master, sin; by the purchaser; and the purchaser is God. “I speak after the manner of men,” says St. Paul, “because of the infirmity of your flesh.” i.e. I adopt the phraseology of a common transaction because your minds are not sufficiently accustomed to the contemplation of higher things to understand them without a metaphor; but the Unitarian forgets, when asserting that the ransom was not paid _to_ God, that it was paid _by_ God: and that man, the slave, was bought from sin, the master, at no less a price than the condescension of the Deity himself to the infirmity of our flesh, by making himself visibly and tangibly known to his creatures, through the medium of a human form. I have now endeavoured to give a dispassionate view of the doctrines of these sects, hitherto so much misunderstood, and having marked the points wherein they appear to me to recede from Christian truth, I have the pleasanter task before me, of showing by extracts from their writings, how large a portion of the religion which we all profess, they still retain, and I may say from experience, on most occasions conscientiously act upon. “If with the Apostle we glory in the cross of Christ, or in that religion which could not have been confirmed without his death, let us not only be careful to govern our lives by the precepts of it in general, but more particularly be prepared to suffer what the strictest profession of it may call us to. Let us remember that our Saviour hath said, if any man will be his disciple he must “take up his cross, and follow him.” That is, he must be ready to do it rather than abandon the profession of the Gospel, or whatever the strictest purity of it may require. A true Christian is no more _of this world_ than his Lord and Master was of it. With him every thing here below is but of secondary consideration, &c.—but this we must remember for our consolation, that if, in time of persecution “He that keepeth his life shall lose it,” “He that loseth his life” for the profession of the Gospel “shall keep it to life eternal.” “If we suffer with Christ, we shall also reign with him and be glorified together.” {47}