SEMI- NARY, THE Professors and the Students, and OTHER learned AND HIGHLY RESPECTED AUDITORS CONVENED ON THE PRESENT SOLEMN OCCASION ; In acceding to the duties of a Professor in this sacred School, it is right that I should give utterance to my sense of their magnitude, in contrast with the limit of my real or sup- posed qualifications for their competent dis- charge. The chair I am to occupy has been long vacant, or rather was never absolutely filled ; my first and only predecessor in the place* — to whom on many accounts the In- * The Reverend Dirck C. Lansing, D. D. formerly pastor of the First (and then the only) Presbyterian Church of Auburn, Resigned, March 3, 1826. 64 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. stitution will not cease to commemorate its peculiar obligations— having accepted it only in the exigency and the recency of its inter- ests, and discharged its duties with great and necessary interruption resulting from a large parochial care ; to say nothing of the public service in behalf of the enterprize, in which he was much employed, during the days of its perilous infancy, as its advocate, I might say its founder and its champion, in Western New- York. Our Seminary, however, has amply justified already the far-sighted wisdom of its pious projectors and original friends ; who now— some of them, we trust, in heaven- rejoice in its prospects and its promise under ITS GREAT PATRON, JeSUS ChRIST ! But why the vacancy so long protracted, the in- terval of more than nine years since the re- signation of its former occupant ? Is not the place important ? Can a Theological Semi- nary be completely organized without it ? Is its worth intrinsically little in comparison with others, or do the Guardians of this Seminary INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 65 disparage it in their estimation? None of these. The reasons of the obvious defect it were useless to recount. Whatever the chair has been, it is vacant at least no longer. Its proper importance is manifestly great. That its present occupant shall succeed in the ser- vice, to him so new and justly so formidable, is a problem for futurity to solve. Who is sufficient for these things 7 If some convic- tion of my great need of the grace of God, and subordinately, my brethren, of your prayers and the prayers of all the churches, be any signal of encouragement or presage of success, I may well conflict with every temptation to despondency and draw comfort itself from the consciousness of my infirmities. There is an equal Helper ! He giveth power to the faint J and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee, saith the Lord and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. 6* 66 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. The same reasons that show the importance of our Seminary itself, demonstrate as cer- tainly the moral greatness of the occasion that has convened us. Its relation to the church of God and her sublunary interests, widening into eternity as we trace them ; and at the same time as we hope in Him, its gracious indication of beneficence to all those interests, invest it with a superhuman grandeur and even a heavenly glory, with which in comparison all earthly magnificence is poor. What are kingly thrones and diadems, what the laurels of he- roic conquest or the bays of intellectual chieftainship, what are Avealth and pomp and fame, for a day or two on earth, compared with Salvation? What is the battle- field — what are the death-scenes of Waterloo, to the places and the periods in which Chris- tianity triumphs, God is glorified, and men are saved ? There is, say you, no analogy ; be- cause the things are in nature incongruous and so unfit to be compared. True. But the contrast is therefore the more palpable. Noi INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 67 js the illustration wholly tramontane and wild. For, my brethren, may I remind you, the bloodiest battle on the records of modern his- tory, in which the Sabbath of God was dese- crated with rampant murder — the air polluted with groans and execrations of dying armies — and the earth fatted with the gore of agoni- zing myriads, when seventy thousand unholy allies, and ninety thousand miserable con- scripts, met in mortal conflict — where Wel- lington was a victor and Napoleon a cap- tive, the fray of wonder and of horror that fixed so decisively the destinies of Europe and thundered so astoundingly through the civilized world — that battle was fought on the eighteenth of June^ 1815 ; just twenty years ago this day ! The coincidence was wholly undesigned — and is of no importance, except as it may lead our minds ardently to antici- pate the period when the science of war shall be forgotten or abhorred ; when human ha- tred, with its scientific butcheries and its mul- tiform oppressions, shall cease under heaven 68 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. universally: a consummation gilding our prospects as certainly as the truth of God can speak it, and to be expected — only as the RESULT OF THE GoSPEL WITH ITS GENU- INE MINISTRATIONS PROPAGATED AND RE- ALIZED TO EVERY NATION AND PEOPLE ON THE GLOBE ! The due training of our ministerial candi- dates for their appropriate work, is an object desirable above all human computation. De- voting myself this day, most solemnly, to one compartment of that work in this Seminary, it may be well that my sentiments on that and kindred topics should be fully and distinctly avowed. Accordingly, the theme of this ad- dress is THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY : which I propose generally to treat in relation to Its IMPORTANCE, and The KIND OF MINISTRY NEEDED IN THIS AGE AND NATION. I. In reference to the importance of the CHRISTIAN ministry in the economy of God ; its importance as he has constituted it ; INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 69 as he uses it ; as he defines it in his word ; as he surrounds it with the sanctions of his throne; as he communicates salvation through its medium ; as he guards and perpetuates it in his providence ; as he blesses its appropri- ate work and crowns its labors with his grace ; the importance of the Christian ministry, one would think^ must be self-evident, imiversally imderstood and believed. The gift of the Sa- vior, the gift of the Spirit, the gift of the mi- nistry, these three in their distinctness, how- ever mutually allied, and just in the order named, may be classed together as the three cardinal gifts of God to man. They are all mutually dependent in the divine economy, consociated in salvation, each illustrating the glorious importance of both the others. I. The gift of the savior to our world, has the deserved and the unrivalled pre-emi- nence. It stands unparalleled amid the bene- factions of God. It is the source, the harbin- ger, the implication of all his other and sub- t)rdinate munificence. All other gifts come 70 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. with it, by it, and for its sake. It is the basis and the centre of the mediatorial system ; a constitution of the manifold wisdom not less than the unsearchable riches of God ; attract- ing all our regards scarce more from the host of glories into which its elements are resolv- able — which could in their opulence aggran- dize any structure of God in the eternal and delighted wonder of his creatures, than from those relative and absorbing aspects towards us, which all our interests honor and all our duties own. It is not a field of abstract sdo- ries, which the gospel calls us to participate and explore ; but one of such personal inte- rest, and such appeal to all that is human and moral and immortal in us, that to understand and appreciate it as it is, and at the same time to dislike and condemn and decline it, is a thing impossible. What shall we then say to these things 7 If God he for us, who can be against us 7 He that spared not his oion Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all IJVAUGURAL ADDRESS. 71 things 7 Having gratuitously enriched us with the greater, becomes it us to think of HIM so meanly, as to doubt that he will also append the less ? what, but an absurdity in terms, were this, too self-evident and glaring even for our minds to entertain for a moment ? The Solar System is composed not of one orb, but of many, yet one in the centre gives name to the whole in the classifications of our science : because we know all the others to be surrounding and dependent, inferior and tributary, owing all their order and their sea- sons, their summer and their day, their beau- ty and their life, to that central and incompa- rable globe, which is more than all of them singly or combined ; and without whose per- petual radiations and influential attractions, the system itself would run riot and dissolve. Thanks he ignto God for his unspeakable 2. Next in order, distinct and yet so allied as to seem almost identical, is the gift of THE Holy Spirit. This gift however is se- 72 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. condary and consequent. The death of Christ procured it. The death of Christ, or rather his mediatorial designation, included the pro- cession of the Spirit, in all his various, rich, and everlasting' influences. The Christian dispensation, or Christianity itself, may be en- titled the ministration of the Spirit. Says the Savior, If I go not away^ the Comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart^ I will send him, unto you. Wait for the pro- mise of the Father, tvhich ye have heard of me, For — ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. For Jesus by one offering, hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. How great the importance of the gift of the Spirit ! without which, not a soul of the species would ever be saved, even through the redemption thab there is in Christ Jesus : with which, all the moral ex- cellence in man, in this world and that which is to come, is forever identified, as the fruit of the Spirit : without which, all the means and INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 73 all the ministers of grace, human and angelic, ordinary and extraordinary, would be alike effete and powerless for the purpose of sal- vation. 3. Nor may we hesitate to what place of com- parative dio^nity and grandeur, or to what lar- gess of the divine benignity, we are to assign THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. It takcs the third honor, unquestionably. We say, next to the gift of the Savior, and the gift of the Spirit, the gift of the Christian ministry is chiefly and alone pre-eminent. Without it, where were the church of God, visible or invisible ? without it, who is ordinarily or ever convert- ed ? without it, what are the prospects of the world, what commonly the converting agen- cy of the Spirit, or how is the reward of the costly death of the Savior to be realized? The economical importance of the ministry is about as great and indispensable to salvation, as is the office-work of the Father^ and of the Son^ and of the Holy Ghost. Let us read its importance not in the meanness or the fragi- 7 74 INAUGURAL ADDRESS'. lity of earthen vessels that contain this tfecC" sure of the gospel, but in the use he makes of them, and the dignity to which he pro- motes them, of whom is the excellency of the power. Let us approve and adopt the doc- trine of the great Author of the ministry, in regard to the question of its value and its use. His appointed ways are plainly his revealed ways also ; and they are manifested that we may conform to them, not expecting vainly that they will ever conform to us. The facts, and mainly the reasons of them, are given in his word; and shall our wisdom scorn ta learn the lessons that God deigns to teach, or our presumption dispense with what he has required, or our officiousness modify what he has completed, or our pride venture to degrade what his authority hath highly exalted 7 Are we ever warranted from him to expect the result without the process, the end without the means, the blessing without the order ; nay, these all, in manifest subver- sion of the certain ways of HIM, who hath INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 75 constituted the system, who challenges it as his own, and who presides vividly in all its administration, as Jesus Christy the same y es- ter day ^ and to-day^ and for ever 7 Is that sys- tem unworthy of the architect who made it, or are we the sages that could counsel him to improve it? Who are they that dare to defame or disparage the ministry of reconciliation ; the chosen medium by which God conciliates men ; the mighty moral enginery that accom- plishes his brightest wonders ; the authentic diplomacy of the King of Kings, icorking sal- vation in the 7nidst of the earth. Ascribe ye greatness to our God. He is the Rock^ and his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment ; a God of truth and without ini- quity^ just and right is he. In our estimate of the Christian ministry, my brethren, the degree of its value is to be wisely conformed to an inspired criterion. On that degree depends much or all of our piety and our usefulness. Whatever tends in any way to impair our estimate of that great 76 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. blessing", tends just as certainly to subvert the empire of religion in our hearts. The word of God is the criterion by which our estimate is to be governed ; our estimate itself, while it cannot be too intelligent or too discriminat- ing, must still be an exercise of faith. It is only as we believe what God says respecting it, that our views can be either sufficiently cor- rect or sufficiently high. As for those esti- mates that are neither high nor correct, that submit to no rule but that of infidelity and know no inspiration but that of malignity, that scorn the ministry not so much as they scorn God himself that founded it, or those that are perverse or fond or fanatical, we care little for them ; and their authors are wor- thier of our pity than our indignation. We va- lue primarily no man's opinions, not even our own ; having renounced all these, with the hidden things of dishonesty ^ and the sense- less vanities of our alienation, for the true say- ings of God. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christy INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 77 and hath given to us the ministry of recon- ciliation ; to loit, that God was in Christ re- conciling the world unto hi?nself, not imput- ing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the loord of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. Let a man so accoimt of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God, Neither 2)r ay I for these alone, but for them, also who shall believe on me through their word ! But when he saw the multitudes, he was m^oved loith compassion on them., because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then said he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plente- ous, but the laborers are few; pray ye there- fore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. What then is the ministry, or how high to be correct must our estimate be ? The ministers of the gospel, they are the messengers [the angels] of the churches and the glory of Christ. 7* 78 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. The Christian ministry is an expedient of divine wisdom, adapted to the noblest ends, admirably fitted to produce them, and used by the Eternal Spirit effectually to this result. Should it be objected, against the high rank here assigned to the ministry, that the Holy Scriptures have the just precedence, and should be honored with the third place, and the ministry only with the fourth ; we reply, that the objection had been precluded, or is instantly solved, by generalizing properly in regard to the import or comprehensiveness of the term. It may appear hereafter that the ministry is a designation so general and so comprehensive, as justly to include the mi- nisters of God in all ages, and of all ranks and descriptions ; and to include by conse- quence all the inspired penmen, by whom the Holy Scriptures were written, those who offi- ciated as the ministry of heaven for two thou- sand five hundred years before the Penta- teuch was in existence. For if in one im- portant aspect, the Scriptures were written for INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 79 the ministry of this dispensation, as their glo- rious text-book in preaching, and their ple- nary letter of instructions, from the court they represent and the God they serve, in an as- pect equally important it is also true that the Scriptures are a production and a fruit of the ministry of other ages ; that to prepare and pre- serve them, was a distinct department of the duties of a pre-existing ministry; and that in the order of time, and the order of dependence too, the ministry, considered generally, has the third place ; it has the relation of author and producer to that glorious volume of sixty-six distinct volumes ; which is now the highest standard of our faith, the furniture of our preachers, and the authentic oracle of our God. This is plainly the representation of that volume itself. The ministry, and virtu- ally the Christian ministry too, has existed in all ages, as the channel of correspondence between the footstool and the throne. The diversity of names, forms, and even of duties and relations, does nothing mar the unity of 80 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. the great ministerial function, or the integri- ty of the cause of God in which alone it is employed and maintained. Human agents have been used from the beginning ; all equal- ly necessary in their place, all serving one Almighty Master, all devoted to one glorious interest, all procured alike by the blood of Christ, all dispensed to his church from his mediatorial throne. In the rich assemblage of divine testimonies to this statement, there is one to which I would particularly direct your attention, showing the grand relation of the Christian ministry to all the brighter tro- phies of redemption's Prince ; since the sub- jects of his gracious dominion are multiplied, recruited, and accomplished for glory, main- ly by means of that ministry ; and since that enginery is itself important, which was di- vinely invented, and is still prosperously em- ployed, to subserve the attainment of ends so worthy and so grand. Could the contempla- tion of that passage, though necessarily too transient on the present occasion, assist, my INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 81 brethren, our estimate of the Christian minis- try, as divinely originated, morally magnifi- cent, and superlatively important, it will be time well spent, precious as it is, to consider it. I allude to Ephesians iv. 8 — 13. I shall say in its treatment, less than I ought at ano- ther time. Wherefore he saith, When he as- cended up on high, he led captiviti/ captive, arid gave gifts unto men. This the Apostle quotes from the sixty-eighth psalm, where the ascension of Messiah is distinctly predicted, celebrated in public worship more than one thousand years previous to his advent, and symbohzed in triumph to the eyes and ears of all Israel, on the grand occasion of removing the ark to its prepared pavillion on Mount Zion. But Jesus is the true Ark of the co- venant, on which the glory forever resteth ; the great architypical mercy-seat or propitia- tory, that sustains the Shechinah of eternity, the abiding sun-light of the salvation of Jeho- vah. Consequently the apostle applies the victor pean immediately to Christ, as having 82 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. spoiled principalities and powers in his cross, and then ascended a conqueror ; making a show of them openly^ triumphing over them in it. Hear the inspired commentary of Paul on the quotation. Now^ that he ascended^ what is it, what does it obviously import, but that he also descended, first, into the lower parts of the earth ? He adds. He that did both ac- tions in their order, is the same personage, the same King of glory ; He that descended, is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And to this end, what did he there ? And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ : till we all come in [into] the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stattire of the fulness of Christ. Thus the ministry may be said to be con- INAUGURAL ADDRESS- 8»1 stitiited of FOUR distinguishable orders. Apos- tles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors ; all serving the same glorious Master, with the same holy motives ; ministering in different ways and in successive ages, the same system of truth ; commissioned by the same autho- rity and speaking in one incommunicable name ; achieving the same excellent ends and together edifying the church of our Redeemer. Apostles and Prophets, are the former two ; in dignity superior and senior in age. They live with us at present in their writings alone ; less embalmed than immortal, and vi- vid by the presence of their God^ who quick- eneth all things. The idea of who are their successors, is one that we utterly repudiate and condemn ; asking rather, who are the usurpers that pretend to their authority, or the rivals that have eclipsed them. They have no successors, whatever prelacy may argue or papacy ordain. They endure, and are still ministering to us, in the scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments. The pretence of 84 INAUGURAL ADDRESS* succeeding them, of wielding their original authority and making good their places on the earth, is a vanity and a crime, a presumption and an abomination, among the most funda- mental of the impieties of papal or protestant Antichrist. Every true church of the present dispensation is dependent on their honored ministrations, for its creed, its edification, and its hope towards God ; nay, for all its guidance, profession, comfort, strength, usefulness, vic- tory, salvation : and are built upon thefoim- dation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ hhnself being the chief corner-stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed toge- ther groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. The other two are denominated, Evange- lists, Pastors and Teachers ; are appro- priately the ministry of the present dispensa- tion. We say two ; for though three titles are mentioned, the latter two of them refer manifestly to the same order. It were better rendered Pastors, even Teachers ; the latter term being explanatory of the former ; INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 85 jind the former being figurative, as the word shepherd with us, when applied to a spiritual instructer. Thus, droping the figure, the term means teachers, when used in these rela- tions of spiritual service in the church of God ; and distinsfuishes those whose office it is, with shepherd care, to preside over the con- gregational household, and feed them statedly in season and out of season, loith food con^ venient for them; training them in a way of oversight indeed ; but mainly of instruction in the things of Jesus Christ, pure and exu- berant ; imparting in substance the know- ledge of all the truth of scripture, in portions and forms and distributions wisely adapted to their uniform wants but varying circum- stances and conditions. This is mainly the pastoral care ; the business and the bishoprick of a good 771} Ulster of Jesus Christ : a desig- nation and a service of distinguished honor, and equal responsibility ; of difficulty, toil, and incessant absorption ; but of dignity, use- fulness, and delight, when well exemplified, 86 INAUGURAL ADDRESS^ above any other calling in the world ! It is a calUng in which the service, when rightly and acceptably performed to our divine Master^ gives a predominating influence of joy and hope in God, rendering the business sweet Emd the labor inconsiderable. It is a calling to which no man should aspire without count- ing the cost of its duties and its trials ; and in which no aspirant will succeed, whose soul is not smitten with its excellence and ena- mored of its glory. Totus in illis must be his motto, who finds labor ipse vohiptas to be his experience. As one has it, No post on earth aflbrds a place Of equal honor or disgrace* And we may well subjoin j No work so profitably glorious Employs the human powers victorious i Or, sordidly distrusting God, Causes their folly to explode. Evangelists are preachers at large ^ whose business it is appropriately to visit des- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 87 titute and heathen places, introducing Chris- tianity where it has not been and promulgat- ing the glad tidings of great joy to its inha- bitants ; diffusing and propagating and esta- blishing it in districts of desolation, before un- known alike to its conquests and its consola- tions ; planting churches and extending the jurisdiction of the kingdom of heaven over regions where Satan^s seat is and where have been only the dark places of the earth that are full of the habitations of cruelty. The title, by custom and consent, is often awarded in a way of eminence to the four historical writers of our Savior's life ; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John ; two of whom, the first and the last, were Apostles, and the other two Evan- gelists proper ; as was also Philip, who was one of the seven and expressly called the Evangelist : and also Timothy, Silas, Titus, Apollos, Epaphras, Epaphroditus, Tychicus, Trophimus, and a great multitude of others. Primitively, Evangelists were as much more honored and occupied appropriately than at 88 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. present, as the piety of the age was purer and more abounding, and as it delighted in the pro- pagation of the gospel. In the passage, it may be observed, they are first named ; evangelists and pastors. They are placed next in order to the apostles, though much allied in dignity to Pastors. Our missionaries, as they are now familiarly called, are Evangelists, nearly in the primitive sense of the word : an order that, as we approximate the final victories of the cross in this world, will certainly increase, in number and consideration not only, but also in skill, in power and efliciency. We need more of the missionary spirit in our church, and perhaps especially in our Theological Seminaries. It is the spirit of Christianity it- self Lord, what wilt thou have me to do 7 ought to be the index to the temper of all our ministerial expectants. This, I say, is the temper that every one of them ought to che- rish and to have. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, arid who will go for us ? Then said I, Here am I; INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 89 send me. A missionary temper is necessary to ev^ery minister of Jesus Christ. Without it, he is surely no Evangelist ; and he is just as certainly unfit to be a Pastor. All ought to breathe the same spirit at home or abroad. Without it, they are not more unfit to go than to stay. It is less the legitimate fruit of divine philanthropy, than its very essence, its living flame. The nature too of our enlistment as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, requires of us an uncompromising and magnanimous sub- serviency to his requisitions whatever they are. Glorying in our Master as the King of glory, we shall then advance his cause as best we may, and enjoy his presence in the service whether foreign or domestic. What ! shall the sons of mammon visit the antipodes, and circumnavigate the globe for lucre, and we feel less the powers of truth and grace? Shall the wretched Jesuit, the cunning minion of the Propaganda, bind himself, with military absoluteness, to obey his superior to the ends of the earth, at any time and in any way ; and 8* 90 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. shall light, and love, and life eternal, be be- hind him, in our devotion to Jesus Christ, our Master and our Lord ? These four orders, Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, constitute, the latter two especially, the proper ministry of the dis- pensation : the latter two, as personally living, and prolonged in their immediate service, by perpetual succession to the end of time ; the former two, being dead, are not superseded in their rightful authority at all, or succeeded properly by any ; they yet live, and speak in their writings which furnish the substance of all authentic ministrations to the end of the world. And this, in the fixed and regular economy of God. Who then can doubt, or dare despise, the constituted dignity and im- portance of the Christian ministry ? The pas- sage we are considering shows it in high re- hef ; in the very light of the throne and in all the immensity of its august relations ; ac- complishing indispensably the church as by the washing of water by the word, and fitting INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 91 a chosen gerieration for the heavenly inheri- tance. The supreme exaltation of the Savior in his official character on the throne of things, head over all to the churchy is declared to be to this end, that he might fill all things. It were better rendered, that he anight fulfil all things ; that is, that his administration might accomplish all those ends and fully execute all those purposes, of salvation to the church and judgment to the world and consummation to the sublunary system, for which he assumed eternally his wondrous office and has exer- cised its supreme and awful functions from the beginning. With the success of his mo- narchy are identified all the interests of the church, all the destinies of the race, all the hopes of Christians. The world and its inha- bitants, the wicked and the good, time and death, the resurrection and the judgment, heaven and hell, are in his hand. The sys- tem appertains to him and he will fulfil all things. He is its owner, its ruler, its disposer. Father — glorify thy ^on^ that thy Son also 92 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. may glorify thee ; as thou hast given him jiower over all fleshy that he should give eter- nal life to as many as thou hast given him. I am he that liveth, and tvas dead ; and he- hold^ I am alive for evermore ; Ame7i ; and have the keys of hell and of death. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies un- der his feet. To the prosperity of his purposes of grace, the Christian ministry is indispensable. It is so by his own sovereign wisdom and his own unchanging constitution. In proportion as our sentiments are evangehcal and our piety enhghtenedj just as our rehgion is of the right kind and as it is abounding, shall our esti- mate on an ascending scale approach that of God, touching the high importance of the mi- nistry in the divine system. " A Christian is the highest style of man :" yes, and a Chris- tian minister is a plenipotentiary of the throne, holding on his footstool the highest office in the sublunary gift of God. It is an office that comes next to the glory of Jehovah ; tends INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 93 natively and mightily to bless mankind ; and embodies in its amazing progress the highest interests of the world. Highly to estimate it, is only to think, I might rather say, to feel correctly ; since it is necessary to piety, au- spicious to the interests of society, indicative of sound intelligence. Such an estimate is of infinite importance to the ministry itself; and to its absence may probably be traced much of that failure in service, which has disap- pointed the church and dishonored the incum- bents of her highest places ; in instances too frequent, too recent, too memorable, to be lightly esteemed or soon forgotten. See how a pure and lofty sense of the excellency of the ministerial office, entered into the very piety of Paul, subliming his character, sustaining his devotions, and rendering him unaffectedly superior to the hostile influence of the world ! It was the practical power of his gratitude, showing its genuineness, while its effusions sprang from the sources of his humility. And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath ena- 94 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. hied me, for that he counted me faithful, put- ting me into the ministry. Unto me, icho am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the na- tions the unsearchable riches of Christ. Ac- cording to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. Where- unto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not, a teacher of the nations in faith and verity. It is this high and holy estimate of the im- portance of the Christian ministry, that wisely influences the Church of God to take the pro- per measures, practical, prayerful, often pain- ful too, to perpetuate the blessing where it is enjoyed and to send it speedily to all other places. It is for this they have carefully founded, and at great expense endowed and sustained, seminaries of professional nurture, colleges of sacred science, schools of the pro- phets, where their accredited candidates may become qualified, and well prepared, for the service to which they piously and honorably INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 95 aspire. That God dignifies human agency by using the efforts of his people, and by am- ply crowning them with his blessing, when plied according to his will, is a proposition which no sensible Christian can doubt. It is a certain, a most instructive, a richly cheer- ing truth. In HIM are all our springs. We have no expectation of prospering, and no wish to prosper, but as he sends prosperity* God give us grace rightly to acknowledge HIM in all our ways, so that his direction may be graciously afforded in all we attempt and in all we do ! Except the Lord build the house) iliey labor in vain that build it. For promo- tion Cometh neither from the east^ nor from the went, nor from the south. But God is the Judge : he putteth down one and setteth up another. The importance of Theological Seminaries, especially in our infant nation and throughout our far extensive territories, fast populating and prospectively powerful as they are, and in this busy and enterprising and destiny- D6 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. forming age of our country and our world ; the importance of these seminaries is just as certain as the preceding principles are true. We ought to have them, to sustain them, and to plant them at proper intervals every where. They ought to be patronized, cherish- ed, estimated, by the church universal. Mi- nisters are men, and men were boys; and without appropriate education no man is fit for the station or the function of a Christian minister. It is not grace or miracle that does it ; or any other influence, without competent education, such as it is the design of our Se- minaries to aflbrd. When God planted a na- tion under his own auspices, where the chief magistrate was his recognised viceroy, and the whole polity a theocracy confessed, and every inhabitant his visible worshipper, his religion was organized, endowed, and sus- tained, in the public constitution of the realm, commensurate with the wants of the people more perfectly than in any other example known to history. One-twelfth of the inha- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 97 bltants were devoted to the service of reli- gion in regular office ; forty-eight cities of the priests, or four to each tribe proportioned, were distributed through the length and the breadth of the land ; forty-eight theolo- gical se7?iinaries, for the nurture and quali- fication of those who were to ofiiciate in holy things 5 and all this, besides the public solem- nities of the metropolis, and as tributary to them ; to say nothing of details and duties and provisions adequate to such a divine establishment. And were their wants greater than ours ? Are not men born ignorant and alienated now, as they were then ? Are mi- racles to be expected such as never Avere, to work our moral regeneration ? Or are we to use no means for the evangelical interests of the nation and the world ? Are the ends in- considerable, or the objects preposterous, at which we aim? Or is it best to do nothing, but waste time, squander power, sink intellect, violate duty, forget God, defy eternity, and sink into the grave unblest by the grace of 9 98 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. our Lord Jesus Christ ? Time forbids enlarge- ment here. We are next to consider II. The character of such a ministry as THE CHURCH REQUIRES, IN THIS COUNTRY AND AT THIS EVENTFUL PERIOD OF THE WORLD. On this occasion I would state at least, to this respected auditory, some of my own views on the subject; descriptive of the training which will be attempted in this seminary, I trust, by all its Professors in happy and hearty union ; certainly by him, who this day ac- cedes, with justly trembling diffidence to offi- cial service within its sacred precincts. My colleagues are my seniors in life, as well as in office and experience. I have known, esteem- ed, and loved them all for nearly one fourth of a century ; and this consideration, as it weighed much with me in accepting the call, is at present connected with my most cheer- ing prospects and expectations. If we are mu- tually to forbear and consider one another, INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 99 exemplifying in this the piety we preach, what is it but to say that we are men, imper- fect, and in need reciprocally of a kind car- riage and a magnanimous construction in all our intercourse ? As servants of God, we must severally act conscientiously, and with that principled independence which every faithful minister exemplifies in the pulpit. The feel- ings and the fame of each are to be dear to each ; but not so precious as the light of his countenance whom we in common serve. I anticipate with gratitude to God the unity of the Spirit kept in the bond of peace^ by the Faculty of this Seminary and by the students of their care. Were it not so, I should never have ventured into relations so new to me, so conspicuous, so arduous, and so solemn ! Brethren^ pray for us. As prays the church, so prospers the ministry. Such a ministry as that respected, I would characterize as truly pious; endowed with sound and respectable natural talents ; sober- ly and correctly learned ; comparatively com- 100 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. peteut to the work ; religiously devoted to it ; morally courageous and independent in it ; instructive and durable as preachers ; self- denying and spiritual in all their ministra- tions ; and looking for their reward in the other world : all these, according to the re- quisitions and definitions of the constitu- tional standards of the Presbyterian Church in these United States. It will less comport with the nature of this address, or the claims of the occasion, to treat with amplitude or in detail any one of these 7iine characteristics. I profess only to state them. My honored bre- thren in the ministry who hear me, know what they mean, to whom they will seem at once sufficiently intelligible and sufficient- ly definite The outline may have its full ex- pansion and accomplishment hereafter, in the appropriate lectures of the chair I am to oc- cupy, and to the precious young brethren whose servant in the Lord I am to be in that department which refers much to the for- mation of their practical character, for the pul- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 101 pit, the parish, and every other sphere of offi- cial administration. In this I shall endeavor progressively to understand my duty and faithfully to perform it. What is yet to be of- fered may claim your attention in a way of OBSERVATIONS ON WHAT THE MINISTRY OUGHT TO BE, and what it shall be my aim to make it, as at present advised and persuaded in these high and responsible relations. In three words mainly can I express its charac- ter ; it should be scriptural, practical, DURABLE. 1. We need a ministry richly, ably, AND ABUNDANTLY SCRIPTURAL IN ITS CHA- RACTER. I mean such a ministry in distinc- tion, and even in contradistinction, to every other ; whether of ostentatious learning or courtly parade or vapid sentimentalism ; of poetry, fashion, and theatrical artifice ; of me- taphysical abstraction or technical aridity or philosophical speculation ; of symbolical or- thodoxy, with its bodies of divinity, its com- mentaries and quotations, its synopses and 9* ( 102 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. thesauruses, its verbose and literalizing dog- matism, its voluminous human authorities; or a ministry of disputatious and polemical severity ; or of routine and formal common places ; of mechanical symmetry and vain theorizing ; or of the style of mere harangue rhetorically produced ; or of declamation and glare and mannerism, such as takes the vul- gar and grieves the judicious ; or of the school or class who preach topically alone, on a set of subjects docketed and limited, arranged not in scriptural proportion and relation, and of- ten savoring more of man than God in all their pretension, their fascination, and their pomp. A scriptural minist^ is one that honors the revealed manner^ as well as the revealed mat- ter^ of that volume which God gave us as our paramount rule in religion ; "to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him." The Scrip- tures were evidently written also with the main and formal intention of giving to the ministry their official furniture and equip- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 103 ment : that the man of God may he perfect^ thoroughly furnished unto all good ivories. The man of God must respond to the will of his Master. He ought to be very correctly fa- miliar with the volume of God. He ought to read it with ease and accuracy, with mastery and frequency, in its inspired originals. He ought to be a good and a full interpreter ; to be lucidly and attractively exegetical in the main of his discourses. To be mighty in the Scriptuj^es, ought to qualify his ministrations and enrich his eloquence. Without this cha- racter impressed and pervading, whoever he be, and however brilliant and learned and profound, nay, however pious, he will be com- paratively powerless and unprofitable ; he will be unsanctioned and unprospered ; and such is human wisdom that he will err ; he will soon be elaborately wrong ; he will thence be found making an orthodoxy of his deviations, and a standard for the whole church, and the whole ministry too, of his fond and bigoted mistakes. A minister is a message-bearer. 104 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Should he then give it as he gets it, or should he ingeniously vary it by way of improve- ment on the road? Preach the preaching that I hid thee, says God. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Is- rael; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. For we are not as many, who corrupt [dilute] the word of God : but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. All double dealing, all compromise, all cowardice, all abandonment of principle, must be honestly and totally precluded. Through the minister of Christ, the Scriptures should address man- kind ; and find in him their expounder, their echo, and their oracle. He should have no objects or designs which he cannot invincibly identify with the contents or the scope of Scripture, either by direct testimony or plain demonstration. He should trace the Scripture relations of truth, and evince them Avith lu- minous proof and powerful application. He must be largely expository, as well as richly INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 105 didactic. He is sent to preach a gospel, not to modify or invent one. He is to bear the messages of God, as his mouth unto them ; and he must deUver each as it is, incorruptly and with manly faithfulness. He must illus- trate the wordj not darken it ; he must rescue it from its enemies, and show its divine and eternal excellency. He must sometimes do the harder work of rescuing it from its friends, and vindicating its true nature against their theories, their explanations, and their sincere mistakes. He must give to each truth its Scriptural form and pressure, without invad- ing as there exemplified its admirable propor- tions. He must show all the mercy of the gospel, as well as all the wrath ; he must ho- nor adequately, and not dare to refine away the oflTer of salvation which is made in the gospel to every hearer ; stating it, clearing it, urging it, in all its fulness, freedom, consist- ency, sincerity, and obligation, that it may be duly accepted ; he must never make a rule of action of an article of faith, or mistake what 106 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. is a rule for God, and a creed for man, to be the reverse of both in its several relations ; nor must he expect to be deeply skilful in the word of righteousness, until he wisely and constantly and even with rigid exactitude dis- criminates truth, as morally related to the cre- denda or the agenda of religion : nor must he forget that he is not at all responsible for the gospel itself, which he did not make, which will live and be glorified when all its final enemies are in hell, and which disdains apo- logy, concealment, or compromise ; even as it abhors all pious fraud, all Jesuitry and cun- ning and shallow expediency, and denounces every approach to the diabolical ethics of do- ing evil that good may come. By Sacred Rhetoric I understand that public or official speaking, in which a mi- nister of God, especially in the pulpit, aims to commend the gospel, with all its truth and all its duties, to the intelligence, the love, and the practice of his hearers ; de- pending not less on the wisdom and the INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 107 worth of his own efforts as the means, be- cause he trusts in God only that giveth the increase, for his success in their salvation. It is the science and the art of rhetoric in preaching, and as applied to the ends of the promulgated gospel. It involves more than the wisdom of the schools and the attain- ments of the scholar. It is sacred^ practical, peculiar ; as its business is hallowed to the glory of God and the highest interests of man. It is rhetoric occupied in the most glorious way and to the most honorable ends. It is eloquence of the purest character that ever awoke the glory of our frame. But it may not disdain the discipline of preparation, the help of experienced counsel, the advantage of good rules, and the knowledge of all the dangers and the faults that taste and judg- ment and piety, singly or together, indicate and prescribe. By Pastoral Theology I un- derstand, the application of biblical truth and its actual contact with mind, in all the 108 INAUGURAL ADDRESS, various and most solemnly interesting rela- tions of the pastoral care ; the nature and the duties of that care ; the wise administra- tion and government which a pastor is call- ed to exemplify ; the best way of being use- ful in these relations ; the principles, rules, and maxims of a sound practice, which have received the seals and the sanctions of ex- perience, as allied to the blessing of God and the salvation of men. The best manner of presenting truth and enforcing it ; the er- rors one ought to avoid and the excellencies to be attained ; the solution of difficult ques- tions in actual casuistry ; the manners per- sonal of the pastor, his dangers, his discou- ragements, his temptations, his labors, his pressures, his successes, his comforts and supports, his duty and his total service, his true usefulness, his final glory and reward ; these are the topics comprised ; important, complicated, and of their own character throughout. And by these conjointly, that INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 109 IS, Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral The- ology, I understand the whole function OF the ministry in its action on the popu- lar mind ; intending the ways of wisdom, of experience and the divine blessing, as contrast- ed with those of an opposite description, in all the appropriate duties of the Christian minis- try. How scriptural in all things, becomes it every minister of the Lord Jesus Christ to be ! Speaking the truth in love ; speaking as the oracles of God ! The duties of my position in the Seminary will consist of two kindred and yet distinct classes, referring respectively to the depart- ments of the pulpit and the parish, to the work of the preacher and the pastor in the church of God. This is expressed in the very title of the chair of Sacred Rhetoric and Pasto- ral Theology. All my experience as a preacher for nearly nineteen years, and as a pastor for almost the same period, connected with some extensive observation and special opportunities, deepens 10 110 tNAUGURAL ADDRESS. in my soul every way the conviction of the cardinal importance of a ministry, as 1 have said, RICHLY, ABLY, AND ABUNDANTLY SCRIPTURAL in its character. I have no words, no time, no power, now to transmit this impression or here to array its argument. To the want of this quahty I think, may be attributed in an eminent degree the failure of thousands, whose success in every other re- spect seemed certain. Hence they have often become confounded with their own non-suc- cess ; have been indignant, petulant, pugna- cious ; have blamed others for faults in their own bosoms ; have ascribed it to any cause but the true one ; and have deceitfully in some in- stances endeavored to fight into honor a wan- ing reputation, by those impeachable reflec- tions of orthodoxy and shadowy illusions of superior wisdom, which they desperately court in a way of resolutely defaming their more prosperous brethren. Some such possibly we have all known. But where are the probabi- lities to be found of a more pious or devoted INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Ill or heaven-favored ministry, comparable to those which are associated with a more scrip- tural one? It is here that we look for the dews of heaven to fall in their richness. It is liere that we expect the hlessins^, even life forevermore. The conclusion is that the ])reacher in the pulpit, and the pastor out of it, and the minister of Christ every Avhere, should be the living personification of the whole contents of the inspired volume. In exact proportion as this end is pursued and attained, and in no other, may all our best hopes be graduated of the progress of purity, peace, and order in the church, and the flou- rishing of true religion in all our parishes. It was a significant saying of the late Dr. Rice, and most significantly said on an occasion that I well remember : The Bible is ortho- dox ENOUGH FOR ME. It SHALL BE THE LIGHT OF THE SeMINARY AS LONG AS I AM IN IT ; AND ALL MY AIMS SHALL BE SUBOR- DINATE TO THE HIGH BUSINESS OF PREPAR- ING A MINISTRY THAT SHALL HONOR IT 112 INAUGURAL ADDRESS, EQUALLY AS THE ONLY AUTHENTIC LIGHT OF THE CHURCH OP GoD. I give the sub- Stance of his words. His object was to put the Bible in its place, against the idolatry that degrades it ; and to show his contempt of any innovation or artifice or unprotestant predi- lection that supersedes it. It is not meant here, my brethren, that there is no place for the wisdom of a preacher to act, and to achieve, in the service he per- forms. Far from it. Philosophy and the her- meneutic art or science, for both are included^ should constitute not alone the definition and the accomplishment of a preacher. It is meant, however, to magnify them, and insist on their primary and subsidiary importance. One must understand the letters, words, and sentences of the original. He must observe the style of the writer and the usage of the book. He must comprehend the grammar and the construc- tion ; consult the scope of the passage and the connection of the whole ; consider the analo- gy of faith and the laws of mind ; enter into INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 113 the spirit of the argument and ilhistrate cor- rectly the native sense of the text. We object not to science^ any quantity of it ; if it be not falsely so called and doating in its oppositions to the Father of hghts. We are not unfriend- ly to philosophy, if it be not atheistically mad, or sceptically vain, or incorrigibly perverse, as that blind accursed thing which God de- nounces as allied to vain deceit, after the Iradition of men., after the rudiments of the world y and not after Christ; for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and we are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power ; whom ihc ar- mies in heaven follow. Let those shining hosts innumerable, who worship him there, desert the Head of angels and of men — before we attempt it ! We are not opposed to theory, to system, to analysis and synthesis, profound and on all subjects. The evil of system con- sists not in having one — for no thinker is without one, right or wrong, true or false, wise or foolish, amiable or odious, salutary or de- 10' 114 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Struct! ve. He believes error who disbelieves truth. Some of the most certain truths in in- tellectual philosophy demonstrate the impos- sibility of having no system. The evil of sys- tem consists wholly in having a wrong one ; and this partially or totally, in proportion to the degree or kind of error it includes. Indo- lence, vacuity, dreaming, presumption, indif- ference, neglect, sensuality, and voluntary stu- pidity, are all much of a sort, for innocence and safety, in superseding the influence of the gospel in the human mind, and pre-eminently in the mind of a preacher. He must preach not what he thinks merely, however sincerely he may think it ; but the gospel, as God has re- vealed it and made us perfectly accountable for knowing what it is. There is such a thing as truth, and this is what we want in the pul- pit and every where. Truth has come into the world and men might know it. The preacher ought to know it, with copious and pervading conviction ; with decision and de- light. He ought to have also a code of gene- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 115 ral principles, of which the certainty is mani- fest or easily shown, and as such generally admitted. He must understand the philosophy of causation, at least so far as to avoid the pal- pable fooleries into which ignorance is too easily betrayed. He must know how to distin- guish between what is physical and what is moral, especially in anthropology, as related to religion. He must avoid materialism, and understand the glory of spirituality as distinct from it. He must in a word be wise and vi- gilant ; exercising a sound discretion, a deep and clear intelligence ; giving to his hearers less the processes, than the results, of learned investigation. He must prove the armor that he carries, and especially that he wields; and be in this sense an experimental preacher, evincing that he lives himself, with healthful relish and digestion, on the food he gives to others; and with which, as their shepherd, he feeds the flock of God. He must abhor the idea of formalism in devotion, servility in sen- timent, and plagiarism in eloquence. He must 116 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. not depend on second sight, if I may so ex- press it, in theology ; or trust to the eyes of others, possibly to their inferences and fancies, for those pure truths of which the fountains are open and accessible and obligated to his advances. A minister of Jesus Christ must not degrade himself to the herd of copyists, acolothists, and imitators. He must be a thinker in religion ; not only knowing how to think, and habituating the exercise, and do- ing it from a sense of duty to Jesus Christ and his church, but delighting in it as full of pro- fit and luxury all its own. Juvat integros ac- cedere fontes. He must not fear within proper limits to be himself, the creature that God made him. He must have in this way all the power and worth, and even the fame of origi- nality ; without its vanity, its affectation, or its eccentricity. He should never mistake in- novation for improvement or novelty for truth ; nor yet be wedded at such a rate to what is old and common, merely because it is such, or because so says the proverb of the ancients, INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 117 that, as the hard-hearted voluptuary spurns hungry beggars from his door, so he sends truth and evidence authoritatively away from him. He must well understand the history of the Bible : as related to its enemies and its friends ; its canonical authority and its vain apocryphal rivals, whether of the old or the new dispensation ; its textual integrity and its wonderful identity ; its authenticity, and above all, its inspiration and supremacy, as our rule in religion. He must know the use which its Author hath assigned it in the administration of the kingdom of heaven ; and as an enlight- ened and determined protestant, must he ever evince and maintain its sufficiency for all the ends of worship and salvation ; and this, against the impious arrofi^ance of every coun- tervailing human authority ; whether coming in the forms of tradition, or the sentiments of the fathers, or the practice of the ancient churches, or the decrees of synods and coun- cils, or the pandects of the canonists, or the pride of prelates, or the orders of the Sove- 118 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. reign Pontiff, He must even keep in their place tlie excellent symbols of our protestant faith and the uninspired formularies of our own church ; for these, wise and worthy as they are, are not to be worshipped as divine. They may be easily distorted and perverted, and even idolatrously exalted and preferred, as they often have been, by the superficial, the lovers of logomachy, and the charged con- ductors of discord among brethren : and this, in contrariety no less to their own nature and prescription, to their proper use and their ca- tholic intention, than to the peace of the church and the real interests of purity and or- der within her venerable pale. And who are they that perform this apotheosis ? that idola- trize in a style so select and specious ? who are the war-makers ? Are they the more spiritual, laborious, devoted, deeply-read, prospered of God, useful, experienced, thorough, self-de- nied, meek, exemplary? Who are they? Nov) I beseech t/ou, brethren, mark them that CAUSE DIVISIONS AND OFFENCES, C07ltrari/ tO INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 119 the doctrine which yehave learned; and avoid THEM. Let them alone, and their ephemeral notoriety will soon die a natural death. Were they occupied as they ought to be, in the ser- vice of souls, they would become the subjects of far different and far better feelings. More magnanimous too it is, and worthier of a func- tionary of the King of heaven, to engage with liis enemies rather than his friends ; and to do the thing better ourselves^ rather than su- pinely to do nothing in that way, while one does nothing else so busily as find fault with the doings of our brethren, who hecve jeopard- ed their lives unto the death in the high places of the field. Laborers in the harvest^ are ve- nerable men, and dear should be their names. Here I may add, what some experience and observation, perhaps peculiar, have brought me profoundly to believe, that the Christian, and pre-eminently the Christian bishop in the church of God, ought to be large and noble in his feelings, conciliating and slow to cen- sure ; not suspicious, sarcastic, caustic, or vi* 120 INAUGURAL Address'. tuperative ; full of that heavenly quality that siiffereth long and is kind, eiivieth not, vaunt- eth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not be- have itself unseemly , seeketh not its oivn, is not easily prowked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, hut fejoiceth in the truth. Prin- ciples indeed are open to us ; persons more pertain to the bishoprick of God. One should not be fond to exert spontaneously an archi- episcopal care, by virtual usurpation over his ecclesiastical peers, his ministerial brethren, his co-presbyters in the church, and very pos- sibly his betters in the eye of the Judge. He should be no heresy-hunter ; and very slow and deeply sorrowful in secret places should he be, to become a heresy-finder. He should not be the keeper of the humility of his bre- thren, even when his own is flourishing. He should make no man an offe7ider for a word, a mistake, an infelicity, a phrase exceptiona- ble, or even for an inconsiderable fault. Mu- tual forbearance is a high and imperious du- ty, as well as a rare virtue, in a world like INAtGtJRAL ADDRESS. 121 Clii's. Without it, no social organization could exist on earth ; and not Certainly the church of Jesus Christ, in the purest times it ever saw. There are many questions which can never be settled. They belong to ground fairly debateable, that is open and common to all. And authority, which is often nothing but arrogance sanctifying its encroachments^ can never be an oracle in this country, nor properly in any other. Little peace, however^ may be expected in the church, where that primary question of the apostles is not proper- ly decided and at rest, as easily it might be by the authority of our Master Who SHALL BE THE GREATEST ? Poor human na- ture ! Learn to be humble, or thou wilt never be wise, much as thou disjmtest by the way ! Let us bring a little child and set him in the midst ; and then let us all dread the rebuke of that Master and Lord^ who abhors the guise and the gall of pontiff pride, and exalts John, while he degrades Diotrephes, in his unsuffering kingdom. O for pre-eminence in U 122 INAUGURAL ADDRES3. meekness and humility ! O that tlie sons of Levi were purified^ and purged as gold and silver^ for the service of the altar and the of- ferings of righteousness ! It will be a distinct aim with me, in aiding the formation of the ministry here, to improve if possible that too generally neglected part of public worship, the reading of the Scrip- tures. This is often performed in dilferent ways, I may sayj so miserably^ that it is rather tolerated, than enjoyed, in our solemn assem- blies. Hence every other part of the service suffers with it and is deteriorated by it, in- stead of an eifect splendidly the reverse. The sacred volume ought to be read with articulate distinctness and judicious tones and pauses, without monotony or drawling or affectation of any sort. It should be read with vivacity, simplicity, nature, and correct emphasis. It should be read with solemn interest, as it be- cometh the Oracles of God. It should be read with due reverence, as infinitely the most pre- cious volume in the world ; worth more than a INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 123 universe of libraries without it. The people should herein be taught how to read it with advantage, and to prize it eminently among the constituent parts of the public service of God. To read it well, should be considered much, in rating the gifts, the graces, and the promise, as well as in estimating the usefulness, of a minis- ter. He should read it too with such occasional observations, wisely interspersed, as seem ne- cessary in order to arrest the attention, direct the thoughts, and interest the feelings, of a profited congregation. It ought to be viewed as one of the most important and refreshing portions of the service. It ought to be so per- formed by the minister, as to be desired and relished by the people. Its use is wonderful. I would have it in the afternoon of every Lord's day, as well as the morning ; at the weekly lecture, and ordinarily at every pub- lic service. It prepares the minds of all for subsequent duties. It is the voice of God speaking in the sanctuary of his presence. Its tendency and its effect would ordinarily 124 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. be, to aggrandize the value of that peerless Book in the just estimation of men. It would beget scriptural sentiment in the community, and habits of consulting the lively oracles. It would put due honor on the grand instru- ment by which the King of Grace accom- plishes his people for himself and cleanses them for heaven. It would tend powerfully to theologize the community, in a style the most superhuman and useful. The questions of popular conversation would be less abstract, technical, inapposite ; as they became more scriptural, textual, definite. They would not be so much, What thinkest thou ? Or what is the opinion of this great man or that learned one ? But, What saith the Scripture ? What are the words of the text ? Where is it found ? What is the connection ? What does it mean ? How readest thou ? Understandest thou what thou readest ? and such like, which are nei- ther 2mle armed nor foolish, and which every one sees are worth answering. Its effect on the pastor and the preacher would be excel- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 125 lent. It would necessitate him to study more the Bible ; to be more biblically rich and her- meneutically wise, more varied in illustration, more attractive, useful, agreeable, and de- lighted in his work. A pastor that has taught his people to read the Scriptures, enlighten- ing their understandings to value them ; and has brought their heavenly meaning into vi- vid contact with their minds, lodging there the word of Christ richly in all ivisdom, is a noble and a mighty public benefactor. Can his people ever probably become the victims of infidelity or soul-subverting error ? He has done for them what no monumental trophies could so well commemorate or reward, as will, probably for ages, the fruit itself of his minis- trations, loading the branches of those trees of righteousness that have enjoyed the ad- vantage of his heavenly culture and which are plainly the jolanting of the Lord that he may he glorified. But are these results comparatively to be expected, where the ministry is faulty, negli- 11* 126 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. gent, hurried, dronins:, inarticulate, dry, and every way uninteresting, if not absolutely re- pulsive, in the reading of the Scriptures? Judge 3^e. In what I have said on the topic, it seems demonstrable that I have only echoed the sentiments of our ecclesiastical constitu- tion ; where we are taught that '• The read- ing of the Holy Scriptures in the congrega- tion is a part of the public worship of God, and ought to be performed by the ministers and teachers — from the most approved trans- lation, in the vulgar tongue, that all may hear and understand. How large a portion shall be read at once, is left to the discretion of every minister ; however, in each service, he ought to read, at least, one chapter ; and more, when the chapters are short, or the connection re- quires it. He may, when he thinks it expe- dient, expound any part of what is read, al- ways having regard to the time" in proportion to the other parts of the service. From the remarks and considerations now submitted, it will be seen that the reading of the Scriptures INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 127 in public is a very important part of the du- ties of the ministry ; that it is a duty that has been too Uttle contemplated or honored in the performance ; that there is room here for great and excellent improvement ; and that a re- newed attention to it, in the official training of our consecrated youth, is a great desidera- tum in our Theological Seminaries. Brethren, in this toe speak that we do know, and testify that w'e have seen ; and it is not ye that receive not our witness. It has long been a subject of complaint, and a matter of grief, among the judicious and the devout. It has often depre- ciated a minister in the estimate of many, whom other considerations could never reco- ver to their predilections. It has been a grow- ing neglect in some places, and is a depart- ment worthy of more attention in all. For, 2. We need every where a practical mi- nistry. By this is not meant an illiterate one ; or one devoid of technical knowledge and philosophy ; or without mental discipline, general reading, and the training of intellec- 128 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. tual habits and experience ; nor one ignorant of the theories and the heresies of the ancients or the moderns. Let him have fully all the lore of the profession ; and be a thorough scholar in its abstractions, and if you will in its hair-split- ting niceties and refined discriminations. But he must have more than these, and be more. He must show qualities of business and ser- vice, of address and despatch, of conduct and performance ; or, the point of all our aims is lost — AN EFFECTIVE MINISTRY. We Want men who can do what others talk about ; and return loith rejoimig, bringing their sheaves with them. Now this is sometimes remarka- bly not the case. We have seen young preach- ers bearing the regular commission of the churches, who had proceeded with the bright- est honors of their theological Alma Mater, first in their class and already famous beyond its precincts, who were not practical, whatever else they were : and who, with noble gifts be- side both natural and acquired, were nullities in conduct, because of this defect. Before a INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 129 respectable audience, they could neither speak intelligibly and well, nor appear with ease and dignity, nor do justice to their own powers or virtues or attainments ; nor act their part in the service even in reading properly a hymn. But they were learned men, their papers said ; and truly it is possible they were. These, however, are not the kind needed by the church in this country and especially in this age. They were not practical men ; and whatever they were out of the pulpit, they were unacceptable, unprofitable, unwelcome in it. We Avant men that can execute and achieve ; men that understand a little, the work they have to do all the days of their life ; men skilled in the science of human na- ture as it is, knowing what it ought to be, conversant with things, commanding in man- ner, versatile in methods of address, and large- ly influential in their ministrations ; men whose weight is felt, whose character is brought to bear on others, and who inspire a kindred sympatliy in listening hundreds : men 130 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. who show by their actions that they vaUie usefulness, more than fame or wealth or ease ; who desire to do good in God's own way, and really esteem the conversion of a soul to Je- sus Christ as a glory incomparable, to the in- strument even by whom it is accomplished ; men who desire usefulness itself more than the name of it, because they love God and be- cause they love men who ivere made after the similitude of God. A minister of Jesus Christ must know how to behave himself in the pulpit ; how to be- have himself out of the pulpit ; how to be- have himself every where. He must, says the apostle recounting the qualifications of the office, he must be of good behavior. The original word, xoa^iog^ refers to what is fit- ting, well seen, ornate in manners. It is al- lied as a cognate to the English word cosme- tic, which is defined beautifying in our dic- tionaries ; and it may well be referred to mo- ral ornament, as the other respects the uten- sils of the toilette, and the short-lived cuta- INAtJGURAL ADDRESS. 131 lieous elegance it thence induces. Thus the meaning of the expression is, poUte, urbane, easy and agreeable in all his deportment. And is not this worthy of some attention I Let me not be misunderstood. I am incul- cating nothing like that artificial and sickly, tliat insincere and silly, that unmanly and unmannerly finesse, which is the bane of be- havior, and the abhorrence of the wise. All that conduct which belongs to the odious vice of aflfectation, a Christian and a Chris- tian minister must only nauseate and scorn. Neither is he to be the mimic, or the slave, or the pattern of the fashionable world. To all the garnished meanness of society, he must be utterly superior. But there is a me- dium which he must aim to acquire. Can he not be dignified and yet simple ? conciliating, affable, condescending, accessible, sympathe- tic ; without losing his self-possession, or crouching to any mortal? Can he not be well-bred, and even attractive in manners, without losing their sanctity, or contaminat- 132 tNAtjaURAL AbDkfcfeS. irig their motive ? Is he a profoundly pioliS tnan, desiring in all things to glorify his Master? Well. And does not Jesus Christ re- quire of him the improvement of all his giftSj the extension of his influence in order to his Usefulness, and to be courteous^ and honor all men as his ambassador ? Certainly there is 710 religion in dirt ; and there is none in awkwardness ; none in officiousness ; none in a reckless, austere, repulsive bearing • none in a swaggering, consequential gait, or a noisy importance of conduct; none in " slovenly neglect and rustic coarseness ;" hone in despising decency of attire and per- sonal appearance. The ethics of the Bible contain the perfect and the only genuine code of politeness. Why should not the Christian minister demonstrate in all his ac- tions, the true gentleman 1 To learn what this is, indeed, I would not send him to court, to the theatre or the ball-room ; nor even to the letters of Chesterfieldj or the bi- ography of Marlborough, or the history of iNAtlGtftlAL ADDfiESS. 133 iVince Eugene : I would send him to Jesus Christ, to thd Apostle Paul, to the Christian Scriptures, for its definition, its sanction, and its portraiture. He would there learn when he enters a houses to salute it; to do many things or forbear many, lest we shoilld offend them / to care, when hidden to a feast^ to sit not down in the highest place, or to select the chief rooms ; to render honor to ivhom honor is due ; in honor to prefer one another^ and not each himself; that before honor is hn- mility ; that every one of its ought to please his neighbor for his good to edification ; that love must be without dissimidation ; and in short that we must all pursue tvhatsoever things are true^ honesty just and pure, not only, but also whatsoever things are lovely and of good report ; and that, if there be any virtue^ and if there he any ptraise^ we must think on these things. In modern times, since we may speak of the illustrious dead, I would cite the exam- ple of our own Cornelius, as a model ; say- \% 184 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. ing no more to those who remember that sightly and excellent nobleman of nature and of grace, that magnanimous Christian, and magnificent minister of Jesus Christ ; in per- son and countenance, in address and conduct, in principle and practice, an example worthy to be rescued from the tomb, and held as a paragon to future ages. It is not mere friend- ship, nor mere admiration, that prompts this tributary effusion. Peace to the memory of a man of worth, A man of letters and of manners too ; Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears, When gay good-nature dresses her in smiles. On this topic I may not enlarge ; but sure I am it is slighted, disparaged, and ignorant- ly violated by many, with a loss of power, and a reaction of injury, to the cause and its advocates, which is literally incalculable. Wo unto that man hy whom the offence Com- eth ! Giving no offence in any thing that the ministry he not blamed. It is less the duty of a minister of Christ to follow examples, f INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 135 than to set them. This is what the Master requires of him. It is what the world and the church tos^ether anticipate. Be thou an example of the believers^ in wordy in con- versation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. There are offences against good breeding and views correctly liberal, which are as in- tolerable in the ministry, as faults can be that are in magnitude so secondary or so insigni- ficant. Whatever belongs to bigotry and cant ; to artificial and falsely devout intona- tions in worship ; every approach to grimace and distorted features ; all unnatural, strain- ed, or put-on appearances ; all theatrical, os- tentatious, or ludicrous manifestations ; all recitals that are impure, incredible, or ridicu- lous ; and generally, all questionable phra- ses, or startling and ultimate paradoxes, or insincere averments ; in a word, all vulgar allusion, all trifling with God or man, all trespass against the inviolable canon, Let all things he done decently and in order, 136 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. must be wholly precluded and religiously forborne. That honesty is the best 2^olicy, though not always the policy of ecclesiastics — as his- tory mournfully proves, is a truth eternal ; founded not on the shifting mounds of expe- diency, but the adamant of the divine na- ture ; since God himself is its perfect exem- plification forever. The world affects to con- sider the truly honest man as the truly silly one ; because the world itself is so deeply versed in dissimulation, and so plausibly dis- honest. But the honest man is the only wise one, and the world knows it. The opposite character is hateful, contemptible, untrust- worthy, never ultimately successful, soon seen and known in spite of the cunning in which it glories, and the deep mining opera- tions it manages in the dark. True, one ought to be wise, and not honestly ridicu- lous ; to beware of men, to ponder the paths of his feet, and to feel that wisdom is profit- able to direct. But have a care of the kind INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 137 of wisdom to which a minister of the holy God resigns the conduct of his mind. There is a species that descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. The true can be easily distinguished. Here are spe- cimens. For our rejoicing is this, the testi- mony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conver- sation in the world, and more abundantly to youward. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the ivord of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending our- selves to every mail's conscience in the sight of God. A cunning ecclesiastic is presently known ; and then, who trusts him ? who es- teems him? who loves him? Feared, he may be ; watched, he will be ; and at last, what he must be, the honesty of God will determine. Go tell that fox, said the Savior, 12* 138 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. in allusion indignant to the murderous and adulterous Herod Antipas. Alas ! that the craftiness of any of the visible ministers of God, since Judas hung himself or since Wolsey fell, should ever have made the same metaphor applicable eminently to them. The motto of Calvin, near the device of his heart m his hand, W3iS prompte et sincere. The design was worthy of that noble reformer, who was as truly worthy of it. His modesty was equalled only by his honesty ; his sound learning by both ; and these three qualities were the grand ingredients of his most esti- mable character ; the plinth and the pedestal and the obelisk of his far-reaching and dura- ble fame. If a minister of the gospel con- ceals his heart from his people, he need not wonder if in turn they secrete theirs from him. To give a heart is the only proper way to get one. It was the way of Paul. It is the way of God, who hath arrayed his own benignant excellence objectively before us, in his works and in his word ; and chiefly INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 139 challenged our hearts, in so lovmg the world that he gave his only begotten Son for its redemption. It may be opportune in this place to con- sider a question of weight, with reference to the inculcations of a chair in a Theological Seminary particularly, and to adjust in an- swer the true doctrine ; namely, What de- gree of deference ought the student to evince, or what degree of authority ought the profes- sor properly to exert 7 My own expectations may be inferred, from the principles I shall venture to defend. They are not formed for the occasion, but are the result of some read- ing, reflection, and comparison, through a course of years. It is plain that the professor is not infallible or inspired. No implicit faith therefore may be exacted; while the right and the duty of private judgment is as much admitted, as the fact of individual responsibi- lity to God is recognised and maintained. The students are entitled to respect, esteem, love, prayer, and service, from the professor, in 140 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. a degree pre-eminent, as well as paternal and peculiar. What ties and sanctities of relation- ship, what affinities of solemn interest, com- bine them, where heavenly love ought ever to be the common cement of their intercourse and the atmosphere of their mutual duties. His prosperity is identified with theirs. They are his jewels. Were his widowed affections suddenly sundered from the caresses of an af- fectionate congregation ? And was it to serve them? In them must he find his solace and his compensation if possible ! They are his sons in the gospel : and well it becomes him to be a father to them, to seek their good, and to make the most and the best of all their faculties and qualities. But on a difficult or questionable point, or even any common to- pic, after having fairly exhibited the logical worth of both sides, when the scales hang equal with the beam seemingly poised on his finger, shall he cease there ? Shall he bear the central pressure, but leave the decision to each hearer — to ignorance or prejudice or ca- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 141 price possibly, on tlie ground of disinterested and impartial elucidation ; and that they must decide for themselves, without the hazard of a bias from his enunciated decision 1 And will they get no bias from his reserve, none from his inaction ? Such a course, I am well aware, has had its advocates, its precedents, and its beacons too, in the high places of theological light in Europe, if not in this country. For myself, I may only say, that I shall think it neither duty, nor decency, to adopt it. Give a synopsis of the question, whatever it is, on both sides, I will, as fully and as fairly as I can : but then I shall just as fully, and just as fairly, give my own conviction of the truth and the duty of the matter ; add all the rea- sons that seem relevant ; and then, and not till then, c-ommend the whole to the respon- sibility of the student and the blessing of the Father of lights ; with the motto. Consider what I say, and the Lord give thee under- standing hi all things. My grounds for suclj a course are many and definitive. As a preach- 142 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. er must discharge his duty, however his hearers treat theirs, so the duties of a profes- sor, I take it, are imperative, absolute, perfect ; and the responsibiUty of his pupils, sufficient- ly distinct as their own. It takes at last no- thing from the freedom of the student. It is neither dogmatism nor dictation ; but the pro- per business ex cathedra of a responsible in- cumbent. It seems to accord with the very nature of his office, and to be one of the main reasons that a professorship is constituted, or a seminary established, on fixed principles, with ecclesiastical supervision, connection and accountability. You have all just wit-> nessed the solemn inauguration of a profes- sor, and the obligation he appropriates. Of that administered sanction I entirely approve ; and what, I demand, is its import, other than the position I am advocating ? How other- wise can he acquit his conscience, " to main- tain with zeal and fidelity the truths of the gospel, and to be faithful and diligent in all ' such duties as may devolve on him as a Pro- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 143 fessor in this Seminary, according to the best of his knowledge and abiUties ?" Or how- otherwise can he honor other parts, or any part, of his formal engagements, either in the letter or the spirit of their terms ? The oppo- site course is favorable to scepticism or infi- del indifference ; and has resulted by fatal ex- periment in this and kindred evils, in Ger- many and other places where it has been spe- ciously adopted. It implies either that we have no revelation from God ; or that his re- velation is unintelligible ; or that the profes- sor is himself unenlightened in its meaning ; or that it is of no consequence to know what it means ; truth and error being mere fancies of no importance or of little difference, and depending for their being, not on the fixed re- ality of things, but on the sentimental whims of fools and philosophers. This is only the pro- motion or the enthronement of that abomina- tion of parental misgovernment, which affects to inculcate not the eternal truth of the Bible in early life, on the minds of their precious 144 inAuccral Address. children, because forsooth they wish tliein fo' wait till maturity shall qualify them for an in- dependent judgment of their owii ! "Guilt^s blunder, and the loudest laugh of hell." For such a course no sound reason can be given. There is no such thing as escaping responsibility by indecision, or a negative policy. A man may be to blame any where, for not doing his duty, and for failing to bear witness for the truth, on any subject, as real- ly, and often as deeply, as for actively per- petrating mischief in ways more palpable. It were a bad example to those Avho are to teach Qthers, and might be proper in the pul- pit, if it be in the lecture-hall or the recita- tion-room. And what were the pulpit then ? a contemptible craven theatre of negation and impotence ; no longer the focus of hea- venly light, the throne of truth, the vantage ground of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. Apart from the spiritless imbecility and odious absurdity of such a course, it is INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 115 an execrably guilty one in the sight of God. As such I denounce it in his name, and in- voke his direction while I purpose to pursue a better. There is an immensity of deceit and positive evil in all such negative good- ness : nor have I so learned Christy as to give it place by subjection^ no, not for an hour. I suppose it however a way almost impracticable with us. Hence I shall always give my judgment, and inculcate it with ar- dor, as I shall aim also to do it with wisdom, just in proportion to my own conviction — to its clearness, its importance, and its relative obstructions. I cannot do otherwise, and wisely seek the ; good of the students. From them we all have a right to expect much every way ; for who ought to be excellent, teachable, orderly, industrious, devoted, con- sistent, exemplary, spiritual, wise, courteous, agreeable, if not they ? whose calling is more liigh, whose obligations greater ? whose pro- mise brighter ? whose pledges more solemn, whose destiny more sublime ? or whose re- 13 146 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. sponsibility, if recreant, more tremendous? Of them we expect many things with perfect reason, which it becomes equally their duty and their interest promptly to render : such as, attendance and attention ; punctuality and deference ; candor and docility ; a confiding and submissive carriage towards all regular exactions. They must suffer us to tell them their qualities that need correction, as we ouo^ht. A professor in their service must be the principled minister of their real benefit and their lasting good. He must care more to profit than to please them ; think less of proximate than of ultimate results ; and so discipline and dress them, that their future usefulness and their future gratitude shall flourish together in congenial fruit. He must therefore do for them, what thousands have been ruined for wanting, as a mirror of their imperfections, a faithful reflector of their ble- mishes, an unbribed monitor of their defects, a courageous censor of their faults, a friend impartial and exact in promoting their dis- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 147 ciplined improvement : that so they may be well matured for the stations they are to oc- cupy, and which they may retain with use- fulness and honor, perhaps greater than ever did their less privileged instructors, and per- haps long after they shall have slumbered in the dust. The charge itself is great and so- lemn ; in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ alone do I attempt its arduous duties. May he fur- nish us all for the work ; make us equal to its performance ; and bless, as its Great Pa- tron, this nursery of his ministers ; and that is enough ! / can do all things through Je- sus Christ who siren gtlieneth me, 3. We need a ministry of giualities, SOLID AND DURABLE ; who as lights in the church, shall wax, rather than wane, through revolving years ; commanding increasingly the testimony of all men to their genuine and vaHed excellence, and imparting to our par- ochial constitutions and pastoral affinities that character of permanency^ which seems at present in its effects less discernible, and 148 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. which in the causes of its diminution calls loudly for attention and redress. To expatiate on the causes and the effects of frequent pastoral changes, hurtful to all system except that of revolution, and hurtful to the church at large, as well as to the com- munity locally allied to it, is neither my aim, nor my duty, in this address. I allude only to existing evils, which, I fear, may be on the increase among us; and aver that the adequate remedy may best be found in a mi- nistry so endowed, trained, and qualified, as to make it to be generally seen, by every congregation, and as the public sentiment of the country, that it is their interest to retain a settled pastor in all ordinary cases, and to promote a mutual sense of the importance and the reality of permanent relations be- tween them. Our happy Presbyterian con- stitution is founded much on the permanen- cy and the uniformity both of human inte- rests and human wants, in regard to the in- dispensable and incomparable privileges of INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 149 the Gospel as connected with an able minis- try, and a pure and orderly ecclesiastical state. Its object is to educate a people, and their offsping with them, for heaven, as the seed of the blessed of the Lord ; to inure the minds of men to this grand blessedness of well-ordered society; to secure the blood- purchased boon in perpetuity from genera- tion to generation, and to diffuse and univer- salize the peerless benefit, through all the neighborhoods and all the families of our vi- cinity, of the nation and the world. In Europe their ecclesiastical state is in the protection and control of the civil power- Their hierarchy and their magistracy are mutually dependent and united. A beneficed clergy, a secular and courtly patronage, an incubus of endowments, a worldly establish- ment and an earthly espionage, parliament- ary statutes and regal supremacy, produce indeed a formal permanency ; which is only the caricature and the counterfeit of that for which we plead. There the proper ends of 13* 150 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. such a machinery are mostly lost or super- seded, by the very means and measures adopt- ed professedly on purpose to secure them ; and millions identify Christianity itself, with the magnificent frame-work that surrounds and conceals or rather misrepresents and ruins it. It is not for permanency of abuse that we plead. We justly abhor the whole mass of simony and pluralities ; of merchantable hv- ings and venal advowsons ; of profligate im- propriators and clamorous expectants; of graceless promotions and ambitious incum- bents ; of ostentatious pageantry and period- ical display ; of superstitious observance and unprotestant prerogatives ; for such things we plead not ; nor for the bases on which these structures rest ; when we say that our church state in this country would be advantaged by a greater supply of the elements of perma- nency in our pastoral connections. I do not say that every preacher should become a pas- tor ; but I do say that in every case he should aim to be qualified for one : that he should INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 151 aim high and not low, at much and not Httle, at excellence and not mediocrity. He should religiously abhor the meanness of being mere- ly passable ; and so of " getting along " to his own satisfaction whoever may have bet- ter reasons for an opposite sentiment. If he aims to be a rover or a minister at large, he ought to be more profoundly learned for all that ; assuming such a charge of charges for his own, such a universe of parishes for his sphere. If in this age of agencies, he devotes himself as the public functionary of some good cause, let him remember, if he does this as a minister of the gospel, that the vows of the ministry are still upon him. He is still acting under its high commission ; obligated to sus- tain its dignity, to vindicate its character, to perform its duties, and to honor its Founder ; in a style not worse because of his conspicu- ity before so many churches, or because of his duties so variously complicated, and the injury religion must receive from his weak- ness or his vanity or his presumption. Let 152 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. him be no party-man ; and he will find enough to do as a man of principle. Let him have no hobby in religion ever ; and he will find the gospel itself, and its glorious symmetry of relations, fully enough for him. Let him ne- ver be so devoid of wisdom, or so execrably vain of his very ignorance, as to say practi- cally and professionally, / have already at- tained^ I am already perfect ; and so to for- bear industrious assiduity and continual pro- gress in knowledge during life : let him leave such communing with deceit and childish- ness, to the pitiable mortals who know no more and no better than to indulge it ; and let him aim at perfection as he ought, saying, This will we do^ ij God permit. He will then be progressively improved. He will be wise- ly humbled with what he knows of his own ignorance. He will hate the character of a driveller and a dotard too much to be one. He will gather up the fragm^ents of time, that nothing he lost. He will improve, endure, increase ; and God will prosper him. He will INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 153 say with joy, whereunto I also labor ^ striving according to his icorking lohich icorketh in me mightily/. He will thus make continual pro- gress, which is the only way not to make con- tinual retrocession. Ordinarily little good is to be expected from an opposite course. It is not the ignis fatuus that glitters, nor the meteor that glares, nor the comet that startles, but the regular planet, or the fixed star, or some other certain lumi- nary, by whose beams we can calculate our bearings and regulate our course. Little may be hoped from the light of those wandering stars, ever eccentric and ever uncertain, whose rays are not sufficiently bright, or steady, or redundant, to consist with the re- lations of a permanent centre, in the midst of regular, dependent, illuminated orbs. But let our ministers be identified as the ambassa- dors of Christy by being well versed and skil- ful in the word of righteousness ; each a faithful and raise serva7it, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household to give 13* 154 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. them meat in due season ; let them be pas- tors of Jehovah, such as he gives his church, according to his heart, loho shall feed them with knowledge and understanding ; who can show themselves apjnoved unto God, ivorkmen that need ?iot to be ashamed, right- ly dividing the word of truth ; good minis- ters of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctri7ie, where- unto they have attained; holding fast the faithful word as they have been taught, that they m^ay be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers ; let our ministers be such, and they will be known ; since they that are otherwise can- not be hid. Let them be such ; and in gene- ral, each one may say. Ant viam- inveniain, autfaciam: He will fiiid a way of usefid- ness, or make one, anywhere. Such ministers will be wanted are now wanted urgently and by thousands. Instead of their running after places, places will run after them. They can find each a locality of usefulness, where INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 155 as pastors their flocks will be gathered and wedded to them in the ties of eternity ; and where they will endure ; the love of the first nuptials being comparatively mean and va- lueless, compared with the true and lasting endearments of subsequent affection : where esteem and gratitude and piety, with all their heavenly accompaniments, will grow tenaci- ous around the mansion of the cultivator of the soil ; where their common praises in con- cert rise to the Giver of the increase ; and where the rejoicing surface is overgrown with the foliage and the fruitage that indicate the garden of the Lord.) afield that the Lord Jiath blessed. A minister of few ideas, or none that are properly his own ; whose mind, undisciplin- ed and unfurnished, requires travel, for rea- sons inglorious to his character, inconsistent with his divine commissipn, and quite scru- table to every body; a teacher that never was a scholar, properly under standbig neither what he says nor whereof he affirms ; such an 156 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. one IS utterly unfit for office in the church, and never would assume it were his piety more and his presumption less. Such a mi- nistry would soon subvert our constituted system, and render its very wisdom ridicu- lous. They would introduce an order or rather a disorder of itinerating, unprofitable and progressively injurious, of which Ave can- not be too soon aware to deprecate and prevent it. Our main resource seems to be in tho- roughly educating and maturing our candi- dates ; in raising, rather than depressing the standard of attainment ; in a strict and im- partial, as well as a kind and affectionate ad- ministration, on the part of professors and presbyters, in examining and authorizing all their applicants ; in a wakeful intelligence of care and sentiment in the church itself, that they may every where prefer to call those, who have passed honorably the ordeals of professional examination, and afterward pur- chased to themselves a good degree by the service in which they have actually approv- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 157 ed themselves to the people ; and hnally, in that confederacy of soul and union of influ- ence, in which our common interests and common duties, inducing a widely harmoni- ous action, shall be habitually honored and discharged together, as they ought to BE AND MIGHT BE, iu cvcry scctlou of our church. If it be said that this exhibition is on the whole appaling, disheartening our youth with the prospect of attainments they can never make, and deferring to the church the hope that her sons will soon be multiplied as her champions around her, or as her heralds at a distance ; I answer, the standard will al- ways be low enough in practice Avithout sinking it in theory. Besides, it will be found on experiment to be a great deal cheaper to get competent knowledge than to go without it. No man knows what he can do till he tries ; and he never Avill attempt great things, if he has no adequate motive. If a man aims low, his skill is generally of 14 158 INAUGURAL ADDRESS^ that sort that he hits the mark ; and in con- sequence the archer is as low as the archery* He conforms himself to a standard ignoble and degrading. If a young man knows not his weakness, it is equally true that he knows not his strength ; and shall his self-ignorance in any aspect be allowed to legislate for the church, respecting the quality of her approv- ed ministry ? He needs to be encouraged, as- sisted, and enlarged. He needs to be taught to soar ; and his professors must now perform for him, what he is preparing in hope to do ere long for others ; they must Resolve each doubt, reprove each dull delay, Allure to brighter worlds, and lead the way. And if m lower offices innumerable, men task themselves to grand achievements and succeed, why not in that profession, which ^ in importance, in profit, in peril, in courage, in magnificence, in usefulness, in responsi- bility, in solemnity, in glory, has nothing equal to it in the universe of human pur- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 159 suits ? What has ignorance to do in the sa- cred office ? as much as sin — I had almost said — and no more. God is not the patron of darkness ; he has none of it in his own nature ; and near his altars there should be perpetual light. A minister of Christ is ex- pressed emphatically by the metaphor of a star. Why ? Obviously because he is ap- propriately a luminary in the world, Midst upper, nether, and surrounding darkness. Its lodgment is a candlestick; a church brightened with its heavenly brilliancy, and upholding its pure and steady radiations. True, our youth are often impatient of the preparatory process, and desirous of the ac- tive scenes of the ministry. The drill and the discipline of the theological academy are tedious, and seem unproductive too, to our spiritual cadets, who pant for action and vic- tory in the field militant. And this passion for the work is not to be regretted. The as- pirant is nothing without it. There is a ge- IGO INAUGURAL ADDRESS. nerous enthusiasm, worthy of any bosom, in- digenous to the purest, and inspired by that philosophy which sees things as they are, which ought to be encouraged and cultivat- ed in every minister and in every candidate. It is allied in nature and in grandeur to the zeal of the Lord of hosts. There is a glory incomparable in active ministerial engage- ment, in the performance of proper official duties, that must arrest the gifted and attach the good. It is the excellent way in which an ingenuous expectant is honorably called to glorify God. It is distinction, virtuous and legitimate, lofty and lasting, eternal and divine. The aspirations of piety, the pro- mise of intellect, and the stamps of vocation from above, are all involved in it. Yet, for the same reason that piety is not all in the qualifications of the ministry, the mind must be stored, regulated, ripened, fully and cor- rectly ; or a brief and unfruitful career at best, may be ordinarily predicted. There is special need of such preparation, all the INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 161 more, where there is excellence of capacity and adaptation of gifts, connected with dis- tinguished zeal. The greater momentum of the powers, is only the more perilous, with- out proportionate and balancing concomi- tants; verifying the poetry of the Roman Satirist, Vis consili expers, mole ruit sua. The finest energy, devoid Of wisdom, soon is self-destroyed. A mighty and an intense mental action, without expansion, erudition, and experi- ence ; without a wisdom presiding in its movements that is equal to its regular con- trol ; may soon become the victim of its own achievements, the sport of disturbing forces from without, or the foil and the eulogium of intellect less rapid and less glowing but more effective, useful, enduring; because enriched and guarded with ampler, and bet- ter assorted, and more valuable, though not more showy materials. Whatever be the cast or the measure of native endowments, 14* 162 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. as they can do nothing in the best manner without appropriate education, so with such culture, a mind less mighty and of qualities less sparkling, more steadfastly endures — shines with a radiance purer and more certain — allures, attaches, and guides a larger mul- titude of tributaries, each owning a benefac- tor, and inheriting a blessing, in the centre that attracts him. If it be the tendency or the temptation of the age to dispense with scholarship in the ministry, it is one to be strenuously and thoroughly resisted. We must have a learned ministry. For what is learning chiefly and supremely valuable? I answer — only for its subserviency TO religion ! It is not to take its place, to change its nature, or to eclipse its light, that we value the one in connection with the other. The use of learning as the hand- maid of religion, and not its mistress ; the use, and not in any form the abuse of learn- ing, is that for which we plead and testify ; and conscience as well as judgment, our INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 163 creed, as well as our constitutiorij require this at our hands. We could not belong to a church that ■ pleaded for a no-learning mi- nistry, and the due necessity of learning is an item of importance in our objective reli- gion. Preaching ignorance is impious usur- pation and abuse. If these views are correct, they are also encouraging. Supineness, presumption, and silly conceits of genius, may be displeased with them ; but modesty and worth will en- tertain them with an estimate more sound and grateful. Theirs is a practicable theory. It gives promise to industry and hope to exer- tion. This is the only rational encourage- ment. It shows the vanity of great endow- ments without great attainments. Even to mediocrity of talent, it arches the prospect with the bow of hope. Economize your pow- ers, it says to the devoted student. Improve what God has given you. Make the most of yourself and the best of yourself This is the way to increase the talent your Lord has con- 164 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. fided to you, rendering fruit at his coming a hundred fold. It is to achieve what is better than fame, richer than wealth, more durable than monuments, mightier than royal power, more splendid than imperial victories. The period is coming when they that be vnse shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness^ as the stars forever and ever. We need not wait, however, till that stupendous period, in order to know that there is nothing to be com- pared to the glory of being a good minister of Jesus Christ ; that this blessedness is iden- tified with being a scriptural, practical, and durable minister ; that it is more within the reach of common talent, other things favor- ing, than is commonly conceived ; and that its obligation as an object of deliberate and practical devotement, is solemn and absolute, on all who desire the office of a bishop. A ministry thus scriptural, thus practical, thus enduring, is the ministry we need. The church, and the nation needs it ; not the less, INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 1G5 but the more, because of their common insen- sibiUty to its vahie. The supply of baser fa- brics is allowed to be regulated by the crite- rion of demand ; according to the received doctrine in the marts of commerce and the schools of political economy, in regard to pe- rishable and merchantable goods. The sup- ply of the means of grace and the ministra- tions of religion, however, must be conformed to a standard etherial and divine. Want is the criterion here : and often, in proportion exactly as the absolute want is great, or where it is greatest, is the insensibility more profound and the demand a thing unknown. It is not in death to invoke the voice of God or effect its own resurrection. And what is this but a description of a million neighborhoods in ei- ther hemisphere ? It is a picture of human nature as it is. Does the moral want of a peo- ple depend on their knowing it ? or their dan- ger on their fear ? or their safety on their pre- sumption 1 Is their want graduated by their wisdom ? The demand in a given instance, 166 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. might so depend ; and the fitting supply might thence result. But the question is, shall there be no supply without demand ? Is there want only where there is sense, or where there is virtue and perhaps piety? Ought not the church and her sons to care practically for the wants of the world, and enterprise sub- limely their adequate supply ? Is not this the wisdom of Jehovah in the case ? How exten- sive, how costly, how admirably spontaneous, the supplies he has sent us ! And did our sen- sibility herein precede and our demand pre- vail ; or were those divine supplies regulated by his perception of our mighty wants ? Ho- sanna to the Son of David, who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Let our youthful heralds of the cross catch the en- thusiasm of their Master's great example! Let them do as Paul did ; evincing the very spirit of that splendid hero of our faith ; say- ing, yeay so have I strived to 'preach the gos- pel,not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man^s fmindation. But a^ INAUGURAL ADDRESS* 167 it is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see ; and they that have not heard shall understand. Such a ministry, my brethren, will be devot- ed and occupied in their proper work. Souls will be their hire and seraphs their compani- ons. God will send them prosperity. And he that reapeth recelvelh ivages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal. Each, by diffusing TRUTH, WILL BECOME THE MOST EFFECTIVE CORRECTOR OF ERROR IN THE WORLD. They will not be furious, illiberal, or exterminating; increasing the mounds of scandal and the for- tifications of obstinate impenitence. They will meekly feel the force of the interrogation, Who art thou that judgest another marl's servant ? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall he holden up : for God is able to tnake him stand. In reference to '-measures" in pastoral theology, I have but a word to offer. No man here ought easily to take offence or easily to give it. General rules of propriety alone can 16B hNAlJUUIlAL A DDK ESS. be inculcated or established. Evils must be defined, dangers indicated, and principles considered. We have no stereotyped digest for universal practice ; especially in a church like oursj extended through so many recent and varying districts. Much is to be left to Christian wisdom, in places as they are and in cases as they come, according to the best lights of the presiding bishop and the paro- chial presbytery. Caution and care should be reciprocated, and hearty coimsel inter- changed ; each considering his relations to a neighboring brother, to the precedents he may form, and to the welfare of the whole church. Faults, real or imaginary, should be treated with delicacy; considered with the magnanimity that appreciates trifles, with in- telligent discrimination in regard to any of grave importance, and with the 7iieekness of ivisdom that would do nothing rather than do wrong. I am no friend to disorder, vulga- rity, or fanaticism ; and none to intolerance, sectarian party-spirit, or dignified formalism : INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 169 i\nd by the grace of God, I intend to pursue tlie true interests of the church of Jesus Christ, so flir as I know them, in their purity and unity, for this world and that which is to come. From this outhne, my brethren, you may anticipate something of my future course in this Seminary. I entreat your sympathy, your fraternal aifection, your candor, your support in all right things, and your cordial prayers. I have hazarded much, and acted with more decision than man^^ suppose or know, in accepting your call. It seems how- ever to have been the sure work of God, and he has cleared the path of duty to my feet. My peace is in HIM, and I bless his name ! The position of an officer in this sacred school, is that of conspicuity to the malice of the foe and even to the missiles of the good : for, alas ! there are other qualities, beside good- ness, in the composition of the best. Trials we may all anticipate in this world ; triumphs are reserved for a better. You will not expect 15 170 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. perfection any where on earth. Perfection is on the throne eternal. Jehovah reigns. In spite of his enemies, in spite of his friends, he will save his oion elect ; he will prosper the dominion of his Son ; and he will be saluted with the interminable praises of a multitude that no man can number, ransomed by the blood of the Lamb ! To HIM let us all com- mit ourselves, with all that we love and va- lue ; that at last we may be found among his chosen, and exult in his glorious presence forever. MEMORANDA. t The Theological Seminary in Auburn enjoys local advantages of a high and com- manding character ; and as such is probably unsurpassed. For purity of air and salubrity of climate ; for rich and splendid scenery, and an abundance of the fruits of the earth ; for consequent cheapness and facility of liv- ing ; for a position central, accessible, and re- lated to a tract of country proverbially flou- rishing and mighty, as well as opulent and populous ; for general intelligence, the means of education, and a comparatively virtuous population ; for the privileges of the gospel, an evangelical public sentiment, and a gene- rous enlargement of character ; and especial- ly, for prospective influence and grandeur of destiny : for these in combination and degree, no district of our land is probably comparable to Western New- York; and no village, town, or city, in the district, superior to Au- 172 MEMORANDA. burn. We might accommodate the personifi- cation and apostrophe of Goldsmith, to the namesake in this hemisphere of his favorite village before it was deserted^ in a sentence equally just : Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the West. It was certainly a wise and happy thought, to found in this section of our country, and in this incomparable spot, a nursery of evange- lical ministers, which should permanently bless the heritage of God. The enterprize originated here^ in the bosoms of piety. A very few matured it ; when, to the many, it seemed impracticable or useless, if not Uto- pian. Difficulties, appaling and innumerable, surrounded its nativity and menaced often its existence. But the spirit of faith and prayer, of reflection and principle, of hope in God and consistent action, prevailed. The project of establishing a Theological Seminary in Western New- York, was con- ceived as early as the year 1813 or 14 ; when MEMORANDA. 173 the subject was laid before the Presbytery of Cayuga, by Dr. Lansing, then of the Presby- tery of Onondaga, the Rev. Caleb Alexander, and the Hon. Joshua Forman. The plan was favorably received ; and the Presbytery gave to the above gentlemen, an attested copy of their Resolution, in which their views were embodied. Dr. Lansing however removed soon after to the eastern part of the State ; and the design was prosecuted no farther till the year 1817, when he returned and became the pastor of the Presbyterian church of Auburn. He then resumed it. His people largely co- operated with their pastor ; entered heartily into the design, and generously pledged their influence, with their prayers and their dona- tions, for its prosecution and success. The enterprize now began to attract consideration and enquiry, and always with increasing pro- mise of success. On the twentieth of February, 1818, at Ro- chester, the Synod of Geneva Resolved on its establishment. " for the purpose of training a 15* 174 MEMORANDA. competent and learned ministry ;" took mea- sures for displaying before the next General Assembly a program of their design, with a view to obtain the approbation of the Supreme Judicatory of our church on their object, and were happily successful ; and erected a com- mittee with ample powers and full instructions, to whom it was wholly referred, consisting of three members from each of the Presbyteries of Niagara, Ontario, Bath, Geneva, Cayuga, and Onondaga : of this Committee, the Rev. William Wisner, then of Ithaca, was chair- man ; ever an influential and useful friend of the Institution, though lately removed by fee- ble health from Western New- York, where his labors have been so valuable for many years. The Institution was incorporated, April 14, 1820. The Rev. Dr. Richards, then of New- ark, N. J. was unanimously elected to the Professorship of Theology^ July 13, 1820, but declined at that time the office. Dr. Perrine, then resident here, and Dr. MEMORANDA. 175 Mills, then of Woodbridge, N. J. were unani- mously elected to their present offices, on Wednesday, May 2, 1821, and Dr. Lansing was unanimously elected, at the same time, to the Professorship of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology. They all accepted promptly the appointment, and were regu- larly inaugurated on the tenth of My fol- lowing. The professors of the institution were con- stituted a Faculty, and entrusted with the ad- ministration of its concerns, by the Board of Commissioners recognised in the Act of In- corporation ; the Board being constituted of two ministers and one elder, annually elected, from each of " the Presbyteries of Niagara, Genesee, Rochester, Bath, Ontario, Geneva, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, St. Lawrence, and such other Presbyteries as shall hereafter associate with the Synod of Geneva, for the purpose aforesaid." On "the second Wed- nesday of October," 1821, the Seminary was opened for the reception of students. 176 MEMORANDA. At the last meeting of the Board of Com- missioners, other Presbyteries were invited to " associate " with those whose representatives they are, in sending their Commissioners henceforth, and so participating in the go- vernment of the Seminary; especially the three Presbyteries in the city of New- York. The Institution looks to the friends of piety in connection with our own church, in that city, for some farther tributes of their gene- rous appreciation of the West ; especially to an effort now in progress, to complete its esta- blishment, and supply its mightier wants, in a way adequate comparatively to the large- ness and the grandeur of its design. The Rev. Mr. Phelps, who delivered the charge herein contained, has accepted an agency, or rather the agency of this measure ; to whom the public are referred, and from whose valuable services are expected results of importance and success. The embarrassments of the Institution were once signally relieved by the generous dona- MEMORANDA. 177 tion oi fifteen thousand dollars, endowing tlie Professorship of Christian Theology. The benevolent individual whose heart is disci- plined to devise such liberal things, chose characteristically to be anonymous and invi- sible in the transaction ; in which the ser- vices of Eleazer Lord, Esq. acting as his at- torney, were generously and memorably ren- dered to the cause. The grant was dated at New- York, Aug. 15, 1823, and the donor has become known only by public inference. How well it were, and how much better than it is, had the public made inferences, in re- lated cases, always as legitimate, as impartial, and as just ! Then had signal worth been un- assailed by infidel detraction, by malignant envy, by persecution furious and implacable ! Then had posterity less to censure in the cen- surers, less to praise in the majesty of princi- ple and the manliness of heroic trust in God ! But his epitaph is not yet written ; nor does it seem that the interests of the church, the rights of man, or the cause of God, can soon 178 MEMORANDA. spare him for the reward of grace that awaits him in a world of glory, according to the hum- ble but not uncertain hope of the Christian. Serus in coelnm redeas, diuque Laetus inlersis populo Q,uirini : Neve te nostris vitiis iniquum Ocior aura Tollat. Hie magnop potius triumphos The donor named the Professorship in ho- nor of the prospective incumbent ; as appears in the sequel of these reminiscences. Dr, Richards was unanimously re-elected to his present office Sept. 10, 1823, and inaugurated on Wednesday, Oct. 29, of the same year. The following obligation is subscribed by every student indispensably ; namely, " Deeply impressed with a sense of the importance of improving in knowledge, pru- dence, and piety, I solemnly promise, in a reliance on divine grace, that I will faithful- ly and diligently attend to the instructions of this Seminary ; and that I will conscientious- MEMORANDA. 179 iy and vigilantly observe all the rules and regulations for its instruction and govern- ment, so far as the same relate to the stu- dents ; and that I will obey all the lawful re- quisitions, and readily yield to all the whole- some admonitions of the Professors and Trus- tees of this Seminary, while I shall continue a member of it." The following subs*cription and averment is exacted of every Professor in public, at his inauguration ; namely, " In presence of the omniscient and heart- searching God, I do solenmly and sincerely affirm and declare, that I believe the Scrip- tures of the Old and the New Testaments to be the word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice ; that I do receive and adopt the Confession of Faith, and the Catechisms of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures ; that I do approve of the govern- ment and discipline of the Presbyterian 180 MEMORANDA. Church, as prescribed in the " Form of Go- vernment" and "Discipline" of the Presby- terian Church in these United States: and I do solemnly promise to maintain with zeal and fidelity the truths of the Gospel, and to be faithful and diligent in all such duties as may devolve on me as a Professor in this Seminary, according to the best of my know- ledge and abilities." The general success of the Institution has answered the views of its pious founders. Between two and three hundred students have enjo}/%d its benefits ; and its aliimiii are now known and read of all onen^ in dif- ferent sections of our own country, and in missionary stations in distant parts of the world. To make practical and useful mi- nisters, as well as learned and masterly di- vines, has ever been, perhaps distinguish- ingly, the aim of the Institution. The curriculiun of the Seminary extends to three years ; a period sufficiently short to acquire and digest the requisite knowledge. MEMORANDA. 181 In the Junior Year, the studies are — He- brew; Critical Reading of the New-Testa- ment ; Principles of Interpretation ; Biblical History and Antiquities. In the Middle Year, Mental and Moral Philosophy; Na- tural and Revealed Religion ; Canon of Scrip- ture; Hebrew and Greek Exegesis continued. In the Senior Year, Polemic and Pastoral Theology ; Composition of Sermons ; Eccle- siastical History ; Church Polity. These, with exercises in Composition and Declama- tion, through the entire course. The vernal vacation commences the day previous to the first Thursday in May, and lasts four weeks. The autumnal, with the close of the summer term, the third Wednes- day of August, and lasts eight weeks. The year commences at the close of the vacation in October ; at which time, it is pro- per and advantageous for students to enter the Seminary. Board in Commons is furnished to the students in the Edifice, at one dollar a week ; 15 182 MEMORANDA. or half that sion for students sustained by benevolent societies. No charge is made for tuition, rooms, the use of the Library, or fur- niture. Fuel, five dollars a year ; washing and lights, at ordinary prices. The Library contains a valuable collec- tion — but needs a large increase — of choice theological works ; now about 4000 volumes. The annual meeting of the Boards of Trustees and Commissioners, is held on the Tuesday next preceding the vacation in Au- gust ; and the annual public examination of the several classes commences on the Friday previous. The anniversary week, espe- cially the different public exercises of Tues- day and Wednesday, present occasions of re- ligious and intellectual interest of a high and attractive character. The site of the Seminary is one of emi- nence and beauty, as well as convenience; located on one of the symmetrical and undu- lating hills of the future city of Auburn. Ten acres of excellent land are attached, as the MEMORANDA. 183 grounds of the Institution ; the generous pre- sent of the Messrs. Glen and CorneUus Cuy- ler, and Mr. John H. Hardenberg ; and only a part of their exemplary generosity to its in- terests. The late Col. Samuel Bellamy, and Thaddeus Edwards, Esq. to mention no others where memory presents them, are names not to be forgotten among its large- hearted and early patrons ; and never may it become the dishonor of its friends, that the benefactors of the Seminary, especially those of a primitive and distinguished character, are not gratefully commemorated and re- vered in all their proceedings, as builders on the foundation they have so amply and mu- nificently laid. The history of the Seinina- ry is yet to he loritten ; and if Truth shall perform the noble office, honor to whom honor is due will rescue from silence many a sleep- ing name, of equal modesty and worth, that may inspire others to go and do likeiuise ; in a cause where all may do more, and none ever did too much, to advance its sovereign 184 MEMORANDA. interests. Nor can we conclude this hasty sketch without an additional word, in refer- ence to ONE who may be well denominated THE Father and Founder of the en- TERPRizE ITSELF ; to whom, more than to any other human helper, the whole design, its inception, prosecution, and success, are to be credited; as its self-denied, indefati- gable, disinterested, original, and steadfast friend. More than all this is due to the services, the memory, and the name of a liv- ing benefactor, already particularized in this work ; whose great labors and usefulness in the cause are appreciated by its friends, are recorded in all the original documents of its story, and will live in the gratitude of com- ing generations. It is scarcely necessary to add the name of Lansing to this tributary attestation. MEMORANDA. 185 FACULTY. Rev. James Richards, D. D. Richards Pro- fessor of Christian Theology. Rev. Matthew L. R. Perrine, D. D. Spring Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Church Polity, Sfc. Rev. Henry Mills, D. D. Professor of Bi- blical Criticism. Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D.D. Bellamy & Ed- wards Professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology. DEPOSITORY OF THE PUBLICATIONS OK THE Jflassachusctts Sabbath School Society, BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL, Corner of Park Row, opposite the City Hall, NEW-YORK. ALL THE WORKS OF THE ABOVE SOCIETY TAYLOR & GOULD, 111 any Q,iiautity, at the Society's Prices. ALSO, A. constant supply of the Publications of the American Sini' day School Union, and of the Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Union, at the same prices as sold at their respective Depositories. 2 Taylor & Gould have also a large and choice selection of Miscellaneous Works, suit- able for Sunday School Libraries ; together with Theological, Classical, Moral, Religious, and School Books, Stationary, Fancy Articles, &c. all of which they will sell at the lowest prices. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY TAYL.OR & OOUL.D. HINTS TO PARENTS ON THE EARLY RELI- GIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. By Gardiner Spring, D. D. Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New- York. 18mo. with a steel engraving. Price STJ cents. Prom the New -York Weekly Messenger and Young Men's Advocate. Dr. Spring's Hints to Parents — One of the prettiest little works of this class that we have ever met with, has just been published by Messrs. Taylor & Gould, of this city ; it is called ''Hints to Parents, on the Religious Education of Chit- dren. By Gardiner Spring, D. D." The author has been long and favorably known to the public as a chaste and powerful writer. The subject of the present work is one of great moment — one in which every parent has a real interest, And we commend this little volume not only to pious pa- rents, but to all who desire to bring up their chil- dren in such a manner as to make them an honor to themselves and a blessing to their fellow-men. From the Commercial Advertiser. Hints to Parents, on the Religious Educa- tion of Children. — By Gardiner Spring, D. D. — New- York, Taylor & Gould.— This beautiful little volume, coming out at this time, will be pe- culiarly acceptable to the congregation of the able and excellent author, and will have the effect of a legacy of his opinions on a most important sub- ject, now that for a time they are deprived of his personal instructions. It is a work that should be in the hands of every parent throughout our country, who has the temporal and eternal inte- rest of his offspring at heart. The few and lead- ing maxims of the Christian Religion are plainly and practically enforced, and the parents' duties are descanted in a train of pure and beautiful elo- quence, which a father's mind, elevated by reli- gion, only could have dictated. We believe that a general knowledge of this little volume would be attended with consequences beneficial to soci- ety, since a practice of its recommendations could scarcely be refused to its solemn and affectionate spirit of entreaty. PLEASURE AND PROFIT, OR TIME WELL SPENT; being the first volume of a series. Edited by Uncle Arthur. 18mo. Steel plate frontispiece. Price 37J cents. Says the New- York Evangelist — Pleasure and Profit, or Time well SPENT. — We have before us the first of a series of volumes just commenced by our young friends, Taylor & Gould, booksellers. The present vo- lume contains a pleasing fancy sketch, called "the Museum ; by Charlotte Elizabeth ; edited by Un- cle Arthur." We suspect that Uncle Arthur is the name adopted by a gentleman whose real name would give currency to almost anything. He and his brother have a happy faculty not only to make excellent books, but also to edit (or as we say in plain English, make over) the books writ- ten by other people, so as to render them more entertaining, less erroneous, more safe, and far more useful. We have tried this little book, by putting it into the hands of a "juvenile reader," and find it to answer very well. The sentiments are correct, the feeling good, the style pleasing, the price reasonable. From the Commercial Advertiser. Pleasure and Profit, or Time well SPENT. — Vol. I. The Museum; by Charlotte Elizabeth ; edited by Uncle Arthur, Taylor & Gould. If attractive binding, paper, print and subject, can render a little book the favorite of children, this will be quite popular among them. It pur- ports to be an account of a visit to the Museum ; and the different objects are explained in an easy manner, in the form of dialogue. Religious knowledge is judiciously blended with instruc- tion throughout. MISSIONARY REMAINS; or Sketches OF EvARTs, Cornelius, and Wisner. — By Gardiner Spring, D. D. and others. With an Introduction by Samuel H. Cox, D. D. 18mo. with steel plate frontispiece. Price 50 cents. ADVICE TO A YOUNG BROTHER, ON PRACTICAL SUBJECTS.— By a Mis- sionary. With steel plate frontispiece. 18mo. Price 31 cents. MEMOIR OF MRS. EMILY EGERTON. An authentic Narrative. — Prepared by RuFus Nutting, A. M. Professor of Western Reserve College. 18mo. with steel plate fron- tispiece. Price 31 cents. THE CHRISTIAN FATHER'S PRESENT TO HIS CHILDREN.— By John Angell James. ISmo. 400 pages. Price 37J cents. THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF RELI- GION IN THE SOUL, with a devout Me- ditation on Prayer subjoined to each chapter. By Phillip Doddridge, D. D. 260 pages. ISmo. Price 25 cents. THE HAPPY DEATH OF MARY ANN CLAPP.— By Joshua Bates, D. D. Presi- dent of Middlebury College, Vermont. 18mo. Price 18| cents. EARLY PIETY.— By Rev. Jacob Abbott, author of " the Young Christian," &c. 32mo. Price 18J cents. PLEASURE AND PROFIT, or the BOY'S FRIEND. Vol. IL By Carlton Bruce. Revised by Uncle Arthur. Price 37J cents. Says the Salem Landmark. The Boy's Friend. — This is the title of a se- ties of volumes now in the course of publication by Messrs. Taylor & Gould, of New- York. The second volume, which we have just received from the publishers, is, as the preface remarks, " com- posed chiefly of extracts from different authors who have aimed to exert a favorable influence in the formation of character. Some parts of the volume are original." The book purports to be by Carlton Bruce, whether a real or fictitious name we know not, and revised by Uncle Arthur, A hasty perusal has satisfied us that this little vo- lumejs indeed "the boy's friend." The original 8 pieces are good, and the selections are very judi- ciously made ; the whole forming a variety of mat- ter which cannot fail to amuse and interest youth, as well as point out to them the way to become useful and happy members of society. The author thus very pleasantly speaks of himself: It is my desire to give you pleasure and profit, and did I happen to know what would please you the most, I would commence with that subject; but as I do not, sup- pose, to make a beginning, I say something about myself. When I was a child, I cried and laughed like other chil- dren. I ran around the room, played with my playthings, climbed upon my father's knee, and rocked in my mother's lap, as children love to do. When a boy, I ran with my schoolfellows in merry games, played " trap and ball," " I spy," and " hoop." I tried hard in my class to be a good scholar in arithmetic, geography, and grammar, and puzzled myself to compre- hend the terrestrial and celestial globes. When I became a man, I read and traveled, saw much of the world, reflected on what I saw, and had many oppor- tunities to converse with wise and good men. And now, as I have been young myself, if I have any ability to amuse and instruct you, who are still young, it will afford me great pleasure to do so. I love to talk, when I can give instruction as well as amusement to the young folks around me. You may fancy, perhaps, that I have but little method in what I say ; that I bring things which have no natural con- nexion with each other, and fly from little to great, and from great to little things, without order or apparent design. But consider, the bee does not devote one hour to roses, and another to violets, but roams indiscriminately from one flower to another, gathering honey from them all. Now I wish to do the same thing, and if I bring you all the honey, surely you ought to be satisfied. What a world would this be if the people it contains were to be system- atically placed, like soldiers, in masses and classes ! — if all the oak trees of the earth grew by themselves, in one part, and all the elms in another ! It is the mixture of the whole that it contains, which constitutes the beauty of the earth. When you see one thing in nature, you do not know what next the eye may gaze upon. But I need not weary you with illustrations. Order is an excellent thing, and system is, at times, indispensable ; but the world was never intended to be divided with the regu- larity of a checker-board. I shall tell you many stories. Some will be principally for your amusement ; others will give you information that will be of value to you, or will contain good instruction, such as will, if you follow it, make you happier and better boys, and have some influ- ence in making you, when you grow up, happier and bet- ter men. We think the author has succeeded remarka- bly wel) in doing what he thus promises. He has not only gathered a great variety of flowers, but they are of the prettiest and sweetest kinds. SCRIPTURE GEMS, morocco gilt. Price 25 cents. Says the New- York Evangelist, Scripture Gems. — A verse for every day in the year. The smallest, prettiest, wee-bit of a thing we ever saw — designed for '• grown folks." PLEASURE AND PROFIT, Vol. III. or MARY AND FLORENCE. By Uncle Ar- 10 thur. ISmo. Designed to convey religious in- struction to the young — a good book for Sabbath School Libraries, &c. MEMOIR OF THE EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. Written by Himself, with an Appondix, from the second London Edition. Price 37^ cents. The above books are neatly bound in muslin and stamped, and are worthy of a place in every family and Sunday School Library in our country. NEW TESTAMENT, designed for Sunday Schools. ] 8mo. muslin. Price eight cents. Also Publishers of THE NATIONAL PREACHER, printed in an elegant pamphlet form, each number con- taining two Sermons from living Ministers. Monthly. Edited by Rev. Austin Dickinson. Price one dollar a year in advance. Also Agents for THE SABBATH SCHOOL VISITER, pub- lished by the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society. Edited by Rev. Asa Bel- lard, Boston. Price 50 cents. 11 Also Agents for THE MISSIONARY HERALD.— Published for the American Board of Commissioners FOR Foreign Missions. Monthly. Price $1 50 a year. Taylor & Gould will shortly publish THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION; by President Edwards; with an Introduc- tion, Notes, &c. in one Vol. 8vo. N. B. Orders for the country will be immediately at- tended to, and books forwarded according to directions. Should the selection of books for Sunday Schools be left with Taylor St Gould, and they should forward any which should not suit the purchaser, they may be returned, and the money will be refunded, or other books given in ex- change. Those wishing to purchase are invited to call and examine their stock. Taylor & Gould have, probably, the largest assortment of books suitable for Sunday School Libraries to be found in the United States. DATE DUE MAR 1 7 7tl MAR 3 1 • 'L m""^ f GAYLORD PRINTED IN US A [heological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 01022 9864