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HUMAN ACCOUNTABILITY.

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and are invested with the privileges of adoption. For justification is not a mere act of pardon, which may to-morrow be reversed (poor consolation!)-it is a permanent state of acceptance, We are not merely pardoned rebels, or ransomed slaves we are, also, adopted children; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and jointheirs with Christ. And having received the Spirit of adoption, we cry "Abba, Father," and "walk in love as dear children." Our security thus rests on his faithfulness and power, and our eternal glory is bound up with his own. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us."

Man is, nevertheless, accountable to God-is I dealt with as a rational creature-has faculties to perform all that he is commanded by his Maker --is capable of believing in Christ, and is unobstructed in his pursuit of salvation by any extraneous hindrances, and held back solely by the love of sin that prevails in his heart. So that this scheme of mercy interferes not with his free agency or accountability. And, on the

other hand, it secures the sanctification of all that submit to it. By connecting the blessing with the means-hearing with believing, believ

ing with pardon, asking with receiving, diligence with progress, labour with reward, fighting with victory, and suffering with glory-it guards effectually against indolence and licentiousness, and tends most powerfully to stimulate the energies of the soul to all that is good and great. For Jesus "gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works," Titus ii. 14.

I am, &c.

CHURCH OF CHRIST.

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LETTER XX.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

SUCH is the character of the Church of Christ, to which I would conduct you. The marks of this Church-marks which distinguish each of its members-are, repentance toward God, faith in Christ, and the fruits of the Spirit visible in the life and conversation. These fruits are "love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." The man that has not these has not the Spirit of Christ; "and if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his." Gal. v. 22; Rom. viii. 9. Thus are we "come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God;"" to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven." This church is not confined to any country or clime. It is persecuted or despised by the world, scattered among the nations, and to be gathered at last by the angels from "the four winds of heaven." It has existed since the fall of man, and will exist till the end of time. Sometimes its light has been scarcely visible amid the surrounding darkness; at other times, especially during the first and the last three cen

turies of the Christian era, it has shone upon the kingdoms of the earth with peculiar brightness and glory. Sometimes it has flourished in cities, and shed its influence abroad in the palaces of kings and the halls of legislation. Again, this virgin spouse of Jesus has been banished to the wilderness, and compelled to offer her spiritual sacrifices in caverns, and to lift up her voice of praise amid the roar of the mountain torrent. For three hundred years her children continued to multiply in the Roman empire. They also spread through the nations of the East, where, removed from Papal domination, which they spurned, they continued, in various regions, to hold forth the word of life even in the dark ages. Protestant Christianity (the name is nothing) prevailed in BRITAIN from the age of the apostles till the Bishop of Rome sent over an insidious monk, to corrupt the simplicity of their faith, and rob them of their independence. In IRELAND,* the land of Gospel light and literature, the asylum of learning and piety when the rest of Europe was overrun with barbarism, the doctrines of Protestantism were professed and propagated, with more or less purity, till the

* "The Irish Church never acknowledged the supremacy of a foreigner."-St. Ibar to St. Patrick in the fifth Century.

THE WALDENSES.

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twelfth century, when the Pope authorised Henry II. to conquer and Papalise our native land, on condition that the English should thenceforth pay him the tribute called Peter's-pence. Are communion with the Church of Rome and the Pope's supremacy, articles of the Christian faith? Then was St. Patrick no Christian, and our boasted island of saints was an island of Pagans! The ancient Culdees,* who enlightened the darkness, and civilised the barbarity of the British isles, were, in all essential points, Protestants.†

The Waldenses, according to the reluctant testimony of Roman inquisitors and historians, maintained the doctrines of the Reformation, by the most eminent champions of which their confessions of faith were warmly approved. They separated from the Church of Rome during the reign of Constantine, from which period they dated the defeation of that body. Thus existing as the representative of the primitive church, Worshippers of God."

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This subject is very ably handled in a discourse entitled, "The Religion of the ancient Britons and Irish no Popery," by the Rev. Dr. Brownlee, of New-York; for a copy of which I am indebted to the Rev. George Bourne, the eloquent champion of Protestantism in America, and author of "Loiette," a most interesting work which may be had of H. Rea, Belfast.

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