t was born at the same birth with
Israel; and yet they were not of that church. Neither were Israel
allowed to invade the lands of the Moabites, or of the children of
Ammon, who were of the seed of Lot. And no officer in Israel had any
legislative power, but such as were immediately inspired. Even David,
the man after God's own heart, had no legislative power, but only as
he was inspired from above: and he is expressly called a _prophet_ in
the New Testament And we are to remember that Abraham and his seed,
for four hundred years, had no warrant to admit any strangers into
that church, but by buying of him as a servant, with money. And it was
a great privilege to be bought, and adopted into a religious family
for seven years, and then to have their freedom. And that covenant was
expressly repealed in various parts of the New Testament; and
particularly in the first epistle to the Corinthians, wherein it is
said--Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body,
and in your spirit, which are God's. And again--Circumcision is
nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping of the
commandments of God. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the
servants of men. Thus the gospel sets all men upon a level, very
contrary to the declaration of an honorable gentleman in this house,
"that the Bible was contrived for the advantage of a particular order
of men."

NEW YORK CONVENTION.

Mr. M. SMITH. He would now proceed to state his objections to the
clause just read, (section 2, of article 1, clause 3). His objections
were comprised under three heads: 1st, the rule of apportionment is
unjust; 2d, there is no precise number fixed on, below which the house
shall not be reduced; 3d, it is inadequate. In the first place, the
rule of apportionment of the representatives is to be according to the
whole number of the white inhabitants, with three-fifths of all
others; that is, in plain English, each State is to send
representatives in proportion to the number of freemen, and
three-fifths of the slaves it contains. He could not see any rule by
which slaves were to be included in the ratio of representation;--the
principle of a representation being that every free agent should be
concerned in governing himself, it was absurd to give that power to a
man who could not exercise it--slaves have no will of their own: the
very operation of it was to give certain privileges to those people
who were so wicked as to keep slaves.