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tures speak of the god of Ekron; the god of the Ammonites; the gods of the heathen, &c. Is a mistake possible here? But the Logos is called God simply. Nor is this all. Admitting that the name of itself determines nothing, (and for sake of the argument, I am willing to admit it ;) yet the writer has added explanations of his meaning, which seem to place what he intended to assert, by the expression in question, beyond the reach of fair debate.

Verse

John i. 3. “All things were [made] by him; and without him was nothing [made] which was [made]. 10. The world was [made] by him."

I have excluded the word made, by placing it in brackets, merely to show that the sense is in no wise changed, by the version of those critics, who tell us that yɛɛzo never means made, but simply was. Yet nothing can be farther from correctness, than such an assertion. Accordingly, wote and you are used as synonymes; as in James iii. 9, compare Gen. i. 26, in the Septuagint; Gen. ii. 4.— Isaiah xlviii. 7. The cases where yoμaι means to make, or produce, are so numerous and obvious, that a moment's delay in respect to this part of the subject would be useless. Schleusner's Lexicon, under the word yoμer, will furnish adequate proof of this. If not, read the commentary of Theodoret on the two first chapters of Genesis, which places the question, as to the use of yeaı, beyond debate.

But what are the "all things," the universe, (ra KAVTA,) which the Logos made, or created? "The moral worldthe Christian church;" answers Faustus Socinus. To this exposition, however, there are two objections. First, a part of these ra nata, are in verse 10 represented as ( xosμos,) the world; a term no where in the N. Testament applied to the Christian church, nor to men as morally amended by the gospel. Secondly, this very world, ( Rocμos,) which he created, did not know or acknowledge him, avrov ovx syve: whereas the distinguishing trait of Christians is, that they know Christ; that they know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.

Ta Tava then, which the Logos created, means, (as common usage and the exigency of the passage require,) the universe; the worlds material and immaterial. (Ver. 10.)

Here, consequently, in the first chapter of John, is a passage in which, beyond all reasonable doubt, Christ is called God; and where the context, instead or furnishing us with reasons for understanding the word God in an inferior sense, (as is usual, when this designation is applied to inferior beings.) has plainly and unequivocally taught us, that this God, eos, who was the Logos, created the universe.. The question then is reduced to this simple state; Is he, who created the Universe, truly and properly divine? On this question I shall make a few remarks, when I have considered some other passages, which ascribe the work, of creation to Christ.

Heb. i. 10-12, "And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish, but thou re-, mainest; and they shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail."

These words are spoken of the Son of God; for they are intimately connected by the conjunction and, with ver.. 8, where it is written, "But unto the Son he saith," &c. According to the laws of grammar, and most clearly according to the nature and design of the Apostle's argument, the ellipsis to be supplied, in the beginning of the tenth verse, after and (xx) is, " And [to the Son he saith,] Thou, Lord," &c. No other exposition can be pointed out, which does not make a violent divulsion of the passage, from the connexion of the writer's argument.

The question still remains; What is meant by founding the earth, and by the heavens being the work of Christ's hands? To answer the first question, and place the answer beyond the possibility of a reasonable doubt, it is necessary only to compare the passages, in which Jehovah is said to have founded the earth. By this phrase, the creation of it is indubitably meant. The passages may be found, in Ps. xxiv. 2. lxxxix. 11. civ. 5. cxix. 90. Job xxxviii. 4. Prov. iii. 19. Is. xlviii. 13. li. 13. Zech. xii. 1; where, if you inspect the Septuagint, you will see the very verb SEMEλow employed, which the apostle uses in our text.

In regard to the "heavens being the works of Christ's

"The

hands;" it is an expression plainly of similar import to the one just examined, and signifies the creation of the heavens. Thus, Ps. viii. 4, 6; "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy hands;" which is parallel with, moon and stars which thou hast ordained,' (Septuagint, εθεμελίωτας.) So in verse 6th, "And hast placed him over the works of thy hands; all things hast thou put under his feet;" i. e. placed him over the creation.

To p prove that the phrase to create the heavens and the earth, means to create all things, it is necessary only to consult Gen. i. 1. Ex. xx. 11. xxxi. 17. Neh. ix. 6. Ps. cxxi. 2. cxxiv. 8. cxxxiv. 3, and other like passages, which a Concordance will supply.

It will be remembered, that the passage in question, (Heb. i. 10-12,) is a quotation from the Old Testament; and that to quote the language of the Old Testament, therefore, in order to explain it, is peculiarly appropriate and necessary.

Would any one, now, unembarrassed by peculiarity of system, ever suspect that Christ's founding the earth, and the heavens being the works of his hands, could mean any thing less than the creation of the Universe? Yet we have been told, by some distinguished Unitarians, that the heavens mean the Christian state or dispensation, and the earth the Jewish one.

But first, this is against usage, either in the Old or New Testament; there being nothing to support such a sense of it. Isaiah indeed speaks of creating a NEW heaven, and a NEW earth, (lxv. 17 ;) and of planting the heavens and the earth, (li. 16.) in a moral sense, i. e. making a moral change or creation. But then the language itself, in the first case, indicates, that the old creation is NOT meant; and in the second case, the context makes it as clear, what kind of heaven and earth is to be planted or established, and what the planting of them means, viz. the Jewish church and state is to be renewed and established. The meaning then assigned by some Unitarians to the passage in Heb. i. is against the plain and perpetual usage of the Scriptures, in regard to such expressions, when they occur in an unlimited form, as they do in the passage under examination.

Secondly; if the Jewish and the Christian states are here

meant, in what sense are they to wax old as a garment, and to be changed? Of the Jewish state, this might without much difficulty be affirmed. But how the Christian dispensation is to be changed; how that "kingdom, which shall have NO end," (Luke i. 33,) is to "perish," I am unable to explain.

"It is a moral creation of which Christ is the author," says Artemonius i. e. Crellius; (Init. Evang. Johan.) This however does not explain the matter; for how is it that the moral creation of Christ is to be changed and perish, i. e. to be annihilated? Most obviously, his moral creation is to be eternal.

Another method of explaining this subject has been, to aver that the passage here quoted by the apostle, from Ps. cii. 25-27, is, in the Original, plainly applicable to Je hovah only; and that none would conjecture, from the simple perusal of this Psalm, how Christ could be the subject of it. Conceding that the passage is applicable to Jehovah only, (and it would be difficult to show why this is not to be conceded,) what is the consequence? Either that the apostle has, directly and without qualification, applied to Christ, language used by an inspired writer of the Old Testament to designate the Creator of the world, with his eternal and immutable nature; or that he has, (in a way singular indeed for a man of piety and honesty,) accommodated language descriptive of the infinite Jehovah only, to a created and dependent being. Kupte (Lord,) in the Greek, corresponds to the word Jehovah in the original Hebrew; the Septuagint having commonly rendered it in this manner. And though Jehovah is not in the Hebrew text, (Ps, cii. 25,) yet it is evident, from the prece ding context that it must be understood there, as the subject of the verb no, thou hast founded. Christ then is here called by the Apostle, Jehovah; and eternity, immutability, and the creation of the universe are ascribed to him.*

* I readily admit, that xvgios is not always synonymous with Jehovah. But where the word Jehovah is used, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, xvgios stands, in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, as the translation of it. Therefore zugies in the New Testament must of course, in such cases,

I cannot think that the paraphrase of Grotius, on the pas sage in question, deserves a serious refutation. "Thou wast the cause," says he, " that the earth was founded, and on thy account the heavens were made." If this be not a different thing from what the language of the apostle naturally means, or can mean; I confess, I know not any bounds which may be set to paraphrastic or mystical exegesis. Suppose now the Gnostics, who maintained that evil demons, and not Jehovah, created the world, should have paraphrased the first verse in Genesis, in this manner; "Thou Jehovah wast the cause, why the heavens and the earth were created;" and when asked, how this could consist with their sentiments, or what they could mean by it; they should have replied, "Out of enmity to thee, the evil demons brought the material creation into existence :" then they would have explained away the creative act of Jehovah, exactly as Grotius explains away the evidence that Christ was the Creator.

Col. i. 15-17. "Who is the image of the invisible God, the head of all creation; for by him were all things created, both celestial and terrestrial, visible and invisible, of whatever order or rank they are; all things were created by him and for him. Therefore he was before all things, and by him are all things sustained."

The places, in which I have departed from our common -version, are not differently rendered in order to make them favour the cause which I have espoused; for they determine nothing respecting the point now at issue. They are rendered as above, merely to make the meaning of the

have the same meaning as Jehovah in the Old Testament. The reason, why nvgios is used by the New Testament writers as the translation of Jehovah in the Hebrew Scriptures, is, that the Jews in reading their sacred writings, were not accustomed to pronounce the word Jehovah (m), but read, for the most part Lord, xupios, in the room of it. This custom is at least as old as the Septuagint Version, which translates by nugios, and thus exhibits proof, that the modern custom of reading 1 for was then religiously observed. Josephus speaks of Jehovah, 17, as the name which ov Deμig esmer, it is not lawful to utter.

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