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FIFTH LECTURE.] [bNE SHILLING.

THE PROPOSITION
'' THAT CHUIST IS GOD,"
PROVED TO BE FALSE FROM THE JEWISH AND
THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES.
A LECTURE,
D£LIV&It,£D IN
PARADISE STREET CHAPEL,
LIVERPOOL,
ON TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 1839.

EEV. MMES MARTINEAU.

BEING THE FIFTH OF A SERIES, TO BE DELIVERED ¦WEEKLY, IN ANSWER TO A
COURSE OF LECTVRES AGAINST UNITARIANISM, IN CHRIST CHURCH, LIVIBFOOL,
BY THIRTEEN CLERGYMEN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

LIVERPOOL:
WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN GKEEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

1839.

iJ^

nviiii

¦WiLLMER and SMITH, 32, Church Street, Liverpool.

In a few days will be Published,
THE SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION
INCONSISTENT WITH ITSELF, AND WITH THE
CHRISTIAN IDEA OF SALVATION. Being the Sixth
Lecture of this Series, delivered in Paradise Street
Chapel, on 19th March, by the Rev. James Martineau.

THE PROPOSITION
"THAT CHEIST IS GOD,"
PROVED TO BE FALSE FROM'THE JEWISH AND
THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES.

A LECTUEE,

DELIVERED IN

PARADISE STREET CHAPEL,
LIVERPOOL,
ON TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 1839.
BY
REV. JAMES MARTINEAU.

BEING THE FIFTH OP A SERIES, TO BE DELIVERED WEEKLY, IN ANSWER TO A
COURSE OF LECTURES AGAINST UNITARIANISM, IN CHRIST CHURCH, LIVERPOOL,
BY THIRTEEN CLERGYMEN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

LIVERPOOL:
WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

1839.

WILLMER AND SMITH,
32, CHURCH STREET, LIVERPOOL.

PREFACE.

The length of the foUovfing Discourse rendered it necessary to omit large
portions of it in the delivery ; the remainder has undergone no alteration
in preparing the Lecture for the press.
It is one of the duties of the controversialist to drop each subject of de
bate so soon as every thing materially affecting it has been advanced ; and
to seize the time for silence, as promptly as the time for speech. This con
sideration would have led me to abstain from any fiirther remarks respecting
the Improved Version, did it not appear that it is considered disrespectful
to pass without notice any argument adduced by our opponents. In briefly
adverting to Mr. Byrth's strictures on my former Lecture, contained in the
Preface to his own, I am more anxious to avert from myself the imputation
of discourtesy to him than to disprove his charge of "Pitiful Evasion;"
which even the accuser himself, I imagine, cannot permanently esteem
just. Notwithstanding the criticisms of my respected opponent, I still main
tain that a Subscriber to the British and Foreign Unitarian Association is no
more responsible for the alleged delinquencies of the Improved Version,
than is a Subscriber to the British and Foreign Bible Society for the known
departures from the true standard of the text which its funds are employed
to circulate. Mr. Byrth appears to enumerate three particulars, in which
he thinks that the parallelism between these two cases fails :
First ; " The Authorized Version does not profess to be a systematic In
terpretation. It is not, in one word, a Creed and an Exposition. It is only
a literal translation, without note or comment." So much the worse, must
we not say ? Whatever deception a false text can produce, is thus wholly
concealed and undlscoverable ; the counterfeit passes into circulation, un
distinguished from the pure gold of the Divine Word, bearing on its front
the very same image and superscription. Did this version "profess to be a
systematic Interpretation," readers would be on their guard; but while pro
fessing to be " without note or comment," it inserts "a note" or gloss (in
the case of the Heavenly Witnesses) into the text itself. The doctrinal
a

iv PREFACE.
bearing of this and other readings, in which Griesbach's differs from the
Received Text, makes the Authorized Version, quoad hoc, a creed, while
it disclaims this character.
Secondly ; To constitute the Parallelism, the Bible Society ought to be,
"The Trinitarian Society for promoting Christian Knowledge," avowedly
publishing an "Improved Version of the Scriptures," &c. So long, then,
as Churchmen abstain from proposing "an Improved Version," and desig
nate their societies by neutral names, they may be acquitted, " in foro con-
scientiae," for retaining any corruptions which may happen to exist in the
un-improved Translation. It is easy to conjecture that, on this principle,
it will be long before the Church incurs the needless guilt of an " Improved
Version." Surely the frank avowal, by the words "Trinitarian Society,"
of a party purpose, would rather abate than augmrait the culpability of re-r
taining a Trinitarian gloss ; since the reader would have fair warning that
'the work was edited under Theological bias. And one of the most serious
charges against " the Improved Version" was precisely this ; that its first
edition was without party badge (the word Unitarian not appearing in the
title) ; so that it might possibly deceive the unwary.
Thirdly ; The parallelism is said to fail in extent ; the peculiarities of the
Improved Version being much more numerous, and sustained by less evi
dence, than the false readings of the Authorized Translation. I cannot
concur in this remark, so far as it affects the evidence against 1 John v. 7.
But I pass by this matter of opinion, to protest against the unjust exagge
ration of a matter of fact, contained in Mr. Byrth's supposition of a Trini
tarian counterpart to the Improved Version. He speaks of "a text cor
rected on the principles of" " Theological criticism and conjecture :" — he
knows that not one text is so corrected ; that Griesbach's second edition is
followed without variation ; that any proposed deviations from it are only
typographically indicated, or suggested and defended in the notes. He
speaks of the retention of "questionable passages,'' without "notice that
their authenticity had ever been doubted ;" and the expunging of as many
perplexing doctrinal texts as possible : — he knows that not one word of the
most approved text is expunged, or of any less perfect text retained; and
that notice is given of every deviation on the part of the Editors, in ques
tions either of authenticity or of translation, from their standards, Gries
bach and Newcome, and from the Received Text. Mr. Byrth is aware that
his opponents in this controversy do not altogether admire the Improved
Version ; but it is not fit. that advantage should be taken of this to publish
extravagant descriptions of it, in which the accuracy of the scholar, and
even the justice of the Christian, are for the moment lost in the vehemence
of the partizan.

PREFACE. V
It is desirable to add, that the Society which originally published the
Improved Version, has long since been merged in the British and Foreign
Unitarian Association. In this larger body three other societies (of which
one, at least, surpassed in scale and influence the unfortunate object of our
opponents' hostility) are consolidated ; and its subscription list contains the
names of those who previously supported any of the constituent elements
of the Association. Hence it can, with no propriety, be called " The So
ciety instituted for the circulation" of the Improved Version. It cannot be
alleged that a subscriber is bound to anything more than a general and
preponderant approbation of the complex objects of the Association ; nor
does he, by retaining his name on the list of its supporters, forego his right
of dissenting from particular modes of action which its Directors may
adopt. May I assure Mr. Byrth, that I did not intend to insinuate, that his
strictures were produced "second-hand:" except in the sense that many
of them had, in fact, been anticipated. I expressly guarded myself against
any construction reflecting on the originality and literary honour of our
opponents. The remaining animadversions of Mr. Byrth, involving no public interest,
and having merely personal reference to myself, I willingly pass by ;
knowing that they can have no power but in their truth ; and in that case
I should be sorry to weaken them.

ERRATA
In the Second Lecture, " The Bible : what it is, and what it is not."
Page 14, line 7 from the bottom, qfter 4th place insert with the Book of Acts,
— 19, line 6 from the top, for Gallilean read Galilean.
— 25, line 14 from the bottom, for reasons read reason.
— 32, line 8 from the top, for bold read bald.
— 43, line 8 from the bottom, for for read at
— 45, line 14 from the bottom, for comment read comments.
— 49, line 13 from the bottom, before separated insert they.
— 49, line 5 from the bottom, for discussion read agitation.
— 49, line 4 from the bottom, for conducted read discussed.
— 51, note, last line, for 737 read Iii.
— 56, line 9 from the top, for this heretic read these heretics.
— 57, line 4 from the bottom, for later read latter.

LECTURE V.

THE PROPOSITION " THAT CHRIST IS GOD," PROVED TO BE FALSE
FROM THE JEWISH AND THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES.

BY EEV, JAMES MARTINEAtT,

" FOR THOUGH THERE BE THAT ARE CALLED GODS, WHETHER IN HEAVEN
OR IN EARTH (AS THERE BE GODS MANY, AND LORDS MANY), BUT
TO us THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, THU MATHER, OF WHOM ARE ALL
THINGS, AND WE IN HIM; AND ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, BY WHOM
ARE ALL THINGS, AND WE BY HIM."— 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6.
Scarcely had Christ retired from our world, before his
influence began to be felt by mankind in two different ways.
He transformed their Worship, and purified their interpre
tation of Duty. They have ever since adored a holier God,
and obeyed a more exalted rule of right. Looking upward,
they have discerned in heaven a Providence more true and
tender than they had believed ; looking around, they have
seen on earth a service aUotted to their conscience, nobler
and more responsible than they had thought before. Watched
from above by an object of infinite trust and veneration, they
have found below a work of life most sacred, to be performed
by obedient wiUs beneath his sight. Faith has flown to its
rest there, and conscience has toiled in its task here, with a
tranquil energy never seen in a world not yet evangelized.
To suppose that a set of moral precepts, however wise and
A 2

4 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
authoritative, could ever have produced, in either of these
respects, the effects which have flowed from Christianity,
seems to me altogether unreasonable. Had Christ done no
more than leave in the world a sound code of ethics, his work
would probably have expired in a few centuries, and have been
very imperfect while it endured. A few prudential and dispas
sionate minds would have profited by its excellence; but
never would it have trained the affections of childhood, or
overawed the energy of guilt, or refined the rugged heart of
ignorance, or consecrated the vigils of grief.
The power of Christ's religion is not in his precepts, but
in his person ; not in the memory of his maxims, but in the
image of Himself. He is his own system ; and, apart from
him, his teachings do but take their place with the sublimest
efforts of speculation, to be admired and forgotten with the
coHoquies of Socrates, and the meditations of Plato. Him
self first, and his lessons afterwards, have the hearts of the
people ever loved : his doctrines, indeed, have been ob
scured, his sayings perverted, his commands neglected, the
distinctive features of his instructions obliterated, but he
himself has been venerated stiU ; his unmistakeable spirit
has corrected the ill-construed letter of the Gospel ; and pre
served some unity of life amid the various, and even oppo
sing developments of Christian civilization.
The person of Christ may be contemplated as an object of
religious reverence, or as an object of moral imitation. He
may appear to our minds as the representative of Deity, or
as the model of humanity ; teaching us, in the one case, what
we should believe, and trust, and adore in heaven ; in the
other, Avhat we should do on earth : — the rule of faith in the
one relation, the rule of life in the other.
Did his oflice extend only to the latter, were he simply an
example to us, displaying to us merely what manhood ought
to be, he might indeed constitute the centre of our morality ;
but he would not properly belong to our religion : he would

PROVED TO BE FALSE. ,5
be the object of affections equal and social, not devout ; he
would take a place among things human, not divine ; would
be the symbol of visible and definite duties, not of unseen
and everlasting realities. A Christianity which should reduce
him to this relation, would indeed be a step removed above
the mere cold preceptive system, which depresses him into a
law-giver ; but it would no more be entitled to the name of a
religion, than the Ethics of Aristotle, or the Offices of
Cicero. It is then as the type of God, the human image of the
everlasting Mind, that Christ becomes an object of our Faith.
Once did a dark and doubting world cry, like Philip on the
evening of Gethsemane, " Show us the Father, and it sufii-
ceth us :" but now has Christ " been so long with us" that
we, " who have seen him, have seen the Father." This I
conceive to have been the peculiar office of Jesus ; to show
us, not to tell us, the spirit of that Being who spreads round
us in Infinitude, and leads us through Eternity. The universe
had prepared before us the scale of Deity ; Christ has filled
it with his own spirit ; and we worship now, not the cold in
tellectual deity of natural religion ; not the distant majesty,
the bleak immensity, the mechanical omnipotence, the im
mutable stillness, of the speculative Theist's God : but One
far nearer to our worn and wearied hearts ; One whose like
ness is seen in Jesus of Nazareth, and whose portraiture,
suffused with the tints of that soul, is impressed upon crea
tion ; One, therefore, who concerns himself with our hum
blest humanities, and views our world with a domestic eye,
whose sanctity pierces the guilty mind with repentance, and
then shelters the penitent from rebuke ; who hath mercy for
the victims of infirmity, and a recall for the sleepers in the
grave. Let Messiah's mind pass forth to fiU all time and
space; and you behold the Father, to whom we render a
loving worship.
In order to fulfil this office of revealing, in his own per-

6 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
son, the character of the Father, Christ possessed and mani
fested all the moral attributes of Deity. His absolute
holiness ; his ineffable perceptions of right ; his majestic
rebuke of sin ; his profound insight into the corrupt core of
worldly and hypocritical natures, and to the central point of
life in the affectionate and genuine soul ; his weU-proportioned
mercies and disinterested love, fiU the whole meaning of the
word Divine : God can have no other, and no more, per
fection of character intelligible to us.
These moral attributes of God, we conceive to have been
compressed, in Christ, within the physical and intellectual
limits of humanity; to have been unfolded and displayed
amid the infirmities of a suffering and tempted nature ; and,
during the brevity of a mortal life, swiftly hurried to its
close. And this immersion of divine perfection in the dark
ness of weakness and sorrow, so far from forfeiting our ap
preciation of him, incalculably deepens it. The addition of
infinite force, mechanical or mental, would contribute no
new ingredient to our veneration, since force is not an object
of reverence ; and it would take away the wonder and gran
deur of his soul, by rendering temptation impossible, and
conflict a pretence. Since God cannot be pious, or submis
sive to his own providence, or cast down in doubt of his own
future, or agonized by the insults erf his own creatures, such
a combination seems to confuse and destroy all the grounds
of veneration, and to cause the perfection of Christ to pass
in unreality away.
To this view, however, of the person of Christ, Trinitarians
object as defective ; and proceed to add one other ingredient
to the conception, viz., that he possessed the physical and
intellectual attributes of Deity ; — that he is to be esteemed
no less eternal, omnipotent and omnipresent, than the Infi
nite Father ; the actual creator of the visible universe, of the
very world into which he was born and of the mother who
bare him, of the disciples who followed and of the enemies

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 'j
who destroyed him. These essential properties of Deity by
no means, we are assured, interfered with the completeness
of his humanity ; so that he had the body, the soul, the con
sciousness, of a man ; and, in union with these, the infinite
mind of God. But in a question of mere words, in which
the guidance of ideas is altogether lost, I dare not trust ray-
self to my own language. To disturb the juxta-position of
charmed sounds, is to endanger orthodoxy ; and, in describing
the true doctrine, I therefore present you with a portion of
that unexampled congeries of luminous phrases, commonly
called the Athanasian Creed. "The Cathohc faith is this :
that we worship One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity ;
neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.
For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son,
and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is aU one ; the
glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is,
such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost : ... the Father
eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal ; and yet
they are not three eternals, but one eternal. ... So the Father
is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God ; and yet
they are not three Gods, but one God. ... So there is one
Father, not three Fathers ; one Son, not three Sons ; one
Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And, in this Trinity,
none is afore or after other ; none is greater or less than an
other: but the whole three persons are co-eternal together and
co-equal." Of the second of these three persons, the second article of
the Church of England gives the foUo-wing account : —
" The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten
from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and
of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the
womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance ; so that two
whole and perfect natures, — that is to say, the Godhead and
the Manhood, — were joined together in one Person, never to

8 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
be divided; whereof is One Christ, very God and very Man;
who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to recon- ,
cile his Father to us."
In opposition to this theory, we maintain the Personal
Unity of God, and the simplicity of nature in Christ. It is
my duty at present to submit these contrasted schemes to the
test of Scripture. In order to effect this, I advance these
three positions :
(1.) That if the Athanasian doctrine be found in Scrip
ture, then, on our opponents' own principles. Scripture does
not contain a revelation from God.
(2.) That if it be really in the Bible, certain definable
traces of it there may justly be demanded ; and, before open
ing the record, we should settle what these traces must be.
(3.) That such traces cannot be found in Scripture.
I. " If," says Bishop Butler, " a supposed revelation con
tain clear immoralities or contradictions, either of these
would prove it false."* This principle, generally recognized
by competent reasoners, has been distinctly admitted in the
present discussion; and Dr. TattershaU, in particular, has
employed much ingenuity to prove that the doctrine of the
Trinity, containing no absurdity or contradiction, involves in
no danger the authority of the writings supposed to teach it.
But no subtlety can avail to remove the inherent incredi
bility of this tenet, which even its believers cannot, without
uneasiness, distinctly and steadily contemplate. Long usage
and Church authority alone prevent men from perceiving
that the propositions, announcing it, are either simple con
tradictions, or statements empty of all meaning. The same
remark is applicable to the notion of the two natures in
Christ. Before proceeding to justify this assertion, let me guard
myself from the imputation of rejecting this doctrine because
it is mysterious ; or of supporting a system which insists on
* Analogy of Religion, part ii. ch. 3,

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 9
banishing all mysteries from religion. On any such system
I should look with unqualified aversion, as excluding from
faith one of its primarj' elements; as obliterating the distinction
between logic and devotion, and tending only to produce an
irreverent and narrow-minded dogmatism. " Religion with
out mystery" is a combination of terms, than which the
Athanasian Creed contains nothing more contradictory ; and
the sentiment of which it is the motto, I take to be a fatal
caricature of rationalism, tending to bring all piety into con
tempt. Until we touch upon the mysterious, we are not in
contact with religion ; nor are any objects reverently regarded
by us, except such as, from their nature or their vastness,
are felt to transcend our comprehension. God, of whose in
scrutable immensity creation is but the superficial film ;
Christ, the love of whom surpasseth knowledge; futurity,
veiled in awful shadows, yet illumined by a point or two of
light ; these, which are slightly known, and greatly unknown,
with something definite, representing a vast indefinite, are the
peculiar objects of trust and veneration. And the station which
the soul occupies, when its devout affections are awakened,
is always this : on the twilight, between immeasurable dark
ness and refreshing light ; on the confines, between the seen
and the unseen ; where a little is discerned, and an infinitude
concealed ; where a few distinct conceptions stand, in con
fessed inadequacy, as symbols of ineffable reahties : and we
say, " Lo ! these are a part of his ways ; but the thunder of
his power, who can understand ?" And if this be true, the
sense of what we do not know is as essential to our religion
as the impression of what we do know : the thought of the
boundless, the incomprehensible, must blend in our mind
with the perception of the clear and true ; the little know
ledge we have must be clung to, as the margin of an invisible
immensity ; and all our positive ideas be regarded as the mere
float to show the surface of the infinite deep.

10 THE PROPOSITION 'THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
But mystery, thus represented, offers any thing but ob
jects of belief : it presents nothing to be appreciated by the
understanding ; but a realm of possibilities to be explored by a
reverential imagination ; and a darkness that may be felt to
the centre of the heart. Being, by its very nature, the blank
and privative space, offered to our contemplation, nothing
affirmative can be derived thence ; and to shape into definite
words the things indefinite that dweU there, is to forget its
character. We can no more delineate any thing within it,
than an artist, stationed at midnight on an Alpine precipice,
can paint the rayless scene beneath him.
There cannot, however, be a greater abuse of words, than
to call the doctrine of the Trinity a mystery ; and aU the ana
logies by which it is attempted to give^ it this appearance,
will instantly vanish on near inspection. It does not follow,
because a mystery is something which we cannot understand,
that every thing unintelligible is a mystery; and we must
discriminate between that which is denied admittance to
our reason, from its fulness of ideas, and that which is
excluded by its emptiness : between a verbal puzzle and a
symbolical and finite statement of an infinite truth. If I were
to say of a triangle, each of the sides of this figure has an
angle opposite to it, yet are there not three angles, but one
angle, I should be unable to shelter myself, under the plea
of mystery, from the charge of bald absurdity ; and the reply
would be obviously this : ' never was any thing less mysterious
put into words ; all your terms are precise and sharp, of de
finable meaning, and suggestive of nothing beyond : the dif
ficulty is, not in understanding your propositions separately,
but in reconciling them together ; and this diflBculty is so
palpable, that either you have affirmed a direct contradiction,
or yoil are playing tricks with words, and using them in a way
which, being unknown to me, turns them into mere non
sense.' If to this. I should answer, that the contradiction was

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 11
only apparent, for that the three and the one were affirmed in
different senses; and that it would be very unfair to expect, in
so deep a mystery, the word angle to be restrained to its usual
signification ; I should no doubt be called upon to explain in
what novel sense this familiar term was here employed, since,
in the interval between the expulsion of the old meaning and
the introduction of the new, it is mere worthless vacancy.
And if, then, I should confess that the strange meaning was
some inscrutable and superhuman idea, which it would be
impossible to reach, and presumption to conjecture, I should
not be surprised to hear the following rejoinder : ' you are
talking of human language as if it were something more than
an implement of human thought, and were like the works
of nature, fuU of unfathomable wonders and unsuspected re
lations ; hidden properties of things there doubtless are, but
occult meanings of words there cannot be. Words are simply
the signs of ideas, the media of exchange, invented to carry
on the commerce of minds, — the counters, either stamped
with thought, or worthless counterfeits. Nay more, in this
monetary system of the inteUectual world, there are no
coins of precious metal that retain an intrinsic value of
their own, when the image and superscription imprinted
-by the royalty of intelligence are gone; but mere paper-
currency, whose whole value is conventional, and dependent
on the mental credit of those who issue it: and to urge
propositions on my acceptance, with the assurance that they
have some invisible and mystic force, is as direct a cheat,
as to pay me a debt with a bill palpably marked as of
trivial value, but, in the illegible types of your imagination,
printed to be worth the wealth of Croesus.'
" Verbal mysteries," then, cannot exist^ and the phrase
is but a fine name for a contradiction or a riddle. The meta-
-physics which are invoked to palliate their absurdity, are
fundamentally faUacious ; and equally vain is it to attempt
to press natural science into the service of defence. In the

12 THE PROPOSITION * THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
case of a Theological mystery, we are asked to assent to two
ideas, the one of which excludes the other ; in the case of
a natural mystery, we assent to two ideas, one of which does
not imply the other. In the one case, conceptions which de
stroy each other are forced into conjunction ; in the other,
conceptions which had never suggested each other, are found
to be related. When, for example, we say that the union, in
our own constitution, of body and mind is perfectly mys
terious, what do we reaUy mean ? Simply, that in the pro
perties of body there is nothing which would lead us, ante
cedently, to expect any combination with the properties of
mind ; that we might have entertained for ever the notions of
solidity, extension, colour, organization, without the remotest
suspicion of such things as sensation, thought, volition, affec
tion, being associated with them. The relation is unantici
pated and surprising ; for thought does not imply solidity :
but then neither does it exclude it ; the two notions stand
altogether apart, nor does the one comprise any element
inconsistent with the other. It is evident that it is far other
wise with the union of the two natures in Christ ; the pro
perties of the Divine nature, omnipotence, omniscience, omni
presence, directly exclude the properties of the human nature,
— weakness, fallibility, local movement and position ; to af
firm the one is the only method we have of denying the
other ; and to say of any Being, that besides having the omni
science of God, he had the partial knowledge of man, is to say
that in addition to having all ideas, he possessed some ideas.
All the natural analogies at which theologians hint in self-
justification, fail in the same point. They tell me truly that
it is a mystery to me how the grass grows. But by this is
meant only, that from the causes which produce this pheno
menon, I could not have antecedently predicted it ; that if I
had been a fresh comer on the globe, the meteorological con
ditions of the earth in spring might have been perceived by
me without my suspecting, as a sequence, the development

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 13
of a green substance from the soil. We have again an ex
ample of an unforeseen relation ; but between the members
of that relation there is not even a seeming contradiction.
Nor do I know of any other signification of the word mystery,
as applied to our knowledge or belief, except in its usage to
express magnitudes too great to be filled by our imaginations ;
as when we speak of the mysterious vastness of space, or
duration of time : or, viewing these as the attributes of a
Being, stand in awe of the immensity and eternity of God.
But neither in this case is there any approach to the ad
mission of ideas which exclude each other ; on the contrary,
our minds think of a smaU portion, — take into consideration
a representative sample, of those immeasurable magnitudes,
and necessarily conceive of all that is left behind, as perfectly
similar, and believe the unknown to he an endless repetition
of the known.
It is constantly affirmed that the doctrines of the Trinity,
and of the two natures in Christ, comprise no contradiction ;
that it is not stated in the former that there are three Gods,
but that God is three in one sense, and one in another; and
in the latter, that Christ is two in one sense, and one in an
other. I repeat and proceed to justify my statement, that if, in
the enunciation of these tenets, language is used with any
appreciable meaning, they are contradictions; and if not,
they are senseless. I enter upon this miserable logomachy
with the utmost repugnance ; and am ashamed that in vindi
cation of the simplicity of Christ, we should be dragged back
into the barren conflicts of the schools.
" If," says Dr. TattershaU, " it had been said that He is one
GOD and also three gods, then the statement would have
been self-contradictory, and no evidence could have esta
bhshed the truth of such a proposition."* Now I take it as
admitted that this being is called one god ; and that there
* Sermon on the Integrity of the Canon, p. 80.

14
are three gods, is undoubtedly affirmed distributively,
though not collectively ; each of the three persons being
separately announced as God. In the successive instances,
which we are warned to keep distinct, and not confound, of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, proper Deity is
affirmed ; in three separate cases, all that is requisite to con
stitute the proper notion of God, is said to exist ; and this
is exactly what is meant, and all that can be meant, by the
statement, that there are three Gods. I submit then that
the same creed teaches that there are three Gods, and also
that there are not three Gods.
From this contradiction there is but one escape, and that
is, by declaring that the word God is used in different
senses ; being apphed to the triad in one meaning, and to the
persons in another. If this be alleged, I wait to be informed
of the new signification which is to be attached to this title,
hitherto expressive of all the ideas I can form of inteUectual
and moral perfection. More than this, which exhausts all
the resources of my thought, it cannot mean ; and if it is to
mean less, then it withholds from Him to whom it is applied
something which I have hitherto esteemed as essential to
.God. Meanwhile, a word with an occult meaning is a word
with no meaning ; and the proposition containing it is alto
gether senseless.
But the favourite way of propounding this doctrine is the
following ; that God is three in one sense, and one in another ;
Three in Person, but only One Individual, Subsistence, or
Being. The sense, then, if I understand aright, of the word
Person, is different from the sense of the words Individual,
Being, or Subsistence ; and if so, I may ask what the respec
tive senses are, and wherein they differ from each other. In
reply I am assured, that hy person is to be understood " a sub
ject in which resides" " an entire set or series of those proper
ties which are understood to constitute personality; viz. the
property of Life, that of Intelligence, that of Volition, and that

proved to be false. 15
of Activity, or power of Action."* Very well ; this is distinct
and satisfactory ; and now for the other sense, viz. of the words
Individual, Being, and Subsistence. About this an ominous
silence is observed ; and all information is withheld respect
ing the quite different meaning which these terms contain.
Now I say, that their signification is the very same with that
of the word Person, as above defined ; that when you have
enumerated to me a complete " set of personal attributes,"
you have called up the idea of an Individual, Being, or Sub
sistence; and that when you have mentioned to me these
phrases, you have made me think of a complete set of per
sonal attributes ; that if you introduce me to two or three
series of personal attributes, you force me to conceive
of two or three beings; that a complete set of properties
makes up an entire subsistence, and that an entire sub
sistence contains nothing else than its aggregate of pro
perties. To take, for example, from Dr. Tattershall's hst
of qualities which are essential to personality; teU me of
two lives, and I cannot but think of two individuals ; of two
intelligences, and I am necessitated to conceive of two intel
ligent beings ; of two wills or powers of action, and it is im
possible to restrain me from the idea of two Agents ; and if
each of these lives, inteUigences, and volitions, be divine, of
two Gods. The word substance, in fact, wiU hold no more
than the word person ; and to the mind, though not to the
ear, the announcement in question reaUy is, that there are
three persons, and yet only one person. Thus men " slide
insensibly," to use the words of Archbishop Whately, " into
the unthought-of, but, I fear, not uncommon, error of Tri-
theism ; from which they think themselves the more secure,
because they always maintain the Unity of the Deity ; though
they gradually come to understand that Unity in a merely
figurative sense ; viz. as a Unity of substance,— a Unity of
purpose, concert of action, &c ; just as any one commonly
* Dr. Tattershall's Sermon on the Integrity of the Canon, p. 81.

16 THE PROPOSITION 'THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
says, ' My friend such-an-one and myself are one ;' meaning
that they pursue the same designs with entire mutual con
fidence, and perfect co-operation, and have that exact agree
ment in opinions, views, tastes, &c., which is often denoted
by the expression one mind."*
No doubt this excellent writer is correct in his impression,
that the belief in three Gods is prevalent in this country, and
kept alive by the creeds of his own church. And how does
he avoid this consequence himself? By understanding the
word Persons, not in Dr. TattershaU's, which is the ordinary
English sense, but in the Latin signification, to denote the
relations, or capacities, or characters, which an individual
may sustain, the several parts which he may perform ; so that
the doctrine of the Trinity amounts only to this, that the
One Infinite Deity bears three relations to us. This is plain
Unitarianism, veiled behind the thinnest disguise of speech.
Between this and Tritheism, it is vain to seek for any third
estate. f
The contradiction involved in the doctrine of the two
natures of Christ is of precisely the same nature and extent.
We are assured that he had a perfect human constitution,
consisting of the growing body and progressing mind of a
man ; and also a proper divine personality, comprising all the
attributes of God. Now, during this conjunction, either the
human mind within him was, or it was not, conscious of the
co-existence and operation of the divine. If it was not, if
the earthly and celestial intelhgence dwelt together in the
same body without mutual recognition, like two persons en
closed in the same dark chamber, in ignorance of each other,
then were there two distinct beings, whom it is a mockery to
call " one Christ ;" the humanity of our Lord was unaffected
by his Deity, and in all respects the same as if disjoined
from it ; and his person was but a moveable sign, indicating
the place and presence of a God, who was as much foreign
* Elements of Logic. Appendix, in verb. Person. f See Note A,

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 17
to him as to any other human being. If the human nature
had a joint consciousness with the divine, then nothing can
be affirmed of his humanity separately ; and from his sorrows,
his doubts, his prayers, his temptations, his death, every
trace of reahty vanish away. If he were conscious, in any
sense, of omnipotence, nothing but duplicity could make
him say, " of mine own self I can do nothing ;" if of omni
science, it was mere deception to affirm that he was ignorant
of the time of his second advent ; if of his equality with the
Father, it was a quibble to say, " my Father is greater than
I." I reject this hypothesis with unmitigated abhorrence,
as involving in utter ruin the character of the most perfect
of created beings.
The intrinsic incredibUity then of these doctrines, involving,
as they do, " clear immorahties and self-contradictions," would
throw discredit on the claims of any work professing to re
veal them on the authority of God. And whether we listen
to the demands of Scripture on our reverential attention,
must depend on this : — whether these tenets are found there
or not. And to this inquiry let us now proceed.
One remark I would make in passing, on the supposed
value of the theory of the two natures, as a key to unlock
certain difficult passages of the Bible, and to reconcile their
apparent contradictions. Christ, it is affirmed, is sometimes
spoken of as possessing human qualities, sometimes as pos
sessing divine ; on the supposition of his being simply man,
one class of these passages contradicts us ; on the assumption
of his being simply God, another. Let us then pronounce
him both, and every thing is set right ; every part of the do
cument becomes clear and intelligible.*
Now which, let me ask, is the greater difficulty : the ob
scure language, which we wish to make consistent, or the
prodigious hypothesis, devised for the reconcilement of its
* See Mr. Jones's Lecture on the Proper Humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ,
pp. 241, 242.

18 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
parts ? The sole perplexity in these portions of Scripture
consists in this, — that the divine and the human nature are
felt to be incompatible, and not to be predicable of the same
being : if we did not feel this, we should be conscious of no
opposition ; and the ingenious device for relieving the bewil
derment, is to deny the incompatibility, and boldly to affirm
the union. If you wiU but believe both sides of the contra
diction, you wiU find the contradiction disappear ! What
would be thought of such a principle of interpretation ap
phed to similar cases of verbal discrepancy ? It is stated,
for example, in the Book of Genesis, that Abraham and Lot
received a divine communication respecting the destruction
of Sodom ; and the bearers of the message are spoken of, in
one place, as Jehovah himself; in another, as angels ; in a
third, as men.* What attention would be given to any in
terpreter who should say; ' it is clear that these persons could
not be simply God, for they are called men ; nor simply men,
for they are caUed angels ; nor simply angels, for they are
called God : they must have had a triple nature, and been at
the same time perfect God, perfect angel, and perfect man ?'
Would such an explanation be felt to solve any thing ? Or
take one other case, in which Moses is caUed God with a dis
tinctness which cannot be equalled in the case of Christ :
" Moses called together all Israel, and said to them : . . . .1 have
led you forty years in the wilderness ; your clothes have not
waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon
thy foot. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk
wine or strong drink ; that ye might know that / am the
Lord your God."\ What rehef, let me ask, should we obtain
from the difficulty of this passage, by being told that Moses
had two natures in one person, and must be received as God
man ? Who would accept " a key " like this, and not feel
that in loosening one difficulty, it locked fast another, and
1 eft us in labyrinthine darkness ?
* Genesis, xviii, 1, 2, 22; xix. 1, 10, 15. f Deut. xxix. 2, «,,«.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. If)
II. When a Trinitarian, and a Unitarian, agree to consult
Scripture together, and to bring their respective systems to this
written standard, it is essential that they should determine
beforehand what it is that they must look for : what internal
characters of the books are to be admitted in evidence ; what
kind and degree of proof each is entitled to expect. Each
should say to the other before the Bible is opened, " TeU me
now, distinctly, what are the marks and indications in these
records, which you admit would disprove your scheme : what
must I succeed in establishing, in order to convince you that
you are mistaken ? " The mutual exchange of some such
tests is indispensable to all useful discussion. I am not
aware that any rules of this kind have ever been laid down,
or I would wiUingly adopt them. Meanwhile I wiU propose
a few ; and state the phenomena which I think a Unitarian
has a right to expect in the Bible, if the Athanasian doctrine*
be revealed there, and its reception made a condition of sal
vation. If the criteria be in any respect unreasonable, let it be
sho'wn where they are erroneous or unfair. I am not conscious
of making any extravagant or immodest petition for evidence.
If, then, the existence of three Persons, each God, in the
One Infinite Deity, — and the temporary union of the second
of these Persons, with a perfect man, so as to constitute One
Christ, — be among the prominent facts communicated in the
written Revelation of the Bible, we may expect to find there
the foUowing characters :
(1.) That somewhere or other, among its thousand pages,
these doctrines, so easily and compendiously expressed, will
be plainly stated.
(2.) That as it is important not to confound the three per
sons in the Godhead, they wiU be kept distinct, having some
discriminative and not interchangeable titles ; and moreover,
* It is hardly necessary to observe, that I use the word " Athanasian" to de
note the doctrine of the Creed so called j not of St. Athanasius himself, v?ho is
known to have had no hand in the composition of that formula.
B 2

20 THE PROPOSITION 'THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
since each has precisely the same claim to be called God,
that word will be assigned to them with something hke an
impartial distribution.
(3.) That as, in consistency with the Unity, the term God
will always be restricted to one only being or substance ; so, in
consistency with the Trinity, it will never be Umited to
ONE PERSON to the cxclusion of the other two.
(4.) That when the persons are named by their distinctive
divine, titles, their equahty will be observed, nor any one of
them be represented as subordinate to any other.
(5.) That since the manhood of Christ commenced, and
its peculiar functions ceased, with his incarnation, it will never
be found ascribed to him in relation to events before or after
this period.
All these phenomena, I submit, are essential to make
scripture consistent with Athanasianism ; and not one of
these phenomena does scripture contain. This it is now my
business to show.
III. (1.) Is then our expectation realized, of finding some
where within the limits of the Bible, a plain, unequivocal
statement of these doctrines ? Confessedly not ; and notions
which, in one breath, are pronounced to be indispensable to
salvation, are in another admitted to be no matters of reve
lation at all, but rather left to be gathered by human deduc
tion from the sacred writings. " The doctrine of the Trin
ity," says a respectable Calvinistic writer, Mr. Carlile of
Dublin, " is rather a doctrine of inference and of indirect
intimation, deduced from what is revealed respecting the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and intimated in
the notices of a. plurality of persons in the Godhead, than a
doctrine directly and exphcitly declared." And elsewhere
the same author says, " A doctrine of inference ought never
to be placed on a footing of equality with a doctrine of direct
and explicit revelation." * If t^his be so (and the method of
* Jesus Christ, the great GM our Saviour, pp. 81, 369.

proved to BE FALSE. 21
successive steps by which it is attempted, in this very con
troversy, to establish the doctrine of the Trinity, proves Mr.
Carlile to be right), then to deny this mere inference is not
to deny a revelation. But why, we may be permitted to in
quire, this shyness and hesitancy in the scriptures in com
municating such cardinal truths ? Whence this reserve in
the Holy Spirit about matters so momentous ?* What is the
source of this strange contrast between the formularies of the
Church of England, and those of the primitive Church of
Christ? The Prayer-book would seem to have greatly the
* It is orthodox, at the present day, to affirm that the mysteries of the Godhead
and Incarnation of our Lord were explicitly taught by himself throughout his mi
nistry, as well as by his apostles afterwards ; and Mr. Jones (Lecture, p. 237)
assures us that he " received divine homage, whilst on earth, from inspired men
and angelic spirits. " This shows how much more clear-sighted is modern ortho
doxy than was ancient : for the Fathers thought that a great part of the " mys
tery" of these doctrines consisted in the secrecy in which they were long wrapped*
" In the silence of God," Ignatius assures us, were the Incarnation and the Lord's
death accomplished ; and the ecclesiastical writers of the iirst six centuries seem
not only to have admitted that our Lord concealed his divinity from his disciples,
and enjoined on his apostles great caution in this matter, but to have discerned in
this suppression a profound wisdom, of which they frequently express their admi
ration. They urge that the Jews could never have been brought round to the
faith, if these doctrines had not been kept back for awhile, — a strange thing, by
the way, if the whole ritual and Scriptures of this people were created to pre
figure these mysteries. But Ignatius threw out a suggestion, which, from the
eagerness wherewith it was caught up by succeeding writers, was evidently thought
a happy discovery : it was necessary to conceal these mysteries from Ike Devil, or
he would have been on Ms guard, and defeated every thing. The hint of the ve
nerable saint is brief: "the Virginity of Mary, and the Birth and Death of the
Lord were hidden from the Prince of this world." But the idea is variously en
larged upon by the later Fathers ; for, as Cotelier observes, " Res ipsa quam Ig
natius exprimit, passim apud sanctos Patres invenitur." Jerome adds, that the
vigilance of the Devil, who expected the Messiah to be born in some Jewish fa
mily, was thus eluded j and the Author of an anonymous fragment of the same
age, cited by Isaac Vos, suggests that, if Satan had known, he would never have
put it into men's hearts to crucify Jesus. And Jobius, a monk of the sixth cen
tury, quoted by Photius in his Bibliotheca, and complimented by the learned Pa
triarch as tZv Upav ypai^Hv fieTidrns oitt Hiretpos, says, " It was necessary to keep
in the shade the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, both for the sake of
conciliating the hearers, and in order to escape the notice of the Prince of Dark
ness."  See S. Ignat. Ep. ad Magnes. ch.xix. ; Patr. Apost. Le Clerc's Ed. Notes ;
and Priestley's Early Opinions, b. iii, ch. 3, 4.

22 the proposition ' that christ is GOD,'
advantage over the Bible ; for it removes aU doubts at once,
and makes the essentials most satisfactorUy plain ; compen
sating, shall we say, by " frequent repetitions," for the de
fects and ambiguities of Holy writ ? Nay, it is a singular
fact, that in the original languages of the Old and New Tes
taments, no phraseology exists in which it is possible to ex
press the creeds of the Church. We give to the most learned
of our opponents the whole vocabulary of the Hebrew and
the Greek Scriptures, and we say, "with these materials
translate for us into either language, or any mixture of both,
your own Athanasian Creed." They weU know, that it can
not be done : and ought not then this question to be well
weighed ? if the terms indispensable for the expression of cer
tain ideas are absent from the Bible, how can the ideas them^
selves be present ? Scarcely can men have any important
notions without the corresponding words, — ^which the mind
coins as fast as it feels the need ; and most assuredly they
cannot reveal them. Let us hear no more the rash assertion
that these tenets may be proved from any page of scripture;
we frankly offer every page, with unrestricted liberty to re
write the whole ; and we say, with all this, they cannot be
expressed, (2.) Let us proceed to apply our second criterion, and as
certain whether the divine persons, whom it is essential to
distinguish, are so distinguished by characteristic titles in
scripture; and share among them, with any approach to
equality, the name of God.
It is self-evident, that a verbal revelation can make known
distinctions only by distinctive words ; that if two or more
objects of thought receive interchangeable names, and the
term which had seemed to be appropriated to the one is trans
ferred to the other, those objects are not discriminated, but
confounded. We require, then, separate words in scripture
to denote the foUowing notions ; of the One Divine Substance,
or Triune Being ; — of the First, of the Second, of the Third

proved to be false, 23
person, in this infinite existence ;— of the Divine Nature and
of the Human Nature of Christ, For the Trinity, it is ac
knowledged, there is no scripture name ; unless, indeed, the
plural form of the word God in the Hebrew language is to
be claimed for this purpose ; and thus ^n attempt be stiU
made to confirm our faith by an argument which an or
thodox commentator calls " weak and vain, not to say siUy
and absurd." * " From the plural form of the word Elo
him," says the great Calvin, " it is usual to infer that there
are three persons in the Godhead. But as this proof of
so important a point appears to me by no means solid, I
will not insist upon the word. Let me then warn my
readers against such violent interpretations." f "I
must be aUowed," says Dr. Lee, Arabic Professor in the
University of Cambridge, " to object to such methods of
supporting an article of faith, which stands in need of no
such support." J Of the first Person in the Trinity, the word
" Father," it is to be presumed, may be considered as the
distinctive name ; of the Second person, the terms Son, Son
of God, and the Word or Logos; of the Third person, the
phrase Holy Ghost, Spirit, Paraclete; and of the human
nature of Christ, as distinguished from the Second distinc
tion in the Trinity, the names Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man,
the Man Christ Jesus. If these names be not distinctive,
there certainly are no others ; and if there be none at all, then
the distinctions themselves are not impressed upon the record ;
they are altogether destitute of signs and expressions, and
* Lambertus Danaus, cited by Drusius, in his Diss, de nom. Elohim. Crit. Sacr.
Tractatt. 1. 1. See also Drus. de quasitis per Epist. 66.
+ Comment, in Gen. i. 1. Calvin adds, " Imagining that they have here a proof
against the Arians, they involve themselves in the Sabellian error : because Moses
afterwards subjoins that Elohim spake, and that the Spirit of Elohim brooded over
the waters. If we are to understand that the three Persons are indicated, there
will be no distinction among them : for it will follow that the Son was self-gene
rated, and that the Spirit is not of the Father, but of himself." For further
notice of this point see Note B.
t Grammar of the Hebrew Language, art. 228, 6. Note.

24

THE proposition ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'

must be pronounced purely imaginary. Meanwhile we wiU
assume the titles, which I have just enumerated, to be ap
propriated to the purposes which have been assigned. To
the use of the words Father and Son I shaU have particular
occasion to revert.
The usage of the word God, in the New Testament, pre
sents us with some remarkable phenomena. The Athanasian
doctrine offers to our belief four objects of thought, to which
this word is equally and indiflTerently apphcable ; the Triune
Divine Being ; and each of the three Persons ; and its advo
cates profess to have learned from scripture the well-adjusted
equipoise of these claims upon the great and sacred name.
We are hardly then prepared by its instructions, distinct and
emphatic as they are, for the following fact ; allowing every
one of the Trinitarian interpretations to be correct, the word
God is used in the New Testament ten times of Christ ;
and of some other object, upwards of thirteen hundred
times.* Whence this astonishing disproportion ? Some cause,
— something corresponding to it in the minds of the writers,
it must have had ; nor is it easy to understand, how an equal
disposition of the Divine Persons in the habitual conceptions
of the Authors, could lead to so unequal an award of the
grand expression of Divinity.
Even the few instances, which for the moment I have al
lowed, will disappear on a nearer examination. This appears
to be the proper place to pass under review the most re
markable passages, which, under Trinitarian exposition, ap
pear to sanction the doctrine of the proper Deity of Christ.
(a.) The evangelist Matthew applies to Christ* the fol
lowing words of the prophet Isaiah, which, in order to give
the truest impression of the original, I wiU quote from the
* See Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustrations of Unitarianism, by John
Wilson, second edition, 1837, p. 33, where will be found a curious table, exhi-
bitingthe usage of the word God, in every book of the New Testament. Mr.Wil-
son has collected his materials with great industry, and arranged them with skill.
f Matt. i. 23.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 25
translation of Bishop Lowth : " Behold the Virgin con-
ceiveth, and beareth a son ; and she shaU call his name Em
manuel."* As this name is significant, and means "God
with us," it is argued, that it could not be assigned to any
one who was not properly God.
Now even if this name were really assigned by the pro
phet to Christ, the most superficial Hebraist must be aware
that it teaches us nothing respecting the nature and person of
our Lord. "The fact is unquestionable," says Dr. Pye
Smith, " that the gratitude or hope of individuals, in the an
cient scriptural times, was often expressed by the imposition
of significant appellations on persons or other objects, in the
composition of which Divine names and titles were frequently
employed ; these are, therefore, nothing but short sentences,
declarative of some blessing possessed or expected."t Thus
the name Lemuel means God with them; Elijah, God the
Lord ; Elihu, God is he. So that, to use the words of one
of the ablest of living Trinitarian writers, " to maintain that
the name Immanuel proves the doctrine in question is a fal
lacious argument."t
But, in truth, this name is not given to the Messiah by
the prophet ; and the citation of it in this connection by the
evangelist is an example of those loose accommodations, or
even misapplications, of passages in the Old Testament by
writers in the New, which the most resolute orthodoxy is
* Isaiah vii. 14. The whole passage is as follows :
" Behold the virgin conceiveth, and beareth a son;
And she shall call his name Emmanuel.
Butter and honey shall he eat.
When he shall know to refuse what is evil, and to choose what is good :
For before this child shall know
To refuse the evil, and to choose the good ;
The land shall become desolate.
By whose two kings thou art distressed."
f Quoted from Wilson's Illustrations, p. 117.
+ Letters on the Trinity, by Moses Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature in
the Theological Seminary, Andover, U. S. Belf. ed. p. 161.

26 the proposition ' that christ is GOD,'
unable to deny ; and which (though utterly destructive of the
theory of verbal inspiration) the real dignity of the Gospel
in no way requires us to deny. Turning to the original pro
phecy, and not neglecting the context and historical facts
which Ulustrate it, we find that Jerusalem was threatened
with instant destruction by the confederated kings of Syria
and Samaria ; that, to the terrified Jewish monarch Ahaz, the
prophet is commissioned to promise the deliverance of his
metropolis and ruin to his enemies ; that he even fixes the
date of this happy reverse : and that he does this, not in a
direct way, by telling the number of months or years that
shall elapse, but by stating that ere a certain child, either
already born, or about to be born within a year, shaU be
old enough to distinguish between good and evil, the foe shall
be overthrown ; and that this same child, whose infancy is
thus chronologically used, shall eat the honey of a land peace
ful and fertUe once more. Nor is this interpretation any
piece of mere heretical ingenuity. Dr. Pye Smith observes :
" It seems to be as clear as words can make it, that the Son
promised was born within a year after the giving of the pre
diction ; that his being so born at the assigned period, was
the sign or pledge that the political deliverance announced to
Ahaz should certainly take place."* Without assenting to
the latter part of this remark, I quote it simply to show that,
in the opinion of this excellent and learned Divine, the Em
manuel could not have been bom later than a year after the
delivery of the prophecy. It wUl immediately appear that
there is nothing to preclude the supposition of his being
already born, at the very time when it was uttered.
Who this child, and who his mother, reaUy were, are
questions wholly unconnected with the present argument. As
the date, and not the person, was the chief subject of the
Prophet's declaration, any son of Jerusalem, arriving at years
of discretion within the stated time, would fulfU the main
* Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, 2nd edit, vol. i. p. 382.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 2?
conditions of the announcement ; and, as a sign of divine
dehverance, might receive the name Emmanuel. In fact,
however, the child, in the view of Isaiah, seems to have been
no other than the King's own son, Hezekiah ; and the Vir
gin Mother to have been, in conformity with a phraseology
famihar to every careful reader of the Old Testament, the
royal and holy city of Jerusalem. Amos, speaking of the
city, says, " The virgin of Israel is faUen."* Jeremiah,
lamenting over its desolation, exclaims, " Let mine eyes run
down with tears night and day, and let them not cease ; for
the virgin daughter of my people is broken, with a great
breach, with a very grievous blow."t Micah, apostrophising
the citadel, bursts out, " O tower," — " stronghold of the daugh
ter of Zion," — " is there no king in thee ? Is thy counsellor
perished ? For pangs have taken thee, as a woman in tra-
vail."J The fact that Hezekiah was already born, seems to
confirm rather than to invahdate this interpretation. A living
child to his parents, he was yet the city's embryo king.
What sign more fitted to re-assure the terrified and faithless
monarch than this : that, ere his own first-born should reach
the years of judgment, his twofold enemy should be cast
down ? What language, indeed, could be more natural re
specting an heir to the throne, of whom great expectations
were excited in grievous times ? The royal city dreamt of his
promised life with gladness ; he was the chUd of Jerusalem,
in the hour of her anguish given to her hopes ; in after years
of peace fulfilling them.§
(b.) This prince appears evidently to have been the person
described also in another passage, from which, though never
cited in the New Testament as applicable to Christ at aU,
modern theologians are accustomed to infer his Deity. It is
as foUows : — " Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ;
and his name shaU be called wonderful; counseUor; the
• Amos v. 2. t Jeremiah xiv. 17.
X Micah iv. 8, 9. See the whole context. § See Note C.

28

THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'

mighty God ; the everlasting Father ; the Prince of Peace."*
We have only to look at the terms in which this great one's
dominion is described, and the characters that are to mark
his reign, in order to assure ourselves that he is some person
very different from Christ ; the Northern district of Palestine
is to be delivered by him from the sufferings of an Assyrian
invasion ; he is to break the yoke which Tiglath-Pileser had
imposed on the land of Gennesareth ; to destroy the rod of
the oppressor ; to make a conflagration of the spoils of the
battle-field, and burn the greaves and blood-stained garments
of his country's enemies.f It seems to me impossible to
imagine a more violent distortion of Scripture than the. ap
plication of this passage to Christ. But, be it even other
wise, there are only two of these titles which can be thought
of any avaU in this argument. One is, the " everlasting Fa
ther;" which, if it proves any thing, establishes that the
second person in the Trinity is the first person, or else that
the word Father must be given up as a distinctive name, — a
concession destructive of the whole doctrine. The other is
the phrase, " the mighty God," or by inversion, " God the
mighty ;" on which I presume no stress would have been
laid if, instead of being presented to us in a translation, it
had been given in the original, and called Gabriel. For the
word God, Martin Luther substitutes (Held) hero, as the
juster rendering.! But, in truth, it is sad trifling thus to
crumble Hebrew names to pieces, in order to yield a few
scarce visible atoms of argument to replenish the precarious
pile of church orthodoxy, wasted by the attrition of reason,
the healthful dews of nature, and the sunshine and the air of
God.§ (c.) Let us turn to the Proem of St. John's Gospel ; that
most venerable and beautiful of all the delineations which
* Isaiah ix. 5 , 6.
f Isaiah viii. 23— ix. 4. Compare 2 Kings xv. 29 ; 1 Chronicles v. 26.
+ Martin Luther's Version, in loe.
§ See Note D.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 29
Scripture furnishes, of the twofold relation of Christ's spi
rit, to the Father who gave it its illumination, and to the bre
thren who were blessed by its hght. To our cold under
standings, indeed, this passage must inevitably be obscure ;
for it deals with some of the characteristic conceptions of that
lofty speculative reason which, blending the refinements of
Platonism with the imaginative license of the oriental schools,
assumed in early times the intellectual empire of the church,
and has kept the world ever since in deliberation on its crea
tions. I do not mean that the Apostle was a Platonist, or a
disciple of any philosophical system. But he wrote in Asia
Minor, where he was surrounded by the influences, in con
stant familiarity with the terms, and accustomed to the modes
of thought, peculiar to the sects of speculative religionists
most prevalent in his time. At all events, it is a fact that
he uses language nowhere employed by the other Evangelists
or Apostles ; and that this language is the very same which is
the common stock, and technical vocabulary of Philo, the
Platonizing Jew, and several Christian writers of the same or
a kindred school. Before, however, endeavouring to suggest
the idea which the Apostle did mean to convey, let me caU
your attention to that which he did not.
There cannot be a more misplaced confidence, than that
with which the introductory verses of St, John's Gospel are
appealed to by the holders of the Athanasian doctrine. What
ever explanation is adopted, which does not throw contempt
upon the composition of the Evangelist, is at all events sub
versive of their system : and I do not hesitate to say, that
this is the only thing which I can regard as certain respecting
this passage; that it never could have been written by an
Athanasian. In order to test this assertion, it is not neces-
. sary to look beyond the first verse ; and before we read it,
let us allow the Trinitarian to choose any sense he pleases of
the word God, which is its leading term. Let us suppose
that he accepts it as meaning here " the Father," and that

30 the proposition ' that CHRIST IS GOD,'
the Word or Logos means God the Son. With these sub
stitutions the A'^erse reads thus' :- —
In the beginning ^v'as the Son ; and the Son was with the
Father; and the Son was the Father. This surely is to
" confound the persons."
Let us then suppose the meaning different, and the whole
Godhead or Trinity to be denoted by the word God. The
verse would then read thus : —
In the beginning was the Son ; and the Son was with the
Trinity, and the Son was the Trinity.
We are no nearer to consistency than before : and it is
evident that before the Trinitarian can find in the passage
any distinct enunciation, the term God must be conceived
to bear two different meanings in this short verse, — a verse
so symmetrical in its construction as to put the reader alto
gether off his guard against such a change. He must read it
thus : —
In the beginning was the second person in the Trinity ;
and the second person was with the first ; and the second
person was possessed of divine attributes as such.
We might surely ask, without unreasonableness, why,
when the society or personal affinity of the Son in the God
head, is mentioned in the middle clause, the companionship
of the Father only is noticed, and silence observed respecting
the Holy Spirit ; who at that moment could not possibly have
been absent from the conceptions of any Athanasian writer.
But independently of this, the awkwardness of the con
struction, the violence of the leading transition of meaning,
render the interpretation altogether untenable. If it be true,
never surely was there a form of speech worse devised for
the ^conveyance of the intended ideas.
In order to give the passage its true force, there is no oc
casion to assign to the word God any but its usual significa
tion ; as the name of the One infinite Person or Being who
created and rules the universe. But it is less easy to era-

proved to be FALSE. 31
brace and exhibit with any distinctness, the notion implied
in the phrase Word or Logos. The ancient speculative
schools, seeing that the Deity had existed from eternity, and
therefore in a long solitude before the origin of creation,
distinguished between his intrinsic nature, — deep, remote,
primeval, unfathomable,* — and that portion of his mind which
put itself forth, or expressed itself by works, so as to come
into voluntary and intelhgible relations to men.f This section
of the Divine Mind, to which was attributable the author
ship of the divine works, they caUed the Logos, or the
Image of God ; both terms denoting the expression or power
which outwardly reveals internal qualities ; the one taking
its metaphor from the ear, through which we make known
our sentiments by speech ; the other from the eye, to which
is addressed the natural language of feature and lineament.
If I might venture on an Ulustration which may sound
strangely to modern hearers, I should say that the Logos
was conceived of in relation to God, much as with us Genius
is, in relation to the soul of its possessor ; to denote that
peculiar combination of intellectual and moral attributes,
which produces great, original, creative works, — works
which let you into the spirit and affections, as well as the
understanding, of the Author. Any one who can so possess
himself with the speculative temper -of Christian antiquity,
as to use with reverence the phrase genius of God, would find
it, I am persuaded, a useful English substitute (though I am
weU aware, not a perfect equivalent) for the word Logos.
Dwelling within the blank immensity of God, was this illu
minated region of Divine ideas ; in which, as in the fancy
and the studio of an artist, the formative conceptions,, the
original sketches and designs, the inventive projects of beauty
and good, shaped and perfected themselves ; and from which
they issued forth, to imprint themselves upon matter and
life, and pass into executed and visible realities. From the
* ^6yos iviiiBnoi. t A1J70S vpo^optKhs.

32 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
energy of this creative spirit, or blessed genius of God, two
very different orders of results were conceived to flow : — the
forms and symmetrical arrangements of the material uni
verse, by which, as by the engraving of a seal. Deity stamped
his perfections into vision : and the intuitions of pure reason
and conscience in the human soul, by which, as by a heavenly
tone or vibration. Deity thriUed himself into consciousness.
And when I say Deity, I mean the Logos of Deity ; for this
alone, it was conceived, stood in any relation to us ; the rest
was an unexpressed and unfathomable Essence.
This portion of the Divine Infinitude was incessantly and
vividly personified ; so as to assume, even in the writings of
the Jew and undoubted Monotheist PhUo, the frequent aspect
of a second God : though scarcely have you taken up this
idea from one series of passages, before you are recalled and
corrected by others, clearly showing that this is a false im
pression, too hastily derived from the intensity of the ima
gery and language. Indeed the distinction between a mere
personification and a positive mythological personage is very
faint. When a writer personifies an abstraction, for the mo
ment he conceives of this object of thought as a person ; and
were this state of mind perpetuated, he would believe it to
be a person. But his mental attitude changes ; and, in a less
excited hour, that which had constructed and painted itself
almost into a being, fades away again into an attribute. Hence
the fluctuation of writers, at once imaginative and specula
tive, like PhUo and some of the early Christian Fathers, be
tween the logical and the mythical method of speaking of the
properties of the Divine nature. And it may be remarked,
that the Apostle John partook, though in a very slight de
gree, of the same tendency. He was fond of abstract words :
calling our Saviour the way, rather than the guide ; the truth,
rather than the teacher ; the Zigr^^, rather than th^ illuminator;
and so I conceive, in the commencement of his Gospel, the
inspiration, rather than the inspired of God. And then, as

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 33
if to remedy the indistinctness of this mode of representa
tion, he resorts to personification : thus, at the dictation of his
reverence, first reducing the living person to an abstraction ;
and afterwards, at the bidding of his imagination, recreating
the abstraction into a person. The extent to which this per
sonification may be carried, by an author who certainly had
no notion but of One personal God, may be estimated from a
few sentences, referring to this very conception of the Logos,
from the Jewish Philo. The invisible and intellectual Logos,
he says, is the image of God, by whom the world was fa
shioned ; his first-born son, his A'icegerent in the government
of the world ; the mediator between God and his creatures ;
the healer of iUs ; God's divine Son, whose mother is wis
dom. In another place, the Logos is the very same with the
wisdom of God; the most ancient angel, the first-born of
God ; to the resemblance of whom every one, who would be
a son of God, must fashion himself. He is even the " second
God." " To the Archangel, and most ancient Logos," says
this writer, " God granted this distinguished office, that he
should stand on the confines of creation, and separate between
it and its Creator. With the incorruptible being he is the
suppUant for perishable mortahty. He is the ambassador of
the Supreme to the subject creation. He announces the wiU of
the Ruler to his subjects. And he delights in the office, and
boasts of it, saying ; I had stood between you and the Lord
as mediator ; being neither unbegotten as God, nor begotten
as you, but between the two extremes, and acting as hostage
to both." * All this sounds very mysterious ; the important
thing to bear in mind is, that the writer is certainly speaking
not of any separate diAdne person, but of the impersonated
attributes of One Sole Supreme.
* Phil. Jud. Op. Schrey et H. J. Meyer. Francof. 1691. De Mundi opific. p. 5.
C. p. 6. C. Leg. Alleg. p. 93. B, C, D. De somniis, pp. 574. E. 575. C. E. 576. E.
De confus. Ling. p. 341. B. C. ftuis rer. div. hseres, p. 509. B. C. Euseb. Prep.
Evang. VII. 13. C

34 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
St. John then, I conceive, does the very same ; only he
carefully warns us against thinking of his personification as
otherwise than identical with the Supreme, by saying out
right, that the Logos is God ; and therefore that whatever
he may say about the former, is really to be understood as
spoken of the latter. The whole proem divides itself into
two ideas : that from the Genius or Logos of God have pro
ceeded two sets of divine works ; the material world ; and
the soul and inspiration of heaven shed upon the world
through Christ. His object, I beheve, is to link together
these two effects as successive and analogous results, physical
in one case, spiritual in the other, of the same divine and
holy energy. Having warned us, as I have said, in the very
first verse, that this energy is not really a person distinct
from the Supreme, he abandons himself without reserve to
the beautiful personification which foUows ; assuring us that
thereby were all things made at first, and thereby were aU
men being enlightened now ; that our very world, which felt
that forming hand of old, had not discerned the blessed in
fluence which again descended to regenerate it : ungrateful
treatment ! as of one who came unto his own, and his own
received him not. Yet were there some of more perceptive
conscience and better hearts ; and they, be they Jew or Gen
tUe, whose spirits sprung to the divine embrace, were per
mitted to become, by reflected simUitude, the Sons of God.
Thus far, that is, to the end of the thirteenth verse, there
is no mention of Jesus Christ as an individual ; there is only
the unembodied personification of the abstract energy of God
in the original design, and the newer regeneration of the
world. Nor should there be any difficulty in this separation
of the Divine Spirit from its positive and personal results.
Of the Creative Mind of God we can easily think, as not
only prior to the act of creation, but stiU apart from the forms
of matter; and so can we of the illuminating or regenerative
Mind of God, as not 9nly prior to its manifestation in

PROVED TO BE FALSE, 35
Christ, but apart from its embodiment in his person. In
the next verse, however, the heavenly personification is
dropped upon the man Jesus ; the mystic divine light is per
mitted to sink into the deeps of his humanity ; it vanishes
from separate sight : and there comes before us, and hence
forth lives within our view throughout the Gospel, the Man
of Sorrows, the ChUd of God, with the tears and infirmities
of our mortal nature, and the moral perfection of the Divine.
" And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the
Father), full of grace and truth." *
(d.) The spirit of this exposition is directly applicable to
another passage, adduced to prove the deity of Christ : " God
was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of an
gels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world,
received up into glory." f It is well known that in the most
approved text, the word God does not exist, and the passage
reads, " He who was manifest in the flesh," &c. Were it
permitted to indulge personal wishes in such matters, I could
desire that the common rendering were the true one. I know
of no more exact description of Christ, than that he was a
living and human manifestation of the character of God. %
(e.) Let us now turn to the introductory A^erses of the
Epistle to the Hebrews ; a passage which is claimed as the
clearest disclosure of the Deity of Christ ; for no discoverable
reason, except that from its great obscurity, it reveals less,
perhaps, than any other portion of Scripture, except the
Revelations. From the earhest times it has been justly re
garded as exceedingly doubtful whether the Apostle Paul was
the author of this letter ; the difficulties and darkness of which
are of a very different character from those which embarrass
us in his noble Avritings, and arise from mental habits far
* See Note E. t 1 Tim. iii. 16.
t ETs 0erfs itrrtv, & fpavep^aas tavrhv iia 'Itjitou Xpurroi; tou vlov ouToO. — S. Ig-
natii Epist. ad Magnes. u. viii.
C 2

36 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
more artificial and less healthy than his. But whatever be
the authority of this work, and whatever the doctrine of its
introductory portion, it is so far from giAring any support to
the Trinitarian sentiments, that it affords, even in its most
exalted language, arguments sufficient to disprove them. The
first verses of the epistle, altered slightly from the common
translation, in order to exhibit more faithfuUy the meaning
of the original, are as follows : —
" God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake
in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath, at the
close of these days, spoken unto us by his Son ; whom he
hath appointed heir of all things ; through whom also he
made the ages of the world ; who, being the brightness of his
glory, and the image of his nature, and ruling all things by
the word of his power, having by himself made purification of
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high ;
being become so much greater than the angels, as he hath
obtained by inheritance a more excellent name than they.
For unto which of the angels said he at any time, ' thou art
my son ; I have this day begotten thee ?' And again, ' I will
be to him a Father, and he shaU be to me a Son.' And when
ever he may again introduce his first-born into the world, it
{i. e. the Scripture) saith, ' let aU the angels of God pay
homage to him.' And with reference to the angels, it saith,
' who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of
fire.' But Avith reference to the son, it saith, ' thy throne,
O God ! is for ever and ever, a sceptre of righteousness is
the sceptre of thy kingdom ; thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity ; therefore, O God ! thy God hath anointed
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.' "
I terminate the quotation here, because I do not believe
that the foUoAving words have any relation to Christ. The
writer's argument not only admits, but requires, that they
should be referred to the supreme God and Father of all.
Now observe Avith what distinctness the most lofty phrases

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 37
applied to our Lord in this passage, affirm his subordination,
and deny his equahty with the Infinite Father. At the very
moment when he is addressed as God, he is said to have
fallows, and to be set above them as a reward for his goodness ;
in the same breath which declares his throne to be for ever
and ever, he is described as having a God who anoints him
Avith the oil of gladness. He is greater than the angels, not
by nature, but by the gift of a better inheritance. He is
not the original divine effulgence, but an emanation of that
glory, an image of that perfection ; and in constituting the
worlds, or rather the great seras of its appointed history, he is
not the designer of its revolutions, but the instrument of God
in effecting them.* If this teaches the supreme Deity of
Christ, in what language is it possible to disclaim and to deny
supremacy ?
With respect to the pecvdiar terms of dignity applied in
this passage to Christ, I would observe as follows : —
The words " Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,"
were originally addressed by a poetical courtier to Solomon
or some other Hebrew monarch on his accession and mar
riage ;t nor can the shghtest reason be assigned for supposing
that the ode in which the words occur had any reference more
remote than the immediate occasion of its composition. The
first half of the Psalm % is addressed to the prince ; the re
mainder to his bride, § who is exhorted to give her undivided
affection to the new relation which she has formed ; to " for
get her own people, and the house of her father ;" and who
is consoled with the hope, that " instead of her fathers she
shaU have her sons, whom she shall make princes through aU
the land." Those who can satisfy themselves with the theo
logical conceit, that this is a prophetic allegory, descriptive
of the relation between Christ and his Church, appear to have
placed themselves so far beyond the reach of all the rules of
* Al' o5, not i(p' ov. + Psalm xiv.
J ,. 1—9. § V. 10—17.

38 THE PROPOSITION 'THAT CHRIST IS GOD,^
interpretation, that argument becomes fruitless ; no possible
media of refutation exist. They must belong to the class who
have succeeded in spirituahzing the Song of Solomon; to
whom therefore it has ceased to be a matter of the smallest
consequence, what words are presented to them in Scripture,
as they have attained the faculty of seeing one set of ideas,
wherever they look, and an incapacity to see any thing else.
Bishop Young, convinced that the prophetic claims of this
Psalm must be relinquished, and that the term God in it is
addressed merely to the Hebrew monarch, and therefore used
in an inferior sense, renders the passage thus ; " thy throne,
O mighty prince, is for ever and ever." * And surely, even
those who can persuade themselves that scripture can have
two intended meanings, and who imagine the poem in ques
tion to have referred primarily to Solomon, and remotely to
the Messiah, must perceive that a word by which the Jewish
prince might be accosted, cannot imply the supreme deity of
Christ. Christ is said, in the common translation, to have
made the worlds ; but it is generally admitted that the phrase
does not denote the construction of the material universe,
and is even incapable of bearing this meaning. It describes
Jesus as the agent of God in bringing about the successive
states of our social world ; in introducing the preluding re
volutions, and the final catastrophe of human affairs. If it
be asked, what ages, what revolutions, are thus attributed to
the instrumentality of Christ ? the answer must be sought in
• New Translation of the Psalms, by Dr. M. Young, Bishop of Clonfert ; in loe.
Comp. Preface. — When resident in Dublin, I enjoyed the advantage of consulting
this posthumous work, suppressed before its publication, for reasons sufficiently
obvious to those who know the work, and have noticed the reception which ortho
doxy gives to honest and impartial biblical criticism and exegesis. See Mr. Well-
beloved's Bible in loe. where Bishop Young's translation is cited. May I venture
to refer our learned opponents to the last-mentioned work, whenever they think
proper to examine what kind of Old Testament theology a Unitarian may hold ?
It would be curious to know, probably perplexing even to " ordained clergymen"
to determine, on which horn of the dilemma the Rev. Hebraists in Christ Church
must fix Mr. Wellbeloved;^" defective scholarship?" — ox" uncandid and dishonest
frilicism ? "

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 39
the fact, that the author was a Hebrew, writing to Hebrews.
He seized on the grand Jewish division of time and Provi
dence into two portions, — the period before, and the period
after, the coming of the Messiah ; and these were the two
AGES, frequently called "the present world," and "the Avorld
to come," which Christ is said to have constituted. Does
any one inquire, in what way our Lord, if he were not at least
pre-existent, could administer the arrangements of Providence
in the former of these periods, that is, before his own mission
to mankind ? I submit, in answer, a suggestion which seems
to me essential to the clear understanding of aU the Chris
tian records, and especially of those which relate to the years
after the ascension. The advent of the Messiah was repre
sented, during those years, not as past, but as still future ;*
they were regarded as the close of the old and earthly epoch,
not the commencement of the new and heavenly ; so that all
that Jesus of .Nazareth had already done, the mighty changes
which he had set in operation, — were an action upon the
former of the two great ages ; nor would the latter be intro
duced till he returned from heaven ; to rule, for a period vast
or even indefinite, as the personal vicegerent of God over his
faithful children here. This event, which in our own days
Millenarians are expecting soon, and which the early Chris
tians expected sooner, was regarded as the true coming of
the Messiah, — the point of demarcation between the ages, —
the introduction of " the new heaven and the new earth
wherein dwelleth righteousness,t Meanwhile the old world
was draAving to a close, of which a warning (like that given
to Noah before the flood) J had been given by the prehminary
visit, Avith unmistakable credentials, of him who was to be
the Messiah ; he had come in the flesh, and retired in the
spirit ; and was leaving time for the tidings of his appoint
ment and his approach to spread, by the voice of Avdtnesses and
* See Acts iii. 19—21 ; xiii. 33—37 ; xxvi. 6—8. Hebrews ii. 5. Titus ii. 12,13,
1 Tim. iv. 1. James v. 3, 7, 8. 1 Cor. x. 11. Phil. iv. 5. 2 Thess.ii. 2.
t 2 Pet. iii. 13. J 1 Pet., iii. 20,

40 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
preachers who published the pledges of his power. Of those
pledges, which marked him out as the future prince of life
and earth, none were so distinguished as his resurrection and
ascension, by which God had given assurance that he would
one day judge or rule the world in righteousness ;* by which
he was declared to be the son of God with power ;t and on
the very day of which he became the first-born or the begot
ten child of God; J and sat down on the right hand of the
majesty on high. § Invested Avith his office, he yet abstained
from immediately coming to claim its prerogatives ; he con
tinued sequestered in the heavens, aUoAving to the world a
time of preparation, a solemn pause before judgment ; || re
pressing the impatient moment of the great revolution, and
by his powerful word, bearing awhile and upholding all things
as they are.^f If this were reaUy the conception of the apostles,
it foUows, no doubt, that they prematurely expected the re
turn of their Lord ; but that they did so, is no new assump
tion ; and in adopting it I protect myself by the authority of
Mr. Locke, who says in a note on a passage of the Epistle to
the Romans, " It seems, by these two verses, as if St. Paul
looked upon Christ's coming as not far off; to which there
are several other occurrent passages in his epistles."**
If the foregoing interpretation of the introduction to this
epistle be true, it follows that aU the power and dignity there
ascribed to Christ are described as acquisition after his ascen
sion ; that not tiU then was he accosted with the title of divinity
previously applied to Solomon ; not tiU then did he become
greater than the angels, or receive an anointment pf gladness
above his fellows ; not till then did he receive his heirship,
his fihation, his vicegerency of God. Of his supreme Deity,
scarcely could any more emphatic denial be conceived. ft
* Acts xvii. 31. f Rom. i. 4.
% Acts xiii. 30—34. comp. Heb. i. 5. § Heb. i. 3.
II 2 Pet. iii. 9. t Heb. i. 3.
** Paraphrase on the Epistles ; Rom. xiii. 11, 12. Note.
ft From the word God, supposed to be addressed to Christ, in the clause
" Thy throne, 0 God, &c.," the Deity of our Lord, as a second person in the Tri-

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 41
(f.) The foUoAving passage is sometimes quoted as affirma
tive of the Deity of Christ : " We know that the Son of God
is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may
know him that is true ; and we are in him that is true, in (or
by) his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal
life."* But it is surely evident that with Calvin, Newcome,
Dr. Adam Clarke,t we must consider the concluding pair of
epithets as paraUel respectively Avdth the two penultimates.
" By him that is true," says the Apostle, " I mean the true
God," " and this Jesus Christ is eternal life." J As to the pre
tence of over-nice grammarians, that the pronoun "this"
must refer to Jesus Christ as the nearest antecedent, the
Apostle John himself dismisses it Avith this one sentence ;
" Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This (not Jesus Christ,
it is to be presumed) is a deceiver and an antichrist."§ The
antecedent, in this case, is not only remote, hut plural.
(g.) I know of only one other set of passages requiring
explanation from a Unitarian ; and of these I take the fol
lowing as an example ; giving, you AviU observe, a translation
shghtly differing from the authorized version, but to which
no competent judge wiU probably object : — " Let this mind
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus ; who, being in the
form of God, never thought his equahty with God a thing to
be eagerly retained ; but divested himself of it, and took on
him the form of a servant, and assumed the likeness of men;
and being in the common condition of man, stiU humbled
himself, and became obedient unto death, aye, and the death
of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him,
&c."|| Elsewhere Paul briefly expresses this sentiment thus :
being rich, for your sakes he became poor.1[
nity, is inferred. Yet this word, in the original, is Elohim, whose plural form,
we are told, is intended to prevent our thinking of only One Person, and which
cannot mean less than the whole Trinity.
* 1 John V. 20. t Notes In loe. t Newcome.
§ 2 John 7. II Phil. ii. 5—8. f 2 Cor. viii. 9.

42 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,
Now, in order to appreciate the striking beauty" of this pas
sage, it is necessary to remember that the Apostle is writing
to Gentiles; and to enter into his remarkable conception
respecting the relation of the Messiah to them. This great
object of promise was, according to the original idea of him,
a mere national appropriation of the Jews ; made their own
by birth and lineage as well as by office. So long as these
peculiarities belonged to him, he could not, Avithout breaking
through aU the restraints of the sacred Mosaic law, stand in
any friendly connection with the Gentiles ; nor did our Lord,
during his mortal life, ever extend his ministry beyond his
native land. Moreover, there was nothing, Paul conceived,
to prevent his realizing at once, had he wUled it, all the
splendid anticipations of the Hebrews ; nothing to obstruct
his seizing, from the hills of Galilee, or the heights of Jeru
salem, the promised royal sceptre, and making himself, with
out delay, the Lord of aU below ; nothing but his holy re
solve to be no mere Jewish Messiah, and his desire to
embrace the Gentiles, too, Awthin the blessings of his sway.
And how could this be accomplished ? Never, so long as the
personal characteristics of the Israehte attached to him. He
determined then to lay these aside, which could be done by
death alone. On the cross, or in the ascension, he parted
from the coil of mortality, in which were enveloped all the
distinctions that made him national rather than human ; the
lineage, the blood, the locaUty, the aUiance, passed away;
the immortal spirit alone remained, and departed to the rest
of God ; and this his soul was not Hebrew, but was human ;
and so his relations expanded, and the princely Son of David
became, through death, the divine Messiah of humanity.
Writing then to Gentiles, the Apostle reminds them of this ;
tells them of what attainable splendours Jesus had deprived
himself, what rightful glories he had resigned, what anguish
he had endured, to what death he had submitted, in order to
drop his mortal peculiarities which had excluded the nations

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 43
from the peace of his dominion, and to assume that spiritual
state to which they might stand related. It was not his God
head, not the apphcation of his miracles to his personal ad
vantage, but the dignities of the Prince of Israel, the pre
rogatives and triumphs of God's vicegerent, of which he
emptied himself, and for the Gentiles' sakes became poor.
He whose office made him as God, became, by his pure will,
a servant ; he who, without the slightest strain of his rights,
might have assumed an equivalence to Providence on earth,
and administered at once the promised theocracy of heaven,
was in no eager haste to seize the privilege ; but, that he
might call in those who else had been the exile and the out
cast people, entered first the shadow of suffering and shame ;
he who might have been exempt from death, took the humili
ation of the cross ; showing a divine and self-forgetful love,
which disregards his own rights to pity others' privations ;
and which gave a resistless force to the exhortation, " Look
not every man on his own things, but every man also on
the things of others." *
(h.) In direct contrast with this past humifiation of Christ,
is the present glory and future dominion Avith which, in the
verses immediately following, the Apostle describes him as
invested by the rewarding complacency of God. And here
the passage enters the same class A^ith three others,t of which
the introduction of the Epistle to the Hebrews is one, but
the most remarkable is the foUowing : " Christ, .... who is the
image of the invisible God, the first-bom of every creature ;
for by him were all things created, that are in Heaven and
that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones, or dominions, or principahties, or powers, aU things
• See Note F.
f These texts naturally arrange themselves thus :
Phil. ii. 9—11. "j
Philippians ii. 5— 8. 1 ' . Eph. i. 20— 23. I ,^ .
„ . .. .. > condescension. „', . „, ,„ /exaltation,
2 Corinthians viii. 9. / Col. i. 15—19. j
Heb. i. /

44 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
were created through him and for him ; and he is before all
things, and by him aU things consist. And he is the head of
the body, the church ; who is the beginning, the first-born
from the dead ; that in aU things he might have pre-emi
nence : for it pleased the Father that in him should all ful
ness dwell."*
Calvin himself warns us that " the circumstances of this
place require us to understand it as spoken," not of the ori
ginal formation of the universe, but " of the renovation
which is included in the benefit of Redemption,"t Indeed
a very superficial acquaintance with the phraseology of the
Apostle, is sufficient to convince us that the language which
we have here is very unlike that in which he speaks of the
construction of the material system of things, and very like
that in which he describes the regeneration of the world by
the faith of Christ. Describing the natural creation, he
makes no such strange selection of objects as thrones, prin
cipalities, dominions, powers, with uninteUigible avoidance
of every thing palpable ; but says plainly, " The living God,
who made Heaven and earth, and the sea, and aU things that
are in them."f And characterizing, on the other hand, the
effects of the Gospel, he says, " We are God's workman
ship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works ;"§ and " If
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ; the old things
have passed away, behold aU things have become new."|I
Nor does the language of this passage appear so violently
figurative as commentators have usually supposed. Apply to
it the Apostle's conception respecting the return of his Lord
from Heaven, to reign visibly upon earth, over a community
holy and immortal, and the obscurity AviU no longer be felt.
That advent, introducing the future age or world to come,
would be attended by a revolution which could be caUed no
* Col. i. 15 — 19. Comp. Eph. iii. 19 ; where the apostle desires that the Ephe
sians may " befitted with all the fulness of God."
t Note in loe. % Acts xiv. 15. § Eph. ii. 10. || 2 Cor. v. 17.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 45
less than a " new creation." No term less emphatic would
adequately describe the superseding of aU existing arrange
ments, the extinction of earthly rule, authority, and power;*
the recal to earth of the spirits of the just ;t the immorta
lizing of the saints who had not slept ; J the gathering to
gether the whole family of the holy in Heaven or earth ;§ the
everlasting destruction of the faithless from the presence of
the Lord, and the glory of his power ;|| the bowing of every
knee before the Prince of Life;T[ the opening of the king
dom that cannot be moved ;** and the award of recompense
to those who, having suffered, should reign Avith him.ft
Already were the elements of this blessed society draAnng
themselves together, some in Heaven, others upon earth ; the
investiture with immortahty had commenced. Christ was the
beginning, the first-born from the dead: and the departed saints
sharing his heavenly rest, and ready for the Lord to bring
with him ;f J the afflicted Church below, in earnest expectation
of the manifestation of those Sons of God, and, though
waiting for the redemption of the body, yet risen together
with Christ to that spiritual mind which is life and peace ;§§
all these were kept by the power of God unto the salvation,
which was ready to be revealed in the last time.|| || The mul
titude of the holy was thronging in, showing that no scant
dominion was forming ; but that it pleased the Father that,
in his vicegerent, aU fulness should dweU, and whatever is
perfect be united. Lifted above the hostile reach of human
might and dominion, above aU mean comparison with earthly
names of dignity, he sees all things already beneath his feet
in the world as it is, and aU things prospectively submissive
in the world as it is to be.^T[ Nor was Jesus, in his retire
ment above, unoccupied with the glories of his commission,
* I Cor. XV. 24. t 1 Thess. iv. 14.
I 1 Cor. XV. 51. 1 Thess. iv. 17 ; v. 10. § Eph. i. 10.
II 2 Thess. i. 9. f Heb. i. 6 ; Phil. ii. 10. ** Heb. xii. 28.
tt 2 Tim. ii. 12. U 1 Thess. iv. 14. §§ Rom. viii. 19, 23, 6.
IJIIlPet. i. 5. If1[ Eph. ii. 21, 22.

46 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
or indifferent to the recompense of his followers ; rather is he
preparing and allotting to the glorified there, and the toiling
here, the privileges and powers of the everlasting age which
shall take place of the thrones and principahties of this.
Over both portions of the community of Saints, the seen and
the unseen, the Heavenly and the earthly, he is the living
head, and his spirit fiUeth all.*
This vision of the Advent, with all the magnificent ideas
which gathered round it, seems to riie to have given rise to
the glorious " rapture" of this passage ; to have throAWi in,
at first, its light and darkness, and when applied now to its
interpretation, to disclose the dim outhne of its plan. And
though, in form, the anticipation itself was at least premature,
in spirit it receives, in the proAadence of the Gospel, one
prolonged fulfilment ; Mid many of its accompanying concep
tions reahze themselves perpetually. Though as yet Christ
comes not back to us, yet do the faithful go to him, and
there, not here, are for ever with the Lord. Though with
no visible sway he dwells on earth, he more and more rules
it from afar ; wins and blesses the hearts of its people, bends
their AviUs, sends his image to be their conscience ; and long
has he had a might and name among us, far above our prin
cipalities and powers, and made the cross superior to the
crown. And who can deny that he hath united in one the
family in heaven and earth, compelled death to fasten innu
merable ties of love between the kindred spheres, and trained
our rejoicing sympathies to see in creation but one society of
the good, whether they toil in service and exile here, or have
joined the colony above of the emancipated sons of God.
What then is the result of our inquiry into the scriptural
use of the word God ? That it is once applied, by way of
transference, to Christ, in a passage of whose honours Solomon
was the first proprietor. The views of the writer, and the
purpose of his letter, might make this secondary application
• Eph. ii. 23.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 47
of the Hebrew poem right and useful. But now, how mi
serably barren must be that religion, how unspeakably poor
that appreciation of Christ, which thinks to glorify him, by
throAving around him the cast-off dignities of a Jewish
prince ! AU these couArulsive efforts to lift up the rank of
Jesus, do but turn men from that greatness in him which is
truly divine. And after all they utterly fail — except in turn
ing into caricature the image of perfect holiness, and into a
riddle the statement of the grandest truths : for the scanty
evidence wiU not bear the strain that is put upon it. Nothing
short of centuries of indoctrination could empower so small
a testimony to sustain so enormous a scheme, and enable
ecclesiastics, by sleight of words, to metamorphose the sim
plicity of the Bible into the contradictions of the Athanasian
creed. Our remaining criteria may be very briefly applied.
(3.) Our next demand from a Trinitarian Bible is this ; that
as there are three persons equally entitled to the name God,
that word must never be limited to One of these, to the ex
clusion of the other two.
Yet do the Scriptures repeatedly restrict this title to the
Father so positively, that no more emphatic language re
mains, by which it would be possible to exclude all other
persons from the Godhead. If the texts we shaU adduce of
this class do not teach the personal unity of God, let it be
stated what terms would teach it; or whether we are to
consider it as a doctrine incapable of being revealed at all,
however true in itself. Meanwhile, I would ask, whether
the most skilful logician could propose a form of speech,
closing the Godhead against aU but the Father, more abso
lutely than these passages ; " There is but One God, the
Father."* "Father! . . .this is hfe eternal, to know Thee
THE ONLY TRUE GoD, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast
sent."t " The true worshippers shaU worship the Father
* 1 Cor. viii. 6. t John xvii. 3.

48 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
in spirit and in truth ; the Father seeketh such to worship
him ; God is a spirit, and they that worship him must wor
ship him in spirit and in truth." * " There is one God and
Father of ALL,"t
If such passages as these do not deny the Deity of aU
persons but One, it must be because the word " Father" is
used in them to denote the whole Trinity ; and if this be so,
then this name ceases to be distinctive of the first person in
the Godhead; no discriminative title of that person remains ;
it becomes impossible for language to characterize him ; and
the whole mechanism of speech, by which alone a verbal
revelation could disclose the distinctions in the divine na
ture, vanishes away. You must either confess the absence
of the distinctions themselves, or show the presence of dis
tinctive names.
(4.) Our next demand from a Trinitarian Bible would be
this ; that when the persons are named, by their distinctive
Divine titles, their equality will be recognized, nor any one of
them be represented as subordinate to another.
If an Athanasian received a divine commission to prepare
a Gospel, — a statement of the essentials of Christianity, — ^for
the use of some unevangehzed nation, he would not, we may
presume, habituaUy represent the Son, in his very highest
offices, as inferior to the Father, as destitute of independent
power, as without underived knowledge, and possessed only
of a secondary and awarded glory. At all events, these re
presentations would not be made Avithout instant explana
tion ; and the Avriter would accuse himself of rashly periling
the mysteries of God, if he committed himseK to such state
ments without guard or qualification, in broad unlimited
propositions. Yet these are precisely the phenomena of
Scripture. It is perpetuaUy maintained by Trinitarians,
that the miracles of Christ were acts of power, inexpli
cable except by proper Deity, united with his humanity ;
* John iv. 23, 24. t Eph. iv. 0.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 49
and that his superhuman wisdom was an expression of
that Divine Nature which blended itself with his mortal
constitution. If so, his miracles were wrought and his
teachings dictated by that element of his personality which
was God, — that is, by god the son ; * but this, our
Lord unequivocally denies ; " The Son can do nothing of
himself, but what he seeth the Father do ;" " I can of mine
own self do nothing."t " The words which I speak unto yoU>
I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth ih me,
he doeth the works ;" J " As the living Father hath sent me,
and I five by the Father ;"§ " The works which the Father
hath given me to perform.''|| These passages declare, with
all the precision of which language admits, that the wisdom
and the might which dwelt in Christ, were not those of the
Son, but those of the Father; the incarnate God had no
concern with them, for they are ascribed exclusively to him
who never became incarnate. Indeed we ask, and we ask in
vain, for any one divine act or inspiration ascribed by our
Lord to this humanized Deity with whom his mortal nature
was united : his teachings are one prolonged declaration that
the divinity that dweUeth Avithin him was the father. If
he felt within him a co-equal Godhead, how could he make
the unqualified affirmation, " My Father is greater than all ?"Tf
Or can a more specific disclaimer of Omniscience be framed
than this ; " Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no,
not the Angels who are in Hieaven, neither the son, but the
* This is the source to which our opponents in the present controversy have
explicitly referred the divine wisdom of Christ. Mr. Jones says, " Unaided by
the fulness of the Godhead which dwelt within him bodily," (did the Father, ac
cording to the Creeds, dwell in him bodily?) " his human soul was, necessarily,
finite in its operations." And again, " Nor could he, as we have aheady intimated,
know anything beyond the ken of a finite intelligence, except it were revealed to
him by the eternal word, with which he was mysteriously united." Christ says,
" as My father hath taught me, I speak these things." Was his " Father "
" the eternal Word I j" — See Lect. on the Proper Humanity, 8;c. pp. 221, 243.
t John V. 19,,30. I lb. xiv. 10. § Ib. vi. 57.
II Ib. V. 36. H lb. X. 29.
D

50 the proposition ' that CHRIST is GOD,'
Father ? "* Dr. Adam Clarke, unable to resist this overpower
ing text, expresses his suspicion that it is not altogether ge
nuine, and that the words, " neither the Son," should be ex
punged. It would appear that the temptations to "muti
lation " are felt by other parties than the Editors of the Im
proved Version. If it be said, that in the passages which
have been cited, the subordination alleged of Christ, refers
to his human nature, and his mediatorial office, then it fol
lows that his highest title may become the name of what is
called his lowest capacity ; and if this be so, no medium of
verbal proof remains by which to establish any higher nature.f
But can any supposition be more monstrous than this ; that
whenever our Lord used the familiar language of personality,
and discoursed with the peasants of GalUee, and the populace
of Jerusalem, he was perpetually performing a metaphysical
resolution of himself into natures, characters, and offices, and
putting forth, now a phrase from the divine, now another
from the human capacity; here a sentence from the pre-:
existent, and there another from the mediatorial compart
ment of his individuality ? And the absurdity is crowned, when
writings, crowded thus with mental reservations, are handed
over to us as a Revelation.
* Mark xiii. 32.
t With respect to the meaning of the name, " The Son," our opponents ap
pear to vary their statements in a way which serves the ends of controversy more
than those of truth. Mr. Jones says that in the passages which I have adduced,
the Trinitarian hypothesis " finds no hindrance whatever,'' because the word
Son denotes in them our Lord's human and Mediatorial character. Mr. Bates
denies that the word can have any such meaning. In defending the supreme
Divinity of Christ, as well as of the Holy Spirit, from what is incorrectly called
the Baptismal Form, ( " baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost," ) he begs us to observe that it is not into the name of
Christ the Mediator that converts are to be baptized. " Our Saviour's words,"
he affirms, " not only fail to sanction, but expressly exclude, such a construc
tion ; for he does not say, ' the name of the Father and of myself,' but ' of
THE SON,' that is, of THE ETERNAL WORD." Mr. Bates's Lecture is not pub
lished J but he is aware that this statement is correct. Since this name " the Son"
" expressly excludes" the Mediatorial character, and must mean the Eternal
Word, may we ask Mr. Bates, how it is the Eternal Word did not know the
day and the hour, and could do nothing of liimself ? — Mr. Jones's Lect. p. 242.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 51
(5.) Our last expectation from a Trinitarian Bible is this ;
that, since with the incarnation began and ended the peculiar
office of Christ's humanity, he wiU not be spoken of as man,
in relation to events before or after this period.
The glory which our Lord is thought to have possessed
before his entrance into this world, was the essential, unde
rived, inalienable glory, which belonged to his Divinity ; nor
was his highest nature yet blended with the suffering elements,
or capable of being described by the inferior titles, of his
mediatorial office, or his mortal existence. Yet is it under the
designation of son of man that he is described, according
to the prevalent interpretation, as pre-existent ; it is the son
of man who " was before," in that state, whither he was to
" ascend up again ;"* it was, " He that came down from
Heaven, — even the son of man, who is in Heaven."t What
ever doubt there may be respecting the precise import of this
title, it certainly cannot be thought to denote the separate
divine nature of Christ, as it existed before the incarnation.
In perfect consistency with this language, it appears that for
the restoration of this original glory, Jesus declares himself
wholly dependent on the Father; "And now, O Father,
glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had
Avith thee before the world was."J Here, if there be truth
in the Trinitarian hypothesis, it was the man that prayed for
a re-bestowal of that which the man never possessed, and
which the God neA'^er lost or could receive from another. It
must be admitted that no expression of dependence can be
more solemn and absolute, than that which pours itself forth
in prayer ; and if our Lord was able to resume his former
state, by the energy of his own Omnipotence, this act of
supphcation loses all semblance of sincerity. Yet, if here
his dependence on the Father is acknowledged to be impliedj
with what consistency can another passage, relating also to
* John Vi. 62; t H^- "'• 1^- * •'°''" ""'• ^¦
d2

52 THE proposition ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
his departure from earth to Heaven, be seized upon to prove
that he raised himself irova the dead, by that inextinguishable
and glorious power, which, nevertheless, he entreats the
Father to restore ? If his proper Deity brought back to life
the crucified humanity, it was a mockery for his manhood
to concern itself in prayer, for the restitution of the proper
Deity. That his resurrection is not ascribed to inherent
power of liis own, is evident, not merely from the habitual
language of the preachers of this great miracle, who declare
without reserve that " this Jesus hath God raised up •" * nor
from the words of Paul, who caUs himself " an Apostle by
Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the
dead-"\ but even from the very text (when read without
curtailment) which is adduced to prove the contrary ; " No
man taketh it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of myself;
I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it
again; this commandment have I received of my Father."% "The
Messiah is privileged to be immortal ; and my seeming fall by
hostile hands AviU neither disprove my claim to the office, nor
deprive it of this peculiar feature ; my mission gives me a right
to live, which wiU not be forfeited, though I exercise the right
to die. Let no one think that my hfe is forced from me
without consent of my own will ; you can no more take it
from me, than you can restore it to me. It is by the ar
rangement of the Father, whose will is also mine, that I take
my Messianic immortahty, not at once, but through a pro
cess of suffering and death."
If we pass forward, beyond the mortal life, to the final ex
altation of Christ, he is still presented to us undivested of his
humanity. Listen to the modern preachers of Orthodoxy,
and they will tell you that the judicial capacity of the Saviour
could be filled by Deity alone ; that to pass judgment on an
assembled World, to read the secrets of all hearts, and aUot
* Acts ii. 32. t Ca'- !• 1- % John x. IS.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 53
their final doom, are offices demanding nothing less than
Omniscience, Omnipotence, Independence.* But from the
Apostle Paul we learn, that " God wiU judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained ;"t and
our Lord himself says, " I can of mine own self do nothing ;
as I hear, I judge ;" J " The Father hath given him authority
to execute judgment also, because he is the son of man."§
Nor is it the presumption of heresy alone that esteems it
possible for God to confer on a human being the requisites
for so august an office ; for it is Archbishop TiUotson who
says, " We may promise to ourselves a fair and equal trial at
the judgment of the Great Day, because we shall then be
judged by a man like ourselves. Our Saviour and judge him
self hath told us,' that for this reason God hath committed all
judgment to the Son, because he is the Son of man. And this
in human judgments is accounted a great privilege, to be
judged by those who are of the same rank and condition with
ourselves, and who are hkely to understand best, and most
carefully to examine and consider all our circumstances, and
to render our case as if it were their own. So equitably
doth God deal with us, that we shaU be acquitted or con
demned by such a judge as, according to human measures, we
ourselves should have chosen, by one in our own nature, who
was made in aU things hke unto us, that only excepted which
would have rendered him incapable of being our judge, be
cause it would have made him a criminal hke ourselves. And
therefore the Apostle offers this as a firm ground of assurance
to us that God wiU judge the world in righteousness, because

* Wardlaw's Discourses, iv. p, 117.
t Acts xvii. 31.
t John V. 30.
§ John V. 29. It is very difficult to determine whether this class of passages
is rightly interpreted as referring to a final and collective judgment of mankind.
The discussion of this point does not properly belong to our present subject ; and
the assumption, for the sake of brevity of argument, of the usual interpretation,
does not imply assent to it.

54 THE proposition ' that CHRIST IS GOD,'
this judgment shall be administered by a man like ourselves ;
He hath, saith he, appointed a day wherein he wUl judge
the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath or
dained," &c,*
It is, then, in his humanity, that this high prerogative be
longs to Jesus. Yet are our opponents right in their asser
tion that, if there be any office attributed to him, requu"ing
divine perfection, it is this ; no higher exaltation remains, no
superior glory is referred to him, from which, with any better
reason, we can conclude his equality with the Father. Hu
man in this, he is human in all things.
Not one then of the proper characteristics of a Trinitarian
Bible can be found in the Scriptures ; and it is vain for the
Athanasian system to claim their support. This conclusion
can be subverted only in two ways ; either by showing, that

• Tillotson's Sermons, xlvi. Lond. 1704. pp. 549, 550.
I am aware that the name of this admirable writer is not likely to have much
weight with our opponents j for in speaking of Socinian writers he has indulged
in a spirit of justice, which the modern Orthodoxy of his Church appears to con
sider altogether old-fashioned. The Archbishop gives the following character of the
school which took its name from the Socini ; " And yet to do right to the writers
on that side, I must own, that generally they are a pattern of the fair way of dis
puting, and of debating matters of religion without heat and unseemly reflections
upon their adversaries, in the number of whom I did not expect that the Primitive
Fathers of the Christian Church would have been reckoned by them. They
generally argue matters with that temper and gravity, and with that freedom from
passion and transport, which becomes a serious and weighty argument ; and for the
most part they reason closely and clearly, with extraordinary guard and caution,
with great dexterity and decency, and yet with smartness and subtilty enough ; with
a very gentle heat, and few hard words ; — virtues to be praised wherever they are
found, yea even in an enemy, and very worthy our imitation." Yet the Archbishop,
as if aware that his candour might, by a very natural process, excite suspicion of
his Orthodoxy, raises himself above imputation by adding, ** In a word, they are the
strongest managers of a weak .cause, and which is ill-rfounded at the bottom that
perhaps ever yet meddled with controversy j insomuch that some of the Protestants,
and the generality of the Popish writers, and even of the Jesuits themselves, who
pretend to all the reason and subtilty in the world, are in comparison of them
but mere scolds and bunglers ; upon the whole matter, they have but this one
great defect, that they want a good cause and truth on their side j which if they
had, they have reason and \Vit and temper enough to defend it." — Sermon xliv.
p. 521.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 55
the criteria which I have laid down, for ascertaining the the
ology of the sacred writings, are unreasonable and incorrect ;
or by showing, that the application of them does not yield
any of the results which I have stated. I say any of the
results ; for if all the phenomena which I have assumed as
tests, would be necessary to give a Trinitarian complexion to
the Scriptures, the absence of even a portion of them would
decide the controversy against our opponents' scheme, what
ever difficulties might remain to embarrass our own. If the
list of criteria be thought materially wrong, let it be shown
where and why ; let it be explained how there can be a
verbal revelation of " distinctions," without any distinctive
names ; how, without such discriminative words, we are to
know, unless we assume the whole doctrine to be proved, when
the human nature of Christ speaks, or is spoken of, when
the divine ; how the poor, who first had the gospel preached
to them, ascertained this with the requisite degree of nicety ;
and above all, we would request to be furnished with a better
set of criteria ; and to be distinctly informed, what scriptu/ral
phenomena would be required, in order to disprove the Trini
tarian scheme. If, on the other hand, I have erred in the
application of my tests, let it be shown how far into the sub
stance of the argument the error extends. I cannot hope
that the exposition which I have given wUl be found free
from mistake and inaccuracy ; and let these be exposed with
such severity as they may deserve. Only let it be remem
bered, that the real question is not about the skiU of the ad-
Tocate, but respecting the truth of the scheme ; and when
aU the errors of the one have been cleared away, let it be
StiU asked, in what condition stands the eAndence of the
other. I have purposely taken my principal station on the
least favourable ground of the Unitarian argument; I have
exhausted the strongest passages adduced against our the
ology : and I have done this the more readily, because these
portions of spripture appear to possess an excellence and

56 THE PROPOSITION ' THAT CHRIST IS GOD,'
beauty, which are obscured by their unresisted controversial
repetition, and marred by the lacerations of Orthodoxy.
And may we not, without immodesty, ask any candid
Trinitarian, are these passages so very plain and easy, are
they so numerous^ are our interpretations so irrational and
ignorant, as to justify the imputation of deceit, of blasphemy,
of wilful mutilation of the word of God, which we are con
demned perpetually to hear? As to that excellent man, who
on Wednesday last, treated in this way our most cherished
convictions, and our most innocent actions, I have said no
thing in reply to his accusations ; for I well know them to
have failed in benevolence, only from excess of mistaken
piety. Had he a little more power of imagination, to put
himself into the feehngs and ideas of others, doubtless he
would understand both his Bible and his fellow-disciples,
better than he does. Meanwhile, I would not stir, with the
breath of disrespect, one of his grey hairs ; or by any severity
of expostulation disturb the peace of an old age, so affec
tionate and good as his. He and we must ere long pass to a
world, Avhere the film will fall from the eye of error, and we
shall know, even as we are known.*
In conclusion, then, I revert with freshened persuasion, to
the stat_ement with which I commenced. Jesus Christ of

* Mr. Stewart recommends to our imitation the conduct of a Jewish child who
became anxious to pray, like his companions, to Jesus Christ ; not, apparently, from
any impulse of the affections, or any convictions of duty ; but from a prudent
desire to run no risk of offending any possible power. " When I go to heaven and
see Jesus Christ, if he is God," calculates the boy " I shall be ashamed to look him
in the face." Is it possible that this principle of making sure of one's self-interest
without regard to sincerity and truth, can be published without a blush, from, a
Christian -pulpit 1 And is Christ so little known as yet, that such hollow wor-
sliip is thought to be a passport to his favour, instead of winning from him a re
buke that, in truth, must make ashamed ? Is the Infinite hearer of prayer, —
whatever be his name or names, — one who will turn away from a contrite and
trustful supplication of the soul, unless his titles are all set right upon the lips ?
What then would become of the millions of entreaties and of cries that daily rise
from the grieving earth to the blessed God ? Impossible ! 'twould make Heaven
a vast Dead-letter Office, for returning-|)etitions on account of a wrong address.

PROVED TO BE FALSE. 57
Nazareth, God hath presented to us simply in his inspired
humanity. Him we accept, not indeed as very God, but as
the true image of God, commissioned to show what no writ
ten doctrinal record could declare, the entire moral perfec
tions of Deity. We accept, — not indeed his body, not the
struggles of his sensitive nature, not the travail of his soul,
but his purity, his tenderness, his absolute devotion to the
great idea of right, his patient and compassionate warfare
against mispry and guilt, as the most distinct and beautiful
expression of the Divine mind. The peculiar office of Christ
is to supply a new moral image of Providence ; and every
thing therefore except the moral complexion of his mind, we
leave behind as human and historical merely, and apply to no
religious use. I have already stated in what way nature and
the gospel combine to bring before us the great o,bject of our
trust and worship. The universe gives us the scale of God,
and Christ his Spirit. We climb to the Infinitude of his
nature by the awful pathway of the stars, where whole forests
of worlds silently quiver here and there, like a small leaf of
light. We dive into his Eternity, through the ocean waves
of Time, that roll and solemnly break on the imagination, as
we trace the wrecks of departed things upon our present
globe. The scope of his Intellect, and the majesty of his
Rule, are seen in the tranquil order and everlasting silence
that reign through the fields of his Abolition. And the Spirit
that animates the whole is like that of the Prophet of Naza
reth ; the thoughts that fly upon the swift light throughout
creation, charged with fates unnumbered, are like the healing
mercies of One that passed no sorrow by. The government
of this world, its mysterious aUotments of good and ill, its
successions of birth and death, its hopes of progress and of
peace, each life of individual or nation, is under the adminis
tration of One, of whose rectitude and benevolence, whose
sympathy with all the holiest aspirations of our virtue and

58 THE PROPOSITION, ETC.
our love, Christ is the appointed emblem. A faith that
spreads around and within the mind a Deity thus sublime
and holy, feeds the light of every pure affection, and presses
Adth Omnipotent power on the conscience ; and our only
prayer is, that we may walk as children of such hght.

NOTES.

On Impossibility, Physical and Logical.
N order to break the force of all reasonings respecting the inherent
incredibility of the Trinitarian doctrine, the principle has been fre
quently advanced, that a statement which would be contradictory, if
made respecting an object within reach of our knowledge, cannot be
affirmed to be so, if applied to an object beyond our knowledge ;
since in the one case we have, in the other we have not, some ex
perience to guide our judgment, and serve as a criterion of truth.
Thus, it is said, to affirm of man, that his nature comprises more
than one personality, might, without presumption, be pronounced a
contradiction ; because we are familiar with his constitution ; but
knowing nothing of the mode of God's existence, except what he is
pleased to reveal, we cannot prove the same statement to be con
tradictory, when made respecting his essence.
This rule, like all the Trinitarian reasonings on this subject, de
rives its plausibility from an ambiguous use of terms. It has one
sense in which it is true, but inapplicable to this subject ; and another,
in which it is applicable, but false. The rule is sound or unsound,
according to the meaning which we assign to the word contradiction ;
a word which, in other arguments besides this, has made dupes of
men's understandings. There are obAriously two kinds of contra
diction : — one relating to questions of fact, as when we say, it is
contradictory to experience that ice should continue solid in the fire ;
the other, relating to questions of mere thought, as when we say, it
is contradictory to affirm that force is inert, or that the diameters of
a circle are unequal. The former of these suggests something at
variance with the established order of causes and effects, and constitutes
a natural or physical impossibUity ; the latter suggests a combination
of irreconcileable ideas, constituting a logical or metaphysical impos
sibility, or more properly, a seZ^-contradiction,
It is almost self-evident that, in order to pronounce upon a physical
impossibility, we must possess experience, and have a knowledge of

60 NOTES.
the properties of objects and successions of events external to us j
and that to pronounce on a metaphysical impossibility, we require
only to have the ideas to which it refers ; of the coincidence or in
compatibility of which with each other, our own consciousness is the
sole judge. When I deny that ice wiU remain frozen in the fire, I do
so after frequent observation of the efifect of heat in reducing bodies,
especially water, from the solid to the liquid form ; and in reliance on
the intuitive expectation which all men entertain, of like results from
like causes. Experience is the only justification of this denial ; and
a priori, no belief could be held on the subject ; a person introduced
for the first time to a piece of ice and to fire, could form no conjec
ture about the changes which would follow on their juxtaposition.
And as our judgment in such cases has its origin, so does it find its
limits, in experience ; and should it be affirmed that, in a distant
planet, ice did not melt on the application of fire, the right of denial
would not extend to this statement, because our knowledge does not
extend to the world to which the phenomenon is referred. The natural
state of mind, on hearing such an announcement, might be expressed
as follows ; " If what you affirm be true, either some new cause must
be called into operation, counteracting the result which else would
follow ; or, some of the causes existing here are withheld : the se
quence, I am compeUed to believe, would be the same, unless the an
tecedents were somehow difl^erent. Were the fact even a miracle, this
would still be true ; for the introduction of a new or difierent divine
volition would be in itself a change in the previous causes. But! am
not authorized to pronounce the alleged fact impossible ; its variance
from all the analogies of experience, justifies me in demanding ex
traordinary evidence in its favour ; but I do not say that, in the in
finite receptacle of causes unknown to the human understanding,
there cannot exist any from which such an efiiect might arise."
There is then, 1 conceive, no physical impossibility, which might not
be rendered credible by adequate evidence ; there is nothing, in the
constitution of our minds, to forbid its reception under certain con
ditions of proof sufficiently cogent. It simply violates an expectation
which, though necessary and intuitive before the fact, is not incapa<
ble of correction by the fact ; it presents two successive phenomena,
dissimilar instead of similar ; and between two occurrences, allocated
on different points of time, however much analogy may fail, there
can be no proper contradiction. The improbability that both should
be true, may attain a force almost, but never altogether infinite ; a

NOTES. 61
force, therefore, surmountable by a greater. The thoughts can at
least entertain the conception of them both ; nor is it more difficult to
form the mental image of a piece of ice unmelted on the fire, than of
the same substance melting away.
It is quite otherwise with a metaphysical impossibility or proper
contradiction. The variance is, in this case, not between successive
phenomena, but between synchronous ideas. We deny that the dia
meters of a circle are unequal, without experience, without measure
ment, and just as confidently respecting a circle in the remotest space,
as respecting one before our eyes. As soon as we have the ideas of
" circle," " diameter," " equality," this judgment necessarily fol
lows. Our own consciousness makes us aware of the incompatibihty
between the idea expressed by the word "circle," and that expressed
by the phrase " unequal diameters ;" the former word being simply
the name of a curve having equal diameters. The variance, in this case,
is not between two external occurrences, but between two notions
within our own minds ; and simply to have the notions is to perceive,
their disagreement. It would be vain to urge upon us that, possibly, in
regions of knowledge beyond our reach, circles with unequal dia
meters might exist : we should reply, that the words employed were
merely the symbols of ideas in our consciousness, between which we
felt agreement to be out of the question ; that so long as the words
meant what they now mean, this must, continue to be the casej and
that if there were any one, to whom the same sound of speech sug
gested a truth instead of a falsehood, this would only show, that the
terms did not stand for the, same things with him as with us. It will
be observed that, in this case, we cannot even attain any conception
of the thing affirmed ; no mental image can be formed of a circle
with unequal diameters ; make the diameters unequal, and it is a
circle no more.
A further analysis might, I believe, reduce more nearly under the
same class a physical and a metaphysical impossibility ; and might
show that some of the language in which I have endeavoured to con
trast them, is not strictly correct. But the main difference, which the
present argument requires, (viz., that no experience can reconcile the
terms of a logical contradiction,) would only be brought out more
clearly than ever. I am aware, for instance, that the distinction which
I have drawn between my two examples, — that the latter deals with
ideas within us, the former with facts without us, — does not penetrate to
the roots of the question ; that external phenomena are nothing to us.

62 NOTES,
till they become internal ; nothing, except through the perceptions
and notions we form of them ; and that the variance therefore, even
in the case of a physical impossibility, must lie between our own
ideas. I may accordingly be reminded, that the notion of " melting
with fire" is as essentiaUy a part of our idea of " ice," as the notion
of " equal diameters" is of our idea of a " circle ;" so that the final
appeal might, with as much reason, be made to our own conscious
ness in the one case as in the other. Might it not be said, " so long
as the word ice retains its meaning, the proposition in question is a
self-contradiction ; for that word signifies a certain substance that
will melt on the application of heat ?" This is true ; and resolves
the distinction which I have endeavoured to explain into this form :
the word " ice" may be kept open to modifications of meaning, the
word " circle" cannot. And the reason is obvious. The idea of the
material substance is a highly complex idea, comprising the notion of
many independent properties, introduced to us through several of our
senses : such as solidity, crystalline form, transparency, coldness,
smoothness, whiteness, &c. ; the quality of fusion by heat is only one
among many of the ingredients composing the conception ; and should
this even be found to be accidental, and be withdrawn, the idea
would still retain so vast a majority of its elements, that its identity
would not be lost, nor its name undergo dismissal. But the notion of
the circle is perfectly simple ; being wholly made up of the idea of
equal diameters, and of other properties dependent on this ; so that
if this be removed, the whole conception disappears, and nothing re
mains to be denoted by the word. Hence, a physical contradiction
proposes to exclude from our notion of an object or event one out of
many of its constituents, — an alteration perfectly akin to that which
further experience itself often makes ; a metaphysical contradiction
denies of a term all, or the essential part, of the ideas attached to it.
The materials for some sort of conception remain in the one case,
vanish in the other.
Now the terms employed in the statement of the doctrine of the
Trinity are oJsifracZ words ; " person," " substance," "being:" and
the numerical words " One" and " Three," are all names for very
simple ideas ; not indeed (except the two last) having the precision
of quantitative and mathematical terms ; but haAdng none of that
complexity which would allow them to lose any meaning, and yet keep
any ; to change their sense without forfeiting their identity. The ideas
which we have of these words are as much within ourselves, and as

NOTES. 63
capable of comparison by our own consciousness, as the ideas be
longing to the words angle and triangle ; and when, on hearing the
assertion that there are three persons in one mind or being, I proceed
to compare them, I find the word " person'' so far synonymous with
the word " mind" or " being,'' that the self-contradiction would not
be greater, were it affirmed that there are three angles in one yavla—r
the mere form of speech being varied to hide the absurdity from eye
and ear. To say that our ideas of the words are wrong, is vain ; for
the words were invented on purpose to denote these ideas ; and if
they are used to denote other ideas, which we have not, they are va
cant sounds. To assert that higher beings perceive this proposition
to be true, resJly amounts to this ; that higher beings speak English,
(or at aU events not Hebrew, or Hellenistic Greek,) but have recast
the meaning of these terms ; and to say that we shall hereafter find
them to be true, is to say that our vocabulary will undergo a revolu
tion ; and words used now to express one set of ideas, will hereafter
express some other. Meanwhile, to our present minds all these future
notions are nonentities ; and using the words in question Ln the only
sense they have, they declare a plain logical contradiction. Hence,
every attempt to give consistency to the statement of the Trinity, has
broken out into a heresy ; and the Indwelling and the Swedenborgian
schemes, the modal Trinity of Walhs and Whately, the tritheistic
doctrine of Dr. W. Sherlock, are so many results of the rash pro
pensity to seek for clear ideas in a form of unintelligible or contradic
tory speech. So^^j ^Keyxos aJturTtttS t5 ttSs irepl 06oS \4yeiy.
B.
On the Hebrew Plural Elohim.
The perseverance with which this argument from the Hebrew plural
is repeated, only proves the extent to which learning may be degraded
into the service of a system. The use of a noun, plural in form,
but singular in sense, and the subject of a singular verb, to denote
the dignity of the person named by the noun, is known to be an
idiom common to all the Semitic languages. Every one who can
read a Hebrew Bible is aware that this pecuUarity is not confined
to the name of God ; and that it occurs in many passages, which
render absurd the inference deduced from it. For instance, from
Ezek. xxix. 3, it would follow, that there is a plurahty of natures
or " distinctions" in the crocodile, the name of which is there found

64 NOTES.
in the plural, with a singular adjective and singular verb; —
VIN'' J\n^ Xy^rf bnan a^jnn, " The great crocodile that lieth
in the midst of his rivers." So in Gen. xxiv. 51, the plural form
Qijnjt, Lord, so constantly used of a human individual, is apphed
to Abraham: yyTfi^ pb ntfi* ^"^/^1. "And she shaU be a wife
to the son of thy masters," i. e. thy master Abraham. It is unne
cessary to multiply. instances, which any Hebrew Concordance will
supply in abundance. I subjoin one or two' additional authorities
from eminent Hebraists, whose theological impartiality is above sus
picion. Schroeder says : " Hebrsei sermonis proprietas, qua Pluvalis, tarn
masculinus, quam femininus, usurpari potest de und re, quae in suo
genere magna est et quodammodo exceUens ; ut Q'>jy>, maria; pro
TMirimagno; O^JD, dracones, -pro dracone prcegrandi; C^HK. domini,
pro domino magno etpotente ; 0^^7}^. numina, pro numine admodum Co-
Undo ; D*^y^p, sancti, pro deo sanctissimo ; D^QTl^, bestiee, pro bestid
grandi, qualis est elephas; r\'Ot2 plaga, ^ro plagd gravi ; r\yiT\^, flu-
mina, ^rojlumine maigno." N. G. Schroederi Institutiones ad fun-
damm. ling. Hebr. Reg. 100. not. i.
Simonis. " Plur. adhibetur de Deo vero ; ad insinuandam, ut
multis visum est, personarum divinarum pluralitatem ; quod etiam
alii, maxime Judsei, rectfe negant : quoniam vel ibi in plurali ponitur,
ubi ex mente Theologorum de xmk modo triadis sacrse personal sermo
est, velut Psi xiv. 7, adeoque gentium unus ahquis deus pluraliter
OTl^N dicitur, ut Astarte 1 Reg. xi. 33 ; Baal muscarum et quidem
is, qui Ekronse colebatur 2 Reg. i. 2, 3. Denique sanctam triadem
si D^n^M significasset, multo notior usuque adeo linguae quotidiano
tritior sub prisco foedere hsec doctrina fuisset, quam sub novo. Ex
nostr^ sententid hie plur. indicio est, linguam Hebrseam sub Poly-
theismo adolevisse ; eo vero profligate plur. hie in sensum abiit ma-
jestatis et dignitatis." Eichhorn's Joh. Simonis' Lexicon Hebr. in
verb, nbx- P- l^O.
Buxtorf. ?Tl^J^' plurale pro singulari: Lex. Chaldaicum, Talmu-
dicum et Rabbinicum : in verb.
Gesenius. D^H^N pluralis excellentice : Gott, von der Einheit ; wie
D''J"»N. ?^^i'l- Hebr. und Chald. Handworterbuch : in verb.
Even Lewis Capel, in his defence of this verbal indication of the
Trinity, admits the absurdity of using the argument with Anti-trinita-
rians; " Siquis ergo vellet adversus Judseos, Samosatenianos, aliosque
sanctissimse Trinitatis prsefractos hostes, urgere hoc argumentura,

NOTES. 65
eoque uno et nudo uti, frustra omnino esset : ni prius demonstraret
falsam esse quam illi causantur phraseos istius rationem, evinceretque
earn in voce istd, DTl^N locum habere non posse : quod forte non
usque adeo facile demonstrari posset. Atque eatenus tantiim jure
possunt suggiUari Theologi, si argumento illo nudo, et solo, non
aliS, ratione fulto, utantur ad Judseos et Samosatenianos coarguendos
et convincendos ; non vero si eo utantur ad piorum fidem jam ante
aliunde stabUitam, porro augendam atque fovendam." Lud. Cappelli
Critica Sacra. De nom. D^H/N Diatriba, c. vii. Ed. 1630, p. 676,
May we ask of our learned opponents, how long the mysterious
contents of this plural have been ascertained .' Who was the disco
verer, forgotten now by the ingratitude of Learning, but doubtless
living StiU in the more faithful memory of Orthodoxy ? And why
those of the Christian Fathers, who devoted themselves to Hebrew
literature, were not permitted to discern the Trinitarianism of the
Israelitish syntax ? They had not usually so dull an eye for verbal
wonders. The celebrated Brahmin, Rammohun Roy, whose knowledge ot
oriental languages can be as little disputed, I presume, as the sin
gular greatness and simplicity of his mind, says : "It could scarcely
be believed, if the fact were not too notorious, that such eminent
scholars . . . could be liable to such a mistake, as to rely on this verse
(Gen. i. 26. And God said, let us make man in our image, after our
likeness,) as a ground of argument in support of the Trinity. It shows
how easily prejudice, in favour of an already acquired opinion, gets
the better of learning." And he proceeds to argue on " the idiom
of the Hebrew, Arabic, and of almost aU Asiatic languages, in which
the plural number is often used for the singular to express the respect
due to the person denoted by the noun." Rammohun Roy was, I
believe, the first to call attention to the fact, obvious to any one who
wiU read a few pages of the Koran, that Mohammed, whose belief
in the strict personal Unity of the Divine Nature gave the leading
feature to his rehgion, constantly represents God as speaking in these
plural forms. I extract a few instances from Sale's Koran. Lond.
1734. " God said ; when we said unto the angels, worship Adam," &c.
"God said; and we said, O Adam, dwell thou," &c. — Ch. ii.
p. 31.
" We formerly created man of a finer sort of clay ; . . . and we have
created over you seven heayens ; and we are not neghgent of what

66 NOTES.
we have created : and we send down rain from heaven by measure ;
and we cause it to remain on the earth," &c. " And we revealed our
orders unto him, saying ; . . . speak not unto me in behalf of those who
have been unjust." " God wiU say, did ye think that we had created
you in sport," &c. — Ch. xxiv. pp. 281, 282, 287.
In the very passages in which Mohammed condemns the doctrine
of the Trinity, the same form abounds : " We have prepared for such
of them as are unbelievers a painful punishment." " IFe have re
vealed our will unto thee.'' " We have given thee the Koran, as we
gave the psalms to David." " O ye who have received the Scrip
tures, exceed not the just bounds in your religion ; neither say of
God any other than the truth. VerUy Christ Jesus, the Son of Mary,
is the apostle of God, and his Word, which he conveyed into Mary,
and a spirit proceeding from him. Believe therefore in God and his
apostles, and say not. There are three Gods : forbear this ; it wiU
be better for you. God is but one God, Far be it from him that he
should have a Son ! Unto him belongeth whatsoever is in heaven
and on earth. — Ch. iv. pp. 80, 81.

On the Prophecy of an " Immanuel."
For the interpretation which identifies " the Virgin " with the
city of Jerusalem, I am indebted to Rammohun Roy, who has justi
fied it by reasons which appear to me satisfactory. See his Second
Appeal to the Christian Public. Appendix II. Calcutta, 1821. p. 128
seqq. The use of the definite article with the word (nD!?J^n)
points out the Vir^n as some known object, who would be recognised
by King Ahaz, without further description. It wiU hardly be main
tained that this prince was so familiar with evangelical futurities, as
to understand the phrase of Mary of Nazareth. Nor does it seem
at aU likely that either the prophet's wife, or any .other person not
previously the subject of discourse, should be thus obscurely and
abruptly described. But if " the Virgin" was a weU-understood mode
of speaking of Jerusalem, Ahaz would be at no loss to interpret the
allusion. And that this metaphor was one of the common-places of
Hebrew speech, in the time of the prophets, might be shown from
every part of their writings. " Thou shalt be built, O virgin of
Israel : thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go
forth in the dances of them that make merry."* " Then shall the
* Jer. xxxi. 4.

NOTES. 6/
Virgin rejoice in the dance." * " The Lord hath trodden the Virgin,
the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-press." f And Isaiah himself
uses this expression respecting a foreign city : " Thou shalt no more
rejoice, O thou oppressed Virgin, daughter of Sidon." t And ex
pressing to the mvader Sennacherib, the contempt which God autho-
rised Jerusalem to entertain for his threats, he says, " The Virgin,
the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn."§
It should be remembered, however, that the estabhshment of this
interpretation is by no means necessary to the proof of invalidity in
the Trmitarian apphcation of the prophecy. The reasons which I
have adduced, together with the use in a neighbouring passage, of
the phrase "over the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel," || appear
to me to point out some prince as the Virgin's Son. But many
eminent interpreters consider him as only one of the Prophet's own
children, " whom the Lord had given him, for signs and for wonders
in Israel."^ And the first four verses of the next chapter certainly
speak of Isaiah's son in a manner so strikingly similar, as to give a
strong support to this interpretation. But whatever obscurity there
may be in the passage, the one clear certainty ijj it is this ; that it
does not refer to any person to be born seven or eight hupcjred years
after the delivery of the prediction, And it is surely unworthy of
any educated Theologian, possessing a full knowledge of the embar
rassments attending the Trinitarian appeal to such texts, stiU to re
iterate that appeal, without any specification of the made in which
he proposes to sustain it, Is it maintaine.d that Jesus of Nazareth
was the primary object of the prophecy ? Or wiU any one be found
deliberately to .defend the hypothesis of a double sense '} Or must
we fear, that a lax and unscrupulous use is often made of aUusions
which i?pun4 well in the popular ear, without any distinct estimate of
their re,^ argurQgi;itative value }
It is no doubt convenient to cut the knot of every difficulty by the
appeal tQ inspiration; to esy, e. g., that Matthew appUep the Word
Emmanuel to Christ, and with a correctness which his infeUibUity
forbids us to impeach. But are our opponents prepared to abide by
this rule, to prove it,8 truth, to apply it, without qualifieation, to the
New Testament citations from the Hebrew Scriptures ? Will they,
for instance, find and expouijjd, for the benefit of the church, the
prophecy stated by Matthew to have been fulfiUed in Jesus, " He
• Jer. xxxi. 13. f Lam- i- 15. t I^- """'¦ 12.
§ 2 Kings xix. 21. || Is. viu. 8. If Is. viii. 18.
b2

68 NOTES.
shall be CaUed a Nazarene ?"* The words are declared to have
been " spoken by the prophets." But they are not discoverable in
any of the canonical prophesies : so that either the Evangelist took
them from some inspired work now lost, — in which case the canon is
imperfect, and Christianity is deprived of the benefit of certain pre
dictions intended for its support ; or, he has cited them so incorrectly
from our existing Scriptures, that the quotation cannot be identified.
I cannot refrain from expressing my amazement, that those, whose
constant duty it is to expound the New Testament writings should be
conscious of no danger to their authority, when it is strained so far aa
to include an infallible interpretation of the Older Scriptures.
D.
On Isaiah ix. 6.
The translation of this passage is not unattended with difficulties :
and many of the versions which learned men have proposed leave
nothing on which the Trinitarian argument can rest. It is clear that
divines ought to establish the meaning of the verse, before they rea
son from its theology. I subjoin a few of the most remarkable
translations. The Septuagint ; " And his name shall be caUed ' Messenger of
a great counsel ;' for I will bring peace upon the rulers, and health
to him."
The Targum of Jonathan ; " And by the Wonderful in counsel,
by the Mighty God who endureth for ever, his name shall be caUed
the Messiah (the anointed), in whose days peace shall be multiphed
upon us." The foUowing aUusion to the titles in this passage from
Talmud Sanhedrim, 1 1 ch., wiU show to whom they were applied by
Jewish commentators : " God said, let Hezekiah, who has five
names, take vengeance on the king of Assyria, who has taken on
himself five names also."
Grotius ; " Wonderful ; CounseUor of the Mighty God ; Father
of the future age ; Prince of Peace."
Editor of Calmet ; " Admirable, CounseUor, Divine Interpreter,
Mighty, Father of Future time. Prince of Peace."
Bishop Lowth ; " Wonderful, CounseUor, the Mighty God, the
Father of the everlasting age, the Prince of Peace."
Many other translations might be added : and even if the pro-
• Matt. ii. 23.

NOTES. 69
phecy were not obviously spoken of Hezekiah, we might reasonably
ask. what doctrinal certainty can be found in so uncertain an an
nouncement ? And how is the fact accounted for that, important as
it was to the apostles' success to make the largest possible use of
their ancient scriptures, not one of them ever alludes to this pre
diction ? E.
On the Proem of John.
The objection which is most commonly entertained to the forego
ing interpretation of the Proem of St.- John's Gospel, arises from the
strength and vividness of the personification of the Logos. A real
personality it is said, must be assumed, in order to satisfy the terms
of the description, which could never have been applied by the
apostle to a mere mental creation.
I am by no means insensible to the force of this objection : though
I think it of less weight than the difficulties which beset every other
explanation. And it appears to be greatly relieved by two considera
tions ; first, that a considerable part of the difficulty arises from a
want of correspondence between the Greek and the English usage of
language ; secondly, that this personification did not originate with
the apostle, but had become, by slow and definable gradations, an
established formula of speech.
1 . The first of these considerations I wiU introduce to my readers
in the words of Archbishop Whately : " Our language possesses one
remarkable advantage, with a view to this kind of Energy, in the
constitution of its genders. AU nouns in English, which express ob
jects that are reaUy neuter, are considered as strictly of the neuter
gender ; the Greek and Latin, though possessing the advantage
(which is wanting in the languages derived from them) of having a
neuter gender, yet, lose the benefit of it, by fixing the masculine or
feminine genders upon many nouns denoting things inanimate ;
whereas in English, when we speak of any such object in the mascu
line or feminine gender, that form of expression at once confers
personality upon it. When ' Virtue,' e. g. or our ' Country' are
spoken of as females, or ' Ocean ' as a male, &c., they are, by that
very circumstance, personified ; and a stimulus is thus given to the
imagination, from the very circumstance that in calm discussion or
description, all of these would be neuter ; whereas in Greek or Latin,
as in French or Italian, no such distinction could be made. The

70 NOTES.
employment of ' Virtus,' and 'kpt-r^ in the feminine gender, can con
tribute, accordingly, no animation to the style, when they could not,
without a solecism, be employed otherwise." *
Now let any one read the English Proem of John, and ask him
self, how much of the appearance of personality is due to the occur
rence, again and again, of the pronouns " he," " him," " his,"
applied to the Logos ; let him remember that this much is a mere
imposition practised unavoidably upon him by the idiom of our lan
guage, and " gives no animation to the style" in the original; and I
am persuaded that the violence of the personification will be tamed
down to the apprehension of a very moderate imagination. It is true
that the Ijogos does not, by this allowance, become impersonal ;
other parts of the personal conception remain, in the acts of creation
and of iUumination, attributed to this Divine Power : and hence the
substitution of the neuter pronouns " it " and " its ; " for the mas
culines " he," " him," " his," though useful, provisionally, for
shaking off the Enghsh illusion to which I have referred, cannot be
allowed to represent the sentiment of the passage faithfuUy.
There appears to be another psculiarity of our language and modes
of thought, as contrasted with the Greek, which exaggerates, in the
Common Translation, the force of the personification. The English
language leaves to an author a free choice of either gender for his
personifications : and the practical efi'ect of this has been, that the
feminine prosopopeia has been selected as most appropriate to ab
stract qualities and attributes of the mind ; and although instances
are not wanting of masculine representations of several of the human
passions, the figure is felt, in such cases, to be much more vehement
and more entirely beyond the limits of prose, than the employment
of the other gender. What imagination would naturally think of
Pity, of Fear, of Joy, of Genius, of Hope, as male beings ? It may
be doubted whether our most imaginative prose writers present any
example of a male personification of an attribute : I can call to mind
instances in the writings of Milton and Jeremy Taylor, of this figure
so apphed to certain material objects, as the Sun, the Ocean, but not
to abstract qualities or modes, unless when a conception is borrowed
(as of " Old Time ") from the ancient mythology. And accordingly,
to an Enghsh reader, such a style of representation must always ap
pear forced and strange. But a writer in a language like the Greek
• Elements of Rhetoric, part iii. ch. ii. § 3.

NOTES. 71
cannot choose the sex of his personifications ; it is decided for him.
by the gender already assigned to the abstraction, about which he is
occupied ; and both he and his readers must accommodate their
conceptions to this idiomatic necessity. In the German, the Moon
is masculine ; the Sun feminine ; and every reader of that language
knows the strange incongruities which, to English perceptions, this
pecuharity introduces into its poetical imagery. For example.
there is a German translation of Mrs. Barbauld's Hymns in prose ;
a passage of which, rendered literally into Enghsh would read
thus : " I will show you what is glorious. The Sun is glorious.
When She shineth in the clear sky, when She sitteth on the bright
throne in the heavens, and looketh abroad over all the earth, She is
the most exceUent and glorious creature the eye can behold. The Sun
is glorious ; but He that made the Sun is more glorious than She."
Again ; " There is the Moon, bending His bright horns, like a sUver
bow. and shedding His mOd light, hke Uquid silver, over the blue
firmament." In the Greek literature, accordingly, the masculine per
sonification of abstractions is as easy and common as the feminine ;
and the former occurs in many instances in which an English author,
having free choice, would prefer the latter : thus in Homer, Fear is a
son of Mars :
OToj ih~^poTo\oiybs''Kpyis irSKefiSi/Se fjteTeurt,
Tiji Si ^6pos,.^i\os mos, ti/»o Kpartp'os nal OT«pi8^t,
"EffTTCTO,*
But in Collins, a nymph :
" O Fear ! .
Thou who such weary lengths hast past,
Where wilt thou rest^ mad nymph I at last ! " f
And SO in Coleridge :
" Black Horror screamed, and all her goblin rout
Diminish'd shrunk from the more withering scene." J
-Pindar must make Envy a masculine power :
" Mil ffaKeria fie \t6a rpaxfi <pB6vas." §
Coleridge describes thus the same feehng, giving itself speech :
"  Shall Slander squatting near,
Spit her cold venom in a dead man's ear ?" ||
* II. xiii. 298. f Ode to Fear. X Sonnet xii.
§ blymp. viii. 73. || Juvenile Poems, p 59.

72 NOTES.
And common as it is for English writers to give a feminine personi
fication to Wisdom and Genius, Philo expressly says they are of the
masculine gender (t^s S^^ctbj ytveSs mtis koI Aoyiir/ibs) * ; and the hus
band of the other faculties of the soul.
The divine attributes are, I think, uniformly represented by the
pronoun she, in imaginative religious writers, hke Bishop Taylor ;
mercy, justice, goodness, thus assume, in the works of that great
man, the same form as Wisdom in the book of Proverbs ; and it
may be doubted whether, if the apostle John had written in the
English language and with English feelings, the personification in
his proem might not have presented itself in the same shape. Any
one who will read over the passage, with this idea, wiU find. I think.
that the figure, thus modified, appears by no means inconceivable.
Have we not, in the peculiarity of our language to which I have aUuded,
one reason why English theologians appear to have felt more diffi
culty than foreign divines in seizing the true idea of the Logos ; and
why the disposition to consider it as an objective and absolute Persoix
has been much more prevalent, among all parties here, than on the
Continent ?
2. But a more important consideration, for the understanding of
this Proem, is this : that the Apostle is not the originator of the
conception respecting the Logos, but simply adopted it in the shape,
towards which it had been organizing itself for centuries. Three
successive states of the idea can be traced : in the Old Testament, it
appears (in Prov. viii.) as a mere transient personification of Divine
Wisdom ; in the Apocryphal Books of Ecclesiasticus and of Wis
dom, it presents itself in a more permanent and mythical character ;
and, in the writings of Philo, it assumes so embodied and hypo-
statized a form, as to perplex the simplicity of his Monotheism. From
his writings, the whole Proem of Jus contemporary John (except where
the Baptist and Jesus are mentioned by name) might be constructed.
This coincidence in phraseology so remarkable, cannot be considered
as accidental. Is it thought impossible that John should say of an
attribute of God, that it was with him from the first ? We reply,
Philo does say so ; calling Goodness the most ancient of God's qua-
hties; Wisdom older than the universe ; Logos, the Assessor (TrdpeSpos
and owaSis) of God prior to all creations, a needful companion of
Deity, as the joint originator with him of all things. f And the Son
• De vicl. p. 838. D.
+ Quod Deus sit immut. p. 309. A. De charit. p. 609. A. De Temul. p. 2ti,
D. Leg. Alleg. p. 93. B.

NOTES. 73
of Sirach says, in his personification of Wisdom : " I am come out
of the mouth of the most High, first-bom before aU creatures:"
" He created me from the beginning, and before the world."* Is it
said that such a statement is unworthy of Revelation ? We reply, it
occurs in the writings of Solomon : " The Lord possessed me in the
beginning of his way, before his works of old ;" " then I was by
him, as one brought up with him :"t where the feminine form
(vv. 2, 3) totaUy excludes the idea of Wisdom being any thing more
than a personification. Is it thought impossible that an attribute of
God should be called the only-begotten Son of God ? We turn to
Philo. and find this same Logos entitled the most Ancient Son of
God (6 wpf aPiraros vihs Bfov) , the First-begOtten (iirpurSyovos). Is it
inconceivable that, through this transforming energy of God, those
who received it should be said to become Sons of God ? Philo says,
" If you are not yet worthy to be denominated a Son of God, be
earnest to put on the graces of his First-begotten Logos. — the most
ancient angel, and, we may say, an archangel of various titles :"
" for if we are not prepared to be esteemed children of God. we
may at aU events be thus related to the most Holy Logos, his eternal
Image ; for the most Ancient Logos is the Image of God."I
As all Theological considerations, suggested by heretics, are apt to
be dismissed with mere expressions of surprise and contempt, I am
happy to refer, in confirmation of the foregoing views, in the most es
sential particulars, to an Orthodox Writer, whose accurate and various
learning, and sound and grave judgment, have given him a merited
pre-eminence among the Commentators on the Gospel of John. I al
lude to Professor Liicke, whose " Commentar uber das Evangelium
des Johannes" I have had the opportunity, since the delivery of this
Lecture, of consulting. I wish that I could lay before my readers
the whole of his admirable history of the rise and progress of the
idea of the Logos ; but I must content myself with translating a few
brief extracts. §
" The origin and germ," he says, " of the theological Formula of
* Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 5, 12. f Prov. viii. 22, 30.
J kji* laiSirra /teWoi rvyxivr) t\s ajK^xP^"" ^'' "'^s 9eoC irpoaayopeifa'Sai, airai-
Safe KotrpLttaBai Karli r&v irpttn-6ryovov avrov \6riov, rdv S^^eAoy irpia^lrraTov, iis
apxayy4\or iroKviiiiviutv irrdpxovTa  Kal yvip et ixifira {icaral Seou iraTSes vofil-
f«<rflai yty6vanev, aWa Toi Trjs iXSlov eixSiios airrov \6you rov ieparirov. fltoO •yop
ciK^i', K6yo! 6 Tipea&tnaros. De conf. ling. p. 341. B. C.
§ I have an impression of having seen advertised an English translation of tins
work J but I have no means of ascertaining the fact.

74 NOTES.
the Logos, are furnished in the Canonical Hebrew Books (aUuding
to certain passages, especially Prov, viii. which he has been showing
to be mere poetical personifications of Divine Attributes) . It ob
tained its fuU development in the Jewish Theology, in the writings
of the Alexandrine PhUo, And, in an intermediate state of forma
tion, we find it in the Greek Apocryphal books of the Old Tes
tament." Liicke examines the conception in all these stages ; and, from his
analysis of PhUo's mode of thought, I extract the following :
" According to PhUo. God, in his interior Essence, is incon
ceivable, occult, sohtary (das absolute), self-comprised, and without
relations to any other existence. . . Although the absolute cause of
all that is, God cannot, in his own essence, and immediately, ope
rate on the universe, either in the way of creation, preservation, or
government. Concealed in his absolute separation, God is manifest
and an object of knowledge in the world, only through his Powers
(Swti/ieis) : these, external forces of God in the universe, apart from
his absolute essence, are the necessary media of his presence in the
universe. . . .These divine Smdpius PhUo caUs sometimes Ideas, some
times Angels, sometimes Logoi. " This identification of notions,
powers, ideas, angels, logoi, which is frequent in the writings of Philo,
is of great importance for the right apprehension of his doctrine of
the Divine Logos. This Logos he considers in a twofold relation.
Sometimes he regards it as inherent (immanent), and refers it to him
as a capacity (facultativ) ; when it is the Divine vovs, analogous to
the human. But this attributive conception gives way to that of the
\iyos ivSidBeros, as a living, energetic Smdnis, which tends to external
action. Of this. Philo. in the spirit of Platonism, conceives as '5e'o
ISfHv, the Ideal of things, the archetj^al Idea, the pattern World,
the voTirhs KiajMs, which is extant in God as a reality, before aU out
ward creations of the actual universe. In this sense the \iyos is the
primary energy of God, — the hvoi)<ris, the Koyurp.hs fleoS xaytioiiivov.
But, at the same time, the \iyos is also TrpoipopiKbs ; and, as a form
ing activity, goes forth out of God. But as this is only another re
lation of the Divine Lpgos, viz., relation to the world, so is it the
product of the former ; yet essentiaUy one with it. hke the oIkos of the
inherent Logos, — as human speech is the resident point of the idea,
T):s form of manifestation. AU living, active relations of God to the
world, aU his objective manifestations, are comprised in this ema
nated Logos. He forms the world or creates it, imprinting himself

NOTES. 75
on matter as a Divine seal (^tr^payU) . And as he has created the
world, (or otherwise, God through him. Si' outoB,) so he preserves it ;
he is the indweUing and sustaining power ; full of light and life, and
fiUing every thing with Divine light and life. So in the human world,
he is both the natural divine power of every soul, the ptire intellect,
the conscience ; and the bestower of wisdom, and the watch of virtue.
He is the same with the Wisdom of God, the Holy Sphit of God in
his objective manifestation in the world ; partly because animating
and inspiring men, particularly in the capacity of Prophetic Spirit.
" Hence the Logos is the eldest Creation of God, the Eternal Fa
ther's eldest Son, God's Image, Mediator between God and the
World, the Highest Angel, the Second God, the High-priest, the
Reconciler, Intercessor for the World and Men, whose manifestation
is especially visible in the history of the Jewish people."*
It ought to be added, that some able writers, as Grossman and
Gfrorer, conceive that Philo invested his Logos with a real person
ality. The reasons for this opinion do not appear to me to be satis
factory. Even those who adopt it assign to this hypostasis a rank
wholly subordinate, in Philo's estimation, to the Supreme God : and
Liicke strenuously maintains that both the Alexandrine phUosopher
* For the sake of brevity I have given rather an abstract than a_ translation,
Commentar. iib. das Evang. des Johan. von Dr. Friedrich Liicke. Band. i. p. 232
— p. 238. Bonn. 1833. It is possible that Professor Liicke's Orthodoxy, which, in
conformity with the prevailing estimate of his countrymen, I have ventured to
assume, may be called in question. It is always difficult to take the *' regula
fidei," recognized in one country, and apply it, with any exactitude, to the sen
timents of another, especially when the one is remarkable for the hard and literal
character of its theological conceptions ; and the other, for the excessive refine
ments by which it has discriminated the shades of religious belief. If tried by the
only German standard which has any near correspondence with English Evan-
gelicism, I mean the severe school of Guerike, Tholuck, Hahn, Olshausen,
Liicke would, no doubt, be pronounced deficient in the faith. But be belongs to
the class which approaches most nearly to them, both in the interpretation of Scrip
ture, and in the estimate of its authority. He does not, with them, refuse to
compare the doctrines of Scripture with the conclusions of Reason, and insist that
the authority of the former supersedes all recourse to the latter j but having ascer
tained first the fact and the meaning of Revelation, he then permits the comparison
with philosophy, and declares their entire consistency. He thus belongs to the
Scriptural section of what is called the Philosophical School of German Theology.
He is decidedly Trinitarian and Anti-rationalist ; and his orthodoxy has never
been suspected, as has that of Schleiermacher, the father of his school. He was
Professor of Theology in Gottingen before the recent political divisions in
Hanover.

76 NOTES.
and the apostle John apply the name God to the Logos only in a
figurative sense (^i'Karaxf>i)<''ei)- He considers the clause " the Word
was God," merely incidental, and unimportant compared with the
preceding clause, " the Word was with God." " John." he ob
serves. " sums up the purpose of the first verse in the words of the
second ; oEtos ^y iv apxv irp^s rhv Bfhv. From his not taking up again
the idea Bchs ^v i \6yos, we must conclude, that he considered this po
sition only an accessory. Thus the irpbs rhv Beh" is evidently to be the
more prominently marked assertion." " John would say. the pri
meval Logos is Trphs rhy BAv ; that is, is in such communion with God,
stands in such relation to him. that he may be caUed Behs. Looking
at the historical connection between the mode of expression in Philo
and in John, there is no room for doubt, that Btha is to be taken in
the sense in which PhUo applies the name Bfhs to the itoujtikt; Sii/a/us toS
Biov, — and explicitly caUs the \6yos God. — S itirepos 6ehs ; but to prevent
misunderstanding, expressly subjoins that this is only iv Karaxplia-fi.
Though John, as we have seen, understands by the Logos a real
Divine Person, he yet, as a Christian Apostle, held the monotheistic
conception of God in a stiU higher degree, and an incomparably purer
form (xvii. 3 ; 1 John v. 20.) than Philo : and are we then at liberty to
suppose, that by him, less than by Philo, the position Behs-?iv 6 \6yos is
meant simply iv Karaxp^o-ei ? It is true that the substitution for fleis of
the adjective Behs is at variance with the analogy of New Testament
diction : but must we not, with the Alexandrine Fathers, especially
Origen, conclude that Behs without the article, is to be taken as
marking the difl^erence between the indefinite sense of ' Divine na
ture.' and the definite, absolute, conception of God. expressed by
S Behs ? Thus would John's flebs correspond with Paul's cIkuv toC BeoS.
Such an accordance between the manner of Paul and of John is an
advantage which must appear an equally desirable result of exegesis,
whether we consider it in its dogmatical or its historical rela
tions." *
From this extract it appears, that if the author does not approve
of the old Socinian interpretation, which considers the Logos as sy
nonymous from the first with Jesus Christ; it is not because he
knows, that Beos in the predicate cannot signify a god ; or shghts
Origen's opinion on the usage of N.T. and Hellenistic Greek. We have
here an authority, than which no higher can be produced from among
* pp. 263, 206, 267.

NOTES. 77
the living or the dead, in favour of a meaning which, to the fasti
dious scholarship of Liverpool theologians, is absolutely intolerable.
Lucke of course admits the general rule, respecting the omission of the
article with the predicative noun ; but he conceives (greatly to the
horror, no doubt, of those whose soul resides in syntax) that the good
old Apostle would even have committed a solecism in respect of a
Greek article, for the sake of clearing a great truth in respect of God.
" If there had been any intention to express the substantial unity
of the Logos and God, we should have expected the Apostle to write
i Beis. On account of the equivocal meaning of 8e6s without the
article, the article could not possibly have been absent."* It is vain
to say that such corrupt Greek as this cannot be ascribed to the
Apostles. Here are examples from John ; v a/iaprta i&riv ^ avopiiaif
Ti irreS/id itrriv ri hKiiBtid: % and here are Others from Paul ; i xipm tH
vvcS/ia ioTiv:^ Uavrhs avSphs ri KeipaKii i Xptatos inTi.W Nay, we have an
example in the following text, of a total inversion of the rule, the
article being attached to the predicate, and not to the subject ; ti ian
Kipios (mn^) i Ocbi.f
It will be perceived by the text of this Lecture that I do not adopt
the rendering of the Alexandrine Fathers ; but I am anxious, in re
jecting it, to pass no shght on the learning of those who maintain it ;
and to show that, out of England, orthodoxy can afford to be wise
and just.
I think it right to add. that to the view which has been given of the
Proem, an objection of some weight occurs in the twelfth verse.
The clause " to them that believe on his name",, presents the question.
¦ who is denoted by the pronoun his, — the Logos or Jesus Christ per
sonaUy }' According to the in^d'pretation which I have recommended.
it should mean the former ; according to the analogy of Scriptural
diction, certainly the latter. Feeling the force of the difficulty, I yet
think it less serious than those which attend every other hypothesis :
and inchne to think, that the clause is an anticipation of the personal
introduction of the Incarnate Logos which immediately foUows ; a
point of transition from the personification to the history.
In conclusion, may I take occasion to correct an erroneous state-

• p. 265. + 1 John iii. 4. J 1 John v. 6.
§ 2 Cor. iii. 17. || 1 Cor. xi. 3.
T[ 1 Kings xviii. 21. There would be no difficulty in increasing the number of
instances exemplifying this solecism.

78 NOTES.
ment in Mr. Byrth's Lecture ; — that Samuel Crell was a convert to
Trinitarianism before his death. " He died." we are told. " a believer
in the Supreme Divinity of Christ, and the efficacy of his atoning
sacrifice."* I have before me the most authentic collection of Soci
nian Memoirs which has been published, by Dr. F. S. Bock. Greek
Professor, and Royal Librarian at Konigsberg. The work is princi
pally from original sources; and the testimony of the foUowing
passage will probably be received as unimpeachable. It appear? that
a vague statement in the Hamburgh Literary News gave rise to the
report of CreU's conversion: " Obiit CreUius Amstelodami. a. 1747.
d. 12. Maii. anno set. 87. In novis litterariis Hamburg. 1747,
p. 703, narratur. quod circa vitw finem errorum suorum ipsum
poenituerit, huj usque pcenitentise non simulatse baud obscura dederit
documenta, quod Paulo Burgero, Archidiacono Herspruccensi in
iisdem novis publicis Hamb. 1 748, p. 345. earn ob caussam veri baud
absimUe videtur, quia sibi Amstelodami degenti Crellius, a. 1731,
oretenus testatus fuerit. incoUoquiis cum Celeb. Schaffio Lugdunensi
institutis, qusedam placita. jam sibi dubia reddita esse, adeo ut jam
anceps circa eadem haereat. Sed in iisdem novis 1749, p. 92, et
p. 480. certiores reddimur : Crellium ad ultimum vitse suae halitum
perstitisse Unitarium, quod etiam frater ipsius, Paulus, mihi coram
pluribus vicibus testatus est."t F.
In the rendering which I have given to this passage the word
apifay/iis is considered as jequivaleut to &pirayii.a. The interpretation,
however, in no way requires this ; and if it should be thought neces
sary to maintain the distinction between them, to which the analogy
of Greek formation, in the case of verbal nouns, undoubtedly points,
and to limit the former to the active sense of the " operation of
seizing," the latter to the passive sense of " the object seized ;" the
general meaning wiU remain wholy unafiected. The only difference
wUl be this ; that the whole of the sixth verse must, in that case, be
considered as descriptive of the rightful glory of Christ; and the
transition to his voluntary afffictions will not commence tiU the 7th.
The signification of this doubtful word simply determines, whether
• P. 157.
f Historia Antitrinitariorum, maxima Socinianismi et Socinianorum ; Fred. Sam.
Bock, Tom. \. P. i. pp. 167, 168.

NOTES. 79
the clause in which it stands shall be the last in the account of our
Lord's dignity, or the first in the notice of his humiliation. The ren
dering, however, which I have adopted, is confirmed by the use made
of this passage in the most ancient citation from this epistle. In the
letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons, the 6th verse is quoted.
without the sequel, and the fact that Christ thought it not apTrayndv
to be equal with God, is adduced as an example of humility ; " who
showed themselves so far emulators and imitators of Christ ; who
being in the form of God thought not his equality with God. a thing
to be eagerly seized." — Euseb. Eccl. Hist. Lib. V. § 2. Heinichen,
vol. ii. p. 36.
With considerable variation of expression, the same idea occurs
in the (1st) Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians. " Christ
is theirs who are humble. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sceptre of the
majesty of God. came not in the show of pride and pre-eminence,
though he could have done so ; but in humility. Ye see. beloved,
what is the model which has been given us." C. xvi. If the Trini
tarian view of the mediatorial office of Christ be correct, it is not easy
to perceive how he could have come in the show of pride and pre
eminence ; had he not laid aside the glories of his Deity, and clothed
himself with a suflfering humanity, his mission, as commonly con
ceived, eould have had no existence, nor any one purpose of it have
been answered. But he might have been the great Hebrew Messiah,
had he not chosen rather, by a process of sufiering and death, to put
himself into universal and spiritual relations to all men.

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WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

Just Published, price Sixpence.
THE SPIRITUAL BONDS OF SOCIETY. GRADUALLY SUP
PLANTING THE OUTWARD ONES OF FEAR, FORCE, AND
LAW. A SERMON, by the Rev. John Hamilton Thom.
LIVERPOOL:
WILLMER AND SMITH, .32, CHURCH STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

JUST PUBLISHED:-

rriHE RATIONALE of RELIGIOUS INQUIRY; or the Question
-*- stated of Reason, the Bible, and the Church; in Six Lectures. By
the Rev. James MARTiNEAUi Price 5s. cloth.
Heads of the Six Lectures; —
1. Inspiration.
2. CathoUc Infallibility.
3. Frotestaivt Infallibility.
4. Rationalism.
5. Relation of Natural Religion to Christianity.
6. Influence of Christiauity on MoraUty and Civilizatioii.
II,
VIEWS of the WORLD from Halley's Comet, A Discourse dehvered
in Paradise-stre,^, 6|&pel, Liverpool, September 27, 1835, By the Rev.
James MABTiNEip^ Price 6d. IIL
The CHRISTIAN TEACHER, a Quarterly Work, edited by the Rev.
J. H. Thomv Parts 1, 2, 3, & 4, price 2«. 6d. each. Part 5 will appear
on the 1st of July. IV.
The NECESSITY for a CHRISTIAN MINISTRY in Special Adap
tation to the Poor, Two Sermons preached in Renshaw-street Chap^,
Liverpool, with a Proapeetus of the objects and plans of the proposed
ministry. By the Rev. J. H. Thom. Price 6d.
V.
A COLLECTION of MORAL and RELIGIOUS POETRY, for the
use of Families and Schools. Half bound, 2s. 6d.
VL
A LETTER on CATHOLICISM, &c, ByDR.CHANWiKo. Price 2^;.
VII. ,
A LETTER on CREEDS, &c. By Dr. Channing. Price 2d.
VIII.
SELF-CULTURE. By Dr. Channing. Price 4i..

LIVERPOOL:
WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET.
LONDON: '
JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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