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You repeat also the assertion here, "that in two or three passages, the title (of God) may be given him, (Christ;) but in every case it is given in connexions and under circumstances, which imply that it is not to be received in its highest and most literal sense."

But in no single instance, have you noticed the "connexions & circumstances," in which the appellation God is bestowed on Christ. Can you reasonably expect your thinking readers will take this assertion upon credit? Are you not bound to prove to these same readers, by the Scriptures, interpreted according to the universal laws of explaining human language, that the New Testament writers have not ascribed to Christ CREATIVE power, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, divine worship, divine honours, and eternal existence? What are names in this dispute? Show that these attributes are NOT ascribed to Christ, and you make us Unitarians at once. You ought not to take the advantage of representing our arguments as consisting in that on which we do not place reliance; & then intimate to your readers, "This is all which Trinitarians have to allege in their own favour." Dispute can never be terminated in this way. Meet fairly and openly the points in debate. Many of your readers are certainly too intelligent, and too conscientious to be satistied with any other course. Any other does not become your high chatacter and distinguished talents,

LETTER IV.

Reverend and Dear Sir,

IN my last Letter, I endeavoured to offer reasons, why I believe that Christ is truly divine. You will very naturally expect me, to take some notice of those texts, on which you would specially rely, to prove his inferiority to the Father. This I must do; but in as summary a manner as possible. Not because it would not be easy to say much, even more easy than to write briefly, and yet with perspicuity; but because there would be danger of protracting the subject, and tiring the patience of both writer & reader.

Let me begin then, by stating certain things, which are intimately connected with the subject in question. While I believe that Christ is truly divine, I believe that he is as truly human; that he was a real man, and lived, acted, suffered, and died as a man. He resembled however, man in his primitive state, i. e. Adam, as he came out of the hands of his Maker. He was pure and sinless. But he possessed all the feelings, and all the inpocent infirmities

of human nature. I know no proposition that can be prov ed from the N.Testament, if this cannot; nor do I know of an opinion, more inconsistent with the whole history of Jesus, than that of the Docetæ, who averred that Christ was a man in appearance merely, and not in reality.

I regret, that I am not able to find in your sermon an intimation that Christ was truly and properly a man. All that you appear to maintain, is, that he was a being distinct from the Father, and inferior to him. Perhaps I must retract, therefore, my sentence against the Docete, Jest I should seem to have treated your opinion with severity. But the state of my mind in regard to the weight of evidence, I cannot retract. If the evidence be not overwhelming, that Christ was perfectly a man; I cannot conceive it possible, that any point in theology or morals is ca pable of being established, by the language of the New Testament.

The Gnostics maintained, that from the supreme Divinity proceeded certain Eons, who were a kind of lesser gods, (dii minores ;) and one of which (Christ) created the world, This Eon descended upon Jesus at his baptism, and forsook him at his crucifixion. In what important respect that opinion differs from this, which holds that Christ had a superangelic soul united to a human body, I confess, I cannot see. The Socinian theory seems to me incomparably more rational, and more tenable, than any shade of the Arian hypothesis. If the evidence be not complete, that Christ was really a man from his birth, actions, sufferings, death, and affirmations respecting himself; then how is it to be proved, that Christ ever existed at all? And will any one refuse his assent to the proposition, that Christ possessed a divine nature, because he cannot see how a union of the divine and human natures could take place; and yet believe that a human body was united to a soul not human? To what order or class of beings, then, does this new compound, and strangely mixed person belong? He is not divine; he is not human, for a human soul is surely essential to human nature; nor is he angelic, for angels have no corporeal forms. Are we to be freed from mystery, then, by such a theory? It seems to me, if there be mystery in any theary, which has ever been proposed, respecting the person

of Christ, it may surely be found here. I will not say, (as you do about the twofold nature of Christ, in which we believe,) that "it is an enormous tax upon human credulity;" but I can say, that it appears to me as much like such a tax, as any theory, with which the Church has hitherto been agitated. I can never bring myself to view it as probable, in any degree, unless I find it in the Scriptures. But there, I find that the Logos, who existed before the world was made, was God; that God, who created the universe. I cannot then admit him to be a superangelic being simply, until I am convinced, either that John was mistaken, or that his language has a different meaning, from that which it appears to have.

As to the theory, which maintains that Christ was God's own proper Son, before the creation of the world, (of course before his incarnation ;) and God's own Son in the same sense, or in as real and proper a sense, as Solomon was the Son of David; it is natural to ask first, Who then was his Mother? And secondly; How much does such a theory of Divinities in the Christian system, differ from that, which admitted a Jupiter and his progeny to be gods, among the Greeks and Romans?

We do then, (if you will allow me to use your own expressive words, though applied by you in a connexion somewhat different,) 66 we do maintain, that the human properties and circumstances of Christ, his birth, sufferings and death-his praying to God, his ascribing to God all his power and offices; the acknowledged properties of Christ, we say, oblige us to interpret" them of human nature; and to draw the conclusion, that whatever could be predicated of a real man, pious and sinless, might be predicated of him. How would he-how could he have assumed our nature, (except as the Docetæ affirmed that he did, viz. in appearance only,) unless every thing could be predicated of him, which properly belongs to man? Accordingly, we know that he increased in wisdom, stature, and favour with God and man; that he ate, drank, slept, laboured; was fatigued, hungry, thirsty; rejoiced and sympathized with his brethren, wept, was in an agony-prayed, bled, died, was buried, and rose again. If these things do not forever exclude all hope of making any shade of the Arian theory

probable, I must confess myself a stranger to the nature of evidence, and to what the New Testament contains.

To return to my purpose. The proper humanity of Christ being considered as an established fact; I have one general observation to make on the principles of exegesis, which are connected with it.

It is this; that in as much as Christ has truly a human nature, every thing said of him in respect to this nature, must necessarily be spoken of him in a capacity, in which he is inferior to the Father. In a word; as his human nature is inferior to the Divine, so whatever has relation to it, or is predicated of it, must of course be that which implies inferiority to the Divine.

Do you ask me, how you shall distinguish, when a text speaks of Christ in respect to his human nature, or in respect to his divine nature? I answer: just as when you speak of a man, you distinguish whether what is said, relates to his body or his soul. When I say, Abraham is dead; I mean, obviously, his mortal part. When I say, Abraham is alive; I mean, obviously, his immortal part. When the Evangelist says, that Jesus increased in stature and wisdom, and in favour with God and man; that he ate, drank, slept, prayed, suffered, died and rose again; he obviously means, his human nature did this. When he affirms, that the Logos is God and made the Universe; and when Paul says, that he is "supreme God, blessed forever," I cannot help thinking it to be equally obvious, that they predicate this of his divine nature. The simple answer to your question then, is, that we must determine which nature is described, by what is affirmed concerning it. The subject is known by its predicates.

To the remarks just made, on the proper humanity of Christ, and the principles of exegesis which result from it, let me add,

Secondly; that the appellation Father, is not always used to designate that distinction in the Godhead, which we commonly describe by calling it the first person; but that it is sometimes a general title of the divine Nature. (See Deut. xxxii. 6. Isaiah Ixiii. 16. lxiv. 3. Matt. v. 16, 48. vi. 4. vii. 11. John viii. 41.) In the same manner Kugios, (Lord) is applied often to Christ, in particular; and to God,

as a general appellation. The Divinity is called Father, on account of that peculiar and provident care, which he extends to all the creatures of his power. He is called Lord, (Kupios,) because of his universal dominion.

Proper attention to this obvious principle will explain several passages, which have been thought to relate merely to what is denominated the first person in the Trinity; and to ascribe properties to him, in an exclusive manner.

Thirdly; there is another observation, which I cannot refrain from making here, and which seems to me of great importance, in regard to our mode of thinking and reasoning, on the subject of the distinction in the Godhead. This is, that no terms, which are applied by the Scriptures to designate this distinction, or to predicate any thing of it, can be supposed fully and definitely to express what exists in the Godhead, or what is done by it. The obvious reason of this is, that the language of men, (being all formed from perceptions of finite objects, by beings who are of yesterday, and whose sphere of knowledge is extremely limited,) cannot possibly be adequate to express fully and definitely, what pertains to the self-existent and infinite God. How often do men forget this, in their reasonings about the Deity! In some things nearly all men agree in observing caution, with regard to language which is applied to God. When the Scripture speaks of his having eyes, ears, hands, feet, &c. all men of a sound mind, understand these terms as figurative; for the obvious reason, that "God is a spirit," and that things of this nature can be literally predicated only of human beings, that have flesh and blood. We mean to say, God sees, God hears, God moves, &c. when we attribute to him those members, which we employ in performing such actions. And still, this is. only the language of approximation to full description. What corresponds in the infinite, omniscient, omnipresent Spirit, to our seeing, and hearing, and moving, &c. must necessarily be different, in many important respects, from all these things in us.

When we say, "God is in heaven; the Lord looked down, or came down, from heaven; Jehovah sits upon a throne high and lifted up," or when we predicate any thing of him, which corresponds to the exaltation and mag

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