the spirit of non-resistance, and passive obedience. Others, on the contrary, exclaim, your religion is not of this world. This is a strong presumption against the divinity of it. Were it of God, it would certainly provide for civil liberty, the noble, unalienable right of all mankind. A religion not of this world! A religion then not fit for a citizen of the world! A religion fit for only a little, narrow, sneaking soul!

We reply to both our opponents by affirmingBefore Jesus Christ came into the world mankind were men-had he never come, all mankind would have been naturally and necessarily possessed of all the rights of humanity-the best mode of enjoying these rights is a production of reason, and reason unassisted by revelation is competent to the investigation. When Jesus Christ came, he came not to destroy our humanity, or to alienate our rights he never transferred our natural right to life, liberty, and property to any individual-on the contrary, supposing all civil rights, he taught us a religion admirably fitted to the enjoyment of them his religion, far from depressing the human spirit, kindles in it a passion for religious freedom, which prisons and dungeons, fires and flames can never subdue. If as disciples of Christ we be not obliged to sedition, neither are we as subjects of Christ obliged to submit to slavery. The whole business of civil government is analogous to the practice of an art, or the study of a science, and our religion influences that as it influences them --Christianity is a general energy applicable to

every good pursuit, and dissociable with every inhuman plan.—Do you say, Christ's kingdom is not a system of civil government? We allow it. What then? Reproach us that it is not a system of anatomy! The conclusion would be alike in both cases. You say, Christ's kingdom is not of Christians ought to be indifferent to the rights of mankind. What! when I commence a christian, do I cease to be a man! Does the Son of God propose a barter of my natural rights for his religious prerogatives! Glorious prerogative! The privilege of a brute !

this world.

Having subjoined this caution, it only remains, that I congratulate you, Young Gentlemen, on your happy situation. Behold, this church, our distant churches, the reverend fathers and brethren present all unite in praises to God for this institution, they rejoice, that in these depraved times you are inclined to dedicate yourselves to the Lord, and they think it will be your own faults,

if you do not excel in sound learning and true religion. We have no suspicions; we are full of hopes; you will, yes, you will answer our expectations. Go, generous youths, our hearts go with you, retire to your studies, and surmount all the labour of learning for the pleasure of being learned, and for the joy of hoping to preach the gospel more unexceptionably; go, instruct the ignorant, relieve the distressed, pour the balm of the gospel into the bosoms of the guilty, reprove exhort, with all long suffering and patience; adorn our pulpits with the pure doctrines of the new tes

tament, and enforce the doctrines you preach by a holy life and conversation.

Will you forgive me, if I interrupt for a moment your pleasure. I foresee, without a spirit of prophecy, the trials that await you, You will

preach a doctrine not of this world; the world will despise you, as the world despised your Master, and some supercilious Pilate will sneer and say, what is truth? In vain you will study and be wise, worldly philosophers will account you ignorant, because you will not worship the classical gods they adore. In vain will you imbibe the spirit and imitate the example of Christ, men of timeserving principles will account you uncandid, morose and severe. Yea, some of your brethren, animated with the passions of envy and pride will suspect, or affect to suspect your orthodoxy, or piety, or both. If two of this sort meet, each will pour the delicious poison of slander into the others ear. If you be popular, you will be hated for what you cannot and ought not to help: if you be not: you will be neglected and forgotten when you most of all need support. If the God of nature hath formed you alert, and you have wit, vivacity and fire, although you employ all to good purposes, yet some grave drone, who owes his gravity to constitution, will tax you with levity, and, arrogantly making himself a standard of excellence, will call innocent mirth a mark of reprobation, and will require you to prove the soundness of your faith by fetching great deep sighs and groans, as if you were always at a funeral. If you have a natural

gravity, others, full of sprightliness, will say you are unsociable and dull. If you use learning to elucidate scripture, some ignorant clown will call you pedantick, and say you put learning in the place of the spirit, and for your sake will exclaim against learning itself. If you speak plainly and in popular style, others will say, you do not respect your auditory. Preach all your system of doctrine in one sermon, you will be accounted scholastical and unrefined. Preach only one truth in one sermon, and it will be suspected, you do not believe the rest. Open the privileges of grace, and you will deny the law: preach the law, and you will deny the influence of grace. And you, what will you do in all these skirmishes? you will, perhaps, appeal from the partial opinions of men, who after all know little or nothing of you, but by hearsay, to the merciful tribunal of God. Each of you will acknowledge and deplore his infirmities, and yet he will add, Lord! thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. You will say, innumerable evils have compassed me about. My iniquities are more than the hairs of my head. I am not able to look up. My heart faileth me. And yet I delight to do thy will. O God, thy law is within my heart. I have not concealed thy loving kindness. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. Remember me, O my God for good!

Go then, enter the sanctuary of God. Realize - our wishes. Fight the good fight of faith. Help the feeble hand to lay hold on eternal life. Ani

mate all this assembly to continue to support this noble and generous institution. Let all your benefactors, your parents, your ministers, your tutors, the whole church see the good seed of a learned and virtuous education bring forth an hundred fold. Repair, if it be repairable, the loss all our churches have sustained by the late removal of the first and best of our ministers from this place. Alas!.... I feel with you!....I must not open wounds, which time hath begun to close. Our Father, where is he? The prophet, doth he live for ever? Yes, the father is here. The prophet doth live, he survives in his son and successor. I trust I may add, instead of the fathers shall be the children, a seed to serve the Lord for a thousand generations. To him be honour and glory for ever, Amen.

FINI S.

[END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.]

Printed by B. Flower, Harlow.