Mal. iii. 1. Behold, I will send my messenger, & he shall prepare the way before me; & the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in ; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

- Ps.lxxviii.56. Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, & kept not bis testimonies.

Mark i. 2. As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

1 Cor.x.9. Neither let us tempt Christ,as some of them also tempted,& were destroyed of serpents.

It were easy to increase the number of such passages as these, but I shall desist. Instead of that want of evidence, in the N.Test., with respect to the divinity of Christ, of which you repeatedly speak, and in strong terms; I find evidence almost every where to illustrate and confirm the doctrine in question.

Thus have I endeavoured to show, that the N. Test. bestows upon Christ the appellation of God, accompanied by such adjuncts as naturally, (not to say necessarily,) lead us to understand this word, in its bighest sense; that it attributes to him equality with God; that it represents him as the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the universe; declares his omniscience, his omnipotence, and his eternity; and both by precepts and examples, exhibits Christ as the object of prayer and divine worship, by the Church in heaven and on earth. To these conclusions, do the plain rules of exegesis necessarily conduct me. I am sensible that allegations are frequently made, that we receive our systems of belief from the Creeds and Confessions of faith, which have descended from former unenlightened, and superstitious or philosophizing ages. That some of our phraseology has been derived from men, who sometimes speculated too boldly, and substituted names for ideas; I am ready to concede. I feel the embarrassments, that on account of this, are occasionally thrown in the way of inculcating truth, at the present time. Men are very apt to suppose, that if you throw away the old terms, or names, you reject the old ideas also. Yet it can be only superficial thinkers, who will soberly believe this. It is in general, therefore, a sufficient reason with me for dismissing phraseology, when it must almost of necessity, be misunderstood by the great body of men. Yet a sudden and entire revolution in the common technical

terms of theology, would be very undesirable; because such a revolution must again lead, at first, to other misapprehensions. I am willing, therefore, to retain many terms, which have become venerable for their antiquity, that I should reject without hesitation, if they were now presented de

novo.

I am not conscious of being led to the adoption of Trinitarian views, or to the ascription of true and proper Divinity to Christ, by any Creed or any human authority on earth. Unless I am quite ignorant of myself, the only influence which Creeds and Confessions exercise over me, is to modify my phraseology. I take the language of theology as I find it; and do not venture upon the composition of a new nomenclature.

My sole business, these ten years past, has been the study of the Bible; and the study of it, in the daily use of those principles of exegesis, which you have for the most part, so briefly and so happily described. I began this study, as I believed, with a desire to know what the Bible has taught. I have pursued it with increased desire, with unabated ardour. I have limited my studies to no one class of writers; but have solicitously endeavoured to seek for truth, and to receive it thankfully, from whatever quarter it might come. In particular; at least three quarters of my time have been spent among writers of the Unitarian class, from whom I have received, with gratitude, much instruction relative to the philology, the exegesis, and the literary history of the Scriptures. I am accustomed to reject any explanation of the Scriptures, that is not founded upon the general principles of exegesis, which you have developed. Whether an orthodox or heterodox use can be made of any interpretation, is what I habitually endeavour to lay out of view, when I interpret the Scriptures. The simple question, which I desire to place before me, is; "What has God said? What has Christ taught?" I aim at being guided by the fundamental principles of explanation in all writings, when I pursue these inquiries in the Scriptures. And when I come to a satisfactory answer, I regard this as of divine authority; as real orthodoxy, in the highest and best sense of the word.

I do not, indeed, regard the opinions of great and good men, in past ages, as unworthy of attention and even of rev

erence. If I read them with a proper temper of mind, there are few of them who may not be read with profit. The reasonings of Athanasius and Augustine, I can peruse with pleasure; so I can those of Calvin and Edwards. But I adopt no opinion because they adopted it. The reasons of their opinion are the object of my investigation; it is of but little interest to me, to know simply that they believed this or that doctrine. And with the very same object, I read the opponents of these great men. I can say with truth, that much more of my reading life has been spent among the opponents of my sentiments, than among the friends of them. Can you make the same affirmation?

After all, it is a principle, by which, if I have any knowledge of my own heart, I desire forever to be guided, to "call no man master, on earth." I would place the decision of Scripture, fairly made out IMMEASURABLY ABOVE all human opinions. I regard the one as the decision of an unerring GOD; the other, as the opinions of fallible men.

It is with such views and principles of reasoning, that I have come to the conclusions, which have been developed in these letters..

And now, in concluding this letter, permit me to say, That as reason does not, and cannot, decide against the doctrine of the Trinity, as explained in my second Letter; nor against the union of the divine and human natures in Christ; the question whether these are truths or not, rests solely on the decision of revelation. What then is that decision? This question I have endeavoured to answer.

I will now acknowledge, that I was induced to undertake the above examination, in consequence of the challenge which you make, [p. 9,] in the following words; "We challenge our opponents, to adduce one passage in the New Testament, where the word God.... unless turned from its usual sense by the connexion, does not mean the Father." I have accepted this challenge, not I hope in the spirit of contest, but with the desire of contributing, so far as lies in my power, to develope what the New Testament does teach. I have laboured to show, that the very reason above all other reasons, why I believe Christ to be truly divine, is because the connexion, when he is called God, ascribes to him such attributes and works, as leave me no room to

doubt, that the New Testament writers meant to assert his proper divinity.

66

After stating your apprehensions, in regard to the doctrine that Christ has two natures, the belief of which, you affirm, is " an enormous tax on human credulity;" you say, [p. 14,]"I am aware, that these remarks will be met by two or three texts, in which Christ is called God, and by a class of passages not very numerous, in which divine properties are said to be ascribed to him." Whether the number of texts, in which Christ is called God, amounts to no more than two or three, it would be superfluous now to inquire, when they lie before us, & can easily be counted. We can also judge, whether the "class of passages" is not very numerous, in which divine properties are said to be ascribed to him," with equal facility. It is too late, however, for you and me to rest our faith upon the number of passages that inculcate a doctrine. We have conceded the Bible to be of divine authority. The simple question is,what, according to the rules of interpretation in all other cases, does any passage mean? This being ascertained, only two courses are before us; the one, to receive its meaning as the guide of our faith; the other to reject its authority, and deny our obligation to believe the decisions of the Scripture. If the New Testament does teach, that Christ is not really divine, but a finite creature, and this can be made out by an unbiassed interpretation of it; I will either receive this doctrine, receive it implicitly, (for, if I am not deceived in respect to myself, I only desire to know what God has taught, in order to believe it ;) or else I will reject all claims to inspiration in the sacred writers, and follow their instructions, only so far as they coincide with my own speculations. I am fully satisfied that there is no middle part here; and that a man who investigates for himself, extensively and independently, must eventually follow one or the other of these courses.

Convince me then, that you apply the principles of interpretation which you have laid down, in an unbiassed manner; and that the New Testament does, according to them, clearly teach, that Jesus is not, and cannot be divine; and you will make me a convert to the doctrines, (at least some of them,) which you embrace. Where the apostles lead

me, I will go; or else renounce all deference to them. While I have a being also, I will cherish a grateful remembrance of any man, who shall convince me by sound reasoning, that I am in an error and am wandering from the paths of life.

But you will allow me to say, what you will doubtless affirm of yourself; "I cannot be convinced, until I am satisfied that my principles of interpretation are wrong, and my application of them erroneous." You have described,(p.14,) in what manner yon avoid the conclusion drawn from those texts which call Christ God, and which apparently ascribe divine attributes to him. On the principles of exegesis there disclosed, I shall remark in another letter. I will at present say only, that they appear to me far from being well established.

6

Your candour will easily concede, that the positions which I have just laid down are correct, and are such as become every sincere lover of truth. I am very ready to grant, that we ought not to expect to convince you and your friends, by using reproachful epithets, or severe appellations. We cannot convince you, by appealing to our New England Fathers, or their Creeds; to the ancient Fathers of the Church, or any body of men whatever. You may always reply to us, Are not men fallible? And have not the best of uninspired men cherished some errors? Give us the reasons why our Fathers received the doctrines in question, and then we will hear you: the fact that they did receive them is a part of church history, but certainly no theological argument. The papal hierarchy is supported by the Fathers; and there never has been a sect in Christendom, who could not, sooner or later, make an appeal to Fathers, whom they respected,'

Nor can we convince you, by a tenacious and unreasonable opposition to all critical examination of the New Tes tament; or by throwing out hints in our sermons or writings, that critical studies belong only to those, who have a wish to be heretical or skeptical; or by a forced and mystical explanation of various passages of Scripture, and converting them to the support of sentiments, which they never were designed to support. The sound rules of interpretation, will soon sweep away every vestige of such defective opin