into glory? Compare this lowing, (John i. 18.)

with the folNo man hath

seen God at any time." (1 Tim. i. 17.) "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible." You will at once tell me that the passage is not to be so literally taken, as if the great God himself was actually visible to mortal eyes.-Then I firmly believe the passage. I believe that God was manifest in the flesh, in the man Jesus Christ. That he possessed the spirit of God" without measure;" that, by his miracles, he most clearly manifested that God was with him.

One observation however, must not be omitted here. In the greek language a dot of ink will change the pronoun, who, or he who, into God. (0s into e, the abbreviation for 60, God.) Dr. Mills says that " "Not one of the fathers in all their warm attacks upon the heterodox, ever quoted this expression, God, till the year 380." There is also a curious piece of ecclesiastical history, that a little before this time, Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople was banished the realm for this very alteration.-Many of the best

manuscripts have not the word God; Griesbach rejects it, and the Eclectic Reviewers admit that it is not the genuine reading.* "Great is the mystery of god

liness. He who was manifest in flesh" (a real man, in opposition to the Gnostic opinion, that he was only so in appearance,)" was justified," (attested, proved, to be the Messiah)" by the Spirit, seen by his messengers, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."+

One other passage must be noticed, (1 John, iii. 16) "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us." Upon this passage it is necessary to remark only, that the word God is certainly spurious. It has, I may almost say, no authority; it is rejected in all approved versions; and in our common translation is usually printed in Italics, to shew that it is not in the original.

Hereby perceive we love, because he

Carpenter's Unitarianism in loc.

+ Archbishop Newcome remarks, if we read os, he who, we have a construction like Mark iv. 25. Luke viii. 18.

Rom.

viii. 32.

(that is Christ) laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”*

I believe I have now adduced nearly all the texts, certainly, the most important, which you urge as proofs that Jesus Christ was God. Those which speak of his oneness with the Father, and other similar expressions, will be considered in the next Lecture. Thus far then your creed depends upon a few detached passages, which may, so easily, and most of which absolutely must, be differently understood.

But suppose we grant that the word God is in one or two places applied to Jesus Christ, is your doctrine of three persons in one God to be inferred from the expression. Let us see to what extent this inference will carry us. (Psalm lxxxii. "God standeth in the congregation

1.)

* Newcome translates it,

Christ laid down his life for us.

Hereby we know love, because

"The words, of God, are omitted in the Alexandrian and roya! Parisian, and other manuscripts; in many printed editions of the Greek Testament, and left out of the text, by Mill, Bengelius, Wetstein, Griesbach."

Lindsey's List of False Readings, p. 23.

of the mighty; he judgeth among the Gods." Here magistrates and judges are called Gods, and Jehovah is represented as rebuking them. 2nd. "How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked?" 6th. "I have said, ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High. But ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princes." Exodus vii. 1. "And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh." Judges xiii. 21, 22. Then Manoah knew that it was an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said unto his wife, we shall surely die, because we have seen God."* In none of these cases will you allow the word to mean the Supreme Jehovah. No, you exclaim, it must be understood in an inferior sense. Do we then make any greater use of carnal reason than you, when we say that if it be applied to Jesus Christ, it must be in an inferior sense?

However, you will allow our Saviour himself to give us his opinion plainly upon

* See observations on the word Alehim, p. 187.

the subject. He was once charged with making himself God, to which he replied, (John x. 34, &c.) "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods. If he called them Gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken. Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" He here positively denies the charge of making himself God, only calling himself the Son of God. But maintains, that if he had called himself God, he would have been justified by the scripture use of the term, as applied to prophets; all of whom he surpassed. Are not we then justified in taking, nay, are we not bound to take, our Saviour's own definition, if, in any case, others have ascribed to him the term of which he disclaimed the use?

Will it now be said, you have indeed contrived to explain away the apparent meaning of some of the passages upon which we rely, but what have you to substitute in their stead? The main arguments upon which we found our opi