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this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent; Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead."

Now we ask what are the doctrines contained in this discourse which Paul announced to the Athenians as a summary of the Gospel? They are the unity, perfections, providence, and paternal character of God, the divine mission and authority of Jesus Christ demonstrated by his resurrection, and repentance in anticipation of a future righteous judgment. Where then are the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel as they are called? Passed over in the most profound silence.

We have now gone over the principal discourses of the apostles in the first thirty years of their ministry as recorded in the Acts, and what do they teach? The Trinity? Not one word of it that we can find. The Unity? Yes. It is taught in every discourse. The Deity of Christ? No where. What then? His divine mission and authority. "God anointed" him "with the Holy Ghost and with power," and raised him from the dead. The Deity and personality of the Holy Spirit? That is denied, inasmuch a sit is something given, communicated, poured out. Remission of sins on account of Christ's sufferings? By no means. "Repent that your sins may be blotted out." Total inability,

election and reprobation? Not at all. "Now commandeth all men every where to repent." Salvation by foreign, irresistible power? Nothing like it. "Save yourselves from this untoward generation."

What then is the grand conclusion to which we are brought by this examination of the preaching of the apostles? The irresistible conclusion is, that these peculiar doctrines we have been so long examining, are not found there.

If they are not found in the preaching of the apostles, then they make no part of the Gospel, are merely human inventions which have been added to the Gospel by the fancy and imagination of man. They are the hay and stubble which have been added to the silver and gold of the true foundation by man's device. And since the doctrines they did preach had the power to reform and renovate men, and make them true Christians, we infer without danger of a mistake, that the whole moral and spiritual power of the Gospel is contained in those doctrines. And of course, whatever other doctrines have since been added to these, and preached in conjunction with them, the effect has been produced by the few and simple elements taught by the apostles, and not by the superadded doctrines of men. And as the Gospel continues forever the same, these are the doctrines which now produce all that moral and spiritual effect, which the Gospel is at this day producing in the world.

These are as we have seen, the existence, perfections, providence, and paternal character of God, the mission, miracles, teaching, death, and resurrection of Christ, the remission of sins upon repentance, the resurrection of the dead, and a just judgment, and retribution in a future world. These must contain all the elements of moral power in the Gospel, for they are the whole of it according to the apostles. A striking evidence that this was the substance of what was thought necessary for a Christian to believe in the first ages, is to be found in its coincidence with the most ancient standard of faith we have, which has come down under the name of the Apostles' Creed. "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day he rose from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of Saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." There is almost as little mention of the peculiar doctrines we have been controverting in this early Creed, as there is in the preaching of the apostles, and had this Creed never been

lengthened in after times, there would have been but little controversy in the Christian Church.

Let us now consider the moral efficiency of these doctrines. The very essence of all religion is summed up in its first article, the existence, perfections, providence, and paternal character of God. He is the eternal centre and fountain of religion. He is the prime moving and all pervading power. Without him the universe is a blank; and without him religion could no more exist than vegetation without the sun. "This," said our Saviour, "is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Did not Christ understand the nature of his own religion, the true sources of its moral power? Accordingly he came to show us the Father. Give me the knowledge of a perfect God, such as Jesus has described our heavenly Father to be, and you have established in my mind the mightiest moral agency which can operate upon me. His goodness calls forth my gratitude and love; his purity and holiness arouse in my mind a strong aspiration to be like him; his all pervading presence and agency awaken in me a salutary fear of offending him. An object is thus given my devotions, which will make them a fountain of spiritual influences springing up everlasting life. I must then act with reference to him. I feel that "it is God that worketh in" me, "both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” This then is the leading source of moral and spiritual power in the Gospel, and it is independent of

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these peculiar doctrines we have been discussing. We are unable to conceive how any moral power is gained by dividing this one God into three distinctions or persons. One All-perfect and Infinite Being is certainly adequate to all the purposes that three are. I can see confusion and weakened influence in the idea of three Persons in God, but no advantage whatever.

The next source of moral power is the character of Jesus Christ. Paul at Athens, you recollect, preached in addition to the one God, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," "Jesus and the resurrection." "This is life eternal," or the source or cause of life eternal, "that they might know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." He who knows Jesus Christ as he is, has operating within him a spiritual power of another kind, but scarcely less potent than that of God himself. For in him is exhibited human perfection. As God supplies the all powerful motive to action, so Jesus furnishes the rule and guide. There is not a difficulty in human life, there is not a situation so abject and perplexing, that is not solved and made easy by one glance at Christ, one clear conception of the spirit that was in him. The conviction is overwhelming, that the reason why any are weary and heavy laden with the burdens of this world is, that they have not learned of him who was "meek and lowly in heart." Christ labouring, and suffering in the cause of man in obscurity, poverty, persecution, supported only by a pure

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