God?' Is it where he saith, that this Logos is the Word, by which all 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 apostles) beheld the glory' of this Logos, a glory as of the only begotten of the Father?' (John i. 1, 14.) 6 (1.) I do not wonder if a philosopher who maintains that he has no immortal principle within him, can find in these words of St. John, a demonstration that the Word, the Logos made flesh, was a mere man ; but we poor Trinitarian idolaters, who have yet immortal souls, think that this apostle could not assert more clearly the eternal generation and divinity of the Logos: His eternal generation, by saying, 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 soul, and the regeneration of the godly, who, by analogy, are called Sons of God, give 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 beginning, as maker of all things; but that he was God,' a title which is as far above that of a mere mau, as Christianity is above Materialism. If St. John overthrows your error in the very first verse of his Gospel, does he set it up afterwards? Where? Is it where he saith, 6 no man hath seen God [the Father] at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him?' (John i. 18.) Is it where he brings in our Lord as saying, I and my Father are one :-He that hath seen me, hath seen 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 considered, not only as a man, but also as a divine Mediator; allowing you farther, that when our Lord came to fulfil all righteousness,' to set 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 say 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 our Lord coming as a divine Son, to set us a pattern of voluntary subordination, liberal obedience, and filial gratitude, it highly became him to display the temper of a Son by referring all to his Father. This he did with a dignity suitable to the Son of God, when he said, As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.' (John v. 26.) "The living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father.-I can [morally speaking] of mine own self, do nothing :-What things soever the Father doth, these also doth the Son likewise.-I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who sent me, &c.-Father, if thou be willing remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine be done. Sacrifices [offered according to the law] thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. Then I said, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.-Father, I bare finished the work thou gavest me to do: Into thy hands I commend my spirit: [The human soul which I assumed, 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.' In all these dutiful expressions, nothing indicates, that our Lord was a mere man : On the contrary, taken all together, they are strongly expressive of the humble submission, of the perfect obedience, and of the cheerful dependance which become a Son, and which principally became the Son of God, manifest in the flesh.' In a word, instead of finding Socinianism in these speeches of our Lord; in them, as in a glass, I see the divine character of him, whom the scriptures callidior viov, the proper Son of God the Father: I admire the adorable temper of a Son, who Having thus presented you, Sir, with a key to open these passages in St. John, which the enemies of our Lord's divine glory continually dwell upon, I return to that apostle, and I ask 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 saying, Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him,' that is, every penitent believer. And this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' (John xvii. 1.) – (3.) Triumphing in this passage, you say, If the Father be the only true God, either Jesus Christ is no God at all, or he is only a false God: But conclusive as you think this argument, if you consider it every way, you will find that it can be so retorted as to overthrow your whole system. 'The only true God,' you say, is 'the Father,' mentioned in the very first verse of the chapter We thank you for this concession: We have then in the true Godhead, a Father, God the Father. Now, Sir, we Trinitarians who have not yet sacrificed our rational and immortal souls to materialism, reason thus: If the only true God be a truly divine and everlasting Father; he has a truly divine and everlasting Sou; for how can he be truly God the Father, who hath not truly a divine Son? This inference is so obvious, that St. John, whom you try to force into the service of Sociaus, saith,' He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father, he that denieth the Son, denieth the Father also ;' because the opposite and relative terms and natures of Father and Son necessarily suppose each other. You must therefore give up the true paternity of God the Father, or the false arguments of Socinus. "What! do you then believe in two or three Gods? do you break the first command of all revealed religion, which is to believe in the unity of God?" No, Sir : We only believe that in the unity of the Godhead there is, without any division, a mysterious and adorable Trinity which our Lord calls The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost:' We believe with St. John, (1.) That there are three who bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost;' and (2.) That 'These three are one.' (1 John v. 7.) We believe that when the Father spake from the cloud on the holy mount, and from heaven on the banks of Jordan, he said, 'This is my beloved Son; hear him.' We obey this first command of the gospel: We listen when our Lord speaks; and we hear him say, I and the Father are one'-one in our counsels and works, but especially one in our divine nature. Hence the propriety and ground of this capital precept, ' You believe in God [the Father] believe also in me,' who am his only begotten Son. Now, Sir, we beg that you will not so far honour Socinus as to pour contempt upon the declaration of the Father, the command of the Son, and the veracity of both: And this you nevertheless do when you contend for an unity which degrades the Son of God to a mere man, and makes it an act of idolatry to believe in him, as we believe in the Father. You and your friend Mr. Lindsey are Jewish Unitarians, I mean Unitarians ready to stone the Son of God for supposed blasphemy,—and Unitarians' who crucify the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame' But we, whom you pity as deluded idolaters, are Christian Unitarians. With the apostle, we believe that in the Deity there is an eternal paternity, an eternal sonship, and an eternal procession, which answer to the profound mystery of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, held out in the form of baptism as the one great object of our faith; and we reverence this divine paternity, sonship, and procession, as you admire the polarity, and attraction of the load-stone, together with the impregnating effluvia which continually proceed from it, without your knowing those mysteries of the natural world otherwise than by the testimony of other philosophers, and the experience you have had, again and again, that they spoke the truth, when they testified that those mysteries are realities worthy to be believed by every lover of truth. Your objection being answered, I return to St. John, and I ask again, Where does he say that our Lord was a mere 'man approved of God?' Is it where he declares, that he who honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father,' and that the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father?' (John v. 23.) What a finishing stroke do the Apostle and our Lord here give to Socinianism! How do all men honour the Father? Is it not by trusting in him, by praying to him, and by worshipping him as Jehovah, 'God over all, blessed for ever?' And is he a mere man, whom St. John, the Son, and Father, want us thus to honour? Does not this one verse coutain a demonstrative proof that St. John spake too highly of our Lord, or that Socinus and you trample upou the Divinity of the Son, which is one and the same with the Divinity of the Father, since all men must honour the Son as they honour the Father?' From St. John's Gospel, go to his Epistles, and you will find him still ready to assert our Lord's Divinity. Beginning his first Epistle, as he did his Gospel, with an heart penetrated with a deep sense of his Master's divine greatness, he calls him the eternal Life, which was with the Father.' (1 John i. 2.) That we may honour the Son as we honour the Father, he points out both unto us as the joint object of our faith: For, representing fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ,' as the soul and the end of Christianity, he exhorts us equally to continue in the Son, and in the Father;' (1 John i. 3, and ii. 24 ;) because it is eternal life, in its progressive manifesta |