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seriously and deliberately on these momentous terms, Saviour and Salvation, and I am persuaded you will want no further argument to convince you of your Redeemer’s Divinity, provided you are not unwilling to be convinced.
You yourselves allow that that Holy One, who was born in the world as on this day, was and is the Saviour, and that he worked and does work Salvation. But do you know, or have you considered what Salvation is? Do you know that Salvation must needs be a divine work, because it implies the saving of souls? For from what, let me ask, are souls to be saved, but from sin, and from hell, and from death? And who can save from these direful enemies until he hath first conquered and subdued them? And who can conquer and subdue sin, and hell, and death, but the Omnipotent God alone?
But further—Salvation, of necessity, implies Reformation and Regeneration, for it is not possible (as the Sacred Scriptures continually testify), that man can be saved, unless he be first reformed and regenerated. Of consequence, he who is the Saviour of men, must needs be also their previous Reformer and Regenerated, in order, finally, to become their Saviour.
But do you know, or have you ever seriously considered, what Reformation and Regeneration are? Do you know that these terms imply the making man anew, or, in other words, the forming him into a new creature? And who, let me ask, can do this but God alone? Who, but God alone, could first create man? And if the first creation
