Which acts of devotion belong to the one, and which to the other? A mistake would be dange rous, and I have no guide. Every inspired writer forsakes me. Jésus Christ, it seems, created all things that are in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible; and a creator, it seems, proves, by creating, his eternal power and Godhead.* The proposition says, God may empower a creature to create. Perhaps he may. But God declarés he hath not done so. Who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span? who comprehended the dust of the earth in á measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Lift up your eyes on high and behold, WHO HATH CREATED the heavens?' Why sayest thou, O Jacob! My way is hid from the Lord? Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard that THE EVERLASTING GOD, THE LORD, THE CREATOR OF THE ENDS OF THE EARTH fainteth not, neither is weary? Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor had taught him? I am then obliged to reject the notion of a subordinate God, a delegated creator; and to admit that the one living and true God united himself to the man Jesus for the purpose of displaying his glory, and thereby of communicating felicity to men, the lowest order of intelligent beings. In Jesus the divine nature and the human are united, and therefore the complex person Jesus

* Rom. i. 20.

Isa. xl. 12, 26, 27, 28, 13.

is styled God. Thus I have one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.* As God he requires and accepts a mediation; as man he mediates, and presents TO HIMSELF a glorious church, holy, and without blemish.↑ Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness-God was manifest in the flesh.‡

Thus far, my brethren! revelation conducts the plain christian traveller; here it stops; and, as he, who goes forward, must travel either without a guide, or with one who is ignorant of the road, we ought not to be astonished if he lose his way. Happy for christians, had they rested here without philosophical explications! Were this a proper place, (but I am not writing on the doctrine of the Trinity,) I believe, it would be very easy to prove, that the primitive christians received this simple testimony, just as revelation gave it; and that when, about 200 years after Christ, they began to practise the art of explaining what they did not understand, they produced a novel notion called a Trinity, and with it disputes, creeds, subscriptions, proscriptions, persecutions, wars, and other calamitous consequences, which have disgraced christianity, and divided christians from that day to this.

A SCRIPTURE TRINITY undoubtedly there is: but our present concern is with our Lord's divinity; and had a primitive christian been catechised, I believe he would have answered in some such manner as this.

1 Tim. ii. 5.

+ Eph. v. 27.

1 Tim. iii. 16.

Question. Are christians atheists?

Answer. No. We believe a God, who is a spirit, and we worship him in spirit and in truth.*

Q. Do christians worship more Gods than onc? A. No. The heathens have lords many, and gods many but christians have but one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.t

Q. Who is Jesus Christ?

A. Jesus Christ is a man. Jesus Christ is Gods

Q. Do christians think, that the man Jesus is deified?

A. The deification of creatures forms a science which they call demonology. Christians consider demonology, orthe doctrines of demons, as the doctrines of seducers; and in the latter times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to them.

Q. Do christians worship Jesus Christ?

A. We do not worship the man Jesus: but we do worship the God, who dwells in the man; for in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;¶ and through him we have access by one spirit unto the Father.*

Q. Do christians think that the Father is the Godhead of Jesus?

A. No. We think, Jesus, being in the form

* John iv. 24. † 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6. ↑ 1 Tim. ii. 5. § John i. 1. 1 Tim. iv. 1. ¶ Col. ii, 9. * Eph. ii, 18.

of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

Q. Do not christians then worship two gods?

4. We abhor the thought. We say with the Jews, The Lord our God is one Lord; for there is one God, and there is none other but he.†

Q. Is not this a little mysterious?

A. The acknowledgement of the deity, both of the Father and of Christ, is a mystery in which are treasures of wisdom and knowledge.‡

Q. Do not christians believe, that their scriptures unfold mysteries?

4. We believe that our scriptures have unfolded a thousand mysteries; but we do not believe that they unfold the mysterious nature of God; treasures of wisdom and knowledge ARE HID in it.§ Our scriptures are intended to inform us more what God is to us than what he is in himself.

Q. Do christiians believe then what they cannot comprehend?

A. They do, and so do all the rest of mankind. God doth great things, which men CANNOT COMPREHEND. His way in the sea, his footsteps in the great waters are NOT KNOWN is it strange that his way in the sanctuary should be mysterious

Q. Why do christians concern themselves with incomprehensibles?

A. They act in religion as men act in the world.

* Phil. ii. 5, 6. † Mark ii. 29. 32. Col. ii. 2, 3. § Col. ii, 3. Job xxxvii. 5. ¶ Psal. lxxvii. 19. 13.

They know not the nature, but they do know the use of objects. A man be a good mariner, who can neither account for the saltness of the sea, nor for the action of the air.

Q. Does not the christian faith discard reason? A. God forbid! Reason asks and obtains evidence that God speaks, and faith believes what he says. Is it irrational to believe him, who cannot lye?* A believer admits the evidence of things NOT SEEN. By faith Noah, being warned of God OF THINGS NOT SEEN AS YET, prepared an ark. By faith Abraham when he was called, obeyed, and he went out, NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE WENT. All the patriarchs died in the belief of a proposition, of which they had but obscure and imperfect ideas. A philosopher speculates objects with his own eyes; a believer beholds them, as it were with the eyes of God himself. A christian neither hides his reason in a napkin, nor drives an illicit trade with it; he puts it into the hands of the best exchanger, and receives his own with usury.

I repeat it again, my brethren, the primitive christians rested in the SIMPLICITY OF REVELATION, and they were wise in doing so. This accounts for, what may appear very strange, the abundance of quotations, which Dr. Clarke on the one side, Dr. Waterland on the other, and Dr. Whitby on both, have brought from the primitive christian writers in proof of their own systems.

*Titus i. 2. † Heb. xi.