attentive hearing, and a calm consideration of what may be stated. I have not the slightest desire to mislead any individual. I wish people to keep their minds wide awake. I wish them to listen with particular attention. I wish them to carry their Bibles in their minds, as far as they have them in remembrance, and to compare, as I pass along, every thing that I state with the doctrines of Jesus, as recorded in the sacred Scriptures. If I am found to teach any thing contrary to what Jesus Christ taught, I wish you to reject it without ceremony. If I am found to oppose any thing which Jesus Christ taught, I wish you to oppose me. I wish you simply to be guided by the doctrines of Jesus, and to admit nothing which I have to state except in so far as I give the plain testimony of Christ and his apostles for the statements which I lay before you.

I am, of course, aware that many of the statements which I shall have to make, and which I shall feel bound to advocate, will be somewhat new and strange to the ears of many who may hear me. But all that is strange to us, is not at variance with truth. There may be many here that have still something to learn. Perhaps we none of us are wise to perfection. Let us therefore endeavour to judge calmly and candidly; and give to every thing that may be stated by either disputant, both a fair hearing, and a just, deliberate, and honest consideration.

I shall proceed, myself, to state my views on the first great question under consideration; namely "What is a Christian?" I shall then, after having stated my own views, proceed to notice the views which have been advanced by my opponent. I shall proceed, in the first place, to state my own views with respect to the first question-What is a Christian?

It

In the first place, then, a Christian is a disciple of Jesus Christ. In Acts, 11th chap. and 26th verse, it is stated that "the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch." is plain then, that Christian was only another word for disciple. The word " Christian," is another name given to those who previously bore the name of " disciples,"-disciples of Jesus Christ.

I observe, in the second place, that the word disciple is a Latin word, which signifies a scholar, or a learner. A disciple of Jesus Christ, therefore, is a learner, or a scholar of

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Christ; one who receives Jesus Christ as his teacher, one who places himself under Christ as an instructor sent from God, with a desire to learn Christ's doctrines, that he may reduce them to practice. Every individual, then, who receives Jesus as a teacher come from God, and who places himself under Jesus as a scholar, with a view to learn the Christian doctrine, in order that he may be conducted to present purity and happiness, and to future everlasting blessedness, is a Christian. And this, I may say, is the whole that is included in being a Christian. Every one that receives Jesus as a teacher, and seeks to learn in order to practice his doctrines, is a Christian: and no one else but those who thus receive him as a teacher, and place themselves under him in order to learn and practice his teachings, can be regarded as a Christian.

The word "disciples" is frequently employed in other cases, besides that of Christ and his followers. We read of John's disciples, and of Moses's disciples. A disciple of Moses was one who believed that God spoke by Moses. A disciple of John was one who believed that his baptism and doctrine were from heaven. A man who thus received Moses as a person through whom God spoke, and who received and obeyed the doctrines taught by Moses, was a true disciple of Moses. Those who received the baptism and doctrine of John, or regarded John as a messenger from God, were true disciples of John. And one who receives Jesus as a teacher come from God, and places himself under his instruction and government, is a true disciple of Jesus; and as the term Christian means a disciple of Christ, every such person is a true Christian.

If you refer to the 9th chapter of John, you will find a conversation between the man whose eyes had been opened and the Pharisees, which may illustrate these remarks. Beginning at the 17th verse, you read," They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, he is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight." They asked the parents, who said their son was born blind; but as to the manner in which he received his sight, they again referred him to their son, saying, he was of age, and should speak for himself. "Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise; we know that this man is

a sinner.

He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. Then said they to him again, What did he to thee how opened he thine eyes? He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear wherefore would ye hear it again will ye also be his disciples? Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.” And so forth. That man was a disciple, because he received Jesus as the great teacher, and placed himself under his instruction and government. The Pharisees would have become his disciples, if they had received him as one sent from God. They were Moses' disciples, because they believed that God spake by Moses; and they would have been Jesus' disciples, if they had believed his doctrines, and placed themselves under his instruction and government.

I may observe, that as a child is a scholar, or a learner, from the moment that he chooses an individual as his teacher, and enters the school with the intention of learning the lessons there taught, and submitting himself to the authority of the person who teaches; so it is in reference to parties entering the school of Christ, and choosing him for their teacher. They are disciples, scholars, and therefore Christians, from the moment they make their choice of Jesus as a teacher,—from the moment they begin to study his doctrines with a hearty intention of reducing them to practice. It does not require a certain amount of learning or knowledge to make a man a Christian. As in a school there may be a hundred scholars, and no two of them possess the same amount of knowledge, and yet all are scholars-all learners— and all may be equally submissive to the teaching and authority of the master; so in the school of Christ, there may be ten thousand, or ten thousand times ten thousand scholars, who, having entered and received him as their teacher, and heartily placed themselves under his instruction and government, are true disciples, learners, scholars; and yet not two of them have the same amount of knowledge. They may differ endlessly in knowledge or opinion; still, as they have chosen Jesus as their teacher, and placed themselves

under his instruction and guidance, they are equally his scholars, or disciples; and, as the word Christian is another name for the term disciple, they are from that time true Christians.

I give this statement in opposition to a vast number of false definitions as to what it is that constitutes a man a Christian. We are sometimes told that a man cannot be a Christian unless he believes certain opinions. For example, we are told that a man cannot be a Christian unless he believes in the Trinity; unless he believes in satisfaction to the justice of God by the death of Christ; unless he believes in natural, total, and hereditary depravity, the depravity of every child born into the world. I am wishful to show that these accounts of what constitutes a Christian, are not warranted by Scripture: that, on the contrary, the Scriptures give that simple, intelligible, plain definition of the matter which I have just briefly laid before you.

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I shall meet some of these objections as they present themselves. We are told, in the first place, that a man is not a Christian unless he believes in the Trinity,—or that there are three persons in the Godhead. I answer, the Scriptures do not say so. They never mention such a thing. There is no such word as Trinity" in the Scriptures there is no such phrase as "three persons in one God." There are no words in Scripture that can fairly be asserted to amount to the same thing as these phrases. Nay, these phrases,-three persons in one God, Trinity in Unity, and the like, are acknowledged to be inexplicable and unintelligible by the parties who use them. So that it would be vain to seek for the meaning in other phrases, when the meaning itself is not yet understood. Again, while the Scriptures never teach that a man cannot be a Christian unless he believes in the Trinity, they do teach, and that most clearly, the contrary;-they teach that a man may be a Christian—a disciple of Christ, before he even knows whether there be such a thing as a Holy Ghost; to say nothing about finding out the Holy Ghost to be a third person in the Godhead. "It came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts, came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, we have not so much

as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." They were disciples. Paul regarded them as true Christian disciples. But yet they had not so much as heard whether there was any Holy Ghost.

Another statement is that a man cannot be a Christian unless he believes in Satisfaction to Justice by the death of Christ. I answer, that the Scriptures do not say so. There is no such doctrine as the doctrine of Satisfaction-the doctrine that Christ died to satisfy divine justice, in the whole sacred volume. The death of Jesus Christ is never represented in the sacred writings as a satisfaction to divine justice. On the contrary, it is represented as a means to redeem men from iniquity, to purify them, and make them peculiar people, zealous of good works; and thus to bring people to happiness and to God. In the second place, the Scriptures teach that there were many disciples of Christ before it was discovered that Christ would die at all, or that he would rise again from the dead. Peter, and James, and John, and their companions, were disciples, and had been so for a length of time; and yet in the 16th chapter of Matthew, we have the following account respecting this matter, beginning at the 21st verse :-" From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and Chief Priests and Scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, adversary, thou art an offence unto me for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men," Peter, therefore, though in many respects he savoured the things that were of God, and was ready both to preach and to suffer for Christ's sake, could not entertain the idea of Christ's death; and of course could not be a believer in that death being a satisfaction to divine justice. And yet he was a disciple; and in the preceding verses of the same chapter he is pronounced blessed, because he had believed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God ;proving that believing this is the faith which makes men disciples; and that the faith which receives the death of Christ as true may not come till afterwards. These individuals were disciples before they learned that important doc