tails of duty which must find a place in every Christian character, and whose existence cannot be ascertained, without such a selfsearching process, and such an application of practical tests, as those we are contending for.

To confine the attention of a sinner, when we address him with a view to his conversion, to the tenet of the full assurance of faith,to have it as our grand object that such a sentiment may be excited and established in his mind,to make it the beginning, the middle, and the end of all our dealings with him, that he shall master this attainment, to dwell upon it as if there were nothing else in the work which we are striving to accomplish in him, and to say little or nothing of the evil and the perils of sin, of the necessity of regeneration, of the risk and the ruin of self-deception, of the effects on temper and deportment which a saving belief in Christianity immediately produces, of the tendency to rest in speculation and feeling, and of other collateral topics-to act in this manner when aiming at the conversion of a sinner, is, in my opinion, to practise a delusion, to which it is wonderful that any man who reads and understands the Scripture account of salvation, can ever reconcile himself. And equally absurd and hazardous is it to go to the man who, having got the full assurance which was deemed so necessary for him, has yet relapsed, in spite of it, into his former immoralities, and instead of charging him with the aggravated wickedness of his conduct, and urging upon him a deep and thorough repentance, and pleading with him to look into the depravity of his heart and the guiltiness of his conduct, that he may make renewed application to the blood of atonement and to the grace of the Spirit, to tell him that he has fallen back because he had not been careful to maintain an unwavering confidence in the certainty of his own personal salvation, and that his only refuge is to be found in a resumption of that confidence, and in the rejection and banishment of all the doubts which he had allowed to weaken its strength, and to impair his comfort and his joy. Wherever this plan of winning souls to Christ, and of building them up in their most holy faith, has been learnt, I must say that I can see no authority for it in the Bible. And however much in some particular instances it may have been attended with good consequences, even in these instances it has been rather the incidental occasion than the direct cause of the good that has been produced; and we shall discover its legitimate fruits in the opinionativeness and the self-sufficiency, the carnal se

curity, and the other Pharisaical characters, of those who have been taught to regard it as the grand secret for making Christians.

This subject admits of a more detailed illustration. But I must content myself at present with these few cursory remarks. And I would conclude with observing, that here, as in other things, the erroneous views with which we are presented by good men originate in partial views of the gospel. Instead of taking a comprehensive and connected survey of the scheme unfolded in the Bible, they select a single corner of it: upon that they found a theory; and this theory so engrosses their thoughts and their attachment, that they either attend to nothing else, or make every thing else subservient to its support so that amidst all that variety which Christianity exhibits, they can discover nothing but what helps to build up or to beautify their favourite speculation. Would they but deal with Christianity in all the largeness in which God has revealed it in his word, they might have less scope for ingenuity, and there might be less novelty in what they had to propound, but the cause of divine truth and vital godliness would be much promoted. As to the particular topic we have been considering, it will be seen by a full consideration of what the inspired volume contains respecting it, that if great stress is laid on the virtue of an assured faith, there is a corresponding importance attached to the holy fruits of that faith, as an evidence of its existence and its energy—and that to omit from our estimate of Christian character any one of these, or any of the points either in principle, or in feeling, or in practice that are connected with them, is so far to impair or to endanger the superstructure which we are taught to build on Jesus Christ as the great and only foundation.

I beg to quote from the standards of our national Church two or three passages, as giving a brief statement of what I deem the doctrine of Scripture on the question at issue. "Such as truly believe in Christ, and endeavour to walk in all good conscience before him, may, without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded upon the truth of God's promises, and by the spirit enabling them to discern in themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made, and bearing witness with their spirits, that they are the children of God, be infallibly assured that they are in the state of grace, and shall persevere therein unto salvation." (Larger Catechism, Quest. 80.) Assurance of grace and salvation, not being of the essence of faith, true believers may wait long before they ob

tain it; and, after the enjoyment thereof, may have it weakened and intermitted, through manifold distempers, sins, temptations, and desertions; yet are they never left without such a presence and support of the Spirit of God as keeps them from sinking into utter despair." (Do. Quest. 81.) "These good works, done in obedience to God's commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith; and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, &c. (Conf. of Faith, cxvi. 2.) “ Although hypocrites, and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favour of God and estate of salvation; which hope of theirs shall perish; yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and love him in sincerity, endeavouring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed." (Do. exviii. 1.)

APPENDIX B. p. 393.

I have no hesitation in professing myself an advocate for the immediate emancipation of slaves.

In maintaining the propriety and justice of such a measure, I will not enter the lists with men who, professing to be more enlightened than their fellows on all points of theology, and dogmatising with more than the confidence of Apostles, can bravely defend slavery as a right thing-not to be condemned and abolished-but rather to be tolerated, countenanced, continued-merely because they are pleased to call it a type of the subjection which is due to Christ from his people, and as a great ordinance of God for preaching that subjection to the church. I will not argue with men, however eloquent and however good, who will palm upon me such an absurd and unscriptural dictum, and because I refuse to take it as gospel, on authority no better than human, will denounce me as one of those who are "in a state of profound ignorance and rebellious feeling." I will not argue with men who can gravely and dictatorially speak of a slave-holder as "the standing type over all the world of Christ, the Lord both of the election and the reprobation," and of the poor slaves as standing types over all the

world of the reprobation, while those who serve the same master but are free, are standing types of the election. I will not, I cannot argue with men who can indulge in such raving, and not only demand a hearing for it as if it were sober sense, but insist upon our unreserved adoption of it, under the penalty of being found utterly unacquainted with the Bible, and guilty of joining in insurrection against God. Rather than argue with such men, I would encounter the most bigotted slave-driver in the West Indies, who founds not his creed upon his own infallible interpretation of the infallible oracles of divine mercy, but upon views which faith in these oracles may at once and altogether subvert, or which may undergo a beneficial change by deeper consideration and more lengthened experiWith neither class, however, would I be very willing to engage in dispute, seeing that with neither would it be easy to agree in any common ground where we might stand and reason, or, rather, seeing that they and I differ toto cœlo as to the essential nature and demerit of slavery. I am to be understood as proceeding on the principle contended for in the discourse to which this note is affixed, viz. that slavery is condemned by religion, or, in other words, is immoral, and upon that principle I plead for the immediate and total abolition of slavery.

ence.

This doctrine may be successfully maintained even on the grounds of expediency. If a fair balance were struck between the evils of instantly putting an end to the system, and the evils of its continuance till the slaves are prepared for the safe and useful enjoyment of liberty, I have no doubt that the latter would greatly preponderate. The idleness, the anarchy, the outrages on person and property which, as it is alleged, would necessarily accompany a sudden restoration to freedom, could not long continue, and would have a tendency to work their own remedy: and what are these, when compared to the multiplied hardships, insults, oppressions, and sufferings which so many human beings must be doomed to undergo, on the other supposition, for an indefinite period of time-necessarily by the confession of our opponents, for many, many years, and, so far as I am able to judge of their mode of reasoning, for centuries to come, or for ever? The idea of insurrection is very horrible, and operates powerfully on the imagination; but to a mind that reflects calmly and meditates deeply on the subject, it is not half so distressing as the idea of all the misery that the poor unprotected and unpitied victims of a cruel bondage must endure in silence, or be ob

liged to suffer with wanton aggravations if they shall dare to resist or to complain-a misery too, of which those on whom it is inflictced can foresee no end but death, and which must even descend from generation to generation. In the one case there is the hurricane, which produces many wrecks and much desolation, but which is soon over, and having purified the air from sickly vapours, as a compensation for its mischiefs, is succeeded by renovated health, and vigorous effort, and renewed prosperity. In the other case, there is the pestilential atmosphere which, with its tranquil but not less destructive influence, spreads languishing and disease and death throughout all the habitations of the land, which enfeebles the arm of industry and interdicts the comforts of life, which diffuses a curse that no skill can avert and no benevolence mitigate, and which the stillness that attends it only renders the more deadly in its effects, and the more permanent in its duration.

If it be true, as the advocates for gradual abolition affirm, that the slaves are not prepared for the freedom to which it is proposed ultimately to restore them, this furnishes an argument much stronger on our side of the question than on theirs. For to what is the alleged want of preparation to be ascribed? Either to the treatment which the slaves have actually received, or to the nature of the system itself under which they have been placed. On the former supposition, the masters are represented as so regardless of what is due to the moral cultivation of their slaves, so guilty of a course of oppression towards them, so little careful to gain their respect and esteem, that the slaves would refuse to work for their own maintenance, or they would gratify their passions by violence and plunder. According to the accounts given of these masters, they are with few exceptions, of the very best description, and not in the least behind the wisest and humanest of the same class in our own country. And yet they have continued to keep their slaves in this state of ignorance, and barbarism, and unfitness for liberty, when they could not fail to be sensible that it was the great cause of preventing the measure of emancipation from being carried, and when it constituted the principal argument which was employed against it by themselves and their friends! Surely to wait till persons who have hitherto been so negligent of what was their obvious duty, and who are clearly interested in never performing that duty effectually, shall train their slaves for the complete liberation which they are said to be unqualified to enjoy, is to manifest a de