you descant on the name God, and say nothing of the attributes and works ascribed to him who bears this name? If we should argue in the same manner with you, ought we to expect to convince you? Much less could we acquit our consciences of our obligation to represent the opinions of others fairly to the world, should we publish any thing by which we should endeavour to make them believe that all the evidence in favour of a particular doctrine held by many Christians consisted in that very thing on which they did not rely; or at most, in that which constituted merely but a part of their grounds of belief. The simile from Plato and Socrates, I must think, is less happily chosen than your fine taste and cultivated mind commonly lead you to choose. In the same breath that you say, "Plato was in the beginning with Socrates, and was Socrates," you add, "that whoever saw and heard Plato, saw and heard, not Plato, but Socrates, and that as long as Plato lived, Socrates lived and taught:" that is, your first sentence would either be not at all understood, or understood, of course, in a sense totally different from that which you meant to convey, unless you added the commentary along with the sentence. St. John has indeed added a commentary; but this is, as he means to call Christ THE GOD WHO CREATED THE UNIVERSE. Of this commentary you have taken no notice: but of this you are bound to take notice, if you mean to convince those who differ from you, or to deal ingenuously with those whom you design to instruct. On the texts, John xx. 28, Acts xx. 28, Rom. ix. 5, 1 Tim. iii. 16, Heb. i. 6, and John v. 20, I have already said what I wish to say at present. The remarks in your Note do not seem to call for any new investigation. You say (near the close of your Note), that you have "collected all the passages in the New Testament in which Jesus is supposed to be called God.” The foregoing Letter, however, does represent us as supposing that there are still more in which he is called God,— although I have omitted many in which a multitude of Trinitarians have supposed that Christ is called God. Why should you affirm this, when nearly every book on the doctrine of the Trinity that ever has been published by Trinitarians, will contradict it? You repeat also the assertion here, "that in two or three passages, the title (of God) may be given him (Christ); but in every case it is given in connexions and under circumstances which imply that it is not to be received in its highest and most literal sense." But in no single instance have you noticed the " connexions and circumstances," in which the appellation God is bestowed on Christ. Can you reasonably expect your thinking readers will take this assertion upon credit? Are you not bound to prove to these same readers, by the Scriptures, interpreted according to the universal laws of explaining human language, that the New Testament writers have not ascribed to Christ CREATIVE power, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, divine worship, divine honours, and eternal existence? What are names in this dispute? Show that these attributes are NOT ascribed to Christ, and you make us Unitarians at once. You ought not to take the advantage of representing our arguments as consisting in that on which we do not place reliance; and then intimate to your readers, "This is all which Trinitarians have to allege in their own favour." terminated in this way. Dispute can never be Meet fairly and openly the points in debate. Many of your readers are certainly too intelligent, and too conscientious, to be satisfied with any other course. Any other does not become your high character and distinguished talents. THE END. APR 16 1915 |