am in the Father, and the Father in me."

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"If any man

love me, I and my Father will come to him." John xiv. 10, 11, 23. Nay, this apostle, who concludes this epistle by a charge to keep ourselves from idolatry, uses the appellations of "Father," "God," "the Son of God," and "Jesus Christ,” as partly synonymous. Take some examples: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the" adopted sons of God. Now are we the" adopted "sons of God: but we know that, when he" ("God manifest in the flesh") "shall appear, we shall be like him" in his glorified humanity. 1 John iii. 1, 2. Again: "Hereby know we the love of God,"-"manifest in the flesh,"—" because he" (God our Saviour) "laid down his life for us." 1 John iii. 16. Yet again: "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us: God is love." "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment," or, as it is expressed 1 John ii. 28, “that when he" (God the Son) "shall appear, we may not be ashamed before him at his coming, because as he is," in his form of a servant, a loving, humble man, 66 so are we in this world." 1 John iv. 16, &c. From a careful comparison of these passages, it is evident, that St. John considered the Father and the Son in his form of God as so intimately one, that he joins them together as the great object of our faith, and uses the high title of "God" for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man who laid down his human life for us, and before whom we shall appear in the great day.

Take another proof that St. John honours the Son as he honours the Father. Summing up his first epistle, he saith, "The Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true," the Father, eternally one with his only-begotten Son. "And we are in him that is true, even in" or by "his Son Jesus Christ this is the true God and eternal life;" for the eternal Godhead resides in the Son, as truly as it does in the Father, and flows to us more immediately from the Son; who is peculiarly God our Saviour, and the fountain of our eternal life. 1 John v. 20. Thus St. John

:

concludes this epistle as he began his gospel, not by asserting with you that Jesus Christ is "a mere man," or by refusing to give him any higher title than that of “a man approved of God," but by calling him "God, the true God, the living God," yea, "everlasting life" itself. And the drift of this excellent epistle is so evidently to hold forth the Son's and the Father's common divinity, that the sum of the whole is, "Whosoever denieth the Son, he hath not the Father; but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also." 1 John ii. 23.

The same vein of anti-Socinian doctrine runs through St. John's second epistle, of which we have the substance in these words: "He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any to you, and bring not this doctrine," but make you believe, that committing sin is consistent with our victorious faith, or that the Father is Jehovah alone, and that the Logos, God the Word, was not "manifest in the flesh to take away our sins," "receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is a partaker of his evil deeds." 2 John 9-11. "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ," the Logos, who was in the beginning with God, and was God, "is come in the flesh," some of whom deny his real divinity, and others. his real humanity. "This is a deceiver and an antichrist." 2 John 7. "For he is antichrist who denieth the Father and the Son," it being impossible to deny the Son without denying the Father. 1 John ii. 22. Yea, so perfect is the oneness of the Father, and of his onlybegotten Son, that St. John gives the elect lady this anti-Socinian blessing, "Grace, mercy, and peace be with you," equally "from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father." 2 John 3. Another proof this that there is in the Godhead an eternal pater-· nity inseparably connected with an eternal sonship.

St. John's last book is full of the same doctrine. The Father, if not the Son, speaks thus, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, who is, who was, and is to come, the Almighty." Rev. i. 8.

And the Son, not thinking it a robbery to speak of himself in the same glorious terms, says, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." Rev. i. 17; xxii. 13. Thus the last as well as the first chapter of the Revelation shows that he hath higher titles than that of “a man approved of God."

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As the Father and the Son are honoured with the same titles, so they are represented as filling the same everlasting throne; and although the Father calls himself " jealous God," yet is he so little displeased with the divine honours paid to the Son, that, placing him at his right hand, he gives him the seat of honour in the midst of the throne, that all men and angels may, without scruple, honour the Son as they honour the Father. Rev. v. 6; Psalm cx. 1; Acts vii. 55. Therefore, every rational creature in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, is represented by St. John as paying the same worship to the Father and the Son, and as addressing to both a doxology similar to that which concludes the Lord's prayer, saying, in the midst of the deepest prostrations, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever." Rev. iv. 8, &c.; v. 12, &c. And both in the unity of the Spirit are adored as the same Jehovah, the same "holy, holy, holy One, that liveth for ever and ever, who hath created all things, and for whose pleasure they are and were created, and before whose throne the elders" of the triumphant church "cast their crowns." Rev. iv. 8, 11; v. 14.

Thus St. John, whom you think favourable to your error, not only asserts, after our Lord, that all men are to "honour the Son as they honour the Father," but testifies that all the heavenly hosts actually worship the Son as they do the Father; so grossly mistaken are you when you assert that our worshipping of Jesus Christ is an abominable idolatry, on account of which every true Christian is to forsake the church of England. I wish, sir, that by advancing such unscriptural and antichristian paradoxes, you may not finally unfit yourself for the company of those who worship God and the Lamb, and

for the bliss of those who sing with St. John, “To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." Rev. i. 5, 6. Praying that this letter may be a mean of removing or shaking the prejudices you entertain against him who, in the unity of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, "is the true God and eternal life," 1 John v. 7, 20,

I remain, &c.

LETTER IX.

REV. SIR,

ST. PAUL, who, as a rigid Jew, detested the very name of idols, and who, as a zealous Christian, went through the world to make armies of idols fall before the living God,-St. Paul, I say, will peculiarly take care not to countenance idolatry. He wrote thirteen or fourteen epistles; and, if you are not mistaken, we shall find, at least, in one of them that our Lord was a mere man."

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But how soon does this apostle rise against your error! In the very first chapter of his first epistle he calls his gospel indifferently, "the gospel of God," and "the gospel of Christ;" Rom. i. 1, 16; and, to let us at once into the mystery of our Lord's divine nature, he confirms St. John's doctrine of the Logos made flesh, and calls our Lord "the Son of God, made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared with power the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness," (the holy and "quickening Spirit" essential to his divine nature, 1 Cor. xv. 45,) "by the resurrection from the dead;" and therefore the apostle immediately points him out as being, in the unity of the Father, the divine spring of grace and peace, saying, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." Rom. i. 3, 4, 7. Far from seeing in this description "a mere man," I already perceive lov UIOV, "the proper Son" of God, the very Prince ίδιον υιον,

of life, condescending to clothe himself with our flesh, our mortal nature, that he might make way for his gospel, which is the gospel of God.

When the apostle hath thus led us to honour the Son as we honour the Father, he deplores the idolatry of the heathen, who honoured and "worshipped the creature.” Rom. i. 25. A strong proof this, that St. Paul had no idea of your doctrine, which sees in Christ a mere creature. On the contrary, he holds him out as the great object of our faith and confidence; saying that "God" the Father "hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus," that is, who relieth on Jesus for salvation. Rom. iii. 25, 26. Now, sir, this faith, this religious reliance for pardon and eternal life, is the highest of all acts of worship; and therefore none is to be the object of it, but God our Saviour. So sure then as St. Paul never called us to believe in Moses, in himself, or in any mere man, but only in Jesus; our Lord, the object of our faith, is God over all, and not a mere man, as you unscripturally teach.

On our Lord's divinity rests the force of St. Paul's great incentive to divine love. "God," saith he, "commendeth his love towards us, in that when we were yet sinners Christ died for us." Rom. v. 8. For if Christ be a mere man, God commended his love as much towards us by the death of Socrates, or of St. Paul, as by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. On the same evangelical ground rests also this ravishing conclusion of the apostle, “As by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they who receive abundance of grace shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Rom. v. 17. For if our Lord be a mere man, as Adam was, why is he much more able to save than the first man was able to destroy? But upon Paul's evangelical principles of sound reasoning, Christ is by so much more able to save, than Adam was to destroy, by how much the only-begotten and proper Son of God is greater than a son by mere creation. For "the first Adam was" only "made a living soul; but the last Adam" is "a quickening Spirit." 1 Cor. xv. 45.

St.