as personally the self-existent and independent God, most serious difficulties immediately arise.... Why is he called God's Son? Why is he uniformly spoken of in contradistinction to the self-existent God? Why is he spoken of as having a God who hath anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows? What God could thus anoint the self-existent God ?

The passage under consideration is not the only one in which the name God is applied to the Son. Nor is this the only passage in which the Son of God is represented as having a God as well as a Father. Christ said to his disciples, "I go to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God." And in the epistles we several times read of "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" and "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ." As Solomon, after he was crowned, had a father and a king, so Christ, on the throne of the universe, had a Father and a God. If Christ had been the self-existent God, it would have been just as proper to speak of the God of the Father, as the God of the Son. But if he be truly the Son of God, and as such sustains Divine offices and bears Divine titles, then no difficulty results from his being called LORD, SAVIOR, or even God. For these titles, as borne by the Son, do not import personal self-existence, but what he is as the Son of God, and by the pleasure of his Father.

After Solomon had been anointed king by order of David, Jonathan reported the matter to Adonijah, and said, "Verily our lord, king David, hath made Solomen king." And it is not improbable that this event was typical of the conduct of God in anointing and exalting his Son. And as truly as David constituted his son Solomon to be king, so truly hath our hear

enly Father constituted HIS SON to be Savior, Lord, and God. He hath invested him with Divine fulness and Divine authority, and conferred on him his own Divine names and titles. If the Son of God did not possess a fulness adequate to his authority, we might view the Divine names, as applied to him, as high sounding and empty titles; but while we are assured that all power, or authority, is given unto him in heaven and earth, we are also assured that "it hath pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell;" and that "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

When, therefore, I speak of the Son as called Savior, Lord and God, on the ground of a constituted character, I wish to be understood as implying not merely official character, but such a perfect union of the Son with the Father, that in him properly dwells the infinite fulness and all-sufficiency of God, so that in respect to fulness as well as authority he is one with the Father.

We must suppose, that God is the best judge of the ground on which he styled his Son God. And we know, from the scriptures, that anointing with oil was an appointed ceremony of induction to office. Thus prophets, priests, and kings, were inaugurated by the command of God. The oil was an instituted type or emblem of the Spirit; and these ancient inaugurations were probably typical of the inauguration of Christ as the promised Messiah; on which occasion the Holy Spirit, which had been typified by the holy oil, descended and abode upon him. And in the address of the Father to the Son, in which the Son is called God, the ceremony of anointing is distinctly brought into view, to shew that it is on the ground of a constituted

character that the Son is called God-"Therefore God, even THr GoD, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

John the Baptist, in his testimony concerning the Son of God, says, "He whom God hath sent, speaketh the words of God ;" and gives this as the reason why the words that he speaketh are the words of God, "For God giveth not the SPIRIT by measure unto him." And Peter, in his discourse at the house of Cornelius, mentions "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power;" by which we may understand, that in this anointing, the Son was endued with Divine fulness, and invested with Divine authoritÿ.

In expressing Divine commands, in foretelling events, and in performing miracles, the Son of God adopted a style of speaking, very different from that of the prophets. He did not preface what he uttered with a "Thus saith the Lord;" but his usual style was, 66 I say unto you"-"I will, be thou clean," &e. On this ground, an argument has often been formed, in proof of the hypothesis that Christ was personally the independent God. In reference to this argument, I would ask,

1. Was it not to be expected that God's own Son: would adopt a style corresponding with his dignity as the Son of God? Would you not expect that a king's son should adopt a style in speaking, different from an ordinary ambassador ?-But,

2. I would ask, whether justice has been done in urging the above argument? It is indeed a truth, that Christ spake in a style different from the prophets: but it is also true, that no prophet was ever more particular and careful than Christ was, to let it be known

that he came not in his own name, but in the name of God the Father; that the words which he spake, he spake not of himself; and that the Father in him did the work. How often did he declare, in the most unequivocal manner, to this effect, "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of the Father that sent me."—" I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. "The words that I speak, I speak not of myself."

If John has given us a true account, Christ distinctly mentioned his being sent of the Father, nearly forty times. How, sir, has it come to pass, that these ideas have been so much kept out of view in urging the argument from Christ's peculiar style of speaking ? I would by no means suggest a suspicion of dishonesty ; but is there not evidence of a strong prepossession, by which good men have been led to overlook some things which are of weight, and to form their arguments with out due consideration ?

LETTER V.

How the Son of God became the Son of Man.

REV. SIR,

ACCORDING to your theory, the Son of God be came the Son of Man "by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul," or a proper Man. It is object to prove, that the Son of God became the Son of Man by becoming himself the soul of a human Body

It has been supposed, that the Son of God could not, with any propriety, be called a man on the hypothesis I have stated. But could he not with much more propriety be called a man, if he became the soul of a human body, than on the hypothesis that he became united to a proper human soul and body or a proper man? If the Son of God became united to a proper man, the Son and the man were two distinct intelligences, and the union would be properly a union of two persons.

Besides, you say that this union does not imply that the divine nature became human nature, nor that the human nature became divine nature, nor that these two natures were mixed or blended. These positions, if I mistake not, are precisely of the same import as the following-The Son of God did not become man, nor did the man become the Son of God, nor were the Son of God and the man mixed or blended. For so far as I can discern any meaning to your language, the Son of God is the same as the divine nature of Christ, and the man the same as the human nature. It will hence appear, that the Son of God did not become MAN, but only became united to a man.

There are a multitude of considerations and passages of Scripture, which may be adduced in support of the hypothesis that the Son of God became Man, or the Son of Man, by becoming the soul of a human body. Out of many, I select the following:

1. If the Man Christ Jesus had been united to a second divine and self-existent Person, we might reasonably expect to find, that, in some of his discourses, he had mentioned that union. But in no instance did he intimate that he was united to any divine person but the Father. His union with the Father he often