80

of the heavenly hosts? Unless therefore you can prove that Moses, Samuel, or some man approved of God, hath been called the Lord of the sabbath by St. Mark, you must grant that your assertion is overthrown by that Evangelist.

St. James uses indifferently the titles of God, and of Lord, the latter of which, you yourself, Sir, will grant to be the ordinary title of Jesus, in the New Testament, as it is of Jehovah, in the Old. 'If any man, (says tha Apostle,) lack wisdom, let him ask it of God; but let him ask in faith; for let not the man who wavers, think, that he shall receive any thing of the Lord." (James i. 5, 7.) And accordingly he begins the next chapter by pointing out the Messiah, not as a mere man, but as the great object of faith, jointly with the Father. 'Have not,' says he, the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.' (James ii. 1.) The second Lord is not in the original, but it is properly supplied in our translation, because it is the only word which can be grammati cally supplied to complete the sense, and Jehovah, the Lord, giver of wisdom, object of our faith, and Lord of glory, is certainly a title never given by the inspired writers to any mere man, let him be ever so approved of God. St. James, therefore, confutes your assertion, as well as St. Mark.

the Lord Jesus the servant of to them that

St. Jude wrote but one short epistle, and yet atten tion and candour can see a beam of our Lord's Divinity shining through the very first verse. St James calls himself the servant of God, and of Christ;' but St. Jude, calling himself Jesus Christ' only, inscribes his epistle are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in [or by] Jesus Christ.' Now what unprejudiced person does not see, (1.) That if there is God the Father," there must (by necessity of opposition) be also God the Son And (2.) That this divine Son is the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the faithful are preserved; it being impossible that any one, who is not God, should

6

preserve a countless number of men through all countries, and for hundred of generations. (See 1 Pet. i. 5.) Hence it is that St. Jude, in the fourth verse, represents it as the same capital offence, to deny the only Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ,' the words only Lord God' being put here, (as in Johu xvii. 3,) to exclude from divinity, lordship and dominion, all who by nature are not God; and not to exclude our Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the very same verse, is joined to the Father who, in the unity of the Father and of the Spirit, is 'God over all,' and whom the Father of glory hath set at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.' 20, &c.)

(Eph. i.

That St. Jude makes it the same capital offence to speak against the dignity of the Son, as to insult the majesty of the Father, and that the men crept in uuawares,' against whom St. Jude prophesies, are principally the malicious opposers of our Lord's Divinity, appears from the context: For St. Jude, in verses 21 and 25, considering again Jesus Christ as on the throne of the Godhead with his Father, exhorts the Christians to keep themselves in the love of God the Father, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life.' Now who can read these words without wondering at the certain men who 'creep in unawares,' who come into the church of Christ, as if they would purge it from corruptions, and pour contempt upon the very Divinity of the supreme Lawgiver, and Judge of the universe; and who dare tell us that the Apostles give Jesus Christ no higher title than that of a mere man they call him the Lord to whose mercy we are to look

6

approved of God,' when

* I consider this verse as it stands in our translation. But when I look into the original, I find, that St. Jude prophesies of certain men crept in unawares, who deny, τον μόνον δεσποτην θεον και κύριον ημων Ιησεν Χρισον, our only Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ-or according to the best copies, which omit eov, our only Master (or Lord) and Saviour Jesus Christ.

St. Jude gives us of

Behold the Lord saints, to execute

for eternal life; as if a mere man could, in the day of God, shews us mercy unto eternal life!' How different is the idea which him, after Enoch, (verse 14 :) cometh with ten thousands of his judgment upon all, and to convince all the ungodly of their ungodly deeds, and of all the hard speeches which they have spoken against him.' Now, Sir, we Trinitarians never heard of the saints of Moses, or of any mere man, but we have heard of the saints of God, we have heard of that great Being, who is called the Lord of Hosts and the King of Saints, because all the armies of the saints and angels are his own: And therefore we conclude that the Lord who shall come with myriads of his saints, is the Son who will punish obstinate unbelievers for their hard speeches, not against a mere man, but against him who said when he was in the form of a servant, The Son of Man [resuming his form of God] shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, and they shall gather his elect,' &c. (Matt. xxiv. 31, and xxv. 31.)

Now, Sir, this Lord of glory, whose are the saints, the angels, and the elect, is our Lord Jesus Christ, whom St. Jude, in the last verse of his Epistle, calls (in the unity of the Father's Godhead, mentioned verse 1 and 21,) the only wise God our Saviour, to whom be glory, majesty and dominion, both now and ever!

Should you ask me, Sir, how I prove that this doxology belongs peculiarly to our Lord Jesus Christ, I reply, that St. Jude himself furnishes me with a proof; for, verse 24, speaking of this God our Saviour to whom he ascribes glory, he describes him thus, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,' &c. And that this description peculiarly belongs to our Lord, I prove by the following references. Speaking of himself as the good Shepherd, the keeper of the sheep, that keeps obedient believers from falling into sin and into hell, he says, I and my Father are one;' and explaining how he is, with the

་

Father, this God our Saviour who keeps the sheep fron falling, he says, 'I give unto them eternal life, none shall pluck them out of my hand: My Father [also] who gave them me, is greater than all [the powers of earth and hell,] and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. (John x. 28, 30.)

If this equality of the Father and of the Sou, in 'keeping us from falling,' proves that St. Jude's doxology refers to our Lord, as well as to the Father; the following remark on St. Jude's word, God our Saviour is able to present you faultless with great joy,' &c., proves it still more clearly. Is it God the Son, who will present us to the Father, or God the Father who will present us to himself? St. Paul will inform us : 'You (says he) that were sometimes enemies, hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you unblameable in his sight.' (Col. i. 22.) Now, Sir, so surely as the Father was never manifest in the flesh, the Prince of Life, who died to present us blameless,' is Jesus Christ, whom St. Jude [in union with God the Father] calls God our Saviour.' For it is our Lord, who peculiarly loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might cleanse it, and present it to himself without spot and blameles:' It is our Lord, who, for the joy [the great joy] that was set before him, endured the cross,' and will one day say (as Mediator) to the Father, Behold, I and the children whom thou hast given me.' (Compare Eph.

6

Y. 25, &c.; Heb. ii. 13; and xii. 2.)

6

a man

Jesus

I have

From these observations it appears, that St. Jude also gives to Christ higher titles than that of approved of God,' since he calls him not only our Lord Messiah,' but God our Saviour.' dwelt the longer on this Apostle's testimony, because some of the men whom he describes, have endeavoured to press him into the service of Socinus, and to represent him as an opposer of our Lord's Divinity. We have not yet heard St. John and St. Paul, but as this letter is long enough, I shall reserve their testimony for my next, I remain, &c.

LETTER VIII.

REV. SIR,

error.

On the same Subject.

THE sacred writers, with whom you have already been confronted, rise with one accord against your Two more Apostles, St. John and St. Paul, remain to be consulted; and as they have written about half of the New Testament, 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 question to be decided by their testimony.

6

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 commissioned Mediator: For this we maintain as well as you. But the question 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 suppose that Arians do him too much honour, when they believe, that he had a super-angelic nature; you think, that we Trinitarians are idolaters, for con-sidering him as possessed of a divine nature; and you assert, that he was a mere man, and that the sacred writers give him no higher title than that of a man approved of God.

Now, Sir, where does St. John side 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, verse 1,] and was