BT 
 
 .c 3 
 
THE 
 
 DEITY OF CHRIST, 
 
 BRIEFLY CONSIDERED, 
 
 REV. ANDREW CARROLL. 
 
 
 " Tor in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." 
 
 Col. ii. 9. 
 
 '• Vilia transmittit ad postros, qui prsesentibus culpis ignoscit." 
 
 Seneca. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 E . MORGAN AND CO., POWER PRESS. 
 
 1846. 
 
3^ 
 
 S" 
 
 y- 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year of our 
 
 Lord, 1846, by Rev. Andrew Carroll, in the Clerk's 
 
 Office of the District Court of Ohio, 
 
 - 
 
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 60f 
 
 CO 
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In presenting this little volume to the public, our design is 
 to be useful, not to write for writing's sake. We are aware 
 that many volumes have been written on this subject, some in 
 one way, and some in another. Many orthodox divines have 
 written well on this topic, but their works are too voluminous 
 & .ave a general circulation, and others, as we think, have 
 not exactly followed the Scriptures, particularly in defining 
 the title u Son of God" They apply this to the human nature 
 of the Blessed Saviour. Among these writers we find the ven- 
 erable Dr. A. Clark, Messrs. Ethan Smith, and Drew. 
 
 The absolute Divinity of Christ has occupied our mind for 
 the last six or seven years. And in writing these pages, we 
 think, we have been patient in investigation, and prayerful in 
 application. 
 
 Our mind was called to investigate this subject some years 
 ago, by reading a work published by Mr. Kinkade, which we 
 think has slandered the character of the Saviour, by striving 
 to rob him of his absolute divinity. Our appeal is made to the 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 Scriptures, emphatically, as the ultimate and only certain proof 
 of the Supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Christian church 
 is divided into what is termed, Trinitarians and Unitarians. 
 The former believe the Scriptures reveal three persons in one 
 God, called, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The class called 
 Unitarians is divided, and subdivided under various appella- 
 tions, as Newlights, Campbellites, Universalists, &c. 
 
 Unitarians of all grades and names, do not profess to believe 
 that Jesus Christ is M God manifested in the flesh/' Newlights, 
 both preach and pray in the name of Christ, still will not ad- 
 mit He is equal with the Father, or that he is the Supreme God. 
 Campbellites, are not so distinguished for directly denying the 
 absolute Deity of Christ. Nevertheless, they have but little, if 
 any claims to the creed of Trinitarians, as they deny the per- 
 sonality of the Holy Spirit, and hold that the Word, (the Scrip- 
 tures,) and the Spirit are synonimous, and to cap the climax, 
 Mr. Alex. Campbell affirms in answer to a letter of Mr. B. W. 
 Stone, "I have also disavowed Trinitarianism and every secta- 
 rianism in the land."— Millen. Harb. vol. 4, No. 6, 1840. 
 
 The point at issue between Trinitarians and all species of 
 Unitarians, is not whether Christ be the Son of God, nor is it, 
 whether Christ be a man. But it is, whether Christ be equal 
 with God the Father. Here we affirm, and they deny. Again, 
 whether this Christ be " God manifested in the flesh." As the 
 Unitarian champion, Dr. Priestly says, we may say. " The 
 truth is," says he, " there neither can, nor ought to be, any 
 compromise between us. If you are right, we are not Chris- 
 tians at all ; and if we are right, you are gross idolaters." 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 In connection with the remarks on the divinity of Christ, 
 we httte added a few thoughts on the nature of his death. All 
 of which, with meekness and prayer, we submit to the serious 
 consideration of tiie reader — hoping, through divine mrcey 
 they may be to him of some benefit. 
 
 August 19, 1845. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Ancient Heathen Nations believed in the Doctrine of Three 
 Persons in the Divine Nature. Hindoos, and Persian 
 Triad — Orphic Theology — Greek Philosophers — An- 
 cient Scandinavians — Japanese — Chinese, acknowledge 
 a Triad, - 8 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Testimony of the Ancient Jewish Nation — The Jews had a 
 Revelation from God. The Predictions of the Old Tes- 
 tament are fulfilled in the New, - - - 13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Testimony of Pagan Writers, touching the Character of 
 Jesus Christ. Tacitus — Sentorius — Celsus — Julian, 16 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Christian Church in the time of the Apostles, and after, 
 held the Doctrine of the Supreme Divinity of Jesus 
 Christ. Barnabas — Clemens — Romanus — Ignatius — 
 Polycarp — Athenagorus — Tertullian, &c. - - 19 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER V. page. 
 
 The Primitive Christians held the Doctrine of Christ's Su- 
 preme Divinity, as is proved by the fact, that all who 
 rejected it were expelled from the Church as Heretics. 
 Corinthians, Ebionites, Sabellians, Socinians, Arians, 
 &c, expelled from the Church, &c. - -27 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Objections made by the Unbelievers of Christ's Supreme Di- 
 vinity, - 34 
 
 PART II 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Scriptural Evidence of the Trinity in Unity: Gen. i. 1-26 — 
 Aleim in the plural — The visible Jehovah raining fire 
 from Jehovah in Heaven : Gen. xix. 24 — Lord God and 
 his Spirit: Isa. xlviii. 16 — Divine Sonship. Watson, 
 C. Butler, &c. ------- 43 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Bible teaches the pre-existence of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Christ sent into the world — He was in the Beginning 
 
 — Before Abraham — Pre-existence before he was born 
 
 of the Virgin, &c. 58 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Divinity of Christ is proved by the names of Jehovah, &c. 
 in the Scriptures being applied to him. God', Angel, 
 Man, Lord God, Angel of the Lord, Jehovah's Messen- 
 ger, Everlasting Father, 63 
 

 Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. page. 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ possessed Divine Attributes. Attri- 
 butes Indivisible — Christ Eternal — Omniscient — Omni- 
 present — Immutable — Omnipotent — Judge of Quick 
 and Dead, 102 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Acts, and the Divine Worship of Christ, are proof of his 
 Divinity. He created all things — Preserves all things 
 — All things created for him — He is worshipped by An- 
 gels, and Men, &c. - - - - - - 117 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Humanity of Christ — Hypostatic Union. The Gnostics, 
 Eutyches, Apollinarians, refuted — Christ truly Man — 
 Three classes of Scripture apply to Christ, - - 131 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Jesus Christ made a Propitiatory Sacrifice for mankind, which 
 is farther proof of his essential Divinity. The Lord 
 God King of the Israelites — The Tabernacle — Court of 
 the Lord — Civil and Ceremonial Laws — Offerings, Eu- 
 charistical and Sacrificial, Propitiation, Atonement, 
 Reconciliation — Sacrifice, Vicarious and Piacular, 147 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Faith Essential to Salvation — Justification and Sanctification 
 by Faith, - 187 
 
PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I . 
 
 The Heathen Nations believed in the doctrine 
 of Three Persons in the Divine Nature. 
 
 As the doctrine of Christ's Supreme Divinity, as set 
 forth in the scriptures, is associated with a triad in the 
 divine nature, it may be proper, briefly, to consider the 
 belief of the Ancient Heathens on this point. For the 
 candid will admit, that the Almighty God could as well 
 instruct them touching this matter, as to do what the 
 scripture affirms He had done, to make known to the 
 Greeks and to the Barbarians, "both to the wise and to 
 the unwise, the invisible things of him from the creation 
 of the world," clearly "being understood by the things 
 that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." 
 Rom. i. 20. So, we infer, that the very Godhead, [as 
 well as the power thereof, may be known by the Gen- 
 tiles, or heathens. Mr. R. W. Landis affirms, that Dr. 
 Priestly, in his " Comparison of the Institutions of Mo- 
 ses ivith those of the Hindoos" section 1, page 7, has 
 2 
 
10 
 
 HEATHEN NATIONS. 
 
 the following quotation from the celebrated infidel, Mr 
 Langles: '-'Many thousand years before these people 
 (among which are included the Egyptians, Jews, and 
 Chinese,) formed themselves into societies, or even 
 thought of forming a religion, the civilized Indians 
 adored the Supreme Being, Eternal, Almighty, and 
 All-Wise, divided into three persons." So, we see, that 
 in the opinion of this infidel, the ancient Indians wor- 
 shipped a triune God. 
 
 It is clear that the Hindoos have holden a triad in the, 
 divine nature. " The manner of the three persons in 
 the Godhead are Brahma, Veeshnu, and Seeva. Brah- 
 ma they consider as the Father, Veeshnu as the Media- 
 tor, whom they assert to have been incarnate, and Seeva 
 as the destroyer and regenerator. The three faces of 
 Brahma, Veeshnu, and Seeva, they always formed on 
 one body, having six hands, or two to each person. — 
 This method of delineating the Godhead is very ancient, 
 universal, uncontroverted, and every where in their wor- 
 ship; particularly in the celebrated cavern in the island 
 of Elephanta." 
 
 The Persian triad is well known, the names of which 
 were Ormusd : Mither, and Ahriman; called by the 
 Greeks, Oromasdes, Mithras, and Arimanius. Among 
 them, too, the second person is called Mediator, and he 
 is regarded the great agent in this world. The Egyp- 
 tians have their triad, whom they named Osiris, Cneph, 
 and Phtha, and afterwards Osiris, Isis, and Typhon. — 
 These denote light, fire, and spirit. 
 
HEATHEN NATIONS. 1 I 
 
 The Orphic theology, the most aged recorded in Gre- 
 cian history, taught the same doctrine, styled Light, 
 Council, Life. Suiclas says, " They express only one 
 and the same power." Proclus, a Platonic philosopher, 
 says, that Orpheus taught " the existence of one God, 
 who is the ruler over all things ; and that this one God 
 is three minds, three kings : he who is, he who has, or 
 possesses, and he who beholds." These answers, says 
 Proclus, "with the triad of Orpheus, viz. Phanes, Ura- 
 nus, and Chronus." 
 
 The Greek philosophers also acknowledged a triad. 
 Plato named the triad " Mind, or Word, and the soul of 
 the world." 
 
 Parmenides, the author of the Eleatic philosophy, 
 says, " The Deity is one and many." 
 
 In the empires of Thibet and Tangut. three persons in 
 one God is acknowledged in the popular religion. — 
 These people worship an idol as a representation of a 
 threefold God. 
 
 The ancient Scandinavians represented a triad, whom 
 they styled Oden, Frea, and Thor. The Romans, Ger- 
 mans, and Gauls acknowledge a triad. The Romans 
 and Germans worshipped Mairise, three Goddesses in- 
 separable. 
 
 The Japanese and Chinese anciently acknowledged a 
 triad. So did Peruvians. In Cuquisaco, a province of 
 Peru, they worshipped an image called Tangatanga; 
 which, in their language, signifies " One in three and 
 three in one" 
 
12 
 
 HEATHEN NATIONS. 
 
 There appears to be a universal impression in the 
 minds of human beings of three persons in one God: 
 hundreds of instances, in addition to the few cited above, 
 might be produced, but let these suffice. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 Testimony of the ancient Jewish Nation. 
 
 After presenting briefly the testimony of pagan na- 
 tions touching a triad as peculiar to their idea of God, 
 which goes to show, in some degree, the universal belief 
 of three persons in one God, and that Jesus Christ, in 
 the more enlightened and Bible sense, is in person one 
 of these three, possessing wholly the infinite essence of 
 that Being whom we term the eternal God, it may be of 
 some utility to present to the candid reader the ancient 
 Jewish idea of* this matter. 
 
 The ancient Jews had credible evidence to believe in 
 God, predicated in the old Testament scriptures. They 
 had the idea of one God, Deut. vi. 4, " Hear, O Israel : 
 The Lord our God is one Lord." Jesus, in speaking of 
 this scripture, Matt. xxii. 37, 38, calls it the "first and 
 great ^commandment." But the primitive Jews were 
 instructed by their prophets to believe in and expect a 
 Messiah, which signifies Christ, the anointed, which 
 was to come into the world for the redemption of man. 
 The first promise given of Christ is thus stated, Gen. 
 hi. 15. "And I will put enmity between thee (Satan) 
 and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed : it 
 
14 JEWISH TESTIMONY. 
 
 shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 
 Again, Haggai ii. 7. " And I will shake all nations, and 
 the desire of all nations shall come : and I will fill this 
 house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts." Again, 
 Christ was to appear before the dominion of the Jews 
 should be* taken away: "The sceptre shall not depart 
 from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until 
 Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the 
 people be." Gen. xlix. 10. Again, Christ was to be 
 born, not according to the ordinary course of nature, but 
 to descend from a virgin : " Therefore the Lord him- 
 self shall give you a sign : Behold, a Virgin shall con- 
 ceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman- 
 uel." Isa. vii. 14. This son was to be born in pover- 
 ty, and live in a poor and low estate : " For he shall 
 grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out 
 of a dry ground; he hath no form, nor comeliness; and 
 when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should 
 desire him." Isa. liii. 2. This Messiah was to be bom 
 in Bethlehem: "But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though 
 thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of 
 thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in 
 Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from 
 everlasting." Micah v. 2. This ruler in Israel was to 
 be a divine Shepherd, and lay down his life for the 
 sheep. As the prophet saith, " Awake, O sword, against 
 my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, 
 saith the Lord of hosts : smite the Shepherd, and the 
 sheep shall be scattered." Zech. xiii. 7. The blessed 
 
JBWI8H TESTIMONY. 15 
 
 Saviour was to be betrayed by his intimate friend: 
 •' Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom 1 trusted, 
 which did cat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel 
 against me." Psa. xli. 9. The very manner of his 
 death was predicted in the Jewish scripture; to be by 
 his enemies annoyed with gall and vinegar during his 
 suffering: "They gave me also gall for my meat, and 
 in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Psa. lxix. 
 21. And his hands and feet were to be pierced : " And 
 they shall look upon me whom they have pierced." — 
 Zee. xii. 10, and Psa. xxii. 16. And the very manner 
 of distributing his clothes was predicted by the prophet : 
 u They part my garments among them, and cast lots 
 upon my vesture." Psa. xxii. 18. It is obvious from 
 the above quotations, that the Jewish church possessed 
 ample means of knowing the character of their Messiah. 
 In their writings they style him the Redeemer, the 
 Branch, and the Everlasting Father, &c. They held 
 him to be the Son of God, the Jehovah. It is shown 
 from this that they held his supreme divinity :— they 
 paid him, the Messiah, divine worship; and yet they 
 held that no creature should be thus worshipped, for 
 their "first and great commandment" forbid such. They 
 were to worship God only 5 but the Messiah was their 
 God, 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Testimony of Pagan writers touching the 
 character of jesus christ. 
 
 After Pontius Pilate put Jesus Christ to death, A. D. 
 33, April 3, he wrote an account of him to the Emperor 
 Tiberius. There had been an ancient decree, "that no 
 one should be received for a deity unless he was ap- 
 proved of by the Senate. Tiberius, in whose time the 
 Christian religion had its rise, having received from 
 Palestine, in Syria, an account of such things as mani- 
 fested the truth of Christ's divinity, proposed to the Sen- 
 ate that he should be enrolled among the Roman gods, 
 and gave his own prerogative vote in favor of the mat- 
 ter: but the Senate (without whose consent no deification 
 could take place) rejected it, because the Emperor him- 
 self had declined the same honor. Nevertheless the 
 Emperor persisted in his opinions, and threatened pun- 
 ishment to the accusers of the Christians." This is re- 
 corded by a learned writer who lived a short time after 
 the Apostolic age. 
 
 The Christians were first persecuted in the reign of 
 the Emperor Nero, A. D. 65. This persecution is men- 
 tioned by two Roman historians, Tacitus and Senior ius. 
 
PAGAN TEST mo 17 
 
 The latter says, " The Christians likewise were severe- 
 ly punished — a sort of people addicted to a new and 
 superstition,"— the worship of Christ. Pliny 
 the Younger 3 was sent to the provinces of Bithynia and 
 Pontus by the Emperor Trajan, A. D. 106-108, as his 
 lieutenant with proconsular power. In these provinces 
 the Christians were numerous, against whom Pliny, by 
 orders of the Emperor, was obliged to use all manner 
 of hardness. But being moderate in acting, he thought 
 it best to write to the Emperor before he should execute 
 the full force of the law. He therefore wrote to the 
 Emperor, A. D. 107. The following is an extract of 
 the letter : 
 
 '•They affirm that the whole of their fault or error 
 lay in this, they were wont to meet on a certain day be- 
 fore it was light, and sing among themselves alternately 
 a hymn to Christ as God." 
 
 Again, Celsus, who lived A. D. 176, ridicules the 
 Christians for their worship of Christ. He says that 
 ;: Jesus was owned by the Christians to be the Son of 
 God." 
 
 Lucian, his contemporary, was a bitter enemy of the 
 Christians; he charges the Christians with "worship- 
 ping their crucified impostor," as he malignantly styles 
 our blessed Lord. 
 
 Again, Julian " ridicules the adoration of Christ ; the 
 Godhead of Christ, the birth of Christ from the Virgin; 
 the conception by the Holy Ghost/' &c. In fine, the 
 
IS 
 
 PAGAN TESTOfONY. 
 
 doctrine of the supreme divinity of Christ was the doc- 
 trine of the early Christians, so attested by secular and 
 unbelieving writers, as well as it was the faith of all true 
 Christians. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Christian Church in the time of the APOS- 
 TLES, AND AFTER; HELD THE DOCTRINE OF THE SU- 
 PREME Divinity of Jesus Christ. 
 
 1. We will begin with the testimony of Barnabas, 
 who was the companion of St. Paul in some of his jour- 
 neys, and wrote soon after Titus destroyed Jerusalem. — 
 In the 5th section of his catholic epistle he says, Ci The 
 Lord was content to suffer for our sins, although he be 
 the Lord of the whole earth, to whom God said, before 
 the beginning of the world, f Let us make man after our 
 image and likeness. 7 " And in the 7th section he says, 
 " If, therefore, the Son of God, who is Lord of all, shall 
 come to judge both the quick and the dead, hath suffered, 
 that by his stripes we might live, let us believe that the 
 Son of God could not have suffered but for us." 
 
 2.* Clemens Romanus, who was likewise a com- 
 panion of the apostles, mentioned in the New Testament, 
 and who wrote near the end of the first century, speaks 
 as follows : " God is good to all, especially to those who 
 flee to his mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ, to 
 
 WHOM BE GLORY AND MAJESTY FOR EVER AND EVER," 
 
 * Phil. iv. 3. 
 
20 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 3. Again, Ignatius, a disciple of St. John, who suffer- 
 ed martyrdom under the wicked emperor Trajan, A. D. 
 107: (l Ignatius to the church which is at Ephesus in 
 Asia, most deservedly happy, being blessed through the 
 greatness and goodness of God the Father, and predes- 
 tinated before the world began, being united and chosen 
 through his true passion, according to the will of the 
 Father, and Jesus Christ and his undefiled grace." — 
 Again, says he, " There is one physician, both fleshly 
 and spiritual, God incarnate, both of Mary and of God, 
 all happiness by Jesus Christ our Lord." Again, " Ig- 
 norance is taken away, and the old kingdom abolished, 
 God himself appearing in the form of a man." Many 
 other passages from the same writer we might adduce 
 on the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 4. Polycarp, another of St. John's disciples, flourish- 
 ed about the beginning of the second century, and suf- 
 fered martyrdom under the emperor Marcus Antonius, 
 in his epistle to the Philippians, speaks thus: "Mercy 
 and peace from God Almighty, and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, our Saviour, be multiplied, — every living crea- 
 ture shall worship Christ, — to whom be glory and maj- 
 esty for ever and ever. Amen." When old and gray- 
 headed, and bound at the stake, with his heart and voice 
 engaged in addressing a throne of heavenly grace, he 
 closes his prayer with these words, " I bless thee, I glo- 
 rify thee, by the eternal and heavenly High Priest, Je- 
 sus Christ, thy beloved Son, with whom, to thee, and the 
 Holy Ghost, be glory both now and for ever, world 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE CHUBOH. 21 
 
 without end. Amen." As Barnabas, Clemens Roman- 
 us, Ignatius and Polycarp, lived in the first century, and 
 were personally acquainted with some of the apostles, 
 hence their testimony is of great importance, and is wor- 
 thy of particular notice. 
 
 5. Another strong testimony we have in the writings 
 of the beloved Justin Martyr, who was born A. D. 103, 
 and sealed his testimony with his own blood. In his 
 dialogue with one Trypho, an infidel Jew, he calls 
 Christ "the God of Israel w T ho was with Moses." And 
 in the fourth book of his work against the infidels, he 
 begins with asserting that " God was made man." In the 
 same book he asserts also, that " Jesus Christ was the 
 God who interrogated Adam, conferred with Noah, and 
 gave him the dimensions of the ark ; who spoke to 
 Abraham ; who brought the destroying judgments on 
 the inhabitants of Sodom; who directed Jacob in his 
 journey, and who addressed Moses out of the burning 
 bush of Horeb " Again he says, " That the Word, 
 that is the Son of God, always existed with the Father, 
 I have largely demonstrated." 
 
 6. Athenagorus, an Athenian philosopher, but con- 
 verted to Christianity, A. D. 150, wrote about A. D. 175, 
 speaks thus: " I have sufficiently demonstrated, that we 
 (Christians) are not atheists, since we believe in one God, 
 unbegotten, eternal, invisible, incomprehensible, known 
 only by reason, and the Logos, surrounded by light and 
 beauty, and spirit, and power, ineffable, who by his Lo- 
 gos created, adorned and upholds the universe. We ac- 
 
22 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH 
 
 knowledge also a Son of God. Nor let any one con- 
 sider it ridiculous that we should attribute a Son to God : 
 not as the poets who, forming their fables, exhibit gods 
 in no respect better than men. We do not thus think 
 concerning God the Father, or concerning the Son. — 
 But the Son of God is the Word of the Father, in mani- 
 festation and energy; by him and for him w r ere all 
 things made, If you desire a further explanation of the 
 meaning of Son on this point, I will endeavor to give 
 you a brief one : He is the first born of the Father, but 
 not as ever beginning to exist. Who is not filled with 
 admiration, that we who declare God the Father, and 
 God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, showing both 
 the power of their unity, and the distinction of their or- 
 der, should be called perverse atheists?" 
 
 7. Theophilus, who lived about A. D. 181, expressly 
 acknowledges Christ to be God, and the Creator of the 
 world. Says he, " When the Father said, let us make 
 man in our image, after our likeness, he spoke to no 
 other but his own Word and his own Wisdom, that 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 
 
 8. Clemens Alexandrinus, who lived A. D. 194, says, 
 " Let us give thanks to the only Father and Son, to the 
 Son and the Father, to the Teacher and Master, with 
 the Holy Spirit, one in all respects, in whom are all 
 things, by whom all things are one, by whom is eternal 
 existence, whose members we are, whose is the glory 
 and the ages, who is the perfect good, the perfect beauty, 
 
rBBTDCONl OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 all wis.-, and all just: to whom bo glory now and for 
 ever. Amen." 
 
 ( J. Tertullian, who lived about A. D. 200, is very 
 precise in his testimony on the supreme divinity of Jesus 
 Christ. He says that the terms Lord, God, Lord of 
 hosts, Almighty, King of Israel, &c, belong properly 
 to Christ. He styles him "the omnipotent God" and 
 in proof of this quotes Romans ix. 5. 
 
 10. The testimony of the learned Origen, touching 
 the divinity of Christ, is very appropriate. He was 
 born at Alexandria, A. D. 185, and thus speaks concern- 
 ing Christ : u If he is the image of the invisible God, 
 the image itself is invisible. If he is the likeness of the 
 Father, no time ever teas ichen he was not ; for when 
 was God, who by St. John was called light, without the 
 splendor of his own glory? That any one should pre- 
 sume to assign a beginning to the Son, before which he 
 was not, let him who dares speak thus, ' there was a time 
 when he was not, 5 consider what he says, namely, that 
 there was a time when reason, and wisdom, and life were 
 not." Origen's comment on Matt. xi. 27, is thus stated : 
 " For it is impossible that he who was begotten from 
 eternity, and who was the first born before every crea- 
 ture, should be known as to his real dignity by any but 
 the Father who begat him." Again, he says, in a creed 
 drawn up by him: "The things handed down by apos- 
 tolical preaching are these: 1st. There is one God who 
 created all things; Jesus Christ, who came into the 
 world, was begotten of the Father before every crea- 
 
24 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ture ; he who was God was made flesh ; when he was a 
 man he continued the same God that he was before. — 
 They (apostles) also delivered that the Holy Ghost was 
 joined in the same honor with the Father and the Son." 
 Again: " There are some/ 5 says he, "indeed, who make 
 a declaration concerning the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost, but not in sincerity nor in truth. Such are 
 all heretics, who indeed profess the Father, the Son, and 
 the Spirit, but not in a right and believing manner. For 
 they either separate the Father from the Son, that they 
 may ascribe one nature to the Father and another to the 
 Son; or they erroneously compound them, thinking to 
 make of them a compound God, or by supposing only 
 three different names; but he who rightly confesses the 
 truth, will indeed ascribe to the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost their distinct properties, but confesses there 
 is no difference as to nature or substance." .* 
 
 11, About the year of our Lord 246, Cyprian, a de- 
 voted martyr to the truth, contributes decisive testimony 
 to the divinity of our blessed Saviour. " The Lord 
 says, I and my Father are one ; and again it is written, 
 these three are one ; whoever does not hold this unity, 
 does not hold the law of God — does not hold the truth 
 unto salvation." Again he says, " If any one could be 
 baptized among heretics, he might also obtain remission 
 of sin, be sanctified and made the temple of God. I 
 ask of what God? If of the Creator, he could not who 
 
 * Origen's Comment, p. 49, 52. 
 
Ti '.STIMOXV OF THE CHURCH. 25 
 
 did not believe in him. If of Christ, neither could he 
 be his temple who denies Christ to be God. If of the 
 Holy Ghost, since these three are one, how could the 
 Holy Spirit be reconciled to him who is an enemy to the 
 Father and Son % " And in proving- the supreme divin- 
 ity of Christ quotes Rom. ix. 5, and uses our translation, 
 " Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who 
 is over all, God blessed for ever." 
 
 12. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, who flourish- 
 ed A. D. 252, says that " Christ is (uncreated — the 
 creator of all things — God by nature — immutable — 
 Lord over all — Lord and God of Israel." Having been 
 charged with saying there was a time when the Son 
 was not, he affirms that he "always had acknowledged 
 the co-eternity of the Son." 
 
 His namesake, Dionysius, bishop of Rome, says : " If 
 he (Christ) was made, there was a time when he was 
 not, but he always was." 
 
 13. Lucian, a proselyte of Antioch, a great biblical 
 scholar, also a martyr to the cause of Christ, flourished 
 A. D. 300. We have the following from a creed drawn 
 up by him, which is very worthy of particular regard. 
 Says he, " We believe, agreeable to evangelical and 
 apostolical tradition, in one God, the Father Almighty, 
 Creator and Maker of all things, and in one Lord Jesus 
 Christ, his only begotten Son, God, by whom all things 
 were made. — God of God, Whole of Whole, Alone of 
 Alone, Perfect of Perfect, King of Kings, Lord of 
 Lords; the Living Word, Wisdom, Life, the true Light, 
 
 3 
 
26 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the Way of truth, the Resurrection, the Shepherd, the 
 Door, Immutable, Unchangeable, the exact image of the 
 Godhead, the Essence, Power, Council, and Glory of 
 the Father," &c. Hillary says: "A synod of twenty- 
 five holy bishops, who intended thereby to establish the 
 catholic faith against the Sabellians and Arians, sanc- 
 tioned this creed of Lucian. The council was held at 
 Antioch, A. D. 341." 
 
 The testimony of many other of the early fathers 
 might be added here, such as Gregory, Thaumaturgus, 
 Novation, Lactantius, and others, w T hich we have not 
 room even to name. Let it suffice to say. that no w r riter 
 can be found, before the Council of Nice, held in A. D. 
 325, whose testimony is valid, who does not agree with 
 the testimony quoted above. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 That Primitive Christians held the doctrine 
 of Christ's Supreme Divinity is proven, by the 
 fact, that all who rejected it were expelled 
 from the Church as heretics. 
 
 The Cerinthians, called so from Cerinthus, a disciple 
 of Simon Magus, were expelled from the church for 
 denying the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. Cerin- 
 thus believed that a super-angelic being, or influence 
 was united to Christ at his baptism, which constituted 
 him the Messiah. 
 
 Irenaeus says, that the apostle " John designed by his 
 gospel to remove the error which was sown among men 
 by Cerinthus." 
 
 The Cerinthians were soon succeeded by the Ebionites, 
 who appeared early in the second century. They were 
 named after Ebion, a disciple of Cerinthus, who adopted 
 the sentiments of his teacher, denying not only Christ's 
 divinity, but teaching that he was only a mere man- 
 Irenseus, speaking of this sect, says : "If the Son shall 
 make you free, ye shall be free indeed; but not knowing 
 him who is incarnate of the Virgin, they are deprived 
 of his gift, which is eternal life." 
 
28 HERETICS EXPELLED. 
 
 After the Ebionites, Marcion, an Asiatic, appeared. 
 Being expelled from his father's church for immorality, 
 he went to Rome and espoused the cause of heresy. 
 Like modern Unitarians, he mutilated the gospels and 
 the whole Bible with freedom. We find that Justin 
 Martyr took up his erroneous doctrine and refuted it. 
 Turtullian wrote against him, and condemns him as a 
 gross unbeliever, as having departed from the faith of the 
 church of Christ. Polycarp also denounced him as a 
 heretic and acknowledged him only as the " first born of 
 Satan/' Concerning Marcion, Cyprian writes, "Our 
 Lord, after his resurrection, instructing his disciples how 
 they should baptize, says, l Go ye, therefore, and teach 
 all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' Here he gives an 
 intimation of a trinity, in whose sacrament the nations 
 were to be baptized. Does Marcion believe the trinity? 
 Does he believe the same Father the Creator, as we 
 believe in? Does he acknowledge the same only Son, 
 Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, who being the Word, 
 was made flesh, and suffered for our sins? Marcion and 
 all other heretics, held a very different faith." 
 
 Again, Ncetus of Smyrna embraced certain opinions 
 concerning Jesus Christ, which a few years afterwards 
 were adopted by Sabellius of Africa, and have since 
 received the name of Sabellianism. Sabellius rejected all 
 the distinction of persons in God, and alleged that the 
 trinity was only nominal, that the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost, were only three names of the one and the same 
 
HXRBTXCS i:\pklled. 20 
 
 hypostasis or person. This doctrine was condemned by 
 the church as a ruinous heresy. Ncetus was excom- 
 municated from the church, and his doctrine condemned 
 as heretical by two successive synods, and shortly after- 
 ward Sabellius and his doctrine received the same end. 
 
 Meryllus, bishop of Bozrah, adopted a modification of 
 the system of Sabellius. He was opposed by Origen, 
 and excluded from the Christian church, but soon after 
 professing to be convinced^of his error, joined the church 
 again, and his party became extinct. ' 
 
 Another conspicuous advocate of skepticism concern- 
 ing the Saviour, was Paul, of Samosata. He coincided 
 in opinion almost with the modern Socinians. He was 
 unanimously condemned, as a heretic, and deposed from 
 the ministry. 
 
 Early in the fourth century, the celebrated Arius, an 
 eloquent ecclesiastic, taught that Christ was the most 
 exalted of all creatures, but still a creature : that he was 
 inferior to the Father, both in nature and dignity ; that 
 Christ had nothing of man in him but the flesh to which 
 the Logos was joined, which was the same as the soul in 
 us. The Arians were first condemned by a council at 
 Alexandria, in 320, under Alexander bishop of that city, 
 who accused Arius of impiety, and caused him to be 
 expelled from the communion of the church; and after- 
 wards by 380 fathers in general council at Nice, assem- 
 bled by Constantine in 325. This was the first general 
 council ever convened by the Christian church. It is said 
 that more than six hundred members were present. Of this 
 
30 HEKETICS EXPELLED. 
 
 number only twenty-three dissented from the final judg- 
 ment; and of these, twenty finally yielded and subscribed 
 to the orthodox synodical creed, part of w T hich is as fol- 
 lows: " We believe in one God Almighty, maker of all 
 things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the Son of God, begotten of the Father, — God of God? 
 Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not 
 made, — who for us men, and our salvation, came down 
 from heaven, and was incarnate: and made man, and 
 suffered, — and on the third day rose again, and ascended 
 into heaven, and shall come again to judge the quick and 
 the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. And the Cath- 
 olic and Apostolic church anathematizes those who say 
 that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or 
 that he w T as not before he was born ; or, that he was made 
 out of nothing, or of another substance or essence, or 
 that he w r as created or mutable" &c. This creed ex- 
 pressed the solemn judgment of the w r hole church.* 
 
 The above testimony is sufficient to show what the 
 belief of the church was ; that in the times of Christ and 
 his apostles and after, the Primitive church believed in 
 the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. All the testimony 
 on this point, from the creation of the world to the pre- 
 sent time, from Pagan, Jew and Christian, agree in proof 
 thereof. 
 
 We shall conclude this chapter, with a few reflections. 
 1. The Unitarian writers boast of the validity of their 
 
 * See Watson's Bib. Die. 
 
HERETICS EXPELLED. 31 
 
 arguments, as being the " early opinion." Surely these 
 obsequious disciples, anti-apostolic Cerinthians, Ebion- 
 iteSj and Arians, may have had their skeptical glory. 
 But, of all those innovators, not one of them suffered 
 martyrdom for their unbelief of the supreme divinity of 
 Christ. It pleased the world and Satan too well. How 
 is it, that Dr. Priestly and his copiers, tell us, that the 
 Primitive Church was Unitarian? If so, is it not aston- 
 ishing, that when the Christians began to get into the 
 error of Trinitarians, that not a word was heard against 
 this " monstrous" error; and not a Trinitarian was con- 
 demned for heresy. And according to Unitarians them- 
 selves, the whole church was Trinitarian about the close 
 of the third century. And still not a word was said 
 against it. Then, how wicked is it in Priestly and 
 others, to publish to the world, that the apostolic church 
 was Unitarian, in the days of the apostles and afterwards, 
 And to try to establish their error, by wresting the wri- 
 tings of the Fathers from their legitimate import to make 
 the unbaptized monster of Unitarianism to be the faith 
 of the Fathers, and the belief of the Primitive church. 
 That the honest reader may not think that we have false- 
 ly represented the Unitarian writers, we shall present a 
 few facts in the case. We have a quotation from Ori- 
 gen, who lived only 130 years after the apostolic age. — 
 It is as follows: "When they (catechumens) shall have 
 become firmly compacted in the spirit, and when they 
 shall bring forth fruit in it; then, as loving the heavenly 
 
32 HERETICS EXPELLED. 
 
 wisdom, we may safely impart to them the hidden doc- 
 trine respecting the ascent of the incarnate Word to the 
 state in which he was God in the beginning."* This 
 passage with a few others have been adduced by Dr. 
 Priestly to show that in the days of Origen, "the great 
 multitude of Gentile Christians were generally Anti- 
 trinitarian, who rejected with abhorrence the doctrine of 
 our Lord's divinity."! This proves either his ignorance 
 or his wickedness. Again, we adduce a quotation from 
 Mr. Jared Sparks, to show his inconsistency. Says he, 
 "As for a trinity of persons, nothing was heard of it, till 
 the deity of the Holy Ghost was decreed by the Coun- 
 cil of Constantinople, near the close of the fourth century." 
 This gentleman affects not to know that the whole 
 Christian church believed in the personality and deity of 
 the Holy Ghost always, and that the church condemned 
 Macedonius, the only man that denied it. But, did not 
 Mr. Sparks know, that the whole Christian church had 
 by their representatives at the Council of Nice, held A. 
 D. 325, upwards of thirty years before the time he says a 
 trinity was first heard of, that they professed their belief 
 in a trinity? Again, the same author says, Inquiry p. 
 152, " No history, either sacred or profane, acquaints us 
 with a single fact, from which it can be inferred that the 
 Jews had any knowledge of a three-fold nature in the 
 Deity. On the contrary, all history is against such an 
 
 * Orig-. Comment, in Johan. p. 9. 
 
 t Hist, of Early Opins. book 3, chap. 13, sec. 2. Works, vol. 6, 
 p. 483. 
 
HBBBTICS EXPELLED. 33 
 
 '"* The reader will see from the foregoing 
 
 •ions that we have not misrepresented Unitarian 
 \ ml though, we have mentioned but two authors, 
 yet many more we might mention, but as they arc gener- 
 ally copyists of those we have mentioned, let these suffice. 
 
 2. We profess not to know, how the God of the uni- 
 verse is one God and three persons. fBut the fact, is 
 he so? The scriptures establish the fact. And it is the 
 duty of every one to believe this doctrine is true, though 
 he cannot know, how it is true. We say the Scriptures, 
 for though we should receive the testimony of the Pri- 
 mitive Fathers, nevertheless, if this doctrine be not proven 
 fully and clearly by the Bible, it is not yet established 
 by divine authority; hence not binding on any individual 
 to believe, or disbelieve. I ask the unbeliever in the 
 supreme divinity of Christ, if the doctrine be proven in 
 the scriptures, whether he would not believe it? 
 
 If he would not, then we have no controversy with 
 him. But if the doctrine be clearly proven in the scrip- 
 tures, and therefore he is willing to receive it, why then, 
 always to be crying that it is a manifest contradiction, 
 irrational, fyc. This surely can have nothing to do 
 with the subject. We appeal for the truth of the doc- 
 trine to the Bible, and if the Bible will not prove it true, 
 Unitarians need not trouble themselves with trying to 
 prove its absurdity, or self-contradiction, for the matter 
 must be given up as lost, after all that has been said 
 about Jew and Gentile testimony. 
 
 *Rev. R. W. Landis. 
 
 4 
 
CHAPTERVI. 
 
 Let us present some objections made by the 
 unbelievers of christ's supreme divinity. 
 
 They say, " The Father, according to the Trinitarian 
 doctrine, is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Ghost 
 is God. Three cannot be one, three units cannot be one 
 unit." This objection is not made against the doctrine of 
 Trinitarians, but against the " inconsistency of tri-theism 
 with the unity of God." But the objection would be 
 good against the Trinitarians, if they admitted the exis- 
 tence of three Gods, and of course against the divinity of 
 Christ as one of the three ; but this is not admitted by any 
 enlightened Trinitarian, hence it is inapplicable and 
 powerless. 
 
 Trinitarians believe in the scriptural account of Jeho- 
 vah, that " He is one perfect existence, underived and 
 unlimited ; and that this one perfect existence is in the 
 scriptures declared to be the Father, Son and Holy 
 Ghost." These are called persons. But, what is the true 
 meaning of the word person? In the application of the 
 term to the Deity, no living being, either man or angel, 
 can tell. Men cannot tell what the human soul is, or even 
 the body And who can tell how the Father, Son and 
 
OBJECTIONS OF (7NBELISVSB9. 35 
 
 I [oly Ghost arc three persons, and but one God? Can 
 the Unitarians inform us, how God is God. 
 
 Indeed, it appears to us, that the " unbelievers" try to 
 prove what the scriptures do not teach, and arc appealing 
 nearly always to reason, as they call it, instead of apply- 
 ing to the scriptures for their proof: just as if by reason 
 they could find out God. It is enough that the scrip- 
 tures reveal the fact, and it should be the duty of fall- 
 al men to receive the truth, with meekness and thanks- 
 giving. Again, Unitarians offer as an objection the 
 mysteriousness of the proposition, " that God can be one 
 in one sense, and three in another." We grant its mys- 
 teriousness, but God has thought proper to reveal him- 
 self thus in the scriptures; and demands our belief of 
 what he reveals, and that which is essential to our salva- 
 tion. The proposition asserted by Trinitarians, and 
 denied by Unitarians, ." that God is tri-personal," is a 
 profound mystery, implying infinite existence, which no 
 finite being in the universe can have a definite idea of. 
 Neither Trinitarians nor Unitarians can by any possible 
 mental effort discern, whether the fact asserted be true 
 or false, or whether the ideas denoted by the words 
 " God and tri-personal," agree or disagree. 
 
 Until this can be done, nothing is made out by either par- 
 ty. If the research is to be conducted as an object of "men- 
 tal discernment, or philosophical inquiry," without resting 
 the matter on Divine Revelation, then there must necessa- 
 rily be distinct ideas in the mind, before it can compare 
 them, or discern the agreement or disagreement of a propo- 
 
36 OBJECTIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. 
 
 sition, whose truth or falsehood, the mind can conceive.* 
 Then, unless. the advocates of Unitarianism avow that 
 they have distinct ideas of the infinite God, they must 
 give up the argument, or maintain that, unlike all other 
 rational beings, they can reason without distinct ideas of 
 the essence of the supreme God, yet they can have dis- 
 tinct ideas of what we call a trinity. But, before they 
 go any farther, we challenge them to prove this. In doing 
 so, it is more than probable, they will find it as difficult 
 to do, as to give distinct ideas of the essence of God. If 
 they ask us, " why do Trinitarians adopt it as essential 
 to their creed which is so unintelligible?" — we answer 
 because God hath revealed it. Then, the mysteriousness 
 
 * " That three Beings should be one Being, is a proposition which 
 certainly contradicts reason, that is, our reason ; but it does not from 
 thence follow, that it cannot be true, for there are many proposi- 
 tions which contradict our reason, and yet are demonstrably true. 
 One is the very first principle of all religion, the being of a God: 
 for that anything exists without a cause, or that anything should 
 be the cause of its own existence, are propositions equally contra- 
 dictory to our reason: yet one of them must be true, or nothing 
 could ever have existed. 
 
 "Can reason teach us how the sun's luminous orb can fill a circle 
 whose diameter contains many millions of miles, with a constant 
 inundation of successive rays during thousands of years without any 
 perceivable diminution of that body from which tfiey are contin- 
 ually poured, or any augmentation of those bodies on which they 
 fall, and by which they are continually absorbed? Can our reason 
 tell us, how any union can be formed between material and imma- 
 terial essences'? Or how the wounds of the body can give pain to 
 the soul; or the anxiety of the soul emaciate and destroy the 
 body?" Jenyn's Internal Evidence, page 57, 63. 
 
OBJECTIONS OF r \m:i,m;yi:rs. 37 
 
 of the doctrine lies in the nature of the thing which it 
 
 lares, and not in the fact declared. Certainly it is 
 
 with but lit'! $$ can be alleged 
 
 an objection against any doctrine. a3 mystery envelopes 
 
 arly every thing: the soul of man, the body of man, 
 the vegetable, the atom, &c. But, if Unitarians be not 
 disposed to rest their faith on reason alone, but on the 
 Scriptures, to the Scriptures we likewise appeal, and by 
 them, and them only, to stand or fall. 
 
 We have deemed it proper to make the above remarks 
 in connection with the evidences produced, apart, as we 
 may say, from the Bible, with the exception of a few 
 quotations touching the belief of the ancient Jewish 
 church. But, it may be thought, that all this labor, to 
 prove what no person cares about, is at least lost time. 
 We are aware that Socinian writers, and others of nearly 
 like heresy, try to make it appear that the doctrine of the 
 Trinity is useless, or nearly so. But this is not so. The 
 knowledge of God is fundamental to religion ; and as 
 we know nothing of Him, but what he has been pleased 
 to reveal, and as these revelations have all moral ends, 
 and are designed to promote piety, and not to gratify 
 curiosity, all that he has revealed of himself in particu- 
 lar, must partake of that character of fundamental im- 
 portance, which belongs to the knowedge of God in the 
 aggregate. " This is life eternal, that they might know 
 thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
 sent." Nothing, therefore, can disprove the fundamen- 
 
38 OBJECTIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. 
 
 tal importance of the Trinity in unity, but that which 
 will disprove it to be a doctrine of Scripture.* 
 Jj r Again, it essentially affects our views of God as the 
 object of our worship, whether we regard him as one in 
 essence, and one in person, or admit that in the unity of 
 this Godhead there are three equally Divine persons. 
 These are two very different conceptions. Both cannot 
 be true. The God of those who deny the Trinity, is not 
 the God of those who worship the Trinity in unity, nor 
 on the contrary ; so that one or the other worships what 
 is "nothing in the world:" and for any reality in the 
 object of worship, might as well worship a pagan idol, 
 which also, says St. Paul, "is nothing in the world." 
 
 They do not now attempt to prove the " Socinian heresy 
 from the Scriptures ; this has long been given up, and 
 the main effort of all modern writers on this side has 
 been directed to cavil at the adduced proofs of the oppo- 
 site doctrine." On this authority alone they might be 
 accounted idolaters, worshipping of what "is nothing in 
 the world," and not the God revealed in the Bible, t 
 
 Again : the doctrine that destroys the divinity of Our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, is ruinous on another account, " our 
 love to God, which is the sum of every duty, is most 
 
 * Watson's Theol. Inst. 1 vol. p. 452. 
 tWitsius, quoted by Rev. R. Watson, Inst, vol 1 , p. 454 : says "JNul* 
 la etiam religio est, nisi quis verum Deura colat; non colit verum 
 Deum, sed cerebri suifigmentum, qui non adorat in sequali divini- 
 tatis maj estate Patrem, Filiura, et Spiritum Sanctum. I nunc, et 
 doctrinam earn ad praxin inutilem esse clama, sine qua nulla Fidei 
 aut, Pietatis Christinse praxis esse potest." 
 
OBJECTIONS OF I NBBOTVBB8. 
 
 intimately and essentially connected with the doctrine in 
 question. ( tod's love to us is the ground of our love to 
 him. The love of God to man in the gift of his Son is 
 that manifestation of it on which the Scriptures most 
 emphatically and frequently dwell, and on which they 
 establish our duty of loving God and one another; but 
 our estimate of the love which he gives must be widely 
 different, accordingly as we regard the gift bestowed. — 
 as a creature or as a Divine person, — as merely a son 
 of man, or as the Son of God. If the former only, it is 
 difficult to conceive in what this love, constantly repre- 
 sented as "unspeakable" and astonishing, could consist. 
 Indeed, if we suppose Christ to be man only, on the 
 Socinian scheme, or as an exalted creature, according to 
 the Arians, God might be rather said to have "so loved 
 his Son" than us, as to send him into the w^orld, on a 
 service so honorable, and which was to be followed by 
 so high and vast a reward, that he, a creature, should be 
 advanced to universal dominion and receive universal 
 homage as the price of temporary sufferings, which, upon 
 either the Socinian or Arian scheme, were not greater 
 than those which many of his disciples endured alter him? 
 and in many respects, not so great." For the same rea- 
 son, the doctrine which denies Our Lord's divinity dimin- 
 ishes the love of Christ himself, takes away its gener- 
 osity and devotedness, presents it under views infinitely 
 below those contained in the New Testament, and weak- 
 ens the motives which are drawn from it to excite our 
 gratitude and obedience. " If Christ was in the form of 
 
40 OBJECTIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. 
 
 God, equal with God, and very God, it was then an act 
 of infinite love and condescension in him to become man ; 
 but if he was no more than a creature, it was no surpri- 
 sing condescension to embark in a work so glorious; 
 such as being the Saviour of mankind, and such as would 
 advance him to be Lord and Judge of the world, to be 
 admired, reverenced, and adored both by men and an- 
 gels."* 
 
 ^As a creature, no matter however highly exalted, he 
 would have profited by exaltation after redeeming the 
 world. But considered as divine, Christ gained nothing. 
 God is full and perfect, and essentially glorious in and 
 of himself, exalted " above blessing and praise;" hence 
 our Lord prays, that he might be glorified with the Fath- 
 er, with the glory which he had " before the world was f 
 hence "to deny the divinity of Christ alters the very foun- 
 dations of Christianity, and destroys all the powerful 
 arguments of the love, humility and condescension of 
 Our Lord, which are the peculiar motives of the 
 gospel."f 
 
 "The doctrine of satisfaction or atonement depends 
 upon his divinity : and it is, therefore, consistently denied 
 by those who reject the former. So important, however, 
 is the decision of this case, that the very terms of our 
 salvation and the ground of our hope are affected 
 by it n J 
 
 * Waterland's " Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity." 
 t Dr. Sherlock's Vindication. 
 : Watson's Inst. vol. 1, p. 458. 
 
OBJECTIONS OF CNBBLIHVHHB. 41 
 
 dal of the divinity of Christ lowers in 
 i86 of what the apostle calls, M the exceeding 
 sinfulness of sin," and weakens the hatred of it among 
 ;. and of course encourages it. And totally changes 
 the character of Christian experience, and takes away 
 those strong emotions attendant on repentance. But 
 this is not all. The Christian's trust and hope and 
 joy is materially marred, and Bible religion goes to 
 the moles and to the bats. Hence, how important 
 is it to have consistent views of Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ? Let none say that it is of but little moment : on 
 the contrary it is of vast moment, — all depends upon 
 it in time and in eternity. In the foregoing pages we 
 have at least presented reasonable evidence in favor of 
 our Saviour's supreme divinity; nevertheless, this we 
 freely grant is insufficient to establish beyond contradic- 
 tion his divinity, apart from the Holy Scriptures. Then 
 in introducing'the scripture evidence, we shall commence 
 with the " Trinity in Unity and Unity of the Trinity.'' 
 Then show that Jesus Christ is one of the three persons, 
 God over all, blessed forever more. From the foregoing 
 chapters, we may conclude, that it is beyond doubt that 
 the God of the universe has endued all men in all ages 
 with evidence of His eternal power and, Godhead. And 
 although men live wickedly, nevertheless, the things 
 that are see?i, carry with them indubitable testimony, 
 that some being is to be worshipped, and that this being 
 is to be adored as a Being of three persons in one essence. 
 The primitive Jews had not only the evidence of visi- 
 
42 
 
 OBJECTIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. 
 
 ble things, but the prophecies to inform them, by the 
 light of the spirit, that the Shiloh, the sent of God, the 
 Son, the Messiah, was a person of the Godhead, and 
 that this Godhead was " One Lord," Deut. vi. 4. Thus 
 stating their belief in the personality and unity of the 
 Deity. In addition to this, the testimony of pagan wri- 
 ters touching Jesus Christ is farther proof of his Deity ; 
 and as the Christian church in the time of the apostles 
 and afterward held the supreme divinity of the Saviour, 
 the evidence still presses on the mind that Jesus is the 
 Son of God, and equal with the Father. And this is 
 still more obvious, from the fact, that all those who 
 rejected the doctrine of Christ's absolute divinity were 
 expelled from the church as heretics, 
 
PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Scriptural Evidence of the Trinity in Unity 
 
 By some, it may be thought, that it is not necessary 
 to introduce, on the plurality of persons in the Godhead, 
 any evidence, seeing that the evidence in favor of Christ's 
 divinity is all sufficient. Conscious of the force of this 
 idea, we shall not trouble the reader with many scrip- 
 tural evidences on this topic. Notwithstanding, we see 
 no just reason not to present evidence on this point, as 
 it appears to be the commencement of the whole matter 
 on hand. And if there be three persons in the God- 
 head, Jesus Christ necessarily is one of them ; the second 
 adorable one of the eternal Trinity. Hence, when we 
 try to prove the Trinity, we give the same proof of his 
 hypostasis or personality, for this plain reason, we pro- 
 ceed to the Biblical proof of the Trinity. 
 
 The point disputed, is not whether there be one God : 
 for in this we all agree. Neither, whether there be 
 
44 TRINITY AND UNITY. 
 
 three Gods; for in this we likewise agree. But, whether 
 there be in the divine Essence one person, or three. — 
 We affirm and they deny. 
 
 We find in the first verse of the first chapter of the 
 Bible, this language : " In the beginning God created the 
 heaven and the earth." Here the word God, is from 
 Aleim, which is the plural number, though annexed to 
 a verb of the singular number, which evidently shows 
 there are three persons in the divine nature. Again, in 
 the 26fh verse of the same chapter, we read, " And God 
 said, let us make man in our own image." Here, like- 
 wise, persons in the Godhead are not only implied, but 
 expressed, " Let us make man." In the 18th chapter, 
 second verse of Genesis, God appeared to Abraham in 
 the form of "three men." These three are mentioned 
 in verse 10th as one person only, " And he said, I will 
 certainly return unto thee," &c. Again, "And the 
 Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us 
 to know] good and evil." The phrase " Lord God," 
 and "us" suggest the tri-unity of the Godhead. The 
 following passages are to the same purpose : " Go to, 
 let us go down, and there confound their language." — 
 Gen. xi. 7. " Wo unto us ! who shall deliver us out of 
 the hand of these mighty Gods ? These are the Gods 
 that smote the Egyptians w T ith all the plagues in the wil- 
 derness." 1 Sam. iv. 8. Of the last passage, the ene- 
 mies of the doctrine we advocate may say, that the term 
 Gods was a heathen notion of the wicked Philistines, and 
 not the true scriptural and Christian idea of God. In 
 
TUIMTY AM) I'MTV 15 
 
 inswer we say, though the Philistines may be called 
 heathens, nevertheless, they only express what God has 
 expressed of himself in the holy scriptures; hence, they 
 expressed the truth. And (his truth we apply to prove 
 a plurality of persons in the Godhead.* In Genesis, 
 chapter xix. 24, we have these words: u Then the Lord 
 rained upon Sodom, and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and 
 fire from the Lord out of heaven." We have here the. 
 visible Jehovah who conversed with Abraham, raining 
 the storm of vengeance from another Jehovah out of hea- 
 ven, who was therefore invisible. 
 
 The unity of the deity is likewise fully shown in the 
 holy scriptures, " Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is 
 one Jehovah." Deut. vi. 4. "O Lord God of Israel, 
 which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, 
 even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth." 2 
 Kings xix. 15. Hence, we see that the scriptures set 
 forth three persons in one God. But we have still more 
 testimony from the scripture to adduce. The cry of the 
 seraphims to God, when sitting upon his throne, high 
 and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. " And 
 one (seraphim) cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, 
 holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of 
 his glory." This distinct trine act of devotion, is an- 
 swered by the voice of Jehovah from the " throne high 
 and lifted up." "Also," says the prophet, " I heard the 
 voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who 
 
 * By the term Gods, we understand persons. 
 
46 TRINITY AND UNITY. 
 
 will go for us" Isa. vi. 3-8. Each of the holy ones 
 in the Godhead is addressed with his appropriate and 
 equally grand appellation of Holy, holy, holy, the Fath- 
 er, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The apostle John ap- 
 plies this vision of Isaiah to Christ, as is most likely, 
 where he says, " These things said Esaias, when he saw 
 his glory, and spake of him," that is of Christ. John 
 xii. 40, 41. This vision all acknowledge to include 
 the Father; St. John applies it to Christ, and the apostle 
 Paul applies it to the Holy Ghost. " Well spake the 
 Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, say- 
 ing, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, 
 and shall not understand ; and seeing ye shall see, and 
 not perceive," &c. Acts xxviii. 25, 26, 27. Compare 
 this with Isaiah vi. 9, 10. There can be no doubt but 
 that both, St. John and St. Paul, quote from, and allude 
 to, Isaiah's vision. And here we have a trinity of per- 
 sons in defiance of all criticism on this subject. On this 
 passage in Isaiah, the Rev. R. Watson says in his The- 
 ological Institutes, vol. 1, part 2, p. 471, " Now let all 
 these circumstances be placed together — the place, the 
 holy place of the Holy Ones; the repetition of the hom- 
 age, three times, Holy, holy, holy, — the one Jehovah 
 of hosts, to whom it was addressed, — the plural pronoun 
 used by this one Jehovah, us; the declaration of an 
 evangelist, that on this occasion Isaiah saw the glory of 
 Christ; the declaration of St. Paul, that the Lord of 
 hosts who spake on that occasion was the Holy Ghost ; 
 and the conclusion will not appear to be without most 
 
racoTY AND UNITY. 47 
 
 powerful authority, both circumstantial and declaratory 
 that the adoration, Holy, holy, holy, referred to the Di- 
 vine three in the one essence of the Lord of hosts. Ac- 
 cordingly, in the book of Revelation, where ! the Lamb 1 
 is so constantly represented as sitting upon the divine 
 throne, and where he by name is associated with the 
 Father, as the object of the equal homage and praise of 
 saints and angels ; this scene from Isaiah is transferred 
 into the fourth chapter, and the c living creatures, 7 the 
 seraphim of the prophet, are heard in the same strain, 
 and with the same trine repetition, saying, 'Holy, holy, 
 holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to 
 come." ' Isaiah xlviii. 16, makes a three-fold distinction 
 and limitation : " And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, 
 hath sent me." This agrees with our Lord's own dis- 
 courses, who speaks of himself and the Spirit. And this 
 strengthens the application, by bringing the phrase 
 nearer to that so often used by our Lord, who speaks of 
 himself and the Spirit, being sent by the Father. " The 
 Father which sent me — the comforter whom I send unto 
 you from the Father, who proceedeth from the Father." 
 John xv. 26. The following passages in the New Tes- 
 tament are familiar to every one who reads the Bible : 
 • ; Eaptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost" Matt, xxviii. 19. "May 
 the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
 and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all, 
 amen." 2 Cor. xiii. 14. " Now there are diversities of 
 gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of 
 
48 TRINITY AND UNITY. 
 
 administrations, but the same Lord. And there are di- 
 versities of operations, but it is the same God which 
 worketh all in all." 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5, 6. Here the Spi- 
 rit, the third person, is mentioned, the Lord the second 
 person, and the "same God which worketh all in all," 
 the first person. The apostle Peter to the strangers 
 scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, &c, says: "Elect 
 according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father, 
 through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and 
 sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ ; grace be unto 
 you and peace be multiplied." 1 Peter i. 2. We shall 
 close this part of the subject with one more text, found 
 1 John v. 7. " For there are three that bear record in 
 heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost : and 
 these three are one." We are aware that even some 
 strong believers in the holy trinity object to the genuine- 
 ness of this text ; Griesbach and others. But, if this 
 text, and some others, were left out of the argument in 
 fovor of the trinity, it would still have ample proof to 
 establish it beyond successful contradiction. 
 
 Nothing can be more clear than this, that the Father 
 sent the Son, and, therefore, the Father and the Son are 
 distinct; that the Father and the Son sent the Holy 
 Ghost, and that, therefore, the Father, and the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost, are distinct persons, and that each of 
 these distinct persons is called God. In the language of 
 inspiration this is true of the Father, which, we suppose, 
 none doubts. a The only true God." Johnxvii. 3. "The 
 Word was God." John i. 1. " The Word was made 
 
TKIMTY 1ND UNITY. 19 
 
 Besh and dwelt among us." John i. 14. From these 
 texts the plain conclusion is, the Word which was God. 
 the same which was made flesh and dwelt among us, is 
 the very and eternal God. Again, to "lie unto the Holy 
 Ghost" is to lie "unto God." Acts v. 3, 4. In view 
 of these last quotations, we cannot perceive any great 
 necessity for calling forth this disputed text. (1 John v. 7.) 
 But certainly there is no valid argument against it, and 
 there never can be. The learned opponents of this text 
 assert, that " It is not found in a single Greek manuscript 
 written before the sixteenth century." Yet they grant 
 that there are but about four hundred MSS. collated, and 
 there are thousands that are in existence which those cri- 
 tics have never seen. The Paris library has two hun- 
 dred and two, of which but forty-nine have been collated. 
 From the vast number in the Vatican library, as all the 
 learned agree, but only thirty-four of which have been 
 collated. " In the Grand Ducal library at Florence 
 alone, there are at least one thousand Greek MSS. of 
 the New Testament, and of these only twenty-four have 
 been collated." And very few of the Greek MSS. now 
 exist. In Diocletian's time many thousands were burned 
 by the hand of persecution. And in the great fire of 
 Constantinople, A. D. 476, there perished in the flames 
 120,000 valuable manuscripts, so that the number col- 
 lated bears a very little proportion to those destroyed. — 
 Yet from the few remaining, our learned antagonists 
 peremptorily conclude, "that this verse under discussion 
 is not to be found in a single Greek MSS. written before 
 5 
 
50 TRINITY AND UNITY. 
 
 the sixteenth century." It might have been found 
 in 999 MSS. for all they know, or after all they possi- 
 bly may find out on the subject. 
 
 The reader may see this text, (1 John v. 7,) vindica- 
 ted in Horn's Introduction, vol. 4, page 437. 
 
 However, it is very true, that all this text is comprised 
 in John's gospel. Does the text in 1 John v. 7, say, 
 that " there are three that bear record in heaven, the 
 Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost." In John viii. 
 18, it is said, " I am one that bear witness of myself, and 
 the Father that sent me beareth witness of me." From 
 this we see the Father bears record in heaven, the Son 
 bears witness in heaven. John viii. 14. The Holy 
 Ghost, or Comforter, bears testimony of Christ in hea- 
 ven. "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will 
 send unto ypu from the Father, even the spirit of truth, 
 which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of 
 me." John xv. 26. "I and my Father are one." — 
 John x. 30. These texts express all that we find in 1 
 John v. 7.* 
 
 * The letter of that accomplished scholar, Charles Butler, Esq., 
 (in the second volume of his Hone Biblicoe,) to Dr. Marsh, con- 
 tains evidence of great weight in proof of the authenticity of the 
 text in 1 John v. 7. 8. This letter can be found in the Panoplist for 
 May, 1811, page 534. Part of this letter we beg leave to present to 
 our readers. 
 44 The Rev. Hereert Marsh: 
 
 Dear Sir, — When I had last the pleasure of your company, 1 
 mentioned to you that I thought the argument in favor of the 
 
TKIMTY AM) UNITY. 5] 
 
 2 I' may be proper for us in this place, to adduce a 
 few Scriptural proofs for the unity of the Trinity. "By 
 the Word o£ the Lord were the heavens made: and all 
 
 >f the Three Heavenly 'Witnesses, 1 John, chap. v. 5, 7, from 
 the confession o( faith presented to the Catholic Bishops to Ilune- 
 ric in 484, had not been sufficiently attended to: I now beg leave to 
 trouble you with my thoughts upon it. I shall first copy Mr. Arch- 
 deacon Travis's account of it, from his letters to Mr. Gibbon, 3rd 
 edition, page 57. 
 
 " In A. D. 484, an assembly of African Bishops was convened at 
 Carthage by King Huneric, the Vandal and the Arian. The style 
 of the edict, issued by Huneric on this occasion, seems worthy of 
 notice. He therein requires the orthodox Bishops of his dominions 
 to attend the council thus convened, there to defend by the Scrip- 
 tures the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, against cer- 
 tain Arian opponents. At the time appointed, nearly four hundred 
 Bishops attended this council from the various provinces of Africa, 
 and from the isles of the Mediterranean; at the head of whom stood 
 the venerable Eugenius, Bishop of Carthage. The public profes- 
 sions of Huneric promised a fair and candid discussion of the divin- 
 ity of Jesus Christ; but it soon appeared that his private intentions 
 were to compel, by force, the vindicators of that belief to submit to 
 the tenets of Arianism. For when Eugenius, with his anti-Arian 
 prelates, entered the room of consultation, they found Cyrila, their 
 chief antagonist, seated on a kind of throne, attended by his Arian 
 coadjutors, and surrounded by armed men; who quickly, instead or 
 waiting to hear the reasoning of their opponents, offered violence 
 to their persons. Convinced by this application of force, that no 
 deference would be paid to arguments, Eugenius and his prelates 
 withdrew from the council room; but not without leaving behind 
 them a protest, in which (among other passages of Scripture) this 
 verse of St. John is thus especially insisted upon, in vindication of 
 the belief to which they adhered: That it may appear more clear 
 than the light, that the Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the 
 
52 TRINITY AND UNITY. 
 
 the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Psa. 
 xxxiii. 6J Here the Trinity created the world; but 
 this Trinity is only one Lord. " I am the Lord that 
 
 Holy Spirit is one, see it proved by the Evangelist St. John, vjho 
 writes thus: There are three which bear record in heaven-, the 
 Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are One.' 
 
 " This remarkable fact appears to be alone amply decisive as to 
 the originality of the verse in question. The manner in which it 
 happened seems to carry irresistable conviction with it. It was not 
 a thing- done in a corner, a transaction of solitude or obscurity. — 
 It passed in the metropolis of the kingdom, in the court of the 
 reigning prince, in the face of the opponents, exasperated by con- 
 troversy, and proud of royal support, and in the presence of the 
 whole congregated African Church. Ivor is the time when this 
 transaction happened, less powerfully convincing than its manner. 
 Not much more than three centuries had elapsed from the death of 
 St. John, when this solemn appeal was thus made to the authority 
 of this verse. Had the verse been forged by Eugenius and his 
 Bishops, all Christian Africa would have exclaimed at once against 
 them. Had it even been considered as of doubtful original, their 
 adversaries, the Anans, thus publicly attacked by this protest, 
 would have loudly challenged the authenticity of the verse, and 
 would have refused to be in any respect concluded by its evidence. 
 But nothing of this kind intervened. Cyrila, and his asscciates, 
 received its testimony m sullen silence; and by that silence admit- 
 ted it to have proceeded from the pen of St. John. 
 
 With great respect, dear sir, I am, &c., 
 
 CHARLES BUTLER. 
 January 7, 1806." 
 
 MacKnight, in his translation, says, that some of the most an- 
 cient and correct Vatican Greek copies have this verse. All Ste- 
 phen's MSS., seven in number, and which contain the whole epis- 
 tles, have this verse. The Vulgate versions, in most of the MSS- 
 and the printed editions, have it Tertullian bears testimouy in 
 
TRINITY AND UNITY. 53 
 
 maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens 
 alone: that sprcadcth abroad the earth by myself." — 
 Isa. xliv. 24. " It follows, therefore, that the Word and 
 Spirit did not make the heavens, or that the Father with 
 his Word and Spirit are alo?ie the Lord and Creator of 
 all things." (Landis.) "That men may know that 
 thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the Most High 
 over all the earth." Psa. lxxxiii. 18. Christ is Jeho- 
 vah, " and this is his name w T hereby he shall be called, 
 the Lord our righteousness." Jer. xxiii. 6. The 
 Holy Ghost, or Spirit, is likewise Jehovah, " the hand 
 of the Lord Jehovah fell there upon me. — And he put 
 
 favor of this verse, in the second century. In St. Jerome's Testa- 
 ment this verse of St. John is found.* Augustine, of the same age, 
 bears testimony to its authenticity. Cyrillus, in his commentary, 
 uses it without any doubt of its authenticity. It appears strange, 
 that ever there should have been any doubt of the authenticity of 
 this portion of the sacred Scriptures. Nevertheless, some of the 
 pious and learned of modern times, express doubts touching its gen- 
 uineness; among others the venerable Dr. A. Clark says, " It is 
 likely this verse is not genuine. It is wanting in every MSS. of this 
 epistle written before the invention of printing, one excepted, the 
 Codex Montf or Hi, in Trinity College, Dublin; the others which 
 omit this verse amount to one hundred and twelve." Comment. 1 
 John, v. 7,8. The Rev. J. Wesley says in his Notes on the JN"ew 
 Testament on this verse, " WhatBengelius has advanced both con- 
 cerning the transposition of these two verses, and the authority of 
 the controverted verse, partly in his Gnomon and partly in his Ap- 
 paratus Criticus, will abundantly satisfy any impartial person 
 that there are three that testify, fyc. 
 
 » Rev. E. Smith's View of the Trinity, 
 
54 TRINITY AND UNITY. 
 
 forth the form of an hand and took me by a lock of mine 
 head ; and the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and 
 the heaven," &c. Ezek. viii. 1, 3. Therefore the 
 Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the one 
 Jehovah; these are three persons, of one nature. It is 
 remarkable that the name Jehovah is not capable of 
 equivocation as that of God ; it has no plural, and is not 
 applicable to any created or derived being-, but is pecu- 
 liar to the divine nature, and descriptive of it alone. 
 
 3. The Trinity in unity is eternal, so taught in the 
 holy Scriptures, "according to the commandment of the 
 everlasting God." Rom, xvi. 26. Jesus Christ, who 
 saith, "I am the first and the last." Rev. xxii. 13. " Who 
 through the eternal Spirit," &c. Heb. ix. 14. Thus 
 hath God revealed himself in his holy word. Again, 
 says Christ, " I and my Father are one." John x. 30. 
 The Holy Ghost, or Comforter, " who proceedeth from 
 the Father." John xv. 26. The inference is, from the 
 above, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three 
 persons, and one God, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Om- 
 niscient, and eternally glorious. Hence, the Godhead 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost 
 is one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. " So the 
 Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is 
 God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God." 
 [Athanasian Creed.) " There is one divine nature of 
 reason and science, common unto three persons, incom- 
 prehensibly united, and ineffably] distinguished ; united 
 in essential attributes, distinguished by peculiar idioms 
 
TRINITY AND UNITY 55 
 
 and relations ; all equally infinite in every divine per- 
 fection, each different from the other in order and man- 
 ner of subsistence; that there is a mutual existence of 
 one in all, and all in one; a communication without any 
 deprivation or diminution in the communicant; an eter- 
 nal generation, and an eternal procession without prece- 
 dence or succession ; without proper causality or depen- 
 dence, a Father imparting his own, and a Son receiving 
 his Father's life, and a Spirit issuing from both, without 
 any division or multiplication of essence. 
 
 " These are notions which may well puzzle our reason 
 in conceiving how they agree; but ought not to stagger 
 our faith in assreting that they are true ; for the holy 
 Scripture teaches us plainly, and frequently doth in- 
 culcate upon us, that there is but one true God; if it 
 manifestly doth ascribe to the three persons of the 
 blessed Trinity, the same august names, the same pe- 
 culiar characters, the same divine attributes, the same 
 superlatively admirable operations of creation and prov- 
 idence ; if it also doth prescribe to them the same 
 supreme honors, services, praises, and acknowledg- 
 ments to be paid to them all ; this may be abundantly 
 enough to satisfy our minds, to stop our mouths, to 
 smother all doubt and dispute about this high and holy 
 mystery." (Dr. Barrow's Defence of the Trinity.)— 
 I •'•The proof of the doctrine of the Trinity grounds itself 
 Ion the firm foundation of the divine unity, and it closes 
 I with it; and this may set the true believer at rest, when 
 Ihe is assailed by the sophistical enemies of his faith 
 [with the charge of dividing his regards, as he directs 
 
56 TRINITY AND UNITY. 
 
 his prayers to one or other of the three persons of the 
 Godhead. For the time at least, he is said to honor one 
 to the exclusion of the others. The true Scriptural doc- 
 trine of the unity of God, will remove this objection. — 
 It is not the Socinian notion of unity. Theirs is the unity 
 of one, ours the unity of three. We do not, however, 
 as they seem to suppose, think the divine essence divisi- 
 ble, and participated by, and shared among three per- 
 sons ; but wholly and undividedly possessed and enjoyed. 
 Whether, therefore, we address our prayers and adora- 
 tions to the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, we address the 
 same adorable Being, the one living and true God. — 
 " Jehovah, our Aleim, is one Jehovah." With refer- 
 ence to the relations which each person bears to us in 
 the redeeming- economy, our approaches to the Father 
 are to be made through the mediation of the Son, and 
 by, or with dependence upon, the assistance of the Holy 
 Spirit. Yet, as the authority of the New Testament 
 shows, this does not preclude direct prayer to Christ 
 and to the Holy Spirit, and direct ascriptions of glory 
 and honor to each. In all this we glorify the one ' God 
 over all, blessed for evermore.' " (Rev. R. Watson's In- 
 stitutes, part 2 of vol. 1, p. 415.) The reader will per- 
 ceive, that our intention is not to mistake our own argu- 
 ments on the one hand, nor misrepresent the opponents 
 on the other ; but to gather the plain facts on the sub- 
 ject, and present them to the mind of the reader in their 
 native character. Touching the mode of three persons 
 existing in one God, we know nothing, and possibly 
 
TRINITY AM) UNITY. 57 
 
 never shall know. Nevertheless, from Genesis to the 
 Revelation, by God himself this doctrine is plainly re- 
 vealed. And why should the reader think this a thing 
 incredible. Does he not find that the apostle Paul sets 
 man forth in a three-fold sense. " And I pray God your 
 whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless 
 unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thes. v. 
 23. How the spirit, and soul, and body form one being, 
 is beyond the reason of man, notwithstanding it is posi- 
 tively revealed in Scripture. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Bible teaches the pre-existexce of Our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 The pre-existence of Christ does not wholly establish 
 the Godhead of Christ; hence it is not, therefore, full 
 proof against the Arian hypothesis, but it is proof suffi- 
 cient to destroy the Socinian idea that he was a man 
 only. As no person in his right mind claims pre-exis- 
 tence for the human soul, so we apply it to Christ alone, 
 not to his soul, but to his supreme divinity. The pre- 
 existence of Jesus Christ is clearly proven from the 
 scriptures. Instance, "he was sent into the world; 3 ' 
 John xvii. 18. " Forasmuch then as the children are 
 partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise 
 took part of the same." Heb. ii. 14. "And the Word 
 was made flesh, and dwelt among us." John i. 14. John 
 the Baptist bare witness of the pre-existence of Christ as 
 follows, "John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, 
 this was he of whom I spake. He that cometh after 
 me is preferred before me: for he w r as before me." John 
 i. 15. It is well known that John the Baptist was six 
 months older than the incarnation of Christ. 
 
PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 59 
 
 Socinian writers say, that the term, "preferred before 
 me," must be taken in the sense of dignity, and not of 
 time. But they should consider that the term EprtpoaSev 
 is never in the Old or New Testaments used for dignity 
 or rank, but refers either to place or time, hence their 
 application of the text is foreign to their purpose. The 
 phrase to be " sent from God," they maintain, is said of 
 John the Baptist, hence of no use in proof of Christ's pre- 
 existence. |C There was a man sent from God, whose 
 name was John." " Hence if Christ was sent from 
 God, so was John the Baptist; if the former came down 
 from heaven, so did the latter." But this reasoning con- 
 tradicts other scripture. Christ says, " Not that any man 
 hath seen the Father, save he which is of God ; he hath 
 seen the Father." John vi. 46. Christ applies this 
 scripture to himself and none else. Therefore if Christ 
 was that person, as it cannot be disputed ; John cannot 
 be sent from God in the same way that Christ was sent. 
 John gives testimony himself, " He that cometh from 
 above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly" 
 John iii. 31. The former part of the above text he ap- 
 plies to Christ, and the latter to himself. Christ, tt above 
 ail" which he could not be if every other prophet came 
 in like manner from heaven, hence if John was sent 
 from God it cannot be in the same sense that Christ was 
 sent from him, which destroys the objection. 
 
 Again, says Jesus to the Jews, " your father Abraham 
 rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad. 
 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty 
 
60 
 
 PRE-EXISTEISCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus saith 
 unto them, verily, verily I say unto you, before Abra- 
 ham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at 
 him : but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, 
 going through the midst of them, and so passed by." John 
 viii. 56, 59. In the above passage, the verb upi, " I am," 
 is equivalent to Jehovah, Exo. iii. 14. The sense is, 
 "before Abraham was born, I was in existence." The 
 Jews answer, " Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast 
 thou seen Abraham?" The Jews did not mistake his 
 meaning, but were so enraged at so manifest a claim of 
 Divinity, that u they took up stones to stone him," with- 
 out judge or jury. Our Saviour says to the Jews, "your 
 Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, 
 and was glad." Here Our Saviour presents himself to 
 his Jewish brethren as their Messiah, whose day their 
 Father Abraham rejoiced to see prospectively, or "having 
 seen them afar off," Heb. xi. 13. The Blessed Jesus, 
 " mounts up far beyond Abraham. He ascends beyond 
 all the orders of creation. And he places himself with 
 God, at the head of the universe. He thus claims to 
 himself all that high pitch of dignity, which the Jews 
 expected their Messiah to assume. He cries "verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am" He 
 says not of himself, as he says of Abraham, "before 
 he was, I was." This indeed would have been sufficient, 
 to affirm his existence previous to Abraham. But it 
 would not have been sufficient, to declare what he now 
 meant to assert, his full claim to the majesty of the Mes- 
 
TRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 61 
 
 siah. He therefore drops all forms of language, that 
 could be accommodated to the mere creatures of God. He 
 asserts one, that was appropriate to the Godhead itself. 
 "Before Abraham was" or still more properly, "Before 
 Abraham was made" he says "I am." He thus gives 
 himself the signature of uncreated and continual exis- 
 tence, in direct opposition to contingent and created. 
 He attaches to himself that stamp of eternity, which 
 God appropriates to his Godhead in the Old Testament ; 
 and from which an apostle afterward describes Jesus 
 Christ expressly, to be " the same yesterday, and to-day, 
 and forever." Nor did the Jews pretend to misunder- 
 stand him now. They could not. They heard him di- 
 rectly and decisively vindicating the noblest rights of their 
 Messiah, and the highest honors of their God, to him- 
 self. They considered him as a mere pretender to those. 
 " Then took they up stones, to cast at him," as a blasphe- 
 mer, as what indeed he was in his pretensions to be God, 
 if he had not been in reality their Messiah and their 
 God in one. But he instantly proved himself to their 
 very senses, to be both ; by exerting the energetic pow- 
 ers of his God-head, upon them. For he 'hid himself; 
 and went out of the temple, going through the midst of 
 them; and so passed by.' " 
 
 The above reasoning, we deem conclusive, which 
 none can gainsay, or overthrow. If then we find that the 
 titles and works which are given Christ in the New 
 Testament, are ascribed to a Divine person in the Old, 
 who is represented as distinct from God the Father, we 
 
62 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 shall hereby gain another step, and obtain a valid proof, 
 of the pre-existence of Our Lord Jesus Christ. But let 
 us follow up this point, a little farther. It is said in 
 John, i. 1. "In the beginning was the Word, (Logos,) 
 and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
 This Word or Logos, was with God and was God, w T ho 
 existed in the " beginning;" he was not the beginning, 
 but existed before the beginning, in the glory which he 
 had with the Father, " before the world was." John xvii. 
 5. And if he thus existed before the beginning, he must 
 necessarily be eternal. Who said to the Father and the 
 Spirit, " Come let us make man," &c. This agrees with 
 what is said in John i. 3. "All things were made by 
 him; and without him was not anything made that was 
 made." The heavens, the earth, and man were made, 
 but without Jesus Christ, they were not made. There- 
 fore, if he made all things he must necessarily have been 
 before all things, possessing infinite wisdom to construct, 
 and infinite power to create all things. But more than 
 this, the apostle Paul in speaking of him, Col. i. 17. says: 
 "And he is before all things, and by him all things con- 
 sist," or are preserved; but the same Apostle says in the 
 same chapter, verse 16 : " all things were created by him 
 and for him." Therefore, Christ made all things for 
 himself and not for another: then if he made all things 
 for himself, he surely could not have been a delegated 
 being to create and preserve for God, as some affirm. 
 The conclusion is inevitable, that Jesus Christ had a 
 pre-existence before he was born of the Virgin Mary. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Divinity of Jesus Christ is proven by the 
 names of Jehovah, &c, in the Scriptures being 
 applied to him. 
 
 All, we suppose, will agree, that that Person, called 
 the "Angel of the Lord," and Jehovah, "I am that I 
 am, the judge of all the earth," &c, in the Scriptures of 
 the Old Testament, was a divine person, or the Supreme 
 God. If Arians, or Unitarians, would dare to cavil 
 about any of these appellations, we suppose it would 
 be the first quotation, the " Angel of the Lord." But 
 we shall prove that the term Angel, is a name of the 
 eternal Jehovah. When the Angel of the Lord found 
 Hagar in the wilderness, "she called him Jehovah, 
 that spake unto her; Thou God seest me." Jacob 
 wrestled with the Angel at Peniel, or with the Man. — 
 This angel of Hagar and man of Jacob, is no less than 
 the Jehovah of the universe; this is fully proven by the 
 prophet Hosea. "Yea, he (Jacob) had power over the 
 angel, and prevailed ; he wept, and made supplication 
 unto him ; he found him in Bethel, and there he spake 
 with us. Even the Lord God of hosts ; the Lord is his 
 memorial." Chap. xii. 4. 5. 
 
64 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 Again, the " Angel of the Lord" appeared to Moses 
 in a flame of fire ; but this same Angel of the Lord 
 called to him out of the bush, and said, " I am the God 
 of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 
 and the God of Jacob, and Moses hid his face, for he 
 was afraid to look upon God." Exo. iii. 6. The plain 
 and obvious meaning of this text is, that the angel is the 
 name of God himself God said to Moses and the Isra- 
 elites, " Behold I send an angel before thee to keep thee 
 in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have 
 prepared ; beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke 
 him not ; for he will not pardon your transgressions, for 
 my name is in him." Exo. xxiii. 20, 21. This Angel 
 was to give them the promised land. 2. He was the 
 object of their fear, "beware of him. 11 3. He was to 
 pardon their "transgressions." And who can pardon 
 sin, but God only ? 
 
 Finally. He should possess the name of God Jeho- 
 vah, I am. No created being could possibly possess the 
 functions of this Angel, our enemies themselves being 
 judges. Both parties agree, that God hates idolatry; — 
 and hence He could not recommend idolatry. This 
 is obvious from Exo. xxxii. 7, 8: "And the Lord 
 said unto Moses, Go, get thee dow^n; for thy people, 
 which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have 
 corrupted themselves — have made them a molten calf, 
 and have worshipped it." Again, "I am the Lord thy 
 God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, 
 out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 65 
 
 Gods before mc.' : Exo. xx. 2, 3. After all these plain 
 and convincing Scriptures, which prove so plainly that 
 the term Angel is an appellation of Deity, — yet, some 
 artful Arians try to make it appear, that the term Angel 
 was only a created being appearing in the name or per- 
 son of the Father. But this assertion wants proof.* 
 
 Dr. Priestly "assumes the marvellous doctrine" of 
 -occasional personality," thinks "in some cases angels 
 were nothing more than temporary appearances, and no 
 permanent beings ; the mere organs of the Deity, as- 
 sumed for the purpose of making himself known, a 
 power occasionally emitted, and then taken back again 
 into its source." Well may the Rev. R. Watson say of 
 him, " The doctor, and his adherents, had little cause to 
 talk of the mystery and absurdity of the doctrine of three 
 persons in one Godhead, who can make a person out of 
 a power, emitted and then drawn back again to its source; 
 a temporary person, without individual subsistence." — 
 The truth of the matter is, this Angel of Jehovah, as in 
 the Scripture of the Old Testament, thus manifesting him- 
 self, and receiving divine worship, was not a created an- 
 gel as the Arians say, nor a meteor, an atmospheric ap~ 
 
 * " An earthly ambassador indeed represents the person of his 
 prince, is supposed to be clothed with his authority, and speaks and 
 acts in his name. But who ever heard of an ambassador assuming 
 the very name of his sovereign, or being honored with it by others? 
 Would one in this character be permitted to say, I George, I Louis, 
 I Frederic. As the idea is ridiculous, the action would justly be 
 accounted high treason." (Jamieson's Vindication, Watson's Lists.) 
 
66 NAMES of the saviour. 
 
 pearance, according to the theory of Socinians, but a 
 
 DIVIDE PERSON. 
 
 2. This divine person is not God the Father, but the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. This is said to be proved from the 
 following Scriptures : " No man hath seen God at any 
 time." John i. 18, and 1 John iv. 12. "Who only hath 
 immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can 
 approach unto ; whom no man hath seen nor can see. 
 1 Tim. vi. 16. "Ye have neither heard his voice at 
 any time, nor seen his shape." " Not that any man 
 hath seen the Father." It is, however, certified in the 
 Old Testament, that God frequently appeared in the Pa- 
 triarchal and Levitical dispensations, therefore we must 
 conclude, that the God that appeared was God the Son. 
 
 This argument, though plausible, is not exactly con- 
 clusive, though it may be admitted in the general, yet 
 there are exceptions. Instance, u We have seen that 
 the Angel, in whom was the name of God, promised as 
 the conductor of the Israelites through the wilderness, 
 was a divine person; but he who promised to "send 
 him" must be a different person from the Angel sent, 
 and that person could be no other than the Father. 
 
 "Behold, I send an angel before thee," &c. On this 
 occasion, therefore, Moses heard the voice of the Father. 
 Again, at the baptism of Jesus the voice of the Father 
 was heard, declaring, " This is my beloved Son, in whom 
 I am well pleased." The above passages must be, 
 therefore, interpreted to accord with these facts, that is, 
 " No man hath seen God at any time, — No man can see 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 67 
 
 my face and live." They express the pure spirituality 
 of God by audible sounds and appearances. "There was 
 an important sense in which Moses neither did nor could 
 see God; and yet it is equally true, that he both saw 
 and heard him. He saw the " back parts" but not the 
 « face of God." Exo. xxxiii. 20, 23. " The manifesta- 
 tion of the Father was, however, very rare." Nearly 
 all the divine appearances were of the Angel of the 
 Lord. The Jehovah was an Angel who appeared to 
 Abraham at Sodom. The Jehovah who appeared to 
 Hagar was " the Angel of the Lord" The Angel of 
 Jehovah from heaven sware by himself to Abraham. — 
 Jacob calls the God of Bethel the Angel of God. He 
 who took up his residence over the Ark, and received 
 the homage of the Jews, is called the Angel of the Lord. 
 And so in many other places of the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures. The impartial reader will perceive, that there 
 is no necessity to try to press the audible agency, or visi- 
 ble appearance of the Father from the Old Testament. 
 It should be our object to prove, not that the Father was 
 not manifested in his own person, but that the Angel of 
 the Lord is not the Father." The term Angel is either 
 descriptive of nature or office. In its general application, 
 it is applied to those superior intelligences in heaven, 
 employed in administering to man, but finite and crea- 
 ted. It is obvious from what we have said, that the 
 Angel of the Lord is not a created being, and he is not 
 therefore called an angel in reference to his nature. — 
 The appellation, Angel, must be a term of office ; An- 
 
68 3VAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 gel, or messenger of the Father, hence distinct from the 
 Father, which shows from the Scriptures two divine 
 persons. 
 
 3. This Angel of Jehovah of the Old Testament, is 
 the Lord Jesus Christ of the New Testament. 
 
 The Angel of Jehovah gave the law to the Israelites. 
 In doing so, he is the angel, or messenger, in the matter. 
 This is obvious from Jeremiah xxxi. 31, 32, "Behold, 
 the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new 
 covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of 
 Judah : not according to the covenant that I made with 
 their Fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, 
 to bring them out of the land of Egypt ; which my cov- 
 enant they brake." It is plain, then, that the Angel of 
 Jehovah, who gave the old covenant, is the giver of the 
 new covenant. 
 
 The apostle Paul, speaking of this covenant, and quo- 
 ting the words of Jeremiah, in the eighth chapter of He- 
 brews, plainly sets forth Jesus Christ as the author of 
 the new covenant, or testament, another name for cove- 
 nant: for in speaking of "the first covenant," chap. ix. 1, 
 he calls it in verse 18, "the first testament." So this 
 new covenant predicted by Jeremiah, is the New Testa- 
 ment dispensation, having Jesus Christ for its author ; 
 then the Christ of the New Testament, is the Angel of 
 Jehovah of the Old, and the same person, as the Scrip- 
 tures fully certify. 
 
 The last Jewish prophet establishes the same point 
 beyond successful contradiction. "Behold, I will send 
 
\ames or Tin: saviour. 89 
 
 my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: 
 and 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." Mai. iii. I. The temple at Jerusalem was God's 
 house, or the temple of the messenger, Jesus Christ, 
 Jehovah's messenger, or servant, — one sent, and implies 
 a person sending, and one sent, two different persons. 
 " The same person, therefore, is servant and Lord ; and 
 by uniting these characters in the same person, what 
 does the prophet but describe that great mystery of the 
 gospel, the union of the nature which governs, and the 
 nature which serves, — the union of the divine and hu- 
 man natures in the person of Christ." # 
 
 The Angel of Jehovah was the King of the Jews, 
 who resided in the temple, called " the house of the 
 Lord;" the same who resided in the Jewish tabernacle, 
 Jesus, in the days of his incarnation, ratifies the prophe- 
 sies of the Old Testament Scriptures, when he went forth 
 into the temple at Jerusalem, amid shouts of triumph 
 attended with kingly pomp. They strewed the way 
 with green branches of trees, and spread their clothes in 
 the way, " and cried hosanna ! Blessed is the King of 
 Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord." Johnxii. 
 13. St. Luke says, "He went into the temple, and be- 
 gan to cast out them that sold therein, and them that 
 bought ; saying unto them, it is written, My house is the 
 
 * Horsley's Sermons. 
 
70 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves." 
 Chap. xix. 45, 46. Here Christ calls the temple his 
 house, according to Isaiah lvi. 7. 
 
 From the above, and many other parts of Scripture, 
 it is plainly proven, that the messenger of the covenant 
 is the testator of abetter covenant. See St. Mark i. 1, 2, 
 3. The voice here crying in the wilderness, was John 
 the Baptist. The burden of the cry was, " Prepare ye 
 the way of the Lord, (Jehovah,) make his paths straight." 
 Verse 3. This answers to the prediction of Isaiah, 
 chapter xl. 3, and the application made expressly by the 
 Baptist to our Lord, that He is the person to whom the 
 prophet attributes the incommunicable name of Jehovah, 
 and styles him a our God." But another prediction of 
 Isaiah is with equal force applied to our Lord: "There- 
 fore the Lord himself shall give you a sign, Behold, a 
 virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his 
 name Immanuel," chap. vii. 14, which, as St. Matthew 
 says, being interpreted, is, God with us. Chap. i. 23. 
 
 Again, says Isaiah, in chapter ix. 6, 7, "For unto us 
 a child is bom, unto us a son is given : and the govern- 
 ment shall be upon his shoulder ; and his name shall be 
 called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the 
 Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," &c. 
 
 It is unnecessary at present to quote more of those 
 numerous passages which speak of the future Messiah un- 
 der divine titles, and which are applied to Jesus as that 
 Messiah actually manifested. They do not in so many 
 words, connect the Angel of Jehovah with Jesus as the 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 71 
 
 same person ; but, taken with the passages above adduced, 
 they present evidence of a very weighty character in fa- 
 vor of that position. 
 
 A plurality of persons in the one Godhead is men- 
 tioned in the Jewish Scriptures; this plurality is restrict- 
 ed to three ; one of them appears as the "acting God" 
 of the patriarchal and Mosaic age ; the prophets speak 
 of a divine person to come as the Messiah bearing pre- 
 cisely the same titles. No one supposes this to be the 
 Holy Ghost ; it cannot be the Father, seeing that Mes- 
 siah is God's servant and God's messenger ; and the only 
 conclusion is, that the Messiah predicted is he who is 
 known under the titles of Angel, Son, and Jehovah, &c, 
 in the Old Testament, and Jesus is that Messiah, he is 
 that Son, that Word, that Servant, that Messenger ; and 
 bearing the same divine characters as the Angel of Je- 
 hovah, is that Angel himself, and is entitled in the Chris- 
 tian Church to all the homage and worship which was 
 paid to him in the Jewish. 
 
 There are, however, a few passages which in a still 
 more distinct manner than any which have been intro- 
 duced, except that from the prophecy of Jeremiah, that 
 identify Jesus Christ with the Angel of Jehovah in the 
 patriarchal and Levitical dispensations ; and a brief con- 
 sideration of them will leave this important point estab- 
 lished. Let it then be recollected, that he who dwelt in 
 the Jewish tabernacle, between the cherubim, was the 
 Angel of Jehovah. In Psalm lxviii. which was written 
 on the removal of the Ark to Mount Zion, he is express- 
 
72 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 ly addressed^ " This is the hill which God desireth to 
 dwell in;" and again, " They have seen thy goings, O 
 God, my King, in thy sanctuary." But the apostle 
 Paul, Eph. iv. 8, applies this psalm to Christ, and con- 
 siders this very ascent of the Angel Jehovah to Mount 
 Zion as a prophetic type of the ascent of Jesus to the 
 celestial Zion, — " Wherefore he saith, when he ascend- 
 ed up on high, he led captivity captive," &c. The con- 
 clusion, therefore, is, that the Angel Jehovah, who is ad- 
 dressed in the psalm, and Christ, are the same person. 
 This is marked with equal strength in verse 29. The 
 psalm, let it be observed, is determined by apostolical au- 
 thority to be a prophecy of Christ, as indeed its terms 
 intimate; and with reference to the future conquests of 
 the Messiah, the prophet exclaims, " Because of thy 
 temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto 
 thee." The future Christ is spoken of as one having 
 then a temple at Jerusalem. 
 
 The fact should be admitted, that the Jehovah of the 
 Israelites was Christ, whose name and worship Moses 
 professed : this is too plain to be doubted. For, in the 
 eleventh chapter of the Hebrews, Moses is said to have 
 esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the 
 treasures of Egypt. Moreover, St. Paul says in his first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, " Neither let us tempt Christ 
 as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of 
 serpents." Chap, x, 9. It is therefore proven, that the 
 Angel Jehovah and Jesus Christ our Lord, are the same 
 person, and hereby his divinity is established. 
 
\ \mi:s QF THl 8 wiouj. 73 
 
 4. The title of God is applied to our Saviour. This 
 the adversaries oi' Jus divinity admit, and this concession 
 shows that the letter of the Scriptures is favorable to the 
 orthodox opinion. All must allow it is a term in the 
 Scriptures expressive of the divine character. The op- 
 posers of the supreme divinity of Christ say, that the 
 term God is applied to Christ in an inferior sense. If all 
 admit that in its highest sense, it involves the idea of ab- 
 solute divinity, denoting a Being eternal, infinite, and ab- 
 solutely perfect. The Being thus expressed by the 
 Psalmist, " Before the mountains were brought forth, or 
 ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even 
 from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.' 5 Psa. 
 xc. 2. This establishes the term in its highest sense. 
 
 Again, " Now all this was done, that it might be ful- 
 filled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, say- 
 ing, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring 
 forth a son. and they shall call his name Emmanuel, 
 which being interpreted, is God with us." He is direct- 
 ly called God. " In the beginning was the Word, and 
 the Word was w T ith God, and the Word was God." — 
 John i. 1. Were the Scriptures allowed to speak their 
 own language, this single passage would decide the con- 
 troversy. Again, " Of whom, as concerning the flesh, 
 Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." — 
 Rom. ix. 5. 
 
 But Socinians say, that the term God was applied to 
 Moses. " See, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh." — 
 Exo. vii. 1. This is explained by chapter iv. 16: "Thou 
 7 
 
74 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 shalt be to him instead of God." These passages ap- 
 pear to be applied in a figurative as well as in a loicer 
 sense, and inapplicable to the Deity. 
 
 But the Saviour is termed by the prophet Isaiah, "the 
 Mighty God." Isa. ix. 6. # He is also emphatically 
 called Immanuel, or El, that is God, and is really Im- 
 manu, that is with us. No inferior Deity, but " the 
 Mighty God." This answers to what Thomas says of 
 Christ : " And Thomas answered and said unto him, my 
 Lord and my God." John xx. 28. Again, " Looking 
 for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the 
 great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Titus ii. 13. 
 Our Lord is not only called God, but the great God, 
 which gives us indubitable evidence of his divinity. An- 
 other passage in which Christ receives the appellation 
 God in the highest sense, is Heb. i. 8 : u But unto the 
 Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." 
 "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
 given us an understanding that we may know him that 
 is true, and w T e are in him that is true, even in his Son 
 Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal 
 life." 1 John v. 20. Socinians interpret the clause, 
 "him that is true," of the Father, and refer the pronoun 
 
 * " He is called God. The Hebrew word El, in the singular 
 number, in Isaiah ix. 7, which is applied to Christ, and there ren- 
 dered God, is never used of any created being. It is peculiar to 
 Almighty God, as will be evident to every one who will be at the 
 pains to examine all the texts in the Hebrew Bible, where it oc- 
 curs." Dr. C. Elliott. 
 
N LMES OF 'in H S WIOUK. (D 
 
 tkis not to the nearest antecedent u his Son Jesus Christ," 
 but to the most remote, " him that is true." As the Rev. 
 R. Watson says, " Yet even this feeble opposition to the 
 received rendering cannot be maintained: for, 1. To in- 
 terpret the clause, 'him that is true,' of the Father, is en. 
 tirely arbitrary : and the scope of the epistle, which was 
 to prove that Jesus the Christ was the true Son of God, 
 and, therefore, Divine, against those who denied his di- 
 vinity, and that 'he had come in the flesh,' in opposition 
 to the heretics who denied his humanity, obliges us to 
 refer that phrase to the Son, and not to the Father. 2. 
 If it could be established that the Father was intended 
 by 'him that is true,' it would be contrary to grammati- 
 cal usage to refer the pronoun this is the 'true God and 
 eternal life,' to the remote antecedent, without obvious 
 and indisputable necessity." * 
 
 But, again; the apostle says of the Saviour, "Whose 
 are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, 
 Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." — 
 
 * ''These were the Docets, who taught that our Lord was a man 
 in appearance only, and suffered and died in appearance only. On 
 the contrary, the Cerinihians and others believed that the Son of 
 God was united to the human nature at his baptism, departed from 
 it before his passion, and was re-united to it after his resurrection. 
 According- to the former, Christ was man in appearance only; ac- 
 cording to the latter, he was the Son of God at the time of his pas- 
 sion and death in appearance only. We see, then, the reason that 
 St. John who writes against these errors, so often calls Christ 
 * him that is true,' true God and true man, not either in appearance 
 on)y." Watson's Theo. Inst. vol. 1, p. 523. 
 
76 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 Rom. ix. 5. The apostle enumerates the privileges of 
 the Jewish nation, " whose are the fathers," the patri- 
 archs and prophets, of whom Christ came. But this 
 very Christ is " God blessed for ever. 11 " The word 
 God in this text, is found in every known manuscript of 
 this epistle, in every ancient version extant, and in every 
 Father who has had occasion to quote the passage ; so 
 that, in truth, there can scarcely be instanced a text in 
 the New Testament in which all the ancient authorities 
 more satisfactorily agree." (Magee on the Atonement.) 
 
 5. I will hasten over titles given to the Saviour, such 
 as the " Lord of Glory," 1 Cor. ii. 8, " King of Kings 
 and Lord of Lords," "Kin© of Israel," &c, and 
 contemplate as briefly as possible, one title particularly 
 given to the Saviour in the Scriptures, that is the " Son 
 of God." That this title was applied to Christ, before 
 and after his resurrection by his disciples, is an indisputa- 
 ble fact : and he assumes it himself, and it was indignant- 
 ly denied him by the Jews. 
 
 Then let us examine what this title means, if it be 
 applied to his humanity only, as some affirm, or to his 
 divinity as the Scriptures signify. 
 
 hi proof of the latter signification, we have the fol- 
 lowing reasons: 1. Our Lord calls God his Father, 
 and grounds the proof of it upon his miracles. The 
 Jews, too, clearly conceived, that in making this profes- 
 sion of Sonship with reference to God, he assumed a 
 divine character, and made himself " equal with God." 
 They therefore took up stones to stone him. In that im- 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 77 
 
 portant argument between our Lord and the Jews, in 
 which his great object was to establish the point, that, in 
 a peculiar sense, God was his Father, there is no refer- 
 ence at all to the miraculous conception. On the con- 
 trary, the title " Son of God," is assumed by Christ on a 
 ground totally different; and it is disputed by the Jews, 
 not by their questioning or denying the fact that he 
 was miraculously conceived, but on the assumed impos- 
 sibility that he, being a man, should be equal to God, 
 which they affirmed that title to import. Nor did the 
 disciples themselves give him this title with reference to 
 his conception by the Holy Ghost. Certain it is, that 
 Nathanael did not know the circumstances of his birth ; 
 for he was announced to him by Philip as Jesus of Naz- 
 areth, the " son of Joseph ;" and he asks, " Can any good 
 thing come out of Nazareth % " He did not know, there- 
 fore, but that Jesus was the son of Joseph ; he knew 
 nothing of his being born at Bethlehem, and yet he con- 
 fesses him to be u the Son of God, and the King of Is- 
 rael." * 
 
 In the confession of St. Peter, he says of the Saviour, 
 " Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God." In 
 this he had no reference to his miraculous conception ; 
 " probably not known even to the apostles, and one of 
 the things which Mary kept and pondered in her heart, 
 till the Spirit fully revealed Christ to the apostles." — 
 But even if the miraculous conception was known to 
 
 * Institutes, vol. 1, p. 529. 
 
78 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 Peter, it formed no part of the ground on which he con- 
 fessed the "Son of man" to be the "Son of God ;" for 
 the Saviour answers him, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- 
 jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, 
 but my Father which is in heaven." That Peter had 
 been specially taught this doctrine of the Sonship of 
 Christ by God, appears an unnecessary thing, certainly, 
 if the miraculous conception had been the only ground 
 of that Sonship, for this fact might have been received 
 from the " Virgin Mother " without any express revela- 
 tion from the Father. 
 
 But, if it be argued that the " Son of God" is but an- 
 other name for Messiah, and was so used among the 
 Jews ; or, in other words, it is only an official designa- 
 tion, and not a personal term. This cannot well appear, 
 as the term Messiah can only apply to the Messiahship, 
 or office of the Saviour: and Son applies to the relation 
 of character. 1. " The Jews recognized the existence 
 of such a being as the l Son of God ;' and that for any 
 person to profess to be the Son of God, in this peculiar 
 sense, was to commit blasphemy. 2. That for a person 
 to profess to be the Messiah simply was not considered 
 blasphemy, and did not exasperate the Jews to take up 
 stones to stone the offender." Our Lord professed to be 
 the Messiah, and many of the Jews believed on him as 
 such, and it may be some even of those very persons that 
 believed on the Saviour as the Messiah took up stones to 
 stone him as a blasphemer when he declared himself the 
 "Son of God." 
 
R DIES OF Tin: s\\ ioik. 79 
 
 The Saviour is called the "Son" of God in the sec- 
 ond PSalm, ~t \ '-Tin' Lord hath said imlo me. Thou art 
 my Son: this day have I begotten thee." Apostolic 
 authority vouches that the "Son" introduced here as 
 speaking, is Christ; and if we think with some that 
 -this day" is the day of Christ's resurrection, u and 
 should interpret his being- ; begotten' of the Father of 
 the act itself of raising him from the dead, it is clear 
 that the miraculous conception of Christ is not in this 
 passage laid down as the ground of his Sonship. * * 
 But he is often called the Son where there is no refer- 
 ence even to his resurrection." We perceive from the 
 above psalm, that the mind of the inspired writer is filled 
 with ideas of the divinity of his claims and works. This 
 Son whom the nations of the earth are called to kiss, 
 lest he be angry, and they perish from the way, &c. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, that neither the miraculous 
 conception nor the resurrection of Christ from the dead, 
 is the foundation of his being called the Son of God in 
 this Psalm. " Not the first, for there is no allusion to it; 
 not the second, for he was declared from heaven to be 
 the ' beloved Son' of the Father, at his very entrance 
 upon his ministry, and consequently, before the resur- 
 rection ; and also, because the very apostle who applies 
 the prediction to the resurrection of Christ, explicitly 
 states that even that w T as a declaration of an antecedent 
 Sonship. It is also to be noted, that in the first chapter 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul institutes an ar- 
 gument upon this very passage in the second Psalm, to 
 
80 
 
 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 prove the superiority of Christ to the angels. " For 
 unto which of the angels said he any time, Thou art 
 my Son, this day have I begotten thee."* "The force of 
 this argument lies in the expression 'begotten,' importing 
 that the person addressed is the Son of God, not by crea- 
 tion, but by generation. Christ's pre-eminence over the 
 angels is here stated to consist in this, that whereas 
 they were created, he is begotten; and the apostle's rea- 
 soning is fallacious, unless this expression intimates a pro- 
 per and peculiar filiation."! 
 
 The relation of Father and Son in the Godhead was 
 not unrevealed to the Jews, and consequently, this ac- 
 counts for the ideas of divinity which they in the days of 
 Christ, connected with the term " Son of God." Says Mr. 
 R. Watson, "This relation is most unequivocally ex- 
 pressed in the prophecy of Micah, chap. v. 2. ' But thou, 
 Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the 
 thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth 
 unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth 
 have been from of old, from everlasting ;' or, as it is in 
 the margin, 'from the days of eternity.' " 
 
 Here the person spoken of is said to have had a two- 
 fold birth, or "going forth." 
 
 By a natural birth he came forth from Bethlehem to 
 Judah; by another and a higher, he was from the days 
 of eternity. One is opposed to the other ; but the last is 
 
 * Watson's Inst. vol. 1, p. 532. 
 
 t Holden's Testimonies— Inst. vol. 1, 533. 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 81 
 
 carried into eternity itself by words which must clearly 
 intimate an existence prior to the birth in Bethlehem, and 
 that an eternal one: while the term used and translated 
 his u goings forth," conveys precisely the same idea as 
 "the eternal generation of the Son of God." Thus says 
 Dr. Pocock, " This passage carefully distinguishes his 
 human nature from his eternal generation. The prophet 
 describes him who was to ' come out of Bethlehem' by 
 another more eminent coming or going forth, even from 
 all eternity. This is so signal a description of the di- 
 vine generation, before all time, or of that going forth 
 from everlasting of Christ, the eternal Son of God ; c God 
 of the substance of the Father, begotten before the 
 worlds;' who was afterward in time made man, and 
 born into the world in Bethlehem, that the prophecy 
 evidently belongs to him, and could never be verified of 
 any other." 
 
 " This prophecy of Micah is, perhaps, the most impor- 
 tant single prophecy in the Old Testament, and the most 
 comprehensive respecting the personal character of the 
 Messiah, and his successive manifestation to the world. 
 It crowns the whole chain of prophecies descriptive of 
 the several limitations of the blessed Seed of the woman, 
 to the line of Shem, to the family of Abraham, Isaac 
 and Jacob, to the tribe of Judah, and to the royal house 
 of David, here terminating in his birth at Bethlehem, 
 1 the city of David.' It carefully distinguishes his human 
 nativity from his eternal generation ; foretells the rejec- 
 tion of the Israelites and Jews for a season, their final 
 8 
 
82 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 restoration." &c. (Hales's Analysis.) " The same re- 
 lation of Son, in the full view of supreme divinity, and 
 where no other reference appears to be had to the office 
 and future work of Messiah, is found in Proverbs xxx. 
 4, Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended? Who 
 hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound 
 the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the 
 ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his 
 Son's name, if thou canst tell?" Here the Deity is con- 
 templated, not in his redeeming acts, in any respect or 
 degree; not as providing for the recovery of a lost race, 
 or that of the Jewish people, by the gift of his Son : he 
 is placed before the reverend gaze of the prophet in his 
 acts of creative and conserving power only, managing 
 at will and ruling the operations of nature; and yet, even 
 in these peculiar offices of divinity alone, he is spoken 
 of as having a Son, whose ' name 1 that is, according to 
 the Hebrew idiom, whose nature, is as deep, mysterious 
 and unutterable as his own, "what is his name, and 
 what is his Son's name, canst thou tell?" 
 
 " The phrase ' Son of God' was, therefore, known to 
 the ancient Jews, and to them conveyed a very definite 
 idea ; and it is no answer to this to say, that it was a 
 common appellative of Messiah among their ancient wri- 
 ters. The question is, how came ' Son of God' to be an 
 appellative of Messiah. ' Messiah' is an official title; 
 'Son,' a personal one. It is granted the Messiah is the 
 Son of God ; but it is denied that therefore, the term Son 
 of God ceases to be a personal description, and that it 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 83 
 
 imports the same with Messiah. David was the ' Son 
 of Jesse,' and the 'king of Israel;' he therefore who was 
 king- of Israel was the son of Jesse; but the latter is the 
 personal, the former only the official description; and it 
 cannot be argued that the l son of Jesse' conveys no idea 
 distinct from c king of Israel.' On the contrary, it marks 
 his origin and his family ; for, before he was king of 
 Israel, he was the son of Jesse. In like manner, ' Son 
 of God' marks the natural relation of Messiah to God ; 
 and the term Messiah his official relation to men. The 
 personal title cannot otherwise be explained ; and as we 
 have seen that it was used personally, and not officially, 
 and, also, without any reference to the miraculous con- 
 ception at all, as before proved, it follows, that it express- 
 es a natural relation to God, subsisting not in the human 
 but in the higher nature of Messiah ; and, this higher 
 nature being proved to be divine, it follows, that the 
 term Son of God, as applied to Jesus, is therefore a title 
 of absolute divinity, importing his participation in the 
 very nature and essence of God. The same ideas of di- 
 vine Sonship are suggested by almost every passage in 
 which the phrase occurs in the New Testament."* 
 
 " When Jesus was baptized, he went up straightway 
 out of the water ; and lo, the heavens w r ere opened unto 
 him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a 
 dove, and lighting upon him ; and lo, a voice from hea- 
 ven, This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased." Mat. iii. 16, 17. 
 
 * Watson's Theo. Inst. vol. 1, p. 539. 
 
84 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 None will say that this passage applies to his resur- 
 rection, nor as a plaudit for the manner in which he 
 discharged the office of Messiah, for he was only about 
 to commence it; if it was not given him with reference 
 to his miraculous conception, it must follow it was 
 given on grounds independent of his office, and indepen- 
 dent of the circumstances of his birth, and that for a 
 higher reason than either his official, or his human birth, 
 he was the "Son of God." John the Baptist when he 
 heard this, exclaims, " And I saw, and bare record, that 
 this is the Son of God," John i. 34. The Son of God 
 and Messiah also as has been shown. It was to the 
 Jews that he bore this record, who knew well the appli- 
 cation of the term. The Baptist says in John iii. 35, 
 " The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things 
 into his hand." That is, because he is his Son, all power 
 and all offices : not his Son because of the office, but 
 the office because he was the Son of God. The Jews 
 were enraged against him, " sought the more to kill him, 
 because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said 
 also, that God was his Father, making himself equal 
 with God." John v. 18. The Saviour here does not re- 
 prove the Jews for attaching such meaning to the term 
 Son of God, or, making God his Father, but confirms 
 it by saying that whatsoever thing the Father doeth 
 "these also doeth the Son likewise," verse 19. The 
 epithet " only begotten" as is found in John i. 14, and 
 in other places in the New Testament affords farther 
 proof of the divine Sonship. " If" says Mr. Watson, 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 85 
 
 u the epithet only begotten, referred to Christ's miracu- 
 lous conception, then the glory of the < only begotten' 
 refers to, and must be the glory of the human nature of 
 Christ only, for that alone was capable of being con- 
 ceived. This is, however, clearly contrary to the scope 
 of the passage, which does not speak of the glory of the 
 nature, 'the flesh,' which 'the Word' assumed, but of the 
 glory of the Word himself, who is here said to be the 
 only begotten of the Father. It is therefore the glory of 
 the divine nature which is here intended." The title 
 povoysvris, only begotten or only Son, this cannot be rea- 
 sonably applied to the miraculous conception of Christ 
 or his Messiahship, or his being the first begotten from 
 the dead, or as being appointed heir of all things, but to 
 his pre-existence and divine nature. Where the term 
 only is applied to angels or men, it is in an accommoda- 
 ted sense. Isaac is termed the only son of Abraham. 
 In Luke it is used, chap. vii. 12, "Behold there was a 
 dead man carried out, the only son of his mother." And 
 where it is said the " one only daughter." Luke viii. 42, 
 and in chap. ix. 38, where it is " Master, look upon my 
 son, for he is my only child" fyc. If it be said, that be- 
 cause the Saviour was by the Holy Ghost, made in a 
 peculiar sense, he is the Son of God only. But were 
 not angels in as high a sense the sons of God? and Adam 
 directly made by God, and in this sense the son of God? 
 and while the first man Adam stood alone in creation, 
 who would have denied him the epithet of God's only 
 son, thereby excluding Christ from the relation of only 
 
86 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 Son, if it only applies to his human nature, but the epi- 
 thet of only Son can only be applied to the divine nature 
 of our Lord, in which he is emphatically the "Son of 
 the living God." 
 
 The answer of the Saviour at his trial to the direct 
 question of the Jewish council. — " Then said they all, 
 art thou the Son of God? and he saith unto them, ye say 
 that I am," or I am that ye say, Luke xxii. 70, thus de- 
 claring that, in the very sense in which they put the 
 question, he was the Son of God. In confessing himself 
 to be, in that sense, the Son of God, he did more than 
 claim to be the Messiah, for the council judged him for 
 that reason guilty of "blasphemy;" a charge which 
 could not lie against any one, by the Jewish law, for 
 professing to be the Messiah. It was in their judgment 
 a cause of blasphemy explicitly proved against him by 
 their laiv, which inflicted death upon the offence; but in 
 the whole Mosaic institute, it is not a capital crime to 
 assume the title and character of Messiah. Why then 
 did the confession of Christ, that he was the u Son of 
 God," in answer to the interrogative of the council, lead 
 them to exclaim, " What need we any farther witness? 
 for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth — he is 
 worthy of death. We have a law, and by our law he 
 ought to die." The reason is given, because he made 
 himself the " Son of God." 
 
 In the following passage, his divine and human 
 natures are placed in opposition and contradistinction to 
 each other. Rom. i. 3, 4, " Concerning his Son Jesus 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 87 
 
 Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David 
 according to the flesh ; and declared to be the Son of 
 God with power according" to the spirit of holiness, by 
 the resurrection from the dead." It appears very plain 
 that the divine nature of Christ is put in opposition to 
 his human nature, the latter is reckoned the " seed of 
 David," the former, the (i So?i of God" according to the 
 M spirit of holiness." 
 
 Again, God says to Christ, " Thou art my Son, this 
 day have I begotten thee." And again, " I will be to him 
 a Father, and he shall be to me a Son." Christ is be- 
 gotten, not created, u For unto which of the angels said 
 he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have] I be- 
 gotten theel" This can only refer to the divine nature 
 of our Lord. In conjunction with the Sonship the apos- 
 tle applies the lofty language of the Psalmist, chap. xlv. 
 6, 7. " Thy throne O God, is forever and ever," &c, 
 again, "God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sin- 
 ful flesh," Rom. viii. 3. But, in what other sense was, 
 or could he have been sent, if he were a son only as a 
 man? The apostle most clearly intimates that he was 
 Son before he was sent ; and that flesh was the nature as- 
 sumed by the Son, as he here uses the term. 
 
 In John xiv and xv chapters, Christ calls the third 
 person the Holy Ghost, and the^rs^ person the Father; 
 "the Holy Ghost, the spirit of truth, which proceedeth 
 from the Father." Therefore the Holy Ghost is not that 
 Father, nor is the creation of the human nature of Christ 
 the product of the Father, but of the Holy Ghost, see Luke 
 
88 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 i. 35. And if the Holy Ghost be the Father, then we 
 hear the Saviour praying that the Father may send the 
 Father instead of the "Comforter," which is absurd. 
 Therefore I conclude, that God the Father is the Father 
 of the supreme divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 Christ is the only begotten Son of God the Father. It 
 is well remarked by Professor Kidd, in his Dissertation 
 on the Eternal Sonship of Christ, that, " Our Lord's hu- 
 manity or human nature had never subsistence by itself." 
 Hence our Lord in his human nature never had person- 
 ality apart from his divine nature, therefore, it was not 
 in respect to his human, but his divine nature that his 
 Sonship is predicated. It is contended that the expres- 
 sion mentioned in Luke i. 35, signifies that the term, 
 " Son of God," must be applied to the human nature of 
 Christ: from the fact, that "that holy thing which shall 
 be born of thee, (the Virgin,) shall be called the Son of 
 God." We are aware that the illustrious Dr. A. Clarke 
 thus applies the above text, to the human nature of Christ; 
 so does the Rev. Ethan Smith, in his " View of the Trin- 
 ity," and a few other modern writers, who, nevertheless 
 believe and vindicate the supreme divinity of Jesus 
 Christ. As however, all such persons acknowledge the 
 title " Son of God" to be a descriptive not an arbitrary 
 title, and that it has its foundation in some real relation; 
 so if the incarnation of Christ be the foundation in that 
 title, it must be used with reference either to the nature 
 in which he was incarnated, that is to say, his manhood; 
 or to the action of incarnation, that is the act of assuming 
 
namks or rm: swiouk. 89 
 
 our nature. If the first be allowed, then this is saying- no 
 more than that he is the Son of God, because of his mir- 
 aculous conception in the Virgin, which has been already 
 refuted. If the second, then it is yielded, that with ref- 
 erence to the Godhead, he is the Son of God, which is 
 what we contend for; and it is allowed that the "holy 
 thing," or offspring, born of Mary, is therefore, called 
 the Son of God, not because his humanity was formed in 
 her immediately by God ; but, as it is expressly stated in 
 Luke i. 35, because "the Holy Ghost shall come upon 
 thee, and the power of the Highest shall over-shadow 
 thee," the effect of which would be the assumption of 
 humanity by the divine nature of him who is, in that 
 nature the Son; and that the holy offspring should on 
 that account, be called the Son of God. This would 
 fully allow the doctrine of Christ's divine Sonship, and 
 is, probably, the real import of the important passage re- 
 ferred to. But if the title Son is given to Christ, neither 
 with reference to the miraculous conception of the hu- 
 man nature, nor yet because the higher nature united to 
 it in one person is, eminently and peculiarly, the Son of 
 God: then it only remains to those who refer the title to 
 the incarnation of our Lord, to urge that it is given to 
 him with reference to the act of incarnation, that is to 
 say, the act of assuming our nature. 
 
 Now it is impossible to maintain this, because it has 
 no support from Scripture. The passage in Luke i. 35, 
 has been given, but that admits certainly only of one of 
 the two interpretations above given. Either the coming 
 
90 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 of the Holy Ghost upon the virgin, and the overshadow- 
 ing of the power of the Highest, refer to the immediate 
 production of the humanity by divine power, so that for 
 this reason he is called the Son of God, which might be 
 allowed without excluding a higher and more emphatic 
 reason for the appellation ; or it expresses the assump- 
 tion of human nature through the "power of the 
 Highest," by the divine nature of Christ, so that the 
 "holy offspring" should be called "the Son of God," 
 not because a divine person assumed humanity, but 
 because that divine person was antecedently the Son of 
 God, and is spoken of as such by the prophets. The 
 mere act of assuming our nature gives no idea of the 
 relationship of a Son; it is neither a paternal nor a 
 filial act in any sense, or expresses any such relation. 
 It was an act of the Son alone; "forasmuch as the chil- 
 dren are partakers of flesh and blood, he also took part 
 of the same;" and, as his own act, it could never place 
 him in the relation of Son to the Father. It was done, 
 it is true, in pursuance of the will of the Father, who 
 " sent him " on this errand of mercy into the w T orld ; but 
 it was still an act done by the Son, and could not lay 
 the foundation of a filial title and character. The hy- 
 pothesis cannot, therefore, be supported. If, then, the 
 title, " Son of God," as given to our Lord, is not used 
 chiefly, probably not at all, with reference to his mirac- 
 ulous conception ; if it is not an appellative of his hu- 
 man nature, occasionally applied to him when divine 
 acts and relations are spoken of, as any other human ap- 
 
NAMES OF TBI SWIOUR. Q 1 
 
 pcllation. by nutonomy, might be applied ; if it is not 
 given him simply because of his assuming our nature; 
 if we find it so used, that it can be fully explained by no 
 with which he is invested, and by no event of his 
 mediatorial undertaking ; it then follows, that it is a title 
 characteristic of his mode of existence in the divine es- 
 sence, and of the relation which exists between the first 
 and second persons in the ever blessed trinity. Nor is 
 it to be regarded as a matter of indifference, whether we 
 admit the eternal filiation of our Lord, provided we 
 acknowledge his divinity. 
 
 It is granted that some divines, who truly decided on 
 this point, have rejected the divine Sonship. But in this 
 they have gone contrary to the judgment of the churches 
 of Christ in all ages ; and they would certainly have 
 been marked among heretics in the first and purest times 
 of the primitive Church, as Bishop Bull has largely 
 and most satisfactorily shown in his " Judgment of the 
 Catholic Church." Nor would their professions of 
 faith in the divinity of Christ have secured them from 
 the suspicion of being allies in some sort of the common 
 enemies of the faith, nor have been sufficient to guard 
 them from the anathemas with which the fathers so care- 
 fully guarded the sacred doctrine of Scripture respect- 
 ing the person of our Lord. Such theologians have 
 usually rejected the doctrine, too, on dangerous grounds, 
 and have resorted to modes of interpretations so forced 
 and unwarrantable, that if turned against the doctrines 
 which they themselves hold sacred, would tend greatly 
 
92 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 to unsettle them. In these respects they have often 
 adopted the same modes of attack, and objections of the 
 same character, as those which Arians and Socinians 
 have wielded against the doctrine of the Trinity itself, 
 and have thus placed themselves in suspicious company 
 and circumstances. 
 
 The very allegation that the divine Sonship of Christ 
 is a mere speculation of no importance, provided his di- 
 vinity be held, is itself calculated to awaken vigilance, 
 since the most important doctrines have sometimes been 
 stolen away " while men have slept," and the plea which 
 has lulled them into security has always been, that they 
 were not fundamental. 
 
 I am not indisposed to give up that point with Episco- 
 pius and Waterland, who both admitted the divine Son- 
 ship, though I would not concede its fundamental char- 
 acter on the same grounds as the former, but with the 
 caution of the latter, who had views much more correct 
 on the question of fundamental truths. But though the 
 Sonship of Christ may be denied by some who hold his 
 divinity, they do not carry out their own views into their 
 logical conclusions, or it would appear that their notions 
 of the Trinity greatly differ in consequence, from those 
 which are held by the believers in this doctrine ; and 
 that on a point, confessedly fundamental, they are, in 
 some important respects, at issue with the orthodox of 
 all ages. This alone demands their serious reflection, 
 and ought to induce caution ; but other considerations 
 are not wanting to show that points of great moment are 
 
 
NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 93 
 
 involved in the denial or maintainance of the doctrine in 
 question. 
 
 1. "The loose and general manner in which many 
 passages of Scripture, which speak of Christ as a Son, 
 must be explained by those who deny the divine filiation 
 of Christ, seems to sanction principles of interpretation 
 which would be highly dangerous, or rather absolute y 
 fatal, if generally applied to the Scriptures. 
 
 2. " The denial of the divine Sonship destroys all re- 
 lation among the persons of the Godhead ; for no other 
 relation of the hypostases are mentioned in Scripture, 
 save those which are expressed by 'paternity, filiation, 
 and procession ; every other relation is merely economi- 
 cal ; and these natural relations being removed, we must 
 then conceive of the persons in the Godhead as perfectly 
 independent of each other, a view which has a strong 
 tendency to endanger the unity of the essence. 
 
 3. "It is the doctrine of the divine paternity only 
 which preserves the Scriptural idea that the Father is 
 the fountain of Deity, and, as such, the first, the origi- 
 nal, the principle. Certainly he must have read the 
 Scriptures to little purpose, who will not perceive that 
 this is their constant doctrine — that 'of him are all 
 things;'^ that though the Son is Creator, yet that it was 
 6 by the Son ' the Father made the worlds : and that the 
 Father hath given him to have life in himself, which 
 can only refer to his divine nature, nothing being the 
 source of life in itself, ' as the Father hath life in him- 
 self But where the essential paternity of the Father 
 
94 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 and the correlative filiation of the Son are denied, these 
 Scriptural representations have no foundation in fact, 
 and are incapable of interpretation. The term Son at 
 once preserves the Scriptural character of the Father, 
 and sets up an everlasting barrier against the Arian 
 heresy of inferiority of essence ; for, as Son, he must be 
 of the same essence of the Father. 
 
 4. " The Scriptural doctrines of the perfect equality 
 of the Son, so that he is truly God, equal in glory and 
 perfection to the Father, being of the same nature ; and, 
 at the same time, the subordination of the Son to the 
 Father, so that he should be capable of being c sent, are 
 only to be equally maintained by the doctrine of the di- 
 vine Sonship. According to those who deny this doctrine, 
 the Son might as well be the first as the second person 
 in the Godhead ; and the Father the second as well as 
 the first. The Father might have been sent by the Son, 
 without incongruity; or either of them by the Holy 
 Spirit. On the same ground, the order of the solemn 
 Christian form of blessing, in the name of the Father, 
 Son, and Spirit, so often introduced in the New Testa- 
 ment, is grounded on no* reason whatever, and might be 
 altered at pleasure. These are most violent and repul- 
 sive conclusions, which the doctrine of the Sonship 
 avoids, and thus proves its concordance with the Holy 
 Scriptures. 
 
 5. " The love of the Father, in the gift of his Son, a 
 doctrine so emphatically and so frequently insisted upon 
 in Scripture, can have no place at all in the religious 
 
NAMES OF TIIE SAVIOUR. 95 
 
 system of those who deny the relations of Father and 
 Son to exi3t in the Godhead. This I take to be fatal to 
 the doctrine; for it insensibly runs into the Socinian 
 heresy, and restricts the love of the Father in the gift of 
 his So//, to the gift of a man only, if the Sonship of 
 Christ be hitman only ; and, in that case, the permission 
 of the sufferings of Christ was no greater a manifesta- 
 tion of God's love to the world, than his permitting any 
 other good man to die for the benefit of his fellow crea- 
 tures, — St. Paul, for instance, or any of the martyrs. 
 
 "Episcopius, though he contends against the doctrine 
 of the divine Sonship of our Lord being considered as 
 fundamental, yet argues the truth of the doctrine on this 
 very ground."* 
 
 To this doctrine of our Lord's eternal Sonship, objec- 
 tions have been raised, such as the following : First, " If 
 the Son be of the Father in any way whatsoever, there 
 must have been a commencement of his existence." 
 
 The following we give as an answer: " If these terms 
 are properly taken, it will be found, that though every 
 effect may be said to be posterior to its cause, it is mere- 
 ly in the order of nature, and not of time ; and, in point 
 of fact, every effect, properly so called, is co-existent 
 with its cause, and must of necessity exactly answer to 
 it, both in magnitude and duration ; so that an actually 
 infinite and eternal cause implies an actually infinite and 
 eternal efTect. 
 
 * Watson's Theo. Inst, Vol. 1, Part Second, p. 552. 
 
96 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 "Many seem to imagine, as the words cause and 
 effect must be placed one after the other, and the thing 
 intended by the latter is different from what is meant by 
 the former, that, therefore, a cause must precede its effect, 
 at some very short time. But they ought to consider, 
 that if any thing be a cause, it is a cause. It cannot be 
 a cause and the cause of nothing; no, not for the least 
 conceivable space of time. Whatever effect it may pro- 
 duce hereafter, it is not the actual cause of it till it is ac- 
 tually in being; nor can it be, in the very nature of 
 things. 
 
 "Now, suppose, I should call the Son of God the 
 infinite and eternal effect of an infinite and eternal cause; 
 however the terms of the proposition might be cavilled 
 with, and however sophistry might avail itself of the im- 
 perfection of human language, and the ambiguity of 
 words to puzzle the subject, in the sense in which I take 
 the terms cause and effect, the proposition is true, and can- 
 not be successfully controverted. And though I would 
 by no means affect such language, yet I should be justi- 
 fied in its use by the early orthodox writers of the 
 Church, both Greek and Latin,* who did not hesitate to 
 call the Father the cause of the Son ; though the Latins 
 generally preferred using the term principium, which, in 
 such a connection, is of the same import as cause. 
 
 " Nor can we consider the following words of our 
 blessed Redeemer in any other view : ( I live by the 
 
 * See Bull's Defensio, &c, 
 
\ LMXB 09 THE swionj. [)7 
 
 Father, 1 John vi. 57, and -As the Father liatli life in 
 himself, so huh he given to the Son I ife in him- 
 
 self/ John v. 26. Such Ian 
 stood of the mere humanity of ( Jhri 
 
 condly: — Some persons think they reduce 
 doctrine in question, to an absurdity, by saying, c If the 
 Father generate the Son, he must either be always gen- 
 erating him, or an instant must be supposed when his 
 generation was completed. On the former supposition, 
 the Son is and must ever remain imperfect, and in fact, 
 ungenerated; on the latter, we must allow that he cannot 
 be eternal.' 
 
 " No one can talk in this manner, who has not first 
 confounded time with eternity, the creature with the 
 Creator; beings whose existence, and modes, and rela- 
 tions are swallowed up and lost in the divine eternity 
 and immensity with him w^ho is, in all essential respects, 
 eternal and infinite. The orthodox maintain that the 
 Son of God is what he is from everlasting, as well as 
 the Father. His generation no more took place in any 
 imaginary point of eternity than it took place in time. 
 Indeed all duration, which is commenced, is time, and 
 time it must ever remain. Though it may never end. 
 it can never be actually eternity; nor can any being, 
 whose existence has commenced, ever become actually 
 eternal. This thing implies a contradiction in terms. 
 
 "The nature of God is perfect from everlasting; and 
 the generation of the Son of God was no voluntary and 
 successive act of God, but something essential to the 
 9 
 
98 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 Godhead, and therefore natural and eternal. We may 
 illustrate this great subject, though we can never fully 
 comprehend it. All natural agents, as we call them, 
 act or operate uniformly and necessarily. If they should 
 change their action or operation, we should immediately 
 infer a change of their nature. For their existence, in 
 a certain state, implies that action or operation. They 
 act or operate by, what we call, a necessity of nature, or, 
 as any plain uneducated man would express himself, it 
 is their nature so to do. Thus the fountain flows. Thus 
 the sun shines. Thus the mirror reflects whatsoever is 
 before it. No sooner did the fountain exist in its natural 
 state, than it flowed. No sooner did the sun exist in its 
 natural state, than it shone. No sooner did the mirror 
 exist in its natural state, than it reflected the forms placed 
 before it. The actions or operations are all successive. 
 But ha$ the fountain existed from everlasting, in its natu- 
 ral state, from everlasting it must have flowed. Had 
 the sun existed, so it must have shone. Had the mirror 
 so existed, so it must have reflected whatever Was before 
 it. The Son of God is no voluntary effect of the Fath- 
 er's power and wisdom, like the created universe, which 
 once did not exist, and might never have existed, and 
 must necessarily be confined within the bounds of time 
 and space : he is the natural and necessary, and, there- 
 fore, the eternal and infinite birth of the Divine fecundi- 
 ty, the boundless overflow "of the eternal and infinite 
 splendor of the eternal Son, the unspotted mirror and 
 complete and adequate image, in whom may be seen all 
 
names or tut. swioru. ( J9 
 
 the fullness of the < lodhead. This placet the orthodox 
 faith at in equal distance from the Sabellian and Arian 
 heresies, and will ever make thai distance absolutely in- 
 finite. This is no 6gure of speech, but a most sober 
 truth." (France's Three Discourses on the Person of 
 Christ.) 
 
 We think it is irrefragably proven from Scripture, 
 that the term " Son of God," contains a revelation of the 
 divinity of our Lord as being of the same nature and es- 
 sence with the Father. 
 
 Very much more we might say on the divinity of our 
 blessed Saviour, as touching the divine appellatives given 
 to him in the Holy Scriptures; but let the above suffice. 
 We have been somewhat particular on the term " Son 
 of God," for the reasons that some are in danger of mis- 
 applying it. As many of our younger brethren in the 
 ministry, fond of Dr. A. Clarke's exposition of the term, 
 are in danger of misapplying the same, as the Dr. has 
 done. As he is nearly alone among the orthodox com- 
 mentators on this point, that is in applying the term 
 "Son of God" to the Saviour's humanity. We find in 
 the memoirs of the Rev. Richard Watson, by Rev. 
 Thomas Jackson, "That about the year 1818, Dr. 
 Clarke's very elaborate commentary on the Holy Scrip- 
 tures was then in a course of publication. In this work 
 the Dr. strenuously contends for the true and proper di- 
 vinity of Jesus Christ; but at the same time maintains 
 that he is the Son of God merely in regard to his hu- 
 man nature. It was however at variance with the tenets 
 
100 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 of Mr. Wesley and of the Methodist body ; and was 
 clearly opposed to almost every orthodox confession of 
 faith, and to the general sense of the Christian Church 
 in every age. * * * The argument upon which 
 he rests his cause, and which is contained in his note on 
 Luke i. 35, is deduced entirely from human analogies. 
 Against the principles Mr. Watson felt it his duty to 
 raise his warning voice. Early in the year 1818, he pub- 
 lished one of his most important theological works; an 
 elaborate dissertation on the divinity and eternal Sonship 
 of Christ, and on the use of reason in matters of revela- 
 tion. 
 
 " Dr. Clarke offered no reply to Mr. Watson's publi- 
 cation. The pamphlet of the latter on the Sonship of 
 Christ was accompanied by similar publications from 
 the pens of the Rev. Messrs. Moore, Hare, and Robert 
 Martin ; and by these means, and the interference of the 
 conference, the orthodoxy of the body was preserved. * 
 
 * * * Dr. Clarke's theory is now generally dis- 
 carded." * 
 
 It appears that nearly all the orthodox divines, from 
 the days of the apostles to the present, take no other view 
 of the phrase " Son of God," than this we vindicate. 
 We shall close this point with a quotation from Bishop 
 Morris: 
 
 "We think the divine, as well as the human nature of 
 Christ, is called Son in divers places by the sacred wri- 
 
 * Life of Watson, by Thomas Jackson, Chap. ii. 
 
n UOBB Of tii i: > v\ ioik 101 
 
 and among others in the followin) J For the 
 Father judgeth no man , but hath committed all j 
 
 ment unto tin 4 Son: that all mm Bhould honor the 
 
 even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth hoi 
 
 the Son, honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. 1 
 John v 22,23. 'But unto the Son, he saith, Thy 
 throne, O God, is forever and ever : a sceptre of right- 
 eousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.' Heb. i. 8. It 
 will here be observed, that the being called ' the Son/ is 
 to judge the world, and is to be honored even as the 
 Father; that he is called God, and that his throne, as 
 such, is forever and ever. Now, to apply all this to the 
 humanity of Christ, would be absurd. 7 ' * 
 
 In our opinion, in view of the Scriptures which may 
 be adduced, the title " Son of God," is the richest appel- 
 lative given to the adorable Saviour in proof of his ab- 
 solute divinity. The reader will see that the names of 
 God are given to the Saviour, which is farther proof of 
 his Supreme Divinity. 
 
 * Sermon 15, 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Christ Possessed Divine Attributes. 
 
 In the foregoing chapter we have proved that the 
 Scriptures apply divine titles to Jesus Christ, implying 
 his Supreme Divinity. We come now to consider the 
 attributes which the Scriptures ascribe to him. Of the 
 essence of Deity we profess to know nothing, but that 
 he is a Spirit. Being known to us by his attributes, and 
 by these we know that he is different from all intelligent 
 beings, because the latter, though possessing attributes, 
 yet they are finite ; the Deity possessing infinite attri- 
 butes, a "single, indivisible, independent, and eternal 
 unit, we cannot ascribe different perfections or attri- 
 butes to him, so as to suppose one attribute separate from, 
 and independent of another, capable of acting per se, 
 or participating conjunctively with other attributes as an 
 integer. It will follow, that every act of the divine Be- 
 ing, in regard to himself, is precisely the same in na- 
 ture, so that we cannot say of one act it is an effort of 
 his power to the exclusion of his wisdom ; nor of his 
 wisdom to the exclusion of his goodness; nor of his 
 goodness to the exclusion of his holiness, and so of the 
 rest. Strictly speaking, we cannot say the power of 
 
ATTKIIU MIS Of CHRIST. 103 
 
 God, the wisdom of God, the goodn< H of ( fad, 4a, be- 
 cause thepowei o( God is God; the wisdom of God is 
 
 God; the goodness of ( Jod ia ( tod 
 In contemplating tliis awful subject abstractly we 
 
 should say that there arc no such ihingfl as attrib 
 the divine Being, as they are commonly understood* 
 
 What we call his attributes, are only different modes 
 of the operations of the same eternal, undivided, and in- 
 dependent Unit. Indeed, God is one entire perfection, 
 which exerts itself in different ways and actions. But 
 as we cannot comprehend this single entire perfection, 
 or understand how it exerts the whole of itself, as a sin- 
 gle individual agent, in each particular act, as it really 
 does, mankind have always been in the habit of assisting 
 their contemplations by regarding the nature of the acts 
 of this single, indivisible, and eternal agent, and thus in- 
 ferring the nature of the divine Being. And as these 
 acts appear to differ in quality, we infer a quality in the 
 agent, corresponding with the quality of the actions 
 which we see ; we call this quality by a name, and thus 
 derive the doctrine of attributes. 
 
 " For example: When we see this single, indivisible, 
 agent manifesting himself in such a manner as to give 
 us the idea of unlimited power, we ascribe omnipotence 
 to him as an attribute. When we see a manifestation 
 indicating infinite wisdom, we ascribe omniscience to 
 him as an attribute. In the same manner in reference 
 to the manifestations which indicate justice, goodness, 
 mercy, truth, holiness, faithfulness, righteousness, fee., 
 
104 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 
 
 all of which we ascribe to him upon such indications. 
 Hence, we must never conceive that any act of the di- 
 vine Being proceeds from one or more attributes to the 
 exclusion of others; or that one attribute participates 
 more in one act than in another. It is sufficient to say, if 
 we conceive correctly of the divine acts, ice will ascribe 
 each equally to all the Divine Attributes." * 
 
 It appears obvious, if Deity be a living, rational, un- 
 derived, independent Unit, a Unit, not merely a reality 
 of attributes or perfections, but one single, entire perfec- 
 tion, a Spirit without parts, or a whole, as a whole im- 
 plies an aggregation of parts, then he necessarily is the 
 infinite God. And if Jesus Christ, according to the 
 Scriptures, possesses the nature of this unoriginated God, 
 he necessarily must be the eternal God. That the Scrip- 
 tures apply the attributes of this God to Jesus Christ, is 
 obvious from the following quotations, &c. : It is allowed 
 by all that eternity is an attribute of Deity, Christ is 
 called the " Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," 
 by the prophet Isaiah ix. 6, and in Rev. i. 17, 18, < t 'I 
 am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and 
 was dead." In chapter xxii. 13, Christ speaks and de- 
 clares himself to be "Alpha and Omega, the Beginning 
 and the End, the First and the Last." This agrees 
 with the eternity of God declared by Isaiah xliii. 10, 11, 
 " Before me there was no God formed, neither shall 
 there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside 
 
 * Wood's Mosaic History, improved by J. P. Durbin, A. M. 
 
\ / iKiiu m cm < Bxmr, 
 
 me there i.> no Saviour." buahxhr.ti th< I. ; 
 
 and there 
 
 In Revelation the tern n ith bri ih in rm ming, 
 
 and are applied to Christ most certainly. Also j; 
 
 8, " I am Alpha and ( imega, the beg inning and f . : 
 
 ing, saith the Lord," it is added, "which is, an I which 
 
 was. and which is to come, the Almighty." Every one 
 may see that these words cannot apply to the Father, in 
 their connection, but to the Son of God. These terms are 
 applied to the Father in verse iv. l: Grace be unto you, 
 and peace from him which is, and which was, and which 
 is to come: and from seven spirits which are before his 
 throne; And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful wit- 
 ness." The same declaration as is made in verse 8, by 
 our Lord to himself; hence, if the terms which was, 
 and is, and is to come, are descriptive of the eternity of 
 the Father, they are also descriptive of the eternity of 
 the Son. In Heb. xiii. 8, " Jesus Christ the same yes- 
 terday, to-day, and forever." This is not spoken as some 
 Socinians contend of the doctrine of Christ, but of Christ 
 himself, as is obvious from the context. 
 
 Again, Heb. i. 10, 12: -Thou, Lord, in the begin- 
 ning hast laid the foundation of the earth: and the 
 heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall per 
 ish ; but thou remainest : and they shall all wax old as 
 doth a garment ; and as a vesture thou shalt fold them 
 up, and they shall be changed ; but thou art the same, 
 
 AND THY YEARS SHALL NOT FAIL." 
 
 These words are quoted from Psalms cii. which all 
 10 
 
106 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 
 
 admit to be a lofty description of the eternity of God. 
 They are here applied to Christ, "and of him they 
 affirm, that he was before the material universe;" and 
 they affirm, moreover, the immutability of his charac- 
 ter, as the eternal Jehovah. " Thy years shall not fail," 
 is not only asserted of Christ; "but thou art the same." 
 " To get rid of the difficulty which presents itself in the 
 words, " In the beginning," John i. 1, Unitarians tell us, 
 in a note in the improved version, that ev ap^, here ren- 
 dered " In the beginning," signifies " from the commence- 
 ment of Christ's ministry." The w r ord («oyo$) they 
 admit to be Christ ; that is, Christ had an existence in the 
 commencement of his ministry. But had he not, even 
 according to their own doctrine, an existence thirty years 
 before ? But let us compare the above quotations. We 
 find in Heb. i. 10: " And thou, Lord, in the beginning 
 hast laid the foundation of the earth," &c. In John 
 i. 1, 3 : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
 was with God, and the Word was God. The same was 
 in the beginning with God. All things were made by 
 him ; and without him was not any thing made that was 
 made." 
 
 Now, if Unitarians maintain, that " In the beginning," 
 (John i. 1,) signifies "from the commencement of 
 Christ's ministry," then w r e are obliged to read the quo- 
 tation from John thus : " In the commencement of Christ's 
 
 ministry was the Word. All things were made by 
 
 him," &c. When were all things made by him? At 
 the commencement of his ministry, or thirty years be- 
 
i ttkii i rati of ( nu 107 
 
 fore? "Thou, Lord, id the beginning haft laid the 
 foundation of the earth." When did th< L 
 I ;> called Lord, as the person addressed h< re, Heb. 
 i. 10,) lay the foundation of the earth) In the I 
 ning of* his ministry, or thirty y^ara before this tii 
 from everlasting ? [nfidelity tells as, OJ 
 the commencement of his ministry. But can infidelity 
 tell when he did not exist? What are we to under 
 by the ruler of Israel, " whose goings forth hav< 
 of old from everlasting?" Micah v. 2. Surely the "be- 
 ginning of his ministry" cannot mean "from everlast- 
 ing." But Jesus Christ is " from everlasting ;" there- 
 fore he is the everlasting or eternal God, as none in the 
 universe can be eternal but the unoriginated God. An- 
 other text in the 1 Epistle of St. John i. 2, says: "For 
 the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear 
 witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which 
 was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." In 
 the first clause, Christ is called the life ; he is then said 
 to be " eternal ;" and, that no mistake should arise, as 
 though the apostle merely meant to declare that he would 
 continue for ever, he shows that he ascribes eternity to 
 him in his pre-existent state — that " eternal life" which 
 was with the Father, and with him before he was 
 " manifested to men." And eternal pre-existence could 
 not be more unequivocally marked. The above Scrip- 
 tures are but a specimen of many that might be brought 
 in proof of the eternity of Jesus Christ, but are full 
 proof thereof. 
 
108 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 
 
 We notice, in the second place, the omnipresence of 
 Christ. " Where two or three are met together in my 
 name, there am I in the midst of them," Matt, xviii. 20. 
 From the days of the apostles to this present time, hun- 
 dreds and thousands of (Congregations have met in the 
 name of Jesus for divine worship, and Christ is in the 
 midst of them at the same point of time — consequently 
 he is omnipresent. The Socinian comment in the New 
 Version maintains that this promise is to be " limited to 
 the apostolic age." Well, what does this avail? If in 
 the apostolic age the disciples of the Saviour met in sun- 
 dry parts of the world at the same time, Judea, Asia 
 Minor, Europe, &c, he who could be " in the midst 
 of them," whenever and wherever they assembled, must 
 be omnipresent. The unbelievers try to say, that the 
 gift of omnipresence was sometimes given to the apostles, 
 and refer to 1 Cor. v. 3. Here the apostle does not say 
 that he was present with them, but judged " as though 
 he were present." And if St. Paul had, by a figure of 
 speech, asserted his presence with, when distant from 
 the Corinthians, it would not be a "spiritual" presence, 
 as the Socinian Version has it, but a figurative presence. 
 Yet no such meaning is hinted at in the text before us. 
 
 Christ has declared himself to be in heaven at the 
 same time he was on earth ; this is plain from John iii. 
 13 : "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that 
 came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is 
 in heaven" Hence, if in heaven and on earth at the 
 same time, he must be omnipresent ; and if omnipresent 
 
LTTRIBUra <»i OKBDn 109 
 
 he must be the Supreme God. Again, in Matt xxviii 
 20: "And lo lam with you always^ even unto the 
 of the world. 1 ' The unbelievers try to explain if, "to 
 the end of the age, the Jewish disp asation, till the 
 struction of Jerusalem." It is certain that the clai 
 "Lo, I am with you always," 7tana$ ra< jpfpc*, "at 
 all times," even to q <jvvei%eia, ts atw^oj, the end of the 
 world, in its literal and. popular sense. And it has no 
 reference to the Jewish or any other dispensation, but 
 the continual presence of Jesus with his disciples, from 
 generation to generation, till the end of time. Christ 
 necessarily must be present in every place, and pervade 
 all things, for "by him all things consist," Col. i. 16. 
 Here the apostle attributes conservation of all things to 
 Christ ; hence his presence must be co-extensive with 
 them ; and thus heaven and earth, the universe, must be 
 filled with him, with his power and presence : hence, 
 this proves the omnipresence of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 3. Perfect knowledge, or omniscience, is ascribed to 
 Christ, John xxi. 17. "Peter saith unto him, Lord 
 thou knowest all things." To this Christ made no re- 
 ply, and therefore admits it in its full latitude ; had it 
 not been true, he should not have suffered Peter to con- 
 tinue in so dangerous an error. It cannot be said that 
 this knowledge is an attribute of the creature, for the 
 most extraordinary creature cannot " know all things." 
 But he has a perfect knowledge of the thoughts and 
 intents of the heart. " I, the Lord, search the heart, I 
 try the reins," Jer. xvii. 10. " Thou, even thou only. 
 
110 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 
 
 knowest the hearts of all the children of men," 1 Kings 
 viii. 39. This knowledge was not the consequence of 
 a special revelation or supernatural gift, to answer a 
 temporary purpose ; but the eternal wisdom or knowl- 
 edge of God, the Son. .Again: "Jesus, knowing their 
 thoughts, said," &c, Matt. ix. 4. In Revelations ii. 23, 
 it is said : " And all the Churches shall know that I am 
 he which searcheth the reins and hearts." It is obvious 
 that the Son speaks here, from verse 18 : " These things 
 saith the Son of God," &c. " He knew what was in 
 man." As the object to whom prayer is addressed, 
 knowing the hearts of all. Acts i. 24 : " Thou, Lord, 
 which knowest the hearts of all." As none can know 
 the hearts of all but Jehovah, therefore, Christ is Jeho- 
 vah, because he knows the hearts of all. 
 
 Socinians urge against this ascription of infinite 
 knowledge to our Lord, a passage found in Mark xxiv. 
 36 : " But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, 
 no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, 
 but the Father only." The genuineness of the clause, 
 neither the Son, has been disputed, and is not inserted by 
 Griesbach, in his text ; there is not, however, sufficient 
 reason for its rejection, though certainly in the parallel 
 passage, Matt. xxiv. 36, " neither the Son" is not found. 
 We are then reduced to this : A number of passages 
 explicitly declare that Christ knows all things ; there is 
 one which declares that the Son did not know " the day 
 and the hour" of judgment. Again : there is a passage 
 which certainly implies that even this period was known 
 
\ rnuBi 1 1> op ( must. 1 1 1 
 
 to CI al, l Tim. vi. ] i. 
 
 "appear 
 
 judge, immediately adds, 
 
 xcupois ftdM§& shall show who is l d and only 
 
 potentate," &c. The day of judgment m here called 
 "Am own times," or "Aw .' which, in its 
 
 obvious sense, means the season he hai himself fixed, 
 since a certain manifestation of himself is in ill fullfl 
 reserved by him to that period. As the " times and the 
 seasons/' also are said, in another place, to be in the 
 Fathers "own power," so by an equivalent phrase, they 
 are here said to be in the power of the Son, because they 
 are u his own tunes. 11 Doubtless, then, he knew " the day 
 and the hour of judgment." Now, certainly, no such 
 glaring and direct contradiction can exist in the word of 
 truth, as that our Lord should know the day of judg- 
 ment, and, at the same time, and in the same sense, not 
 know it. Either, therefore, the passage in Mark must 
 admit of an interpretation which will make it consistent 
 with other passages, which clearly affirm our Lord's 
 knowledge of all things, and consequently of this great 
 day, or these passages must submit to 6uch an interpre- 
 tation as will bring them into accordance with that in 
 Mark. " It cannot, however, be in the nature of things, 
 that texts, which clearly predicate an infinite knowledge, 
 should be interpreted to mean a finite and partial knowl- 
 edge, and this attempt would only establish a contradic- 
 tion between the text and the comment."* There u 
 
 * Watson's Inst., vol. 1, pp. 583, 534. 
 
112 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 
 
 interpretation which involves no contradiction or absur- 
 dity whatever, and which makes it accord with the rest 
 of the Scripture testimony on this subject. The first 
 " making the word ol8sv, here to have the force of the 
 Hebrew conjunction, hiphil, which in verbs denoting 
 action, makes that action pass to another. Wherefore, 
 EcSfw, which properly signifies, J know, used in the 
 sense of hiphil, signifies I make another to know, I de- 
 clare. The word has this meaning without dispute. 
 1 Cor. ii. 2 : " I determined, stisvat, to know nothing 
 among you, but Jesus Christ and him crucified." The 
 same, I determined to make known, to preach nothing, 
 but Jesus Christ. So, likewise, in the text: " But of 
 that day and that hour none maketh you to know," — 
 none have power to make you know it." # 
 
 But cannot this difficulty be reconciled on the plain 
 ground that the Saviour speaks here as man, and not as 
 God. That the words, " neither the Son," apply exclu- 
 sively to the human nature of our Lord, as to his body 
 which " grew in stature," and as to his soul or mind 
 which increased in wisdom. " He could not be said to 
 increase in wisdom," Luke ii. 52, " as he was God ; nor 
 could this be said of his body, for that is not the subject 
 of wisdom." It will be granted, as man he did not know- 
 beyond the capacities of human and finite understanding. 
 He could not, in this respect, know things not knowable 
 by man, otherwise than the divine nature thought prop* 
 
 * McKnight's Harmony. 
 
LTTSSBI i i ■ Of OHBOT 
 
 ear to communicate to him. Th Chrisl didnol 
 
 know, as man, the precise time, the day and hour ofth< 
 judgment This matin- ia stated peculiarly by the i 
 gelist: M Of that day ami hour knoweth no man : H 
 
 follows, ^neither the Son." ^ He doth not say the Son 
 
 of Hod nor the xoyo*, or Word, but the Son only." It 
 may be said, "that the Son of man was ignorant of 
 some things, though the Son of God knew everything." 
 Shall it be asked, why this equivocation in the an 
 of the Saviour ? We cannot behold any inconsistency 
 or insincerity in the Saviour, "to deny that he knew 
 what he really did know in one capacity, while he was 
 ignorant of it in another. Thus, in one place he says, 
 1 Now I am no more in the world,' John xvii. 1 1 ; and 
 in another, ■ Ye have the poor always with you, but me 
 ye have not always,' Matt. xxvi. 11. Yet on another 
 occasion he says, ' Lo, I am with you always,' Matt, 
 xxviii. 20." 
 
 Again, Eccl. iii. 17 :"God shall judge the righteous 
 and the wicked:" But it is said in John v. 22: " For the 
 Father judgeth no man ; but hath committed all judg- 
 ment unto the Son." Hence, the Son of God shall judge 
 the world, but He that shall judge the world — " the 
 righteous and the wicked," is God, therefore Christ 
 is God: who shall judge the world, consequently 
 if Christ shall be the judge, would any dare affirm, 
 that the judge is ignorant, not knowing the day or 
 hour of such judgment? What but eternal Omnis- 
 cience could judge the world, to judge it equitably! 
 
114 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christ as judge of the world necessarily must possess 
 Omniscience. 
 
 And by this perfect knowledge he " Knew from the 
 beginning who they were that believed not, and who 
 should betray him;" John vi. 64. Thus the Scripture 
 ascribes to him an existence infinitely glorious and holy, 
 knowing all things from everlasting to everlasting, as 
 God over all, blessed for evermore. 
 
 Fourthly. Omnipotence is peculiar to supreme divin- 
 ity ; degrees of power are applicable to a finite being, 
 but his capacity cannot admit of infinite power ; hence 
 God alone is susceptible of Omnipotence, which implies 
 infinite power. The Scriptures ascribe infinite power 
 to Jesus Christ, therefore Jesus Christ must be God. 
 
 For instance, in Rev. i. 8. we read " I am Alpha and 
 Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, 
 who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almigh- 
 ty." In the eleventh verse of this chapter Christ speaks 
 these words of himself, or declares them of himself in 
 both these verses : which show his Omnipotence. 
 
 To the Jews Christ said, " What things soever he 
 (the Father) doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. 11 
 
 "That as the Father hath life in himself, so hath 
 he given to the Son to have life in himself," which 
 marks an obvious distinction between Christ and all the 
 created beings in the universe, he has " life in himself 11 
 even as the " Father hath life in himself;" hence Christ 
 is equal with the Father in the strongest sense. " By 
 his eternal generation this life was derived from the 
 
ASTBMBOVm <>• ( mki-i. I 10 
 
 Father to him, ami he pOC equally with the 
 
 Father; by the appointment of Ins Father he m made 
 the source of eternal life to believers, as having that 
 
 Lin: in BIM8ILI to bestow, and to Supply I | 
 
 We read in John i. 3: "All thin mad-' by him. 
 
 and without him was not anything made which 
 made; and in Heb. i. 2: "Upholding all things by the 
 word of his power." These texts present us with the 
 strongest possible proof of his absolute- Omnipotence, and 
 we shall close this point with the Saviour's own declara- 
 tion, "All things which the Father hath are hub, 3 
 John xvi. 15. 
 
 Fifthly. Immutability is ascribed to Christ, Heb. xiii. 
 8. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
 ever." Psalm cii. 27, quoted by St. Paul, Heb. i. 10: 
 " And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foun- 
 dation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy 
 hands ; they shall perish, but thou remainest : yea, all of 
 them shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture 
 shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed ; but 
 thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." The 
 apostle declares this passage to be spoken of Christ, 
 which manifests his absolute immutability. 
 
 Hence the word of God directly ascribes to Christ the 
 attributes of Eternity, Omnipresence, Omniscience, Om- 
 nipotence and Immutability. No angel or creature can 
 possess those attributes. If this could be possible, then a 
 finite'being could possess an infinite; but this is absurd. 
 Hence, if no finite creature can possibly possess infinite 
 
116 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 
 
 attributes, Jesus Christ can according to the Scriptures, 
 and as they are only peculiar to God, Jesus Christ 
 is God, the Supreme Being of the universe* 
 
 * And who can conclude otherwise, when it is considered, that 
 the Scriptures positively assert, that the world shall be judged, at 
 the " revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render 
 to every man according to his deeds." Rom. i. 5, 6. In connection 
 with this, read Ecclesiastes xi. 9: "But know thou, that for 
 these things God will bring thee into judgment." And chapter xii. 
 14: " For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every se- 
 cret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." But the 
 Scriptures assert too, that Jesus Christ shall judge the world. This 
 is plain from the following Scriptures. Rom. xiv. 10: "For we 
 shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." Acts x. 42: 
 " And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify 
 that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of quick 
 and dead." Again, John v. 22: " For the Father judgeth no man, 
 but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." From the above 
 passages, the evident conclusion is, that God shall judge the world. 
 But Jesus Christ shall judge the world, therefore Jesus Christ is 
 God. Take this in connection with the foregoing pages, and the 
 reader may perceive, that the adorable Saviour possesseth the total- 
 ity of absolute and eternal Divinity. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Acts and Divine Worship of Christ are 
 proof of his Divinity. 
 
 1. The acts of Christ are numerous, and peculiar to 
 the character of God. acts which cannot be performed by 
 any creature however exalted. The first of this kind is 
 creation, the making- out of nothing all things ; this is 
 possible only to divine power. 
 
 The "worlds" were made by him — "by whom also 
 he made the worlds." Heb. i. 2. " Through faith we 
 understand that the worlds were framed by the word of 
 God, so that things which are seen were not made of 
 things that do appear;" ch. xi. 3. In both texts the phy- 
 sical creation is meant. 
 
 Modern Arians (Newlights) say of the text first quoted 
 11 by whom (Christ) he (God) made the worlds.''' That 
 is, God by Christ, as a delegated being made the visible 
 creation; this is a pitiful exposition. All that can in 
 truth be said of this matter is, that, the Father made the 
 " worlds" by "his Son;" by faith we understand that the 
 worlds were made or framed by the word or fiat of God, 
 but Jesus the Son of God made the "worlds," therefore 
 Christ is the God that made all things. 
 
\ 
 
 118 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 
 
 According to the Arian scheme of reasoning, a crea- 
 ture may be a creator, and a creature. They admit that 
 Christ made the " worlds" and that he was made for this 
 purpose; and that it cannot from hence be concluded 
 that he is God equal with the Father. This implies 
 that Christ as a creature is finite, for the unbelievers of 
 his supreme divinity cannot for consistency sake make 
 him infinite; for then they would have two infinite beings, 
 the Father and the Son, which according to their own 
 common sense would be absurd. Then the Son of God 
 as a finite being, made the worlds. This conclusion is 
 obviously contrary to the word of God. Instance, Rom. 
 i. 20: " For the invisible things of him from the crea- 
 tion of the world are clearly seen, being understood by 
 the things that are made, even his eternal power and God- 
 head; so that they are without excuse." So we find that 
 the invisible things of God, " even his eternal power 
 and Godhead," are " clearly seen " by the things that 
 are made, that even the heathens are without excuse, 
 that is, they may know God by the works of God. 
 What monstrous nonsense it is to say that a creature is 
 the creator, and preserver of all things? 
 
 But is it not said that "God" by his Son "made the 
 worlds ? n Yes, in this phrase it is so said, but the same 
 Apostle says that the " worlds were framed by the word 
 of God." There are several passages of Scripture 
 wherein the persons of the Godhead address each other. 
 Hos. i. 7. " But I (Jehovah) will have mercy upon the 
 house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their 
 
\< is \m> vniMUP Of < JHKB 1 10 
 
 God. :? Again. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom 
 aiid upon Qomorrah brimstone and fire, from the I 
 out of Heayen; n Gen. \i\. 24. Will anj 
 nans make the Lord, who rained brimstone, L ■ in char- 
 acter than the Lord in Heaven, or the Lord that | 
 the house of Judah, loss than the Lord their God, If 
 not, then the phrase that God made the world bvhx 
 does not imply of course, that the Son is of an inferior 
 nature. " It implies that there is a distinction between 
 the Father and the Son." 
 
 The conclusion is, that u creating power is the source 
 of all power," except itself, and if it be not infinite, there 
 is no infinite power manifested, hence no " Godhead 
 clearly seen." But the scriptures determine this point 
 incontrovertibly, Heb. iii. 4: " every house is buildcd by 
 some man ; but he that built all things, is God. " Then 
 the conclusion inevitably fastens upon the mind, that if 
 God, by his Son made the worlds, and " he that made all 
 things is God," therefore the Son of God, is the God of 
 creation, and creation is the act of the Son of God. 
 
 Another act of Christ's is preservation, " by him all 
 things consist," or are preserved. He must possess 
 Omnipotence not only " but also ubiquity, since he must 
 be present to all things, in order to their constant conser- 
 vation. " 
 
 But Jesus Christ does the w r ork of the Father, as he 
 says, "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; 
 but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works. w 
 
 Does the Father send the spirit % He claims the same 
 
120 ACTS AND WORSHIP OP CHRIST. 
 
 power, — " the comforter, whom I send unto you." The 
 Spirit is hereby called, "the Spirit of Christ," and "the 
 Spirit of God." Thus the giving of the Spirit is indif- 
 ferently ascribed to the Son and to the Father." 
 
 Another act peculiar to God, is the forgiveness of sins, 
 as sin is the transgression of the law of God, he alone 
 is the offended party, and he only can forgive ; others 
 may declare the conditions on which God forgives, but 
 actual forgiveness is with God only. But Jesus Christ 
 forgives sins, therefore he is God. 
 
 Many passages of Scripture might be adduced. Let 
 one suffice: u He said to the sick of the palsy, Son, be 
 of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." 
 
 Such were the acts of the Saviour of men in the days 
 of his sojourning on earth. " If any creature is capable 
 of doing the same mighty works, then is all distinction 
 between created, finite, natures, and the uncreated Infi- 
 nite destroyed." But creation, preservation and salva- 
 tion, can only be the work of the immaculate God. But 
 these works are ascribed to Jesus Christ, because he ac- 
 tually has wrought them, then the inevitable conclusion 
 is, that he is the Supreme God, 
 
 In the second place, we come to show that divine 
 worship was paid to Christ. 
 
 The disciples worshipped him, they worshipped him 
 as a divine person, and enjoined this upon Christians to 
 the end of time. God, and his prophets and apostles, 
 reprobated in the severest terms idolatry. Hence, if 
 Jesus Christ were only a created being, the apostles 
 
V( N \m» WOSBMIB OF I H UB i 
 
 :m 1 ( Ihristianity 
 The Holj Scriptu 
 ( Jo 1. an 1 1 qnal with ( k>d ; tl 
 idoration. 
 
 •• The /a»< that divine worship 
 his disciples, must be first established [osl 
 falling down at his feet an 1 r n hipping him are so fre- 
 quent in the Gospel, that it is not necessary to select the 
 instances which are so familiar; and though we allow 
 that the word proskuneiu is sometimes used to express 
 that lowly reverence with which, in the east, it has heen 
 always customary to salute persons considered as greatly 
 superior, and especially rulers and sovereigns, it is yet 
 the same word which, in a great number of instances, is 
 used to express the worship of the supreme God. We 
 are, then, to collect the intention of the act of worship, 
 whether designed as a token of profound civil respect 
 or of real and divine adoration, from the circumstances 
 of the instances on record. When a leper comes and 
 : worships' Christ, professing to believe that he had the 
 power of healing diseases, and that in himself, which 
 power he could exercise at his will, all which he ex- 
 presses by saying, ' Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make 
 me clean,' we see a Jew retaining that faith of the Jew- 
 ish Church in its purity, which had been corrupted 
 among so many of his nation, that the Messiah w r as to 
 be a divine person ; and viewing our Lord under that 
 character, he regarded his miraculous powers as origi- 
 nal and personal, and so hesitated not to worship him. 
 11 
 
122 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 
 
 Here then is a case in which the circumstances clearly 
 show that the worship was religious and supreme. 
 When the man who had been cured of blindness by 
 Jesus, and who had defended his prophetic character 
 before the council, before he knew that he had a higher 
 character than that of a prophet, was met in private by 
 Jesus, and instructed in the additional fact that he was 
 the i Son of God,' he worshipped him. ' Jesus heard 
 that they had cast him out, and when he had found him, 
 he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? 
 He answered, and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might 
 belive on him % And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast 
 both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And 
 he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him;' be 
 it observed under his character, 'Son of God,' a title 
 which, we have already seen, was regarded by the Jews 
 as implying actual Divinity, and which the man under- 
 stood to raise Jesus far above the rank of a mere 
 prophet." * 
 
 When the disciples were fully convinced of our Lord's 
 Messiahship arising out of a "series of splendid" mir- 
 acles, "they came and worshipped him, saying, Of a 
 truth thou art the Son of God ! " Matt. xiv. 33. Upon 
 the miraculous draught of fishes, Peter "fell at his feet." 
 Here was divine homage. The apostles worshipped 
 the Saviour. This the Father commanded to be so by 
 the prophets. Instance, Isa. viii. 13, "Sanctify the Lord 
 
 * Watson. 
 
\< is \M» W0B8HIF OF ( HE] 
 
 of hos If; and let him bt yout im !>• 
 
 your di \\ orship him all 
 
 impar< d with !!■ b. i. 6: " And a \ iin, win n 
 he brings tli in the I the world, hi 
 
 And lit all the ar. hip him." 
 
 Zech. xii. 10: "And 1 (Jehovah) will | q the 
 
 house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerufi 
 the spirit of grace and supplications; i \ loot 
 
 upon 3i u whom they have pierced." John xi\ 
 one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his sid 
 forthwith came thereout blood and water." Jesus Christ, 
 therefore, is Jehovah, the object to be sanctified and 
 feared. But, if there be doubts about Jesus Christ 
 ing the true object of worship after all we have said 
 above, we shall produce texts from the Scripture of the 
 New Testament in greater abundance in proof thereof. 
 It is clear from John v. 22, 23: "For the Father judg- 
 eth no man ; but hath committed all judgment unto the 
 Son : that all men should honor the Son, even as they 
 honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son, hon- 
 oreth not the Father which hath sent him." Here we 
 see the infinite prerogative of judging the universe, is 
 committed by the Father to the Son, for this great end. 
 that all intelligent beings should honor the Son as they 
 honor the Father, in the same manner and in the same 
 degree. In doing this they worship one God, as the 
 Saviour told the Jews, " I and my Father are one." — 
 ;; Wherefore, God hath highly exalted him, and E 
 him a name which is above every name: that at the 
 
124 ACTS AXD WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 
 
 name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in hea- 
 ven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. — 
 That every tongue should confess, that Jesus Christ is 
 Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. ii. 9, 11. 
 In this passage all celestial, terrestial and subterranean 
 (as is meant by the original) are required to worship 
 Christ "to the glory of God the Father. 57 The above 
 passage is probably quoted from Isa. xlv. 22, 23, where 
 to God "shall every knee bow — shall every tongue 
 swear." We have said the apostles worshipped the Sa- 
 viour, so did many others. The Syrophenician woman 
 "worshipped him, saying," &c. Matt. xv. 25. And this 
 act of religions worship was commended by our Saviour, 
 and her prayer answered. The man who came to Jesus 
 to cast the devil out of his son, worshipped him. Mark 
 ix. 24. But it appears needless to multiply quotations 
 on this point. We shall, however, adduce a few in- 
 stances of divine worship given to the Saviour subse- 
 quent to his resurrection and ascension. Lukexxiv. 51 ? 
 52: " He was parted from them, and carried up into hea- 
 ven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jeru- 
 salem with great joy." This act must have been one of 
 divine adoration, since it was performed after he was 
 parted from his disciples, and cannot be resolved into a 
 token of personal or civil respect; which is alwa}^s done 
 in the presence of superiors. 
 
 When St. Stephen, called the protomartyr, was stoned, 
 the Evangelist records two instances of prayer offered to 
 out Lord by this man " full of the Holy Ghost." " Lord 
 
im \\i» woman <»i unuv« 
 
 ■ \ . lid, 
 their charge v \ 60. [n the former, h 
 
 knowledge a the Saviour to be th( 
 of the sons ofmen in the i ternal state; Id th< 
 knowledges Christ to be trnorandjndj 
 
 having the power to remit sins, to jud 
 
 sins, all of which are manifestly divine acts, which 
 
 that Stephen addressed his prayers to Jesus Chri 
 God. But Socinians say, it is right at Bometimei to ad- 
 dress prayers to Christ while living and seen, but not be- 
 ing seen alters the case. 
 
 c; The papists, if this be so, would find a new refuta- 
 tion of their practice of invocating dead saints furnished 
 by the Socinians. Were they alive and src/i. pray* r to 
 them would be lawful; but now they are invisible, it is 
 idolatry! Even image-worship would derive from this 
 casuistry, a sort of apology, as the seen image is, at least, 
 the visible representation of the invisible saint or angel:* 
 But, "suppose a dying person to pray to a man, visible 
 and near his bed, ' Lord, receive my spirit : Lord, lay 
 not this sin to the charge of my enemies,' who sees not 
 that this would be gross idolatry? And yet if Jesus be a 
 mere man, the idolatry is the same, though that man be 
 in heaven. It will not alter the case, for the Socinian 
 to say, that the man Jesus is exalted to great dignity and 
 rule in the invisible world; for he is, after all, on their 
 showing, but a servant ; not a dispenser of the eternal 
 states of men, not an avenger or a passer by of sin in 
 his own right, that he should lay sin to the charge of 
 
126 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 
 
 any one, or not lay it, as he might be desired to do by a 
 disciple ; and if St. Stephen had these views of him, he 
 would not, surely, have asked of a servant what a ser- 
 vant had no power to grant. Indeed, the Socinians 
 themselves give up the point, by denying that Christ is 
 lawfully the object of prayer. There, however, he is 
 prayed to, beyond all controversy, and his right and 
 power to dispose of the disembodied spirits of men is as 
 much recognized in the invocation of the dying Stephen, 
 as the same right and power in the Father, in the last 
 prayer of our Lord himself, ' Father, into thy hands I 
 commend my spirit.' " (Rev. R. Watson.) 
 
 St. Paul "sought the Lord thrice" that the thorn in 
 his flesh might be removed. That the apostle prayed 
 to Christ is plain, for he adds, " and he said unto me, My 
 grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made per- 
 fect in weakness : most gladly, therefore, will I glory in 
 infirmities, that the power oFCHRisTmay rest uponme." 
 
 Again, "St. Paul prays to Christ conjointly with the 
 Father in behalf of the Thessalonians." " Now our 
 Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, 
 which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting con- 
 solation, and good hope through grace, comfort your 
 hearts, and establish you in every good word and work." 
 2 Thess. ii. 16, 17. In like manner he invokes our 
 Lord to grant his spiritual presence to Timothy, " The 
 Lord Jesus be with thy spirit." 2 Tim. iv. 22. 
 
 Again, c * Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, 
 to them that are sanctified in Jesus Christ, called to be 
 
W TS AM) W0B8HIF OF OHBIC 
 
 saints, with all that in bvsri place oaxi upoh thi 
 
 NAME or J BS1 B ( »H EUBT 01 B I jOBD, both tin us ;m.i oin.s. ; 
 
 1 Cor, i. 2. In Revelation, too, St. John worships 
 Christ, " falling at his feel as dead." Rev. i. 17. More- 
 over, the inhabitants of heaven worship ( 'hrist •• Ami 
 again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the 
 
 world, he saith, And let all the aaci:i.s of I ion wor- 
 ship hoi." Heb. i. G. The apostle in this text proves 
 that Ghiist is superior to angels, and therefore supreme- 
 ly divine, because angels themselves are commanded to 
 zv or ship him. 
 
 In the scenic representation of the book of Revela- 
 tion, the direct worship of Christ is exhibited. Rev. v. 
 11, 14: " And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many- 
 angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the 
 elders; and the number of them was ten thousand, and 
 thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Wor- 
 thy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and 
 riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, 
 and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, 
 and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are 
 in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying. 
 Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him 
 that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever 
 and ever. And the four beasts said Amen. And the 
 four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him 
 that liveth forever and ever." To this may be added, 
 "all the doxologies to Christ, in common with the 
 Father and Holy Spirit, and the benedictions made in 
 
128 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 
 
 his name in common with theirs ; for all these are forms 
 of worship. The ascription of eternal glory and ever- 
 lasting dominion, if addressed to any creature, however 
 exalted, would be idolatrous and profane." " To him be 
 glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." " But 
 grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ: to him be glory for ever and 
 ever. Amen." 2 Pet. iii. 18. 
 
 These are but a few of the many passages which 
 might be quoted that ascribe "glory" to our Adorable 
 Redeemer: but those will suffice. " The apostles blessed 
 the people ministerially in the name of Christ, as one 
 of the blessed Trinity." For instance, " Grace to you, 
 and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ." " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with 
 you all," or more fully, " The grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy 
 Ghost, be with you all." 2 Cor. xiii. 14. The whole 
 tenor of the Old and New Testaments recognize Jesus 
 Christ to be the Eternal God, worthy of divine homage. 
 Some Arians suggest, that there are supreme and inferior 
 worship set forth in the Scriptures: this is the way that 
 Dr. Samuel Clark reconciles the worship of Christ with 
 his half Arian doctrine, "The same distinctions are 
 sophistically resorted to by Roman Catholics to vindi- 
 cate the worship of angels, the Virgin Mary, and de- 
 parted saints." Who cannot see the whole tenor of 
 Scripture runs counter to it ? For example, " He that 
 saerih'ceth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he 
 
ACTS AM> WOBUULP Of ( 11 K r 
 
 shall be utterly >1- rtroy< I Ei 
 
 :i. consi taring with himself thai ml] 
 
 solute and 
 
 by this law, should have gone and - 
 
 . and have been conneted of it before the jud| - — 
 the apology he must have made for it, I - 
 
 have run thus: 'Gentlemen, though 1 hai 
 
 other gods, yet, I hope you will observe that I did il 
 absolutely: I meant not any absolute or supreme sacri- 
 fice, (which is all the law forbids,) but relative and in- 
 ferior only. I regulated my intentions with all imagin- 
 able care, and my esteem with the most critical exact- 
 ness : I considered the other gods, whom 1 sacrificed to, 
 as inferior only, and infinitely so; reserving all sover- 
 eign sacrifice to the supreme God of Israel.' This, or 
 the like apology, must, I presume, have brought oil the 
 criminal, with some applause for his acuteness, if your 
 principles be true. Either you must allow this, or you 
 must be content to say, that not only absolute supreme 
 sacrifice, (if there be any sense in that phrase,) but ail 
 sacrifice was, by the law, appropriated to God only. 
 
 u Another instance of worship is, making of vows, re- 
 ligious vows. We find as little appearance of your famed 
 distinction here, as in the former case. We read nothing of 
 sovereign and inferior, absolute and relative vows, that we 
 should imagine supreme vows to be appropriate to God, 
 inferior permitted to angels or idols, or to any creature. 
 Swearing is another instance much of the same kind 
 with the foregoing. Swearing by God's name is a plain 
 12 
 
130 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 
 
 thing, and well understood; but if you tell us of sover- 
 eign and inferior swearing, according to the inward res- 
 pect or intention you have, in proportion to the dignity 
 of the person by whose name you swear, it must sound 
 perfectly new to us. All swearing which comes short 
 in its respects, or falls below sovereign, will, I am afraid, 
 be little better than profaneness." Dr. Waterland. 
 
 The Socinians have at length discovered the above ab- 
 surdity of sovereign and inferior worship and profanity, 
 &c. In fact the Holy Bible from first to last recognizes 
 Jesus Christ as God, the Eternal God, over all and 
 blessed for ever; and all the sophistry in the universe can- 
 not overthrow this grand and glorious truth. None less 
 than the glorious Lord God, the infinite and eternal 
 One, could act or do what Jesus Christ has done, in cre- 
 ation and preservation ; therefore, from his acts, he must 
 be God, equal with the Father in glory, majesty and 
 power. 
 
 Again : From the divine worship paid him, He neces- 
 sarily must be God, worthy of the same honor as the 
 Father, and the only conclusion is found in Revelation, 
 xix. 10, "Worship God." The Gospel, according to 
 John, chap. i. ver. 17 says, "Grace and truth came 
 by Jesus Christ." Verse 34: " And I saw and bare 
 record, that this is the Son of God." Verse 14: "And 
 the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Verse 
 1: " And the Word was God." Jesus Christ was God, 
 therefore worship Jesus Christ. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 The Humanity of Christ. — Hypostatic Uniox 
 
 In the early ages of the Church, it was necessary to 
 establish the proper humanity of the Saviour, as well as 
 his divinity. The former was denied even in the days 
 of St. John, as his epistles appear to be answers, or ar- 
 guments, going to substantiate the proper humanity of 
 Christ. "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every 
 spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the 
 flesh, is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not 
 that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God : and 
 this is that spirit of anti-Christ." 1 John iv. 2, 3. So 
 it appears that those who deny that Christ possessed pro- 
 per humanity, that he possessed a real body and soul, 
 were, by the evangelist's own showing, spiritually anti- 
 Christians. 
 
 The divinity of Christ is strongly proven by the Gos- 
 pel of St. John, as it appears his humanity is by his 
 epistles. 
 
 The Gnostics denied in reality the humanity of the 
 Saviour ; they erred as to both natures. They did not 
 deny, but affirmed that they took place in appear- 
 ance only. Still later, the Eutyches fell into a similar 
 
132 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 error, by teaching that the human nature of Christ was 
 absorbed into the divine, and that his body had no real 
 existence. While the Eutyches thus erred, the Appolo- 
 ninarians rejected the existence of a human soul in our 
 Lord, and taught that the Godhead supplied its place. 
 
 "Various other refinements were at different times 
 propagated ; but the true sense of Scripture appears to 
 have been very accurately expressed by the Chalcedon 
 council, in the fifth century, — that in Christ there is one 
 person ; in the unity of person, two natures, the divine 
 and the human ; and that there is no change, or mixture, 
 or confusion of these two natures, but that each retains 
 its own distinguishing properties. With this agrees the 
 Athanasian creed, whatever be its date, — perfect God 
 and perfect man, of a reasonable soul, and human flesh 
 subsisting, — who, although he be God and man, yet he 
 is not two; but one Christ: one, not by conversion of 
 the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood inl^ 
 God ; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but 
 by unity of person ; for as the reasonable soul and flesh 
 is one man, so God and man is one Christ. 
 
 " The Church of England by adopting this creed, has 
 adopted its doctrine on the hypostatical union, and has 
 further professed it in her second article : < The Son, 
 which is the Word of the Father, begotten from ever- 
 lasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one 
 substance with the Father, took man's nature in the 
 womb of the blessed virgin of her substance ; so that the 
 two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the God- 
 
himamiv op uiuub t . L38 
 
 head and manhood, werojoini & m one pa 
 
 never to be divided, wheteof u one ChriK m Qod 
 and very man.' Whatavei objection 
 against these views bj the mere reason of man, nnalihi 
 to comprehend mysteries eo high, but often bold enoe 
 to impugn them, they certainly <xhil.it the doctrine of 
 the New Testament on these important subjects, though 
 expressed in different terms." Rev. R. Watson. 
 
 Without doubt the " completeness of each nature, and 
 the union of both in one person? is the only key to the 
 language of the Scriptures, and explains and harmonizes 
 the whole so as to afford the strongest proof, that our Lord 
 is truly God and truly man. All the Scriptures say of 
 Christ, either belongeth to the " Theologia, the divinity 
 of our Saviour, or to the o^ovo^ca, the incarnation of 
 Christ." 
 
 " Does any one ask, for instance, if Jesus Christ was 
 truly God, how he could be born and die ? how he could 
 grow in wisdom and stature? how he could be subject 
 to law? be tempted? stand in need of prayer? how his 
 soul could be exceeding sorrowful even unto death ? be 
 c forsaken of the Father?' purchase the church with 
 'his own blood?' have 'a joy set before him?' be exalt- 
 ed ? have { all power in heaven and earth' given to him? 
 &c. The answer is, that he was also man. If, on the 
 other hand, it be a matter of surprise, that a visible 
 man should heal diseases at his will, and without refer- 
 ring to any higher authority, as he often did; still 
 the winds and the waves ; know the thoughts of men's 
 
134 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 hearts; foresee his own passion in all its circumstances; 
 authoritatively forgive sins ; be exalted to absolute do- 
 minion over every creature in heaven and earth; be 
 present whenever two or three are gathered in his name ; 
 be with his disciples to the end of the world; claim uni- 
 versal homage and the bowing of the knee of all crea- 
 tures to his name; be associated with the Father in sol- 
 emn ascriptions of glory and thanksgiving, and bear 
 even the awful names of God, names of description and 
 revelation, names which express divine attributes: — 
 what is the answer ? Can the Socinian scheme, which 
 allows him to be a man only, produce a reply . ? " # They 
 cannot give a proper answer on their hypothesis, for the 
 only explanation of all these statements is, that Jesus 
 Christ is God as well as man, and by this the consisten- 
 cy and truth of the Bible are exhibited. 
 
 Again: without doubt, Jesus Christ is truly man, 
 " though modern Arians inform us that Christ possessed 
 no rational soul, by which, if they mean any thing, they 
 must mean either that the soul of Christ was irrational, or 
 that he had no soul; the latter being the more charitable 
 conclusion, we will fix on it as the correct one. But 
 how does this agree with the Scriptures, ' Thou shalt 
 make his soul an offering for sin;' 'My soul is exceed- 
 ing sorrowful, even unto death?' Judge ye. But though 
 they say he had no rational soul, he was a pre-existent, 
 super-angelic spirit, created at some period before the 
 
 * Watson's Inst. Vol. 1, part 2, page 619. 
 
RUH \M i \ OF OHBIBTi 
 
 temporal univi 0T86, and who. in the fulluos of tim< 
 
 sained a human body, and animated it aa oui 
 
 mate our bodies. To all this it i 
 
 this account of Christ be true, then he belon 
 
 classification of neither God, angels, nor men, 
 
 being unheard of before, unknowing and unknown, till 
 
 the Unitarian revelation brought him to light; hut how 
 
 many of these sentiments can be found in the Bible I 
 
 Not one. Christ then is the Son of God respecting his 
 
 humanity. 
 
 " His mediatorial character, comprises both his hu- 
 man and divine natures. After asserting-, and we trust 
 proving, from the Scriptures, both the proper humanity 
 and real divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us, for a 
 moment, observe him in the union of these two; for 
 though the divine nature is not absorbed by the human, 
 nor the human changed into the divine, yet are they 
 permanently united in the person of the Son of God : 
 and, hence, while some Scriptures speak of him only as 
 a man, and others only as God, there is still another 
 class of Scriptures which speak of him in reference to 
 both, and which can be explained on no other principle; 
 as John iii. 13: ' And no man hath ascended up to hea- 
 ven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son 
 of man, which is in heaven.' Here Christ speaks to 
 Nicodemus in the present tense; and though his bodily 
 presence was on earth, yet he calls himself the Son of 
 man which is in heaven; for, as God, he fills immensf 
 
 * Bishop Morris's Sermon. 
 
136 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 We perceive the Bishop has distinguished the Scrip- 
 tures that apply to Ghrist into three classes : "Some 
 Scriptures speak of him only as man ; others only as 
 God ; another class of Scriptures which speak of him 
 in reference to both," God and man. Dr. Durbin has 
 made about the same divisions of the Scriptures in proof 
 of the supreme divinity of Christ, in a sermon he preach* 
 ed first in the representative hall, during the session of 
 the legislature of South Carolina. In viewing these 
 divisions of Scripture in their application to the charac- 
 ter of Christ, we hope to exhibit more largely the hy- 
 postatic union of Christ. 
 
 First, let us notice the class of Scriptures that speak of 
 Christ as man only, proving him to be verily and truly 
 man. We presume it is needless to gather all the Scrip- 
 tures which apply to this point; a few texts will serve our 
 purpose, as we have already adduced sufficient evidence 
 on this head. 
 
 The Saviour is called "the Son of man' 7 repeatedly. 
 " A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." This 
 can only be affirmed of real humanity. But Christ had 
 a body which grew in "stature;" he was hungry, and 
 thirsty, and weary; " He took on himself not the nature 
 of angels, but the seed of Abraham :" that is, our nature, 
 with all its innocent infirmities, and every thing pertain- 
 ing to it ; having a body, which is known from his being 
 born, suffering, dying, &c. 
 
 Again: he had a reasonable soul as well as a real 
 body. This is obvious from the following Scriptures : 
 
HOI \\T TV OF (II li 1ST. 137 
 
 11 Thou shah make li is soul an offer d :** M My 
 
 soul is exceeding sorrowing even unto death.' 1 The 
 
 Scriptures in speaking of the efficacy of the sufli 
 of Christ for the remission of sins are in proof of the 
 manhood of Christ; instance the following examples, 
 Heb. ii. 14: "Forasmuch, then, as the children are 
 partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise 
 took part of the same ; that through death he might de- 
 stroy him that hath the power of death," &c. Here the 
 power of Christ's death is set forth ; it is the death of 
 one who partook of flesh and blood. But some unbe- 
 lievers say Christ only took part of " flesh and blood," 
 that is, he took a body like ours, but not a soul, his di- 
 vinity is instead of a soul. Surely they cannot derive 
 such a conclusion from the above text, for the reverse is 
 the truth. " As the children are partakers of flesh and 
 blood, he also himself likewise," like the children, "took 
 part of the same flesh and blood." He did not take our 
 sinful infirmity, or original depravity, but he took our 
 nature, or "the seed of Abraham." Heb. ii. 16. But, 
 whoever heard of a being thus dying? as it is said, 
 Colos. i. 14: "In whom we have redemption through 
 his blood, even the forgiveness of sins," and "that 
 through death he might destroy him that hath the power 
 of death," and still have no soul. Can a human body 
 exist without a soul ? Can a being of flesh, and blood, 
 and intelligence, have an existence without a soul 1 Or 
 can the body suffer without a soul? Did not the Saviour 
 exclaim that his "soul was exceeding sorrowful, even 
 
138 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 unto death . ? " " Now it is plain that the sufferer and the 
 Saviour are the same person. The man might suffer, 
 but suffering could not enable the man to save." This 
 suffering man was sustained by the divinity, which is 
 one in personal unity with that which suffered, and it 
 is this divinity and humanity which constitutes that 
 " Great High Priest" of our profession. 
 
 But, how can any man deny that Christ possessed a 
 human soul, with such plain Scriptures before him, with- 
 out joining issue with the Scriptures? Certainly he 
 cannot. But are not some Scriptures expressly clear in 
 applying a soul and heart to God as an infinite spirit? 
 Hence may not all the Scriptures that speak of God and 
 Christ be explained in this sense? We answer, by no 
 means, because such explanation would be absurd. 
 
 While we grant that the figure called Anthropopathy, 
 a species of metaphor in which the powers or members 
 of human beings are ascribed to God, hence that infinite 
 spirit is said to have eyes, Psalm xi. 4; Heb. iv. 13; 
 ears, Psalm xxxi. 22 ; " thou heardst the voice of my 
 supplications," — Psalm viii. 3; "When I consider thy 
 heavens the work of thy fingers" — Exo. xv. 6; "Thy 
 right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power." 
 Here are eyes, ears, fingers, hand, ascribed to God : still 
 more, he is represented to " repent, — and it grieved him 
 at his heart" Gen. vi. 6. Again, " Mine heart is turn- 
 ed within me, my repentings are kindled together." 
 Hosea xi. 8. Though all these things are ascribed to 
 that infinite spirit, called God, nevertheless none of these 
 
m m v\i n 09 I BBDT. 
 
 positively affirm kbit the infinite spirit ■ in posses- 
 sion of a soul, ami the Scripturefl intend do Bach thing; 
 so it is a casuistry unworthy of attention] to try to set 
 
 forth, that the Scriptures which affirm thai Chris! hai a 
 soul are applied only figuratively: no such thing can be 
 prove* or credited For the blessed Saviour isa sum 
 of sorrow, "the man whoso nam.: is the Branch," > 
 vi. 12; "Since by man come death, by man camealsc 
 the resurrection of the dead," 1 Cor. xv. 21; verse 47: 
 " The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man 
 is the Lord from heaven." " After me cometh a 
 which is preferred before me; for he was before me." 
 John i. 30. M A man that] is called Jesus, made clay," 
 &c. John ix. 11. "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved 
 of God among you :" Acts ii. 22. These Scriptures suf- 
 ficiently prove that Jesus Christ is "very man." There 
 is no rational idea that can possibly exist of a human 
 living being having a body without a soul. But, be- 
 yond all doubt and controversy, every rational being 
 must conclude from the Scriptures, that " the man that is 
 called Jesus" who "increased in wisdom and stature," 
 Luke ii. 52, must necessarily possess both body and soul : 
 for he increased in stature. This applies to his body un- 
 doubtedly, as every one must believe this from such a 
 host of evidence. We shall make one remark on 
 Christ's increasing in wisdom, and close this point of the 
 subject. To those who affirm that the Saviour had no 
 soul, we ask in what sense did he " increase in wise 
 if his Deity or Godhead made up, and took the place of 
 
140 HUMAjNITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 a soul in Christ, how could that Divinity increase in 
 wisdom, if you allow that the Godhead was infinite in 
 holiness and wisdom? for without this, there could not be 
 a God at all. If so. how did the Saviour increase in 
 wisdom? To this question there can be no valid answer : 
 all the intrigue and subtilty of infidelity cannot answer 
 it satisfactorily. Then the fact must be granted, that 
 Jesus Christ is truly man, having a real body and'a ra- 
 tional soul: and all the Scriptures which mention his 
 sufferings and death, or indicate his inferiority in any 
 sense, are in proof of his real humanity. 
 
 2nd Class of Scriptures sustains the following propo- 
 sition: — "Jesus Christ is the very unoriginated God." 
 
 " That all men should honor the Son, even as they 
 honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son, hon- 
 oreth not the Father which hath sent him, 5 ' John v. 23. 
 By this Scripture we are under obligation to give the 
 same respect or worship to Jesus Christ as to the Father. 
 But in an examination of the nature of religious wor- 
 ship, it will be found that the Father's honor must ne- 
 cessarily be the faithful homage of the whole heart, and 
 this in the supreme sense. Then if Christ be less than 
 the eternal God, it would be idolatry to serve him. And 
 if he is to receive equal worship with the Father, he 
 must be co-equal in the sense of supreme divinity, so that 
 the principles of true religious honor must be in propor- 
 tion to the excellence of the object of worship; hence it 
 is impossible to give the same homage to a being of less 
 excellence that we give to a being of greater excellenca 
 
ra \m pi 09 < rat 1 11 
 
 It follows B08 ChnV 
 
 the Father, coi - y h«- uM be tin 
 
 God. And we ask if there in finite 
 
 than the following in i ith( rG 
 
 John i. 1. "Ei mpzjj ft ?.oyo$ xai o toyof ri rfpo* tm 0*w, 
 
 xai <deo$ rv o Xoyoj." Tllisapprai r than OUT 
 
 translation. And in &>///, the language is too definite to 
 be misunderstood. Again, Col. ii. 9 ; -For in him 
 (Christ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ;" 
 "By the Godhead or Deity, esotr$, we are to under- 
 stand the state or being of the divine natv n ; and by 
 the fulness of that Deity, the infinite attributes essential 
 to such a nature. Bodily, Swjuartxwj, signifies truly, re- 
 ally; in opposition to typically, figuratively. There 
 was a symbol of the divine presence in the Hebrew tab- 
 emaele, and in the Jewish temple; but in the body of 
 Christ the Deity, with all its plenitude oi attributes, 
 dwelt really and substantially, for so the word somatikos 
 means : and so it was understood by the ancient Greek 
 fathers, as is fully shown by Suicer, in his Thcso 
 under the word.'"* 
 
 Consequently, as the Godhead dwelt bodily in Christ, 
 so he is necessarily the unoriginated God. 
 
 ;; From these two classes of Scripture, two different 
 classes of men have drawn two different conclusions. 
 The Deist, finding that these passages declare two differ- 
 ent things, has determined that the Scriptures contradict 
 each other, From the very same premises the Arian 
 
 *Dr. A. Clark's Com. 
 
142 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 has determined that the Scriptures (being consistent,) 
 Jesus Christ is not God, though the Scriptures seem to 
 say so. Hence they make many efforts to explain away 
 the force of these Scriptures. But neither of these con- 
 clusions is correct, or even unavoidable, as will appear 
 from the 
 
 3rd " Class of Scriptures sustaining the following 
 proposition : — Substantial divinity and real humanity are 
 combined in the person of Jesus Christ." 
 
 This is a proposition very clearly expressed in the 
 Scriptures, though it appears to have been neglected by 
 readers generally, by all particularly who deny the di- 
 vinity of Christ. We come at once to present a few 
 texts in proof of the above proposition, Isa. vii. 14: " Be- 
 hold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall 
 call his name Immanuel.'" Compare this with Matt. i. 
 23 : "And they shall call his name Immanuel, which 
 being interpreted is God with us;" God in human 
 nature. The word Immanu, with us, el God, or the 
 mighty God with us, not in the sense of divine presence, 
 for this text is addressed to mankind. This is the fact be- 
 yond contradiction, a fact, we suppose, that all admit. 
 But if it be in the sense of divine presence, and universal 
 in its application, of course then it must apply to devils, 
 as well as to men and angels, which makes this text 
 superfluous. And of course if so applied, it is as advan- 
 tageous to devils as men, which is absurd. Hence the 
 true meaning then is, God with us, taking our nature 
 upon him to redeem us from u all iniquity." 
 
HUMANITY or CHRIST. 143 
 
 Again: Rom. i. 3, 4: "Concerning Jesua Christ. 
 which was made of the seed of David according to the 
 flesh (hxsi is his humanity,) and declared to be the 
 
 Son of God according to the spirit of holiness," (HBRI 
 is his divinity.) Thus we see hoth joined in th< 
 
 son of Jesus Christ. Again : Rom. ix. 5. " Of whom, 
 as concerning the flesh, Christ came, (here is his hu- 
 manity,) who is God over all, blessed for ever." Here 
 is his divinity. These are a few of the many Scriptures 
 which so clearly support the proposition, Jesus Christ 
 is very God and very man. 
 
 " In the controversy on this subject, it is universally 
 allowed, that if the above proposition could be established, 
 the essential divinity of Jesus Christ must of course be 
 acknowledged. Now, gentle reader, peruse again the 
 above Scriptures, and ask your own reason if they do 
 not make out clearly the proposition. Yes, if there be 
 any one truth more clearly revealed than another, it is 
 this — Jesus Christ is the God of the Bible. 
 
 Hence we see the Scriptures that say Christ is man 
 are true ; and those which set him forth as God are true 
 also; the third class of Scriptures shows he is both God 
 and man. Consequently all objections brought against 
 his inferiority are easily refuted, as all such Scriptures go 
 to prove he was man. When " such passages as are 
 quoted under the second class are produced, showing 
 Jesus Christ is God, by what means can their force be 
 avoided? None has ever yet found out a reasonable 
 answer. Let the above division of the Scriptures be obser- 
 
144 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 ved, and all will be dissolved, and this truth will rest with 
 eternal conviction on every mind, Jesus Christ is the 
 very unoriginated God"* 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell here much longer, in order 
 to refute the new styled errors that may rise up in these 
 days of much inventions — for the reason they cannot 
 have much influence. We trust that in the foregoing 
 pages, the errors of the sundry species of Unitarians 
 have received, in some sense their merited reward, in 
 truth and righteousness. 
 
 It will be understood by the reader, that all the unbe- 
 lievers of the essential Divinity of our Saviour are refu- 
 ted under the generic term of Vnitarianism. 
 
 As Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God ; as he was 
 "sent" by the Father, and "returned" to the Father ; He 
 distinguished himself from the Father both in his divine 
 and human natures, saying, as to the former, " I and my 
 Father are one," and to the latter, *'My Father is 
 greater than I." If there be any meaning at all in his 
 declaration, "that no man knoweth the Son but the 
 Father, and no man knoweth the Father but the Son," 
 words which cannot, by any possibility, be spoken of an 
 official distinction, or of an emanation or operation, then 
 all these passages prove a real personality, and are in- 
 capable of being explained by a " model one." The er- 
 rors of every species of Unitarianism are chased through 
 all their changeful transformations, and they have no 
 good reason for their hypothesis. The unbelievers of 
 
 *See Dr. Durbin's Sermon. 
 
bum uon of ciiKi 146 
 
 the BQpreme divinity of our Lord .1. mis Chris( o.inn ,• 
 
 well boast of their sufferings lor lus holy n:iinc: they 
 • had a martyr in their ranks, and it is rery likely 
 they never will have That, while the believers in the ' 
 
 Jesus Christ have had the honors of martyrdom, hfl 
 unbelievers of Christ's supreme divinit illy, never 
 
 had much else than a zeal for their opinions. The da- 
 niers of the Son have not honored the Father; save 
 where involuntary ignorance was joined with pure in- 
 tention. We see no hope of salvation for them on any 
 other foundation. Consequently, they have never, in 
 general, borne that lucid testimony for the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, that the true believers in his eternal Godhead 
 have done. Therefore they have escaped persecution 
 to the death, while the true believers have suffered 
 the fires of the stake and ascended to heaven in the flames 
 of martyrdom, crying as they passed the confines of 
 this, and as they neared the borders of the eternal world. 
 Hosanna to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost : 
 while greeting angels with the lutes of heaven, in tones 
 of Eolian sweetness welcome those martyred spirits to 
 the bosom of Abraham, to the throne of God. 
 
 We shall close our remarks on this chapter with one 
 thought more, that is, the mediatorial character of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. In this character, Christ dwells at 
 the right hand of the Father in heaven. In possessing 
 absolute divinity, he has access to God the Father, in 
 behalf of mankind. On the other hand, Jesus has access 
 to man, having satisfied the demands of the moral law, 
 13 
 
146 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 In this way, the adorable Saviour reconciles the fallen 
 heart to God, by removing the "enmity," without in- 
 fringing on the moral agency of the heart. Is there a 
 possibility for any being to mediate for mankind, if that 
 being could not manifest mercy. Man could not show 
 himself mercy ; the pure law could not, it demanded the 
 life of the rebel ; God could not, for his law was violated 
 and demanded penal satisfaction. Hence Jesus, only by 
 his death, could mediate mercifully, after paying the 
 demands of the law. For Jesus, only, can be "touched 
 with the feeling of our infirmities," and hereby mediate 
 for man. Hence, it was requisite that our mediator pos- 
 sess absolute divinity, and complete humanity to become 
 a mediator in the court of heaven. Again : these two 
 distinct natures of Christ, must necessarily remain dis- 
 tinct ; the divine cannot be absorbed by the human, for 
 this would be the lesser receiving the greater. On the 
 other hand, if the divine could absorb the human, this 
 would be a strange compound, and God would not be a 
 spirit, an infinite, indivisible essence : hence this cannot 
 be. Nevertheless the two natures of Christ are perma- 
 nently united in the person of the Son of God. Jesus 
 says, John iii. 13: "'And no man hath ascended up to 
 heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the 
 Sen of man, which is in heaven." Here he addresses 
 Nicodemus, in his bodily presence, but affirms at the same 
 time, that he is in heaven. Thence here is a distinction 
 of his divinity and humanity and a union of both, which 
 form the Mediator. Very God and very man. 
 
CHAP T E B VII 
 a Christ made a Propitiators Ba< rih< i 
 
 EVERY KAN, WHICH is FARTHER PROOT 01 
 ESSENTIAL DlVIMTY. 
 
 This chapter will close our remarks on the cha 
 ter of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 The unbelievers in his essential divinity, deny that lr 
 made a propitiatory sacrifice for the world. That he 
 made such a sacrifice is proven from the Holy Scrip- 
 tures — a proof of which will corroborate the divinity oi 
 his character and mission. 
 
 To place this subject in its proper light, we must con- 
 sider the Old and New Testaments as the history of 
 man's redemption. The Jewish government was a 
 theocracy. God was their chief magistrate. i: The 
 Lord was their king, the Lord was their law-giver: 
 the Lord was their judge." " The elders of Israel 
 came to Samuel, and said, Make us a king, to judge us 
 like all the nations. The Lord said unto Samuel. 
 They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, 
 that I should not reign over them," 1 Sam. viii. 4, 7. 
 Gqtf was their king. " The Lord his God was with 
 them, and the shout of a king was among them," Num. 
 
148 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 xxiii. 21. The tabernacle was the place of his 
 court, and the holy of holies was his pavilion ; here the 
 king resided, and manifested his royal presence by the 
 Shechinah ; here, as law-giver, he was consulted ; and 
 as judge, he administered justice. 
 
 God not only gave them civil, but ceremonial laws ; 
 and enforced on them profound reverence for his gra- 
 cious majesty, and external purity. And in order to 
 perpetuate this, priests and Levites were appointed, as 
 intermediary officers, to execute his will, and receive 
 the offerings of the people, and present them to their 
 sovereign. 
 
 " Those offerings were of two kinds : some were 
 eucharistical,* and were offered in acknowledgment of 
 benefits received ; others were piacular, and were offered 
 to avert impending evil, or to regain forfeited blessings. 
 This is an important distinction, which is preserved 
 through the whole of the Levitical law, and is particu- 
 larly noticed by an apostle : ' For every high priest 
 taken from among men, is ordained for men in things 
 pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sac- 
 rifices for sins,' Heb. v. 1. 
 
 " The gifts which the apostle here mentions, were 
 undoubtedly the meat offerings, the drink offerings, the 
 offering of the first fruits, the thank offerings, the free 
 will offerings. From these gifts, ' the sacrifices for 
 sins 7 are always to be particularly distinguished, as their 
 nature and design were essentially different. And %\\$ 
 
 *The sacrament of thanksgiving. 
 
riiitisT \ svi Kirici: iok sin. I !'.» 
 
 difference renders thai comparison which, fbt \h 
 of reducing the ( sin offering 1 to the stai 
 own opinion, the Bocinians make between them, alto- 
 gether inadmissible. No proof of what was, or what 
 was not the design of tl can afford an] 
 
 evidence concerning the design of the sacrifici 
 (Hare.) 
 
 1. A propitiation for sin, is a sacrifice to expiafe 
 guilt of sin, in such a manner as to avert the punish- 
 ment from the sinner. Such were the sin offerings of 
 the Levitical law. 
 
 Impurities occasioned by neglect of duty, &c, exclu- 
 ded the subject from the congregation and its privileges. 
 A breach of the civil law was followed by the same 
 consequences. An offence against a brother was par- 
 donable when restitution was made, as it was an offence 
 against the legislator. In all such cases, " all things 
 under the law were purged with blood, and without 
 shedding of blood was no remission," Heb. ix. 22. For 
 these reasons were instituted the sin offerings, by which 
 the impure were absolved. 
 
 The Levitical law of sacrifices exhibits the nature 
 and design of sin offerings. This is plain from Lev. 
 iv. 13 — 21 : •* If the whole congregation of Israel sin 
 through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes 
 of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against 
 any of the commandments of the Lord, concerning 
 tilings which should not be done, and are guilty ; when 
 the sin w T hich they have sinned against it is known, then 
 
150 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the 
 sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congre- 
 gation. And the elders of the congregation shall lay 
 their hands upon the head of the bullock before the 
 Lord; and the bullock shall be killed before the Lord. 
 And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bul- 
 lock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation ; and 
 the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and 
 sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, even before the 
 Veil. And he shall put some of the blood upon the 
 horns of the altar, which is before the Lord, that is in 
 the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out 
 all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt 
 offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the 
 congregation: and he shall take all his fat from him, 
 and burn it upon the altar. And he shall do with the 
 bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so 
 shall he do with this : and the priest shall make an 
 atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them. And 
 he shall carry forth the bullock : it is a sin offering for 
 the congregation." 
 
 Here it is obvious that sin was the occasion of the 
 offering, and that for which it was offered. 
 
 " The life of the flesh is in the blood ; and I have given 
 it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your 
 souls," Lev. xvii. li. It is required that the blood, in 
 which is the life of the flesh, shall be sprinkled before the 
 Lord, and put on the horns of the altar within the taberna- 
 cle, and thus an atonement is made, and the sin pardoned. 
 
( BUST v - \(i!iin i: mi{ hv 1 .". 1 
 
 The plain meaning of atone is, "to make n paration, 
 amends, oi satisfaction, for an ofl! oce or a crime."* 
 In the above nement was mad< 
 
 God to man. This is rational from the bctfl thai 
 
 had not offended nun, but nun had offended Q 
 
 whom the sin offering was to be offen d. And h 
 God was offended, God was to be reconciled." A 
 It was not God who presented the sin offering to the 
 congregation, but the congregation who presented it to 
 God. This was the condition that God proposed to be 
 merciful to them. 
 
 The '-'peace offerings were tokens" of peace and 
 " mutual friendship. The offerer was allowed to eat a 
 part of the offering, in the presence of the Lord," 
 Lev. vii. 15. 
 
 Again: When the congregation had sinned, God 
 permitted them not to enjoy " the privileges of his pe- 
 culiar people ; whereas, when the sin offering had been 
 presented, he did permit them." Hence we see that for- 
 giveness was not on the part of the congregation, but God. 
 
 If it be objected, " that the immutable God cannot 
 change, as the explanation of atonement, as given above, 
 suggests," we answer, In the immutability of God we 
 believe most certainly, but " dare not attribute to him 
 the immutability of a stone." Jehovah cannot change 
 "in what he is," yet he can undoubtedly " change in 
 what he does. He can at one time be angry with us, 
 and at another time turn away his anger," both as a sec- 
 
 * Webster's Die. 
 
152 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 ular governor, and as the God, who, being gracious and 
 merciful, can forgive iniquity, transgressions and sin. 
 Again : In the " Christian economy," and under the 
 government of him who is " a great king in all the 
 earth," Jesus Christ is ordained the " High Priest of 
 our profession," Heb. iii. 2, infinitely greater than Aaron 
 or his sons. " We have a great High Priest, that is 
 passed into (or through) the heavens, Jesus, the Son of 
 God," Heb. iv. 14. u We have such a High Priest, 
 who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majes- 
 ty in the heavens ; a minister of the sanctuary and of 
 the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not 
 man," Heb. viii. 1, 2. " Christ is not entered into the 
 holy places made with hands, which are the figures of 
 the true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the 
 presence of God for us," Heb. ix. 24. The priests who 
 " offer gifts according to the law ; who serve unto the 
 example and shadow of heavenly things; but now hath 
 he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much 
 also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which is 
 established upon better promises," Heb. viii. 3 — 6. "But 
 Christ being come an high priest of good things to 
 come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not 
 made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; 
 neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own 
 blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having 
 obtained eternal redemption for us" Heb. ix. 11, 12. 
 
 In these texts the reader will find a continual " com- 
 parison between the priesthood, ministry, and sacrifices 
 
( -wrist \ s\i iniK i: 101: HM 
 
 of the Jewish institution and the 
 
 design of which is to show thai the former if 
 
 of the tatter, bat that iho latter infini la the for- 
 
 mer. Mi Whereas, the Jewish high priests were I i 
 
 i: gifts and sacrifices for sins." 15ut Christ offered only 
 
 one sacrifice for sins. This will lead us to notice : 
 
 As the Jewish church had her priests who made 
 atonement for the sins of " their souls," so Christ is the 
 High Priest of the world, who, by his blood, obtained 
 eternal redemption for us. 
 
 If the " congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, 
 and have done somewhat against any of the command- 
 ments of the Lord, and are guilty, the priest shall make 
 an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them," 
 Lev. iv. 
 
 That Jesus Christ was made an offering for sin. is 
 plain from the following Scriptures: " When thou shalt 
 make his soul an offering for sin," Isa. liii. 10. M He 
 hath made him to be amartian, a sin offering for us," 
 2 Cor. v. 21. " Who needeth not daily as those high 
 priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and 
 then for the people's: for this he did once when he of- 
 fered up himself," Heb. vii. 27. M Christ died for our 
 sins," 1 Cor. xv, 3. " Christ hath once suffered for 
 sins," 1 Pet. iii. 18. Christ u offered one sacrifice for sins," 
 Heb. x. 12. 
 
 These and other Scriptures represent our sins as the 
 
 * Hare on Socin., pp. 1C9. 
 
 14 
 
154 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 " impulsive cause of the death of Christ." Our sins de- 
 served punishment ; Christ " was delivered for our of- 
 fences," Rom. iv. 25. " In all which places we have either 
 vrisp or step*, with the genitive case. But Socinus main- 
 tains, that in all these places a final and not an impulsive 
 cause is intended. He even goes so far as to say, that 
 the Latin pro and the Greek v7ttp never denote an im- 
 pulsive, but always a final cause. Many examples 
 prove the latter assertion to be untrue. For both uper 
 and peri are used to signify no less an impulsive than a 
 final cause. The Gentiles are said to praise God uper 
 eleous for his mercy, Rom. xv. 9. Paul says, thanks 
 are given uper qfiav, for us, Eph. i. 16. And vrcep 
 rtavtav for all, Eph. v. 20. Great is my glorying for 
 you, vrtsp vfiav, 2 Cor. vii. 4 ; ix. 2 ; and xii. 5. In all 
 these places pro, or vrtsp, does not signify a final, but an 
 impulsive cause. So when Christ is said to have suf- 
 fered and died for sins, the subject will not allow us, as 
 Socinus wishes, to understand a final cause. Hence, 
 also, as the Hebrew particle id, denotes an antecedent or 
 impulsive cause, (see Psalm xxxviii. 9, and many other 
 places,) the words of Isaiah liii. cannot be better trans- 
 lated, or more agreeably with other Scriptures, than He 
 was wounded on account of our transgressions ; he was 
 bruised on account of our iniquities. And what can 
 Romans, vi. 10, *r k a/*ap*ia art£$av£v, denote, but that 
 he died on account of sin?"* It is in this sense that 
 
 * Grotius, by Watson Inst., vol. 2 pp. 108. 
 
i iikist \ lAommci iok 
 
 Christ ia said to bear our Bint •• Who bis own 
 bare our sins in his own body on the tree/ 1 I Pel erii. 
 24 — where the apostle eridently quotes from Isaiah 
 
 liii: M He shall bear their iniquities. 91 •• ll<- bore tlic 
 sin of many." St. Paul uses the sun.- i \pn BSion, I 
 brews i\. 28: "So Christ was once off! red to bear the 
 
 sins o( many." To bear sin in the sense of the Scrip- 
 ture, is to bear the punishment of sin. Levit. xxii. 
 Ezek. xviii. 20. Again : Isaiah says, " He was wound* d 
 for our transgressions ; he ^vas bruised for our iniquities ; 
 the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with 
 his stripes we are healed." Now chastisement is the pun- 
 ishment of a fault ; but the suffering person of Avhom the 
 prophet speaks, is declared of him to be wholly free from 
 transgression ; to be perfectly and emphatically innocent. 
 This prophecy is applied to Christ by the apostles, whose 
 constant doctrine is the entire immaculateness of their mas- 
 ter and Lord. If chastisement, therefore, was laid upon 
 Christ, it could not be on account of faults of his own ; his 
 sufferings were the chastisement of our faults, the price 
 of peace, and his "stripes," another punitive expression, 
 were borne by him for our u healing." The only 
 course which Socinus and his followers have taken, to 
 endeavor to escape the force of this passage, is to render 
 the word not chastisement, but affliction ; in answer to 
 which, Grotius and subsequent critics have abundantly 
 proved that it is used not to signify affliction of any kind, 
 but that which has the nature of punishment. 
 
 These passages, therefore, prove a substitution^ a suj- 
 
156 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 fering in our stead. The chastisement of offences was 
 laid upon him, in order to our peace : and the offences 
 were ours, since they could not be his " who did no sin, 
 neither was guile found in his mouth.' 5 The same view 
 is presented to us under another and even still more for- 
 cible phrase, in the sixth and seventh verses of the same 
 chapter : " All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; we 
 have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord 
 hath laid on him (literally, hath made to meet on him.) 
 the iniquity of us all ; it was exacted, and he was made 
 answerable." In 2 Cor. v. 21, the apostle uses almost 
 the same language : " For he hath made him to be sin 
 (a sin offering) for us, who knew no sin : that we might 
 be made the righteousness of God in him." The So- 
 cinian Improved Version has a note on this passage, so 
 obscure that the point is evidently given up in despair. 
 St. Paul places "sin" and u righteousness" in opposi- 
 tion to each other — " We are made the righteousness of 
 God;" that is, are justified and freed from Divine pun- 
 ishment ; but in order to this, Christ was "made sin," or 
 bore our punishment. There is also another antithesis 
 in the apostle's words : God made him, who knew no 
 sin, and consequently deserved no punishment, to be sin : 
 that is, it pleased him that he should be punished ; but 
 Christ was innocent, not only according to human laws, 
 but according to the law of God. The antithesis, 
 therefore, requires us to understand that he bore the pen- 
 alty of that law, and that he bore it in our stead. How 
 explicitly the death of Christ is represented in the New 
 
0HRB1 \ - \< KM l< I 1 OB 
 
 i ■•//'//, which it could nui be in any othei 
 
 way than by h 
 
 is manifl st also from ( tal. iii L9 bath 
 
 redeemed ua from the curse of the 1 
 cuiae (an execration) for as, for it it wti 
 every one that hangeth on a tr. ■*-." Thr p 
 Moses, to which St. .Paul refers, is Deut XXL 22 
 u If a man have committed a sin worthy of d 
 be put to death, and they hang him on a body 
 
 shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou 
 in any wise bury him that day, for hi that is Im n : 
 accursed of God, that thy land be not defiled." This 
 infamy was only inflicted upon great offenders, and wa> 
 designed to show the light in which the person thu 
 posed was viewed by God — he was a curse or ei 
 tion. On this, the remarks of Grotius are most forcible 
 and conclusive : " Socinus says, that to be an execra- 
 tion, means to be under the punishment of execration, 
 which is true. For xar'apa everywhere denotes punish- 
 ment proceeding from the sanction of law, 2 Peter ii. 
 14; Matt. xxv. 41. Socinus also admits, that the cross 
 of Christ w r as this cure ; his cross, therefore, had the 
 nature of punishment, which is what we maintain 
 Perhaps Socinus allows that the cross of Christ was a 
 punishment, because Pilate, as a judge, inflicted it ; but 
 this does not come up to the intention of the apostle ; 
 for, in order to prove that Christ was made obnoxious 
 to punishment, he cites Moses, who expressly a 
 that whoever hangs on a tree, according to the Divine 
 
158 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 law, is accursed of God ; consequently, in the words of 
 the apostle, who cites this place of Moses, and refers it 
 to Christ, we must supply the same circumstance, ' ac- 
 cursed of GodJ as if he had said Christ was made 
 accursed of God, or obnoxious to the highest and most 
 ignominious punishment ' for us, that the blessing of 
 Abraham might come upon the Gentiles,' &c. For 
 when the apostles speak of the sufferings of Christ in 
 reference to our good, they do not regard the acts of 
 men in them, but the act of God." (De Satisfactione.) 
 
 2. Let us notice more particularly the nature of the 
 death of Christ. 
 
 11 We are carried still farther into the real nature and 
 design of the death of Christ, by those passages of 
 Holy Scripture which connect with the propitiation, 
 atonement, reconciliation, and the making peace between 
 God and man ; and the more attentively these are con- 
 sidered, the more unfounded will the Socinian notion 
 appear, which represents the death of Christ as, indi- 
 rectly only, a benefit to us, and as saving us from sins 
 and their punishment only as it is a motive to repentance 
 and virtue." (R. Watson.) 
 
 In the doctrine before us, the wrath turned away is 
 the wrath of God. Jesus Christ makes the propitia- 
 tion ; this is done by his blood, according to 1 John ii. 2 : 
 " And he is the propitiation for our sins." Again, 1 John 
 iv. 10: " Herein is love, not that we loved God; but 
 that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation 
 for our sins." Rom. iii. 25 : " Whom God hath set 
 
CHKI0T A SACRIFICE i <>r m\. 1.7.) 
 
 forth to be a propitiation through faith in ki$ blood. 11 
 
 " The word used in the two former | om/*o*; 
 
 in the last, aa^^u^. Both are from the \< irb 1X00*0, 
 so often used by Greek writ ipresi the act 
 
 a person, who, in some appointed way, tamed away the 
 
 wrath of a Deity; and, therefore, cannot bear tin 
 which Socinus would put upon it." When the unbe- 
 lievers in the Saviour's essential divinity are pressed on 
 this point, and denying that mankind needed a propitia- 
 tory sacrifice; the death of Christ was only necessary 
 as it was a motive to repentance and a holy life — that is, 
 if they believe in holiness in the Scriptural sense at all. 
 Hence, they deny the mystery of u God manifested in 
 the flesh." We can expect nothing better from them, 
 if they be consistent with themselves, than a virtual 
 denial of the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. All un- 
 believers in the supreme divinity of Christ, of whatso- 
 ever name they may assume, deny original sin, and the 
 vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ — whether called 
 Socinians, Unitarians, Campbellites, and Newlights, &c. 
 
 There is but little difference between Socinians and 
 Unitarians. As the former maintain, ,%i that Jesus Christ 
 was a mere man, who had no existence before he was 
 conceived by the Virgin Mary," but "he preached the 
 truth to mankind, to set before them an example of 
 heroic virtue," &c. 
 
 The latter maintain, 1, "That Christ is not truly a 
 divine being, but an exalted and pre-eminent pattern of 
 human perfection." 
 
160 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 2. That the Scriptures are " not a revelation, but the 
 record of a revelation." 
 
 3. That the Sabbath, or Lord's day of Christians, 
 under the New Testament, has no connection whatever 
 with the ancient Jewish Sabbath ; that although it is to 
 be honored by resting from secular business, yet it is not 
 to be considered as i( set apart from our common lives 
 to religion," nor is it to be regarded as more holy than 
 any other day of the week. 
 
 4. That it is doubtful whether soul is a substance or 
 a principle separate from the body. 
 
 5. That there are no such spiritual beings as the 
 devil, or evil angels. 
 
 6. That the Scriptures do not teach the doctrine of 
 eternal punishments to be inflicted upon the wicked.* 
 
 The reader may easily perceive that these two sects 
 embrace some tenets nearly alike ; and the Campbell- 
 ites, Newlights, and all other lights, but the true lights, 
 have nearly the same doctrine touching the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Holy Ghost, and the piacular atonement. 
 Hence, we have called them repeatedly unbelievers, as 
 this term seems to embrace them all, even down to Uni- 
 versalism, as it appears to be the near kinsman of 
 Unitarianism itself. 
 
 Now, to proceed. The apostle to the Ephesians i. 7, 
 says: "We have redemption through his blood, the 
 remission of sins." Here it appears that it is only 
 
 * Buck's Theological Die. 
 
chiust v sa( iui mi: ion I<iJ 
 
 through the blood of Christ thai he himself c 
 
 cile US to ( iod. 
 
 Hut will it br said by our opponents that in rind 
 
 ting our idea of Christ's propitiation, we "main 
 an implacable being?" By no means. Weall 
 " God is love ;" still it is not i inordei 
 
 this, to "assume that he is nothio lias 1 
 
 other attributes that harmonize with his love ? Most 
 certainly. Then we do not make Jehovah an implaca- 
 ble being, but rather that " God so loved the world, 
 that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
 lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life," John iii. 16. " He spared not his own Son, but 
 delivered him up freely for us all." " Thus God is the 
 fountain and first great moving cause of the scheme oi 
 recovery and salvation. The question is not whether 
 God is love, but whether he is holy and just; whether 
 we, his creatures, are under law or not; whether this 
 law has any penalty, and whether God, in his rectoral 
 character, is bound to execute and uphold that law." 
 The justice of God is punitive; if not, his law is a dead 
 letter. But it is obvious that his law is punitive ; then 
 a violation of his law incurs his anger. God is angry 
 with the wicked ; then " a man as a sinner is obnoxious 
 to this anger; and so a propitiation becomes necessary 
 to turn it away from him." John the Baptist declares, 
 that if any man believeth not on the Son of God, u the 
 wrath of God abideth upon him." St. Paul declares, 
 that " the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against 
 
162 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." The 
 day of judgment, in reference to the ungodly, is said to 
 be " the day of wrath ;" fearful inflictions of punish- 
 ment shall be the cup of the rebellious. ? All evils which 
 history has crowded into the lot of man, appear insig- 
 nificant in comparison of banishment from God — sepa- 
 ration from the good — public condemnation — torment of 
 spirit — " weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth" — 
 " everlasting destruction" — " everlasting fire." " Let 
 men talk ever so much, and eloquently, of the pure be- 
 nevolence of God, they cannot abolish the facts recorded 
 in the history of human suffering in this world, as the 
 effect of transgression ; nor can they discharge these 
 fearful communications from the pages of the book of 
 God. And if c Jesus who saves us from the wrath to 
 come,' that is, from those effects of the wrath of God 
 which are to come, then but for him we should have 
 been liable to them." " The principle in God, from 
 which such effects follow, the Scriptures call wrath; 
 and they who deny the existence of wrath in God, deny, 
 therefore, the Scriptures. It by no means follows, how- 
 ever, that those who thus bow to inspired authority, must 
 interpret wrath to be a passion in God ; or that though 
 we conclude the awful attribute of his justice to require 
 satisfaction, in order to the forgiveness of the guilty, we 
 afford reason to any to charge us with attributing venge- 
 ful affections to the Divine being."* 
 
 * Watson's Inst., vol. 2, pp. 116. 
 
ciirist a sa< nun ii worn nor. 169 
 
 3. Again: To those Scriptures winch represent 
 
 Christ as our propitiatory sacrifice, uv will append 
 those whicli speak of reconciliation^ and the establish- 
 ment of peace between Qod and men, ai the result of his 
 
 death. Col. i. 19— 22: " For it pleased the Father 
 that in him should all fullness dwell : and (haying made 
 peace through the blood of his cross) by him to tecow 
 die all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether 
 they be things in earth or things in heaven." Again : 
 " For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to 
 God by the death of his Son, much more, being recon- 
 ciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, 
 but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 by whom we have now received the atonement." 2 Cor. 
 v. 18, 19: "And all things are of God, who hath rc- 
 conciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given us 
 the ministry of reconciliation." " The verbs translated 
 to reconcile, are xataxkaaao) and artoxata^xacfefw, which 
 signify a change from one state to another ; but in 
 the passages, connection determines the nature of the 
 change to be a change from enmity to friendship." The 
 best critics maintain that the term atonement signifies 
 propitiation in the proper and sacrificial sense. " The 
 word atonement would have been a proper substitute for 
 'propitiation? in those passages of the New Testament 
 in which it occurs, as being more obvious in its meaning 
 to the common reader ; and because the original word 
 answers to the Hebrew isd, which is used for the legal 
 atonement." And " the effect of the Jewish atonement 
 
164 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 was, that the sins of the persons for whom they were 
 offered, were forgiven. Such precisely is the conse- 
 quence of the death of Christ." (Hare.) 
 
 This agrees with the prophet : " My righteous ser- 
 vant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities," 
 Isa. liii. 11. "For this is my blood of the new cove- 
 nant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins,' 3 
 Matt, xxvi. 28. "We have redemption through his 
 blood, the forgiveness of sins," Eph. i. 7. The bearing 
 of iniquities, his blood which was shed for the remission 
 of sinSj redemption through his blood, fyc, are terms 
 exhibiting the foundation of reconciliation, the only 
 means of reconciliation and peace. But these terms 
 necessarily suppose a previous state of hostility between 
 God and man, which is reciprocal. 
 
 This hostility between God and men is sometimes call- 
 ed enmity ; but the oppugners of this doctrine, the doctrine 
 of atonement, urge that there is no such affection in the 
 divine Being, therefore, reconciliation in Scripture does 
 not mean a reconciliation of God to man, but of man to 
 God. But, with what poor grace can Socinians and all 
 other unbelievers in the Deity of Christ, and the fall of 
 man, make this turn in the argument? — when in fact 
 they deny the fall of man ; and argue his natural inno- 
 cence, that " original sin is a scholastic chimera." In 
 the face of this, how can they maintain that the Scrip- 
 tures teach a reconciliation not of God to man, but of man 
 to God. If man be a naturally innocent being, where is 
 
christ v BiLcmtnoE fob m 
 
 the enmity on his pail to I kxM I id the infidi I bn 
 
 hood answer this. 
 
 The truth is. man is an i 
 mind is enmity against Gkxij fbi it is not subject to the 
 
 law of God, neither indeed can be." Uoin. viii. i 
 
 "For if, when we were enemies, we wen led to 
 
 God by the death of his Son:" Rom. v. 10. II- n 
 sec plainly that man is naturally an enemy of t tod, but 
 is reconciled " by the death of his Son." So Christ 
 made " peace" between God and man, by his death. But 
 what arc we to understand by being- enemies to God? It 
 means, because man violated his law, he has fallen under 
 the "divine judicial displeasure of God," accounted an 
 enemy and subject to be punished as such. Here it is 
 obvious, that this u enmity, in the sense of malignity and 
 the sentiment of hatred, is added to this relation in the 
 case of man; but it is no part of the relation itself; it is 
 rather the cause of it." But according to the reasoning 
 of Socinians, and others, God is so good, he cares not, 
 particularly, about the violations of his law, though sin- 
 ners do violate it; He remains continually a Being of 
 unchanging love toward them ; and needs not to be re- 
 conciled to them. But they must admit that the term 
 "reconciliation," means something, and they have it to 
 mean the reconciliation of man to God, taken, we sup- 
 pose in the sense of that which was really effected by the 
 death of Christ, and still try to maintain man's natural 
 innocency. What nonsense ! Why not throw away 
 the Bible at once? And not only so, but, true reason 
 
166 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 also. They admit that Christ died for men, and hereby he 
 made a reconciliation for them, but, nevertheless men 
 are naturally innocent, and God is so loving, yes, un- 
 changeable in his love, that he cannot need any recon- 
 ciliation. Then we ask the reader, what shall they do 
 with the reconciliation made by the death of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ? 
 
 4. After all, some oftheSocinians assert, "that reconcilia- 
 tion means no more than laying aside our enmity to God." 
 The contrary may be shown from various express pas- 
 sages. For instance, Rom. v. 10: "For if, when we 
 were enemies, we were reconciled to God." The act 
 of reconciliation is here ascribed to God, and not to men. 
 "But if this reconciliation consisted in the laying aside 
 our own enmity, the act would be ours alone ; and, far- 
 ther, that it could not be the laying aside of our enmity, is 
 clear from the text, which speaks of reconciliation while 
 we were yet enemies. i God was in Christ reconciling 
 the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses 
 unto them:' 2 Cor. v. 19. Here, the manner of this 
 reconciliation is expressly said to be not our laying 
 aside our enmity, but the non-imputation of it to us by 
 God, in other words, the pardoning our offences and re- 
 storing us to favor. The promise on God's part, to do 
 this, is expressive of his previous reconciliation to the 
 world by the death of Christ ; for our actual reconcilia- 
 tion is distinguished from this by what follows, and hath 
 1 committed to us the ministry of reconciliation,' by vir- 
 tue of which all men were, by the apostles, entreated and 
 
Gran I s\i Kirin: i or SIN. 167 
 
 besought to be reconciled to God. The reason, too, of 
 this reconciliation of( tod to tin- world, by virtue of which 
 he promise! oot to impute sin, is grounded by the 
 tie, in the las' verse ol the chapter, not upon the laying 
 aside of enmity by men, hut upon the sacrifice of ( 'hrist: 
 
 — c For he hath made him to he sin (a sin offei in. 
 us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the right- 
 eousness of God in him.' Eph. ii. 16, — 'And that lie 
 might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, 
 having slain the enmity thereby.' Here the act of re- 
 conciling is attributed to Christ. Man is not spoken of 
 as reconciling himself to God, but Christ is said to recon- 
 cile Jews and Gentiles together, and both to God, £ by 
 his cross.' Thus, says the apostle, < he is our peace ;' 
 but in what manner is the peace effected % { Not, in the 
 first instance, subduing the enmity of man's heart, but by 
 removing the enmity of the law.' Having abolished 
 through its fulfilment in Christ 'the enmity, even the 
 law of commandments."' 
 
 " The ceremonial law only is here, probably, meant ; 
 for by its abolition through its fulfilment in Christ, the 
 enmity between Jews and Gentiles was taken away ; but 
 still it was not only necessary to reconcile Jews and 
 Gentiles together, but to 'reconcile both unto God.' 
 This he did by the same act; abolishing the ceremonial 
 law by becoming the antetype of all its sacrifices ; and 
 thus, by the sacrifice of himself, effecting the reconcilia- 
 tion of all to God, ' slaying the enmity by his cross,' taking 
 away whatever hindered the reconciliation of the guilty 
 
168 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 to God, which, as we have seen, was not enmity and 
 hatred to God in the human mind only, but that judicial 
 hostility and variance which separated God and man as 
 
 judge and criminal c When 
 
 we speak of the necessity of Christ's atonement, in order 
 to man's forgiveness, we are told that we represent the 
 Deity as implacable; when we rebut that by showing 
 that it was his very placability, his boundless and ineffa- 
 ble love to men, which sent his Son into the world to 
 die for the sins of mankind, they rejoin with their lead- 
 ers, Socinus and Cerellius, that then ' God was reconcil- 
 ed before he sent his Son, and that, therefore, Christ did 
 not die to reconcile God to us.' The answer plainly is, 
 that in this objection, they either mean that God had, 
 from the placability and compassion of his nature, deter- 
 mined to be reconciled to offenders upon the sending his 
 Son, or that he was actually reconciled when our Lord 
 was sent. The first is what we contend for, and is in no 
 wise inconsistent with the submission of our Lord to 
 death, since that was in pursuance of the merciful ap- 
 pointment and decree of the Father ; and the necessary 
 medium by which this placability of God could honor- 
 ably and consistently show itself in actual reconciliation, 
 
 or the pardon of sin The reconciliation 
 
 of God to man is throughout, a conditional one, and, as 
 in all conditional processes of this kind, it has three stages. 
 The first is when the party offended is disposed to admit 
 of terms of agreement, which, in God, is matter of pure 
 grace and favor ; the second is when he declares his ac- 
 
ciikist \ BA( i:ii t( i: FOB 169 
 
 ceptance of the mediation ofa third person, and that he 
 is so satisfied with what he has dune in order to r. that 
 ho appoints it to be announced to the offender, thai if the 
 breach continues, the fault lies wholly upon himself; the 
 third is when the offender accepts of the terms 
 ment which are offered to him, submits, and u 
 into favor." (R. Watson.) 
 
 5. Again, it is still more clear, that Christ made re- 
 conciliation for us, &c if we consider the Scriptures 
 still farther. " Upon the death and sufferings of Christ. 
 God declares that he is so satisfied with what Christ hath 
 done and suffered in order to the reconciliation between 
 himself and us, that he now publishes remission of sins 
 to the world upon those terms which the Mediator hath 
 declared by his own doctrine and the apostles he sent to 
 preach it ; but because remission of sins doth not imme- 
 diately follow upon the death of Christ, without any sup- 
 position of the performance of the conditions which arc 
 required of us." (Stillingfleet.) 
 
 6. To those Scriptures which treat of our reconcilia- 
 tion to God by the death of Christ, we add those which 
 speak of c: redemption" either by employing that word 
 or others of like import By redemption, those that de- 
 ny the atonement made by Christ try to understand de- 
 liverance merely, regarding only the effect and studi- 
 ously putting out of sight the cause so far as they can: 
 which is a plain prevarication of Scriptural truth. But 
 to the Scriptures on this point, 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20: " And 
 ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price." 
 
 15 
 
170 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 1 Peter i. 18, 19: "For as much as ye know that ye 
 were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and 
 gold, from your vain conversation, &c, but with the pre- 
 cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and 
 without spot." Rom. iii. 24. "Being justified freely by 
 his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ 
 Jesus." Gal. iii. 13. "Christ hath redeemed us from 
 the cur5e of the law, being made a curse for us ; for it is 
 written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' 7 
 Eph. i. 7: " In whom we have redemption through his 
 blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of 
 his grace." It is very obvious that these texts refute the 
 notion of a mere deliverance, whether we take it in the 
 sense of sin, or punishment, or both. The English word 
 redeem signifies to buy back %vtpvu, to redeem, and 
 arto'Kvtpioais, redemption, are both used to signify the act 
 of freeing a captive, by paying hvtpov, a ransom or re- 
 demption price. Hence in the above and other passages, 
 it is said " we have redemption through his blood, the 
 forgiveness of sins," redemption from "the curse of the 
 law;" deliverance from the power of Satan; from death 
 and future " wrath," by Jesus Christ's death, which he 
 endured in our stead. Matthew xx. 28: The Son of 
 man came "to give his life a ransom (%vtpov : ) for ma- 
 ny." 1 Tim. ii. 6: "Who gave himself a ransom 
 (avtavtpov) for all." Again, says St. John, Rev. v. 9 : 
 " Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God, 
 (qyopaaas, hast purchased us) by thy blood." " The lu 
 iron, in the case of man, is the blood of Christ; and our 
 
CHEST \ 3A0RIFH I i 01 
 
 redemption ia Dot a commutation of a pecuniary 
 for a person, but a commutation of the sufferings of one 
 person in the stead of another, which sufii ring 
 punishment, in order to satisfaction, is a valuable con- 
 sideration, and, therefore, a price for the redemption o( 
 man out oi' the hands of Satan, and from all the I 
 quences of that captivity.* 
 
 Hence we see that the death of Christ, in the Scriptures 
 is exhibited as the price of our redemption. Against this 
 doctrine an objection has been urged from Socinus to 
 Dr. Priestly, and is thus stated by the latter: "Th< 
 Scriptures uniformly represent God as our universal 
 parent, pardoning* sinners frc cly, that is from his natural 
 goodness and mercy, whenever they repent and reform 
 their lives. All the declarations of Divine mercy an 
 made, without reserve and limitation, to the truly peni- 
 tent, through all the books of Scripture, without the 
 most distant hint of any regard being had to the suffer- 
 ings or merit of any being whatever." Here Dr. Priestly 
 restricts the love of God, as it is only "to the truly peni- 
 tent:' Then God has no love or mercy only for the truly 
 penitent, would be the conclusion of this logic. Hence 
 God, according to the Dr. has respect to a ;: consideration 
 foreign to his goodness and mercy." 
 
 "For, if forgiveness of sin can only be accounted a 
 free gift by being dependent upon no condition, and sub- 
 ject to no restrictions, it follows, that the repentance and 
 amendment of the offender himself are no more to be re- 
 garded than the sufferings and merit of any other being : 
 
172 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 and, consequently, that all sinners, without reserve and 
 limitation, have an equal claim of pardon, whether they 
 repent or not. If, to avoid this consequence, it be said 
 that God is free to choose the objects to whom he will 
 show mercy, and to impose upon them such restrictions, 
 and require of them such qualifications as he thinks fit; 
 it may then, be with equal reason, asserted, that he is 
 also free to dispense his mercy for such reasons and by 
 such methods as he, in his wisdom, shall determine to be 
 most conducive to his own glory and the good of his 
 creatures, and there is no reason whatever to be given 
 why a regard to the sufferings or merit of another per- 
 son should more destroy the freeness of the gift, than 
 the requisition of certain qualifications in the object him- 
 self' 5 
 
 The sum of the matter is, it is altogether with the 
 ever blessed God whether he forgive sin on this or the 
 other condition, as it is his free gilt and unmerited love; 
 for the showing mercy to the guilty, by any method, 
 was a matter in which the Almighty was perfectly free. 
 
 Dr. Priestly rests his impudent assumption on Ro- 
 mans iii. 24: " Being justified freely by his grace, 
 through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," Here 
 he builds his argument on the term freely] but explains 
 not the character of redemption, nor gives the apostle's 
 meaning of the text. "Being justified freely," signifies 
 a gift unmerited by us, "not by works of righteousness 
 which we have done, but according to his mercy he 
 saved us." It denotes the manner in which the blessing 
 
was bestowed. Il was the result of the pure lorn 
 who provided the means erf one d ilivery 1>\ his 
 
 only begotten Sou into the world, to die for as; that he 
 might become the propitiation for our sins/and reconcile 
 
 us to God. 
 
 Again, in 1 Cor. vi. 20, "For yc are bought with a 
 price." The Socinians have founded another argument 
 upon forgiving sins according to the verbiage of this 
 text. That sin is forgiven as a debt, is canceled. Hence 
 atonement is left out of the question. But when sin is 
 spoken of as a debt, a metaphor is plainly employed. 
 Says Mr. Watson, "It would be a novel rule to interpret 
 what is plainly literal by what is metaphorical. There 
 is, undoubtedly, something in the act of forgiving which 
 is common with the act of remitting a debt by a creditor, 
 or there would be no foundation for the metaphor ; but 
 it can by no means legitimately follow, that the remis- 
 sion of sins is, in all its circumstances, to be interpreted 
 by all the circumstances which accompany the free re- 
 mission of a debt. We know, on the contrary, that re- 
 mission of sins is not unconditional ; repentance and faith 
 are required in order to it, which is acknowledged by the 
 Socinians themselves. But this acknowledgment is fatal 
 to the argument they would draw from the instances in 
 the New Testament, in which Almighty God is repre- 
 sented as a merciful creditor, freely forgiving his insol- 
 vent debtors ; for if the act of remitting sins be in all re- 
 spects like the act of forgiving debts, then indeed can 
 neither repentance, nor faith, nor condition of any kind. 
 
174 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 be insisted upon in order to forgiveness ; since in the in- 
 stances referred to, the debtors were discharged without 
 any expressed condition at all." 
 
 Again: But something beyond repentance and faith 
 was necessary in order that sins be forgiven. "It be- 
 hooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the 
 third day," that " repentance and remission of sins should 
 be preached in his name among all nations." If by an 
 act of divine prerogative, without regard to justice or 
 right, he would forgive sins, then there would be no 
 necessity for " Christ to suffer ;V and the offer of remis- 
 sion of sins wholly independent of his sufferings, which 
 is contrary to the Scriptures. " The idea of absolute 
 right in one party, and of binding obligation on the 
 other, holds good equally as to the law-giver and the 
 transgressor, the creditor and the debtor." The one has 
 a right to demand obedience, the other to demand his 
 property. Every crime involves an obligation to pun- 
 ishment, but when sin is forgiven the liability to punish- 
 ment is removed ; as when a debt is paid all obligations 
 are removed touching the debt. But the Scriptures con- 
 necting the pardon of sin with a previous atonement 
 cannot be carried farther. The holiness of the nature of 
 God demands penal sanctions against offences commit- 
 ted. That hypothesis which has mercy, and mercy 
 only administered on a mere principle of feeling, without 
 regard to holiness or justice, is not the doctrine of the 
 Bible. But, the doctrine which connects pardon with 
 the meritorious death of Christ, exemplifies both the 
 
OHIira I I \« UFB I n»i; -in. i ; 5 
 
 justice and mercy of ( lod •• It the un< time i< ■ oardi 
 with | ;trine of non-impunity to mh. 
 
 impunity to the mm r." And the m< dium tin 
 
 : this offering ia made, .-t\< b to 
 to sin, and shows his character of justice at the 
 
 time. JesUS " ( Ihriat, our pass-o\ 
 
 r. v. 7. In Colos. i. 14, 15, wu are said to have 
 
 "redemption through his blood, who is the image of the 
 
 invisible God." Again, 1 Cor. ii. 8, it is said, c; thcy 
 would not have crucified the Lord of life and glory." 
 The blood of Christ is called '"precious." From these 
 passages we gather the facts, that the sacrifice offered to 
 satisfy divine justice, was no mean offering; it was not 
 the blood of bulls and of goats, but the precious blood of 
 Christ. This contradicts the Socinian theory, namely, 
 that the blood of Christ was no more efficacious in an- 
 swering its end than the blood of animals shed under 
 the law. Again, the apostle says, " How much more 
 shall the blood of Christ, who,' through the eternal 
 Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your 
 conscience from dead works to serve the living God." 
 
 But another objection is, that because the divinity suf- 
 fers not, therefore it does not enter into this consideration 
 of punishment. " This is as much as to say, that it is an 
 offence of the same kind, whether you strike a private 
 person or a king, a stranger or a father, because blows 
 are directed against the body, not against dignity or rela- 
 tionship." 
 
 Though, by the death of Christ, men are put in a sal- 
 
176 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 vable state, yet none of them are by this act of Christ 
 brought from under the moral law. As this law re- 
 mains in its full force, and as sinners continue under the 
 " original obligation of obedience, so in case of those 
 conditions not being complied with, on which the actual 
 communication of the benefits of redemption has been 
 made to depend, and those who neglect the great salva- 
 tion offered to them by Christ, fall under the full original 
 penalty of the law, and are left to its malediction, with- 
 out obstruction to the exercise and infliction of divine 
 justice." (Watson.) 
 
 7. It may be asked, to them that flee to Christ for 
 mercy, by repentance and faith, can the law still hold its 
 justice and rigor % The answer is, certainly, the law did 
 not give up any of its claim, but its demands are all fully 
 satisfied through Christ. The end of justification is not 
 to set men free from the law, but from its punishment. 
 With " justification, but distinct from it is the communi- 
 cation of the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit," by 
 which the corrupt nature of man is purified and re- 
 stored to the love of holiness, and power to practice it ; 
 as those who, as the apostle argues, Rom. vi. 2, are thus 
 "dead to sin cannot continue any longer therein," but 
 bring forth the fruits of righteousness, or of the Spirit, 
 which are love, joy, peace, &c. 
 
 By this divine plan, the law of God is not repealed, 
 but established. 
 
 Again: Some affirm, that we cannot know "the vin- 
 culum, or bond of connection, between the sufferings of 
 
onusT i a a km h i poi 1 1 J 
 
 Christ, aad the pardon of no, and tins, therefore, thi 
 place among the myi 
 
 this ::i obscure \ iewi of the atonement I It ap- 
 
 pears so to us, as the connection of ( 'hrist's Buffering ap- 
 pear* to be matter of revelation, il l>< ing called the il dem- 
 onstration o( the righteousm bs ol ( tod, 11 of bis righteous 
 character ami just administration, making provision for 
 the honorable " exercise of mercy without impeachm< nl 
 of justice, or any repeal or relaxation of bis 1 1 
 
 We have read of a ••Locrian legislator voluntarily 
 suffering the loss of one of his eyes, to save that of hlf 
 son condemned by his own statutes to lose both, and did 
 this that the law might neither be repealed, nor exist 
 without efficacy. Who docs not see that the authority of 
 his laws was as much, nay more, impressively sanctioned 
 than if his son had endured the full penalty ?" This will 
 only apply to the point in hand, as it has not a general 
 application to the work of Christ. Here u Mercy and 
 truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each 
 other." 
 
 Still, it is objected, by the opponents of the doctrine of 
 atonement, to the K justice of laying the punishment of 
 the guilty upon the innocent." In answer to this objec- 
 tion, we present the following: " It is most certain, all 
 who make them do not see the consequence, that they 
 conclude altogether as much against God's whole origi- 
 nal constitution of nature, and the whole daily course of 
 Divine Providence in the government of the world, i. c. 
 against the whole scheme of Theism, and the whole 
 16 
 
178 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 notion of religion, as against Christianity. For the 
 world is a constitution or system, whose parts have a 
 mutual reference to each other : and there is a scheme 
 of things gradually carrying on, called the course of na- 
 
 Iture, to the carrying on of which God has appointed us, 
 in various ways, to contribute. And when, in the daily 
 course of natural providence, it is appointed that inno- 
 cent people should suffer for the faults of the guilty, this 
 is liable to the very same objection, as the instance we 
 are now considering. The infinitely greater importance 
 of that appointment of Christianity which is objected 
 against, does not hinder, but it may be, as it plainly is, 
 an appointment of the very same kind with what the 
 world affords us daily examples of. Nay, if there were 
 any force at all in the objection, it would be stronger, in 
 one respect, against natural providence, than against 
 Christianity ; because, under the former, we are in many 
 cases commanded, and even necessitated whether we 
 will or not, to suffer for the faults of others; whereas 
 the sufferings of Christ were voluntary. The world 
 being under the righteous government of God does im- 
 ply, that finally and upon the whole, every one shall re- 
 ceive according to his personal deserts ; and the general 
 doctrine of the whole Scripture is, that this shall be the 
 completion of the divine government. But during the 
 progress, and, for aught we know, even in order to 
 the completion of this moral scheme, vicarious punish- 
 ment may be fit, and absolutely necessary. Men, by 
 their follies, run themselves into extreme difficulties 
 
(xnavf \ iaobzfioi mi >w i n 
 
 which would be absolutely fatal to thou, w< t<- \\ not for 
 the interposition ami assistance of others. ( tod com- 
 mands by the law o( nature, that we afford tin in this 
 assistance, m many cases where wt cannol do it without 
 very great pains, and labor, and suffering to ouraeb 
 
 And wc see in what variety of ways one person'* suffer- 
 ings contribute to the relief of another : and how, or by 
 what particular means, this comes to pass, or follows, 
 from the constitution and laws of nature, Which came 
 under our notice ; and being familiarized to it, men are 
 not shocked with it. So that the reason of their insist- 
 ing upon objections of the foregoing kind against the 
 satisfaction of Christ, is either that they do not consider 
 God's settled and uniform appointments as his appoint- 
 ments at all ; or else forget that vicarious punishment is 
 a providential appointment of every day's experience ; 
 and then, from their being unacquainted with the more 
 general laws of nature or divine government over the 
 world, and not seeing how the sufferings of Christ could 
 contribute to the redemption of it, unless by arbitrary 
 and tyrannical will ; they conclude his sufferings could 
 not" contribute to it in any other way.* 
 
 Parents and friends endure labor and make sacrifices 
 for their children. To save a fellow creature from per- 
 ishing by water or fire, generous men have exposed 
 themselves not only to pain but often to death, yet the 
 claims of humanity are considered sufficient to justify 
 
 * Bishop Butler's Analogy of Religion, p. 222. 
 
180 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN* 
 
 such deeds, which are always applauded. When men 
 fight for their country's liberty, &c, on justifiable ground, 
 the opinion is, that the life of every man is placed by 
 Providence at the disposal of his country, and this justi- 
 fies the hazard. In times of religious persecution, it is 
 right to suffer, and even to die, rather than to deny 
 Christ. And no one argues that it was not right for the 
 martyr to die, to suffer the pains of the rack and the 
 fire. And God himself has not only permitted it, but 
 blessed them in the flames, in their expiring moments. 
 So men have suffered and even died for the benefit of 
 others. Still we do not adduce these cases as a parallel 
 of the death of Christ for sinners ; but to show that it 
 agrees with the "ordinary course of Providence, and 
 by the express appointment of God." Farther, we know 
 that there is no instance of a legal substitution of one 
 person for another: human governments could not in 
 justice cause the innocent to suffer for the guilty, for that 
 would be unjust to him. Says Rev. R. Watson, "They 
 could not accept his offer, were he ever so anxious to be- 
 come the substitute of another, for that would be unjust 
 to God, since they have no authority from him so to 
 take away the life of one of his creatures, and the person 
 himself has no authority to offer it. In the case of St. 
 Paul we see a willing sufferer ; he chose to die * for the 
 elect's sake," and that he might publish the gospel to 
 the world. Was it, then, unjust in God to accept this 
 offering of generous devotedness for the good of man- 
 kind, when the offering was in obedience to his own 
 
cueist a limn n nm 1 r i 
 
 Will/ Certainly not. The HUM OoMietttiOBi Ofehofcfe 
 
 and right unite in the Btrffelfagl of our Lord; though 
 the case itself was one of an infinitely highei 
 circumstance which strengthens but does nol change the 
 principle. He was a wilting substitute. 91 And hecoaU 
 
 say, "No man taketh my life from me; hut I lay it down 
 of myself." Jesus Christ was not a mere creature; hence 
 he had a right of doing so in a sense that no on* 
 had. He died not only because the Father willed it, but 
 because he had the supreme power of death, and, there- 
 fore, from his benevolence to man, he chose to die ; hence, 
 in this there was a perfect concurrence between the Law- 
 giver and Jesus Christ, our substitute. To say that this 
 was unjust, is to say that the right of some one was in- 
 vaded, which was not so; therefore it is in perfect accord- 
 ance with the justice of God, and truly comports with 
 the moral government of Jehovah, that Christ died for 
 Adam and his posterity. 
 
 8. This atonement was made by Jesus Christ as very 
 God and very man. For apart from " God manifested 
 in the flesh," such an atonement could not have been 
 made as Jesus Christ made by his suffering and death ; 
 no, not all the Intelligences of heaven could have atoned 
 for the human race. That sealed book which no man, 
 Oudeis, ®v$£i$) no person, or being, " in heaven, nor in 
 earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the 
 book," but "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of 
 David, hath prevailed to open the book." Rev. v. 3, 5. 
 
182 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 One mystery of this book was the redemption of a lost or 
 fallen world which none in the universe but Jesus Christ 
 could redeem. 
 
 Again: It is too obvious to be doubted, that the Al- 
 mighty hates all species of idolatry. This he prohibits 
 in the very commencement of the sacred decalogue, 
 which he wrote with his own fingers on two tables of 
 stone, for the Israelites, and all people favored with di- 
 vine revelation. " Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
 graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in 
 heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is 
 in the water under the earth : Thou shalt not bow down 
 to them, nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a 
 jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
 children unto the third and fourth generation of them 
 that hate me." Exo. xx. 4, 5. Again, Exo. xxii. 20: 
 " He that sacrificeth unto any God, save unto the Lord 
 only, he shall be utterly destroyed." 1 John v. 21 : 
 " Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 
 
 Many of those called Campbellites and Newlights, in 
 both their preaching and praying, &c, call upon Jesus 
 Christ to intercede, to hear and bless them. They speak 
 of him as their Redeemer and Saviour, as well as pray 
 in his name. Still these very people pointedly deny that 
 Jesus Christ is " God over all and blessed for ever," or 
 that in Christ " dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead 
 bodily." Colos. ii. 9. Yet, though they deny his su- 
 preme divinity, nevertheless they have Christ some way 
 
CHRIST A SACRIFICE ran 1 V 
 
 or other in their religious ceremonii 8, they call upon his 
 name, flbc. 
 
 Now, to the point: if they deny Christ's supreme di- 
 vinity, in other words, if they will not worship him at 
 equal with the Father, as possessing the u Qodhead bodi- 
 ly f is it possible for them to worship the Father? — 
 We answer, no, from the words of Jesus Christ himself. 
 John v. 22, 23 : " For the Father judgeth no man ; but 
 hath committed all judgment unto the Son. That all 
 men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Fath- 
 er. He that honor eth not the So?i, honoreth not the 
 Father which hath sent him." So we see plainly, that 
 there cannot be a religious man, a purely religious hon- 
 orer of the Father, who does not honor the Son as he 
 honors the Father. So all sects, and denominations, 
 and individuals that honor not the Lord Jesus Christ in 
 spirit and in truth, never did nor never can worship the 
 true God. 
 
 Again: No man, or class of men, who deny the su- 
 preme deity of Jesus Christ, can consistently believe in 
 the true Scriptural atonement made by our Lord Jesus 
 Christ ; hence their minds must necessarily be in dark- 
 ness, and their faith obscure, if they have any at all. Is 
 not this the reason why some sects of those unbelievers 
 put so much stress in water baptism, and other non-essen- 
 tial ceremonies? Some of thern do make immersion es- 
 sential to salvation. Mr. Alex. Campbell asserts, in his 
 u Millennial Harbinger," " It is not our faith in God's 
 promises of remission, but of our going down into the 
 
184 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 water, that obtains the remission of sins." Again, the 
 same writer affirms, " Remission of sins cannot, in this 
 life, be received or enjoyed previous to immersion." — 
 Hence, I cannot believe that such a man as Mr. C. can 
 possibly have a correct Biblical view of the atonement 
 made by the blessed Saviour; and it is no marvel that the 
 same gentleman asserts, that he " disavowed Trinitarian- 
 ism, and every other sectarianism in the land." 
 
 Once more: So far as our observation has extended, 
 the deniers of the divinity of Christ and his atonement, 
 do not observe to keep holy the Christian Sabbath, either 
 themselves or their offspring. This is ruinous to morals 
 and Christianity. And if they repent not, God will hold 
 them guilty in the day of judgment. Hence, not to be- 
 lieve in the divinity and atonement, is to caricature the 
 love of God, as manifested to mankind through Christ. 
 If Jesus was only a created, peculiar being, then God 
 was not manifested in the flesh according to the Scrip- 
 tures, 1 Tim. iii. 16; but he created a peculiar Being 
 for the purpose of atoning for the world. On this hy- 
 pothesis, God did not love us so much as to come him- 
 self, but he made and sent one. But, if Jehovah had 
 sent the assembled universe to try to redeem men, they 
 could not have effected it; neither could they have mani- 
 fested the love of God toward us, as God did by coming 
 himself and taking our nature upon him, and in that hu- 
 man soul and body, by virtue of his divinity, suffered 
 and died, and thereby made a plenary atonement for all 
 mankind. 
 
CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIX. 185 
 
 We may remark' again, that the unbelievers in the 
 Deity of Christ, under whatsoever name they may be 
 called, rob him of divine honor. The self-same divine 
 honor that the Father merits the Son merits. (John v. 
 23.) Then to dishonor the Son is to affront the Father, 
 for " He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the 
 Father." And why so? The Saviour gives the rea- 
 son, " I and my Father are one." On this very ground, 
 says the Saviour, " If any man serve me, him will my 
 Father honor." (John xii. 26.) Consequently those 
 that serve not Christ, the Father will not honor, there- 
 fore they cannot be servants of God, not Christians in 
 the Scriptural sense, which is clearly shown from the 
 Scriptures : " He that believeth on the Son hath ever- 
 lasting life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not 
 see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 
 iii. 36. 
 
 To believe in Christ as the Scriptures reveal him, is 
 the belief that is required. 
 
 1. The Scriptures reveal him as " God over all and 
 blessed for ever;" as God having an everlasting throne. 
 u Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." These are 
 the words of the Father to Christ his Son. Heb. i. 8. 
 
 2. The Scriptures reveal him as being a perfect man, 
 having both a human soul and body. 
 
 3. The Scriptures reveal him as a vicarious, sacri- 
 ficial offering for the sins of the world. Then we are 
 to believe on him as perfect man and very God; as dy- 
 ing for us, to redeem us from the curse of the law, and 
 
186 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 
 
 through his blood by the agency of the Holy Spirit, to 
 prepare us for eternal life. To believe in Christ in the 
 proper Scriptural sense, is to believe him equal with the 
 Father in power, majesty, and dominion ; for unless this 
 be so, he cannot be an object of worship equal with the 
 Father, as he says himself, " I and my Father are one." 
 And if we do not believe him equal with the Father, and 
 the same with the Father, we cannot honor him as one 
 with the Father. And " he that honoreth not the Son, 
 honoreth not the Father." The unbelievers in the su- 
 preme divinity of the Son, cannot honor him as they 
 honor the Father, for they profess to believe that the 
 Father only is the supreme God, and worthy of supreme 
 honor. Hence they deny three persons in the Adorable 
 Godhead, though the Scriptures reveal them. Hence, 
 they cannot believe Christ Jesus as God over all and 
 blessed for ever, therefore cannot worship or honor him 
 as God ; as the Father : consequently, " he that honor- 
 etn not the Son, honoreth not the Father ; and he that 
 believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of 
 God abideth on him." Johniii. 36. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Faith essential to Salvation — Justification ani> 
 Sanctification by Faith. 
 
 In the foregoing chapter we discover that the Scrip- 
 tures prove that Christ has made a vicarious, penal, and 
 a plenary offering for the world. It may be then asked 
 in conclusion — " If so, is not our salvation absolutely 
 secured?" This is not exactly so. There is a differ- 
 ence between redemption, and salvation. The former sig- 
 nifies, theologically "the ransom or deliverance of sin- 
 ners from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's 
 violated law by the atonement of Christ." (Webster.) 
 The latter embraces the former, but means something 
 besides, that is, it signifies deliverance from sin and the 
 effects of sin in time and in eternity, and it confers ever- 
 lasting happiness. In connection with a state of proba- 
 tion it embraces remission of sins, pardon, justification 
 and sanctification. Then every reader must see that 
 these blessings are connected with the absolute divinity 
 of Christ, as well as his real humanity, suffering and 
 death; for without these, there could not possibly be hope 
 for man after all, according to the moral agency of 
 man, and the government of Jehovah. It hath pleased 
 
188 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 God to enjoin one particular on man, called in the Bible, 
 faith, whereby he may be a partaker of the blessings of 
 the atonement and secure salvation through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Then, faith is essentially necessary to our salvation. 
 Where God has made a revelation of himself to man, 
 through the Scriptures, all rights, or ceremonies, if 
 necessity require, may be omitted, but faith in Christ 
 cannot, if salvation be secured. But if circumstances 
 admit of it, all the ceremonies of the Gospel and means 
 of grace should be received in connection with faith. 
 
 There is no salvation apart from faith in Christ Jesus. 
 The Saviour himself and his apostles prove this beyond 
 doubt. Belief and faith are nearly synonimous, as terms 
 purporting that act of the human heart, whereby the 
 virtue of the blood of Christ is applied to the soul by 
 which we are justified in the sight of God. Now for the 
 testimony. 
 
 " I said, therefore, unto you, that ye shall die in your 
 sins : for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in 
 your sins." John viii. 24. " He that believeth and is 
 baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall 
 be damned." Mark xvi. 16. 
 
 " That they all might be damned who believed not 
 the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thess. 
 ii. 12. 
 
 " And to whom sware he, that they should not enter 
 into his rest, but to them that believed not?" Hebrews 
 iii. 18. 
 
r.wTir. 189 
 
 "But ha that believeth not is condemned already; be- 
 cause he hath not believed ID the name of the only be- 
 gotten Son of God/' John in. 18. 
 
 "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting lift 
 and he that believeth not the Son shall not lee life; but 
 the wrath of God abideth on him." John iii. 36, 
 
 " But without faith it is impossible to please him: for 
 he that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and (hat 
 he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." He- 
 brews xi. 6. 
 
 Without faith we discover plainly, that we cannot be 
 justified, but must suffer the abiding wrath of God ; and 
 by having it we can be justified, if all things else fail. 
 Rev. Alex. Campbell,* has asserted recently that " justi- 
 fication is ascribed to seven causes," viz: to faith, to 
 grace, to the blood of Christ, to works, to the name of 
 Christ, to Christ, to knowledge. What would a peni- 
 tent sinner seeking justification understand by such a pre- 
 sentation of things? "By works," says he, and quotes 
 James ii. 21, 25, to prove it. As if a fallen sinner be- 
 fore justification could have works to justify him, or that 
 a corrupt tree could bring forth good fruit. " As rea- 
 sonably" says Mr. Campbell, "might you pray for loaves 
 from heaven, or manna, because Israel eat it in the des- 
 ert, as to pray for pardon, while you refuse the remission 
 of sins by immersion.*! 
 
 Neither Mr. C. nor any other man on earth, can prove, 
 
 * Christian System, p. 258. 
 t Christian System, 251. 
 
190 FAITH. 
 
 either that immersion is the proper, and only mode of 
 baptism, or that it is the condition of the pardon of sin or 
 justification. Surely he will not point to the baptism of 
 Christ, for he had no sins to be pardoned ; or to Simon 
 Magus, for though baptized, and if Mr. Campbell please 
 immersed, and he neither received pardon of sins or jus- 
 tification, but remained in " the gall of bitterness and in 
 the bond of iniquity." Acts viii. 23. 
 
 1. But, it is objected by some, that any should be lost 
 for the lack of faith, as all have faith, less or more. 
 
 In answer, we say, all have not saving faith, or fidu- 
 cial reliance on Christ. " For all men have not faith." 
 2 Thess. iii. 2. There are others in a worse state still, 
 as we learn from the Scriptures. ' ; Now, as Jannes and 
 Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; 
 men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith." 
 2 Tim. iii. 8. 
 
 " There must be good works with faith," as St. James 
 says, ii. 26. We answer not at all. The stream must 
 partake of the nature of the fountain, and the fruit of the 
 tree. Before justification there can be no works of right- 
 eousness. " Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olive ber- 
 ries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield 
 salt water and fresh." James iii. 11, 12. 
 
 But does not St. James say, that " faith without works 
 ia dead?" St. James here condemns a dead faith, and 
 not the faith of the heart which " works by love." But 
 something like a bare theoretic faith, which can be no 
 
RUTH. 1 ( H 
 
 saving benefit to us. The apostle does not condemn the 
 doctrine that we are saved in Christ by faith alone. 
 
 We have shown from the Scripture, that without faith 
 it is impossible to please God, and whosoever lias it not 
 cannot be saved, but the wrath of God abideth on him. 
 Now we prove that justification comes by faith in Christ 
 Jesus alone. Rom. v. 1. " Therefore, being justified by 
 faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." This text is to the point. By faith in the 
 days of Christ the maimed were not only healed, but 
 they received pardon of all their sins. Jesus said unto 
 the Cl sick of the palsy, son be of good cheer, thy sins be 
 forgiven thee." Matt. ix. 2. Christ said to the woman 
 who was affected with an issue of blood, " Daughter, be 
 of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. 1 ' Matt, 
 ix. 22. As the blind men followed Christ, crying, 
 ;c Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. Jesus saith 
 unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They 
 said unto him, yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, 
 saying, According to your faith, be it unto you." Matt, 
 ix. 28, 29. 
 
 When the woman of Canaan cried after the Saviour 
 in behalf of her daughter, " Then Jesus answered and 
 said unto her, O, woman, great is thy faith ; be it unto 
 thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made 
 whole from that very hour," Matt. xv. 28. 
 
 The Centurion of Capernaum thought himself not 
 worthy that Christ should come under his roof, but 
 desired him to speak the word only. " And Jesus said 
 
192 FAITH. 
 
 unto the Centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast be- 
 lieved, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was 
 healed in the self-same hour," Matt. viii. 13. 
 
 Again: Hear what the Saviour said to the blind 
 beggar of Jericho : " What wilt thou that I shall do 
 unto thee ? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my 
 sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight — 
 thy faith hath saved thee," Luke xviii. 41, 42. 
 
 Whether we behold the cripple at Lystra, or the lame 
 man at the beautiful gate of the temple, or any other 
 case in the New Testament, all received their cures and 
 pardon of their sins through faith in Christ Jesus. 
 Again: " For we walk by faith, not by sight," 2. Cor. 
 v. 7. " That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and 
 inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith 
 that is in me." Here we see that forgiveness of 
 sins is obtained by faith in Christ, and faith alone. 
 Furthermore, " But to him that worketh not, but believ- 
 eth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is 
 counted for righteousness," Rom. iv. 5. These, and 
 hundreds of other texts which we might adduce, if 
 necessary, prove that faith, and faith alone, is the condi- 
 tion of our salvation. Justification comes by faith in 
 Christ — instance the last quoted text : " Him that work- 
 eth not, but believeth" 
 
 Sanctification is received by faith, and faith alone. 
 When the Pharisees disputed with St. Peter touching 
 the circumcising of some Gentiles, the apostle said, 
 that God " put no difference between us and them, pu- 
 
FAITH. 
 
 rifying- their hearts by faith," &c, Acts xv. ft— 10. 
 "That Christ may dwell in your hearts l, v that 
 
 ye, being rooted and grounded in love/' Kph. ni. 17. 
 "That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheri- 
 tance among them which are sanctified by faith that is 
 in me," Acts xxvi. 18. We are not only sanctiiied by 
 faith, but after being justified and sanctified, we are to 
 live by faith. " The just (or righteous) shall live by 
 faith," Gal. iii. 11. We have just said that justifi- 
 cation is received by faith, and that sanctification likewise 
 is obtained by faith. These are two different blessings, 
 and not as the Council of Trent would state them. The 
 Council says, " That justification is not only the remis- 
 sion of sins, but also the sanctification of the inner man." 
 That justification and sanctification go together, we be- 
 lieve, and thus conclude* but this is not what is meant 
 by the Council, but that a man is made just or holy, 
 and then justified. According to them sanctification is 
 the formal cause of justification, which cannot be any 
 more than justification can be the formal cause of 
 glorification. 
 
 Some affirm, that faith apprehends and appropriates 
 the merits of Christ's death to make up for the deficiency 
 of our imperfect obedience. This view of the matter 
 is sufficiently refuted, from the fact that the Scriptures 
 neither intimate nor teach any such a thing. Either 
 this imperfect obedience has a share in our justification 
 or it has not ; if it has, then we are saved by faith and 
 works united, which has been destroyed, or disproved, 
 17 
 
194 FAITH. 
 
 as above shown. Then, we conclude, that we are jus- 
 tified, or what is equivalent, pardoned, by faith alone, 
 without works or merit of our own. 
 
 It is by others intimated, that faith, as per se> is the 
 necessary root of obedience ; so that pardon by faith 
 may still be allowed, and faith in itself is such an ex- 
 cellent virtue, that it naturally produces good works. 
 This theory has been advocated by many of the primi- 
 tive divines. To say that faith is the " root and mother 
 of obedience," is to say, indirectly, that regeneration 
 does precede pardon of sin, which is not the fact ; for 
 until pardon, man is under bondage, and does not ,c walk 
 after the Spirit." But as nearly all agree, that faith 
 does precede pardon, if so, it cannot therefore presup- 
 pose a regenerate state of mind. The truth is, then, 
 that faith does not produce obedience. Faith unites us 
 to Christ, and gives us a personal interest in the cove- 
 nant of God's mercies, from which flow the gift of the 
 Holy Ghost, and the regeneration of our nature. Mr. 
 John Wesley affirms, in one of his sermons on faith, 
 that "there is no justification without faith. He is still 
 a child of wrath, still under the curse, till he believes in 
 Jesus. Faith, therefore, is the necessary condition of 
 justification ; yea, the only necessary condition thereof. 
 We mean, thereby, this much, that it is the only thing 
 without which no one is justified; the only thing that is 
 immediately, indispensably, absolutely requisite in order 
 to pardon. As, on the other hand, though a man should 
 have every thing else, without faith, yet he cannot be 
 
i \mi. 198 
 
 justified; so, on the other, though he be supposed to 
 want every thing if be hath faith, be cannot 
 
 but be justified." Therefore, we conclude, that a fa 
 
 or fiducial reliance in the absolute divinity of ( Mm 
 in the vicarious and piaculai atonement of the L 
 
 God, is requisite to our salvation. And this ofll 
 made by our Lord, embraces his supreme Deity and hu- 
 manity, which, as we have proved form the character of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 THE END. 
 

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 Treatment Date: July 2005 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
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