Books and other items printed in Gaelic from 1871 to 1900 > Gaelic and English sermons of the late Rev. John Macalister, with memoir

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but, in every place and at all times, he cherished and
manifested a sincere regard to the authority and honour
of God — hatred to sin and love to holiness. To him to
live was to inculcate the necessity of holiness as the fruit
and evidence of regenerating grace, and to manifest by a
holy life and conversation the genuine effects of the doctrine
which he preached to others. Thus to the Apostle to live
was to promote the glory of Christ, to bring sinners to
the knowledge of salvation, to enjoy communion and fellow-
ship with Christ, and to bring forth the fruits of righteous-
ness.
I have now very briefly considered and stated, I humbly
think, the leading ideas in the expression of the Apostle —
" For to me to live is Christ." And what an exalted and
serious view do these things give us of the ofhce of the
holy ministry, of the spiritual training and qualifications
necessary for being ministers of the New Testament. I
heartily grant that a competent measure of learning is
necessary to fit for the office of a spiritual instructor, and
that talents and learning are necessary to explain difficult
passages of Scripture, and to defend the truth against
gainsayers. But, admitting all this, human learning of
itself is but a poor and inefficient qualification for the
Gospel ministry. Of this we have a particular instance
in the case of Saul of Tarsus, who was a thorough master
of Jewish learning, and enjoyed the means of grace in the
Jewish Church, but was, at the same time, entirely ignorant
of the nature and end of the moral law and of the salvation
of God through a promised, a coming, Saviour. The
natural mind (which is the unregenerated mind), however
stored with, and accomplished through, human learning,
is still the natural mind, and can neither know nor receive
the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually
discerned. Human learning can never give us just views
of the divine law and the evil of sin, can never illuminate
the mind in the knowledge of the mercy and love of God
in the face of Jesus Christ, and inspire the heart with love
to Christ and a sincere desire for the salvation of sinners.
This is the effect of divine regenerating grace.
But this spiritual teaching is also necessary for the Scrip-
tural conversion of sinners under the Gospel — for convincing