Britain admit of no similar appeal to the eye? They represent her, indeed, seated in power, armed with a trident, and attended by her lion; and for her political condition, these symbols may do. But, for her spiritual state, for an emblem of the religious condition of millions of her population, these signs of power should be all removed, and she should be seen lying, prostrate, on the steps of a Christian temple, perishing through lack of knowledge. To meet the spiritual wants of this large and perishing class, the Society for which I now plead exists. Is it your heart's desire and prayer to God for them, that they may be saved? then, help this Society to extend its saving operations.-Amen. IMPORTANCE OF AN EDUCATED MINISTRY: A DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN GROSVENOR STREET CHAPEL, MANCHESTER, LANCASHIRE INDEPENDENT COLLEGE,* APRIL 25, 1843. FRIENDS and Supporters of the New Independent College, you have reached an important point in a most important undertaking. Had each of you been occupied in building a house for himself-a house in which it was likely that you and generations of your posterity would live and die-you could not contemplate taking possession on the morrow without musing thoughtfully on the probable consequences of the change. Had you been engaged in erecting a house for God, you could not have had its public dedication in prospect for the morrow, without feeling that solemn interests were involved in the event-interests arising out of all the past, and associated with all the future. But there is a sense in which the opening of a College for " men of God" designed for the Christian Ministry, is more important still; for if the Church is instrumentally to move the world, and the ministry is instrumentally to move the church, an Institution in which that ministry, or a portion of that ministry, is to be trained for service, must be regarded as imparting the primary impulse to the whole. Such an institution you have long contemplated; and, to-morrow, "having The Dissenting community of Great Britain have always been the advocates of a learned ministry, and have furnished their full proportion of eminent biblical scholars. The Lancashire College, however, in its obtained help of God," you hope to receive the answer to many an earnest prayer, and to reap the first-fruits of many an hour of unknown anxiety and toil, in opening the noble erection in which such an institution is to exist. Numbers who have watched your movements with sympathetic interest are now mentally offering you their cordial congratulations, and are ardently breathing the desire, "God be merciful to them, and bless them, and cause his face to shine upon them." In anticipation of to-morrow's engagements we have now assembled. And as a topic appropriate to the occasion-a topic of your own selection-you are to be addressed on "the importance of an educated Ministry." Not, indeed, that you can be supposed to entertain any misgivings respecting its importance. On the contrary, by the erection of your college, you have reared a monumental evidence of your deep sense of its vital importance; and your object will be gained by the present discourse, I presume, only in proportion as it serves to expound the grounds of your own convictions, and to enforce them on the attention of other minds. In pursuance of this design, I propose to explain the proposition that the Christian ministry, should be educated; to state some of the grounds of the importance of such education; and then to point out some of the obligations resulting from it. I. First, we have to explain what we mean when buildings, and its prospects stands unrivalled in England. The institution itself has long existed at Blackburn, but the large increase of Congregational Dissenters in the district, and other circumstances rendered its removal to the populous town of Manchester eminently desirable. The building, which is of the gothic order of about the fifteenth century, contains an entrance, tower, corridor, library, lecture rooms, dining room, residences for the professors, and fifty two comfortable dormitories for the students. The cost of the whole, with seven acres of land by which it is surrounded, was about £25,000 or nearly 125,000 dollars. The president is the learned and excellent Dr. Vaughan, assisted by the Rev. Dr. Davison, as professor of Biblical Criticism, the Rev. F. W. Newman, M. A., professor of the learned Languages, the Rev. H. Rogers, M. A., professor of English Literature, and others.-ED. we speak of an educated ministry: and, while doing this, we shall, if I mistake not, be incidentally furnishing a sufficient reply to the principal objections of those who not only deny its importance, but even deprecate it as an evil. For, you can hardly need to be informed, that in all ages of the church such persons have existed. As early as the second century of the. Christian era, a party arose, who, confounding the use of learning with its abuse, denied its compatibility with the spirit of piety. In the third century the controversy raged with considerable violence; and although, owing to the efforts of the Alexandrian school, especially of Clement and Origen,* the cause of letters and philosophy gradually triumphed, its opponents have not wanted for reinforcements in any subsequent age. Fortunately, as most of their prejudices originate in ignorance, however well-meaning, they furnish unintentionally the most apposite proof of the value of that knowledge which they condemn; since an explanation of the subject seems all that is necessary to silence their complaints. 1. In offering such an explanation, we may remark, first, that, in advocating the education of the ministry, we pre-suppose the existence of genuine piety in all who receive it. For, we cannot forget that, while the private Christian is to be an example to the world, the Christian minister is to be "an ensample to the flock" -a model of models. His central station and official * The allegorizing exegesis of these fathers, especially of Origen, was not owing to their learning. The writings of the Alexandrian Jews had, ages before, exhibited similar principles of interpretation. Prior to this, again, and partially accounting for it, was the prevalence of the Platonic philosophy in Egypt. But the origin of the allegorizing tendency is to be looked for in a source deeper still, and one which is quite irrespective of learning-in the subtlety, activity, and love of the mystical, which have ever characterised the oriental mind. Indeed, If a sound education has any attraction for the allegorical mode of interpretation, it is the attraction of repulsion. And hence it will be found that, among ourselves, the metaphorical fancies of a Gill and a Keach are most acceptable to the uneducated. character invest him with influences which render his every movement an object of interest to superior beings, for it deeply implicates the everlasting welfare of all around.him. How important that the whole of that influence should be eminently holy; and how can that be, but by issuing from a character eminently .pious? On this account, we call for evidences of the personal piety of every one seeking admission to our collegiate institutions; we take the opinion of his pastor, and of others likely to form a correct judgment of his character, and we subject the whole to the test of a patient and anxious examination. If, then, it be objected, that some parties have made learning a substitute for piety in the ministry, and that others have appeared to expect that piety would follow as the effect of learning, we need not retort, in the language of Jerome, that there are those who err as egregiously on the other side in " mistaking ignorance for sanctity; we content ourselves with simply remarking that we have no sympathy with the classes described. But, perhaps, it will be alleged that though we may and do require piety in the Christian student, we endanger his humility and his sense of personal insufficiency. We reply, first, in the spirit of Dr. Johnson's answer to a similar objection, that education can minister to vanity only as long as it is regarded as a distinction; let education be universal, and the distinction arising from it will cease. Or, secondly, we might remind the objector that, if the possible abuse of a thing is to lead to its disuse, we shall be adopting a principle which has originated the most fatal errors. For example, the conjugal state has its dangers; on his own principle, therefore, he cannot complain of that church which requires the celibacy of its clergy. Every sense of the body may prove an inlet to evil; shall it therefore be mutilated? or shall piety retire from social life to the monastery, the hermitage, or the desert? One of these alternatives, common consistency requires him to adopt. Or, thirdly, we might reply, that whatever the dangers of knowledge |