Father. He is not once thus designated in the New Testament. His appellations are "the Son," ""Son of God," "Son of man," ""Jesus the Christ." But the person here praying addresses the object of his adoration by "Father,"-" holy and righteous Fa

no name save

ther."

It is easy to see why orthodox expositors have thus wandered from the Bible. If Christ be the deity, every prayer must have him for its object, since prayer is made to God only. And if it were granted that the Father alone was here prayed to, then a hard question would come up, namely, how he who was himself God the Son, could need to ask of any being or person, what he must already have in his own power?-But all this will not do. The prayer was made to the Father only, and not to any person else, or John has recorded it incorrectly. Why Jesus, knowing as he must the existence of a Trinity, if there be such a thing, should always pray to the on God in one person, not even alluding to the two other persons, we cannot see. Certainly his mode of worship is very different from what is now the only approved way among those who say they alone worship God aright. They commonly address three persons, naming each. And if a man never named but one person in his religious addresses, they would esteem him a Unitarian at once. Thus did our blessed Lord on all occasions. He never prays to God under any name but one, the Father; and to that name exclusively, without uniting the other two, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, he attaches the titles, Lord of Heaven and of Earth, the only true God. Was not he a Unitarian in his devotions?

But to return to the Commentary. It declares that Christ as man here prays. Now let us bear this in mind while we consult some passages in the recorded prayer itself. "Glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." The pronoun me shews who it was who had this glory with God before the world. It was he who prayed. But Henry says, and the orthodox say generally, Christ as man prayed. Hence it follows that Christ as man, the person praying, had the glory alluded to. But " as man "Christ had no existence before the world. He could only have glory with God in the sense of having it decreed to him in the divine counsel. He is said to have had it, because God then determined he should have it. Just as he is called "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." He was not actually slain then, all know.

It is argued, however, from these words of Jesus, by Trinitarians, that he was an eternal being. And yet they say and they must say, that it was not as God that he here prayed. But, we rejoin, he who prayed it was, and he only, who speaks of himself as having glory with God before the world was. If he who prayed was a man, that man is the person who had that glory. Unitarians consider this prayer as proceeding from the Son of God, the Christ, and not a mere man, not Christ in his human nature simply, but in his official relation as the Christ. Let any candid reader judge to which exposition, the record best agrees. The orthodox exposition makes the text a proof of the pre-existence of a man, for Christ as man, it says, is the person praying. But those Unitarians who believe the Messiah to have pre-existed, believe it not on this

ground, but a very different, namely, on the supposition that he was a being of a higher order than human or angelic, though not God. Those who do not admit the pre-existence, refer the glory spoken of to the exalted dignity, which by divine destination, Jesus might, as the appointed Messiah, be very properly said to possess when God gave it to him, that is, when the plan was determined, to fulfil which, he was appointed. In that, a glorious reward was attached to a glorious work. He who did the work, might look back and say, the recompense was his when the work was assigned him. Our Lord suggests this explanation of his words. "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, and now, O, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." The word "glorify" does not mean to restore to a glory once had and afterwards relinquished, but to confer a dignity at the present moment, to invest with glory one who is not yet and never has been before, thus glorified. Had a mere restoration to his original condition been intended, we think a different language would have been employed.

Besides, on the Trinitarian scheme, the glory which Christ had before the world, was that of the godhead. But the glory which he here speaks of is one given to him. Having completed his work, he prays for the promised recompense. He even says of his disciples, "the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them." Mark the time. Gavest when? Christ was not now in possession of it, else how should he pray for it? When was that gift made to which he alludes? We answer, when God gave him the work he had just finished. What other time past

in his life differed, in respect to his condition, from that time in which this prayer was offered? The history shews no period in which any thing glorious appears about the Son of God, except only his glorious virtues and his marvellous powers. The gift then was a destined one, not

one already received and at that moment enjoyed.

This is confirmed further by these words: "Father! I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me, where I am, that they may behold the glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." The disciples were then present with him. But Jesus says " where I am." He doubtless intends where I shall be. They might in a future world behold his glory, and for that he prays. But he still calls it "the glory thou hast given me." How future and yet past? Future, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Past, because he was appointed to glory, when the work he had just finished was assigned him, for to that work was annexed the glory of which he speaks. Observe the words "thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." Now Jesus had already said concerning his followers, "thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me." But before the foundation of the world, the disciples could only be loved in the sense we have given, and we see not how else the language applies to our Lord.

The Trinitarian exposition makes Christ pray to himself; or strictly speaking, one part of himself to pray to the other part; one nature to intercede with the other nature. It also implies the pre-existence of the man Christ Jesus. Whether the Unitarian explanation be better than this, judge ye who can.

In the first of the two Sermons here referred to, the preacher observes, "It will be the object of this discourse to show that man is not religious by nature." He then proceeds to state what his proposition implies, which he says is, "that there is nothing in him, of which religion. is the natural effect or consequence, without a special divine interposition." This he makes yet clearer by further declaring we mean there is nothing in his constitution, of which religion is the result, without a special divine interposition, and that the first accountable character which he sustains is not a religious character."

The doctrine uniformly held by such as have argued against the native, hereditary depravity of our race, has been, that at his birth man has no character, is neither holy nor unholy, virtuous nor vicious, but is merely endowed with powers which make him susceptible of that moral culture and discipline out of which, as a result, issues character. To pretend that a being is utterly depraved in its nature, because God is not the object of the first affections which spring up in the heart, is absurd. For the Creator has so formed us that instinct is the earliest feeling and next to that, the emotions which are excited by those objects which first become known to us, as the nurse or the parent. It is impossible so abstract an idea as that of God, should come into the mind which has not yet become familiar with sensible things, nor can distinguish one object from another, with clearness. If there are no innate ideas, all must be acquired after the introduction of the mind to the scene of things in which it