destiny, his immortality; from the character and the sufferings of Christ; these are the motives offered us. The terrors of the Lord, heaven lost, and anguish borne from age to age; these topics might be pressed. But the mind is susceptible of better impulses; it may be affected and reclaimed by an address to nobler principles. Know we not that the goodness of God should lead us to repentance?? Is there no sentiment of gratitude within us? no desire for happiness? nothing that will awaken the sinner, but the dread of punishment? I trust in God our Maker, that there is. I trust in man, from whom in his worst estate gleams of a divine birth break out, that there is. Let those who think an apprehension of punishment the corner-stone on which repentance and the whole structure of character must be built, obey their convictions; but let others believe that the entreaties of love may soften a depraved heart, the prospects of heaven enliven a stupid soul. Hope and love! the two most glorious impulses of our nature, have they no power, or must they be kindled by fear? Experience and Scripture furnish the same answer to these questions.

I close with one other remark. I have said that repentance has its beginning in sorrow and shame, but I also have said that its end is amendment and its object holiness. Let it then be remembered that as grief without reformation is useless, so distress and remorse after deliverance from evil has been effected are unnecessary, nay improper; for they weaken our moral energy, and deprive us of that reward which God has appointed as an incentive to perseverance. When repentance has performed its office, then dismiss it. If

it has introduced humility and watchfulness into the heart, these will be the guardians of virtue. To the sinner we would preach repentance; to the penitent comfort. Waste not strength in sighs and tears, do not mispend time in fruitless contemplation of the past. God is a Father, who is not pleased with the sorrow of his children excepting as it is a pledge of effort and improvement. Redeem this pledge, if you have given it. When we have renounced our sins, they are pardoned. We need then only devote every faculty to the acquisition of virtue,- bend thought and will to this great end, and trust ourselves to God.' S.

IN WHAT SENSE CHRIST WAS THE IMAGE OF GOD.

'Christ, who is the image of God,' 2 Cor. iv. 4; 'the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature,' Colos. 1. 15; the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person,' Heb. 1. 3; these passages are prominent among those adduced by some of our fellow Christians, in support of the doctrine that God and Christ are the same being. To us they convey a very different idea. And we claim that, unless the word image in these verses was used by the Apostle in some new and unheard of significationif the same meaning is to be received from it here, which it would convey every where else, our Trinitarian brethren can have no warrant for the inference they would draw from these passages. Do they in

any other instance, understand the image of a person to be the same as the person himself? However exact may be a likeness of some distinguished man, could they ever be persuaded to believe it the man himself, or in any sense the same? Or, to adduce a case more in point, if a son strikingly resembles his father, so that it may be said in popular language, (such language the writers of the sacred scriptures used) he is exactly like him, the express image of him-in such a case, would Trinitarians have us infer, that such language implies that the Son is the same as the Father? Surely not. No man in his senses would receive such an idea from the word image in the cases supposed, nor does any one find the least difficulty in putting the proper construction upon this word, excepting when it is applied, as in the passages under consideration, to Jesus Christ. The very asking of such questions as the above may appear too much like trifling, but they come unbidden to our lips, when we hear the passages at the head of this article urged to prove that Christ is God that the son is his own Father. If our Trinitarian brethren will insist that such declarations are of any avail in support of their distinguishing tenet, we cannot help intimating that they are chargeable with all the absurdity, which would be most obvious even to themselves, in a similar inference from the same language in other cases.

But we have another objection to the use which Trinitarians make of the passages under consideration. If the particular expression which occurs in them must necessarily be understood to declare the Deity of our Lord, then is there equal evidence of the same sort,

that man is also God. We find this both in the Old Testament and in the New. We read in Genesis, I. 26: 'God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.' Again I. 27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.' Whatever may have been the consequences of the fall of Adam, we are under the Gospel dispensation exhorted to put on again the image of him who created us,' i. e. (according to the mode of interpretation which we oppose) to put on an equality with God; nay more, to assume again the rank of Deity. The influence of the religion of Christ, it is repeatedly declared in the New Testament, will be such, that true believers will be conformed to his image. But the language of the Apostle, in 1 Cor. xi. 7, is alone, we think, sufficient to set aside forever the inference that has been drawn from the passages on which we comment. St Paul, in the place referred to, is giving the Church at Corinth some instructions relative to their deportment in public worship; and he uses the following words: a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God.'

Have we not then as much evidence (so far as the language in question is to be admitted) of the Deity of man, as we have of the Deity of Christ? It certainly appears so to our minds. We must acknowledge both to be proved, or neither. To us there is no alternative.

In what then, let us now inquire, did the resemblance of Christ to God consist? What was it in him that we may suppose suggested and warranted the lan

guage of the passages which have led us to these remarks?

We do not apprehend that any one will contradict us if we say, it must have been an intellectual and moral similitude. Yet we greatly misconceive the notions of many of our fellow Christians, if they do not suppose the resemblance to have been something else and more than this. Such has been the language of the creeds and confessions of faith generally adopted in Christian churches that we are persuaded the belief is very prevalent, that there is a likeness in the substance of Jesus to the substance of God, whatever that may be. Indeed some formulas go so far as to declare, that the substance of the two is identical. But to us it seems very obvious, that to affirm or believe either is to transcend the teaching of Revelation. No one surely will pretend that the sacred scriptures give us any information respecting the substance or essence of the Deity. On the contrary, they every where proceed upon the supposition, and often explicitly declare, that he is incomprehensible by us, excepting so far as he has disclosed his character. His power, wisdom, and goodness are revealed, but nothing is made known and we can discover nothing further of his physical or metaphysical nature. The resemblance of Christ to the Father must therefore be in character -in intellectual and moral excellence. We shall attempt in a subsequent number to illustrate this.

S. J. M.