word of God. Not so much "Do you do this or that," but rather, “Let us all, both you and me, so endeavour." Thus will they all see that you are preaching-not your own word-but God's Word to them.

And this will save us, further, from a terrible danger which besets all preachers, with which I will conclude.

You younger ones can hardly realise what a snare to us older ones it has been, this continual preaching to others, this continual holding up to others (as we are bound to do) a higher standard than we have ourselves attained to. We repeat it so continually that unless we are careful, we slide unconsciously into the notion that it is our standard : and our people, or some of them, are apt to assume it and instil the flattering assumption into us; or, if they do not, there is an unseen tempter who does so.

Oh! my friends, beware of such flatteries. For our own sakes we should ever remember that it is not we who are seeking to raise our people, but God's Word that is seeking to raise both them and We owe it to our own souls therefore to make it our continual endeavour to preach not our own word, but God's Word,

us.

And now let me rapidly retrace the ground we have gone over back to the point from which we started.

My last point was that we owed it to our own souls to see to it that we preached, not words of our

own, but God's Word. And this not for our own sake only, but for our people's sake also: for we saw that no word of man, but God's Word only, could find its way into their hearts as a power of God unto salvation.

Nor yet for these reasons only, but farther back we saw that we were pledged to this in our Ordination, this being the true meaning of that vow before us, that we will make God's Word, and what we are persuaded may be concluded from it, the substance of our preaching;-" persuaded" here meaning (as we seemed to see), persuaded by the authority of the Church. Thus we owe it not only to ourselves, not only to our people, but to our holy office also, which is to be a Prophet of God.

A prophet of God is one who is ever proclaiming on the housetops what has been revealed to him in the ear. He will ground all his exhortations on revealed truth. He will be ever applying his theology to the ministry of souls; and this, as we have seen, is the definition of Pastoral Theologythe application of theology to the ministry of souls.

LECTURE II.

OUR WORK AS PRIESTS.

N last week's Lecture we considered a clergyman's work as a prophet or preacher, bound

by his Ordination vow to teach nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but what might be concluded and proved by Holy Scripture. Thus he must first be a theologian in order that, secondly, he may be a preacher. So far, therefore, Pastoral Theology is true to its definition-Theology applied to the cure of souls: for it grounds all that it has to say about preaching on that message of salvation which theology alone can interpret.

In to-day's Lecture we shall find Pastoral Theology equally true to its definition. In considering a clergyman's work as a priest of the sanctuary— a clergyman's work, not in the pulpit, but at the altar, at the font, at the prayer-desk- we shall find that in this department of his work also he is applying the mysteries of our faith to the cure of the souls entrusted to him.

I base all that I have to say to you to-day on that dogma laid down by St. Paul in 2 Cor. v. 19, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God was doing this in Christ, in the past tense, pointing to the time when Christ hung upon the cross, "lifted up,” that He might draw all men unto Him.

God was in Christ on the cross working an atonement which should avail to reconcile the world to Himself. But was the work of reconciliation then completed? No: the sacrifice was completed; but the virtue and grace of that sacrifice the reconciliation of man to God-had to be carried on and continually applied to successive generations of the fallen race by a ministry. St. Paul is careful to add this: Not only has God once for all made through Christ an atonement, but also God hath given to us (he says) the ministry of this atonement (Tǹv diakovíav τῆς καταλλαγῆς). As once upon the cross, so continually from age to age on the steps of the altar, in the person of His priests, Christ is reaching out His arms to mankind. For listen how St. Paul describes the ministry of reconciliation in the verse that follows: "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were intreating by us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God." This is the verse to which I wished to lead you. For what a store of Pastoral Theology we find compressed into this verse! All that I need say to you to-day will be but an unfolding of this verse. But my point now is this, that this verse describing the ministry, rests entirely upon the preceding verse describing the atonement wrought once for all. Without the theology of the nineteenth verse the Pastoral Theology of the twentieth would have had no meaning. Without the cross of Christ the Christian priesthood would now have no commission, no ministry, no heavenly gifts to dispense. The whole conception

of a Christian priesthood must be unfolded from the dogma of Christ's atonement.

And now some may think that in thus applying the word priesthood to the Christian ministry we are getting on to dangerous ground-ground bristling with controversies, which in this course of Lectures we had best avoid. That we had best avoid controversial matter is most true; but to set forth the duties of the Christian ministry without touching doctrine is simply impossible. We must begin with doctrine. And, if God will guide us to keep to what is simple and scriptural, you will find (I think) that we may all follow unitedly, without fear of controversy.

Well, then, the first dogma that we have to lay down is this of St. Paul, that in Christ's death on the cross, eighteen centuries or more ago, God was reconciling a fallen world to Himself. This one central all-sufficient Sacrifice had a far-reaching efficacy both before and after. All preceding acts of worship ordained of God looked forward to it; all subsequent acts of worship ordained of God look backward to it.

Christ's death is the only true sacrifice for sin. Whatever sacrifices God sanctioned in the old dispensation were but symbolical of this, and owed all their virtue to it. Whatever sacrifices God has sanctioned under the new dispensation are also symbolical of this, and owe all their virtue to it.

This first and then, secondly, What sort of sacrifices has God sanctioned under the new dispensation?