Dedication.

ΤΟ

THE MODERATOR, MINISTERS, AND ELDERS

OF THE

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

FATHERS AND BRETHREN,

Some years ago, you are aware, I retired

from the Ministry of Albion Chapel, and at the same time resigned my connexion with the United Presbyterian Church The first had its meaning chiefly in the second. Had it been possible to have remained in the Church, I should never have relinquished the special charge, for the people to whom I ministered deserved everything at my hands, which was consistent with the obligations of an earlier and holier fidelity. But it was not possible. I had ceased to regard the articles of our faith in the light in

which I once had seen them, and was unable to limit myself by the Confession and Formularies of the Church.

The ground of my resignation was not broadly proclaimed at the time, but was left to be inferred, as it very readily could be, and as, in point of fact, it was by all who knew the circumstances. I have ever since been thankful that I was hindered from prematurely thrusting on wider notice an affair of personal and private life. Had this been done, mischief might have followed, without real benefit in any important direction. At the same time, I have not been ignorant that a reticence, which being temporary, was justifiable, and even incumbent, all the circumstances considered, if persisted in, beyond the limits of the necessity, might deserve to be branded as cowardice and disloyalty to truth. I have also felt that something was due to you, and to the sacred relation in which, especially in the years of my pastorate, I stood to you, something to the cordial friendship, to which, now as before, I am admitted by valued ministers and members of the United Presbyterian Church, and something also to myself, to the position which I held, and to my personal truthfulness and integrity. The three inconsiderable volumes, bearing my name, which have been published in the last few years, were intended, amongst other purposes, to serve as a partial discharge of these obligations, and the work which I now dedicate to you, is a further instalment with the same motive and aim.

Thoroughly at one with the Churches called evangelical, in all that is really essential, I do not imagine that truth, and nothing but truth is with them, and only with them: that they are all right, and all others all wrong. Can it be deemed presumptuous to suppose that there may be errors in our evangelical teaching, and grave dangers to which these errors are likely to lead? And has there never been cause to condemn, in our public action, as a party, manifest narrowness and bigotry, and still more-what has at least seemed to be disingenuousness and intolerance? But these and such things notwithstanding, the evidence to me is abundant that the divine spirit of Christianity is mightily working in the evangelical churches, and that the warmth and the living energy of true religion, piety towards God, and love towards man, and those holy central impulses which originate and sustain all the highest good that is done on earth, are to be found very largely in them.

Fathers and brethren! I was baptized, admitted to the holy communion, trained and educated in that church, of which you are the acknowledged heads. I think I understand the evangelical faith as maintained by you, and especially what, in these days, is considered its leading, testing article. I think I understand what is meant by the sacrifice of Christ, the atonement for sin (involving the idea of satisfaction to justice) through his blood. Certainly, I am much to blame, if I do not understand it. I have been most carefully instructed in it, from my earliest

youth upward, in the family, from the pulpit, and from the chair of our Theological Hall. Its ground, its nature, its evidences, and its defences have long been familiar to me, and all my prepossessions, and prejudices, and associa tions, and circumstances national, educational, hereditary, ecclesiastical, and social, have been in favour of it. So far as an ordinary capacity can justify the claim, I may claim, without presumption, to understand this special tenet. I well know, besides, that by thousands of godly and devoted souls, this is regarded as the very life of their life, the ground of their well-being, and the one solitary hope of the whole world, a protecting shield also, thrown around the Almighty himself, and a sun which pours its glory on His perfections and His nature. They believe that from this source peace is shed into their hearts, that by this the sacred fire is supplied, which kindles them to purity and love, to heroic daring, and noble endurance, and that all their happiest thoughts of God, all their strongest motives to holy living, all their selectest moments of spiritual communion, and all their clearest visions of the eternal future, are derived from this. Were this to go, they believe that everything valuable and essential would perish with it.

I could not attempt to disturb, if such a thing were in my power, a faith like this, did I not believe, as I do, that all which is really essential in the common convictions would abide untouched; that divine peace in the troubled