Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by JAMES MILLER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. THE Press being the only means or medium by which the author of this little work (now in the eighty-ninth year of his age) can communicate its contents to his kind, it is thus presented to them solely, as he humbly trusts, for their furtherance in the knowledge of God, and the consequent increase of their happiness. Believing assuredly that the evidence referred to in the work clearly reveals the infinite truth that all mankind are, in the highest and most perfect sense, verily the offspring of God, by virtue of their oneness with his Son Jesus Christ, which oneness is that of the literal body with the head. All his readers to whom that evidence is satisfactory, will see that such filial and paternal relation between God and all mankind assures the latter of the same ultimate eternal glory as that of the Son of God himself-which also solves the problem of human destiny. It is hoped that the Scriptural and other testimonies referred to will alone be heeded, while the author and his style and method of composition are forgotten. The joy and crown to which he aspires being his instrumentality in the extension of the knowledge of the paternal relation of God, and the headship relation of Christ, and their consequent love to all mankind, past, present, and to come. The necessary result being the eternal glorification of the whole humanity. J. H. THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE. CHAPTER I. I HAVE for many years believed that the Gospel is the "pearl of great price;" bearing the good news of the love of God given or extended to all mankind in and through Christ, as the Scriptures abundantly show. But I had yet to learn from the same source that the relation to, and oneness of the humanity with Christ, and thereby their filial relation to God is the sole cause of that love. I now proclaim and set forth to the world the knowledge of the infinitely momentous fact of that relation as, above all else in the universe, the pearl of great price. A portion of the Scripture testimony in proof of that relation is the following, viz.: "Christ is the head of every man." 1 Cor. xi. 3.He was "the first-born of every creature," or man. Col. i. 15-17. "We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Eph. v. 30.-"Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?" 1 Cor. vi. 15.-"Ye are the body of Christ and members in particular." 1 Cor. xii. 27.-" For both he that sanctifieth and they who were sanctified are all of one." Heb. ii. 11.-" According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." Eph. i. 4.-" According to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in him before the world began." 2 Tim. i. 9. Other testimonies will be introduced, showing together with these, that the relation of all mankind to Christ is simply and actually the oneness of the literal body with the head. Also that Christ the head, and the humanity, constitute a whole species of spiritual beings of a heavenly and godlike nature and form, being together born of God" before the world began." Christ the head-the spiritual Son of Godbeing "the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person-whom he appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world." That "bringing forth of the first and only begotten spiritual Son of God, and the members of his body, was the first of God's works," the beginning of his ways "before his works of old, when as yet he had not made the earth nor the heavens, nor the highest part of the dust of the world." Then the spiritual Son of God was with the Father, as "one brought up with him" and was "daily his delight rejoicing always before him." And when the Father prepared the heavens, the universe of worlds, when he gave to that universe (which existed invisibly in himself) visibility, glory, and beauty, solely by the power of his will, the Son was there to express that will, as when he said “Let there be light, and there was light." For the Scrip |