of James and Simon? and are not his sisters with us?" Mark vi. 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 whilst 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 ii. 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 i. 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 ii. 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 i. 5.

only

Hence it is that St. Jude, in the fourth verse, reprcsents it as the same capital offence to "deny the only Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ," "the words 66 Lord God" being put here, as in John xvii. 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 i. 20, &c.

That St. Jude makes it the same capital offence to speak against the dignity of the Son, as to to insult

But when I

I consider this verse as it stands in our translation. look into the original, I find that St. Jude prophesies of "certain men erept in unawares, who deny " τον μονον δεσποτην Θεον και κυριον ημων Inoar Xpisov, "our only Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ," or, accord ing to the best copies, which omit eov, "our only Master," or Lord,

"and Saviour Jesus Christ."

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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, 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, verses 14, 15: "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand 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. Matt. xxiv. 31; xxv. 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

the Father's Godhead, mentioned verses 1 and 21, 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-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 x. 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 remarks on St. Jude's words, "God our Saviour is able to present you faultless with great joy," &c., prove 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 sometime enemies, hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you unblamable in his sight." Col. i. 21, 22. Now, sir, so surely as the Father was never manifest in the flesh, the Prince of life, who died to

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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 Medi

ator, to the Father, "Behold, I and the children whom thou hast given me." Compare Ephesians v. 25, &c.; Heb. ii. 13, and xii. 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.

REV. SIR,

LETTER VIII.

I remain, &c.

Two

THE sacred writers, with whom you have already been confronted, rise with one accord against your error. more apostles, St. John and St. Paul, remain to be consulted; and as they have written about half of the new testament, we may, in their writings, if any where, find your favourite doctrine. But before we call them in as evidences, let us take a view of the question to be decided by their testimony.

This question is not whether our Lord was a man, a man approved of God, a man mediating between God" and us; nor yet whether he was not inferior to the Father when he had taken upon him the form of a servant, and when he sustained the part of a commissioned mediator; for this we maintain as well as you: but the question is, whether as Logos, as the Word, he had not a divine glory with his Father before the world was." John xvii. 5. You boldly reply, No! you suppose that Arians do him too much honour, when they believe, that he had a super-angelic nature; you think, that we trinitarians are idolaters, for considering him as possessed of a divine

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