III. That God is spirit, and not flesh, is a view of his character closely connected with his omnipresence. "Whither shall I go from thy spirit, and whither shali I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

Matter is subjected to a local circumscription; God, as a spirit, is capable of coexisting with every other order of being.

IV. Because God is a spirit, and not flesh, he is possessed of infinite wisdom and intelligence. Thought and perception are the attributes of mind, not of matter; of spirit, and not of flesh; and for this reason, the original and great Spirit possesses them in an infinite degree. They cannot belong to matter, because matter is divisible into an infinite number of parts; so that, if the power of thinking subsists in these, there are in reality as many distinct thinking principles as there are parts, and the mind of every individual must be a congeries, or assemblage of an infinite number of minds. But if thought subsists in none of the parts separately taken, it cannot subsist in the whole: because a whole is nothing more or less than all the parts considered together, and nothing can be found in the whole but what previously exists in the several parts.

During the union between the soul and the body, the organs of the latter become the instruments of perception; but it is the mind alone which thinks, which alone is conscious, which sees in the eye, hears in the ear, feels in the touch. The Infinite Spirit is, consequently, all eye, all ear, all intelligence, perception and.....

V. The spirituality of the Divine Nature lays a foundation for the most intimate relation between the intelligent part of the creation and himself. He is emphatically "the Father of spirits." The relation of the parent to the child is very intimate and close, because the parent is the instrument of his being; but God is the AUTHOR. The earthly parent is our father after the flesh, the heavenly is our father after the spirit; and in proportion as the mind constitutes the most important portion of our nature, the relation subsisting between us and God is the most interesting and the most essential. "He is not far from any of us, seeing we are his offspring: in him we live, and move, and have our being." The body connects us with the external universe; the soul connects us with God. The flesh is his production; the spirit is his image and, as the former separates us from him by a dissimilarity of nature, so the latter assimilates us to him by the possession of principles and laws congenial with his own.

VI. The spirituality of the Divine Nature fits him for becoming our eternal portion and supreme good. That which constitutes and secures our felicity must be something out of ourselves; since we find our

selves utterly inadequate to be the source of our own enjoyment, we find that without allying ourselves to an object distinct from our own nature we are desolate and miserable. To retire within our own nature in quest of happiness is an idle and fruitless attempt. The mind feels itself fettered and imprisoned, until it is allowed to go forth and unite itself to some foreign object.

Again, to form the happiness of a mind must be the prerogative of something superior to itself; nor is there any greater superiority conceivable than that of being the source of enjoyment, the bestower of happiness on another. But while it is superior, it must be congenial in its nature. A spiritual being must possess spiritual happiness; the proper enjoyment of the mind must consist in something mental.

III.

OUTLINE OF THE ARGUMENT OF TWELVE LECTURES ON THE SOCINIAN CONTROVERSY.*

INTRODUCTORY Lecture.

Jude 3.—It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you, that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.

LECTURE II.

ON THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST.

Matt. xxii. 41, 42.-While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?

FOUR classes of passages adduced in proof of this.

I. Those passages which speak of the origin of Jesus Christ, and which accompany this by a specification of "the flesh" in such a formula that the flesh is never employed in a similar manner in the history of men.

II. Those passages in which it is affirmed by Jesus Christ and by his disciples, that he did come down from heaven to the earth, and that by virtue of his name.

• Delivered at Leicester in 1823.

III. Those passages which, though they do not exactly assert that Jesus Christ existed before he came into our world, yet this is the necessary conclusion from them.

IV. One passage in which our Lord directly affirms this proposition in so many words, and no other proposition. (John viii. 58.)

LECTURE III.

ON THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

Matt. xxii. 41, 42.

This attempted to be proved from those passages in which the titles of God are ascribed to Jesus Christ, of which there are three kinds : I. Those in which he is styled the Son of God.

II. Those in which he is styled, not the Son of God, but God himself.

III. Those which are quoted by the apostles from the Old Testament, in which the word Jehovah is ascribed to Jesus Christ.

LECTURE IV.

The DIVINITY of Christ proved from those passages in which the creation of the visible universe is ascribed to the Lord Jesus Christ. I. This fact established by Scripture testimony, and

II. The attention directed to the necessary conclusion which is to be derived from it, That if Jesus Christ appear by Scripture testimony to be the Creator of all things, he is necessarily God; since the primary idea which man entertains of God identifies those perfections which created the world with the existence of Deity.

LECTURE V.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST PROVED FROM HIS BEING THE OBJECT OF DIVINE WORSHIP.

Worship may be considered as mental or local. It is to mental worship, as consisting of those sentiments of adoration of the Deity for his great mercies, a dependence upon the Author of them, a desire of his favour, and submission to his will, which mark every devout Christian, and expressed in the language of prayer or praise, to which this part of the discussion is chiefly confined.

LECTURE VI.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST PROVED FROM CERTAIN

MISCELLANEOUS

CONSIDERATIONS, WHICH COULD NOT WITH CONVENIENCE BE REDUCED TO ANY ONE HEAD, SIMILAR TO THOSE ALREADY BROUGHT FORWARD.

I. If Jesus Christ be not a divine person, et me say, it is utterly inconceivable how he can discharge the office and assumption of Head of the Church, and Lord of the Christian dispensation.

II. The simple humanity of Christ is utterly inconsistent with those perfections which are ascribed to the Saviour, since there is not a single attribute of the divine nature which is not found ascribed in different forms to our Lord Jesus Christ.

III. The idea of the simple humanity of Christ is utterly incompatible with that ardour of sentiment of which he is represented in every part of Scripture as the object.

IV. The divinity of Christ is plain, from the fact of his being created and appointed the Judge of the universe.

LECTURE VII.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST PROVED TO BE NOT A NEW DOCTRINE, BUT THAT IT WAS KNOWN BEFORE THE NICENE COUNCIL HELD IN THE BEGINNING OF THE FOURTH CENTURY, BY REFERENCES TO THE FATHERS-BARNABAS, HERMAS, IGNATIUS, CLEMENS ROMANUS, POLYCARP, JUSTIN MARTYR, THEOPHILUS BISHOP OF ANTIOCH, IRENÆUS, TERTULLIAN, CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, ORIGEN, AND CYPRIAN.

[The above five Lectures upon the Divinity of Christ were preached from the same text:-Matt. xxii. 41, 42.]

LECTURE VIII.

ON THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Matt. xxviii. 19.-Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

The first proof of the personality of the Holy Spirit appears to result from the manner in which the Spirit, whatever is intended by that word, is mentioned in the Scriptures.

In order to understand this, it is necessary to reflect upon the meaning of the word “ Spirit."

The first meaning of the term Spirit is wind, or breath. (John iii. 8.) The next use of the term Spirit, in the Scriptures and other writers, in analogy to this, is to denote the invisible and immaterial part of man, in distinction from that which is corporeal, fleshly, and tangible. (Matt. xxvi. 41.)

Again, it is applied to those supernatural agents who are supposed not to be clothed with gross flesh and blood, and not to be possessed of bodies, or any fleshly vehicle whatever. (Luke xxiv. 39; x. 17, 20.)

The fourth meaning of this term is very agreeable to the former. By way of distinction, the word Spirit is applied to the third person in the blessed Trinity; that is, THE SPIRIT, by way of eminence; and it appears to be so employed when it is preceded by the definite article, τὸ πνεῦμα, THE SPIRIT.

The second argument on this subject is derived from the obvious consideration, that the particular acts which are ascribed to the Holy Spirit and its inspirations, are such as are totally inconsistent with any idea but that of his being a proper person.

Speaking is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. (2 Sam. xxiii. 2; 1 Tim. iv. 1; Acts xiii. 2.) Approbation is ascribed to the Spirit. (Acts xv. 28.) The passion of grief is often applied to the Spirit of God. (Eph. iv. 30; Isaiah lxiii. 10.)

Suffering or permitting is predicated of the Holy Spirit. (Acts xvi. 7.) Sin can be committed against nothing but a person; but Peter addresses Ananias in these words, "Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?" &c. (Acts v. 3, 4; Matt. xii. 32.)

The third argument for the personality of the Holy Spirit is derived from the personal pronouns applied to the Spirit of God, in such a manner as cannot be accounted for, except upon the obvious supposition of the intention of our Saviour to represent the Spirit of God under the character of a person. (John xiv. 16-26; xv. 26; xvi. 13.)

In the fourth place, the passage which has been taken as the foundation of this discourse appears to afford an irrefutable proof of the truth for which we are contending; because the Holy Spirit is here associated in such a manner with two real and divine persons as would render the connexion unaccountable, if a real person was not understood in the third, as well as in the two former instances.

LECTURE IX.

ON THE ATONEMENT.

1 Cor. xv. 3.- For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.

I. The first argument in proof of the atonement of Christ is, that the death of the Saviour is repeatedly stated to be a proper sacrifice.