angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he [the Father] at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And again: I will be to him a Father, and he shall be unto me a Son. And again: when he bringeth his first begotten into the world, [not that he had any prior existence,] he saith, Let all the angels of God [be guilty of idolatry, and] worship him [a mere man!] Of the angels he saith: Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son [a mere man!] he 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 wickedness, therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And thou, Lord, [a mere man! born in the days of Augustus,] in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and [though weak and helpless] the heavens are the work of thine hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest; yea, they shall all wax old as a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but thou [though no more than a man!] art the same, and thy years fail not. And to which of the angels said he at any time, [as he hath said to this mere man,] Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool ?"

Such, if we believe Dr. Priestley, is the doctrine of the apostle in the very beginning of this epistle-an epistle written manifestly with a design either to bring over the Jews, those great advocates for the unity of God, and the purity of Divine worship, to the Christian religion, or to preserve those that were brought over. Even here, and to this people, averse above all others from the very appearance of idolatry, does he hold forth, according to the doctor, a mere creature, yea, a mere man, as the object of religious worship even to angels; nay, and what is, if not more impious, yet more absurd and ridiculous, proclaims this mere creature, this mere man, to be the Maker, Upholder, and Lord of the universe. Surely a man must do greater violence to his understanding to entertain error, than to admit the truth.

But to proceed. The apostle goes on in exactly the same strain of irra. tional argument, as distant from common sense as from piety: "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip: for if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at first began to be spoken by [a mere man! whom I term] the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by those [other mere men] that heard him!" Again, ver. 5: "For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak, [as he hath to that mere man whom we call the Son!] We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, [not that he ever was higher, being only a mere man!] for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that he, [though a mere man,] by the grace of God, should taste death for every man;" his single and temporal life, though he was of no higher nature or origin than others, being an adequate price for the redemption of the innumerable and eternal lives of all men! And, ver. 14: "Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself [a mere man!] likewise took part of the same:"

not that it was possible he should have had it in his choice, whether he would take part thereof or not, having had no existence till he was formed in the womb, and grew up in flesh! "That through death he [a mere man !] might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver those who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he [a mere man!] took not on him the nature of angels, [or did not take hold on and assume their nature into union with himself,] but he [the same mere man] took on him [that is, assumed into union with himself] the seed of Abraham, [viz. that particular seed born of Mary, and descended from the Patriarch Abraham: in other words, he, a mere man, became a mere man!] wherefore in all things it behooved him [a mere man, begotten by Joseph, and conceived and born of Mary] to be made like to his brethren, that he [the same mere man] might be a merciful and faithful High Priest, in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself suffered, being tempted, he is able [though a mere man, and of consequence immensely removed from his followers, and entirely unacquainted with them] to succour them that are tempted!"

Now, what strange unintelligible jargon is this! How unworthy, I will not say of the tongue, or of the pen of an apostle Divinely inspired, but of a human creature endowed with common sense! How absurd, as well as false, was it to represent it as a much greater crime, and therefore as a behaviour that would meet with much more exemplary punishment to neglect the salvation revealed by a mere man, than to disobey the word spoken by glorious angels!-to speak of this mere man as made a little lower than the angels, (an expression which plainly implies that he was once higher,) in order that, by the grace of God, he might taste death to redeem every man!-as partaking of flesh and blood, because we were partakers thereof, a manner of speaking from which it is natural to infer that he had it in his choice whether he would partake of them or not, and that he acted voluntarily in so doing, and therefore that he pre-existed: to magnify it as an astonishing instance of his love, that he passed by the nature of angels, and laid hold on sinking men, assuming the human nature into union with himself, and condescending to be made in all things like unto his brethren; and to hold him forth to our view as being therefore able, not only to destroy the power of Satan, and to deliver mankind from his works, especially death and the fear of it, but also to sustain the office of a merciful and faithful High Priest, in things pertaining to God, making reconciliation for the sins of the people, and succouring them that are tempted; an expression this which certainly implies his being perfectly acquainted with them, and ever at hand to help them, wherever they may be dispersed abroad over the face of the earth; which it is certainly inconceivable that any mere man should be! Methinks (I say) that, as these things, if understood of a mere man, must be false, so to suppose them is very ridiculous, and sufficient to discredit any pretences, not only to a supernatural afflatus, but even to ordinary reason and understanding.

Chapter iii, 3, we meet with a passage still more extraordinary, if considered in a similar point of view. "This person (says the apostle) was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he that

buildeth the house hath more honour than the house: for every house is builded by some one; but he [this mere man!] that built all things, is God; and Moses verily [one mere man] was faithful as a servant, but Christ [another mere man!] as a Son over his own house, whose house [or family] we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm unto the end. For we are made partakers of [this mere man] Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end."

Respecting this remarkable passage, I shall only say, that as certainly as the author of it compares Christ to Moses, and asserts his great superiority to the Jewish lawgiver, so certainly does he signify that that superiority consisted in two things: Moses was but a servant in the family of God, Christ a Son: Moses was the house itself, or rather only a part of it, but Christ was the builder of the house, yea, is the builder of all things is God! Now, is it possible, on the principles of common sense, to reconcile this doctrine of the apostle with the supposition of his view. ing Christ, whom he thus magnifies, as a mere man? Surely, if Christ be a mere man, he was and is God's servant, and a part of God's house as much as Moses.

Pass we on to the fourteenth verse of the fourth chapter, where we meet with another paragraph, which, on the principles of common sense, is almost equally irreconcilable with the same doctrine of Christ's mere humanity. The Socinian hypothesis requires us to understand it thus: "Having therefore a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, [that is, a mere man!] let us hold fast our profession, for we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, [although it must be granted, that, being a mere man, he cannot be acquainted with them!] Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need!"

Still more ridiculous, according to the same doctrine, is the apostle's language in the seventh chapter, where he discourses largely on one of the capital doctrines of Christianity, and holds forth the Lord Jesus as a High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." Comparing them together, he observes, verse first, "This Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God; first, being, by interpretation, king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God," who, as Dr. Priestley teaches, is a mere man, and had both a father and a mother, and, at least, beginning of days, if not also end of life. "For he testifieth, Thou [a mere man!] art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. Therefore, this [mere man] because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood: wherefore [though a mere man!] he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and [though a mere man!] higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once when he offered up himself: for the law maketh men high priests, who have infirmity;

but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son," viz. a mere man; who, according to Dr. Priestley, had infirmity also, and was weak and peccable like others; but nevertheless, it seems, "who is consecrated for evermore !"

Now here I would ask, on the supposition that the author of this epistle believed Jesus Christ, the great High Priest of our profession, to be a mere man, the proper son of Joseph and Mary, begotten, conceived, and born like other men; how came he to avail himself of the silence of the Old Testament, respecting the genealogy of Melchisedec, in the comparison which he draws between him and Christ? How came he to take notice of his being without any father; recorded in the Scripture, "without mother, without descent, and his having neither beginning of days, nor end of life," mentioned in the Divine oracles, as circumstances which rendered him a more complete type of the Son of God? Certainly, if the Son of God be a mere man, and the apostle had considered · him as such, he must have seen that Melchisedec would have resembled him much more, had all these particulars been otherwise; I mean, if he had had a father and a mother spoken of in the Jewish Scriptures; and if the beginning of his days had also been recorded there. For it must be allowed, that a man that has human parents, and whose days have had a beginning, is, in these respects, a fitter type of a mere man conceived and born as all others are, than one who never had any progenitors, and whose days never began to be. And as it is probable that Melchisedec was a real man, and therefore that he had both a father and a mother, though that circumstance be not mentioned in the short account Moses has given us of him, certainly the apostle would have taken no notice of these particulars, much less would he have enlarged upon them, as he has done, had he viewed Jesus Christ in the light in which Dr. Priestley views him: as it is not to be conceived that any end could be answered by it, unless to mislead people, and make them believe that the Son of God, of whom this Melchisedec was an illustrious type, was not of this world, nor of any human origin.

I need make no remark upon divers other expressions in the passages quoted above: they speak for themselves, and make it evident that if the apostle believed Jesus Christ to be a mere mån, he strangely forgot his creed, when he wrote these verses, and uttered things, to say the very least, very inconsistent with it. For let common sense judge. How can a mere man, whose presence is, and must be merely local, and who is immensely removed from our world, and confined in the third heaven; how can he, I say, be acquainted even with the persons, and much more with the infirmities of all his followers, nay, and of all mankind in every part of the habitable globe? And how can he be present with, and assisting every one that shall apply to him at whatever time or place; giving grace to help in time of need; directing, protecting, strengthening, and comforting all in general, and each individual in particular, as their wants and necessities require? I pass by many particulars, also, in the eighth chapter, in which the apostle's reasoning is very weak on the Socinian hypothesis. Indeed, there is hardly any solid argument in the whole epistle, (though generally considered as the most clear, argu. mentative, and convincing of all St. Paul's Epistles,) on the supposition that Jesus Christ, the grand subject of it, is no more than a man, weak, VOL. III.

38

and peccable like others. On this principle, what shall we make of his doctrine respecting the priesthood of Christ, as displayed at large in the ninth and tenth chapters? Here, methinks, he especially answers the character Dr. Priestley gives him, and stands forth as an inconclusive reasoner. If the doctor be right, he reasons as follows:

Chap. ix, 11: "Christ being come a High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, [viz. the blood of a mere man!] he entered in once into the holy place, having [by that mean] obtained eternal re. demption for us. For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, [the blood of one mere man!] who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God!"

Chap. x, 4: "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. Wherefore when he [a mere man! who had no prior existence] cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not; but a body hast thou prepared me. Then said I, [before I existed!] Lo! I come to [enter that body and] do thy will, O God! By the which will we are sanctified, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, [the body of one mere man,] once for all :" body, I say, but I do not mean by this that he hath any soul, any more than a superior or Divine nature. No, like other mere men, he was all body, wholly made of matter without spirit! "But he, [or avros, this person,] after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, for ever sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies [whether evil men, or evil angels,] be made his footstool, [viz, the footstool of a mere man!] For by one offering he [a mere man] hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified!" Verse 19: "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness [or liberty] to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, [the blood of a mere man!] by a new and living way which he [a mere man] hath consecrated for us: and having [the same mere man] a High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our heart sprinkled from an evil conscience. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin [but that which we reject.] He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot [one mere man, whom I term] the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace!" I think no one will wonder that they who reject the whole doctrine of the divinity and atonement of Christ, together with the influence of the Holy Spirit of God, should consider the author of this epistle as writing without inspiration, and as reasoning very inconclusively. But what will they say to that passage in the eleventh chapter, where the apostle informs us that Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ (that is, the reproach of a mere man, who had no existence till about two thousand years after that time, that he esteemed this reproach, I say) greater riches than the treasures of Egypt?