made known to us is as the Father, the Author of our being.  It is written, “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.”  He is the Author of all life.  In this sense He is not merely our Father as Christians, but the Father of mankind; and not merely the Father of mankind, but the Father of creation; and in this way the sublime language of the prophets may be taken as true literally, “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy;” and the language of the canticle which belongs to our morning service, “the deeps, the fountains, the wells,” all unite in one hymn of praise, one everlasting hallelujah to God the Father, the Author of their being.  In this respect, simply as 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