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Christ place you at his right hand at the great day? None will be found there who have not evinced the benevolence of their heart by the beneficence of their hand.

But where, Avarus, is your benevolence? Where in your character is to be found that "most excellent gift of charity," love to God, and good-will towards man? Are you distinguished by longsuffering and kindness? Is envy, that canker of the soul, expelled from your bosom? Do you never covet the possessions of another if they happen to exceed your own? Do you never act in an unseemly and indecorous way towards others- towards the sons and daughters of poverty and misfortune? Have you never invaded the rights of another, taken advantage of his weakness or ignorance to secure your own interests at the expense of his? Have you not habitually sought your own good, not only at the risk of hazarding the good of another, but in opposition to his welfare, when you knew that your advantage could not be secured without inflicting on him a serious injury? With the mantle of this heavenly charity have you been always ready to conceal the follies, faults, and sins of your neighbours? Have you been willing to believe every good report that has been circulated respecting him; and if some specious charge has been brought against him, have you been induced to hope no ground for it existed? (1 Cor. xiii.)

And have you, Avarus, ever proved that good-will to man exists in your bosom by the beneficence of your actions? You have not abandoned the name or the outward practices of Christianity; you have not forsaken the house of God, nor renounced entirely all communication with the friends and disciples of the Son of God. The doctrinal views of religious truth, which you imbibed in the first few months of your intercourse with men of piety, are still in your memory; you depend on the Saviour for your acceptance with God; you occasionally express your entire and implicit trust in the atoning blood shed on Calvary; you are averse to the errors of those who trust in their own righteousness and in innate purity. But if, Avarus, you are thus talking of hope in Christ, how has this hope operated; how have your love and gratitude to the Saviour been displayed? If you are correct in christian doctrine, are you equally so in christian conduct? What is the grand and leading principle by which you are influenced; how does this principle appear in practice? Can we venture, in the judgment of the most enlarged charity, to say of you that your grand principle is love to God, and that your beneficent exertions for the good of your fellow men prove that this is your impelling and all-prevalent motive? Can we say of you, Avarus, that such is the powerful influence of Divine love in your bosom that you cannot behold a man of piety in distress, without regarding him as one of that family of which the great God is the tender parent, the Son of his love, the all-powerful Redeemer, the Holy Spirit of God, the efficient Sanctifier, without affording him relief; though that relief should demand the sacrifice of time and of money? Do you behold the ignorance of God and of his Christ which is around you with pain, and make every effort for its

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removal? Or is your sympathy, compassion, and benevolence of that cheap and worthless kind described by a sacred writer as the almsgiving of the tongue," If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful for the body, what doth it profit?" (James ii. 15, 16.) And how severely is this reproved by the beloved disciple, "Whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him." (1 John iii. 17, 18.) This, Avarus, reproves you; in your want of every benevolent feeling towards man, you show that the love of God is not in you; that your piety, like your charity, is quite separate from sacrifice. It consists in word, not in deed; in expression, not in action. "The liberal man devises liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand;" but all the devices that are in your heart are for acquisition-not one solitary device or thought of distribution exists there. And yet opportunities have not been wanting; urgent appeals have been made, pressing and imperative claims have been forced upon your attention, but all in vain; your heart has remained insensible to one generous emotion; your hand, grasping tenaciously the mammon of unrighteousness, seems for ever closed. And do you, Avarus, indulge the delusive imagination that a few correct notions on certain points of Scripture doctrine forms the essence of the gospel salvation? Do you suppose that these, important and valuable as they are in their suitable place, will form a substitute or be admitted as equivalent to the whole christian character? Will the Judge of the quick and the dead, who will at the last day admit those into Heaven, who have proved their love to him by their benevolence and beneficence towards his people, admit you, because you have given no such evidence of your love? Will he not rather say, "I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat, thirsty, and ye gave me no drink, sick and in prison, and ye visited me not, therefore depart, accursed, into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

Man, Avarus, may praise you, but God now condemns you; and, unless your heart be changed, your hand opened, your whole soul consecrated to the honour of the Most High, and absorbed by the love of Christ, your final and irrevocable condemnation will be answered at the last great day. "Then whose shall those things be which you have provided." Then shall the cry be heard, "This is the man that made not God his trust, but trusted in his wealth, and boasted in the multitude of his riches; but his house is cut off, and his trust shall be as a spider's web." (Ps. xlix 6.; Job viii. 14.)

A REJOINDER ON CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS.

(To the Editor.)

ALTHOUGH your last number contains a notice for all controversialists to quit the field, you will, perhaps, allow me the benefit of a brief reply to the animadversions of your Reviewer.

Aiwy certainly means an age, or dispensation; but does it always mean that, and nothing more? Unless this can be shown, I do not see why, in Matt. xxviii. 20, it must of necessity have that signification. In the plural form, Hebrews xi. 3, (rovs aiūvas,) it unquestionably means the material universe, and I see no reason why, in the singular, it may not sometimes mean the earth, or world. Admit, however, that alov, in this place, means dispensation, the question occurs-What dispensation? Must not the answer beThat dispensation which sends the gospel to all nations?

As to the difficulty of extending an address, with the personal pronoun you, from the class to whom that address was given, to another, with whom the former have nothing in common, it only arises from the hypothesis of your Reviewer. He takes for granted that the commission included miraculous gifts, and then shuts out, from the promise annexed, all who are destitute of them. I regard the commission in question as a general command to the faithful in all ages, and, on the same principle, on which I would apply the invitation of Christ to the weary and heavy laden, (Matt. xi. 28-30,) to similar descriptions of character in the present day, I infer, that so long as our blessed Lord has a human agency at work for the conversion of the world, so long he will favour that agency with his peculiar sanction.

Your Reviewer has assumed that the commission in dispute was addressed to the apostles exclusively. Matthew mentions "the eleven;" but as he remarks that "some doubted," it seems highly probable that others were also present Luke expressly says "the eleven and those that were with them," to each of whom he represents our Lord as giving the same commission, though in another form, "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." And that the command was so understood by those who heard it, appears from the fact, that when, by the persecution of Saul, "they were all scattered abroad, except the apostles," "THEY went every where, preaching the gospel." (Acts viii. 1, 4.) For aught that appears to the contrary, it seems not improbable that the general commission described by Matthew, was given to the "five hundred brethren at once," mentioned 1 Cor. xv. 6.

But admit that our Lord addressed the promise, "Lo, I am with you," &c. to the eleven exclusively, yet does it not appear that it conveyed, or was intended to convey, miraculous gifts; for this assurance of his continual presence was given them before they were "endued with power from on high," (Luke xxiv. 49,) a blessing which was reserved for the following Pentecost. The parallel passage in Mark, which your Reviewer has quoted as connecting

miraculous gifts with the promise in dispute, relates, not to those who should preach, but to those who should believe their testimony.Should my opponent reply, that if the converts were to have these gifts, the apostles were to communicate them, I admit the fact, but deny that it is included in the passage before us. The testimony of Christ," (1 Cor. i. 6,) to which I am referred, was the gospel itself, and not the commission to publish it. Compare 2 Thess. i. 10.

Your Reviewer, as I conceive, has by no means met the difficulty that if this commission to preach the gospel to all nations be restricted to the apostles, the church of modern times has no express command on the subject. Of the hundred passages in which this is asserted to be set forth, I cannot find one. That which is quoted by your Reviewer, (Eph. iv. 11, 12, 13,) may as easily be claimed for apostolic times, to the exclusion of all following ages, as the text under consideration, and on precisely the same grounds. It may be argued that the apostle, when he said, "till we all come," intended those who were then alive, or even those whom he was personally addressing; and certainly, the imperfections and mistakes of uninspired expositors, to which your Reviewer adverts, are quite as inconsistent with the unity of faith," described in that passage, as with the perpetual presence for which I contend.

For the mysticism of priestcraft I have no more affection or reverence than your Reviewer himself. There is nothing in my paper which claims the promise for ministers exclusively. My words are- The world is to be discipled, all nations are to be brought to the faith, the commandments of Christ, in all things, are to be rigidly enforced; and where this is done, by whomsoever it is done, and just so far as it is done, it is sanctioned by his own presence and blessing." The running title, "Further Remarks on the presence of Christ with his Ministers," was yours, Mr. Editor, not mine. It was my express design to show that the promise was intended for all who do the work, and that the work is the conversion of the world to the faith of Christ.

I regret that your Reviewer charges me with contending for an unintelligible presence of Christ which nobody can explain. Has he not admitted that Christ is present with all his servants? The question between us is-Whether that blessing comes to us without any direct promise from our Lord, or whether it is included in the text. If I am asked-Is Christ more present with some of his servants than with others? I unhesitatingly answer in the affirmative. If I am asked-With whom? I reply-With those who are most diligent and most devoted in their efforts to convert the world. I was mistaken about the "Oxford Tracts," but the admission of your Reviewer proves the correctness of my suspicions. In his case it is not the re-action of Oxford, but of Rome. He acknowledges himself to have been, at one period, a professed papist. From this circumstance my adversary no longer remains unknown. Few things would afford me more pleasure than to be favoured with his intimate acquaintance. This is now less likely than ever to be my lot in the present life, but he will allow me to conclude these "annotations" with my most earnest prayer, that in the new and im

portant sphere to which the providence of God has introduced him, he may most richly and constantly realize all that I understand by the promise in dispute.

Lymington, Hants, Nov. 9, 1839.

D. E. F.

REMINISCENCES OF AMERICA.

No. XI. THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

I AM aware that in writing upon such an exciting subject as slavery, and the means employed for its abolition, it will be difficult to maintain the coolness and calmness of a witness testifying what he has seen and heard, especially when the privilege is claimed of stating the impressions produced by the facts. I hope, however, to be enabled to give an impartial testimony. In this article it is men, rather than measures, which I purpose discussing, and while I know that many support the Colonization Society from the basest motives, I feel bound in justice to many with whom I had long and frequent conversations on the subject, but from whom I differed completely in my opinion of the probable results of this scheme, to state that they detested slavery as much as any friend of freedom whom I know; and my conviction is, that this Society numbers amongst its supporters, some of the warmest, most disinterested, and judicious friends of the

negro race.

I admit that I was much surprised at first to find them differing in operation from those with whom I coincided in opinion, but intercourse with them satisfied me, that much as they are aspersed by their brethren, they act from motives of which many who dissent from them must approve.

Of the parties by which the Colonization Society is supported, the principal are, I think,

1. Those who expect to be able by these or similar means to carry out of the country the whole of the coloured population. These do not look to the resources of the Society alone, but expect that so soon as the practicability of the scheme is established, by the surplus revenues of the country, or some such fund, the object will be effected.

2. Those who consider the Society likely to operate indirectly, but not the less efficiently, in bringing about the emancipation of the whole.

These perceive that the number carried out of the country must be very limited, but they consider that it keeps the question of emancipation open to discussion in the only way in which they think it likely to be successfully discussed in slave-holding states, where public discussions are prohibited. They can still discuss the subject in private, and the result of such discussion with a reasonable slaveholder, is likely to be an admission that slavery is wrong, and ought to be abolished; but as the slave laws prohibit manumission, and these laws cannot be altered until a majority of the citizens are con

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