them that believe in Christ;-then the Gospel is a deception, our preaching is vain, our hope is vain, and we are yet in our sins; yea, we are of all men the most miserable. And remember, my dear Benjamin, that if we go about to establish our own righteousness, as our people attempted to do, then, like them, we shall surely stumble and fall; for by the deeds of the law no flesh living can be justified. § 7. I still remember a sermon preached in London in 1802, at the Missionary meeting, by the late Dr. John Mason, in which he said, "The doctrine of our Lord's divinity is not, as a fact, more interesting to our faith, than, as a principle, it is essential to our hope. If he were not 'the true God,' he would not be eternal life.' When, pressed down by guilt and languishing for happiness, I look around for a deliverer, such as my conscience and my heart and the word of God assure me I need, insult not my agony by directing me to a creature-to a man-a mere man like myself! a creature-a man! My Redeemer owns my person. My immortal spirit is his property. When I come to die, I must commit it into his hands. My soul, my infinitely precious soul committed to a mere man! become the property of a mere man! I would not thus intrust my body to the highest angel who burns in the temple above. It is only the Father of spirits' that can have property in spirits, and be their refuge in the hour of transition from the present to the approaching world. In short, my brethren, the divinity of Jesus is, in the system of grace, the sun, to which all its parts are subordinate, and all their stations refer-which binds them in sacred concord, and imparts to them their radiance, and life, and vigor. Take from it this central luminary, and the glory is departed its holy harmonies are broken-the elements rush to chaos-the light of salvation is extinguished for ever!" § 8. If Christ be not the true and living God, then again it follows that many of the most learned Christians in former ages, as well as at the present day, are guilty of idolatry for believing the divinity of Christ. Dr. Grotius says, "There were always very many amongst the worshipers of Christ who were men of good judgment and of no small learning; such as (not to mention Jews) Sergius, the president of Cyprus, Dionysius the Areopagite, Origen, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Justin, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, and others." De. Verit. Christ. B. 2, sec. 3. "Socinus himself acknowledges, that from the infancy of the church there had been very many pious learned men, martyrs too, who had embraced this grievous error; viz. that Jesus Christ is that one God who created all things, or certainly begotten of his proper substance." Epist. 3. ratecius. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch at the close of the first century, suffered martyrdom. He begins one of his epistles in the following manner: "I glorify Jesus Christ our God, who has given unto you this wisdom." Epist. ad Smyr. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who suffered in the year one hundred and sixty-seven, joins God the Father and the Son together in his prayers for grace and benediction upon man; "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ himself, the eternal High Priest, the Son of God, build you up in faith and truth—and to all them that are under heaven, that shall believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, and in his Father, who raised him from the dead." Epist. at. Phil. sec. 12. And when he was brought to the stake, he concluded his last prayer with this doxology to the blessed Trinity: "I bless thee, I praise thee, I glorify thee for all things, together with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, with whom, unto thee and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and for ever, world without end." Polycarp. apud Coteler. Patres Apostol. T. 2, p. 189. Justin Martyr, who lived about the middle of the second them that believe in Christ;-then the Gospel is a deception, our preaching is vain, our hope is vain, and we are yet in our sins; yea, we are of all men the most miserable. And remember, my dear Benjamin, that if we go about to establish our own righteousness, as our people attempted to do, then, like them, we shall surely stumble and fall; for by the deeds of the law no flesh living can be justified. § 7. I still remember a sermon preached in London in 1802, at the Missionary meeting, by the late Dr. John Mason, in which he said, "The doctrine of our Lord's divinity is not, as a fact, more interesting to our faith, than, as a principle, it is essential to our hope. If he were not 'the true God,' he would not be 'eternal life.' When, pressed down by guilt and languishing for happiness, I look around for a deliverer, such as my conscience and my heart and the word of God assure me I need, insult not my agony by directing me to a creature to a man-a mere man like myself! a creature—a man! My Redeemer owns my person. My immortal spirit is his property. When I come to die, I must commit it into his hands. My soul, my infinitely precious soul committed to a mere man! become the property of a mere man! I would not thus intrust my body to the highest angel who burns in the temple above. It is only the Father of spirits' that can have property in spirits, and be their refuge in the hour of transition from the present to the approaching world. In short, my brethren, the divinity of Jesus is, in the system of grace, the sun, to which all its parts are subordinate, and all their stations refer-which binds them in sacred concord, and imparts to them their radiance, and life, and vi gor. Take from it this central luminary, and the glory is departed its holy harmonies are broken-the elements rush to chaos-the light of salvation is extinguished for ever!" § 8. If Christ be not the true and living God, then again it follows that many of the most learned Christians in former ages, as well as at the present day, are guilty of idolatry for believing the divinity of Christ. Dr. Grotius says, "There were always very many amongst the worshipers of Christ who were men of good judgment and of no small learning; such as (not to mention Jews) Sergius, the president of Cyprus, Dionysius the Areopagite, Origen, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Justin, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, and others." De. Verit. Christ. B. 2, sec. 3. "Socinus himself acknowledges, that from the infancy of the church there had been very many pious learned men, martyrs too, who had embraced this grievous error; viz. that Jesus Christ is that one God who created all things, or certainly begotten of his proper substance." Epist. 3. ratecius. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch at the close of the first century, suffered martyrdom. He begins one of his epistles in the following manner: "I glorify Jesus Christ our God, who has given unto you this wisdom." Epist. ad Smyr. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who suffered in the year one hundred and sixty-seven, joins God the Father and the Son together in his prayers for grace and benediction upon man; "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ himself, the eternal High Priest, the Son of God, build you up in faith and truth-and to all them that are under heaven, that shall believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, and in his Father, who raised him from the dead." Epist. at. Phil. sec. 12. And when he was brought to the stake, he concluded his last prayer with this doxology to the blessed Trinity: "I bless thee, I praise thee, I glorify thee for all things, together with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, with whom, unto thee and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and for ever, world without end." Polycarp. apud Coteler. Patres Apostol. T. 2, p. 189. Justin Martyr, who lived about the middle of the second century, declared to the Pagans, that the object of divine worship was the whole Trinity. "We worship and we admire," says he, "the God of righteousness, and his Son, and the Holy Spirit of prophecy." Yet a little after he tells the emperor, "We hold it unlawful to worship any but God alone." Justin, Apol. 2. Origen, who lived in the former part of the third century, says, "We worship and we adore no creature but the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Comment. in Epist. ad Rom. lib. 1. Now could such men as these be mistaken in the capital article of the Christian religion and object of divine worship? Impossible. If they had considered Jesus as any thing less than the true God, how would they have answered the heathens, when charged that they worshiped a man that had been crucified? They did not deny that fact, and yet declared that they worshiped God alone. By this practice, therefore, they showed their belief of Christ's true divinity. They worshiped him only upon the ground that he is one with God the Father and the Holy Spirit; and had they done it upon any other supposition, they would have been guilty of idolatry by their own confession. § 9. If these wise and pious men had been idolaters, because they believed Christ to be the true and living God, and therefore worshiped him as such, then they were led into this fatal error by simply believing the scripture ac count of Christ; but who can believe that the Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testament, whose chief end is to deliver men from idolatry, and to bring them back to the knowledge, service, and enjoyment of Jehovah-a revelation which was propagated by men the most exemplary for piety and uprightness, and which has produced effects the most blessed and glorious, should lead men into such fatal and abominable errors? Whilst the volume of nature, ransacked by the most energetic powers of reason, cannot afford the least information relative to the character of the |