they see in them. For the right understanding of these particular texts, I must refer my readers to the writings of Mr. Lindsey, and to a small tract which I published, entitled, "A Familiar Illustration of certain Passages of Scripture."†

Why was not the doctrine of the Trinity taught as explicitly, and in as definite a manner in the New Testament at least, as the doctrine of the divine unity is taught in both the Old and New Testaments, if it be a truth? And why is the doctrine of the unity always delivered in so unguarded a manner, and without any exception made in favour of a Trinity, to prevent any mistake with respect to it, as is always now done in our orthodox catechisms, creeds, and discourses on the subject? For it cannot be denied but that the doctrine of the Trinity looks so like an infringement of that of the unity, (on which the greatest possible stress is always laid in the Scriptures,) that it required to be at least hinted at, if not well defined and explained, when the divine unity was spoken of. Divines are content, however, to build so strange and inexplicable a doctrine as that of the Trinity upon mere inferences from casual expressions, and cannot pretend to one clear, express, and unequivocal lesson on the subject.

There are many, very many, passages of Scripture, which inculcate the doctrine of the divine unity, in the clearest and strongest manner. Let one such passage be produced in favour of the Trinity. And why should we believe things so mysterious without the clearest and most express evidence? There is also another consideration which I would recommend to those who maintain that Christ is either God, or the maker of the world under God. It is this: the manner in which our Lord speaks of himself, and of the power by which he worked miracles, is inconsistent, according to the common construction of language, with the idea of his being possessed of any proper power of his own, more than other men have.

If Christ was the maker of the world, and if, in the creation of it, he exerted no power but what properly belonged to himself, and what was as much his own, as the power of speaking or walking belongs to man, (though depending ultimately upon that Supreme Power, in which we all live and move, and have our being,) he could not, with any propriety, and without knowing that he must be misunderstood, have said that of himself he could do nothing, that the words which he spake were not his own, and that the Father within him did

Apology, Ed. 4, pp. 112–150.

↑ Vol. II. pp. 449–472.

the works. For if any ordinary man, doing what other men usually do, should apply this language to himself, and say that it was not he that spake or acted, but God who spake and acted by him, and that otherwise he was not capable of so speaking or acting at all, we should not scruple to say that his language was either sophistical, or else downright false or blasphemous.

- If this conclusion would be just upon the supposition that Christ had created all things, and worked miracles by a power properly his own, though derived ultimately from God, much more force has it on the supposition of his working miracles by a power not derived from any being whatever, but as much originally in himself, as the power of the Father.

It would also be a shocking abuse of language, and would warrant any kind of deception and imposition, if Christ could be supposed to say, that his Father was greater than he, and yet secretly mean his human nature only, while his divine nature was at the same time fully equal to that of the Father. On the same principle a man might say, that Christ never suffered, that he never died, or rose again from the dead, meaning. his divine nature only, and not his human. Indeed, there is no use in language, nor any guard against deception, if such liberties as these are to be allowed.

There is something inexplicable, and not to be accounted for, in the conduct of several of the evangelists, indeed that of all of them, on the supposition of their having held any such doctrines as those of the divinity or pre-existence of Christ. Each of the gospels was certainly intended to be a sufficient instruction in the fundamental principles of Christianity. But there is nothing that can be called an account of the divine, or even the super-angelic nature of Christ, in the gospels of Matthew, Mark or Luke; and allowing that there may be some colour for it in the introduction to the gospel of John, it is remarkable that there are many passages in his gospel which are decisively in favour of his simple. humanity.

Now these evangelists could not imagine that either the Jews or the Gentiles, for whose use their gospels were written, would not stand in need of information on a subject of so much importance, which was so very remote from the apprehensions of them both, and which would at the same time have so effectually covered the reproach of the cross, which was continually objected to the Christians of that age.

C 2

If

the doctrines of the divinity, or pre-existence of Christ, be true, they are no doubt in the highest degree important and interesting. Since, therefore, these evangelists give no certain and distinct account of them, and say nothing at all of their importance, it may be safely inferred that they were unknown to them.

I would farther recommend it to the consideration of my readers, how the apostles could continue to call Christ a man, as they always do, both in the book of Acts and in their epistles, after they had discovered him to be either God or a super-angelic being, the maker of the world under God. After this, it must have been highly degrading, unnatural and improper, notwithstanding his appearance in human form. Custom will reconcile us to strange conceptions of things, and very uncouth modes of speech; but let us take up the matter ab initio, and put ourselves in the place of the apostles and first disciples of Christ.

They certainly saw and conversed with him at first on the supposition of his being a man, as much as themselves. Of this there can be no doubt. Their surprise, therefore, upon being informed that he was not a man, but really God, or even the maker of the world under God, would be just as great as ours would now be on discovering that any of our acquaintance, or at least a very good man and a prophet, was in reality God, or the maker of the world. Let us consider then, how we should feel, how we should behave towards such a person, and how we should speak of him afterwards. No one, I am confident, would ever call any person a man, after he was convinced he was either God or an angel. He would always speak of him in a manner suitable to his proper rank.

Suppose that any two men of our acquaintance should appear, on examination, to be the angels Michael and Gabriel; should we ever after this call them men? Certainly not. We should naturally say to our friends, those two persons whom we took to be men, are not men, but angels in disguise. This language would be natural. Had Christ, therefore, been any thing more than man before he came into the world, and especially had he been either God, or the maker of the world, he never could have been, or have been considered as being, a man, while he was in it; for he could not divest himself of his superior and proper nature. However disguised, he would always, in fact, have been whatever he had been before, and would have been so styled by all who truly knew him.

Least of all would Christ have been considered as a man

in reasoning and argumentation, though his external appearance should have so far put men off their guard, as to have led them to give him that appellation. Had the apostle Paul considered Christ as being any thing more than a man, with respect to his nature, he could never have urged, with the least propriety or effect, that "since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." For it might have been unanswerably replied, This is not the case; for, indeed, by man comes death, but not by man, but by God, or the creator of man, under God, comes the resurrection of the dead.

The manner in which the apostles, and those of the disciples of Christ who respected him the most, lived and conversed with him, shews clearly enough, that they considered him in no higher light than that of a prophet, or such a Messiah as the Jews in general expected; one who was destined to be a temporal prince. But what a small matter must this have appeared to them, if they had thought him to be the being who made the world, to say nothing of his proper divinity? Had they seen him with the eyes of an Arian, they must have considered his appearing in the character of the Messiah, as a state of great humiliation, instead of a state of exaltation and glory; which, however, always appears to have been their idea of him in that character. Besides, the freedoms which they took with him, as those of Peter reproving him for talking of his sufferings, and for speaking of a person touching him in a crowd, and other little circumstances, shews that they had not that awe of him upon their minds, which they could never have divested themselves of, if they had considered him as being their maker. A person who can think otherwise, must never have attempted to realize the idea, or have put himself in the place of the apostles, so as to have imagined himself introduced into the actual presence of his maker, in the form of man, or any other form whatever. He would be overwhelmed with the very thought of it. Or if any particular person should have had the courage, and unparalleled self-possession, to bear such a thing, must there not have been numbers who would have been filled with consternation at the very idea, or the mere suspicion of the person they were speaking to being really God, or their creator? And yet we perceive no trace of any such consternation and alarm in the gospel history, no mark of

See Watts's "Questions concerning Jesus," Sect. v. where he inquires as to the disciples of Christ, "what evidence they gave of disbelieving his true deity." Works, 8vo. 1800. V. pp. 268—27 4.

astonishment in the disciples of our Lord in consequence of their belief of it, and no marks of indignation, or exclamation of blasphemy, &c. against those who disbelieved it.

It must strike every person who gives the least attention to the phraseology of the New Testament, that the terms Christ and God, are perpetually used in contradistinction to each other, as much as God and man; and if we attend ever so little to the theory of language, and the natural use of words, we shall be satisfied that this would not have been the case, if the former could have been predicated of the latter, that is, if Christ had been God.

We say the prince and the king, because the prince is not a king. If he had, we should have had recourse to some other distinction, as that of greater and less, senior and junior, father and son, &c. When, therefore, the apostle Paul said, that the church at Corinth was Christ's, and that Christ was God's, (and that manner of distinguishing them is perpetual in the New Testament,) it is evident, that he could have no idea of Christ being God, in any proper sense of the word.

In like manner, Clemens Romanus, calling Christ the sceptre of the majesty of God,* sufficiently proves that, in his idea, the sceptre was one thing, and the God whose sceptre it was, another. This, I say, must have been the case when this language was first adopted, though when principles are once formed, we see, by a variety of experience, that any language may be accommodated to them. But an attention to this circumstance will, I doubt not, contribute, with persons of real discernment, to bring us back to the original use of the words, and to the ideas originally annexed to them. I am persuaded that even now, the constant use of these terms Christ and God, as opposed to each other, has a great effect in preventing those of the common people who read the New Testament more than books of controversy, from being habitually and practically Trinitarians. There will, by this means, be a much greater difference between God and Christ in their minds, than they find in their creeds.

All these things duly considered, viz. the frequent and earnest inculcating of the doctrine of the divine unity, without any limitation, exception, or explanation, by way of saving to the doctrine of the Trinity; the manner in which Christ always spake of himself, and that in which the

See Vol. V. pp. 29, 37. Let. to Horsley, 1783, I. ad fin.