nec

ted by the legislator; it was clearly indicated, that whatever honours they might pay to creatures, who were sometimes called Elohim, they might not offer sacrifices to any, but to the most high God, the Creator. In copiosa sacrificiorum descriptione nusquam occurit nec sed INEFFABILE NOMEN тelpaypaμμalov, QUOD EST DEI PROPRIUM.. usurpatur vocabulum DEI PRÆPOTENTIS PROPRIUM, quo manifestum fieret RERUM CREATORI, non numini commentitio sacrificari, &c. *

Collecting these facts, entering by them into the genius of the Jewish nation, and endeavouring to think and speak like an ancient Jew, in order to find out his meaning; we put the forecited first chapter of Revelation, written by a Jew, into the hands of a Jewish reader, and we think it clear to a demonstration, that the circumstances, the titles, and the prophecy, contained in that chapter, excite the idea of Jehovah.

The circumstance of thunder, that of falling at the feet of the speaker as dead, and others similar, would certainly have afforded a Jew a presumption that the vision was a vision of God. The description of the speaker is evidently taken from the seventh chapter of Daniel, where the ANCIENT OF DAYS is described by the prophet; no Jewish writer would have described any but God in this manner, and, if one had been found so negligent, every Jewish reader would soon have detected him. But, to omit all the other evidences for brevity sake, we will remark only one title given to the speaker.

The Jews, it is well known, having lost the use of their pure native Hebrew tongue, had a Greek translation of their bible in high repute among them. The new testament writers all quoted scripture from this translation.+ All the Greek churches, to whom St. John wrote, had no other copy. The translators of this Greek bible had rendered the incommunicable The Lord said to Moses, Εγω ειμι οων. The person appearing to St. John quotes this passage, and says, Eyw ov, om, exque. Imagine a Jew under the awe of these prohibitions and declamations, thou shalt not take the

name owv.

ειμα

.....

* Rab. Abarbanelís Exord. Comment. in Levit. caput iv. Dę Sacrif. fine. Walton. Prolegom. Prideaux Connect. b. i, p. 2.

NAME of Jehovah thy God in vain. o wv is my name FOR EVER, and my memorial unto all generations; I am Jehovah, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to ANOTHER, neither my praise to graven images. Imagine, I say, a Jewish writer putting this name into the mouth of his hero in order to excite in a Jewish reader the idea of a mere creature, if you can. The carnal Jews thought Jesus a mere man; the converted Jews thought him God. The latter took the sacred titles of Jehovah and gave them to Jesus; and the former have hated them with a cruel hatred for it, and have persecuted them as blasphemers of the God of heaven for almost eighteen hundred years.

Page 18. Compare the perfections, which are ascribed to Jesus Christ in the new testament, with those, which are ascribed to God in the old.

They, who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, consider this article as sophistical, and perpetually exclaim; "it is ignoratio elenchi; we deny to Jesus Christ no other attributes than those, which are INCOMMUNICABLE, and of these you can never prove Jesus Christ in possession."

Let us endeavour to understand one another, and let us go deep enough, that we may fairly and clearly see on what we build.

1. God is a simple uncompounded spirit.

2. Our idea of God is complex, made up of many simple ideas obtained by reflection.

3. The difference of our idea of the Supreme Spirit, God, and our ideas of other spirits, lies in the idea of infinity, which goes to make up our complex notion of God; but which is excluded from our complex notions of other spirits. Were it allowable to join the idea of infinity to our other ideas, which compose our complex notion of a created spirit, we should confound the idea of a creature with that of the Creator, and there would remain no certain rule to distinguish the independent self-existent cause from other spirits. The divinity of an attribute therefore lies in its infinity.

4. Strictly speaking there are not several perfections or at

* Exod. xx. 7. iii. 15. Isa. xlii. 8.

tributes in God; but there is one general excellence, inclusive of all perfections: when therefore we form an idea of one divine attribute as distinct from another divine attribute, we form an idea, which hath no real archetype; it is only a peculiar mode of thinking, which the immensity of the object, and the narrow limits of the mind render necessary. If then I can find a being, who possesseth what I call one divine attribute, I may assure myself that he possesseth all divine attributes, or, more strictly speaking, that he hath that general excellence, of which I speak, that is to say, he is God.

5. It implies a contradiction to affirm that God can communicate a divine, that is, an infinite perfection, to a creature; for, on such a supposition, the idea of finite, which distinguishes a creature from God, would be absorbed and lost in the idea of infinity, which distinguishes God from every other spirit; and I could then affirm all of the creature that I could affirm of God. It may be said, no; in the supposed case, the supreme cause hath an underived, independent excellence, and the divine creature hath only a derived, communicated excellence; the first cause hath not communicated his selfexistence, and on that account he is supreme, and the other subordinate. My answer should be taken from the foregoing self-evident truth. I would say, there is no such thing in nature as one divine attribute distinct from another divine attribute; and when you have proved, that he, whom you call a divine creature, possesseth what you call one divine attribute, you have thereby proved, that he possesseth that general excellence, which constitutes the nature of God, and consequently independence and self-existence.

6. There is (if I may express my meaning so) a REAL and a RELATIVE infinity. Real infinity belongs to God alone. Relative infinity may belong to one creature in regard to another. I possess an infinity of ideas in regard to my canarybird; and an angel possesseth an infinity of wisdom in regard to me: but all infinity, relative or real, is consistent with the nature of the being in question. If I suppose, an angel hath an extent of duration and thought beyond human, I suppose an expansion suited to his nature; but were I to suppose an

angel present at two places at one and the same time, I should either destroy my idea of an angel, or I should suppose an impossibility, incongruous with his really finite nature, and with that of every other creature: ubiquity is real infinity, and the infinite spirit alone can say, do not I fill heaven and earth ?*

7. The idea of ubiquity is affixed in all the old testament to Jehovah. It is mentioned as a real infinity, gloriously proper and peculiar to him alone. It is not an ubiquity of works, and of fame, covering the heavens with his glory, and filling the earth with his praise. It is an ubiquity of presence, real, influential, and incomprehensible. A science too wonderful for us; it is high, we can neither deny it, nor attain unto it.†

8. The writers of the new testament excite the idea of ubiquity, and affix it to Jesus Christ. The man Jesus is not capable of ubiquity; if, therefore, infallible writers ascribe ubiquity to him, they must mean to ascribe to him a nature superior to human, superior to angelic; they must mean that he is, what they elsewhere call him, God. If the fact be established, the inference will follow.

John the baptist says, the only begotten Son, who STANDETH among you, is in the bosom of the Father.§ Jesus Christ tells Nicodemus, the son of man, who CAME DOWN from heaven, is in heaven. But, say our opponents, Attici gaudent participiis ; here is enallege temporis. We beg leave to reply by three remarks.

1. The question is, not whether Attic poets and orators wrote thus: but whether the grave founders of the christian church, speaking of the person of Christ, an article of the utmost importance, and which he, who inspired them, knew would be extremely litigated, and where the writers' designs were more to give distinct ideas than pleasing sounds; not whether these writers used the several dialects and the several figures of speech in other places, but whether St. John used them in these two passages. We are not obliged to allow that When one phrase of St. John's makes for the deity

he did.

* Jer. xxiii. 24. † Hab. iii. 3. Psa. cxxxix. 6. § John i. 15. 18. 26. || Ibid. iii. 13.

of Christ, it is either a solecism, or it is Greek-Hebrew; when another phrase of the same writer makes for the deity of Christ, it is oratorical elegance, it is an Atticism!

2. The Greeks, had, in general, participles for every tense of a verb, by which they avoided a confusion of time, and used their participles as distinctly as the tenses of their verbs.

Every complete verb, says an accurate writer, is expressive of an attribute; of time; and of an assertion. Now if we take away the assertion, and thus destroy the verb, there will remain the attribute and the time, which makes the essence of a participle." According to this St. John attributed existence to Christ in two places at the same time.

3. The scope of these places does not require a figurative sense to be affixed to the terms. St. John was writing the history of one, whom he called God. Ubiquity belongs to the history of God. John the baptist was speaking of Jehovah, before whom he went. Ubiquity belongs to Jehovah. After the writer had given notice that he spoke of one, who was with God, and was God, ought we to be surprized if he ascribed a perfection of God to him!

Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there AM I in the midst of them.† I AM with you alway even unto the end of the world.‡

The fulfilment of these promises is impossible without the perfection of ubiquity. Mr. Le Clerc's sense of the first is false in fact, and he grounds that falshood on a violent misconstruction. The meaning seems plainly this. The old testament œconomy was supported by the influence and presence of God; so shall the new testament dispensation be. God promised his presence to the Jews when he gave the laws of their church; I promise mine to christians, now I am giving the laws of their churches. The Jews understood their promise of the real influence and presence of Jehovah; it was neither the presence of reason, nor of revelation merely: but it was the all-pervading, all-impressive influence of the Supreme Spirit; I speak in popular style; understand me so. The Jews have a common saying, where two or three are met to study the

Hermes, b. i. c. 10. Matt. xviii. 20. + xxviii. 20.