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THERE IS ONE GOD,

AND ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN,

THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.

By Henry Giles.

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LECTURE IV.

"THERE IS ONE GOD, AND ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN, THE MAN CHRIST JESUS."

BY REV. HENRY GILES.

"THERE IS ONE GOD, AND ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN, THE MAN CHRIST JESUS."-1 Tim. ii. 5.

THE passage I have read suggests the subject of my lecture, the position in which we stand to our opponents will suggest the tendency of the commentary. The text announces the two great truths on which our entire system of Christianity is based, and ours in all essential points, we think, coincides with simple, with evangelical Christianity. The truths propounded in the text are, the Unity of God, and the Unity of Christ.-A unity in each case absolute and perfect, without division of nature or distinction of person. We believe that God is one,—that he is one being, one mind, one person, one agent. And this belief, and no other, we can deduce from the works of creation, and the teachings of the Scriptures.

That God is one universally and absolutely, we have impressed upon us from the order of creation; that he is great, we learn from the magnitude of his works; and that he is good, we learn from their blessedness and beauty. This sublime truth is illustrated in every region of existence, so

far as we know it, and every illustration is an argument. It is written on the broad and immortal heavens in characters of glory and light; it is manifested in that mighty law which binds atom to atom into a world, and world to world in a

system, and system to system, until from that wonderful universe which science can traverse, we arise to him, whom no knowledge can fathom, whom no limits can bound, and in contemplating whom science must give place to faith.

The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth his handy-work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge-and that God is one, is proclaimed in this speech, and manifested in this knowledge. It gleams in the light, it breathes in the air, it moves in the life of all created nature; it is the harmony of creation, and the spirit of providence, the inspiration of reason, and the consistency of wisdom. The existence of one Supreme Intelligence is the Testimony of Nature, and to the same import are the testimonies of Scripture. We are told, and told it in every variety of tone, that to believe one God in three persons is absolutely needful to Salvation, yet we may read from Genesis to Revelations without finding such a doctrine either as a statement of truth, or a means of sanctity: but the simple and unqualified declaration that God is one, without any of these dogmatical distinctions which men of later ages have invented, I need not tell a Bible-reading audience, are interwoven with the whole texture of revelation. It was that for which Abraham left his home, and went forth a wanderer from his family and his nation; it was that for which Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and for which he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God; it was that over which he had long thought in his shepherd-life in an Arabian wilderness; it was that with which he was more deeply inspired in the solemn retirements of Mount Horeb; it was that to which all his laws and institutions pointed. Our Saviour took the doctrine as a known maxim-and in this his disciples followed him. We have then the truth brought down to us through Scripture, in patriarchal tradition, in Mosaic legislation, in the poetry of prophets, in the words of Christ, in the preach

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