character, a beautiful, harmonious and consistent whole-without guile-of spotless purity, and unimpeachable rectitude, who spoke as inspired by the spirit of truth, and acted, in all respects, as became the Son of God, deputed with the high commission to instruct and reform the world; to leave us an example that we should follow his steps, and live and die for our salvation.

SECTION FIFTH.

The Titles and Epithets given to Christ in the Scriptures, no proof of his Deity.

What is the

Mr. Pope infers the Deity of Christ from certain titles and epithets given to him in the Scriptures: "the expression, Son of God," says he, "conveyed to the Jewish teachers and people the idea, that the person assuming the title asserted an equality with God." Where did Mr. Pope learn this? proof? The appellation was too familiar, and too frequently as cribed to pious men to convey any such idea. Adam is denominated the Son of God.-Luke, iii, 38. Israel is the Son of God. Thus saith the Lord, "Israel is my Son, even my first born."-Exod. iv. 22. David is the Son of God. —Psalm, lxxxix, 26, 27. Solomon is the Son of God.2 Samuel, vii. 14. 1 Chron. xxii. 10. "As many as received him," says John, (i. 12, 13.) " to them gave he power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."* "Do all things," says St. Paul, (Philip, ii. 14, 15,) “without murmurings and disputings; that ye may be blameless and harmless, the Sons of God, without rebuke." And again, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the Sons of God." All Christians are not only Sons but "Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."-Rom. viii. 14, 17.

That the title was pre-eminently due to the Blessed Saviour, is cheerfully admitted-but it was his own assumption of it, it seems, that caused the Jews to understand it in a peculiar sense. Entertaining, as they did, such exalted notions of the Supreme Jehovah, it is utterly incredible that they had annexed to the title "Son of God," any such idea as that he who claimed it, asserted an equality with him, in the unlimited sense contended for by Mr. Pope -nor will the account of the transaction on which he founds his opinion, yield it any valid support.--Let us examine. While Jesus was walking, in Solomon's porch, the

"Can you produce a stronger or more explicit declaration of the di vine generation of Christ than this is, taken literally, of the divine generation of believers ? I am convinced you cannot, and yet they were not divine persons." "The Apostle John an Unitarian."

D

Jews came and asked him, to declare explicitly if he were the Christ? Our Lord answered, that he had told them before,— referred them, as he had referred the messengers from John the Baptist, to his miraculous works, accounted for their unbelief, and declared of his own sheep, that he will give them eternal life. "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." Why? Because, "My Father which GAVE them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." God's omnipotence is the guarantee of my possession. "I and my Father are one;"John x. 30. one thing, not one intelligent being; one, not in essence, for to this there is not the slightest allusion, but one as to the particular point mentioned; unanimous as to the security and salvation of the disciples.-When he had ended his discourse, the Jews took up stones to stone him, not merely for uttering the words, "I and my Father are one," for to the Jews they conveyed no idea of Christ's claiming substantial identity with God-nor had any man yet been so absurd as to draw from a declaration of unity of purpose, a declaration of unity of essence-but as they themselves affirmed for "blasphemy," generally; and specifically, because "thou being a man makest thyself God." (Elohim.†) By making himself God, they meant

Une meme

Newcome. Campbell. Cappe. Une seule chose-Le Clerc. chose. Port Royal, Simon & Saci. See Slichtingius & Wolzogenius in loc. "They did not understand verse 50, of an essential union, or of any union implying equality, for if they had, it would have been a far more plausible foundation for the accusation than that which they selected."-Fox.

The meaning is fully developed in John c. xvii. v. 20, 23, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me, through their word; that they all may be ONE έ, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved THEM, as thou hast loved me. "I have planted," says Paul, 1 Cor. iii. 6, 8. "Apollos watered. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one "-" The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul."-Acts, iv. 32. We being many are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one body."-1 Cor. x. 17. Admitting the much disputed text, 1 John v. 7. of the three heavenly wit nesses to be genuine, it must be interpreted in a similar sense. †The holy angels are lower Me-elohim than the Also judges and rulers. "Thou shalt not revile the Gods,"-(or judges and rulers.)-Exod. xxii. 28. "God standeth iu the Congregation of the Mighty, he judgeth among the Gods. I have said, ye are Gods; and all of you are children of the Most High.”—Psalm, lxxxii. 1, 6. See also Exod. xxi. 6.

styled Gods. "Thou hast made him a little Gods."-Ps. viii. 5.

"And

The ambassadors and prophets of God were also called Gods. the Lord said unto Moses, see, I have made thee Elohim, a God to Pharaoh."-Exod. vii. 1. Thou shalt be to him instead of God."-iv. 16,

66

لوو

bat he had assumed a divine authority without warrant' not that he had pretended to be the infinite Jehovah. Even his calumniators would have been ashamed of having such a meaning fixed on their expressions. But that their meaning was what has been just stated, and that the Saviour understood them in that sense, is clear as demonstration, from his reply. He founds it on an argument taken from their own Scriptures, and shews that if he had made himself God, or Elohim, in the senso in which that term was applied to Moses, and the Jewish prophets, judges, and legislators, he would have been perfectly justifiable, for he spoke and acted by a warrant of divine authority as well as they. "Is it not written in your law," said he, "Ye are Gods? (Elohim.) If he called them Gods (Elohim,) to whom the word of God came, (and the Scriptures cannot be broken,) say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and SENT into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said, I am"What? not that I am God (Elohim) but "the Son of God? Hence, it is apparent that it was on his assumption of this title that they grounded their charge of blasphemy; and not on his having made any pretensions to the name and character of Jehovah. He then proceeds to justify his claims to the title which he did assume, and proposes an infallible test by which a judgment might be formed of their validity. "If I do not the works of my Father believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him."†

As to the Jews confounding the Son with the Father, and supposing that Christ's assumption of the former name, implied an assumption of the name and honours of Jehovah, and an identity of essence, it is totally devoid of scriptural evidence. In the passage which has just been under consideration, it appears that Christ, so far from adopting even the appellative name of Elohim, much less that of Jehovah, designates himself by the inferior title of Son; a title which no Jew could ever be so preposterous as to identify with that of Father.

The Jews, on another occasion, understood Christ as making himself equal with God. Let us consider this.

Our Lord had performed a miraculous cure on the sabbathday. This the Jews resented as a violation of the fourth commandment, and sought to slay him. Jesus seeing their intended violence, justified what he had done, by pleading divine authority, saying, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."-John, v. 17. My Father conducts the beneficent operations of his providence on the sabbath, as well as on other days, and I, by his special au

* Cappe.

+"Compare John xiv. 10, 11; where this union is said to consist in speaking the words, and doing the works of the Father."-NEWCOME.

thority do those works of mercy which he has commissioned me to perform. This plea only incensed them the more; and they sought to kill him, because, as they affirmed, "he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also, that God was his Father, making himself equal with (like) God." Now, gentle reader, observe, this is not the sentiment of the Evangelist, but a caJumny of the Jews-for Christ neither broke the Sabbath nor claimed equality with the Father. It was only in their wicked imaginations that he had done either. The hypocrites who charged "the Lord of the sabbath," with breaking it, because he had healed an infirm man, had no scruple to take their ox, or their ass, to watering, on that day; nor had they any objec tion to exalt themselves above God, by “ teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Notwithstanding their perversity, however, our Lord condescended to answer and repel their calumny. He commenced a long address, by a solemn declaration, equivalent to a direct positive contradiction of their asser tions. 66 Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do." The Son ori ginates nothing-so far from claiming equality with the Father, he only follows his example. This he repeats again in the 30th verse, "I can of mine own self do nothing." Then he speaks of the Father as in every respect his superior. It is the Father who sheweth him all things-that commits all judgment to the Son-that sends him gives him to have life in himself-gives him authority to execute judgment-assigns to him the task which he has to perform. So far from affording the least ground for the charge that he pretended to be equal with God, he thrice declares, in the same reply, that he was sent by the Father; and that he sought not his own will, but the will of him by whom he was deputed. The Jews, in defiance of their prejudice and malevolence, appear to have been overcome by the force of truth, and tacitly to have admitted that their charge was untenable; for they made no reply, but suffered him to depart und molested.

Let us now, for the sake of argument, admit that the words "making himself equal with God," contain the sentiment of the Evangelist, as well as of the Jews. What, let us enquire, was the nature, or extent of the equality which, in this case, they may have supposed the Saviour to claim? Was it unlimited, and unqualified? Did it imply that the Son was consubstantial and coeternal with the everlasting Father? Nothing like it. No Jew ever maintained so preposterous an idea, nor is there

*"Hæc Joannes per mimesin, et ex illorum, non ex sua sententia loquitur. Nam reipsa nec sabbatum solvit, nec seipsum Deo æqualem fecit." Slichtingius, in les. Calumniam capitalem ei struebant.-Grotius,

even the shadow of an argument for it in all the sacred volume. They were exasperated at the Saviour for claiming a peculiar relationship to God, by stiling him or his own Father, as if he had excluded them, or deemed them unworthy of being reckoned in the same degree of affinity-and also for assuming a privilege to do works of mercy on the sabbath-day, equally as if he had been its institutor. This was the only point of equality or similitude which even they could charge the Saviour with assuming. As for metaphysical ideas about consubstantiality and coeternity, the Jews knew nothing about them-and if they had, our Lord, in the very first sentence of his reply, would have exposed their folly. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do."*

The Jews, with all their malevolent and persecuting spirit, never thought that Christ assumed equality with God, in the sense alleged by Trinitarianism. Even when they brought him before Caiaphas, and made the strongest accusation they could, was it that he had pretended to be in all respects equal to the . omnipotent Jehovah? No such thing. They accused him of saying, "I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days:" a figurative way in which he had spoken of his resurrection. Then the high priest adjured him by the living God, to declare whether he were the Son of God? Can any one imagine that in this solemn adjuration, which preserves the distinction between the living God and the Son, so remarkably, the high priest had any idea that Christ had either assumed, or would assume the character of the Supreme Deity? His object was to ascertain whether he had named himself the Christ or the Messiah; and our Lord, as became him, replied in the affirmative. His declaring himself to be the Messiah was deemed blasphemy; not his assumption of the character of Deity, for this be never did assume-nor did the Jews when they brought him before Pilate, urge against him any such accusation. They said, "we have a law, by which law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." Observe-this charge was made before a heathen, whose Polytheistic religion would have led him to consider this as no great offence, and the Jews could not be ignorant of a fact so notorious. Many among the Romans, were denominated Sons of Gods, by the flattery of poets, and the gratitude of their friends and admirers. Why then did the Jews prefer a charge which had no criminality in the eyes of a Roman, if they could, with any plausibility, bring forward the more grievous accusation of his assuming the character of Supreme Deity? It is not contended, indeed, that even this would have made any very unfavourable impression on Pilate; but it

* "Comparatio est sumpta a discipulo qui magistrum sibi præcuntem diligenter intuetur, ut imitari possit."-Grotius.