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ny, because fome of the men whom be defcribes, have endeavoured to press him into the fervice of Socinus, and to reprefert him as an oppofer of our Lord's Divinity. We have not yet heard St. John and St. Paul, but as this Letter is long enough, I fhall referve their teftimony for my

next.

I remain, &c.

LETTER

LETTER

Rev. Sir,

TH

VIII.

On the fame fubject.

HE facred Writers, with whom you have already been confronted, rife with one accord against your error. Two more Apoftles, St. John and St. Paul remain to be confulted; and as they have written about half of the new Teftament, we may, in their writings, if any where, find your favourite Doctrine. But before we call them in as evidences, let us take a view of the queftion to be decided by their teftimony.

This question is not whether our Lord was a man, a man approved of God, a man mediating between God and us; nor yet whether he was not inferior to the Father when he had taken upon him the form of a Servant, and when he sustained the part of a commiffionéd mediator: for this we maintain as well as you; But the queftion is whether, as Logos, as the Word, he had not a divine glory with his Father before the world was; [John xvii. 5.] You boldly reply No! you fuppofe that the Arians do him too much honour, when they believe, that he had a fuperangelic nature, you think, that we Trinitarians are idolaters, for confidering him as poffeffed of a divine nature; and you affert, that he was a mere man, and that the facred writers give him no higher title than that of a man approved of God.

Now, Sir, where does St. John fide herein with Socinus and you? Is it in his Gospel, which he begins by calling our Lord THE WORD who IN THE BEGINNING was with God [the Father Jude verfe 1.] and was God? Is it where he

faith,

faith, that this Logos is the Word, by which dl· things were made, without which nothing was made, and in which was the life and the light of men ;-that this Logos was made flesh, and that he [St. John with his fellow Apoftles] beheld the glory of this Logos, a glory as of THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER? John i. 1, 14, and Jude 1.

I do not wonder if a Philofopher, who maintains that he has no immortal Principle, can find in these words of St. John, a demonstration that the Word, the Logos made flesh, was a merë man; but we, poor Trinitarian idolaters, who -have yet immortal fouls, think that this Apoftle could not affert more clearly the eternal generation and divinity of the Logos: (1) His ETERNAL GENERATION, by faying, that in the beginning [when the creation began] he was with God the Father [John i. 1, 14.] as his only Son, begotten in a manner, of which the formation of Adam's fout, and the regeneration of the Godly, who, by analogy, are called Sons of God, gives us but a faint idea: And (2) His DIVINITY, by declaring, that this only begotten Son of God the Father, was not only WITH GOD IN THE BEGIN NING, as MAKER OF ALL THINGS; but that HE WAS GOD, a title which is as far above that of a mere man, as christianity is above materialism.

If St. John overthrows your error in the very firft verle of his gofpel, does he fet it up afterwards? where? Is it where he faith, No man hath feen [God] the Father at any time: the only begottten Son, who is in the bofom of the Father, he hath declared Him: John i. 18? Is it where he brings in our Lord as faying, I and my FATHER are ONE He that hath feen ME, hath feen THE FATHER? John x. 30, and xiv. 9.

We grant you, with St. John, that the Father is greater than the Son, when the Son is con

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fidered

Eidered, not only as a man, but also as a divine Mediator; allowing you farther, that when our Lord came to fulfil all righteousness, to let us a pattern of all divine and human virtues, and to enforce God's commandments, the fifth of which requires human Sons to obey their human Fathers, it became Him (as a divine Son) to honour God THE FATHER, and to fay publicly My Father is greater than I, both with respect to his Paternity, and with reference to the Order of the Three who bear record in heaven :-Nay, we maintain that Your Lord, coming as a divine Son, to let us a pattern of voluntary' fubordination, liberal obedience, and filial gratitude, it highly became him to difplay the temper of a Son by referring all to his Father.

This he did with à dignity suitable to the Son of God, when he faid: As the Father hath life in himfelf, fo hath he given to the Son to have life in himfelf: John v. 26. The living father hath fent me, and I live by the Father.-I can [morally Speaking] of mine own felf, do nothing-What things foever the Father doth, thefe alfo dath the Son likewife. I feek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who fent me, &c. Father, if thou be wilding, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine be done: Sacrifices (offered according to the law) thou wouldst not, but a body haft thou prepared me, Then I faid, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.-Father, I have finished the work thou gaveft me to do:Into thy hands. I commend my fpirit [the human foul which I affumed together with the body thou didst prepare for me:] I have glorified thee on the earth, and now, glorify thou me with the glory, which I had with thee before the world

was.

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In all thefe dutiful expreffions, nothing indicates, that our Lord was a mere man on the con

trary

trary, taken all together, they are ftrongly expreffive of the humble fubmiffion, of the perfect obedience, and of the chearful dependance which become a Son, and which principally became the Son of God, manifeft in the flesh. In a word, inftead of finding Socinianifm in these fpeeches of our Lord; in them, as in a glass, I fee the divine character of Him, whom the Scriptures call diov viov the proper Son of God. the Father; I admire the adorable temper of a Son, who is the perfect pattern of all fons, as being pure deos Son of God by nature, Com pare Rom. viii. 32, with Jude 1, and Gal. iv. 8.

Having thus prefented you, Sir, with a key to open these paffages in St. John, which the enemies of our Lord's divine glory continually dwell upon, I return to that Apoftle, and I afk again, where does he say that our Lord is a mere man? If you reply that it is where he brings in our Lord as faying, Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. Thou haft given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou haft given him (that is, every penitent believer) And this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jefus Chrift whom thou haft fent: John xvii. 1, 3. Triumphing in this paffage you fay, If the Father be the only true God, either Jefus Chrift is no God at all, or he is only a falle God: But conclufive as you think this argument, if you confider it every way, you will find that it can be so retorted as to overthrow your whole fyftem.

The only true God, you fay, is the Father, men tioned in the very first verfe of the Chapter. We thank you, for this conceffon: We have then in the true Godhead, a Father, God the Father. Now, Sir, we Trinitarians who have not yet facrificed our rational and immortal fouls to materialism,

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