II. Thus it appears, that the fallacy of the Socinian argument is built upon an artful transmutation of our Saviour's words, into words which he never uttered; an artful change of the proposition The Father is the only true God, into the proposition The Father only is the true God: for the word only being no doubt discretive, if the managers of that argument be allowed to apply it to the substantive Father instead of the substantive God, their business will of course be completed; because, if the Father only or the Father alone be the true God, then most incontrovertibly no other being whatsoever can with propriety be so denominated.

3. Or, lastly, do they mean to say, that they are rational Christians; because they will receive nothing as an article of faith, save what is read in Holy Scripture, or may be proved thereby? In that case, how are they more especially rational Christians than the whole body of protestants against the Church of Rome? This is the precise scheme of the Church of England (See Art. vi.): and, though doubtless it is a very rational scheme, yet I am unable to comprehend, why the Socinians should affect the title of rational as something peculiarly distinctive of themselves, if they assume it on the ground of their admitting nothing save what may be proved by Holy Scripture.

I have a great curiosity to hear, what I never yet was fortunate enough to hear, the distinct and precise grounds on which the Socinians assume the title of rational Christians as a specifically discretive appellation. For if the title mean any thing, it must of course mean, that they ALONE are rational, while the great collective body of Christians is conversely irrational.

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What then is the real import and design of the remarkable passage, which the Socinians have attempted to wrest into an argument in favour of their own peculiar speculations?

1. The word only, as I have just observed, is no doubt discretive: hence it must teach and set forth some certain separation or distinctiveness; for nothing can be called only, but in contradistinction to something else. We have to inquire therefore, what distinctiveness the word only sets forth in the proposition The Father is the only true God.

Now it clearly cannot set forth a distinctiveness, between the Father on the one hand, and the Son and the Holy Ghost on the other hand; as if (agreeably to the unauthorized gloss of Socinianism) the Father indeed were the true God, while the Son and the Holy Ghost respectively are not the true God: because, had such been the force of the word, it would not have been grammatically joined to the word God, but to the word Father. The distinctiveness, which

1 Or, in the exact words of our Lord as addressing his Father, it would not have been grammatically joined to the word God, but to the word thee. 'Iva yivwokwσL σE TOV μovov aλnivov Oεov. Had our Lord meant to say, what the Socinians would industriously put into his mouth, he would, I presume, have expressed himself in some such manner as the following. Ίνα γινωσκωσι σε, ότι συ μονος εις ὁ αληθινος Θεος. Had this been the recorded declaration of our Saviour, the Socinian argu

it really sets forth, must obviously be, between the word to which it is grammatically joined, and something which is separated from and opposed to that word. Consequently, when our Lord declares, that the Father is the only true God, he does not mean to assert that the Father only is the true God to the exclusion of the Son and the Holy Ghost: but he means to assert, that the Father is the only true God to the exclusion of all the false gods of the Gentiles.

(1.) The first proposition therefore, which our Saviour lays down as the basis of his religion, is; that there is one only true God, and that his heavenly Father is that only true God. Whence it follows, that none of the pretended deities of the Gentiles, forcibly contradistinguished from the true God by the discretive adjective only, are worthy of divine worship; but, on the contrary, that they are to be abhorred and rejected.

(2.) Such is the first proposition. The second is, that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah, whom God the Father hath sent into the world for the redemption of lost mankind.

Now a practical knowledge of these two propositions our Lord declares to be life eternal.

ment would have been irresistible. As it is, the argument is built, not upon what Christ really said, but upon what a Socinian gloss would fain though falsely ascribe to him.

This is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

2. Accordingly we shall find, that the sum and substance of Christianity is contained in the two propositions before us; and that it is so contained, as to draw a clear line of distinction between the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth and all other religionists at that time in the world.

(1.) A Christian is bound to believe, that there is one only true God, and that the Almighty Father of heaven and earth is that God.

This tenet at once separates him from those who worship the multifarious rabble of pagan divinities for, if he admit as the very foundation of his creed the existence of one only true God, he must of necessity reject from his creed a plurality of false gods.

I need scarcely remark, how zealously the doctrine of the divine unity was maintained by the primitive Christians, how utterly they abhorred the worship of idols, and how perpetually they laid down their lives rather than burn incense upon the altars of the spurious gods of Paganism: it is at present more to my purpose to notice the mode, in which this essential tenet was inculcated upon the Gentiles by the early

1 See the martyrdom of Justin and his companions in Milner's Hist. of the Church. Cent. ii, chap. 3.

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inspired preachers of the Gospel. A memorable example in point is the sermon of St. Paul at Athens and it is the more memorable, because, at its close, the second proposition laid down by our Lord is fully insisted upon; so that, in truth, it may be viewed as a homily upon the very text which we are discussing.

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For, as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: because he hath ap