Later Unitarians in Christianity 229were quite new, and must have appeared extraordinary,
we should certainly have been able to trace the time
when they were communicated to them. They would
naturally have expressed sorne surprise, if they had in
timated no doubt about the truth of the information. If
they received them with unshakenfaith themselves, they
would have taught them to others, who would not have
received them so readily. They would have had the
doubts of sorne to encounter, and the objections of oth
ers to answer. And yet, in all their history, and copions
writings, we perceive no trace of their own surprise, or
doubts or of the surprise, doubts, or objections of others.
It must be acknowledged that the proper object of
prayer is God the Father, Who is called the first person
in the trinity. Indeed, we cannot find in the Script ures
either any precept that will authorise us to address our
selves to any other person, or any proper example of il.
The sort of thing that can be alleged to this purpose,
like Stephen's short address to Christ after he had seen
him in vision, is very inconsiderable. Jesus himself al
ways prayed to his Father, and with as much humility
and resignation as the most dependent being in the uni
verse could possibly do; always addressing him as his
Father, or the Author of his being; and he directs his
disciples to pray to the same Being, the One, he says,
we ought to serve.
Accordingly, the practice of praying to the Father only
was long universal in the Christian church. The short
addresses to Christ, as those in the Litany, 'Lord have
mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us,' being com
paratively of late date. In the Clementine liturgy, the
oldest that is extant, contained in the Apostolical Con
stitutions, which were probably composed about the
fourth century, there is no trace of any such thing. Ori
gen, in a large treatise on the subject of prayer, urges
very forcibly the propriety of praying to the Father only,
and not to Christ; and as he gives no hint that the public
forms of prayer had anything reprehensible in them in
that respect, we are naturally led to conclude that, in
his time, such petitions to Christ were unknown in the
public assemblies of Christians.