TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
who have not received the commission, our Lord has given no such promise. A person not commissioned from the bishop, may use the words of Baptism, and sprinkle or bathe with the water, on earth, but there is no promise from Christ, that such a man shall admit souls to the Kingdom of Heaven. A person not commissioned may break bread, and pour out wine, and pretend to give the Lord's Supper, but it can afford no comfort to any to receive it at his hands, because there is no warrant from Christ to lead communicants to suppose that while he does so here on earth, they will be partakers in the Saviour's heavenly Body and Blood. And as for the person himself, who takes upon himself without warrant to minister in holy things, he is all the while treading in the footsteps of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, whose awful punishment you read of in the book of Numbers. (Compare Numbers xvi. with Jude v. 11.)
It is of the utmost importance that you should know and understand that it is by virtue of this commission, that we Clergymen lay claim to your attention, when we minister the Word and the Sacraments. It is not because we have received an expensive education; it is not because we move in the station of what is called gentlemen; it is not because we have hitherto been encouraged by the State; it is not because we, most of us, have enough of this world's goods, both to supply our own wants, and to impart to the necessities of others; it is not for these things that we dare to speak to you in the name of God. Time was when the clergy had them not; the time may come again when they shall not have them. Men may rudely and unjustly take away these things; may make us as poor as the poorest; may destroy what is called our station in society; may make us appear in the eyes of men a humbled and degraded class, as they did the Apostles; may "cast out our name as evil for the Son of Man's sake," as they did theirs. This cannot alter our position in spiritual things, nor the relation which we bear to God and Christ, and to your souls. Men cannot take away what Christ has given us,—I mean the Divine commission; they cannot set aside the trust which He has placed in our hands,—I mean "the ministry of reconciliation," (2 Cor. v. 18.) nor make void the promise He has made, that in the faithful
