especially gifted with the inspiration of the Holy Ghost? Or, again, if he had chosen to regard Him as a created—though ever so glorious—angel? Doubtless, in that case, he would have been charged with something worse than mere thoughtless simphcity; his fault would then have been nearer to Pharasaical presumption, intruding men's opinions and fancies into the place of God's Truth. And yet he might have been really attached to our Lord's Person, and might have depended on Him, and no other, for health and salvation.
Now this point, that Christ is to be loved and served, not such as men choose to imagine Him, but such as He really and truly is—this point requires, if I mistake not, to be very seriously recalled to men's remembrance, at the present moment, in the Christian Church. For the form which human presumption seems now inclined to take is nearly such as this following: (and, what is very remarkable, it is found among various classes of religionists, who think themselves, and are in many respects, diametrically opposed to each other. But this is, as it were, a point to which, at sundry distances, their errors appear to converge:) namely, That in the matter of acceptance with God, sentiment, feeling, assurance, attachment, towards Jesus Christ, is all in all: that definite notions of His Person, Nature, and Office may very well be dispensed with, provided only the heart feel warm towards Him, and inclined to rely upon Him entirely for salvation: that the high mysteries of the orthodox Catholic Faith, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Communion with our Lord through His Sacraments, are either unnecessary to be distinctly believed, or that such belief will come of itself, if only the above-mentioned feeling of dependence on Christ be sincere. Is not this the real tendency of a great deal that is said, thought, and written at the present moment, in what is called "the religious world?" Is not such the plain fact, whether for good or for evil? A few obvious remarks, then, on the tendency and probable result of these things, may, by God's blessing, have their use, coming, as we have seen they do, in strict accord with the Church Services of the day.
Now, it may be at once allowed, that nothing can be said too high, nothing higher than Scripture has a thousand times said, concerning the saving virtue and acceptableness of true love and faith in Jesus Christ our Lord; and that, consequently, those
