truth which he spoke addresseth not the temporary but the eternal in man; and by awakening the immortal in us, enableth us to shake off the temporal coil with which we are enslaved. Yet, as hath been said, the eternal truth which he spake, and from which all ages since have derived the knowledge of eternity and the sense of immortality, had a special application to the people to whom it was first addressed, and took hold of the forms of thought then current in the world, in order to deliver men from what was false, and manifest more clearly what was true, in those very things which they believed, and by which they were surrounded. But this taste of the times, and glance at the occasion, must never for a moment beguile us into the imagination that they reach no further, and were intended to reach no further, than to that occasion. Otherwise we must be content to lose all which he spoke his sermon from first to last. For example: the sermon which he preached on the mount, wherein he gathered up the fragments of all moral feeling and moral law, to issue them anew with divine wisdom, and write them in everlasting letters, not only searched into the joints and marrow of the Pharisaical sophistry and hypocrisy, but hath become to every country where it hath been published abroad, the basis of law and manners, and will continue the perfection of both while the world lasteth. Again, the comforting speeches he made to courses of his followers before his crucifixion, not only on the mount, his dis comfort, moved them to earnest questions indicating their personal concern in what he said, but have been the sustenance of his disciples ever since, in all the trials of their lives, and in the hour of their departure; and will never cease to be as refreshing to the Church as the waters of Meribah. And his prayers, however his prayers, aptly addressed to the occasion on which they were first uttered, are still the most frequent and the most soul-impressive of all our addresses to the throne of God. And those parables, his parables. whose images, like the Gorgon's head, froze his opponents to stony silence, are to this day the beautiful pictures of all social and religious duty; each one of them the porch and entrance to a magnificent temple of truth and blessedness. And those very parables which shadow forth the nature of his kingdom-the parable of the mustard seed, of the leaven, of the twelve virgins, of the steward, of the royal feast, of the labourers in the vineyard, of the sower and the seed,-are not these as applicable now as then, and as frequently enforced and applied by the ministers of the Gospel? And if in all other things he spoke for eternity, yet missed not the present occasion; if in all other things he spoke for all times and all occasions; who is he who will say, that when equipping and instructing the messengers and Missionaries of his kingdom, upon whom all the rest depended, he hath said nothing perennial, but only spoken well for the occasion, and must not be un they are solemnly derstood as instructing us in the same terms Against do- in which he instructed them? The man that ing which saith or fancieth so, hath need to learn warned and again what be the first principles of the docbeseeched. trine of Christ; and I warn him to beware how he taketh from or addeth to the words of the prophecy of this book, lest God shall add unto him all the plagues that are written in this book; how he break one of the least of these commandments, or teach others to do so, that he be not called least in the kingdom of heaven. If he, the King and Founder of the spiritual kingdom, in whom dwelt all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, did not understand and know the full provision and furniture for his own envoys and ambassadors, the strength in which they should fight, and the weapons with which they should overcome the powers of darkness, I marvel, indeed, who should understand and know them; and if his rules fail to be applicable to our case, I marvel who shall help out their inefficiency. The Church, say you; but what is the Church without its Head? and where is its counsel without its Counsellor? and where its authority without the Spirit of Christ? Therefore, let no man nor body of men, no Christian nor society of Christians, nor the whole visible Church, in their presumption, dare to say, these instructions of Christ to the messengers of the kingdom are now inapplicable, are Utopian, are extreme, are to be cautiously interpreted, and prudently carried into effect. For if these be cast aside, I, for one, see not upon what scriptural basis a Missionary Society resteth. Nor do I see by what principle a Christian Missionary is to guide himself. But these instructions remaining, I perceive the use of a Missionary College, to see them carried into effect; and I see the calling of a Missionary to be the highest upon earth, and the nearest unto God; I see that he is a messenger not of time but of eternity; that his soul is dressed not in the confidence and trust of time, but of eternity; that he is a man of faith, and of faith alone, and therefore able to plant faith whereever he is permitted; and I perceive that the world is his diocese: and if the world is mad enough to dispatch him away from its coast, then I find a haven of rest and glory provided for him by these his instructions. In short, without this document, I am all at sea upon the Missionary question, and must handle it like a question of state policy, or of church management: but preserving this, I have the Magna Charta of the Missionary Constitution, the description of the Missionary character, the scale of his qualifications, the directory of his procedure, his safe-conduct from the court above, and his assurance of success upon earth, and of immortality in heaven. 80 ORATION III. gument should double strength. THE PERPETUITY OF THIS MISSIONARY CON- II. From the Analogy of the Christian Faith and Discipline. Why this ar- HAVING thus established beyond a question, from the document itself, that it is written for be wove of all ages; and having shown that it was acted upon in the spirit, and beyond the letter, by the Apostles and first Missionaries of the Church, I see not what remains further to be said in order to prove that it ought still to be regarded as the constitution of the Missionary estate, and the directory of the Missionary course; but I feel, while I speak, a certain inward admonition, to weave the tissue of my argument as it were of double strength. For I seem to see the apparition of many enemies, and to have the foretaste of a fiery trial, for these thoughts which I have adventured forth. The warlike Spirit of the Crusaders, 'who unsheathed the sword which the blasphemous Father of Christendom had blessed, and unfurled the consecrated banner of the cross, there with to spread the Gospel of peace, and the artful Spirit of the Jesuits, who brought all the stores of human wit and worldly wisdom to the same great undertaking, and the Spirits of this monied and prudential age, who |