importance of the highest character. So important, indeed, is it, upon the showing of these opposers of the truth themselves, that we can only preserve the Scriptures by admitting it; for they, first by excepting to the genuineness of certain passages, then by questioning the inspiration of whole books, and, finally, of the greater part, if not the whole. New Testament, have nearly left themselves as destitute of a revelation from God, as Infidels themselves. No homage more expressive has ever been paid to this doctrine, as the doctrine of the Scriptures, than the liberties thus taken with the Bible, by those who have denied it; no stronger proof can be offered of its importance, than that the Bible cannot be interpreted upon any substituted theory, they themselves being the judges.

3. It essentially affects our views of God as the object of our worship, whether we regard him as one in essence, and one in person, or admit that in the unity of this Godhead there are three equally Divine persons. These are two very different conceptions. Both cannot be true. The God of those who deny the Trinity, is not the God of those who worship the Trinity in Unity, nor on the contrary; so that one or the other worships what is nothing in the world; and, for any reality in the object of worship, might as well worship a Pagan idol, which also, says St. Paul, is nothing in the world.' If God be Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the duties owing to God will be duties owing to that triune distinction, which must be paid accordingly; and whoever leaves any of them out of his idea of God, comes so far short of honoring God perfectly, and of serving him in proportion to the manifestations he has made of himself.'

As the object of our worship is affected by our respective views on this great subject, so also its characWe are betwixt the extremes of pure and acceptable devotion, and of gross and offensive idolatry, and must run to one or the other. If the doctrine of the

ter.

Trinity be true, then those who deny it do not worship the God of the Scriptures, but a fiction of their own framing; if it be false, the Trinitarian, by paying Divine honors to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, is equally guilty of idolatry, though in another mode.

"Now it is surely important to determine this; and which is the most likely to have fallen into this false and corrupt worship, the very prima facie evidence may determine :—the Trinitarian, who has the letter, and plain common-sense interpretation of Scripture for his warrant;—or he who confesses, that he must resort to all the artifices of criticism, and boldly challenge the inspiration of an authenticated volume, to get rid of the evidence which it exhibits against him, if taken in its first and most obvious meaning. It is not now attempted to prove the Unitarian heresy from the Scriptures; this has long been given up, and the main effort of all modern writers on that side has been directed to cavil at the adduced proofs of the opposite doctrine. They are, as to Scripture argument, wholly on the defensive, and thus allow, at least, that they have no direct warrant for their opinions. We acknowledge, indeed, that the charge of idolatry would lie against us, could we be proved in error; but they seem to forget, that it lies against them, should they be in error; and that they are in this error, they themselves tacitly acknowledge, if the Scriptures, which they now, in a great measure, reject, must determine the question. On that authority, we may unhesitatingly account them idolaters, worshippers of what is nothing in the world;' and not of the God revealed in the Bible. Thus, the only hope which is left to the Unitarian, is held on the same tenure as the hope of the Deist, the forlorn hope that the Scriptures, which he rejects, are not true; for if those texts they reject, and those books which they hold of no authority, be established, then this whole charge, and its consequences, lie full against them.

4. Our love to God, which is the sum of every duty,

its sanctifying motive, and consequently a compendium of all true religion, is most intimately and even essentially connected with the doctrine in question. God's love to us is the ground of our love to him; and by our views of that, it must be heightened or diminished. The love of God to man in the gift of his Son is that manifestation of it on which the Scriptures most emphatically and frequently dwell, and on which they establish our duty of loving God and one another. Now the estimate which we are to take of the love of God, must be the value of his gifts to us. His greatest gift is the gift of his Son, through whom alone we have the promise of everlasting life; but our estimate of the love which gives must be widely different, according as we regard the gift bestowed, as a creature, or as a Divine person,- -as merely a Son of man, or as the Son of God. If the former only, it is difficult to conceive in what this love, constantly represented, as unspeakable' and astonishing, could consist. Indeed, if we suppose Christ to be a man only, on the Socinian scheme, or as an exalted creature, according to the Arians, God might be rather said to have so loved his Son' than us, as to send him into the world, on a service so honorable and which was to be followed by so high and vast a reward, that he, a creature, should be advanced to universal dominion and receive universal homage as the price only of temporary sufferings, which, upon either the Socinian or Arian scheme, were not greater than those which many of his disciples endured after him, and, in many instances, not so great.

6

"For the same reason, the doctrine which denies our Lord's divinity diminishes the love of Christ himself, takes away its generosity and devotedness, presents it under views infinitely below those contained in the New Testament, and weakens the motives which are drawn from it to excite our gratitude and obedience. If Christ was in the form of God, equal with God, and very God, it was then an act of infinite love and con

descension in him to become man; but if he was no more than a creature, it was no surprising condescen sion to embark in a work so glorious; such as being the Saviour of mankind, and such as would advance him to be Lord and Judge of the world, to be admired, reverenced, and adored, both by men and angels.'-Waterland. To this it may be added, that the idea of disinterested, generous love, such as the love Christ is represented to be by the Evangelists and the Apostles, cannot be supported upon any supposition but that he was properly a Divine person. As a man and as a creature only, however exalted, he would have profited by his exaltation; but, considered as Divine, Christ gained nothing: God is full and perfect-he is exalted 'above blessing and praise.' The whole, therefore, was in him generous, disinterested love, ineffable and affecting condescension. The heresy of the Socinians and Arians totally annihilates, therefore, the true character of the love of Christ, so that,' as Dr. Sherlock well observes, to deny the Divinity of Christ alters the very foundations of Christianity, and destroys all the powerful arguments of the love, humility, and condescension of our Lord, which are the peculiar motives of the Gospel.-Stilling fleet.

"But it is not only in this view that the denial of the Divinity of our Lord would alter the foundation of the Christian scheme, but in others equally essential; For,

1. The doctrine of satisfaction or atonement depends upon his Divinity; and it is, therefore, consistently denied by those who reject the former. So important, however, is the decision of this case, that the very terms of our salvation, and the ground of our hope, are affected by it.

"No creature could merit from God, or do works of supererogation. If it be said that God might accept it as he pleased, it may be said, upon the same principle, that he might accept the blood of bulls and of goats. Yet the Apostle tells us, that it is not possible that the

blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin; which words resolve the satisfaction, not merely into God's free acceptance, but into the intrinsic value of the sacrifice.'-Waterland. Hence the Scriptures so constantly connect the atonement with the character,— the very Divinity of the person suffering. It was Jehovah who was pierced, Zech. xii. 11; God, who purchased the church with his own blood, Acts xx. 28. It was the Lord, that bought us, 2 Pet. ii. 1. It was the Lord of glory that was crucified, I Cor. ii. 8.

"It is no small presumption of the impossibility of holding, with any support from the common sense of mankind, the doctrine of atonement with that of an inferior Divinity, that these opinions have so uniformly slided down into a total denial of it; and by almost all persons, except those who have retained the pure faith of the Gospel, Christ is regarded as a man only; and no atonement, in any sense, is allowed to have been made by his death. The terms, then, of human salvation are entirely different on one scheme and on the other; and with respect to their advocates, one is under law,' the other under grace;' one takes the cause of his own salvation into his own hands, to manage it as he is able, and to plead with God, either that he is just, or that he may be justified by his own penitence and acts of obedient virtue; the other pleads the meritorious death and intercession of his Saviour; in his name and mediation makes his requests known unto God; and asks a justification by faith, and a renewal of heart by the Holy Ghost. One stands with all his offences before his Maker, and in his own person, without a mediator and advocate; the other avails himself of both. A question which involves such consequences, is surely not a speculative one; but deeply practical and vital, and must be found to be so in its final issue.

2. "It totally changes the character of Christian experience. Those strong and painful emotions of sorrow and alarm, which characterize the descriptions and