"for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the "Godhead bodily." He is surely no delegated Creator, no inferior God," who, being in the form of God, thought it not 66 66 robbery to be equal with God;" at whose name all things in heaven and in earth have been taught to bow". He is the Son, by whom God made the worlds; by whom "all things were made, and without "whom was not any thing made that was "made;" who is the "brightness of his Fa"ther's glory, and the express image of his person," even "the image of the invisible "God;" whom "he that hath seen, hath seen "the Father" also; who "upholdeth all things 66 by the word of his power," and by whom "all things consist *." To him we offer our prayers without fear of violating the commandment, while we follow the example of his martyr Stephen' and his Apostle Paul2, t Col. ii. 1, 2, 3. 9. u Philipp. ii. 6. 10. Compare Isaiah xlv. 23. and Romans xiv. 10, 11, 12. * Heb. i. 2. John i. 3. xiv. 9. Heb. i. 3. Col. i. y Acts vii. 59, 60. Col. i. 15. 2 Cor. iv. 4. John 17. Ecclus. xliii. 26. E z 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9. and the precept of his beloved disciple, who records the practice of the age in which he lived. "These things have I "written to you that believe on the name "of the Son of God; that ye may know "that ye have eternal life, and that ye 66 may believe on the name of the Son of "God. And this is the confidence that "we have in him, that, if we ask any thing "according to his will, he heareth us: and "if we know that he hears us, whatsoever "we ask, we know that we have the peti"tions which we desired of him." This doctrine of the Apostle coincides with the words of our Lord himself: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, "that the Father may be glorified in the "Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” 66 2. In contending for "the proper or sim ple humanity of Jesus," a "Unitarian "Christian waves the dispute, whether "Christ is ever called God in the New a 1 John v. 13, 14, 15. b John xiv. 13, 14. "Testament, or even in the prophetical "writings"." This will be acknowledged a concise and convenient method of evading and suppressing a difficulty which it is not possible to overlook or to refute. Unitarians "believe that Jesus Christ was a proper human being in all respects like "unto his brethren, but distinguished from "them as the chosen servant of Gode:" that he "was a man in the strict and pro 66 is a per sense of the termf," " having no ex"istence before his human births." There "conviction" in the minds of some, "that Jesus was, properly speaking, in hea"ven when he was with God; that there"fore he went up into heaven when his 66 peculiar intercourse with God began; "that he came down from heaven when "he came forth from God to discharge "the great work which his Father who is "in heaven had given him to do"." Al d Estlin, p. 29. e Belsham's Lett. to the Bp. of London, p. 5. 59. f Carpenter, p. 73. 66 though such convictions have no evidence to support them, it is further contended, "that if Jesus were a being who existed in "a state of great glory and happiness be"fore his human birth, and was then "united with a human frame, (which is "the doctrine of preexistence,) then he "was not truly and properly man, and consequently every passage in which he " is called man, and every expression and "reasoning apparently founded upon his being man, must be understood figu"ratively." It is the opinion of the same writer, that there is "no supposition in any "degree so improbable as the incarnation "of a preexistent spirit." "The preex 66 ❝istence of Christ" is nevertheless "a doc"trine which many Unitarians hold'," although some have classed it among the "early corruptions of evangelical truth, "which disfigure and disgrace the Gospel "of Christ "," and have pronounced it to i Carpenter, p. 225. k Ibid. p. 259. 1 Estlin, p. 33. m Belsham's Lett. to the Bp. of London, p. 60. 61. be a doctrine "totally destitute of adequate "evidence".""Many Unitarians have be"lieved the miraculous conception, and "others... have wished it to be trueo:" while others again suppose it to have been "the fiction of some early Gentile convert, "who hoped, by elevating the dignity of "the founder, to abate the popular preju"dice against the sect":" a fiction which "would to the generality of Christians be 66 extremely gratifying, as it would lessen "the odium attached to Christianity from "its founder being a crucified Jew, and "would elevate him to the dignity of the "heroes and demigods of the heathen my"thology 9." If Peter had never been reproved for deprecating the passion of the Lord ; if Paul had not been known to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christs; if any n Carpenter, p. 225. note. • Estlin, p. 33. p Improved Version. Note on Matt. i. q Ibid. Note on Luke i. I Matt. xvi. 23. s Galat. vi. 14. |