their minds any longer to continue those ministrations in the church, to which their subscription and declarations bind them, when admitted to a cure of souls. By a long train and series of thought and events, I have found myself unfortunately of this latter number, and after much balancing in my own mind, have believed it incumbent on me to make this apology for myself, who never thought of troubling the public with any thing of mine: willing, at the same time, I must own, when thus called to it, and even glad, at whatever cost, to bear my feeble testimony to the honour and true worship of the One God and Father of all, obscured or oppressed by high authority or dark superstition, in almost every Christian country; and thereby to leave, with my friends at least, a reasonable justification of my conduct for quitting an advantageous situation in the church, of some probable usefulness to others, and casting myself on the providence of God. It may be some recommendation, if not of the truth of what is delivered, yet of the diligence and sincerity of the writer, that they are not sentiments taken up of yesterday, but the result of many years' painful and solicitous inquiry, not without frequent and earnest aspirations to the Father of Lights for direction and assistance; and to which, the prejudices of education and the suggestions of worldly ease and interest, were most opposed. And as he hath been fearful of committing any mistakes himself, he hath been no less desirous not to mislead others, in what he here presumes to lay before the public. Firmly persuaded, upon such evidence as he thinks no fair mind can resist, that the Lord Jesus came from God, in the writing of these sheets he hath been all along under the most serious impressions of the relation he bears, and the obligations he owes, to this divinely commisoned Saviour, who loved him (Gal. ii. 20,) and gave himself for him; the appointed judge of quick and dead, by whom his future lot is to be decided, and who hath given his faithful followers hope, after death, of "being for ever with him."* 1 Thess. iv. 17. But he dares not advance this divine Saviour to an equality † with his God and heavenly Father, who himself was sent to teach men, that the Father was the only true God; and whose high John xvii. 24: "Father, I will, that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am." But it ought rather to be translated, Father, I desire,-as the phrase, I will, in our language, is ambiguous, and not clearly that of a supplicant. The French translations have it. Je désire; Je souhaite. + When Dr. James, the divinity professor at Cambridge, treated our Saviour's name with too much levity in drolling upon Mr. Whiston's and Dr. Clarke's supposed error about the Trinity, at the disputation of the latter for his degree of doctor in divinity; the famous Dr. Bentley made the following extempore tetrastic on the professor : est aim, glory and felicity was, to be the beloved son and chosen messenger of the Father, and to be employed by him in teaching his will to men. John xvii. 3:-"This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent,"* or Jesus whom thou hast sent, to be the Christ. And iv. 24: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." When the malicious Jews, perverting his words, accused him, John v. 18, not of making himself equal with, but like to God, as it ought to be translated; See Whitby on Philip. ii. 6, and afterwards, x. 33, were going to stone him for blasphemy, because that he, being a man, made himself God, by which making himself God, and like to God, they meant nothing more than his Tú ne mathematicum, male salse Jacobe, lacessis, Ludis tu Christum, Dominumque Deumque professus : Englished. And dost thou, James, with awkward keenness mark "De * Grotius's note on the text is happily expressed, se modeste in tertia persona loquitur. Sensus est: Et ut me agnoscant ut legatum tuum. Hac voce ostendit honorem sibi habitum ad Patrem redire. Nam regis interest, ut legatus honoretur. assuming a divine power and authority without any warrant for it, as the context and his answer to them plainly shew: his defence of himself at both times was,-not, that he was God, but that he had his power and authority from him: v. 19, "The son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do:" and x. 37, " If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not;" referring them to the miraculous works which he wrought, as a proof of the maliciousness of their accusation, and of his power and authority from God: If he said, John v. 22, 23, "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judement unto the son: that all men should honour the son even as they honour the Father;" he immediately explains himself, that the honour to be paid to him was not so much on his own account, as out of respect to God who had sent him, and the important office which he had committed to him;* he that honoureth not the son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. * This is Origen's interpretation of this passage, and the idea he had of the ground of the honour to be paid to Christ. For after asserting that the heathens can shew no authority from the God over all to worship their gods, dæmons, and heroes he says, 'If Celsus in his turn should ask us concerning Jesus, we shall demonstrate that the honour we pay to him is appointed by God, namely, that all men should honour the son as they honour the Father." Origen contr. Cels. L. viii. p. 384 John vi. 37: He declares that he received life and being from the Father;-"As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father." See Dr. Clarke's paraphrase. Again, vii. 16: “My doctrine is not mine but his that sent me.” viii 28, 29: "Then said Jesus unto them, when ye have lifted up the son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as the Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me; the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." In these, and those other declarations concerning himself, recorded by this his beloved disciple, ix. 4. x. 17, 18, 24 ―30. xi. 40-42. xii. 49. xiii. 16, 20. xiv. 1, 16, 28, 31. xv. 8, 10. xvi. 5, 23. xvii. throughout, &c., our Lord formally professes his inferiority and dependence upon God; that he received his being and all his powers from him; and leads men by his precepts and example, to look up to God, the Father, as the sole author and source of all blessings to himself and to all, and the sole object of adoration from all. Trinity, an unscriptural Name. Whatever difficulties there may be in the Bible in other respects, one would imagine there could be no dispute concerning the object of divine worship, whether one or many: compounded of more persons than one, or uncompounded. The |