building up out of the stony hearts of every generation of sinners, a living Church, a temple of the Holy Ghost, to the praise and glory of this glorious Gospel of the blessed God.

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

"For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

"But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you."

Let ministers, then, preach the Word, the pure Word, the whole counsel of God, and nothing but that Word, seeing that it alone is the incorruptible seed of Divine truth, and that seed, which now, after six thousand years, is as living and life-giving as when it was created in counsels of God's everlasting love, and first planted in the earth, cursed and barren, by reason of man's apostasy and condemnation.

Let christians take heed that they hear only the Word of this salvation; the Word that alone is able to make wise unto salvation and save souls from death; the only Word that can establish our souls, sanctify our corrupt hearts, comfort our sorrowing spirits, constrain us by the love of Jesus to willing work and sacrifice, and put songs of joy into our mouths, even in the darkest and most solitary night of our pilgrimage, and make our hands valiant, and our steps buoyant, even when we grapple with the monster, death, and tread the verge of Jordan.

T. S.

PREACH THE WORD-TWO-FOLD OFFICE OF THE MINISTRY.

Ministerial work originates, centres and terminates in the Word. It is by the Word ministers are commissioned. It is from the word they receive their message. And it is the Word alone which gives authority and power to their preaching. Apart from the Word ministers are but men and all the wisdom of man, but as tinkling brass or sounding cymbals.

The first office of the ministry is therefore to preach from the Word. The word contains the whole counsel of God-"all things whatsoever Christ has commanded-whatsoever is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for reproof, for consolation, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished for every good word and work." To teach any thing beside, beyond, or contrary to the Word, is therefore an impious usurpation of authority never delegated, and of a wisdom greater than that of God himself. But as all Scripture was given by inspiration, and is profitable, and as no Scripture is of any private interpretation, that is, by man's

wisdom, or by its own isolated statement, the Word must be understood by the analogy "or proportion of faith;" that is, by comparing passage with passage, and one Scripture with another; by deducing from the comparison the doctrines, precepts and promises they legitimately contain; and by applying the truth thus discovered to particular circumstances, individuals and relations. This is preaching from the Word.

The second office of the minister is the preaching of the Word itself. It is to convey to the hearers the Word as it is, to make them familiar with the Word itself, as distinguished from any interpretations of it or deductions from it; not as combined, commented on and applied by the preacher, nor even as drawn out by our Confession and Catechisms, but the Word as it came to us from God, with the very form and pressure which the Holy Spirit has left upon it.

In the beginning of the Gospel, and during the lives of the apostles, the statement of the actual words of Christ and his inspired apostles were the foundation of whatever else a preacher might say. He was a herald, a messenger, authorized to convey, by reiterated statement, the authentic and genuine declarations of God. Preachers were therefore to be faithful men, declaring only what they themselves had been taught by these holy men of God. The Word was then preached orally, as the Gospel was unwritten.

When, however, that Gospel was committed not only to faithful men, but to inspired Scriptural documents, and there deposited, sealed up and finished, once and for ever, this office of the ministry continued to be no less prominent and primary --because the language employed by the Holy Spirit was local, foreign to millions of people and the greater portion of the earth, and soon ceased to be vernacular, and became dead; and because it could then only be communicated through a vernacular translation, into the language of every distinct people, authorized and provided for them; and because, strictly speaking, that original alone is THE WORD, which holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, just as they left it, just as God originally gave and sealed it up. So God has willed it. The Word of God, as embodied in Scripture, is preserved to us in a language which is now foreign, dead, difficult to be acquired and to be translated, and it is the office of ministers to preach that Word to those who cannot understand it except through a translation, imperfect at best, and liable to all the perversions and mutabilities of language.

The Word itself, the Scripture, is the original writing, and not any translation, which is only one instrumentality for conveying it to the people. To render it, however, effectual for its purpose, by proper instruction; to clear away what may

render it obscure, or in any way imperfect; to teach the proper use of this translation, as a reflected image of, but not the Word itself; to awaken an interest in all to obtain as accurate an image as possible; and to give all the aid which may enable them to do so this is the primary and fundamental office of the preacher of the word, the very foundation of his authority and his power.

Let, then, both ministers and people, duly value that knowledge which it is one chief end of our Theological Seminaries and professors to impart, by which alone THE WORD can be truly, fully, and authoritatively preached.

Let our laymen realize how deeply they are personally interested in endowing, sustaining, and watching over these fountains of the pure Water of Life, as it flowed from the bosom of God Himself.

Let theological students lay to heart, that a thorough knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures is the golden key to unlock the treasures of infinite wisdom, and to enable them as wise householders to bring out the pure word, and the Bread of heaven, to feed and nourish and build up in holy faith famishing souls.

And let ministers diligently preserve the gift that is in them, which was given them at great cost to the Church, to their professors and to themselves, that their profiting may appear to all, and they be found not unfaithful nor unfruitful stewards of the manifold wisdom of God. T. S.

PREACH THE WORD THE WORD DIFFERENTLY RENDERED.

Our old divines were not only great preachers, but great preachers of the Word. The exordium of their discourses laid a deep and stable foundation for all they built upon it, whether of doctrine or of practical instruction, in an elaborate exposition of the words of their text. No provision was made, in authorizing our received English translation, for amending it from time to time, as words became obsolete or differently employed, or as otherwise common consent would have approved it. For people generally, this service must be rendered by the pulpit. Preachers cannot present the Word to their hearers, reflected clearly in a pure and unspotted "glass," so that its image can be at once perceived, unless they are able to wipe off all the dust that may have gathered upon it.

For instance, the same word in the original is sometimes rendered by one English word, and sometimes by another, although the meaning of that original word is in every case the same, while that of the English words are different, and while the true meaning is highly important. This may be accounted

for by the number of different persons employed in making the translation. But, as it cannot now be remedied in the translation, the disadvantage to which the English reader is obviously exposed must be remedied by a learned and diligent ministry. The meaning of any expression becomes better understood by comparing its use in one passage with its use in another, and one passage will frequently illustrate what is obscured in another, solely through the use of the same expression in both. But to a reader of the English version all this is lost, and the loss is serious where the original expression is peculiar to "the Word," that is to revelation. In this case, the Bible is its own dictionary. It alone establishes the usage-usus loquandi-and true meaning of the expression, and this is to be discovered only by observing the use made of it in all its various combinations with other words.

The extent, from this cause alone, to which thorough ministerial learning-"aptness to teach" is necessary in order to preach "the Word" effectually, will surprise those not acquainted with the facts. Thus, for instance, the English reader finds in the Gospel by St. John, that our Saviour promised to send His disciples another Comforter when He should save them, even the Holy Ghost, and that He laid so much stress upon the effect of His coming upon their own minds, and upon their preaching, as to declare that it was expedient that He should go away, in order that the Comforter might come. Now, in another part of the same apostle's writings we read, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation," &c. Between these passages there is apparently no connection as they are rendered. But let the same original word be rendered in both places by the term Comforter, and the connection is evident, and the meaning most important and consolatory. We are taught that one of our Lord's titles and offices is that of Comforter; that the Holy Spirit is not the-the only-Comforter, but another; that in all time of our sin and misery, when we come to God to confess and seek the pardon of sin; and to induce us to come with boldness and confidence we have in our great High Priest and intercessor a Comforter; and, still further, that as our Lord spoke of the coming of another, or that other, Comforter as His own coming, and His own sending, He teaches the identity in Divine nature and attributes of the two persons of the Trinity. Further still, with the same rendering of the original word we discover that Simeon, Anna and their pious cotemporaries were waiting, not "for the Consolation," (Luke 2:25,) but "for the Comforter of Israel." In accordance with this view, the preaching of the Gospel is called in Acts 13:15; in Romans 12:8; 1 Corinthians 14:3, the word of "comfort," or

consolation, and not, as it is rendered, "of exhortation;" and believers are said to have enjoyed "the comfort of the Scriptures." God is called the God of patience and comfort, (Romans 15:4,) and the God of all comfort, (2 Corinthians 1:3.) "If any comfort in Christ," in Philemon 2:1, is in special allusion to the promise of Christ, and in 2 Thessalonians 2:16, it is also by express allusion said that "Christ has given us everlasting comfort and good hope.' See also Hebrews 6:18; 12:5; and 13:22.

By comparing all these passages together, what a lustre is thrown upon our Saviour's most blessed and precious promise and upon the whole nature and spirit of the Gospel. T. S.

PREACH THE WORD-DIFFERENT RENDERINGS-CHARITY. The Word has no term peculiar to itself more important doctrinally, practically, and experimentally, than the original word agape, and yet, without discrimination or any apparent design, our translators have rendered this term by two words of very different meaning, power and compass, that is, love and charity, the former being the principle and the latter its exercise, or the former the fountain and the latter the flowing stream, the root and its fruit; or rather love, being the heart of christian vitality, power and practice, constraining to the love of Christ, and of every good word and work of sacrifice and self-denial for Christ's sake, and the latter being one way of willing sacrifice for him and his cause.

Nothing has led to greater confusion and serious practical errors lying at the foundation of a self-righteous pharisaism, or of a halting and timorous piety, than the frequent substitution of charity, which is an effect for love, which is the inspiring cause. This is very emphatically true of all that glowing chapter in 1 Corinthians 13th, which is really unintelligible and contradictory until love, that is, love to Christ and to the Father and Spirit and our lost and perishing fellow-men for Christ's sake, is substituted for charity. This is instinctively felt by every Christian, and he reads it with confusion and a certain sentimental admiration, accompanied with an unsatisfied longing for its full fruition. Charity, in its greatest exhibition, as martyrdom itself, including of course all minor sacrifices, is declared to be "nothing without charity, that is, without itself. Charity is also said to edify," &c., and of it it is said "it never faileth," and is greater than faith and hope, by which, nevertheless, "we are saved." Substitute, however, the meaning of the word above given, and the whole chapter becomes radiant with celestial beauty, instinct with the seraphic ardor of one who had listened to the minstrelsy of the third heavens, quick