It is felt universally, that a teacher of religion should have some credentials. The most illiterate, indeed, will often take the word of any man of outwardly respectable appearance, who can manage, with the mixture of a few Scripture phrases, to talk in an incomprehensible way, and look upon him directly as a “minister.” The extent of this implicit faith among some classes of sectaries is almost incredible to those who have not personally witnessed it. But yet even these will clothe their ministers with spiritual powers; and believe their ministrations to convey a grace, and to possess a primitive and apostolical value, such as those very “ministers,” if pressed, would formally disown. Hence many persons of these sects are violently shocked, when we deny the validity of their sacraments as the sure channels of God’s grace; little thinking that their own ministers do not _suppose_ them to be so. And so also the multitude of sects which flourished in this country during the time of the Great Rebellion, owed much of their success to their unscrupulous assertions of a “divine mission;” persuading the people that theirs was the “discipline of CHRIST;” and alleging a “divine right” for every part of it. And yet, notwithstanding this feeling planted in our very nature, that a spiritual ministry must have a spiritual origin, it is astonishing to see the facility with which almost any professed teacher is received. Just as mere ignorance inclines the most illiterate, so the better classes are induced, by indolence or habit, to receive almost any man as a religious instructor. “How their minister _became_ a minister?” is a question which seems hardly to have occurred to the majority of people. If a man has only ability enough to obtain a congregation and a chapel, and especially if he assumes the outward appearance and style of a clergyman, and is thought a “respectable man,” nothing more is generally inquired. But can this satisfy any one who thinks seriously? The Bible describes the Christian Minister in a very solemn way, as the “Savour of life or death” to souls—as being an earthly vessel possessed of a “Heavenly TREASURE,” the weight whereof he was not sufficient to bear! and so, to the first Minister of the Church it was said, “What _thou_ shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;”—Whatever this mysterious language implies, are we to take a man to be all this on his own bare word? or on the ground of his personal talents or sincerity?—Or can the people’s support of any man endow him with these awful prerogatives of a Divine Ministry? Can a congregation, however numerous, give what they themselves possess not? Holy Scripture classes together CHRIST’S own MISSION from His FATHER; and the APOSTLES’ MISSION from CHRIST. Even the SON of GOD “glorified not Himself” to be made an High Priest. HE began not His ministry till He was divinely pointed out at His baptism, and