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named among Christians; and too glaring an absurdity to need any refutation!

It has ever been received as one of the plainest dictates of common sense, as well as of the Bible, that whatever begins to exist, is a creature; that whatever is dependent, is a creature; and that it is impossible for the infinite Jehovah to propagate another Jehovah! The infinite God cannot be wanting in wisdom or power, to form any creature, that he may please to form, of ever so exalted powers. But that he can produce a being essentially superior to a creature; or can produce a God, is a most glaring impossibility! God may form creatures in his own image, and may call them gods. This he has done, in heaven and on earth. "I said ye are gods." "Worship him all ye gods." But this is a thing infinitely different from producing a real God! We have ample no

tice, in all those cases, that Gods, but creatures.

they were not real

Divinity, underiThere can be no Christ is neither

grace

If these remarks be correct, then Jesus Christ either must be possessed of real ved; or he is a mere creature. possible medium. To say that the infinite God, nor a creature, is to talk without ideas. And this would come with a very ill from a man, who is very liberal in censuring others, for saying things upon the divine Trinity, which cannot be comprehensibly defined; and who deems it a sufficient objection against the sentiments of Trinitarians, that they involve some inexplicable mysteries. Such a man ought to be able to give us a more intelligible definition of that divine nature, which, as the basis of his scheme, constitutes Christ a God; while yet he is finite and dependent. In leaving this supposed divinenature involved in mystery, and destitute of all

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conceivable properties, the author of this notion violates his own maxim; that, "To make use of terms, of which we can give no intelligible explanation, has no tendency to communicate light. Those, who make use of terms in relation to God or to Christ, ought at least (he says) to be able and willing to tell their own meaning in the use of those terms." But even this man finds it very convenient, when speaking of a supposed divine nature, derived from God, which constitutes Christ a God, while yet destitute of every truly divine perfection, to involve the subject in inexplicable mystery! Yet all his readers must believe in his mystery; while he is constrained to renounce the mystery of the Trinity! Let such a man be asked, if one God can be derived, why not many? many Mighty Gods, and Everlasting Fathers! many first Causes and last Ends of all things! It seems like trifling, otherwise I should be inclined to ask such a man, Who knows, upon his principles, how great a family of such Gods, even male and female, may yet exist? Surely, upon his principle, nothing forbids but the number should become vast! Pagan gods and goddesses have been vastly numerous, in the imagination of their votaries. That pagan god that might propagate one natural son, might propagate twenty, and as many daughters

What essence or part of God is it possible to conceive could be divided and taken from that infinite, simple, indivisible, immutable Spirit, " with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning?" Is such a Spirit capable of diminution, or divisibility?

Pagans believed in a power of propagation in their gods. But the Bible demands the belief of nothing of this kind, relative to our heavenly Fa

ther. We are taught to believe, that " Adam was the son of God;" (Luke iii. 38); and that Angels are the sons of God; (Job xxxviii. 7); not because they were formed of God's essence; but because he made them in his own likeness, and "partakers of the divine nature." And Christians are "partakers of the divine nature;" having of Christ's "fulness received, and grace for grace." But those things do not render them eternal, because the divine nature, of which they partake, is eternal. And we have no more right to conceive, that there is any sense, in which Christ's Divinity can have been literally derived from God, which is consistent with his being eternal.

There is one passage, which may seem to some, at first view, to favor the idea, of a derivation of Christ's Divinity. Prov. viii. 22-; "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the world was. When there was no depths, I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the deep; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth; then I was by him, as one brought up with him ; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men."

It

is a good rule, in exposition, never to set a solitary passage against the general tenor of the Word of God. Scripture must explain Scripture. It never contradicts itself; however a solitary passage may seem, at first view, to contradict what is taught in many.

It is evident, and good authorities warrant us to say, that wisdom, in this passage, is personified by a well known figure or usage in human language. "Doth not Wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors." Here is the person, represented as a female, whose discourse composes the chapter. She represents herself as a person distinct from the Jehovah, who created the world. But Christ is the very Jehovah, who created all things, as will be noted. "All things were made by him." This person, in figure, gives an account (as might be expected, to enforce her instructions, and to make the representation complete) of her antiquity, and of her kindred with the Most High. She is accordingly set up from everlasting, and brought forth before the hills. But are we from this figurative passage, to believe that the wisdom of God was literally brought forth? Or, that the Jehovah of hosts, whom we have been contemplating, as the mighty God, the great God, the true and eternal God, had a beginning?

Supposing, that in the passage we do truly hear the voice of Christ, the difficulty is not hence increased. For he is speaking under the borrowed character, noted above. And accordingly he would give the same representation of this character, as above, and according to the conceptions of men. God himself is often spoken of, after the manner of men; and things are predicated of him,

which are far from being literally true. But to take occasion from the above passage to deny the eternity of Jesus Christ, and to incur all the insuperable difficulties, which attend the opinion, that the Divinity of Christ was actually derived, and is finite; and thus, that he is not the very God; is to violate all the best rules of exposition; and to contradict the numerous and most evident decisions of the sacred pages.

The terms God and creatures, bave ever been received, as necessarily comprising all Beings in the universe. To present a being, who is neither the true and infinite God, nor yet a creature, is indeed to furnish "news," either from the " Bible," or from one's own bewildered imagination! But that Jesus Christ is of real and underived Divinity, does abundantly appear in the sacred Oracles; as I shall now attempt to ascertain.

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