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LECTURE VI.

SOULS NOT SALEABLE.

MARK Viii. 37.

What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

THIS question implies even more forcibly than could be done by a positive affirmation, the inestimable value of the soul to itspossessor, and satisfies us immediately that no accumulation of wealth, nor any other external advantage, can be placed in the balance against it. Supported by the supreme authority of the Son of God, this truth commands the acquiescence of every believer, and even the proud infidel who rejects the gospel and

trusts to his own reasonings will not refuse his assent to an inference so easily deducible from the facts that are before him.

The soul is allowed by all to be immortal. Ages after ages may pass away, and the imagination may be lost in the multiplied millions of years, during which its existence will be continued, and still it will be as far removed from annihilation as at the instant of its creation. The good things of this life, as they are called, are all transitory. Under the most favourable circumstances they possess no stability or permanence. Even life itself-justly considered to be the highest earthly good, since indispensable to the enjoyment of any-is held by a precarious tenure, and there is no one among the sons of men who may not unexpectedly receive the summons, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.

The soul is created for eternity—and it is an eternity of happiness or of misery;

for there is no intermediate condition like the present reserved for it-no state of existence in which its faculties will be devoid of consciousness: who then can deny, or doubt its pre-eminent value, who can imagine the equivalent which can be given in exchange for it? What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? 1

1

Such are the conclusions of unassisted reason, but what philosophy can only conjecture, religion proves to be true. Are we to believe then, that this distinguishing property of man-this thinking and reasoning part of him, which we call the Soul, can be made the subject to barter

'Know'st thou the importance of a soul immortal? Behold this midnight glory: worlds on worlds! Amazing pomp! redouble this amaze !

Ten thousand add; and twice ten thousand more; Then weigh the whole: one soul outweighs them all;

And calls th' astonishing magnificence

Of unintelligent creation poor.

YOUNG---Night 7.

and traffic, and can be surrendered to another for any supposable price? The suggestions of reason, no less than the language of inspiration, forbid us thus to degrade that part of our nature which is a pledge to us of immortality-thus to vilify the souls of our fellow-creatures, which no less than our own have been bought with the precious blood of Christ, and which therefore are not now SO much our own as his. I speak not with any design to impugn, or circumscribe human laws. That these laws tolerate, and even encourage, the bodily subjection of man to man, I readily admit; nor does it fall within my province, to question their expediency. I would merely maintain that the enactments which have been framed by human authority, with a view to secure the proprietory right of a master to the services of his slave, could never have contemplated the surrender of the soul of man into the hands of his fellow man. They may have given absolute

and uncontrolled power over the bodyeven to the deprivation of life-but they can never sanction the right to seize on the soul for a possession, and to barter the eternal interests of the bondsmen for money.

Iam

I hope not to be misunderstood. not making it a political, but a religious question. I speak of what ought to be morally and religiously binding on every purchaser and holder of slaves in the West Indies. I declare it as my opinion, that all laws framed by a Christian legislature, and designed for a Christian community, necessarily imply a freedom in the slave to save his soul alive. I am quite certain that it is the duty of the master never to construe the enactments, which uphold domestic or predial servitude, into a right to debar his dependents from the exercise of their Christian obligations, and to shut them out from the eternal blessings vouchsafed to those who know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent.2