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XIII. Saviour or Deliverer.

Acts v. 31. "Him hath God exalted to be a prince and a saviour"-owing.

This title is applied to Christ upwards of fifteen times in the New Testament. Christ was the deliverer of the Jews from the bondage and curse of the Law, Gal. iii. 13; -of the Gentiles from the bondage of idolatry, Gal. iv. 8; —and of all mankind from sin and misery 57.

XIV. King of kings, and Lord of lords.

Rev. xvii. 14. "And the Lamb shall overcome them; for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings." See also ch. xix. 16.

q. d. A great king, a mighty lord. It is a common form of the superlative degree. See Ezek. xxvi. 7. Ezra vii. 12.58

nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one (ɛis, one person,') in Christ Jesus.”- "Ye are all one body, making up one person in Christ Jesus." Locke in loc.-Ver. 27, "As many of you as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ.". "So that to God looking upon them there appears nothing but Christ." Locke, ibid.

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57 The word wryp, saviour, expresses 'deliverer;' and owrypia, salvation, deliverance in general.' See Acts vii. 25. Jud, iii. 9. 15. 2 Kings xiii. 5. See Simpson's Essays, vol. ii. p. 259.

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Simpson, Ess. VI. sect. 71.

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SECTION

SECTION VIII.

COLLECTION OF PASSAGES WHICH ARE SUPPOSED TO TEACH THAT CHRIST IS THE MAKER AND PRESERVER OF ALL THINGS.

I. John i. 3. " ALL things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made which was made."

The whole proem of the Gospel of John has been already considered at large, and this text in particular. See p. 20, where it is translated, "All things were done through him, and without him not a single thing was done which was done." Christ, the Logos or Teacher of truth, was the medium through whom every thing relating to the new dispensation was accomplished 1.

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1 Dr. Price, Serm. p. 143, maintains that "the term world in Scripture means only this world:' and that all things mean only all things belonging to this world:' and that the apostles probably never thought of a plurality of worlds." Also, "that the formation of the world by Christ does not imply creation from nothing, that probably 'being peculiar to Almighty power, but only an arrangement of them in their present order." Dr. Priestley, with great force of argument, contends, that there is no foundation for the distinction between creation and other appropriate acts of the Deity. He asks," Since God is said to have created matter, and the Logos to have formed it into worlds, whether we are also to believe that the Deity created immaterial substance, and the Logos formed it into spirit?" He also argues that it is quite arbitrary to limit the operation of the Logos to this world, or to the solar system: for that, as far as our observation extends, the universe does not consist of detached and insulated parts, but forms one connected harmonious system, in which each part bears a relation to the whole: so that it seems reasonable to believe that it is the production of one almighty and intelligent Being. Dr. Priestley's Letters to Dr. Price, part i. lett. 3.

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II. John

II. John i. 10. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not."

The world was enlightened by him: Or the moral creation was formed, or renewed by him: Or, according to Mr. Cappe, The world was made for him; the Jewish dispensation was calculated to excite an expectation of him, and to prepare the way for him 2.

See

page 23. III. 1 Cor. viii. 6. "But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him," Els autov, 'to him,' q. d. his creatures and servants; "and one Lord Jesus Christ, by," or through,' Sia, "whom are all things, and we by," or through, "him."

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This is an extract from a letter of the Corinthian christians to the apostle, pleading for the lawfulness of eating things offered to idols. q. d. Whereas the Gentiles have many celestial gods, and many terrestrial or herogods, we have learned to acknowledge one God only, the Father, the creator and proprietor of all things, whose creatures, whose worshippers, and whose servants we are; and one Lord and Master Jesus Christ, through whose ministration this new dispensation was introduced, and by whose ministers and messengers we have been converted to the christian faith, and invited to participate in the blessings of the Gospel 3.

IV. Eph. iii. 9. "-the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ."

The words by Jesus Christ are wanting in the Alexandrine, Vatican, Ephrem, Clermont, and other manuscripts of high antiquity and reputation; also, in the Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Vulgate, and Italic Versions. They are omitted by Basil, Cyril, Theodoret,

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Hoopos pro hominibus passim sumitur.”
See Joseph Mede's Disc. on 2 Pet, ii. 1,

Grotius.

Tertullian,

Tertullian, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustin, and others: and there can be little doubt that they are spurious, being probably a marginal gloss, introduced carelessly or intentionally into the text. They are rejected in Griesbach's second edition, and in Mr. Wakefield's and the Improved Version.

But if they were genuine, the connexion requires that they should be understood in reference to the moral creation. "The sense most suitable to the place," says Archbishop Newcome, "is this: Who hath created all things, that is, Jews and Gentiles, anew to holiness of life." See chap. ii. 10. 15; iv. 24.4

V. Col. i. 15-18. "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature: For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers; all things were created by him and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead."

This text is regarded by the supporters of the popular opinions concerning the person of Christ as a most decisive and unanswerable argument in their favour. And the Unitarians, who interpret the passage of the moral creation, and their arguments, are treated with very little respect even by the most moderate of their opponents,

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Dr. Harwood says, (Soc. Scheme, p. 35,) “ Words, I think, have no meaning, and are not the true signs of men's ideas, if these plain and clear passages do not contain and manifest this position: that Jesus Christ was the

* The archbishop admits the words into the text, but marks their doubtfulness by placing them in crotchets: he used the first edition of Griesbach. See Mill, Bengelius, Wetstein, and Griesbach in loc. person

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person who, by the direction of the Deity, originally formed all things.

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Dr. Clarke (Scr. Doct. No. 550) says; "Nothing can be more forced and unnatural than the Socinians' interpretation of this passage; who understand it figuratively of the new creation by the Gospel."

Mr. Peirce (in loc.) remarks, that "the interpretation which refers what is here said of our Saviour to the new creation, or the renovation of all things, is so forced and violent, that it can hardly be thought that men would ever have espoused it, but for the sake of a hypothesis."

Dr. Doddridge (Not. in loc.) says, that "to interpret this, as the Socinians do, of a new creation in a spiritual sense, is so unnatural, that one could hardly believe, if the evidence were not so undeniably strong, that any set of learned commentators could fall into it."

Notwithstanding, however, all the severe reflections of these and other learned critics, the Unitarians persist in their interpretation of this celebrated text, as importing nothing more than the great change introduced by the Gospel in the state of the moral world, and the authority and agency of Christ in this new dispensation. In vindi. cation of which interpretation, the following observations are submitted to the consideration of the judicious and im partial reader:

1. Jesus Christ is no where in the New Testament expressly said to be the creator or maker of the heavens, the earth, the sea, or of any visible natural objects,

2. When the apostle descends to the detail of things which were created by Christ, instead of naming the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, and its inhabitants, &c. which is what we should reasonably expect if a na tural creation was intended, he only specifies thrones and dominions, and principalities and powers; which are not physical

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