Page images
PDF
EPUB

In Him we find the remedy,-the light of revelation to dispel our darkness, and his enlivening grace to purify the heart. You are ready to acknowledge him as the divine and inexhauftible fountain of both, if once fome paffages, which, in your opinion, militate against his Divinity, could be reconciled. An attempt fhall be made in my next letter.

I have the honour, &c.

LETTER

LETTER III.

SIR,

AN incarnate God, whofe bleeding wounds have paid our ranfom, is one of those mysteries that stuns and difconcerts human reafon, liable to ftray through the winding paths of roving error, if the clew of faith do not direct our steps and minister its affiftance. He appeared on earth to cancel our crimes; to nail to the cross the schedule of our condemnation; to lacerate and tear the woful hand-writing that gave us over to rebel-angels; to fnatch finful man from the hands of divine juftice; and to unlock the awful gates of the eternal fanctuary, whither no mortal has access, but through the blood of the spotlefs pontiff. He appeared, in fine, to raise, through his merits, all thofe who fell by Adam's guilt; to form a faithful and holy people,--a faithful people, " by cap"tivating their understanding to the yoke of “faith,”—and a holy people, whose converfation, according to St. Paul, ought to be in Heaven and who are to follow no longer the dictates of the flesh.

;

Our

Our ignorance of his nature would expofe us to the fatal alternative-either of becoming idolaters in worshipping a man, which is the cafe of all Chriftians, if your opinion be well grounded,or of refufing God the homage that is due to him, which is your cafe, if you mistake and err. If Christ be not God, the Christians are in the fame cafe with the idolatrous Tartars, who worfhip a living man: and if he be God above all, and bleffed for ever, you may as well believe the Alcoran, as believe the scriptures; and invoke Mahomet, as invoke the Son of Mary, He declares, "that life eternal confifts in the

knowledge of Himfelf, and of the Father "who fent him." In fuch an important article, it is too hazardous to plead ignorance, in hopes of impunity for the fcripture fays, that "there "is a way which man thinks to be the right "one and the end thereof are the ways of "death." The Divinity of Chrift, evidenced by the accomplishment of fo many oracles, and fupported by the concurrent teftimonies of all nations and ages, fince his appearance on earth, has fo many apologists, that the doctor can easily meet with fome of them in every library, and, I doubt not, in his own; and that it were prefumption in me to attempt going over the fame ground; efpecially, after what Abadie and Houteville have faid on this important fubject. Moreover, fir, you acknowledge the authenti

city

[ocr errors]

city of the scriptures, and found your doubts, either on the obfcurity of some passages, or the mifapplication of fome prophecies, or the numberless texts, relating to Chrift's humanity. In this walk, I take the liberty of attending you, step by step; and fhall avoid, as much as poffible, any long digreffion; left we may stray too far from the path.

OBSCURITY.

You affirm, that the first chapter of St. John, in which the Divinity of Christ is afferted, “ In "the beginning was the Word; and the "Word was with God; and the Word was "God;" is intricate and obfcure. It is quite the reverse; and Chrift's Divinity cannot be read in more legible characters. You underftand by the Word, "the Man Jefus, whom "God raised up in time, and to whom God im"parted extraordinary gifts." In understanding by the Word, the Man Jefus, you are in similar circumstances with king Agrippa, who faid: "Paul, Paul, you have made me almost a "Chriftian." You would be entirely a Chriftian, if you added to "the Man Jefus, whom "God raised up in time," the God Jefus, who was begotten from eternity: according to the faying of the pfalmift, "Before the morning"ftar I have begotten thee: "words which Chrift applies to himself. Or you understand by

the

the foregoing words, "In the beginning was the "Word," &c. truth and righteousness, co-eternal with the Divinity. Permit me to tell you, that you explain one obfcurity by another ; and that, notwithstanding all your fhifts, either the evangelift did not know what he was faying, or you must abfolutely allow an eternal and preexistent principle, united to human nature,“ in "the fulness of time."

To prove what I advanced, I fhall adopt your interpretation, and place Truth in the room of Word. "In the beginning was the "Truth: and the Truth was with God and "God was the Truth." Remark, here, that God and the Truth are identified :-God was the Truth. In the fame chapter, it is faid: "The "Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst "us." In adopting your interpretation, it will be-" The Truth was made flesh, and dwelt "amongst us," viz. the fame Truth of which he faid before, that it was God himself,-and then the entire fenfe will be-God, the Truth, was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us. Upon the whole, you are to acknowledge an eternal, pre-exiftent principle, affuming human nature; or to reject this chapter as fuppofitious, which no Arian or Socinian ever did.

You accufe the English tranflators of fome defign, in tranfpofing these words,

"Kai

« PreviousContinue »