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their iron sceptre, free inquiry should be roused to break their bonds, and emancipate their captives; that to guide them out of the mazes of that bewildering system a beacon should be kindled and set on high, or rather, that the light of heaven should arise upon them; that to succour them under the gloomy inflictions of that system, the glad tidings of gospel simplicity should bring redemption; and that the banner should be raised in that holy warfare of truth with error, which allows neither peace nor truce till the Lord be King over all the earth, and there be One Lord, and his name One. It is well that here, where there must be many seeking for knowledge, you should provide for their instruction; where there must be many secretly convinced, to some extent, of the truth of your opinions, you should afford facilities .for their open profession; where there must be many friendly to your cause, you should invite their cooperation. And it is well also that you should thus consult your own improvement, practise your own mode of worship, and assert your own faith, seeing that you are disciples of Him whose words, as declaratory of your duty, and expressive of your purpose, I now read from the Gospel of JOHN, ch. xviii. ver. 37:

"TO THIS END WAS I BORN, AND FOR THIS CAUSE CAME I INTO THE WORLD, THAT I SHOULD BEAR WITNESS UNTO THE TRUTH."

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Ir is unnecessary to detain you with any discussion of the argument for the pre-existence of Christ,

which some have derived from the second clause of this verse, as you will readily observe that their interpretation, by identifying its meaning with that of the first clause, ascribes to our Lord a very improbable repetition; and also that he had but a short time before employed nearly the same phrase to describe both his own mission, and that of his apostles: "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." (John xvii. 18.) It is of more importance to notice, in passing, that the occasion of his declaring the end of his existence and mission, was the assertion, or insinuation, that he aspired to temporal power and sovereignty. He repels the charge by avowing himself a teacher of truth, and Pilate accepts the reason, merely demanding in return, "What is truth?" i. e. What care I about your speculations or teachings, so. long as you make no assumption of political authority? The professed followers of Christ have too often argued the matter in a very different way, and have inferred that because they testified the truth, they had a right, either to possess temporal authority, or to have it exerted for their purposes. They have claimed, and that successfully, that as teachers of truth they should be vested with lordly titles, and rear their mitred fronts in courts and senates; that the people should be taxed for their support; that the stake, or when the milder spirit of the times disallowed this, that penalties and dungeons should avenge opposition to them; and that nations should

espouse their quarrels, and armies fight their battles. This is not more alien from the reasoning of Christ, than from the spirit of his gospel.

Christ bore witness to Unitarian Christianity. I assert this without fear of contradiction. He taught expressly every principle which we hold; and his followers, of all times, in all countries, through all sects, have borne involuntary testimony to the assertion; for not one of those principles have they dared to deny in words, although they have virtually denied them all by additions more or less inconsistent with their truth, destructive of their evidence, and hostile to their spirit. He taught and we hold the Divine Unity as the basis of revealed religion. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." They deny it not, but assert a Trinity, which makes it unimportant and unmeaning. He taught and we hold the Divine Paternity, continually calling, and teaching others to call God, the Father. They retain the term, but restrict its relation to the second person of the Trinity, or to the elect, or by some other fanciful limitation. He taught, and we believe him, his own humanity. "Ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God." They allow it, but maintain that the man was personally one with God. He inculcated, and we practise, the worship of the Father. "When ye pray, say, Our Father." They say so, sometimes at least; but they also go on to say, "O God the Son," "God the Holy Ghost," or "Holy,

blessed, and glorious Trinity." He taught the salvation of man by the free grace of God, in the parable of the Prodigal Son; and they interpolate the purchase of that grace by an atonement. He declared that virtue is the passport to heaven. "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." They cannot directly controvert the declaration even while contending for salvation by faith alone. He announced the infliction of proportionate punishment for offences. "That servant which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes." And they assent, yet make every sin infinite, and all punishment eternal. He anticipated universal benefits from his exertions and sufferings, announcing himself as "the Saviour of the world," and declaring that he would draw all men unto him; and they allow the justice of the description, and the truth of the prophecy, but reduce all to a few, and the world to a party. We take his instructions; we leave their unauthorized additions. We bear witness for the first, because they are God's truth; against the last, because they are man's inventions.

The object of worship is the topic to which our attention is especially directed by the present occasion. We adore the Father only; in the religious

services of other Christians, the Son and the Holy Ghost are associated with him. For the worship of the Holy Ghost there is confessedly neither precept nor example in Scripture. As to that of the Son, Christ is himself a clear and decisive witness. I have adverted, and shall again, to his language on this subject; but it is not my design to dwell upon particular expressions or detached texts. I appeal to facts; to his whole history as recorded in the New Testament. This is the single argument which I shall urge. Those facts bear unequivocal testimony that the Father is, and that Christ is not, the only God and object of adoration. Let the inquirer take the gospels, and imagine a being conscious that he was the most High God in human shape, and ask whether the emotions and actions of Jesus, there recorded, were those of such a being, or not rather those of a man, placed in circumstances the most extraordinary, raised up and qualified of heaven to be the Saviour of the world? The answer, on a fair review of the transactions of our Lord's life and ministry, is, to my mind, obvious and final.

Whether the birth of Christ was miraculous, is of little moment. If it were, so was that of John the Baptist, of Samuel, of Isaac, and the formation of Adam, whom Luke therefore calls the Son of God. There are many weighty objections to the initial chapters of Matthew; and some, less forcible, to those of Luke; but they are critical, not theological. No doctrine depends on our regarding them

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