good, "salvation is ascribed to none but to God and to the Lamb."

Since such is the character of the Unitarian system, thus in direct hostility to "the faith once delivered to the saints," it must be viewed with just abhorrence by every man who loves the truth as it is in Jesus. Fitly has it been styled, "Deism in disguise." The deist is an open enemy. He professes not a respect for the Gospel, which he does not feel. He comes forth against the friends of Christianity, and challenges them to the combat. He declares that he anticipates the utter subversion of the Christian religion; and though we have seen the carnage, and misery, and crime to which infidelity led in the day of its power, the infidel exults in the idea that the fall of priestcraft and superstition, as he terms the Gospel and its ordinances, is at hand. But Unitarianism is an enemy who generally wears the mask of friendship; and while it accosts its opponents in smooth language, as Joab did Abner, it is only that it may put them off their guard, and give them with more certainty a deadly blow.

Dreadful is the doom denounced against such false teachers; and when we consider the evidence they reject, and the grace they abuse into an argument for the degradation of our Lord, we are not surprised that they should be represented in Scripture as "bringing upon themselves swift destruction."* What will it avail you to have been extolled by men, vain in their imaginations, for your acuteness, your liberality, and your freedom from vulgar prejudices, when the enemies of Christ shall be clothed with shame, but upon His head shall the crown flourish? Beware, lest you see the majesty of Jehovah in him whom you describe as a person your own order; lest you shall

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2 Pet. ii. 1.

feel the power of the Highest in his arm, and the wrath of the God of judgment in his frown. Beware, lest you discover that the judgment which you have laboured to strip of almost all its solemnity, to reconcile it with the notion of the simple humanity of the judge, is tremendous beyond any idea ever formed of it; and that the miseries of hell, which you have represented as the correction of a Father, intended only to reclaim, are indeed the vengeance of an angry God,-who will never relent, and who can never spare. We pray, with all sincerity and affection, that God may give you "repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth." We desire not to hurt your feelings -not to wound your sensibilities: we believe we are acting as your best friends in endeavouring to awaken your minds to a due consideration of these important subjects, beseeching you to institute an immediate and prayerful inquiry, that you may not go down to destruction "with a lie in your right hand." Believing you to be blinded, and blindly led, we stand as "watchmen on the walls of Zion," to sound the trumpet and give the alarm. If you would only listen to us, we would conjure you to "Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way."* Let the pride of error be levelled before the cross of Christ, and its blasphemies be succeeded by the language of humility and praise!

(2.) You who profess to believe the Gospel I would also admonish to guard against the tempers and habits which lead to such errors as I have endeavoured to expose. Do not imagine that by your education and religious connexions you are safe; for some who have been trained in the strictest principles of truth, have imbibed these errors. The pride of reason is offended at the mysteries of the Gospel.

Psalm ii. 12.

A system which represents man as so utterly depraved and helpless, that Almighty power alone can save him, and which requires the same submission from the learned and the refined, as from the poor and the simple, will be regarded with disgust by the vain and the haughty. The love of novelty often leads to the adoption of errors. Superficial thinkers are soon disgusted with what is familiar, and easily allured to listen to anything which promises to gratify their curiosity. Partial views of the character of God, and slight views of the evil of sin, have led men to these errors. The man who believes not the infinite evil of sin will perceive no necessity for the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory to expiate it. And he who considers the Deity as all mercy, will imagine no satisfaction to be requisite to His justice.

While, then, you thus see the PRACTICAL IMPORTANCE of this controversy, beware of leaning to your own understandings. "Ask for the old paths, and the good way." Bless God that you have hitherto been preserved from such fatal delusions. "By grace ye stand." In a dying hour you will find that eternity can only be welcomed, and death overcome by a spirit which relies on an Almighty Saviour. On him piety rests its last hope -to him it raises its last prayer—to him it bears its last testimony, and with him it leaves all that is dear to it on earth, and its salvation when time shall be no more!

Strive to recommend your principles by the superior purity and usefulness of your lives: while Unitarians boast of their candour and their charity, let it be your business to practise them; and when they associate your tenets with blindness, sourness, and the fury of false zeal, exhibit them in connexion with a pleasing gentleness, and with a persuasive wisdom. The doctrines of the Gospel never

appear to such advantage as in their moral influence, and in their fitness for preparing us for the purity, the worship, and the love of heaven.

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Finally, while you hearken to the gracious invitation your God and Saviour, "Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and none else,"*—give him the glory that is due to his name, by an entire trust, genuine contrition, and cordial submission, and ye shall have the witness in yourselves that he IS GOD, in the pardon which he grants, the change which he produces, and the salvation which he bestows. (40.)

Isaiah xlv..22.

END OF THE FIRST LECTURE.

NOTE. The necessary haste with which this Lecture has been sent to the press, has prevented the author from verifying some of the quotations which have been taken from other works, by a reference to the originals. He has no doubt, however, that they are, in every instance, honest and correct; while he will, of course, be happy to acknowledge any incidental error into which he may be proved to have fallen.