So, with respect to the essentials of ministerial WORK, they say that “the Church,” i.e. the Clergy, and _her sacraments_, are the ordained and visible means of conveying to the soul what is supernatural and unseen. {37} “The sacraments, _not_ preaching, are the sources of divine grace.” We do not disparage the sacraments; but we say that in holy Scripture preaching has the pre-eminence; preaching the Gospel of CHRIST, “the everlasting Gospel,” “the Gospel of salvation,” “the glorious Gospel of the blessed GOD.” And I am anxious that we should all feel this, understand it well, and study to be “able ministers of the New Testament.” The Anglo-catholic doctrine of the wonderful importance of sacramental grace and of the mysterious dignity and power of the priesthood in connexion with it, is a comparative nullifying of the great commission of CHRIST, “Go ye into all the world, and _preach the Gospel to every creature_; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.” CHRIST also sent the apostle Paul, “not” with a commission, “to baptize,” though he did baptize; “but to preach the Gospel.” And his triumphant argument for preaching, as the grand mean of grace, and faith, and salvation, will never be overcome. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed; and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard; and how shall they hear _without __a preacher_; and how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that _preach the Gospel of peace_, _and bring glad tidings of good things_!” {38a} Of regeneration itself as produced by the special instrumentality of the word, we have already heard: and so also the remission of sins; for “be it known unto you,” says St. Paul to the people of Antioch in Pisidia, “that through this man is _preached_ unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” {38b} The Acts of the Apostles, in fact, are full of it. By the foolishness of _preaching_ it has always pleased GOD to save them that believe, incomparably more than by any other means. And forasmuch as the ministers and stewards of GOD’S mysteries “cannot,” (as our Ordination Service speaks,) “by any other means compass the doing of so weighty a work, pertaining to the salvation of man, but with _doctrine and exhortation taken out of the Holy Scriptures_, and with a life agreeable to the same,” the assiduous study and preaching of the Holy Scriptures have been the main subject of the charge given to them, from the days of Timothy to the present. With ministering “the Holy Sacraments” they have been most solemnly intrusted; but with _preaching the word CHIEFLY_: and to _this_ has the “success” of their ministry been consigned. {39a} This is that which, (as