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it impossible for the seeker to meet with him. A smile from the Lord is the greatest of comforts, his frown the worst of ills. "Put not thy servant away in anger." Other servants had been put away when they proved unfaithful, as for instance, his predecessor Saul; and this made David, while conscious of many faults, most anxious that divine long-suffering should continue him in favour. This is a most appropriate prayer for us under a similar sense of unworthiness. "Thou hast been my help." How truly can we join in this declaration; for many years, in circumstances of varied trial, we have been upheld by our God, and must and will confess our obligation. Ingratitude" it is said, "is natural to fallen man," but to spiritual men it is unnatural and detestable. not, neither forsake me." A prayer for the future, and an inference from the past. If the Lord had meant to leave us, why did he begin with us? Past help is but a waste of effort if the soul now be deserted. The first petition, "leave me not," may refer to temporary desertions, and the second word to the final withdrawal of grace, both are to be prayed against; and concerning the second. we have immutable promises to urge. "O God of my salvation." A sweet title worthy of much meditation.

"Leave me

10. "When my father and my mother forsake me." These dear relations will be the last to desert me, but if the milk of human kindness should dry up even from their breasts, there is a Father who never forgets. Some of the greatest of the saints have been cast out by their families, and persecuted for righteousness' sake. "Then the Lord will take me up." Will espouse my cause, will uplift me from my woes, will carry me in his arms, will elevate me above my enemies, will at last receive me to his eternal dwelling place.

11. "Teach me thy way, O Lord." He does not pray to be indulged with his own way, but to be informed as to the path in which the righteous Jehovah I would have him walk. This prayer evinces an humble sense of personal ignorance, great teachableness of spirit, and cheerful obedience of heart. "Lead me in a plain path." Help is here sought as well as direction; we not only need a map of the way, but a guide to assist us in the journey. A path is here desired which shall be open, honest, straightforward, in opposition to the way of cunning, which is intricate, tortuous, dangerous. Good men seldom succeed in fine speculations and doubtful courses; plain simplicity is the best spirit for an heir of heaven: let us leave shifty tricks and political expediences to the citizens of the world-the New Jerusalem owns plain men for its citizens. Esau was a cunning hunter, Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. "Because of mine enemies." These will catch us if they can, but the way of manifest, simple honesty is safe from their rage. It is wonderful to observe how honest simplicity baffles and outwits the craftiness of wickedness. Truth is wisdom. 66 Honesty is the best policy."

12. "Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies;" or I should be like a victim cast to the lions, to be rent to pieces and utterly devoured. God be thanked that our foes cannot have their way with us, or Smithfield would soon be on a blaze again. "For false witnesses are risen up against me." Slander is an old-fashioned weapon out of the armoury of hell, and is still in plentiful use; and no matter how holy a man may be, there will be some who will defame him. "Give a dog an ill name, and hang him;" but glory be to God, the Lord's people are not dogs, and their ill names do not injure them. such as breathe out cruelty." It is their vital breath to hate the good; they cannot speak without cursing them; such was Paul before conversion. They who breathe out cruelty may well expect to be sent to breathe their native air in hell; let persecutors beware!

"And

13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

13. Faintness of heart is a common infirmity; even he who slew Goliath was subject to its attacks. Faith puts its bottle of cordial to the lip of the soul, and so prevents fainting. Hope is heaven's balm for present sorrow.

In this land of

the dying, it is our blessedness to be looking and longing for our fair portion in the land of the living, whence the goodness of God has banished the wickedness of man, and where holy spirits charm with their society those persecuted saints who were vilified and despised among men. We must believe to see, not see to believe; we must wait the appointed time, and stay our soul's hunger with foretastes of the Lord's eternal goodness which shall soon be our feast and our song 14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

"Wait on the Lord." Wait at his door with prayer; wait at his foot with humility; wait at his table with service; wait at his window with expectancy. Suitors often win nothing but the cold shoulder from earthly patrons after long and obsequious waiting; he speeds best whose patron is in the skies. "Be of good courage." A soldier's motto. Be it mine. Courage we shall need, and for the exercise of it we have as much reason as necessity, if we are soldiers or King Jesus. "And he shall strengthen thine heart." He can lay the plaister right upon the weak place. Let the heart be strengthened, and the whole machine of humanity is filled with power; a strong heart makes a strong arm. What strength is this which God himself gives to the heart? Read the "Boos of Martyrs," and see its glorious deeds of prowess; go to God rather, and get such power thyself. Wait, I say, on the Lord." David, in the words " I say," sets his own private seal to the word which, as an inspired man, he had been moved to write. It is his testimony as well as the command of God, and indeed he who writes these scanty notes has himself found it so sweet, so reviving, so profitable to draw near to God, that on his own account he also feels bound to write, "Wait, I SAY, on the Lord."

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HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER.

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Verse 1 (first clause).—The relation of illumination to salvation, or the need of light if men would be saved.

The Christian hero, and the secret springs of his courage.

The believer's fearless challenge.

Verse 2.-The character, number, power, and cruelty of the enemies of the Church, and the mysterious way in which they have been defeated.

Verse 3.-Christian peace. I. Exhibited in the calm foresight of trouble. II. Displayed in the confident endurance of affliction. III. Sustained by divine help and past experience (verses 1 & 2). IV. Producing the richest results, glory to God, &c.

Verse 4. Model Christian life. I. Unity of desire. II. Earnestness of action. III. Nearness of communion. IV. Heavenliness of contemplation. V. Progress in divine education.

Verse 4 (last clauses).-Sabbath occupations and heavenly delights.

Verse 4 (final clause).—Matters for enquiry in the temple of old opened up in the light of the New Testament.

Verse 5.-The threefold shelter. See Exposition.

Verse 6.-The saint's present triumph over his spiritual foes, his practical gratitude, and his vocal praises.

Verse 7.-Prayer.

To whom addressed? How? "Cry," &c. When? Left indefinite. On what it is based? "Mercy. What it needs "hear," "answer." Verse 8.-The heart in tune with its God. Note. The promptness, heartiness, personality, unreservedness, accuracy, and resolution of the response to the precept. Verse 9.-I. Desertion deprecated in all its forms. II. Experience pleaded. III. Divine aid implored.

Verse 10.-The portion of the orphan, the comfort of the persecuted, the paradise of the departing.

way,

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Verse 11.-The plain man's pathway desired, described, divinely approved, “thy a plain way," and divinely taught, "teach me, O Lord," "lead me.' Verse 13.-Faith, its precedence of sight, its objects, its sustaining power. Verse 14.-The believer's position, "wait;" his condition, "good courage;" his support, "he shall," &c.; his perseverance, "wait a second time;" his reward.

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AS

The Higher Private Life in the Minister of the Gospel.

A PAPER READ BY PASTOR F. H. WHITE AT THE CONFERENCE, 1867.

"A word to a minister is sometimes worth a word S M'Cheyne used to say, to three or four thousand souls." Thus I feel in speaking to one another in such an assembly as this, we really speak to thousands personally unknown to us, and exercise a ministry, the blessed results of which the great day alone can reveal. May the Spirit of grace and truth fill all our hearts that even in our common communications with each other we may be mutually profited, then who may estimate the blessing which shall come upon our sin-stricken neighbourhood through the means of this Conference?

The subject upon which I have been requested to address you is-" The Higher Private Life in the Minister of the Gospel, and its Bearing upon his Public Labours; or, in other words, A Holy Walk Before God, the Main Prerequisite for Success in the Gospel Ministry." May the Lord give me the tongue of the learned, and may the opening of my lips be right things.

Upon so appalling a spectacle as an unconverted ministry I need say but little. "Nothing can be more indecent," says Baxter, "than to hear a dead preacher speaking to dead sinners the living truth of the living God;" and again with terrible truthfulness he remarks, "Many have warned others that they come not to that place of torment which yet they hasted to themselves. Many a preacher is now in hell that hath a hundred times called upon his hearers to use their utmost care and diligence to escape it." And we know who has said, "He that entereth not by the door into the sheep-fold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber ;" and again, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." May God in his great mercy save our College from ever even unwittingly helping into the ministry any who, while professing to be wholly separated unto the gospel of God, and to be moved by the Holy Ghost to preach the same, are nevertheless proved by their lives to be "enemies to the cross of Christ," ""promising liberty to others, yet themselves the servants of corruption." 'Lord, is it I? am I one of these preachers?" may well be the cry of each one of us. But our business this morning is not to consider the question, Whether unconverted men ought to be in the ministry, or whether God can use such? We know he can and sometimes does, for he delights to honour his own truth, even though it be dispensed through impure channels. Nor need we stay to ask, Whether converted men are not often made instruments of blessing to others, when their own souls are in a cold backsliding state? We know they are, and a mercy it is that the salvation of the elect depends not on the ever-varying condition of heart in them that proclaim the word of faith; but what we assert is, that while a man may be holy, and yet lack success in preaching the gospel (for all the called are not called to the public ministry of the Word), yet all things being equal, that man will be most used of God who is most filled with God. According to the divine rule, "Them that honour me, I will honour." Ah! and when all things are not equal, this is frequently the case, for God will often pass by great attainments to put honour upon a life of personal holiness.

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Robert M'Cheyne (and you will bear with me if I make frequent allusion to this blessed servant of Christ; I do so because his life presents so striking an illustration of the power of a holy walk to secure success in the ministry), in one of his precious letters writes:-"In great measure, according to the purity and perfection of the instrument, will be the success. It is not great talents that God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is

an awful weapon in the hand of God." And again, "Speak for eternity, but above all, cultivate your own spirit: a word spoken by you when your conscience is clean and your heart full of God's Spirit, is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin. I find I am never so successful as when I can lie at Christ's feet willing to be used or not as seemeth him good." On another occasion, when writing to Wm. Burns (who is now labouring with apostolic zeal in China), and speaking of the great desire he had for a pure and wide-spread awakening amongst the masses of the ungodly, he adds, "I am deepened in my conviction that if we are to be instruments in such a work, we must be purified from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. Oh! cry for personal holiness, constant nearness to God by the blood of the Lamb. Bask in his beams. Lie back in the arms of his love. Be filled with his Spirit, or all success in the ministry will only be to your everlasting confusion. How much more useful might we be if we were only more free from pride, self-conceit, personal vanity, or some secret sin that our heart knows. Oh! hateful sins, that destroy our peace and ruin souls."

But hear one of yet greater authority-writing to Timothy: Paul says, "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." And how far purity of life and fitness for service were associated in the mind of the apostle, may be gathered from his second letter to his "son in the faith," in which he writes, "In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work." Again, "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." Depend upon it, the best answer which is sometimes raised against our youth is a holy life. In Jeremiah xxiii. 32, God declares he is against the prophets who cause his people to err by their lightness, and adds, "They shall not profit this people at all." Brethren, if our profiting is to appear unto all, we must be men of weight, such as Paul exhorts Titus to be. "In all things shewing ourselves patterns of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of us.” I mean not that we should affect a seriousness which does not belong to us, for while "the sinner is overawed by that which is holy, he is disgusted by that which is sanctimonious." There is a beautiful description of a holy and therefore a successful minister, in Malachi ii. 6: "The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.” It is not difficult to conceive how the silence of some men may be a greater power for good than the speech of others; for a holy character is a constant sermon. Thus, at Jedburgh, M'Cheyne's biographer tells us, the impression left was chiefly that there had been among them a man of peculiar holiness. Some felt not so much his words as his presence and holy solemnity, as if one spoke to them who was standing in the presence of God. After his death a note was found unopened, which had been sent to him while he lay in the fever. It ran thus: "I hope you will pardon a stranger addressing to you a few lines. I heard you preach last Sabbath evening, and it pleased God to bless that sermon to my soul. It was not so much what you said as your manner of speaking which struck me. I saw in you a beauty of holiness that I never saw before."

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What wonder that the ministry of such a man was a ministry of power! His preaching was described by one who heard him—as if it were a "blast of the great trumpet that shall awake the dead." And what was the secret of the success which attended the preaching of such men as President Edwards, the Tennants, Whitefield, Wesley, John Livingstone, Brown of Haddington, Brainerd, Payson, and others whom time would fail to mention? How was it that in their hands every stroke of the hammer of the Word told, and few

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could resist the wisdom and spirit with which they spake Was it not that, like Stephen, they were men "full of faith and the Holy Ghost"? Their fellowship was with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. They lived in Christ, and Christ lived in them. Thus immersed into the spirit of their Master, is it any wonder their word was with power, and thousands became converted under their preaching? And might not we, after making all allowance for our deficiency in point of gift and mental attainments, expect to be used in a similar way, when we follow them, as they followed Christ? Do not our Lord's own words, in John xv., warrant such an expectation-"He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit"? Is it too much to say that success is the rule under a living ministry, want of success the exception"? "Our want of ministerial success," says one, "is a tremendous circumstance not to be contemplated without horror." It is said of M'Cheyne, that he entertained so full a persuasion that a faithful minister has every reason to expect to see souls converted under him, that, when this was withheld, he began to fear some hidden evil was provoking the Lord and grieving the Spirit. And ought it not, to be so with us? for whilst non-success in preaching the gospel does not necessarily prove my soul to be in an unhealthy state, my heart cannot surely be right with God if I am content with such a state of things. Apparent failure in the ministry is one thing, carelessness as to the result of our preaching another; the one may be of God, the other is, without doubt, of Satan. It is said of Alleine, that he was insatiably and infinitely greedy of the conversion of souls; of M'Cheyne, that "He seemed dying to have ye converted." Whitefield was seldom known to preach a sermon without weeping. Brainerd wrote: “I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through so that I could but gain souls to Christ. While I was asleep I dreamed of these things, and when I waked the first thing I thought of was this great work." Like the apostle Paul and others, these men “travailed in birth” for souls. What wonder that souls were born under their word?

O brethren, we have done well to come together this morning, if it be only to remind one another that the Lord's arm is not shortened, nor his grace less full and free than in days that have past. And if his Spirit be restrained, and the showers withheld, is there not a cause? and may it not lie in the lack of personal holiness on our part? May not our pride, unbelief, and self-indulgence, be shutting the windows of heaven? How many of us can address our people as Paul addressed the Christians at Thessalonica, “Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe"?

I feel I need not say more upon the necessity of keeping well our own vineyards, if we would successfully tend the vineyards of others; of taking heed to ourselves, if we would feed the church of God over which the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers; or, to return to our first proposition, of regarding “A holy walk as the main pre-requisite for success in the ministry of the word." Allow me to add a few brief words upon “the best means of promoting the higher private life," which we are all ready to acknowledge so indispensable to usefulness in the ministry.

First let me mention, SELF-EXAMINATION. "Personal enquiry into the state of our own souls." I know the flesh will shrink from such work as this, but surely it is needful, for how else shall we discern hidden causes of barrenness? how else can we get to know wherein we have departed from our first love, or be furnished with matter for confession? * M'Cheyne in his Personal Reformation says, "I ought to take all methods for seeing the vileness of my sins. I ought to look at them in the light of the holy law—in the light of God's countenance—in the light of the cross, in the light of the judgment-seat

* "Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne." By the Rev. Andrew Bonar. (Nisbet.) A book which no minister of the gospel ought to be without. Dear reader, see that your pastor has also "Additional Remains." (Hamilton, Adams, & Co.)