rr

charge against the doctrines of the Established Church. "This," says he, (p. 64.)" they plainly though falsely insinuate that christians hold." And again, p. 86 and p. 100, he asserts, that the "Unitarian advocate,” as he is pleased to call the author of the Letters to the Bishop of London, "in the hope of bringing discredit upon the "cause of his opponents, has manifestly charged "us with maintaining the doctrine of a subordi"nate creator and governor of the universe." That some christians do actually hold this doctrine is unquestionable; for it is the doctrine of the Arians: it was the opinion of Dr. Clarke, who, to say the least, was as great, as learned, and as good a man as the learned Lecturer himself, and in all respects as justly entitled to the venerable name of Christian; though I agree with the learned Lecturer, that in this particular he laboured under a very serious error. But whatever the learned Lecturer may think of it, I can assure him that there are in the world many Christians whose characters stand quite as high as his own, who do not feel themselves called upon to reject from christian communion, or to revile as blasphemers, honest and conscientious men, who think differently from them even upon subjects of acknowledged importance.

It is not compatible with my design to pursue

the learned Lecturer through that string of texts which he has retailed in his discourse, and in the discussion of which he has manifested no extraordinary share of novelty, ingenuity, or learning. He seems to have little critical acquaintance with the Scriptures; and it is surprising at this time of day, that a writer of any pretensions to scriptural knowledge should argue the deity of Christ from Acts xx. 29," the Church of God which he purchased with his own blood," a phrase which Athanasius says was forged by the Arians, and a reading which is not supported by the best and most ancient copies or (p. 86.) from 1 Tim. iii. 16; "God manifest in the flesh :"-an expression unquestionably spurious, and which was never cited by the early writers in the Arian controversy. Nor does he disdain to argue (p. 89.) from a mistranslated passage in the Old Testament, (Exod. iii. 14.) "God said to Moses, I am that I am;" compared with a mistranslated passage in the New, (John viii. 58.) Jesus answered, Before Abra"ham was I am;"-from which two mistransla→ tions the extravagant conclusion is drawn, that the man Jesus, who only professes himself to be the pre-ordained and promised Messiah, was no less than the Supreme Jehovah. And the learned Lecturer has the modesty to impose upon his readers these false readings and gross misinterpretations

66

as "the inspired word of God." Such manœuvres might pass very well in the ages of ignorance, but that day is over.

There is, however, one text which appears to have fallen under the learned Lecturer's high displeasure, and which he marks repeatedly with tokens of disapprobation. Nor, to say the truth, do I greatly wonder at it, for it is full in the teeth of his favourite doctrines. The author of the 'Letters to the Bishop of London' has stated, that the Unitarians" believe Jesus Christ to be a proper hu"man being, in all respects like unto his brethren." This the learned Lecturer cites as a very obnoxious doctrine, in direct opposition to the doctrine of the Church: and (p. 64.) he marks the words "in "all respects" by italics, as being particularly offensive. These words, he tells us (p. 65.), assert that "our Saviour was a mere human being-and they "lose none of their impiety by the subsequent ad> "mission of Christ's divine mission." To this unfortunate text the learned Lecturer recurs again and again, and always with some note of disapprobation, particularly p. 92: " They seek to de"grade our Lord to a mere man" in all respects "like unto his fellows. But the falsehood of that blasphemy has been shown." This is strong language: but to do justice to the learned Lecturer, I do not believe that he knew that it was a pas

sage of Scripture against which he was fulminating the charges of falsehood, impiety, and blasphemy. But if he will take the trouble to open his New Testament at the second chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, he will find, at the 17th verse, that the writer affirms that " in all things it "behoved him to be made like unto his brethren." I quite agree with the learned Lecturer, that this doctrine is utterly irreconcileable to that of the Church of England: but for this discrepancy the members of that communion, and not the Unitarians, are responsible.

It would be endless to follow the learned Lecturer through all his trite arguments upon the trite question concerning the Deity of Christ; which, if they were ten times as numerous and as forcible as they are, would all be completely silenced by this single consideration, that it would have been utterly impossible that our Lord's contemporaries, his apostles, his companions and disciples, or that the historians of his life, and miracles, and sufferings, should have written and spoken of him, have conversed with him, and behaved to him with the familiarity which they always manifested, if they believed that the being who appeared to them as a man, with all the accidents and frailties of a human being, was in truth the

very and eternal God. Let us for a moment place ourselves in their situation; and we shall feel at once, that the instant the amazing truth was communicated to them, their faculties would be absorbed in terror and astonishment;-no more free conversation; no more asking of questions; no more attempts to impose upon him, or to rebuke him: the greatest awe and distance would instantaneously take place, and all the endearing and familiar relations of master, instructor, companion and friend, would be absorbed in the overwhelming apprehension of their Maker and their God.

And what would be the style and manner of those who, under these impressions, should sit down to write the narrative of his life and his miracles, his discourses and his sufferings? Would three out of four of his historians completely forget the awful fact of his divine nature, and not drop a single hint of it from the beginning to the end of their histories? Would the rest of the sacred writers have insisted upon this circumstance only incidentally and obscurely? Would the most direct evidence of the divinity of Christ have been found chiefly in passages at least suspicious, if not notoriously spurious? Would the great discovery have been left to be spelled out from a text here and another there, which if put together by a pro