spiritless condition of the apostate Jewish nation; but the prayer of Jesus on the cross for His brethren according to the flesh, shall finally prevail; they shall be converted to the Christian faith; they shall be restored to the long-lost land of Canaan; and so "all Israel shall be saved." We may feel no compassion for the myriads of perishing heathen, who are passing from time into eternity without Christ, and without hope, nevertheless Jesus will claim "the heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession." We may pass by them that are dead in trespasses and sins, without one exertion for their rescue, without one prayer for their conversion; but "the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." We may witness the increase of vital religion in our immediate neighbourhood with apathy or indifference; but the work is of God, and it shall prosper. We may treat the young convert with cold reserve, we may suspect his motives, we may calumniate his character, we may assail him with sarcasm, or attack the weakness of his faith with all the weapons of the infernal world; but Jesus "will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with his arm; He will carry them in His bosom and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of His hand."

Fervent prayer and active exertion for the establishment of the Redeemer's kingdom upon earth, are nevertheless necessary, that we may do the will of our Heavenly Father: for "herein is the Father glorified, that we bear much fruit." Fervent prayer and active exertion are also necessary, as an evidence of our own sincerity. If we have never prayed for others, we have never yet prayed for ourselves: if we have never rejoiced when we have heard of the repentance of others, we have never repented in our own persons, nor have the angels in heaven ever rejoiced in our repentance: if we have never felt an interest in the salvation of others, we are destitute of that zeal which is a necessary concomitant of a saving faith, and we need salvation ourselves. Fervent prayer and active exertion are also essential to our own comfort. God is generally pleased to bestow the consolations of religion upon His people in exact proportion to their zeal for the spiritual good of others. In teaching others, we are taught ourselves in watering others, our own souls are watered and refreshed with the dew of Divine grace. "If any man," says Christ," serve me, him will my Father honour." Lastly, fervent prayer and active exertion in behalf of the spiritual interests of others are to be persevered in, because our labour cannot be in vain in the Lord. He, who has commanded us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one," has also promised, that "His kingdom shall come," and that "His will shall be done in earth as it is in heaven." Let us then, my brethren, " pray with the spirit, and with the understanding also," "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." 'Let us evince the sincerity of our prayers by the vigour of our exertions. And let us be "stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord."

pp. 14-98

Sermon VI. affords a striking instance of the impropriety of substituting the Canticles for the Gospels;-but we have promised to abstain from further criticism, and shall therefore pass on to Sermon XIII. On the Day of Judgement,' from which we take one more extract, as a specimen of the Preacher's uncompromising fidelity. The only faults, indeed, which we have had occasion to notice, are errors of judgement; and those excepted, we cordially commend his evangelical labours to the approbation of the religious public.

On this day the actions of men will be estimated, not by the fallible opinions of their fellow creatures, but by the unerring standard of Divine truth. When God chose the children of Israel to be His peculiar people, He gave them ceremonial laws, to prepare their minds for the advent of the promised Seed of the woman; and moral laws, as a perfect transcript of the Divine will; and judicial laws, for the prevention and punishment of crime, and for the reformation of transgressors. The very great superiority of the judicial laws of Moses over the legislative inventions of fallible men, is emphatically attested by the voice of inspiration in the book of Deuteronomy: "What nation," asks Moses, "is there so great, that hath statutes and judgements so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?" Unhappily, but perhaps almost unavoidably, from the very great difficulty of distinguishing the laws of Moses which are purely judicial, from those which were peculiar to the Jewish Theocracy, and which consequently are inapplicable to any system of merely human legislation, the laws of this and of other Christian countries do not in all cases concur with the spirit and the letter of the judicial branch of the Mosaic code, which was prepared by the wisdom of Omniscience for the diminution of crime, and for the reformation and punishment of offenders. From this deviation, which, however difficult of prevention, is in every respect deeply to be lamented, it has followed, that men, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves;" are too apt to estimate crimes according to the enactments of human laws, and not according to their enormity in the sight of God, as expressed in the sacred volume of Revelation. But, on the day of judgement, every action will be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, and will be recompensed in exact proportion to its merits or its demerits in the sight of Jehovah. I will instance four particulars, in which the laws and opinions of men are not agreeable to the revealed will of God.

1. Adultery is scarcely recognised as a crime by our laws, and no punishment is enacted against it. By the Divine law, on the contrary, it is classed among those few crimes which were always punished with death; and it is placed at the head of that black catalogue of offences which are enumerated by St. Paul, in the fifth chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians.

2. Self-murder is too often, in the present day, attributed to a wrong cause, and is thereby extenuated or exculpated; and the perpetrator, by his very criminality, places himself beyond the penalty of VOL. XXVII. N.S. 3 E

human laws. Now it is remarkable, that throughout the whole of the Biblical history, comprehending a space of about 4000 years, only six instances of self-murder are recorded—namely, those of Ahitophel and Judas, Zimri and Abimelech, Saul and his armourbearer Doeg-and that not one of these instances is attributed to lunacy. On the day of judgement, self-murder, generally speaking, will be referred to no other fatuity than to that which proceeds from unbelief or despair, and is common to all the sons of Belial. This crime will not then be estimated by the erroneous verdicts of fallible juries, but by the unerring standard of Divine truth; and, though the perpetrator may now evade the laws of men, he will not then escape the just vengeance of God. For those who commit this crime, either madly presuming on the mercy of God, or despairing of it, in order to escape the miseries of this sinful life, destroy the gift of God, and thus rush uncalled into His presence, with all their sins on their heads, impenitent and unpardoned. Thus they destroy both soul and body; and in the same state of impenitence in which they died, will they appear at the judgment-seat of Christ.

3. Duelling, under which term we would include those pugilistic encounters for which our country is so disgracefully notorious, is another crime which is too slightly punished by human laws, and is too generally palliated by human judgements. But in the sight of God, and according to His law, duelling is murder; and on the day of judgement, the duellist will stand revealed a murderer; and " ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."

4. Man-stealing, till of late years, was legalised by this country, and is now tolerated and practised by most of the maritime states of Europe. But, by the Mosaic law, death without mercy is denounced as the punishment of this enormity: and the man-stealer is justly classed by St. Paul with murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, with manslayers, with whoremongers, and with the perpetrators of unnatural crimes. Now, when we reflect that European avarice and cupidity have nearly exterminated all the aboriginal inhabitants of the West-Indian islands, and have supplied their places by slaves unjustly stolen from the coast of Africa; and when we take into consideration, that this inhuman traffic, with all the murderous horrors of the middle passage, has now subsisted about two hundred years; and that nearly one hundred thousand Africans are now every year forcibly exiled from their country and their friends, to enrich by the sweat of their brow their relentless masters; what an awful in quisition for legalized murders and man-stealing may we expect, when "Jehovah shall come out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: when the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain ;" when this declaration shall be executed, saith Jehovah, by the Son of God, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay!" If the voice of the blood of one Abel cried from the ground for vengeance, and was heard, will not the murder of hundreds of thousands of Africans be avenged by Him, who "hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth?"

Instances of a similar discrepancy between the judicial laws of Moses and the institutions and customs of man might easily be multiplied; and the beneficent spirit of the former might be proved from the paucity of their capital punishments when compared with the judicial codes of other states, from their merciful provision for the poor and unprotected, and from the Divine protection which they afford to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. Enough, however, I trust, has been said to excite your attention to this neglected portion of the word of God, both as it regards your conduct towards your fellow creatures here, and your anticipations of the day of judgement hereafter.

On this day also we must give an account of our omissions of duty, as well as of our commission of sins, for both are recorded in the registers of heaven. We are all the stewards of the Lord of hosts; and every opportunity which we possess of benefiting the bodies or the souls of our fellow-creatures, is a talent entrusted to us by God, to be laid out for the promotion of His glory. Every faculty of our mind, and every member of our body, should unreservedly be consecrated to the service of Jehovah, that we may live unto Him, who hath created us for his own glory, and hath redeemed us with the most precious blood of His own dear Son. Whenever, therefore, my brethren, an application is made to you to assist in any design for promoting a cautious liberation of the enslaved descendants of Ham from their existing state of degradation and slavery, that they may enjoy the inestimable blessings of civilization and Christianity, or for planting the standard of the Cross in heathen lands, or for translating and distributing the Scriptures in every language under heaven, or for teaching infant lips to lisp the name of Jesus, remember, that such designs proceed from the benign influence of the Holy Spirit, and are sanctioned by His authority; and that every omission of promoting the glory of God our Saviour, and the temporal, spiritual, and eternal welfare of our fellow-creatures, according to the ability which God hath given us, is registered in the books of heaven, and must be accounted for on the Day of Judgment. For this is the declaration of Him who cannot lie: "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." An awful conflict, my brethren, has long subsisted between Christ and Belial, between the church and the world, between light and darkness; and this conflict we may expect to increase in severity, in proportion as we draw nearer to the latter-day glory of the Christian church, when "the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ." That this interesting period is now very rapidly approaching, there can be little doubt. The universal spirit of inquiry which has been excited, the signs of the times, the accomplishment of prophecy, the increase of knowledge, and the general expectation of mankind, all proclaim that it is nigh, even at the doors. On the one hand, we behold in the Church of Christ, an increasing zeal for the diffusion of Gospel light, emanating from the influence of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, we behold the god of this world, and the accuser of the brethren, who was a liar from the beginning, and is the father

When

of lies, more active now than at any former period, in blinding the eyes of them that believe not, in instigating the subjects of his kingdom to assume the form whilst they deny the power of godliness, and in exciting them falsely to accuse the people of God concerning those very circumstances in which they have most faithfully served their Lord and Master: because Satan hath great wrath, knowing that his time is short. Choose you, therefore, my brethren, this day, under whose banner you will fight, and which of these two masters you will serve. You cannot serve them both. In this awful conflict, neutrality is hostility. "He that is not with Me," saith our Lord, " is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth abroad." Deborah and Barak assembled the thousands of Israel to contend with the armies of Sisera, and God gave to them the victory, they pronounced a solemn denunciation, in the name of Messiah Himself, against the inhabitants of Meroz, because they aided not their pious enterprise." Curse ye Meroz, said the Angel of the Lord," (or, as it should be translated, "Curse ye Meroz, said Jehovah the Angel"); "curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." In like manner will " every unprofitable servant be cast into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." It has been well observed, that if sorrow could enter heaven, is would be occasioned by the reflection that we had done so little for Christ on earth.'

Art. VIII. Sketches of Hayti; from the Expulsion of the French to the Death of Christophe. By W. W. Harvey, of Queen's Coll. Camb. 8vo. pp. xvi. 416. Price 10s. 6d. London. 1827.

AQUARTER of a century has now elapsed since the independence of Hayti was first proclaimed; and a new generation, not of emancipated slaves, but of free-born Negroes, is rising into active life. The struggle by which the inhabitants achieved their freedom, was a dreadful one; and the story, though not uninstructive, is too horrible, too disgraceful to humanity, to be dwelled upon in its details. Once before, this beautiful island had been dispeopled by the ruthless sword of the civilized invader, when its inoffensive aborigines were exterminated by the treacherous Spaniards. To supply their place, fresh crimes became necessary; or rather, a system of crime was instituted, by which Africa was compelled to furnish a population of slaves. The first insurrection broke out in the year 1791. It was occasioned by an attempt to extend the principles of French Liberty and Equality to the colonies, which excited the French planters to revolt from the mother country: a struggle ensued between the royalists and the revolutionists, of which the negroes availed them