are already such by believing in Christ, that peace, joy, and comfort, which any person has, before he believes, cannot be the spirit of adoption; nor can those impressions and discoveries be from God, which assure persons of their pardon and acceptance, before they are his children. And yet, the faith, hope, and love, of many religious people, are built upon such joys and manifestations. They never believed in Christ, till they had an assurance that they were the children of God; they never durst trust in his blood for the remission of their sins, till they had received forgiveness. Such a method of justification overthrows the doctrine laid down in the text, and in all Holy Scripture. According to this scheme, a person is pardoned before he believes, and assured of his being a child of God before he is one. But the Apostle here says, "because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." The spirit of adoption does not make us sons, if we are not such already. It is intended to acquaint us with our privilege; and must, therefore, be the consequence, and not the cause, of our acceptance into the number of the children of God. That spirit which tells a person that he is a child of God, when he is not, cannot be the Spirit of Truth; and all those manifestations which tend to persuade an unbeliever that his sins are forgiven, are vain and delusive. We must, therefore, conclude, that a course of experience which reverses the order laid down in the word of God, is only the effect of a spirit of

error.

It has already appeared that the spirit of adoption cannot be maintained, but by a patient continuance in well-doing, and preserving a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man. And yet we see many professors of religion talk of high degrees of assurance, and strong confidence of their safe condition, while they are indulging

many sinful tempers, neglecting many plain duties, and living in many known sins. They have no doubts or fears about their state; they know that their sins are forgiven, and they feel no condemnation in their consciences; though no one can perceive in them those fruits which accompany salvation. What can we say of such peace and joy? Or rather, what says our Divine Master concerning them? "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many powerful works? and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Hence it plainly appears, that these bold claims will be rejected at the last; that our confidence is a vain confidence, if it be stronger than our evidence; and that a high degree of assurance, without an answerable degree of holiness, is not faith, but presumption.

I would now proceed to an application of our subject. You have heard from Scripture the nature of that comfortable and liberal temper of mind, which is called the spirit of adoption. Ail must desire to possess it, and some may profess to have it in a considerable degree. But it behoves those who are striving to obtain it, to see that they are striving lawfully; and those who claim this privilege as their own, to inquire whether their pretensions are well founded. We cannot have the spirit of adoption till we are made the children of God; and we are not the children of God unless we have been quickened by the grace of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus, enlightened to discover our ruin and our remedy, and reconciled to God by submitting to be saved in the Gospel way, and believing on the name of his only

begotten Son. Though an author, who is a greater friend to human reason than to the Gospel of the grace of God, affirms, that Abba, Father, is the natural language of the human heart; and though many persons have great peace in their consciences, and strong confidence towards God, from a high opinion of their own worthiness; yet it is certain, that God is not a reconciled Father to any but those who are united to his beloved Son, and that we have nothing to do with peace unless we are of that number. The language of confession, humiliation, and penitence, would therefore much better become such persons, than that of confidence and assurance; and they have much more reason to dread the displeasure, than to hope for the favour of God, in their present condition.

Neither have you more reason to rejoice in your situation who have obtained assurance by a course of unscriptural experience, and claimed the favour of God, and eternal life, as your own, before you became his children. The Holy Spirit could not give you the spirit of adoption till you were adopted, neither could he seal you, as the heirs of promise, till you understood the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and trusted in the Saviour whom it reveals and offers. You must, therefore, have different views of God and yourselves, before you are entitled to say, Abba, Father. You must be reconciled to the law and justice of God, which condemn you to die as transgressors; must lie at his mercy, to save or to cast you off as he pleases; must look to his free grace in Christ Jesus for pardon and salvation; and be united to that Saviour by faith unfeigned, before you can be the children of God, or experience the spirit of adoption.

I would also beseech all of you to suspect the safety of your state, and to throw aside your vain confidence, who are easy under the dominion of sinful tempers. and as

sured of your salvation, while you are destitute of the marks that accompany it. The peace and confidence you feel, in such a barren and unfruitful state, is a delusion of Satan, and not the spirit of adoption: for the Lord says, "If my children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes," If, therefore, you can restrain prayer before God, indulge wrong passions, and neglect known duties, without being convicted, and made uneasy, he deals not with you as sons whom he loves, but as those whom he disowns. And terrible will be your disappointment and confusion at the last, when your confident claims meet with this severe repulse, "I know you not whence ye are ; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity." Humble yourselves, therefore, in time, and return to God by true repentance, lest a sudden destruction come upon you, while you are crying peace and safety; and hell open its mouth to receive you, while you make yourselves sure of heaven.

But as there may be many who cry peace to their souls when there is no peace, so there are others who live in bondage when the Lord bids them be of good comfort. Surely, if you are poor in spirit, humble and contrite in heart, looking to the mercy of God through Christ for pardon, and depending upon the merits and mediation of that blessed Saviour for salvation, you have reason to take comfort from the promises of the Gospel. As many as have been led by the Spirit of God to return to him by Jesus Christ, they are the sons of God; "and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." Why then are you cast down in your souls, and why are your hearts disquieted within you? Look up to God as an Almighty and most merciful Father in his Son Christ Jesus; draw near to him with filial confidence; rejoice in him as your cove,

retained: the Gospel becomes either a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.

The following paraphrase will, I humbly think, give the spirit and meaning of the three preceding verses. "Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed unto thee this truth-which is the rock

of thy confidence and the foundation of all human hope-but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee, that thou also art a rock, a stone; and on me, the Rock of Ages, the chief Corner-stone of my church, shalt thou be laid, as it were, the first stone; and thy fellowApostles with thee shall form the foundations on which my church shall be reared (Eph. xi. 20; Rev. xxi. 14), against which the gates of hell shall not prevail."

SIMPLEX.

M. FELLENBERG; HIS SCHOOLS
AND PLANS.

(Concluded from p. 416.)

M. SIMOND, speaking of Geneva, remarks that charitable institutions are much too numerous in that city; for that its inhabitants, being led astray by a mistaken benevolence, are insensibly providing for themselves the evils of the English poorlaws; which laws, he says, cherish population beyond the proper means of subsistence. One establishment, however, of public bounty at Geneva he thinks well worthy of notice, namely, that which sustains and educates female orphans. The number of girls in it had gradually increased to thirty-six. They are brought up, he adds, morally and frugally, at a cost of about twelve pounds per annum each, besides the produce of their industry, which covers a sixth part of the whole that is expended upon them. I have introduced this statement for the purpose of shewing, by comparison, the great economy of M. Fellenberg's institutions. The indigent children who have found a home at Hofwyl, after reckoning every outlay, and deducting the value of their labour, have not cost M. Fellenberg so much each annually as a third of the amount disbursed on each of the girls at

Geneva. On the boys at Maykirk, if the land and house were sold, he would have spent little or nothing. I visited at Kornthal, in the kingdom of Wirtemberg-where, it is true, the necessaries of life are much cheaper than at Geneva-a school in which boys and girls are wholly maintained at a less expense than four pounds a year. Here, too, as at Hofwyl, there is land belonging to the institution. This attention to the strictest economy in such institutions appears to me doubly advantageous: not only as it increases the means of extending to greater numbers the benefits of education; but as the indigent, fostered under this frugal administration, knowing few wants, and being habituated to thrift, will generally, when placed out in the world, possess an advantage over those reared under a more lavish system. The evils which of necessity result from every species of pauperism are the greater in proportion as the indulgences afforded are more tempting and enervating. The children boarded, clothed, and educated at vast expense at our charity schools, turn out too often the most incompetent drones in the national hive; and are generally prepared to perpetuate pauperism, as they themselves were trained in it.

At Hofwyl I thought of spending

the whole of my short interval of leisure, but was constrained to leave it, after having stayed there not quite nine days; for, M. Fellenberg particularly desiring me to visit the colony of the Linth, I felt impelled to make a rapid journey for that purpose.

On the 6th of September I started at noon from Berne, by the diligence, for Zurich, and before eight o'clock on the following morning reached that city. That day being Sunday I did not proceed farther; but set off at four o'clock the next morning, in a calêche, for the colony, a distance of thirty-six miles, and did not reach my destination till the same hour in the afternoon. M. Fellenberg had provided me with a letter to M. le Conseiller Schindler, Inspector of the Arsenal at Mollis, about an hour's slow drive from the colony. As its superintendant, or master, could not speak French, and as I could not converse in German, this introduction was requisite; and I should have had to go to Mollis, had it not happened that M. Schindler was at the institution on my arrival.

This establishment owes its origin to the distress of the years 1816 and 1817, which was felt severely throughout Switzerland, and especially in this mountainous canton. Large sums were collected for the relief of the poor; and no wiser expedient could have been devised during the crisis, for giving at once employment and bread to the needy labourers of the surrounding country, than public works of permanent utility. The river, or torrent, of the Linth completely devastated the district on a part of which it now stands; and the idea conceived was, to confine the hitherto unruly flood within bounds, by the hands of the distressed labourers. M. Escher, of Zurich, directed the works. A canal was formed, ten miles in length and eighty feet in breadth, between its high shelving banks. The canal opened a navigable communication between the lakes of Wallenstadt

and Zurich. In addition to this benefit, eight hundred acres of land, that formerly bore but here and there a little brushwood, have been secured for cultivation; and twenty thousand acres, between the colony and the Lake of Zurich, formerly little. better than a bog, have been rendered fit for pasturage. The amount expended in the prosecution of this design, which was as ably executed as wisely planned, amounted to about 60,000l. Amongst the promoters of this undertaking were the founders and liberal supporters of the school of the colony of the Linth, for which one hundred and ten of the acres rescued from desolation were obtained. The names of Alexander, Emperor of Russia, whose munificence will be gratefully remembered; of M. Escher; M. Schindler; and M. Fellenberg, stand prominent on the occasion. A good house-a mansion, compared with that of the colony at Maykirk-has been built; and as the institution was to be conducted on the principles of M. Fellenberg's system, a pupil of M. Vehrli, Lutsehg, was appointed master. The directors have had to expend considerable sums in improving the land, which is poor; and these disbursements, with those necessary to the support of the institution upon its present scale of expenditure, have militated against an approximation to what M. Fellenberg desires, which is, to make schools for the indigent support, or nearly support, themselves, by the labour of the pupils. At Hofwyl these wishes have been partially accomplished: at Maykirk their realization seems probable; but, in order that the youth may return the cost of his maintenance and education, he must give his labour to the institution till he is full grown*. Here there is, how

It must be recollected that M. Fellenberg places before the youth the means of accumulating a fund against his departure longer his continuance in any, the larger from any of his institutions; and the may be the sum to be taken away.