Part 285

being. We are to exercise the same faith and confidence in Him that we do in God ; yield Him the same obedience, devotion, and homage. We find, therefore, that such is the case from the begin- ning to the end of the New Testament writings. Christ is the God of the Apostles and early Christians, in the sense that He is the object of all their religious affections. They regarded Him as the person to whom they specially belonged ; to whom they were responsible for their moral conduct ; to whom they had to account for their sins ; for the use of their time and talents ; who was ever present with them, dwelling in them, controlling their inward, as well as their outward life ; whose love was the animating principle of their being ; in whom they rejoiced as their present joy and as their everlasting portion. This recognition of their relation to Christ as their God, is constant and pervading, so that the evidence of it cannot be gathered up and stated in a polemic or didactic form. But ever}'- reader of the New Testament to whom Christ is a mere creature, however exalted, must feel himself to be out of communion with the Apostles and apostolic Christians, who avowed themselves and were universally recognized by othei's as being the worshippers of Christ. They knew that they were to stand before his judgment seat ; that every act, thought, and word of theirs, and of every man who shall ever live, was to lie open to his omniscient eye ; and that on his decision the destiny of every human soul was to depend. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, they persuaded men. They enforced every moi^al duty, not merely on the grounds of moral obligation, but by considerations drawn fx*om the relation of the soul to Christ. Children are to obey their parents, wives their husbands, servants their masters, not as pleasing men, but as doing the will of Christ, True religion in their view consists not in the love or reverence of God, merely as the infinite Spirit, the creator and preserver of all things, but in the knowledge and love of Christ. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Son of God, i. e., whoever believes that Jesus of Nazareth is God manifested in the flesh, and loves and obeys Him as such, is declared to be born of God. Any one who denies that truth, is declared to be antichrist, denying both the Father and the Son, for the denial of the one is the denial of the other. The same truth is expressed by another Apostle, who says, " If our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest they should see the glory of God as it sliines in the face of Jesus Christ." They are lost, according to this Apostle, who d^ not see, as well as believe, Jesus to be God dwell-