51.

WILLIAM LEECHMAN, D. D.

PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.DIED 1785.

In order to preserve a proper modesty as to our notions and sentiments about things of doubtful disputation, and the circumstantials of religion, and to abate that positiveness in our own way, which is so opposite to real humility, and which leads us to complain of the pride of other men's understandings, when there is no other reason for the charge, than that they cannot adopt our notions and phrases -let us seriously ask ourselves the following questions: Can I pretend to a clearer understanding, to a more diligent and impartial inquiry into revelation, or to greater degrees. of divine illumination, than all others who differ in opinion from me? What grounds have I to imagine that I am in the full possession of all divine truths? Do I not acknowledge that I may err? What security then have I, that I do not actually err in some instances, amidst the multitude of opinions which I hold? May I not be in a mistake, nay, in many mistakes, though I am not conscious of the particular instances? Is there not ground to expect that the admission into the regions of perfect light will prove not only an enlargement, but a correction of former views, to men of the wisest, best, and fairest minds? Such

questions, seriously put, and urged upon our own consciences in silence and retirement, and under the awful impression of the presence of the great Searcher of hearts, would naturally check that presumptuous confidence that our own particular views are certainly right, which is so common in the world, and so frequently accompanied with that wrath of man-which never works the righteousness of God.

Sermons.

WILLIAM LEECHMAN was born, 1706, at Dolphinston in Lanarkshire, receiving there his grammar learning, and completing his education in the University of Edinburgh. Having been engaged in private tuition, he soon turned his attention to the study of theology. In 1731, he was licensed to preach, and continued for five years without preferment. He became Minister of Beith, where he laboured with great fidelity. In 1740, he preached and published his masterly sermon on the Temper, Character, and Duty of a Minister of the Gospel ; and, in 1743, printed his sermon on Prayer, of equal celebrity. Not long afterwards he was raised to the divinity chair at Glasgow, which he filled for many years with extraordinary ability. His pupils were numerous, and his lectures gave high satisfaction. In 1744, he visited London along with a private pupil, forming an intimacy with Lardner, Benson, and the first theologians of the day. In 1761, he was affected by a pulmonary complaint, but relieved by a visit to Bristol Hotwells. He now was made

Principal of the University of Glasgow, which he retained for a long period, dying in 1785, after an illness of some length, but was blessed with a singularly placid dissolution! No one ever more gloriously exemplified the supports and consolations of revealed religion: his was a triumph over the darkness and desolation of the tomb! Dr. Leechman wrote The Life of Dr. Hutcheson, prefixed to his System of Moral Philosophy. Two most excellent volumes of Sermons were published after his decease by Dr. Wodrowe, who accompanied them with a MEMOIR of this truly good man, exhibiting, as in a lucid mirror, the amiable and liberal spirit of Christianity.

52.

WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D. D.

PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.DIED 1793.

EUROPE had been accustomed, during many centuries, to see speculative opinions propagated or defended by force; the charity and mutual forbearance which CHRISTIANITY recommends with so much warmth were forgotten; the sacred rights of conscience and of private judgment were unheard of; and not only the idea of toleration, but even the word itself, in the sense now affixed to it, was unknown! A right to extirpate error by force was universally allowed to be the prerogative of such as

possessed the knowledge of truth; and as each party of Christians believed that they had got possession of this invaluable attainment, they all claimed and exercised, as far as they were able, the rights which it was supposed to convey. The Roman Catholics, as their system rested on the decisions of an infallible judge, never doubted that truth was on their side, and openly called on the civil power to repel the impious and heretical innovators who had risen up against it. The Protestants, no less confident that their doctrine was well founded, required, with equal ardour, the princes of their party to check such as presumed to impugn or oppose it. Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and Knox, the founders of the reformed church in their respective countries, inflicted, as far as they had power and opportunity, the same punishments which were denounced against their own disciples by the church of Rome, upon such as called in question any article in their creeds. To their followers, and perhaps to their opponents, it would have appeared a symptom of diffidence in the goodness of their cause, or an acknowledgment that it was not well-founded, if they had not employed in its defence all those means which it was supposed Truth had a right to employ.

It was towards the close of the seventeenth century before Toleration, under its present form, was admitted first into the republic of the United Provinces, and from thence introduced into England. Long experience of the calamities flowing from mutual persecution, the influence of free govern.