Letter 7.

LETTER 7.

The evangelists and apostles bear testimony to the divinity of Christ. REV. SIR,—In your History of the Corruptions of Christianity, (vol. i, p. 144,) you assert, that “they [the apostles after their supernatural illumination] never gave him [our Lord] any higher title than that of a man approved of God,” Acts 2:22. Now, sir, if this assertion be true, the Scriptures are on your side; but if all the apostles, whose writings are come down to us, rise against it, you will please to remember that your doctrine is built upon the sand.

We grant you, sir, that St. Peter, considering the furious prejudices of the Jews, in the beginning of his first sermon, did not preach to them the divinity of Christ, which would have been an absurd step; because, far from being disposed to believe that our Lord was “very God of very God,” many of them did not so much as believe that he was a good man. Wisdom, therefore, forbade that apostle to dazzle his hearers at once, by the glorious light of this doctrine. Hence he at first called his Divine Master “a man approved of God.” But did he not, before he concluded, represent him as taken up to the very throne of the Father, and placed on the highest seat in heaven, at the right hand of the Majesty on high, as one whom the Father will see honoured with himself, by all men and all angels? In a word, did not Peter apply to our Lord these words of the royal prophet, Psalm 110:1: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?” Acts 2:34. Words these so strongly expressive of a dignity superior to that of any mere man, that they represent the Father himself as determined to see the partner of his throne worshipped by all the creation, according to the psalmist’s prophecy: “They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him,” Psalm 72:9, &c.

St. Peter, in his second discourse to the Jews, far from calling our Lord a mere man, as you do, calls him “the Prince of Life,” and names him emphatically “the Holy One,” a sacred title, which, in the Scriptures, is never given to any mere man; but in the Old Testament is twenty-nine times appropriated to “Jehovah, the Lord God of Israel,” Acts 3:14, 15.

Proceed, sir, to St. Peter’s third and last discourse handed down to us, and you will also find that, far from intimating to his hearers that Jesus Christ is a mere man, he has no sooner mentioned the Saviour’s adorable name, but he makes a solemn pause, guards Cornelius against the error into which you are fallen, and, speaking of him whom you debase to a mere man, cries out, “He himself is Lord of all!” Autov esti wantwn kuriov, Acts 10:36. Now, sir, he who hath the title of Lord of all, hath certainly a title higher than that of a mere man “approved of God;” for he hath the title of Lord of men and angels, Lord of earth and heaven. St. Peter, therefore, hath already confuted your unscriptural assertion.

But let us hear the testimony of the other inspired authors of the New Testament, and let us see, sir, if they confirm your assertion better than he whom you have quoted with so little attention. Do not they represent our Lord as the Divine Son of God?

(1.) By his eternal generation, as the Word that was in the beginning with God, and was God. And

(2.) By his being conceived of a pure virgin (as to his human nature) by the miraculous interposition of the Holy Ghost. Thus, although he was a real man, yet he was really a Divine man, as appears by these following scriptures:—

When the Angel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she should bear a son, who should be “the Son of the Highest,” and Emmanuel,” God with us,” she replied, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” The heavenly messenger replied, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore that holy [conception] which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,” Luke 1:32, &c.

Lest this capital doctrine should stand upon the testimony of one evangelist only, St. Matthew says, “Before Joseph and Mary came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.” And when Joseph entertained suspicions concerning her virtue, “the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy [espoused] wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. Thus was fulfilled that which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet: Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, or God with us,” Matthew 1:18, 20, 23. Hence it appears that, even without taking the incarnation of the Word into the account, the human nature to which the Logos condescended to unite himself, when he took upon him the form of a servant, bore a stamp of divinity; and therefore our Lord; far from being a mere man, was in his whole complex person fitted for Divine honours by his ineffable generations, both as immortal Son of God, and mortal son of David. And if this was the case, even when he lay in the manger and hung on the cross, how much more now that he shines in the midst of his everlasting throne, where mortality is so completely swallowed up of life, and his refulgent manhood so gloriously taken up into God! By preaching this wonderful generation of our Lord, Philip, the evangelist, kindled Christian faith in the heart of a pious Ethiopian, who meditated on these words of Isaiah: “Who shall declare [or fully explain] his [the Messiah’s] generation?” &c. If we believe you, sir, you are the man raised to explain this mystery. You teach that the Logos, “the Word made flesh,” had no glory, no glorious existence “with the Father before the world began:” thus, indirectly charging falsehood upon our Lord’s sacerdotal prayer, you make an end of his eternal generation. As for his human generation, you boldly cut the knot by declaring that the Messiah was a mere man, naturally born of an honest tradesman and of Mary his wife. And thus you deny the Lord who bought you, both with respect to his eternal Godhead, and to the glory of his manhood.

When you have so deeply wounded our Lord’s glory, you think to salve the matter over by treating the evangelists with as little ceremony as you treat their Divine Master. “I have frequently avowed myself (do you say to Dr. Horsley) not to be a believer of the inspiration of the evangelists and apostles, as writers: I therefore hold the subject of the miraculous conception to be one, with respect to which any person is fully at liberty to think, as evidence shall appear to him, without impeachment of his faith as a Christian.” Thus, sir, you are so pressed by Scripture, that honestly pulling off the mask, you give up the veracity or the wisdom of the sacred writers as incompatible with your doctrine. We thank you for this declaration; and we look upon it as a public acknowledgment, that if Socinus and Mr. Lindsey are for you, the evangelists and apostles are for us. To convince you still more of it, I shall continue to try by Scripture your assertion, that the apostles never give our Lord any higher title than that of “a man approved of God.”

We have already seen what St. Peter, St. Matthew, and St. Luke say on the subject: let us hear St. Mark: taking us to the holy mount, with St. Peter, he shows us our Lord transfigured, while some beams of the Divine glory, of which he had “emptied himself,” shine through the veil of his flesh, insomuch that his very garments become gloriously resplendent. And while the greatest prophets, Moses and Elias, attend him, the Father “speaks from the excellent glory,” or from a cloud refulgent with Divine glory, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I delight, hear him,” Mark 9:7, and 2 Peter 1:7. Nor is it here so much St. Peter and St. Mark, who speak, as matter of fact, and the first of the three witnesses in heaven. We hope, therefore, sir, that you will either recant your assertion, or show that the Father ever gave such a testimony to Moses his servant, to Abraham his friend, to any of the men whom he hath approved of in all ages, or to John the Baptist, who was so “great in the sight of the Lord,” that “among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than he;” and nevertheless this greatest of men said: “There cometh after me one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose,” Mark 1:7.

I grant you, however, sir, that you will find in St. Mark some of the favourite expressions of your system: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary? the brother of James and Simon? and are not his sisters with us?” Mark 6:3. But before you adopted such a system, should you not, sir, have gone on to the end of the verse, and taken notice that the people who thus speak, are those who are “offended at our Lord,” those “who stumble against the precious corner stone laid in Sion,” even those proud, unbelieving, stubborn Jews, to whom our Lord declared it would be more tolerable for the sinners of Sodom in the day of judgment than for them? But if you will know farther what St. Mark’s own sentiments were on the subject, we consider, he will tell you, after the second witness in heaven: “The Son of man [the Messiah, even while he appears in the form of a servant] is Lord also of the Sabbath. Supreme and Divine Lawgiver, he hath power to dispense with his own law, and of consequence with the fourth commandment, Mark 2:28. And who hath this supreme Lordship, but the “Lord God of Sabaoth,” the “Lord of the Sabbath” and of the heavenly hosts? Unless, therefore, you can prove that Moses, Samuel, or some man approved of God, hath been called the Lord of the Sabbath by St. Mark, you must grant that your assertion is overthrown by that evangelist.

St. James uses indifferently the titles of God and of Lord, the latter of which you yourself, sir, will grant to be the ordinary title of Jesus in the New Testament, as it is of Jehovah in the Old. “If any man (says that apostle) lack wisdom, let him ask it of God; but let him ask in faith; for let not the man who wavers think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord,” James 1:5, 7. And accordingly he begins the next chapter by pointing out the Messiah, not as a mere man, but as the great object of faith, jointly with the Father. “Have not,” says he, “the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons,” James 2:1. The second Lord is not in the original, but it is properly supplied in our translation, because it is the only word which can be grammatically supplied to complete the sense, and Jehovah, the Lord, giver of wisdom, object of our faith, and Lord of glory, is certainly a title never given by the inspired writers to any mere man, let him be ever so approved of God. St. James, therefore, confutes your assertion, as well as St. Mark.

St. Jude wrote but one short epistle, and yet attention and candour can see a beam of our Lord’s divinity shining through the very first verse. St. James calls himself “the servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ;” but St. Jude, calling himself “the servant of Jesus Christ” only, inscribes his epistle “to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in [or by] Jesus Christ.” Now what unprejudiced person does not see,

(1.) That if there is “God the Father,” there must (by necessity of opposition) be also God the Son: and

(2.) That this Divine Son is the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the faithful are preserved; it being impossible that any one, who is not God, should preserve a countless number of men through all countries, and for hundreds of generations, see 1 Peter 1:5.

Hence it is that St. Jude, in the fourth verse, represents it as the same capital offence to “denyf90 the only Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ,” the words “only Lord God” being put here, (as in John 17:3,) to exclude from divinity, lordship, and dominion, all who by nature are not God; and not to exclude our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the very same verse, is joined to the Father; who, in the unity of the Father and of the Spirit, is “God over all,” and whom “the Father of glory hath set at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come,” Ephesians 1:20, &c. That St. Jude makes it the same capital offence to speak against the dignity of the Son, as to insult the majesty of the Father, and that the “men crept in unawares,” against whom St. Jude prophesies, are principally the malicious opposers of our Lord’s divinity, appears from the context: for St. Jude, in verses 21 and 25, considering again Jesus Christ as on the throne of the Godhead with his Father, exhorts the Christians to keep themselves in the love of God the Father, “looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life.” Now who can read these words without wondering at the “certain men” who “creep in unawares,” who come into the Church of Christ, as if they would purge it from corruptions, and pour contempt upon the very divinity of the supreme Lawgiver and Judge of the universe; and who dare tell us that the apostles give Jesus Christ no higher title than that of a mere man “approved of God,” when they call him the Lord to whose mercy we are to look for eternal life; as if a mere man could, in the day of God, show us “mercy unto eternal life!”

How different is the idea which St. Jude gives us of him, after Enoch, verse 14: “Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all the ungodly of their ungodly deeds, and of all the hard speeches which they have spoken against him.” Now, sir, we Trinitarians never heard of the saints of Moses, or of any mere man, but we have heard of the saints of God, we have heard of that great Being, who is called the Lord of hosts and the King of saints, because all the armies of the saints and angels are his own: and therefore we conclude that the Lord who shall come with myriads of his saints, is the Son who will punish obstinate unbelievers for their hard speeches, not against a mere man, but against him who said, when he was in the form of a servant, “The Son of man [resuming his form of God] shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, and they shall gather his elect,” &c, Matthew 24:31, and 25:31.

Now, sir, this Lord of glory, whose are the saints, the angels, and the elect, is our Lord Jesus Christ, whom St. Jude, in the last verse of his epistle, calls (in the unity of the Father’s Godhead, mentioned verses 1 and 21) the only wise God our Saviour, to whom be glory, majesty, and dominion, both now and ever!

Should you ask me, sir, how I prove that this doxology belongs peculiarly to our Lord Jesus Christ, I reply, that St. Jude himself furnishes me with a proof; for, verse 24, speaking of this God our Saviour to whom he ascribes glory, he describes him thus: “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,” &c. And that this description peculiarly belongs to our Lord, I prove by the following references. Speaking of himself as the good Shepherd, the keeper of the sheep, that keeps obedient believers from falling into sin and into hell, he says: “I and my Father are one;” and explaining how he is, with the Father, this God our Saviour who keeps the sheep from falling, he says:” I give unto them eternal life; none shall pluck them out of my hand: my Father [also] who gave them me, is greater than all [the powers of earth and hell,] and none is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand,” John 10:28, 30.

If this equality of the Father and of the Son, in “keeping us from falling,” proves that St. Jude’s doxology refers to our Lord, as well as to the Father, the following remark on St. Jude’s word, “God our Saviour is able to present you faultless with great joy, &c, proves it still more clearly. Is it God the Son, who will present us to the Father, or God the Father, who will present us to himself? St. Paul will inform us: “You (says he) that were sometimes enemies, hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you unblamable in his sight,” Colossians 1:22. Now, sir, so surely as the Father was never manifest in the flesh, the Prince of life, who died to “present us blameless,” is Jesus Christ, whom St. Jude [in union with God the Father] calls “God our Saviour.” For it is our Lord, who peculiarly “loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might cleanse it, and present it to himself without spot and blameless.” It is our Lord, “who, for the joy [the great joy] that was set before him, endured the cross,” and will one day say (as Mediator) to the Father, “Behold, I and the children whom thou hast given me.” Compare Ephesians 5:25, &c; Hebrews 2:13, and 12:2.

From these observations it appears that St. Jude also gives to Christ higher titles than that of “a man approved of God,” since he calls him not only “Jesus our Lord Messiah,” but “God our Saviour.” I have dwelt the longer on this apostle’s testimony, because some of the men whom he describes have endeavoured to press him into the service of Socinus, and to represent him as an opposer of our Lord’s divinity. We have not yet heard St. John and St. Paul, but as this letter is long enough, I shall reserve their testimony for my next. I remain, &c.