Christian teacher. The old things which the Church has held from the beginning, the faith once delivered to the saints,' the new things into which the Spirit of God is leading His Church now, and which are needed for the evils or the wants of this present age; the old things, again, of the earliest stage of your own growth in knowledge, the simple words which you learned, as children, in the Catechism and Creeds, and the new things which have grown out of wider studies and enlarged thoughts; or, looking to a more inward and spiritual experience, the old things that were among your earliest religious convictions, truths which then seemed to you enough to live and die by, tests and standards by which all other truths were to be measured, and the new things which God has opened your eyes to see since, and which you have learned to recognise as being, no less truly, parts of a Divine order ;— all these must be stored up and brought out as the wants of men require. None of them may be slighted or cast aside. Each of them has had its worth for you, and will have for others. He who would be a true Scribe must gather, and not waste : having gathered, he must be a good steward of that manifold and abundant treasure.

XIX.

THE SHEPHERDS WHO FEED

THEMSELVES.1

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?'-EZEK. XXXIV. I, 2.

THE prophet by whom these words were

spoken was sent with many sharp and stern messages to a people of whom he says that they were a rebellious house.'

and sternest of them all.

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This was the sharpest

It went to the root of

the evils which were eating the life out of the nation. If the prophet was unto them nothing more than as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well upon an instrument;' if they heard his words, but did them not; if, while their mouth showed much love,' their ' heart went after covetousness ;'-all this was but the natural consequence of the hard, ungodly selfishness of the priests and rulers who forgot their

1 Preached at the Annual Meeting of Theological Associates and Students of King's College, London, 1851. 2 Ezek. xxxiii. 32.

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calling or denied it. It was with the people as with the priest. There is a strange and terrible significance in the union of the two warnings. They,' the people, who lift up their eyes to the idols, and commit abomination,'' shall know that there hath been a prophet among them;' and then, following close on this, the message, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Thus saith the Lord God, Woe unto the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves!'

We, brethren, who are met together this day, are bound, some of us by the most solemn words we ever uttered in our lives, some by solemn hopes and resolutions which fall little short of vows, to the pastoral office. Some of you have already, it may be, had no small experience of its dangers and difficulties; I trust also, of its many blessings. No one, we must hope, for his sake, as well as for our own and for that of the Church of God, has entered on his life here without thinking what that office is, what work God has attached to it, what He requires in those whom He has called to it. We who have entered or purpose entering on the work of the ministry of Christ, declare our belief that God is calling us to be shepherds of the true Israel, to feed that flock which He has purchased with His own blood. It is of great moment to us 1 Ezek. xxxiii. 33.

that we should understand what this our calling is. We cannot spare any word of instruction or reproof which may help us to see it clearly.

It has often, I believe, been a great comfort and encouragement to those who enter on this work, with a true and earnest desire that they may be found faithful in it, to remember that in this office, as its very name implies, they are fellow-workers with Him who, in this as in all things else, has left us an example. The pastoral office-does not that bear witness to us of ONE who was and is the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls; who, when He desired to teach His disciples something of the height and length, and breadth and depth, of His exceeding love for them, chose to speak of Himself as the Good Shepherd, 'knowing His own sheep by name,' 'leading them in and out that they may find pasture;' gathering together those that had been scattered; 'laying down His life for the sheep?' I believe also, brethren, that no true pastoral work was ever done by any one who had not realized this work of the Great Shepherd. The love of Christ'—not our love for Him, but His for us-is that which constrains' men now, as it constrained St. Paul, to do and to suffer all things. Without a belief in that love as wider, deeper, fuller than any love which we may feel to 1 St. John x. 1-15.

2

1

2 2 Cor. v. 14.

those to whom we minister, we cannot work with any energy or any hope.

In pro

That tenth chapter of St. John is, therefore, the true pattern of the pastor's work, the manual of the pastor's office. It tells us how we may be followers of the True Shepherd, neither thieves, nor robbers, nor hirelings, nor intruders. portion as men have lived by it, they have taken heed to that flock over which the Holy Ghost has made them overseers.' It has enabled men, in dark times and in the midst of much error, to work upward to the light. The fervent desire to follow Christ in this work of His, and to work with Him in it, has made true pastors out of men who, without it, might have been dogmatists or dreamers. But I am persuaded also, brethren, that this prophecy of Ezekiel is a very necessary complement to the record of the Evangelist. We cannot spare one of its terrible denunciations. Unless we know how to avoid the evils which they condemn, we may fall under their sentence. We may deny or forget our calling. We may be in danger of hearing the message which the Lord God sent by the prophet, Behold, I am against the shepherds'

The opening words of the prophecy point, as I said, to the root of the evil. They unfold the whole secret of an unfaithful ministry. 'Woe be

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