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LETTER VII.

The Evangelifts and Apostles bear teftimony to the Divinity of Chrift.

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Rev. Si,

N your Hiftory of the corruptions of Christianity, vol. 1. page 144, you affert, that they [the Apoftles after their fupernatural illumination] never gave Him [our Lord any higher Title than that of a man approved of God: Acts ii. 22. Now, Sir, if this affertion be true, the Scriptures are on your fide; but if ALL the Apoftles, whofe writings are come down to us, rise against it, you will please to remember, that your Doctrine is built upon the fand.

We grant you, Sir, that St. Peter, confidering the furious prejudices of the Jews, in the begin.. ing of his firft fermon, did not preach to them the divinity of Chrift, which would have been an abfurd ftep; becaufe, far from being difpofed to believe that our Lord was very God of very God, many of them did not fo much as believe that he was a good man. Wisdom therefore forbad that Apoftle to dazzle his hearers at once, by the glori ous light of this doctrine. Hence he called at firft his divine Mafter, a Man approved of God. But did he not, before he concluded, reprefent Him as taken up to the very throne of the Father, and placed on the highest feat in heaven, at the right hand of the Majefty on high, as one whom the Father will fee honoured with Himself, by all men and all angels? In a word, did not Peter apply to our Lord these words of the royal Prophet: Pl. cx. 1.. The Lord faid unto MY LORD, fit thou at my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy H 2

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foot-flool? Acts ii. 34. Words fo ftrongly expreffive of a dignity fuperior to that of a MERE man, that they represent the Father himself, as deter mined to fee the Partner of his throne worshipped by all the creation, according to the Pfalmift's prophecy: They that dwell in the wilderness fhall bow before Him, and his enemies fhall lick the duft. Yea, all kings fhall fall down before Him; all nations hall ferve Him. Pl. lxxii. 9, &c.

St. Peter, in his fecond difcourfe to the Jews, far from calling our Lord a mere man, as you do, calls Him THE PRINCE OF LIFE, and names Him emphatically THE HOLY ONE, a facred Title, which, in the Scripture, is never given to any mere man, but in the old Teftament is twenty nine times appropriated to JEHOVAH, THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL. A&t. xiv. r5.

Proceed, Sir, to St. Peter's third and last Dis. course, handed down to us, and you will also find that far from intimating to his hearers that Jefus Christ is a mere man, he had no fooner mentioned the Saviour's adorable Name, but he makes a folemn paufe, guards Cornelius, against the error into which you are fallen, and fpeaking of Him whom you debafe to a mere man, cries out, He himfelf is_Lord of all! αυτός εστι πάντων κύριος Acts x. 36. Now, Sir, he who hath the title of LORD OF ALL, hath certainly a title higher than that of a mere man, approved of God; for he hath the title of Lord of men and angels, Lord of earth and heaven. St. PETER therefore hath already confuted your unfcriptural affertion.

But let us hear the teftimony of the other infpired Authors, and let us fee, Sir, if they confirm your affertion better than he, whom you have quoted with fo little attention. Do not they rerepresent our Lord as the divine Son of God. (1) By his eternal generation, as the Word that was

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in the beginning with God, and was God: and (2) by his being conceived of a pure virgin (as to his human nature) by the miraculous interpofition of the Holy Ghost. Thus, although he was a real man, yet he was really a divine man, as appears by thefe following Scriptures:

When the Angel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary, to inform her that fhe fhould bear a Son, who fhould be THE SON OF THE HIGHEST, and Immanuel, GoD WITH US, fhe repiled, How fhall this be, feeing I know not a man? The heavenly meffenger replied, The Holy Ghoft fhall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest fhall over-fhadow thee; therefore that Holy conception] which fhall be born of thee fhall be called THE SON OF GOD: Luke i. 32, &c.

Left this capital Doctrine should stand upon the teftimony of one Evangelift only, St. Matthew fays, Before Jofeph and Mary came together, fhe was found with child of the Holy Ghoft. And when Jofeph entertained fufpicions concerning her virtue, the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, faving, Jofeph, thou fon of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy (efpoufed) wife, for that which it conceived in her is of the Holy Ghoft. Thus was fulfilled, that which was spoken of the Lord by the Prophet: Behold, a Virgin fhall be with child, and fhall bring forth a Son, and the fhall call his name Immanuel, or God with us. Matt. i. 18, 20, 23, Hence it appears, that, even without taking the incarnation of the Word into the account, the human nature to which the Logos condefcended to unite himfelf, when he took upon him the form of a fervant, bore a ftamp of Divinity; and therefore our Lord, far from being a mere man, was in his whole complex Perfon fitted for divine honours by his ineffable generations, both as im

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mortal fon of God, and mortal son of David. Anď if this was the cafe, even when he lay in the manger and hung on the cross, how much more now that he fhines in the midst of his everlasting throne, where mortality is fo completely fwallowed up of life, and his refulgent manhood so gloriously taken up into God.!

By preaching this wonderful generation of our Lord, Philip, the evangelift, kindled chriftian: faith in the heart of a pious Ethiopian, who meditated on thefe words of Ifaiah, who shall declare (or fully explain) his [the Meffiah's] generation, &c. If we believe you, Sir; you are the man raised to explain this mystery. You teach that the Logos, the word made flesh, had no glory, no glorious exiftence with the Father before the world began: Thus, indirectly_charging falfhood upon our Lord's Sacerdotal Prayer, you make an end. of his eternal generation. As for his human generation you boldly cut the knot, by declaring. that the Meffiah was a mere man, naturally born of an honeft tradesman and of Mary his wife. And thus you deny the Lord who bought you, both with respect to his eternal Godhead, and to the glory of his manhood.

When you have fo deeply wounded our Lord's glory, you think to falve the matter over by treating the Evangelifts with as little ceremony as you treat their divine Mafter. I have frequently avowed myself (do you fay to Dr. Horley) not to be a believer of the infpiration of the evangelifts and apoftles, as writers: I therefore hold the fubject of the miraculous conception to be one, with respect to which any perlon is fully at liberty to think, as evidence hall appear to him, without impeachment of his faith as a chriftian. Thus, Sir, you are fo preffed by Scripture, that honestly pulling of the mafk, you

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up the veracity or the wisdom of the facred Wri ters, as incompatible with your doctrine. We thank you, for this declaration, and we look upon it as a public acknowledgment, that if Socinus and Mr. Lindfey are for you, the Evangelists and Apoftles are for us. To convince you still more of it, I fhall continue to try by Scripture your affertion, that the Apoftles never give our Lord any higher title, than that of a man approved of God.

We have already feen what St. Peter, St. Mat thew and St. Luke fay on the fubject: Let us hear St. Mark. Taking us to the Holy mount, with Peter, he fhews us our Lord transfigured, while fome beams of the divine glory, of which he had emptied himfelf, fhine through the veil of his flesh, in fo much, that his very garments become gloriously refplendent. And while the greatest Prophets, Mofes and Elias, attend Him, the Father fpeaks from the excellent glory, or from a cloud refulgent with divine glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I delight, hear Him. Mark xi. 7 and 2. Pet. ii. 17. Nor is it here fo much St. Peter and St. Mark, who fpeak, as matter of fact, and the first of the three Witnesses in heaven: We hope therefore, Sir, that you will either recant your affertion, or fhew that the Father ever gave fuch a teftimony to Mofes his fervant, to Abraham his friend, to any of the men whom he hath approved of in all ages, or to John the Baptift, who was fo great in the fight of the Lord, that among them that are born of women, there hath not rifen a greater than he, and nevertheless this greateft of men faid, There cometh after me one mightier than I, the latchet of whofe fhoes I'am not worthy to floop down and unloofe: Mark i. 7.

I grant you however, Sir, that you will find in St. Mark fome of the favourite expreffions of your

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