I. We see the plausible reason for the success of those who teach that Jesus Christ is a mere man. It is a fact that he is a man. When they urge and prove this, with great learning as they often do, they urge and prove a great truth. This wins the confidence of many, and from being persuaded that Jesus Christ is man, they are led to believe that he is only a man. So a great portion of truth is blended with the greatest errour. A mixture of truth often sanctions, and gives currency to errour. As the most daring crimes are often attended with some palliating circumstance, so the most dangerous errours are generally softened by a mixture of salutary truth. Our Socinian friends, or Unitarian as they choose to be called, say that Jesus Christ was merely a man. We say he was a man. Therefore, unless other things are said of him, unless other attributes are ascribed to him, which do not belong to human nature, all denominations must say, that he is only a man. when he says "Before Abraham was, I am," this looks as if he was superiour to Abraham. When he speaks of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, we are compelled to think him somewhat more than man. When this child born is called the mighty God, and is said to be "God over all," and "God with us," then we imagine we do him a mighty wrong to say, that he is no more than man. Jews, some of them, have been so perplexed with these two widely different characters of their Messiah, as described by their prophets, that they have adopted the notion of two Messiahs. They have believed that one, Ben Ephraim, would appear

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in a state of poverty and suffering, that he would fight against Gog, and be slain by Annillus. They have believed that the other Messiah, Ben David, would appear in splendour and glory, that he would conquer and slay Annillus, assemble all Israel, and reign over the whole world.

Such devices have men adopted in every age. So have they separated what God has joined, and believed only half the truth, in order to avoid difficulties and mysteries. But difficulties and mysteries we must believe, or we shall not believe that we have a soul and body, or that we are dependant, yet moral agents, or that Jesus Christ was before Abraham, yet born in the days of Herod the king.

II. We see the errour of those who uniformly elevate the character of Jesus Christ above man, above human virtues and human powers. They place him above man, above angel. If Jesus Christ be really man, then Arius is still further from the fact, further from any true description of Jesus Christ, than Socinus.

Arius taught that Jesus Christ had no human soul, that he had nothing of man in him but his flesh, to which the Logos, or word of God, or superangelic spirit, was united. While he denied his divinity, he rejected his humanity, but gave him a rank between both. He denied that he was a man, but the first and noblest creature which God created, the agent by whom he formed the universe. So far from being man, he was next to God; and so far from being God, he was a creature made by God. Still the different learned men, and they are very learned,

have given somewhat different views of the Redeemer's dignity. The low Arians say that Jesus Christ pre-existed not as the eternal word of the Father, not as the being by whom he made worlds, and who had intercourse with the patriarchs, not as having any rank or employment in the government of the uni

verse.

The Semi-Arians hold that the Son is of a like substance with the Father, that he was from all eternity begotten by the will of the Father.

They all agree that he existed before his incarnation, they all deny that he was the true God, or real man. Therefore, while in some respects they render superiour honours to the immaculate Saviour, none are further from our views of his character, as man, and Mediator.

III. The subject reminds us how far we differ from those who believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, as really as Isaac was the son of Abraham. We can discover no material difference between these and the Semi-Arians just mentioned. Yet in deference to their feelings, as they choose to be considered as a separate class, we mention them so, distinctly. Our eyes see no difference, our ears catch no discordant sounds, our reason discovers no different results. They and the disciples of Arius agree in denying the real humanity of Jesus Christ, they agree in denying his absolute divinity; in saying that he is the eternal Son of God. They disagree in nothing important. In fact, in modern times the term Arian is by the most respectable writers, indiscriminately applied to all those who consider Jesus Christ more than

man, yet subordinate to the Father. The persons to whom we refer do hold that Jesus Christ is more than man, yet subordinate to the Father, therefore they belong to the school of Arius.

The physical impossibility that the Father should produce a Son, coequal with himself, and eternal as himself, needs no proof. The notion of an eternal generation is not merely a mystery, but an impossibility. It is a violent solecism in language to call any being the son of another, who is of the same and equal origin. This, therefore, infallibly destroys the real divinity of the son. No being, who has a beginning, is God. Eternity is a necessary attribute of God. But, fortunately, this I need not prove. For the authors of this theology do not teach that their Redeemer is God, the Eternal, but the Son of God.

For ages, the church has been agitated with the question, in what sense and for what reason is Jesus Christ called the Son of God. I do humbly confess, that, to me the answer is so plain, so easy, so certain, if the most remarkable mistakes had not been common, with the best and wisest men, I would hardly have believed a mistake here to be possible. Take another instance as remarkable. Mark ix, 31. "Jesus said unto them, the

Christ taught his disciples and Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and after that he is killed, he will rise the third day." What can be more plain, more easy, more certain, than the meaning of this passage? "But they understood not the saying, and were afraid to ask him." What then could they understand? Yet they were good and great men. So are they good and

great men who mistake the sonship of Jesus Christ. Afterwards, when Jesus Christ was killed, instead of expecting his resurrection on the third day, as they might, with every reason of hope and triumph, they gave up his cause as lost, lost, for ever lost.

Now listen to Luke i, 35, and see if it be possible to mistake his meaning. "And the angel answered. and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, THEREFORE, also, that holy thing, or holy person, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God." Now is it possible that the meaning should be misunderstood, or that any mortal doubt why Jesus Christ is called the Son of God? The power of the highest shall overshadow thee, therefore, thy child shall be called the Son of God. In one word, on account of his miraculous conception he is the Son of God. Could man, could angel, could Deity, express himself more intelligibly? Why then all this dispute respecting the Son of God? Why will men run back to the beginning of eternity, and distract their minds with the notion of an everlasting generation, which is an everlasting impossibility, when the Bible has explained the subject in a different manner, but never, in a single instance, mentioned an eternal Son, nor an everlasting generation? They take away the man Christ Jesus, our kinsman, our brother, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and I know not where they have laid him.

IV. Was Jesus Christ man, then we may all learn what we may be, and what we ought to be. See him, as a son, subject to his parents; at twelve

years