the Author of
life, merely as the supreme Being, God has reference to us in relation
to the body. He is the Lord of life: in Him we live, and move, and
have our being. In this respect God to us is as law--as the collected
laws of the universe; and therefore to offend against law, and bring
down the result of transgressing law, is said in Scripture language,
because applied to a person, to be provoking the wrath of God the
Father.

In the next place, the second way through which the personality and
consciousness of God has been revealed to us is as the Son. Brethren,
we see in all those writers who have treated of the Trinity, that much
stress is laid upon this eternal generation of the Son, the
everlasting sonship. It is this which we have in the Creed--the Creed
which was read to-day--"God, of the substance of the Father, begotten
before the worlds;" and, again, in the Nicene Creed, that expression,
which is so often wrongly read, "God of God, Light of Light, very God
of very God," means absolutely nothing. There are two statements made
there. The first is this, "The Son was God:" the second is this, "The
Son was--_of_ God," showing his derivation. And in that, brethren, we
have one of the deepest and most blessed truths of revelation. The
Unitarian maintains a divine Humanity--a blessed, blessed truth. There
is a truth more blessed still--the Humanity of Deity. Before the world
was, there was that in the mind of God which we may call the Humanity
of His Divinity. It is called in Scripture the Word: the Son: the Form
of God. It is in virtue of this that we have a right to attribute to
Him our own feelings; it is in virtue of this that Scripture speaks of
His wisdom, His justice, His love. Love in God is what love is in man;
justice in God is what justice is in man; creative power in God is
what creative power is in man; indignation in God is that which
indignation is in man, barring only this, that the one is emotional,
but the other is calm, and pure, and everlastingly still. It is
through this Humanity in the mind of God, if I may dare so to speak of
Deity, that a revelation became possible to man. It was the Word that
was made flesh; it was the Word that manifested Itself to man. It is
in virtue of the connection between God and man, that God made man in
His own image; that through a long line of prophets the human truth of
God could be made known to man, till it came forth devel