[Footnote 118: Acts xx. 28.] Now, who does not see here the realization and fulfilment of the great promise of Christ which I have quoted as my text? That teaching of the Holy Ghost which was to follow His, which was to bring all things to remembrance which He had said, which was to abide forever, and which was to make known all necessary truth, was the teaching of the Apostles and their successors. It is the teaching of the Holy Ghost, because the Holy Ghost moves them to preach, furnishes them with the rule of their doctrine, and gives them their warrant and authority. In this sense it is that our Lord's promise is to be understood. It is a promise that reaches to all time. {372} It concerns us here and now. It assures us that at this day, far removed as we are from the times of Christ, across so many centuries, the Holy Ghost through the agency of the Church still brings to us the echoes of His words. He does this in the most solemn and authoritative way by those great decisions of the Church to which He sets the seal of His Infallibility; but he does it in less solemnity, less authoritatively, but more frequently, by the preaching of each individual priest. It is for this end that the priest is ordained. He is consecrated and set apart, not merely to say Mass, not merely to receive the confessions of penitent sinners and absolve them, but to publish the Word of God; and He is empowered by the Holy Ghost for this very purpose. The Christian preacher is no mere lecturer, but an authorized agent and messenger of God, to deliver to the people the will of God. It is chiefly by the ordinance of preaching, in its various forms, that the Holy Ghost carries on the work of instructing men's faith, and regulating their morals.