REMARKS ON S. THOMPSON'S LETTERS.

DEAR SIR,

T

HE following quotation is taken from a book written in defence of the doctrine of the Reftoration: the titlepage being loft, I cannot tell who was the author; but as I am in hopes the fentiments will better agree with yours, and likewife the generality of your correfpondents than the fentiments exhibited in S. Thompson's Letters, I could wish them, together with the annexed remarks, to have a place in your Mifcellany.--

"We reply, And how are we to know any thing at all of God, otherwife than by his Chrift? The Logos, or Chrift, alone is the God intelligible to the creatures---the object of their worship: Chrift alone has been ever feen by them, ad ́mired, and adored by them: to Chrift alone have any of the creatures at any time had any personal access, and of him alone any fenfible evidences. And how then fhould they know any thing of any one as God befides him by name? Nay, but what juft conception can the bare name God give any of us of the invifible Deity? And if you fay, that in the true name of God is implied, that he is the creator of all things, this is only to fay, that by this name we define the Logos; for the Logos is the only feen Creator of all things. And if again you fay, that in the true name of God is imported that telfexiftent Being, who lives the one fupport of all created beings, yet, fince the word self-existent can import no more than the exifting without the workmanship of any other cause, this appellation will still but coincide with that of uncreated; and because the uncreated can be but one, this defignation must again terminate in that of the Creator of all things; that is, it muft prove the true periphrafis of the Logos, or Chrift. And if, laftly, you fay, that by the name God you intend the Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift, you give us, it is true, the beft account of him; and yet fuch as amounts to no more than that the great Creator of all things, the (178) Lord, Support, or Pillar of us all, has a Father; or, in other words, it fuppofes Jefus Chrift as our first known God, and as the means of our knowledge of the Father, and that the one defignation whereby the Father is knowable to us is, that he is the Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift. In fhort, by the moft determined definition of God, viz. the Father, we know nothing at all of him

but through his fon; however, Jefus Chrift has affured us that himself and his Father are one in all other refpects than those relative to them as Father and fon."

One cannot help obferving how natural and eafy, as well as experimental, the above fentiment is, when compared with the ftrange fanciful notions maintained by S. T. I have often heard of the unitarian doctrine, but I never read so much of it before. I could not have thought, that men who make so much ado about reason fhould be fo void of reafon as to deprive themselves of helps which the kind Father of mercies has been pleased to provide, in order that they might be able to worship and love him. Can this be the wildom that cometh from above? It is very poffible S. T. may understand some things very well; but as an expounder of Scripture, I think he has no room at all to tread and triumph. The paffages of Scripture which speak of Chrift's divinity, muft, according to his opinion, be explained by others that speak of him merely as a man: now, by this method, he has made out a medley which (when taken together with fome of his expreffions, fuch as Deity in the womb, Deity on the breaft) makes it border on ridicule, and only calculated to make sport for deifts.

Vol. II. p. 76. we have his comment on our Lord's converfation with Nicodemus; and furely it is enough to make any one fimile: he fays, it is not the manner of the fpirit's operation that is there compared to the blowing of the wind, but the person who is regenerate. If this is the truth, furely S. T. ftands foremost amongst the champions for mystery; for if men and women are to become like the blowing of the wind, in fuch a manner as that we cannot tell whence they come nor whither they go, I think it must certainly be myfte rious. As to the two texts of Scripture quoted, I fuppofe most people will allow that they are myfterious; and who would go to explain one mystery by another. We are told next, that as to the manner of the operation of the fpirit, it is no mystery, but clearly revealed. I anfwer, the manner is not clearly revealed in that paffage, nor yet so much as mentioned. Our Lord fays, He, that is the fpirit, fhall convince the world of fin---but does not fay in what manner. Every body knows that there is a wide difference between causes and their effects, and alfo between the effects themselves, and the manner in which they are produced; fimiles to prove this can be met with every day and every hour. Again, the manner of the refurrection is quite clear and plain to S. T.; he thinks any man a fool who does not understand it; for, fays he, St. Paul

explains

explains that himself. I fay, St. Paul does not explain it at all. He fays, the body is raifed in incorruption---in glory---in power, and a fpiritual body; all which expreffions point at the ftate of the body after it is raised, rather than the manner in which it is raised. St. Paul might perhaps think such a needlefs queftion foolish; but we cannot fuppofe that he confidered every one a fool who did not know what perhaps he himself was ignorant of. Men as wife as S. T., and much more attentive, differ in their opinion about the manner of the refurrection. Some think that the atoms of the prefent body will be collected together by a miraculous power, and be united, fo as to form the body that fhall be raised. Others think, that the effence of the prefent body will be folded up in so small a compafs as to be indivifible, and that at the refurrection it will expand, and become the fpiritual body that St. Paul speaks of. Others differ from thefe, thinking it will be only a spiritual refurrection; and there may be other opinions different from these ftill, and yet, after all, no man can be certain in any of them.

I would juft further remark, that no one need be afraid to look S. T.'s arguments in the face; for I think he has taken up a fubject which he knows not how to argue upon; every thing which he hath faid may be fet afide in fix or feven words, which he himself hath helped us to, viz. We understand it in a different way. If the fubject was of no more confequence than merely yea and nay, we might let the blind lead the blind; but when we confider that all experimental religion is fo connected with the divinity of Jefus Chrift, that the one must ftand or fall with the other, the point becomes of importance, and ought to be carefully defended. To fay, that it cannot be defended according to reafon as well as Scripture, is not true. There has been more given up to these pretenders to reason than there is need for. I can fee nothing neceflary to be believed concerning it, that is above reafon, nor yet contrary to reason, provided we reafon agreeable to the nature of the subject. I grant there has been many abfurd expreffions and notions. maintained in defending the doctrine; but furely the doctrine itself cannot be lefs interefting on that account. Some will fay, Away with your carnal reafoning; give me the Scripture; the Scripture is the religion for proteflants. I believe neither protestants nor papifts can be benefitted by the Scriptures without the ufe of their reafon : and yet fome things in the Scriptures cannot be reafoned upon in the fame manner as the building of houses or the ploughing of fields: things invisible

are

are not, nor can they be, apprehended in the fame manner as things feen. I wifh S. T. had ftudied this point more.

If you fhould think proper to give this a place in your Mifcellany, it is probable I may addrefs you again, at fome future period, on the impoffibility of worfhipping God in any other way than in, through, and by Jefus Chrift. I remain,

Yours, &c.

J. S.

LEX TALIONIS.

To the Editor of the UNIVERSALIST'S MISCELLANT. MR. EDITOR,

T appears to me, that the person who begins a controversy

view a

public nature) but that of elucidating the subject he attempts to contend about, in fuch a manner as either to correct what be conceives errors in his antagonist, or to communicate to the public what he thinks to be neceffary as well as ufeful information. Under the influence of expectations of this kind I began with pleasure to read your correfpondent W. Burton's animadverfions on a few friendly hints given in p. 60, for February laft, in your laft Mifcellany, p. 91. Hoping that, however my ignorance might be expofed, fuch light would be thrown upon the fubject as might equally tend both to the advancement of truth and the improvement of your readers in ufeful knowledge. But how great was my difappointment when I found that the whole confifted of charges, without one of them being properly ftated, the principal of which I find to be mifreprefentation! owing to my ignorance in giving a quotation of Montanus's verfion of Pfalm xlix. 19. as the verfion of Pagninus, which he very wifely accounts for by my seeing the name of the latter in the title-page of the former. On which he very fhrewdly makes the following remarks, "Thus we fee, Sir, that it is not only neceffary to read the author we quote from, but also that we know how to read him." Now, Sir, as your correfpondent would by no means leave us to doubt of his own great learning and abilities, how uncandid ́is he not to inform us (if he is capable) why Pagninus's name fhould be in the title-page of Montanus's Hebrew Bible. In p. 60. my quotation of Pagninus's verfion of my in Pfalm xlix. 19. was ufque in æternum, instead of which your correfpondent's

refpondent's quotation is qui ufque in feculum; by which rendering he charges Pagninus with a motive "only to decieve." And to vindicate his rendering against my correction, he introduces the following unintelligible obfervation," I again affirm the verfion of Pagninus to be as I have quoted it. The edition I ufe is Leufden's, printed by Bowyer, London, 1758." Now, Sir, I in my turn affirm, that his quotation is not to be found in the text of any of Pagninus's Hebrew Pfalters; and I also affirm that Leufden never did publish an edition of that author, his extracts being only from an incorrect copy, the errors of which are now placed in the margin of the prefent editions. Befides, the difference between Pagninus's edition of the Hebrew Pfalter and Leufden's is fo very confpicuous, that it is impoffible they can be mistaken the one for the other by any one who knows any thing of the subject, the former being printed having the text and the words correfponding therewith in the Latin verfion placed over it, by which means the Latin scholar is enabled to read and conftrue the Hebrew language with great facility in a very short time: the latter with the text in one page, and the verfion in the following one oppofite.Therefore, however unable I may be to read authors I quote, when I look into the title-page of Pagninus's Hebrew Bible, with his interlineary verfion, I read in fuch a manner as to understand he was the original author of that verfion, and the fame title-page alfo informs me, that Arias Montanus was the revisor, corrector, and editor of all the fubfequent editions thereof. For thefe reafons I conclude, that it is fometimes called Pagninus's and at other times Montanus's Hebrew Bible.

Laftly, your correfpondent's very fevere cenfure, occafioned by my friendly correction of his error in his Hebrew of Pfalm x. 16. I think is rather unjuftifiable, as I only faid, I would recommend for the future a more careful correction of the proof fheets. Surely fuch a gentle hint could not justly provoke him to drag the great Alexander Pope, Efq. forward to compare me to a crow, who is content to feed on carrion! What ftate would the Hebrew copies of the Bible have been in at the present time, if they had been exposed to the fame negligence? If we hear him in whom are hid all the treasures of wifdom and knowledge declaring, that "till. heaven and earth pass, not one jot or one tittle should pa's from the Scriptures till all were fulfilled," how can we think of the paffing away of a pronoun in the plural number and mafculine gender as a matter of no confequence. Had I taken notice of his English in the fame manner, there might be fome appearance

of