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passage, between two natures in Christ: one, the human and according to the flesh,' by which he was of the race of David; the other, that of God which is spiritual, and proved in his case already by the resurrection from the dead. The rest of the doctrine, of his being the first-born in this nature, and of believers being also in it and adopted sons, in nowise sets aside the doctrine of the procession and Sonship of Christ. Had the Unitarian scheme been the true one, we should have read here of nothing (the simplicity of the history considered) but of the son or descendant of David, anointed to be the Sent of GOD; and by Him raised from the dead.

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Chap. v. ver. 18. But said also that God was his father, making himself like God.' By the use of like' the sense is let down below the original; which is oos, equal. Again: ver. 24, Passeth from death unto life,' for is passed:' thus putting off the benefits derivable from faith in God and union with Christ, till after the death of the body.

The sublime assertion by Christ, in this whole passage from ver. 19 to ver. 30, of his oneness with the Father in the Godhead, and of his attributes as the Son and Sent of God and Judge of quick and dead, is worthy the deep and serious consideration of every reader. See 1 John, 1-18, and compare substance with substance in the doctrine of both texts.

Chap. vi. 41, 42. 'The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven: and said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How, therefore, doth this man say, I came down from heaven?'

First, as to a note here, 'Observe, that the Jews call Jesus the son of Joseph, without being contradicted by the Evangelist.' Plain proof, I say, of the genuineness of the passage! Next, as to a gloss or two at the foot of the page; I am come down from heaven:' that is, 'I am invested with a divine commission.' 'I am the bread of life:' that is, my doctrine, which will ensure eternal life to all who practically embrace it.' Well! suppose it to mean the doctrine-for our Lord said 'My words they are spirit and they are life.' But note, it is the power as God's (not the words as man's) that is to save us. Let us only go back to ver. 38, and read there, 'For my doctrine came down from heaven, not to do its own will, but the will of him that sent it:' and we shall see the absurdity of the gloss

at once.

Ver. 46. Not that any man hath seen the Father, but he that is from God d; he hath seen the Father.' Note, i. e. 'has known his will.' So ver. 40. To see the Son, is to understand the doctrine of Christ.' Futile, all this! The person of God to man on earth was Jesus of Nazareth: -the person of the Father as manifest to the Son in heaven, we can by no means, here, conceive of!

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Ver. 68, 69. Simon Peter answered him, Master, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life: and we believe and know, that thou art the Holy One of God.' No reason assigned for their putting the Christ, the Son of the living God, R. T.' at the foot of the page. The sense of the text is quite as full in Matthew: in Mark it is the Christ:' in Luke, the Christ of God.' Let them prove then, on their own showing here, that he was mere man!

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Chap. vii. ver. 26. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the Christ?' The second aλnows is not rendered here: and the C. T. is right. Ver. 28. 'Then Jesus cried out in the temple, as he taught, saying, Do ye both know me, and know whence I am? And yet I am not come of myself, but he who sent une is true, whom ye know not.' The query will not stand: the affirmative mode is rendered necessary by the denial of him in ver. 27. 'As to my humanity [this I take to be the sense] you know me well enough, my birth-place, my mother and reputed father: but of Him who sent me, the true God, ye are, alas! ignorant: or ye would have received

me.'

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Chap. viii. ver. 14. Though I bear witness of myself, yet my witness is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go, &c.' 'True;' valid in a higher sense than that intended by the objectors: [which latter sense Christ had admitted, chap. v. ver. 31.] I am not a mere individual of the nation but the Messiah, and your Lawgiver-your future Prince and Saviour. Acts, v. 31.

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Chap. viii. ver. 24, 25. I therefore said unto you, that ye will die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye will die in your sins. Then they said unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus said unto them, Even what I told you at the first.' If ye believe not in me as I am, [in my present appearance,] ye will die in your sins.' This sense may be thought congruous with the remainder of the text: for the question immediately follows, (provoked by the perplexing obscurity of his condition,) Who, or what art thou?' And the reply refers them to his former confessions that he was the Christ, who (according to ver. 28) was about to be lifted up,' as the ensign of God's pardon to such as should, in faith, come and look upon it. Comp. iii. 14; and Numb. xxi. 9.

Ver. 56-58. Your father Abraham earnestly desired that he might see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. The Jews therefore said unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old; and hast thou seen Abraham ? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am he.'

The sense varies little from the C. T. but it is combated by two notes, in which the pre-existence or eternity of Christ is attempted to be set aside. 'He was designated to his office, it seems, before Abraham was born; and this designation might have been revealed to the patriarch. Again it is 'as if he had said, My mission was settled and certain before the birth of Abraham.' But they take near half a page to tell us this! And note the Greek for was (respecting Abraham) is yevεoba (become a creature), and that for am (used by Christ) su, than which no word could more fully imply the Godhead: compare with Exodus iii. 14. for proof.

Chap. xiv. ver. 9, 10. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father; how then sayest thou, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words which I speak unto you, I speak not from myself; and the Father, who abideth in me, he doeth the works."

In a note, 'By knowing me, ye know and see the Father, because I

clearly reveal his will and display his power.'-Newcome. In another from the same: I am in the Father, and the Father is in me; because my doctrine is my Father's, and because my miracles are my Father's. See chap. x. 38.' This very text, and the context here, shall suffice to refute their doctrine. It was on the supposition that they had not faith to take him at his word, respecting his Godhead and oneness with the Father, that Jesus appeals in both places to his miracles. Though ye believe not me, believe the works. But if not [on my word] believe [me] for the works themselves.'

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Chap. xvi. 27. That I came forth from God, &c.' Carefully guarded with a q. d. 'I was sent by him as his messenger to mankind.'

The Greek verb seems to me to imply more, even than we have had already. In chap. viii. 42, (guarded in like manner,) we read 'I came forth, and am come from God; nor indeed did I come of myself, but he sent me.' Here is the procession and the mission, both seeing it is one thing, for Christ to come from God into the world, (Heb. x. 7: 1 John iv. 9;) and another for God to choose his own messenger among men, and send him. He was born Saviour and King of Israel. Isa. ix. 6; Matt. ii. 2; Luke i. 35. ii. 11; and see John xviii. 37.

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Chap. xvii. 3. And this is everlasting life, that they may know thee to be the only true God, and Jesus thy messenger to be the Christ.' The first to be' unfairly interpolated, not in italics-the second, superfluous. The literal English is that they may know thee the One true God, and (whom thou hast sent) Jesus Christ.' There is a sublime and spiritual meaning, which is attempted to be got rid of by what comes to a mere tautology.

Ver. 8. For I have given them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have surely known that I came forth from thee, and have believed that thou hast sent me,' No note on this: but the procession is here as clearly contradistinguished from the mission as before. I proceeded forth, and came from God,' chap. viii. 42. They came to the certain knowledge of this, by first receiving from Christ in faith, the knowledge of God.

Verses 10-12. Being of spiritual import, are carefully fenced round by glosses at the foot of the page, from Newcome. I prefer the terms of the C. T. here. Ver. 20-24. Beset with glosses and notes, as before, not worth dwelling on. For the remainder of this subject see on Romans, for

ward.

(To be continued.)

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1837.

ART. I.-Remarks on an Improved Version of the NEW TESTAMENT, edited by the Unitarian Book Society, 1808.' Royal 8vo., with Notes.

(Continued from page 160.)

VII. Doctrine of the WORD, &c. or of the Godhead of Christ.

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John i. 1-5. The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the word was a God. This Word was in the beginning with God. All things were done by him, and without him was not any thing done that hath been done. By him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in darkness; and the darkness overspread it not.'

By the appearance of about four pages of doctrinal notes, I judge that the beginning of the gospel of John proved to our Editors rather a 'difficult passage.' They have been profuse in annotation also at the opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and on the first Epistle of John. As the same questions are involved in the subject of all those Scriptures, I shall here treat them on the orthodox side of the controversy together; to avoid repetitions and special pleading, and bring the matter more fully at once under the reader's notice.

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The manner of rendering these five verses shows, that the Editors could not avoid taking o Aoyos for a title of distinction, and one belonging to a Divine person; they write, and the word was a god.' They pretend not to dispute the text-but they attempt to invalidate the meaning by notes. Newcome, on whose 'New Translation' they base their version, goes along with the authorized version, and writes, the Word was

VOL. V.

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God: the Greek being kaι Oɛos ŋv o Aoyos, it might have been rendered, with equal propriety and with the same sense, and God was the Word.' But there is no authority either way for the indefinite article a; and they have nevertheless put it in, in Roman type. Let us see what they make of this god-we may be sure not a real one; for they are as strenuous for the unity as was Mahomet himself. They say, then, Jesus received a commission as a prophet of the Most High, and was invested with extraordinary miraculous powers:' and 'in the Jewish phraseology, they were called gods to whom the word of God came:' John x. 35. So Moses is declared to be a god to Pharaoh :' Exod. vii. 1. To be a god!

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Not to insist, that they mistake the sense of the latter part of the citation from John x. (as they pervert the other text)—that the speech to Moses is clearly figurative, and that it is not there said, I will make thee GOD,let us here observe that they attribute no more to Christ, than may be predicated of Moses himself, of the prophet Elijah, and of others of whom we read in the Old and New Testaments: which interpretation being supported, here, by nothing contained in the text, may be set by, as gratis dictum and a mere begging of the question.

The next point disputed is, the being of Christ with God in the beginning: they do this in several places. He was with God' from the first, i. e. from the commencement of the gospel dispensation, or of the ministry of Christ'' he withdrew from the world to commune with God, and to receive divine instructions and qualifications previously to his public ministry'-in which respect they compare him with Moses, and carefully repeat the same thing in other words below. And they say of John himself, on the words 'a man sent from God,' To be sent from God implies that he had been first with God. All which being admitted, as belonging to the humanity, invalidates not in the least the position of the Apostle, that the WORD was GOD: or that other, that he was with God (as we choose to understand it, and as will appear) in the beginning of all things, and before any creature had been made.

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We must now go to the Epistle, where we find the same doctrine met by the same objections. I John i. 1. Concerning the Word of Life, him who was from the beginning-whom we have heard-whom we have seen with our eyes-whom we have looked upon, our own hands have handled, (for the Life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you that everlasting life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us)—him whom we have seen and heard, we declare unto you.'

With the help of some considerable changes in construction, and of notes, the doctrine of the Word is here made to apply exclusively to the person of Jesus Christ, conversant in his ministry among the men of the age in which he appeared. What is gained by this to their cause? And would any man in his senses have written thus about a mere man, his contemporary, born and dying as other men; differing from former prophets only in having a commission to teach a new doctrine ?

But the text, as they give it, makes Christ not only 'the great teacher of everlasting life'—' the divinely inspired teacher of the doctrine of a future life; but that very life itself, even the everlasting life which was with the

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