Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/142

 ,"—there still break in a gleam of faith and hope in the memory of the noble works which we have heard with our ears, and our Fathers have declared unto us, a strong yet humble confidence, that will yet again arise and help us, and deliver us for His Name's sake, and for His Honour.

Now this is a point which it is of great importance to have strongly impressed upon our minds; because it is to be feared, that there are many of our brethren in the present day, who allow the thoughts of present and past transgressions, of our own sins, and those of our Fathers, to banish entirely the remembrance of the glorious promises and privileges which belong to us. They see so much neglected, and so much to be done, that they think it would become us each to work in lonely humiliation, "in fear and in much trembling," instead of endeavouring to magnify our office, and cheer one another with the songs of Zion. Now, I would ask, if this notion exist in any of our brethren, whether, under the semblance of good, it does not argue something of mistaken feeling, and that in more than one essential point.

1. Does not this opinion seem to imply the supposition that the dignity conferred on the Ministerial Office is something given for the exaltation of the Clergy, and not for the benefit of the people? as if there were a different interest in the two orders, and, in maintaining their Divine appointment, the Clergy would make themselves "lords over 's heritage?" I do not now enter upon the point, that to magnify the office is not necessarily to exalt the individual who bears it; nay, that the thought which will most deeply humble the individual, most oppress him with the overwhelming sense of his own insufficiency, is the consciousness "into how high a dignity, and to how weighty an office and charge" he has been called; an office "of such excellency, and of so great difficulty." I would now rather ask, for whose benefit this high and sacred Office has been instituted? For the Clergy, or for the people? The Apostle will decide this point: "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 ." (Eph. iv.) "All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas." (1 Cor. iii.) And this, it should be well observed, the Apostle says