Christian Church is one huge institution of idolatry. We do not,
observe, attempt as Christians to conceal our faith in Christ's
divinity, or to modify it so as to escape, if possible, such an
imputation. We necessarily accept this conclusion, unless our faith
is grounded on _fact_. We boldly declare that we believe in Jesus of
Nazareth; love Him, trust Him, obey Him, _as we do God Almighty_, and
with the same degree of faith and reverence. In the one name of the
Father, Son, and Spirit, we have been baptized, and that name we
honour as One, ascribing equal glory to each Person in the Godhead.
Such a creed as this may startle some and offend others, but it is
nevertheless the creed which is and has been the faith of universal
Christendom, which millions with ourselves believe unhesitatingly, and
confess as boldly as they do their faith in the being of God. Now what
we assert is, that if Jesus was a mere man, or was not "God manifest
in the flesh," we and all Christians so believing are _idolaters_ in
the strictest sense of that word. Our churches are idol temples where
a dead man is worshipped; our ministers idol priests, who ever preach
and commemorate this man, pray to him, sing praises to him, and
consecrate generation after generation to his service; our people
commit their souls and bodies to the keeping of this man for time and
eternity, and all their hopes are inseparably connected with him as
their Lord;--while amidst this universal defection of the human race,
this wide-spread idolatry which has taken possession of the most
cultivated and intellectual nations, and threatens to overrun the
world and absorb all other idolatries into itself, there appears but
a trifling number who maintain the pure light of theism, and preserve
the truth of God unsullied for the coming, and it is to be hoped,
therefore, for better, ages of the world. And who are these? Jews,
Deists, and Unitarians. On these depend the world's hopes of its ever
becoming regenerated by a theology of truth regarding God. Now, does