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disorders which may arise and increase in your neighbourhood. Among other ways of suppressing these things, you may form societies for the suppression of disorders: obtain a fit number of prudent, pious, well-affected men, to associate with this intention, and employ their discretion and activity, for your assistance in these holy purposes.

One of the rules given for the minister is, "Give thyself to reading." Sirs, let Gregory's Pastoral, and Bowles's Pastor Evangelicus, form a portion of your reading. And then, if you read Church History much, (particularly the Prudentia Veteris Ecclesiæ, written by Vedelius,) and especially the lives of both ancient and modern divines, you will frequently find methods to do good, exemplified. You will then consider how far you may "go and do likewise."

How serviceable may ministers be, to one another, and to all the churches, in their several associations! Many things of general advantage to all their flocks might be devised. Indeed, it is a pity that there should ever be the least occasional "meeting of ministers," without some useful thing proposed in it.

Nero took it very ill, that Vespasian slept at his music: it is very much to be wished that the sin of sleeping at sermons were more guarded against, and your sleepy hearers reproved; if indeed they may be called hearers, who miserably lose the good of your ministry, and perhaps the good which you might have particularly designed for them, who, at the time of your speaking what you prepared for them, were seized with a horrible spirit of slumber before

your eyes.

Will no vinegar help against the narcotics that Satan has given to your poor Eutychuses? or cannot you bring that civility into fashion among your hearers, to wake one another?

Finally, After all the generous essays and labours to do good that may fill your lives, your people will probably treat you with ingratitude. Your salaries will be meaner than even those at Geneva. They will neglect you; they will oppress you; they will withhold from you what they have promised, and you have expected. You have now one more opportunity to do good, and so to glorify your Saviour. Your patience, O ye tried servants of God, your patience will do it wonderfully! To bear evil, is to do good. The more patient you are under ill usage, the more you exhibit a glorious Christ to your people, in your conformity to your adorable Saviour. The more conformed you are to Him, the more prepared you are, perhaps, for some amendment in your condition in this world-most certainly for the rewards of the heavenly world, when you shall appear before the Lord, who says, "I know thy works and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience."

This was the character, you know, of Ignatius, "that he carried Christ about with him, in his heart:" and I will say this, if to represent a glorious Christ to the view, and love and admiration of all people, be the grand intention of your life; if you be a star to lead men to Christ; if you are exquisitely studious, that the holiness and yet the gentleness of a glorious Christ may shine in your conver

sation; if in your public discourses you do with rapture bring in the mention of a glorious Christ in every paragraph, and on every occasion where he is to be spoken of, and if in your private conversation you contrive to insinuate something of his: glories and praises, wherever it may be decently introduced: lastly, if when you find that a glorious Christ is the more considered and acknowledged by your means, it fills you with wonderful satisfaction, with "joy unspeakable and full of glory," and you exclaim, "Lord, this is my desired happiness!" truly, Sirs, you then live to good purpose-you do good emphatically !

There was a worthy minister, whom the great Cranmer designed for preferment, and he gave this reason of his design-" He seeks nothing, he longs for nothing, he dreams about nothing, but Jesus Christ." Verily, such "men of Christ" are "men of God;" they are the favourites of heaven, and shall be favoured with opportunities to do good above any men in the world; they are the "men whom the king of heaven will delight to honour," and they are the Gaons of Christianity.

If I reserve one thing to be mentioned after finally, it is because I doubt whether it should be mentioned at all. In some reformed churches they do not permit a minister of the gospel to practice as a physician, because either of these callings is generally sufficient to employ him fully, who faithfully follows it but, the priests of old, who preserved in the archives of their temples the records of the cures which had been thankfully acknowledged

there, communicated from thence directions for cures in similar cases among their neighbours. Nor has it been an uncommon thing in later ages for clergymen to be physicians. Not only such monks as Aegidius Atheniensis and Constantius Afer, but bishops, as Bochelt and Albicus, have appeared in that character. Thus Herbert advises that his "Country minister" (or at least his wife,) should be a kind of physician to the flock; and we have known many a country minister prove a great blessing to his flock by being such. If a minister attempt any thing in this way, let him always make it a means of doing spiritual good to his people. It is an angelical conjunction, when the ministers of Christ, who do his pleasure, become also physicians and Raphaels to their people. In a more populous place, however, you will probably choose rather to procure some religious and accomplished physician to settle in your neighbourhood, and make medical studies only your recreation; yet with a design to communicate to your Luke whatever you meet with in reading worthy of his notice, and at times unite your counsels with him for the good of his patients. Thus you may save the lives of many, who themselves may know nothing of your care for them.

SECTION XV.

Schoolmasters have many opportunities for doing Good.

The

FROM the tribe of Levi, let us proceed with our proposals to the tribe of Simeon; from which there has been a frequent ascent to the former. SCHOOLMASTER has many opportunities of doing good. God make him sensible of his obligations! We read, that "the little ones have their angels." It is hard work to keep a school; but it is a good work, and it may be so managed as to be like the work of angels: the tutors of the children may be like their "tutelar angels." Melchior Adams properly styled it" An office most laborious, yet most pleasing to God."

Tutors! will you not regard the children under your wing, as committed to you by the glorious Lord with a charge of this import? "Take them, and bring them up for me, and I will pay you your wages." Whenever a new scholar comes under your tuition, you may say, "Here, my Lord sends me another object, for whom I may do something, that he may be useful in the world." O suffer little children to come unto you, and consider what you may do, that of such may be the kingdom of heaven!

Sirs, let it be your grand intention-to instil into their minds the documents of piety. Esteem it as

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