Is this Christianity, or is it not a renewal of the old doctrines of Pagan philosophy? They held that matter is eternal, although they did not think with you that our system had existed through all eternity. Plato believed the world to be the work of God out of existing matter; but it was the general belief of the learned at a period preceding the coming of Jesus Christ, (as it appears to be your's,) that the soul of man is an emission of the divine nature, and that all are partakers of it--and from hence they drew the natural, and indeed unavoidable inference, that as God is immortal and the soul of man a part of him, it must necessarily have existed from all eternity. This idea, so incompatible with God's moral government, completely excludes the doctrine of rewards and punishments; for if "all that comes from him must return to him, and is part of his nature," how can the soul, when absorbed in the divine essence, be rewarded for its virtues or punished for its vices practised on earth? So far from being alarmed at this conclusion, you appear to have adopted both the idea and the inference; for you say, "to be in the image of God we must partake of his own nature, and have a portion of his own blessed spirit _to animate the soul and make it immortal, as God is immortal_."[62] Footnote 62: Sermons, page 66. Hence it must follow, that if the only immortal part in man is the portion of the blessed Spirit of which he is the partaker, and that this is a part of the nature of God, it must be bestowed equally on the good and the wicked, or that no part of the latter can be immortal; and this extraordinary consequence must result, that _worship in spirit_ is not the homage of man to his Creator, but the Divinity adoring himself.[63] Footnote 63: As much you pull Religion's altars down, By owning all things God, as owning none; For should all beings be alike divine, Of worship, if an object you assign, God to himself must veneration show, Must be the object and the votary too; And their assertions are alike absurd, Who own no God, or none to be adored. BLACKMORE.