Israel, Jehovah our ELOHIM is one Jehovah." As ELOHIM, Jehovah said-I AM. As the Word manifested in the flesh, Christ said to the Jews-I AM.* The scriptural phrases applied to man, to which I refer, are as follows: "Before Abraham was Enoch walked with God, and he WAS NOT, for God took him. Our fathers sinned and ARE NOT. Things, which ARE NOT, to bring to nought things that ARE-The things which ARE, and the things which SHALL BE The child IS NOT Joseph Is NOT and Simeon IS NOT. -Thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I SHALL NOT BE Spare me, before I go hence and BE NO MORE. Other like expressions might be adduced. The verb employed on these and like occasions, signifies TO BE - to EXIST - to SUBSIST. Applied to a human being, the reference is to his existence in this life, or in the body. When the psalmist, for example, speaks of being NO MORE, he does not mean that he ceases to exist as a thinking, intelligent, being. He has ceased to exist in the body, and has gone to BE with Christ. As a familiar mode of speech in the present day, to BE NO MORE, signifies that he, of whom such a thing is affirmed, has ceased to exist in the body. God IS he subsists in FORM - he has MANIFESTED himself. Christ BEING IN THE FORM OF GOD, has taken the FORM of a servant, and is Found in fashion as a MAN. The Word was made FLESH and DWELT among us. Here is the starting point of evangelical truth, and must be believed. He, * See my Lectures on Genesis. that believeth it, is of God,-is a Christian, or preaches stru the gospel. He that believeth it not, is not of God, min - is not a Christian; and whatever he may preach, the he preaches not the gospel. The simplicity of the can TEST is like that at the basis of the Mosaic economy, The and which was to be believed" Hear, O Israel, rece Jehovah, our Elohim, is one Jehovah." Thus it is hi that God Is - he subsists in external form. Jesus ho Christ IS IN THE FLESH, or subsists in the flesh Und is come in the flesh. Such has been the great scrip- mos tural, evangelic, fact; though now, that he has gone to the Father, we know him NO MORE after the it flesh. He is come- he had been long promised, t and has at last appeared. HE DWELT IN THE FLESH re AMONG US he has now entered his rest, and is at t the right hand of God. atel The belief of this cardinal point-this glorious so fact which Origen and his compeers, which the Council of Nice and its irreconcilable leaders or disputants, have so beclouded and obscured by their unintelligible speculations, was the great matter, belief in which John called on the PEOPLE to TRY. And verily the PEOPLE are as competent to try it as their RULERS. - RO and LI Suppose then a minister-blameless, faithful, apt to teach-believing the great truth now defined, i. e.h THE WORD MADE FLESH, should come to preach who has a right to prevent him, or to refuse to recognize him as a true bishop, and to stigmatize him as a b heretic. The apostle John says that HE IS OF GOD; and any trial, to which the statute in question would subject him, must result in the unequivocal recognition of that fact. Presbyteries, as they are now con structed, will not, and cannot, admit such a man to ministerial and church fellowship, without violating the principles of their party. They will not, and cannot, ORDAIN such a man, without something more. The PEOPLE, if they were let alone, would, or might, receive such a man, and unhesitatingly go to hear him; while they do not hear, with small exceptions, the man who does not believe that Christ is come in the flesh. Under such circumstances, what mischief would the most extensive liberality produce? How far astray would an individual, such as I have described, go? with an attachment to the bible, equal to that which sectarians evince for their creeds; and with a measure of diligent and various study, equal to that which sectarians expend on their systems. A difference in intellectual training, in external circumstances, in philosophical speculation, might be as safely admitted, as they are in the political, literary, or commercial world. Errors would not be perpetuated; errorists might be corrected; passions would not be kindled, or would be speedily extinguished; the public mind, accustomed to judge, would learn to judge correctly; extraneous matters would be left out of consideration; parties would die with the excitement that gave them birth; and love to the brethren would be the law of the church. Such a state of things is what politicians call LIBERTY; and under its direction the collisions which are incidental to human beings, produce no harm to the general body. Every man feels that he has a right to THINK; and the result will be, that every man will learn to THINK. Let the experiment be fairly tried, and the millenium will shed its brightest glories over our troubled world. CHAPTER X. Subject Continued The Redeemer's example and explanations. - THERE is another part of this general argument, and one which involves the course pursued by the Lord himself, to which I must invite the attention of my reader. Jesus, having "come in the flesh," says of himself, that he did not come to "destroy men's lives, but to save them ;" and informed his disciples, when they solicited some harsh interference with their fellow men "Ye know not what manner of SPIRITdispensation - ye are of." The spirit of prophecy had foretold concerning him—" He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail, nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth." This prophecy is applied by an evangelist, as fulfilled, when Jesus withdrew himself from a pharisaic council, who were plotting his destruction; and when he charged an individual not to spread, officiously, the intelligence of a miraculous cure of which he had been the subject. On this train of circumstances, I remark, 1. That the Redeemer avoided every thing like pomp and ceremony; the very things for which the Jews were looking at the time, and of which voluntary associations are excessively fond. His kingdom came not "with observation"-pomp of office, show of influence, bustle in action, external splendour in project. None had more power, and yet none exerted it more carefully or circumspectly. He would not call "legions of angels" to his service the sword he forbid to be employed on his behalf-money he discarded as an instrument of his operation he would not be a king-nor would he suffer his disciples to accept titles of honour. He was "meek and lowly" -made himself of no reputation-became a serv-> ant and was finally "perfected through sufferings." His ministers are called to be like him. How differently have they acted? Pomp, power, wealth, and external show, have been the fond objects of their thought and pursuit, until all the world has been both startled and offended by their glitter and display. 2. He would use no violent measures to put down opposition, nor in dealing with the weak, the ignorant and the profane. "A bruised reed he would not break, and the smoking flax he would not quench." The Jewish nation became his enemy. The dispensation, under which that people had been placed, was about to expire; every part of it was, at that time, relaxed and fading away--it was a "bruised reed" he might easily have broken "smoking flax" he might easily have quenched; but such was, at no time, the character of his proceedings. He did not come to "destroy men's lives, but to save them." The SCRIPTURES, in such a case, were his rule: these, said he, must be fulfilled; and human modes of acting, or at course of policy which men think to be inefficient, and without which, they imagine, nothing can be done, must be abandoned. - Ecclesiastics who determine on violent measures, and act with vindictive cruelty, or who refuse simply to fulfil the SCRIPTURES, know |