greatness of his forbearance and long suffering, immediately declares himself by the name of Jehovah, reassures Moses that he would assuredly deliver the children of Israel according to his promise, and renews his commission. Exod. ch. vi. Moses found the people of Israel reluctant to attend to his message; and when God, verse 11, ordered him to go to Pharaoh, and command him to let his people go, Moses yet again objected from unbelief, saying, "Behold, the children of Israel have "not hearkened unto me, how then shall Pharaoh hear me, "who am of uncircumcised lips?" The Lord did not send fire down from heaven, to consume his unbelieving servant, nor did he declare him wholly unfit for the mission, nor did he even rebuke him; nay, he immediately RENEWED HIS COM

MISSION.

Our Board of Superintendants would have revoked the commission of Moses, and conferred it on Aaron, as altogether the most promising instrument to accomplish the desired object. But the wisdom of man is foolishness with God. He persisted in sending Moses as the principal, and Aaron was deputed to be merely his assistant. And let us now consult the history, and see whose faith, of the two, was the most constant; whose conduct the most exemplary, and whose services the most valuable. Moses became established, rooted, and grounded in the faith; and did not prove to be of the number of those, who are ever learning, and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. He became " very meek, above all the men on the "face of the earth;" and not that unteachable, proud, selfsufficient man, which a superficial observer of human nature would have predicted, from his refusal to assent to a proposition before he was convinced of its truth. He became eminent for his wisdom, and for the rectitude of his conduct; a man with whom God talked face to face, whose ways pleased God, and who accomplished the object of his mission. But what proved to be the character of Aaron? When Moses tarried on Mount Sinai, receiving the law from the mouth of God, the people requested Aaron, and that just after his appointment to the priesthood, to make them gods to go before them. He complied with this request, as readily as he did at first with the

command of God, to go with Moses on his mission; and withi out hesitation, ordered the people to bring him their golden ear-rings, and he made of the gold a molten calf. And Aaron built an altar before it, and proclaimed a feast in honour of the idol. And when Moses reproved him for his conduct, he added to his guilt by prevarication. Exod. xxxii. And it was through the prayer of Moses, that he was saved from destruction. Numb. ix. 20. His faith in God had not attained so firm a hold on his mind as had that of Moses. He seems to have easily complied with the humour of his sister, Miriam, in speaking reproachfully of Moses, whom God vindicated in their presence, and testifies that he was faithful in all God's house, contrasting his conduct with that of Aaron and Miriam. Numb. xii. While the faith of Moses is commemorated at large in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews, the name of Aaron was not deemed worthy, by the inspired apostle, of a place among the honoured believers, whose faith is there recorded.

I am well aware, that it will be attempted to avoid the force of the scriptural arguments above adduced from the dealings of God with Moses, and the dealings of Christ with his disciples. It will be contended, that those instances are inapplicable to the present times, because the truths of God are now better defined than they were in the times of Moses and of Christ. It is readily admitted, that, possessing the entire scriptures, we have a more full revelation of the truth than those who had only the Old Testament, or those who depended on immediate revelation or tradition. In the progress of filling up the sacred records, some truths have been more plainly revealed, and God forbid that it should be asserted that any one truth has been obscured by the multiplication of the sacred writers. But this I will say, that the field of theological discussion has thereby become much enlarged. It results from the imperfection of the human understanding, taken in connexion with his depravity and circumstances, that the process of reasoning is not the same in minds of the best order; and that even when they reason from the very same premises, they will oftentimes draw opposite conclusions.

Free and candid discussion will frequently unite the opinions of such as differed widely; and not unfrequently, the senti ments of the wisest and best of men will remain at variance, notwithstanding the best chosen means of reconciling them. It might have pleased God so to have revealed his will, and so to have framed the human mind, and so to have disposed of the conditions and circumstances of mankind, as to have ensured a perfect unanimity in regard to the truths of the Bible. But it has not pleased him so to do. He has so constituted and placed us, as to make it our duty to cultivate our faculties in the investigation of the truths of his word; that we should not content ourselves with a single and careless perusal of the Bible-but that we make a business of searching the Scriptures with diligence, with perseverance, and in the exercise of all our reasoning powers; not indeed indulging in vain speculation, and philosophy falsely so called, but with an honest desire to know the truth, and to live in the practice of it. And for man to attempt a reversal of this order in God's œconomy, was impious; it was in pious for the ancient councils-it was impious for the church of Rome, so to constitute her rules of government and discipline, as to ensure an actual or seeming unanimity in religious opinions. You seldom hear of any differences of sentiment among the Roman Catholic clergy. They see, to all outward appearance, eye to eye;— and they have actually succeeded in coercing a real agreement of religious opinions among the body of her clergy, and among the body of her laity. But it has been done at the expense of both religious freedom and of truth.

The argument yet is, that theological truth is now so well defined as to admit of being stated with precision, in the form of creeds, confessions, or articles of faith; and that, when so stated, there ought not to be any disbelief, or even doubt, as to any proposition contained in such confession, creeds, or articles; and that, therefore, the forbearance of God with the doubts of Moses, and the long suffering of Christ with the unbelief of his disciples, is now altogether irrelevant. If the whole of the above proposition be correct, how happens it, that there are so many different creeds in the world. -so many

different creeds in protestant churches? Why could not all the protestant churches have joined in one creed, instead of having them so numerous? It is no answer to say, the creeds of Protestant churches differ but little. The least deviation in meaning, of one from another, destroys your principle as effectually as though the differences were greater. And admitting your position, in all its breadth, what does it prove but this That the Bible itself is so plain, as not to admit of any difficulties, doubts, or uncertainties in its interpretation. And if so, where is the need of creeds? It is the liability of christians to differ in regard to the truths of the Bible, which can at all render it necessary to make them plainer, by dressing them in human language. If then, this liability to differ does exist, does it not arise from the nature of the revelation and the construction of the human mind, when taken in connexion with his sinfulness and circumstances? And if men have succeeded in drawing up a system of theological propositions, admitting of no differences of opinion or doubts, it is clear to my mind, that they either make a new Bible, or else thwart the design of God, in so framing the revelation of his will, as that, whilst man is commanded to search the scriptures, he should by the necessity of a frequent and constant perusal in order to comprehend them, expose himself, so to speak, to the fulness of its moral influence.

SECTION VII.

Crimes, or mistakes of the Board; rejecting the Bible as the standard of ministerial qualifications, and adopting human standards in its stead, and attempting to enforce them on his conscience.-Scriptural qualifications stated.-Applied to the case in hand.-Pretence that they did decide the case on scripture ground, because the standards accord with the Bible, refuted.

"Each had his conscience, each his reason, will,
Understanding, for himself to search,

To choose, reject, believe, consider, act:

And God proclaimed from heaven, and by an oath
Confirmed, that each should answer for himself."

THE rejection of Mr. Van Dyck from the ministry was not probably a pleasant result to every member of the Board. Some doubtless took pleasure in it, because, in their party zeal, they really believed they were casting a wolf out of the fold. Others were entangled in a net of forms, and knew not how to shove aside the net, and had not courage to break through it. It does not appear that any one of their number ever thought of putting the matter upon scriptural grounds, or of examining the qualifications of the student on the authority of the Bible. Such as were not overheated with zeal for orthodoxy in the abstract, could not but have perceived at once the abstruseness of the doctrines on which he doubted, and that even a denial of those doctrines could in no degree have interfered with his usefulness. But it seems not to have occurred to them that, professing to sit in judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, on the qualifications of a preacher of the gospel, there was higher authority than that of the Reformed Dutch Church, or the Synod of Dort, binding upon their consciences; and that a protestant church had no more right to prescribe directories of faith distinct from the scriptures, than the church of Rome had to ordain as a