tions, to know God the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ.

It is remarkable, Sir, that in consequence of the oneness of the Father, and of the Son, St. John uses (after our Lord) a variety of expressions entirely subversive of your error. "The Father dwelleth in me,' saith Christ; I am in the Father, and the Father in me: If any man love me, I and my Father will come to him!' (John xiv. 10, 11, 23.) Nay, this Apostle, who concludes this Epistle, by a charge to 'keep ourselves from idolatry,' uses the appellations of Father, God, the Son of God, and Jesus Christ, as partly synonymous. Take some examples : 'Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the [adopted] sons of God. Now are we the [adopted] sons of God, but we know, that when he [God manifest in the flesh] shall appear, we shall be like him' in his glorified humanity. (1 John iii. 1, 2.)—Again, Hereby know we the love of God, [manifest in the flesh,] because he [God our Saviour] laid down his life for us.' (1 John iii. 16.)-Yet again, We have known and believed the love that God hath to us; God is love. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, [or as it is expressed (1 John ii, 28,)] that when he [God the Son] shall appear, we may not be ashamed before him at his coming, because as he is [in his form of a servant, a loving, humble man,] so are we in this world.' (1 John iv. 16, &c.) From a careful comparison of these passages, it is evident that St. John considered the Father and the Son, in his form of God, as so intimately one, that he joins them together as the great object of our faith, and uses the high title of God, for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man who laid down his human life for us, and before whom we shall ap. pear in the great day.

Take another proof that St. John honours the Son as he honours the Father. Summing up his firs Epistle, he saith: "The Son of God is come, and hat given us an understanding that we may know him that i

true, [the Father, eternally one with his only begotten Son.] And we are in him that is true, even in [or by] his Son Jesus Christ: This is the true God and eternal life. For the eternal Godhead resides in the Son, as truly as it does in the Father, and flows to us more immediately from the Sou; who is peculiarly God our Saviour, and the fountain of our eternal life. (1 John v. 20.) Thus St. John concludes this Epistle, as he began his gospel, not by asserting with you that Jesus Christ is a mere man, or by refusing to give him any higher title than that of a man approved of God,' but by calling him 'God, the true God, the living God,' yea, everlasting life' itself. And the drift of this excellent Epistle is so evidently to hold forth the Son's and the Father's common Divinity, that the sum of the whole is, Whosoever denieth the Son, he hath not the Father' (1 John ii. 23.)

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The same vein of Anti-Socinian doctrine runs through St. John's second Epistle, of which we have the substance in these words: He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any to you, and bring not this doctrine, [but make you believe, that committing sin is consistent with our victorious faith, or that the Father is Jehovah alone, and that the Logos, God the Word, was not manifest in the flesh to take away our sins,] receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed; for he that biddeth him God speed is a partaker of his evil deeds.' (2 John 9, 10.) 'For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ [the Logos who was in the beginning with God and was God] is come in the flesh; [some of whom deny his real Divinity, and others his real Humanity.] This is a deceiver and an antichrist.' (2 John v. 7.) 'For he is antichrist who denieth the Father and the Son' It being impossible to deny the Son, without denying the Father. (1 John ii. 22.) Yea so perfect is the oneness of the Father, and of his only begotten Son, that St. John gives the elect Lady this Anti-Socinian blessing, Grace, mercy, and peace

be with you [equally] from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ,' the Son of the Father. (2 John 3.) Another proof this that there is, in the Godhead, an eternal paternity inseparably connected with an eternal sonship.

St. John's last book is full of the same doctrine. The Father (if not the Son) speaks thus, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, who is, who was, and is to come, the Almighty.' (Rev. i. 8.) And the Son, not thinking it a robbery to speak of himself in the same glorious terms, says, ' I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the First and the Last.' (Rev. i. 17, and xxii. 13.) Thus the last as well as the first chapter of the Revelation, shews that he hath higher titles than that of a' man approved of God.'

As the Father and Son are honoured with the same titles, so are they represented as filling the same everlasting throne: And although the Father calls himself a jealous God, yet he is so little displeased with the divine honours paid to the Son, that, placing him at his right hand, he gives him the seat of honour in the midst of the throne,' that all men and angels may (without scruple) honour the Son, as they honour the Father. (Rev. v. 6, Psalm cx. 1, and Acts vii. 55.) Therefore every rational creature in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,' is represented, by St. John, as paying the same worship to the Father and the Son, and as addressing to both a doxology similar to that which concludes the Lord's Prayer, saying, in the midst of the deepest prostrations, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever!' (Rev. iv 8, &c. and v. 12, &c.) And both, in the unity of the Spirit, are adored as the same Jehovah, the same Holy, Holy, Holy One, that liveth for ever and ever who hath created all things, and for whose pleasur they are and were created, and before whose thron the elders [of the triumphant church] cast their crowns. (Rev. iv. 10, 11, and v. 14.)

Thus St. John, whom you think favourable to you

error, not only asserts (after our Lord) that all men are to honour the Son, as they honour the Father,' but testifies that all the heavenly hosts actually worship the Son, as they do the Father: So grossly mistaken are you, when you assert that our worshipping of Jesus Christ is an abominable idolatry, on account of which every true Christian is to forsake the Church of England. I wish, Sir, that by advancing such unscriptural and antichristian paradoxes, you may not finally unfit yourself for the company of those who worship God and the Lamb, and for the bliss of those who sing with St. John, To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen!' (Rev. i. 5.) Praying that this letter may be a mean of removing or shaking the prejudices you entertain against him, who (in the unity of the Father and of the Holy Ghost) is 'the true God and eternal life,' (1 John v. 7, and 20,) I remain, &c.

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LETTER IX.

Doctor Priestley is confronted with St. Paul: And our Lord's Divine Glory is seen in that Aopstle's Writings.

REV. SIR,

ST. Paul, who, as a rigid Jew, detested the very ume of idols, and who, as a zealous Christian, went hrough the world to make armies of idols fall before the living God,-St. Paul, I say, will peculiarly take are not to countenance idolatry. He wrote 13 or 14 Epistles, and, if you are not mistaken, we shall find, *least, in one of them, that our Lord was a mere man. But how soon does this Apostle rise against your

error! In the very first chapter of his first Epistle, he calls his gospel indifferently the gospel of God' and 'the gospel of Christ;' (Rom. i. 1, 16;) and to let us at once into the mystery of our Lord's Divine nature, he confirms St. John's doctrine of the Logos made flesh, and calls our Lord the Son of God, made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared with power the Son of God, according to the Spirit of holiness, [the holy and quickening Spirit essential to his Divine nature, (1 Cor. xv. 45,)] by the resurrection from the dead.' And therefore the apostle immediately points him out as being, in the unity of the Father, the divine spring of grace and peace, saying, "Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.' (Rom. i. 3, 4, 7.) Far from seeing in this description a mere man, I already perceive idov viov, the proper Son of God, the very Prince of life, condescending to clothe himself with our flesh, our mortal nature, that he might make way for his gospel, which is the gospel of God.

When the apostle hath thus led us to honour the Son as we honour the Father, he deplores the idolatry of the Heathen, who honoured and worshipped the creature.' (Rom. i. 25.) A strong proof this, that St. Paul had no idea of your doctrine, which sees in Christ a mere creature. On the contrary, he holds him out as the great object of our faith and confidence: Saying that God [the Father] hath set him forth to be a pro'pitiation through faith in his blood, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus,' that is, who relieth on Jesus for salvation. (Rom. iii. 25, 26.) Now, Sir, this faith, this religious reliance for pardon and eternal life, is the highest of all acts of worship, and therefore none is to be the object of it but God our Saviour.' So sure then as St. Paul never called us to believe in Moses, in himself, or in any mere man, but only in Jesus; our Lord, the object of our faith, is God over all,' and not a mere man, as you unscripturally teach.

On our Lord's Divinity rests the force of St. Paul's