was, then, the first example which Christ left to his ministers, in the public exercise of his ministry, in Jerusalem. He sends forth his ministers like lambs, which are silent and show only mildness when they themselves are ill treated; but which know how to raise their voices and roar like lions, when any insult is offered to the glory of the Lord, whose ministers they have the honor to be. He disapproved, it is true, of the zeal of the two disciples, who, wished to bring down fire from heaven upon an unbelieving city; but he blamed only the impetuosity and fierceness of their zeal. He condemned that zeal which seeks to punish rather than to correct; and taught us, that zeal without charity is but a sally of passion, not a gracious exercise. In fine, he has forewarned us that we cannot indeed take from his kingdom all things that offend; but it is his will, that we incessantly denounce misery and an eternal anathema against every one who shall wilfully offend his brother; that we zealously condemn the offences which we cannot correct, or at least, that we mourn in secret on account of those which we are not permitted publicly to condemn.

In this discourse, I propose, First, To show that zeal against vices and scandals is a most essential duty of a Christian minister: Secondly, To point out the reasons why there is so little zeal in most ministers.

I. From the time of our ordination it became our duty to be co-workers with God in the salvation of our fellow men; in forming a spiritual, holy, and faithful people, an assembly of saints, who might glorify God in all ages.

A priest is, therefore, a sacred minister, appointed to take charge of the interests of the Lord upon earth, and to promote the sanctification of men. He perpetuates here below the mission of the Son of

God, and his love to man, by perpetuating his prophetical office. The prayers, the desires, the studies, the watchings, the labors, the employments of a Christian minister should, therefore, have for their objects the glory of God and salvation of mankind. Whatever has no relation to these great objects is foreign from the holiness of his calling: he departs from his proper character, he dishonors it, he renounces the sublimity of his vocation, he loads and disgraces himself with the infamy of a species of apostasy, as soon as he has other cares and other employments than those which tend to advance the kingdom of Christ, and to influence men to worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

Elijah, ascending to heaven, and leaving his spirit of zeal with his disciple Elisha, was a type of Christ, who, having ascended to the right hand of his Father, sent down upon his disciples that spirit of zeal and fire which was to be the seal of their mission and of their call to the ministerial office; and which was to attend them while carrying to all nations the knowledge of salvation and the love of truth and righteousness. Hardly were these men filled with this holy spirit, when though before so timid, so anxious to conceal themselves, and to escape from the fury of the Jews, they boldly came out from their retreat; drew every thing after them; knew no more danger; manifested an intrepidity which defied all the powers of the world; boldly rendered testimony to the resurrection of their Lord, before the chief priests when assembled together, and came from their assembly rejoicing that they were found worthy to suffer reproach for his holy name.

Even all Judea could not satisfy the ardor and extent of their zeal; they went from city to city, from province to province, from nation to nation; they dispersed themselves to the extremities of the earth; they attacked abuses the most ancient and the most authorized; they took from the most barbarous peo

ple the idols which their ancestors had long worshipped; they overthrew altars which the incense and the homage of many ages had rendered respectable; they preached the opprobrium and the foolishness of the cross, to the most polished nations, who prided themselves in their eloquence, their philosophy, and their wisdom. The obstacles which every thing presented to their zeal, instead of discouraging them, animated them, and seemed to announce to them success; the whole world conspired against them, and they were stronger than the world; crosses and gibbets were shown to them, to compel them to be silent, but they replied, that they could not forbear to publish what they had seen and heard; and they proclaimed upon the house tops what they were forbidden to trust to the ear in private. They expired under the hand of public executioners; new torments were invented to exterminate them, and with them the doctrine which they preached; but their blood still preached it after their death; nay, the more the earth was inundated with it, the more new disciples to the gospel did it produce. Such was the spirit of the priesthood and the apostleship which they received; for the priesthood and the apostleship form, in one sense, the same ministry; and every priest is the apostle and ambassador of Jesus Christ among

men.

Behold, my brethren, to what we are called, by receiving the imposition of hands. It is true, we are not required to go among barbarous nations, to preach the doctrine of the cross, and to besprinkle the most distant lands with our blood, to make the gospel fruitful, and to lead those people to a knowledge of a Saviour who have not yet heard of him. This is a service reserved for a small number of apostolic laborers, who perpetuate the first spirit with the first duties of the apostleship, and who, by their labors, are continually advancing the accomplishment of the prophecies and promises, respect

ing the fulness of the nations which are one day to enter into the New Jerusalem. But our mission, by being less laborious and less extensive, is not the less apostolic. We may leave those uncultivated and savage countries to generous missionaries, who crossing extensive seas and encountering the barbarity of savage nations, go to scatter the holy seed; while it belongs to us to extirpate, from the field of Jesus Christ, the tares and scandals which are continually springing up in it. If our zeal is not sufficiently heroic to conquer new nations, and to add new countries to his heritage, we ought, at least, to cultivate those which our predecessors acquired for him, and which long since became his possession. They found these fields consecrated to demons, and stained with the blood of profane sacrifices. The barbarity and blindness of our ancestors, jealous to madness of a worship so impious and so foolish, did not affright them; they published the doctrine of salvation; the devil, for a long time, defended his temples and his altars against their zeal; he armed against them the superstition of the people; cities and fields flowed with their blood; and, to this day, there are subsisting among us monuments pointing out the places where those generous defenders of the faith, delivered up to the fury of the wicked, consummated their sacrifice. These respectable monuments still appear in most of the cities in France, and embellish them more than the statues and columns which the vanity of conquerors has raised; since these vain trophies transmit to succeeding ages nothing but the memory of calamities suffered by conquered nations; whilst those religious monuments remind us of whole nations brought to the knowledge of salvation, delivered from the captivity of the devil, and conquered for the Redeemer, by the blood and ministry of those Christian heroes. But, happy for the world, the Christian faith was not extinguished and buried with them; even their executioners became afterwards

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their disciples; and so to express it, new Apostles sprung up from their ashes; and this nation, where the impiety and mysterious abominations of the Druids had, for a long time, constituted all the religion of our ancestors, embraced the Christian faith. This portion, those primitive defenders of the faith have transmitted to our care, to us who glory in being their successors. The lapse of time, which, by the inevitable destiny of human affairs, always introduces a change of manners and a relaxation of discipline, has indeed impaired its first purity, and disfigured its beauty. The holy 'doctrines which they left, have, it is true, come down to our times; but our morals are far from having been preserved pure; and though we retain the same faith as our fathers we are far from possessing the same fervor and the same holiness.

Our duty then is to restore to the heritage of Jesus Christ its pristine beauty. If it was still necessary to wrest it from the empire of the devil, and from idolatry, and to gain it, at the price of our blood, as our holy predecessors have done, the danger and the greatness of the enterprise might alarm our weakness; but we find it already acquired for Christ, and by the zeal and the sufferings of our fathers, established as his possession and his patrimony; the only thing now to be done is to repair its ruins. It is no more necessary, in the work of the gospel, to expose ourselves to racks and gibbets; nothing is wanted but zeal-but to respect our ministry-but to feel engag⚫ ed for the glory of our Lord, and against the offences which afflict and dishonor his heritage ;-in one word, but to remember that we are his ministers and Apostles, and that we succeed those who gave up their lives to gain for him the people who are committed to our charge. We glory in being their successors in the ministry; but our glory is nothing, unless, at the same time, we succeed them in their spirit and their zeal. They raised the holy edifice in