in the New Testament, from which it will be easy to collect how far they admit of being reconciled to the doctrine of his proper humanity. Religious worship is either mental or external. I. Mental.-Christ is said to be represented as the Object of religious Regard. 1. Of Faith. 1. Rom. x. 9. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe with thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." q. d. If thou shalt sincerely believe in the resurrection of Jesus, and shalt profess thy faith in him as the true Messiah, thou shalt be entitled to the blessings of the Gospel. See Locke in loc. 2. 1 John v. 1. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." q. d. Every one who believes Jesus to be the true Messiah, becomes by his profession a member of the christian church, and is adopted into the family of God.-See also John iii. 36. Acts xvi. 30, 31; xxvi. 18. Gal. iii. 26. 1 Pet. ii. 6. It would be endless and useless to cite all the passages which require faith in Christ. It is obvious from the texts above cited, that Faith has no mystical meaning annexed to it, as some have imagined. Faith in Christ is either spe culative or practical. Speculative faith is, as the apostle defines it above, assent to the proposition that Jesus is the Christ, and that he rose from the dead. This constitutes a person a christian, and entitles him to the external privileges of the Gospel. In the language of the New Testament, he is regenerated,'' called,'' forgiven,'' justified,' adopted,'sanctified,' and 'saved he is a son and and heir,' he is chosen and holy:' that is, he is separated from the unbelieving and idolatrous world, he is translated out of the kingdom of darkness' and of Satan' into the 'kingdom of light' and of God's dear Son.' He is admitted into the new covenant, and stands in the same relation to God as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob formerly did. Practical Faith is acting up to the conviction of the understanding; and this is indispensably necessary to the future reward. He that heareth the sayings of Christ, and doeth them, is the wise man who buildeth his house upon a rock. 2. Christ is the Object of Love. 1. John xiv. 21. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him." 2. 1 Cor. xvi. 22. "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Maran-atha." d. Let him be excluded from the christian community. "The Lord is coming," who will animadvert upon him as he deserves. The apostle alludes to the solemn form of excommunication among the Jews, after they had been deprived by the Romans of the power of inflicting capital punishments. They thus expressed their firm expectation, that God would interpose in some way or other to carry into effect the sentence which they were not per mitted to execute. 3. 1 Pet. i. S. "Whom, having not seen, ye love." See also Matt. x. 37. John xvi. 27; xxi. 15, 16, 17. Eph. vi. 24. Our Lord has so explicitly and repeatedly declared, that all the love which he requires of his disciples is, to obey the precepts of his Gospel, that it seems surprising that Q 2 per sonal sonal affection to Christ should be so often represented and insisted upon as a christian duty of the highest importance. The apostles and other immediate followers of Christ, who knew him personally, and had derived personal benefits, from him, in addition to the greatest veneration for his character, could not but feel the most affectionate attachment to his person. But it is impossible that christians of later times, who have had no personal intercourse with Christ, and who have received no personal benefits from him, can love him in the same sense in which the apostles and his other companions did. They may indeed figure to their imaginations an ideal person; they may ascribe to this person the most amiable attributes; they may fancy that they are under greater obligations to him than to the Father himself; in the warmth of their imaginations, they may conceive of themselves as holding converse with him, and their affections may be drawn out to this ideal benefactor to a very great extent; their faith and hope, and love and joy, may swell even to ecstasy :-but this is not love to Christ; it is nothing but a fond and groundless affection to a mere phantom of the imagination. Our Lord's declaration remains unaltered: "HE THAT HATH MY CƠMMANDMENTS, AND KEEPETH THEM, HE IT IS THAT LOVETH ME." This doctrine must necessarily appear very cold and spiritless to those who delight in high flights of fancy and of feeling in the concerns of religion. They may perhaps represent it as the very frigid zone of chris. tianity. But it is the christianity which their Master taught, and from which they who are content to learn of him only, will not feel themselves authorized to depart. It is indeed impossible for any person of reflection and sensibility to read the interesting account of Christ in the artless narrative of the evangelists, without being deeply impressed with the wisdom and majesty of his doctrine, and with the simplicity and purity, the humility, the meekness and fortitude, the habitual unaffected piety, the enlarged active benevolence, and the mild but conscious dignity of his exalted character. But this is no more than an unbe liever might experience, and what many have expressed: and cannot with any propriety be called Love to Christ, in the sense in which that phrase is commonly understood. Also, no one can truly appreciate the blessings of the Gospel, without great thankfulness to God for the gift of his Son to be the Saviour of the world. Any thing beyond this appears to be incomprehensible, irrational, and unscriptural. That our Lord himself did not challenge per. sonal affection as a christian duty, is further evident from his declaration, Mark iii. 35, "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, or sister, or mother." q. d. The man who performs his duty to God, is he who bears the truest affection to me. And though, while on earth, our Lord cultivated personal friendships, and the apostles must all have felt the most ardent personal affec tion to their revered Master; and Paul in particular, having been under peculiar obligations to Christ, often labours for words to express the warmth of his attachment; yet even this apostle explicitly renounces the personal friendship of Christ himself; if it should prove, which he states as possible, an impediment to him in the exercise of his ministry; 2 Cor. v. 16, "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now, henceforth, know we him no more." q. d. If I had been the intimate friend of Christ, and in the habit of daily personal intercourse with him, I must forgo all the delight and advantage of his society, in order to fulfill the purposes of the mission to which I am appointed. 3. The Care of the Soul to be committed to Christ. In support of this strange position, which some represent as the most important of christian duties, only one text is produced, and that most evidently misapplied. 2 Tim. i. 11, 12. "The Gospel, whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed; for I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him,” την παραθήκην με, my deposit, "against that day." "That is," says Dr. Doddridge, "I know to whom I have trusted all my most important concerns; and I am fully persuaded that he is well able to keep that precious and immortal soul which I have deposited with him, unto that great and important day, when the promised salvation shall be completed." But certainly this is not the true meaning of the apostle. The word aрann occurs only in two other places in the New Testament. See Griesbach in loc. In this chapter it is repeated, ver. 14, where it is rendered, "that which was committed to thee;" and again, 1 Tim. vi. 20, “that which is committed to thy trust." In both passages it means the Gospel, the doctrine of Christ. And this is undoubtedly the sense in which the word is used here: "I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which he has intrusted to me unto that day." The holy and generous apostle triumphs in the thought, that, whatever becomes of himself, the great cause in which he is embarked shall never fail. The doctrine of Christ, the interest of truth and righteousness, shall survive and prosper, and shall endure and advance to the end of time1. 4. Christians 1 See Griesbach, Grotius, and Benson in loc. The case of Stephen, Acts |