down in adamantine bonds, is fused and scattered to the winds by this electric truth, Jesus and the father are one!

Finally, if the father is in Jesus Christ, we can only approach the father through him. Is it not then a lamentable fact, that many-alas, too many!-of those calling themselves. Christians, are looking for the father out of him? How many consider Jesus as a mere messenger sent from God! And though he expressly says, "No man cometh to the father but by me;" though he avers explicitly, "I and my father are one," "he that seeth me seeth the father,” “I am in the father and the father in me"-how many are forming to themselves notions of the father as a being out of and separate from the Lord, and, by addressing their prayers to the father as a being distinct from the Lord, are thus passing by him and going to the father direct! Oh, let us devoutly pray, that all such may take care that they come not under the description of persons who enter not in at the door, but, climbing up some other way, are thieves and robbers!

SERMON V.

JOHN, I. 1, 4, 14.

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.-In him was life, and the life was the light of men.And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father,) full of grace and truth."

IN former discourses we have shown that Jesus Christ and the father are one person; and that the holy ghost is not a person, but a sphere of truth, proceeding from Jesus Christ and the essential divinity within him, and teaching that Jesus Christ is God alone. Thus we have subverted the idea of three divine persons in the godhead, at the same time that we have affirmed the doctrine of a trinity of principles as constituent of the one God.

We are now to inquire what are the three constituent principles of Deity. We have shown that, in all things which exist around us, there is an inmost, a middle, and an outermost-that is, an active principle, a reactive principle, and the result of these, which is a spherical, an operative, or an influential principle. And, reasoning from nature up to nature's God, we have concluded that there must be in the Divine Being also, an active, a reactive and an influential principle. But it may be asked, what are these distinctive principles in the Deity? This can be answered only by the revelation which he has made of himself. For it is not possible that any created being can know who or what God is, unless God informs him. Now the Divine Being has revealed himself in his works and his Word. For his "eternal power and godhead are clearly

seen, being understood by the things that are made," (Rom. i. 20.) And his written Word must manifestly present a declaration of his being and a portraiture of his character. Let us then see what evidence, bearing upon the question before us, is furnished by these two witnesses.

There is no one of the Creator's works which so entirely and vividly reflects himself as man. Indeed, man is asserted to be a world in miniature, and hence he must present all the scattered reflections of the Deity, which are to be seen in the whole of his other works, in one focal image. It is moreover expressly asserted in the Word that God created man in his own image and likeness. Wherefore, by seeing what are the constituent principles of man, we are to understand what are the constituent principles of God. But our understandings are not left to inductions from the evidence of our senses solely. Our spiritual-rational faculty is addressed and enlightened by truth revealed in an intellectual form in the Sacred Scriptures. In pursuing our present inquiry, therefore, we shall at the same time bring forward the documents of Holy Writ, as well as the evidence furnished by our own internal consciousness. The first point of our inquiry is, what is the active principle of God? And here we must remark, that we can have no adequate conception whatever of the Deity as he exists in his essential substance and form, because that which is finite cannot grasp that which is infinite. We do not, therefore, presume to say what any divine principle is as such; for this is totally incomprehensible. We merely profess to show the constituents of the divine nature only as they can be apprehended by our finite capacities. Nor is it necessary that we should be able to comprehend the Divine Being fully for this is not required. by the ends of our creation. All that is necessary is, that we should have such a conception of him as will enable us to enjoy eternal life in conjunction with him. Now, the only way in which we can conceive of his properties, is by attending to our consciousness of the corresponding properties in ourselves which exist by influx from him. Thus we can form no idea of the divine active principle unless it be as something similar to

the active principle in us. We must suppose that God is that in an infinite form which we perceive ourselves to be in a finite form. We must suppose, therefore, that that which is the active principle in us finitely is the active principle in him infinitely. And we must call this property in him by the same name which we attach to the corresponding property in ourselves, and signify all that which we cannot comprehend in his property, by the qualifying adjective, divine.

What, then, is the active principle in ourselves? A strict scrutiny of the human constitution will show that the active principle of man is love. By this we mean not a mere pleasurable emotion of our heart, but the all-pervading conatus or tendency of that inmost organized spiritual substance which constitutes our soul. This conatus is the effect of the divine life flowing as heat into the inmost forms of our soul, and is perceived by us as an all-prevading end of action. Thus, if we are in our state by nature, our love is love to self, that is an all-prevading end of self-gratification. But, if we are regenerated, our love is love to God and the neighbour; that is, an end incessantly proposed to ourselves of doing what God would have us do for the good of our fellow-men. Such is man's inmost principle or love. It is this that prompts to action; in this are all our motives of action; and according to the intensity and permanence of this are our efficiency and continuance of action. We conclude therefore, that love is the active principle in the Divine Being. In other words, we conclude that the active principle in God is an infinite conatus, endeavour and effort to make, sustain and bless beings formed out of himself, by imparting to them gratuitously from himself all that is suited to make them eternally happy in conjunction with himself from reciprocal affection. This principle undoubtedly prompts all the divine action. And, therefore, we mean this principle, when we say the active principle in God is love. Again, our love is that principle in us which generates all our affections and thoughts, and all the activity consequent on these. The whole mind and body are a complex of faculties and forms of use produced from the love and so reacting upon

it as to serve and gratify it in the attainment of its ends. Thus, as our love produces all things of our activity, it may be considered, and virtually is, the father in respect to the other principles of our being. Therefore, we suppose that love is the generative principle in God. And thus we conclude that the divine love is the principle in the Divine Being, which, in the Sacred Scriptures, is called the father.

The word of God properly so called-that is, the word which Jehovah himself uttered by the mouths of his prophets and by the mouth of his own truth incarnate-cannot be supposed to say, in just so many conventional terms, that his active principle is love. This is precluded by the peculiar style in which the Word of God is written. This style, requires that spiritual and divine things should be expressed by correspondential forms and sensible images. Therefore, we cannot expect to find truths taught in the Word dogmatically. But dogmatic truths must be deduced from its literal sense as seen in the light of its spirit. For the Lord's words "are spirit, and are life;" and therefore, we can see their true literal meaning only when we understand them from their spirit and life. Hence to ascertain from the Word what the essential divine principles are, we must look through its letter up to its spiritual sense. Now, according to this sense, we can learn what are the divine constituent principles from our text.

In our text we learn that, in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and in him was life. Thus we see that there are two distinct principles-the word, and the life within him. It is also said in the context, that by the word all things were made, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Now, if there was life in the word, and the word made all things, the word must have made all things from the life within him. Thus the life must be the active principle of the word, and the word was God. From our text, therefore, it appears that the active principle of God is life.

Recollect, now, that in the Sacred Writings the form is used to signify the essence, the effect to signify the cause, that which