Answer. In these words there is no reason to suppose the least allusion to the disputed text, which would most certainly have been often quoted by Tertullian in his voluminous works, if it had been found in his copy of the New Testament.

2.) Cyprian. de Unitate Eccles. p. 79, edit. 1700, says: "De Patre, et Filio, et Spiritu sancto, scriptum est, Et hi tres unum sunt 34."

Answer. This was probably Cyprian's gloss upon the words in the eighth verse. Such glosses were common in that age. Augustin puts the very same interpretation upon ver. 8. Cyprian himself was fond of these mystical senses. And Facundus, an African bishop of the fifth century, interprets ver. 8 in the same way, and expressly appeals to Cyprian as authorizing the interpretation 35.

3.) The text is found in a Preface to the catholic epistles inserted in some of the Latin copies of Jerome, and sometimes ascribed to him.-But this prologue is certainly spurious, and is not found in any manuscripts earlier than the ninth century. Griesb. p. 24.

4.) Eucherius, bishop of Lyons A. D. 440, is said to have cited this text explicitly in his Treatise de Formu

34 Of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit it is written, These three are one." This is the argument in which the great strength of the cause lies, and which induced Dr. Mill to retain the text in opposition to all the objections, in common estimation irrefragable, which he has produced against it.

35

Augustin, bishop of Hippo in Africa, cont. Maximin. cap. 22, "Tres sunt testes, et tres unum sunt: ut nomine Spiritus accipiamus Patrem, nomine autem sanguinis, filium; et nomine aquæ, spiritum sanctum."--Cyprian, in his book De Unit. allegorizes our Lord's tunic, which was woven without a seam, as an emblem of the church. Griesbach, ibid. p. 15. Facundus pro Def. Trium Capitulor. 1. i. c. 3, after having given the interpretation of the Spirit, the blood, and the water, as signifying the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, adds, "quod Joannis apostoli testimonium b. Cyprianus de Patre, Filio, et Spiritu sancto intelligit." He then quotes Cyprian's words.

lis, c. 11.-Upon this testimony Archdeacon Travis lays great stress in his defence of the disputed text. But Mr. Porson has shown that the words were not inserted in the earliest editions of Eucherius, and are probably an interpolation 36.

5.) This text is clearly and indisputably cited by Vigilius Tapsensis, a writer at the latter end of the fifth *century, in a work written against the Arians. The credit of the text rests solely upon the authority of this writer, who was a person of no good fame, who was accustomed to publish works under the names of other writers of repute, and who is suspected by many to have been the author of the Athanasian creed 37.

Griesbach concludes his learned and laborious research into the genuineness of this celebrated text, with the following just and pertinent remarks :

"If witnesses so few, so doubtful, so suspicious and so modern, and arguments so trifling, are sufficient to establish the genuineness of any reading, in opposition to testimonies and to arguments so numerous and so grave; no criterion would remain of truth and falsehood in criticism; and the whole text of the New Testament would be left doubtful and uncertain 38.

IV. Equal

36 Travis's Letters to Gibbon, ed. 3, p. 420. Porson's Reply, p. 316. Griesbach, ibid. p. 16, 17.

37 Igitur comma controversum septimum, præcipue, ne dicam unice, nititur testimonio, fide, atque auctoritate Vigilii Tapsensis, et librorum huic attributorum auctori ante quem nemo clare id excitavit. Jam de Vigilio observandum est parum laudabilem esse hunc scriptorem quod libellos suos sub nominibus fictis Athanasii, Augustini, Idacii, &c. maluerit in lucem emittere, quam suum nomen profiteri. Eundem hominem plures viri docti auctorem esse existimarunt symboli istius celeberrimi Athanasio suppositi." Griesbach, ibid. p. 21.

38 The learned writer adds: "Ego quidem, si tanti esset, sexcentas lectiones ab omnibus rejectas atque futilissimas defendere possem testimoniis et rationibus æque multis atque validis, imo, pluribus plerumque atque validioribus, quam sunt ea quibus utuntur hujus dicti patroni: nec haberent genuini textus defensores tot, tantaque argumenta

quæ

IV. Equal with God.

1. John v. 18. "Therefore the Jews thought the more to kill him, because he had not only broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his own (dov) father, making himself equal with God," LOOV TW DEW.

Answer. Jesus never claimed equality with God. Nor did the Jews mean to charge him with so gross a blasphemy. They accused him of justifying his own violation of the sabbath by the authority and example of God; in this respect making himself like God. See Clarke, No. 580; and Grotius in loc. Compare John x. 33. Mark ii. 7. 2. Philip. ii. 6. "-thought it not robbery to be equal with God."

wa Oew, like God;' did not account as a prey this likeness to God: did not regard his miraculous powers as the acquisition of his own power and wisdom; for the exercise of which he was not accountable to any. See p. 133.

V. Fulness of Godhead.

Col. ii. 9. "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily 39: and ye are complete (Engμsvol

quæ conatui meo inani opponere possent, quot quantaque fautoribus hujus dicti supra opposita sunt." Griesbach, ibid. ad fin.

The latest champions of this forlorn hope are Knittel, Hezelius, and Travis, whose zeal " 8 κατ' επιγνωσιν a viris doctissimis Porsono et Marsbio, ut par erat, repressus ac castigatus." Griesbach.—The replies to their arguments by Porson, Marsh, and Griesbach have probably set the controversy at rest Hezelius, utpote vir veri amantissimus," has already acknowledged his error. hardihood to revive the controversy.

And few will have the

The principal writers upon the subject previous to the controversy excited by Archdeacon Travis, are Mill, Bengelius, Wetstein, and Matthæi in loc. Martin and Emlyn's Dissertations upon the text. Sir Isaac Newton's Letter to Le Clerc. Wolfii Cur. Philol. vol. v. p. 293 -324. P. Simon. Hist. Crit. c xviii. Hist. de Vers. c. ix.; and the controversy between Stunica and Erasmus, Crit. Sac. vol. ix. p. 3547. See Pope's Letters to Nisbet, p. 340. The whole evidence is correctly stated by Griesbach in the Appendix to his Nov. Test. Græc, vol. ii. ed. 2. A. D. 1796.

39 παν το πλήρωμα της θεότητος σωματικώς.

M

' filled')

' filled') in him who is the head of all principality and power.

In the epistle to the Ephesians, chap. iii. 19, the apostle prays that they may be filled with all the fulness of God, i. e. with knowledge of the divine will, and conformity to the divine image. But the epistle to the Colossians was written at the same time, when the apostle's mind was occupied with the same train of ideas, which he expresses in the same or similar metaphorical language. The fulness of Godhead, therefore, which resides in Christ, is the fulness of divine knowledge, gifts, powers, and authority. This resides in him bodily, i. e. in reference to his mystical body, the church, of which he is the head. That this is the apostle's meaning is evident from the context. For he immediately adds, " Ye are filled in," or by "him,” Filled, with what? with the fulness of the Godhead no doubt, which is the only subject of which he is treating. q. d. Ye, his members, are filled by him who is your head; filled with knowledge, gifts, and powers 40. There is no image in which the apostle more delights, or upon which he more expatiates, than that of the church being the body of which Christ is the head, and of which individual christians are represented as particular parts and limbs. 1 Cor. xii. 27, "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." Compare Eph. v. 30; i. 23. In consistency with this metaphor, believers are said to be "circumcised in Christ," Col. ii. 11: "dead and buried with him," ver.

40 See John xvii. 21-23, "I in them, and thou in me; that they also may be one in us," &c.-" The fulness of the Godhead," says Mr. Pierce," is the same thing which he calls all the fulness of God,' Eph. iii. 19 it is that plenty of excellent gifts which from the Godhead was communicated to Christ, by him to be imparted to us in order to the filling us: a fulness of grace and truth. John i. 14, 16, 17: "Ye are complete in him." It would have led the English reader much better into the apostle's thought, had it been rendered, "Ye are filled by him." Peirce in loc. Simpson's Essays, vol. ii. p. 279.

12. 20: "raised with him," ver. 13. Chap. iii. 1, "ascended and seated in heaven with him," Eph. ii. 2.5,6; and in every respect vitally united to him, associated with him, and deriving supplies of life and vigour from him, as the body from the head.

According to this interpretation, there is no foundation for the argument which many derive from this text to prove the proper deity of Christ, and particularly to establish that hypothesis which represents Christ as God, in consequence of the deity of the Father dwelling in him 41.

VI. Jesus is styled the Son of God in a peculiar sense, and with peculiar epithets.

1. The Son of God.

Mark i. 1. "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

This title occurs upwards of forty times in the New Testament: it is used by all the evangelists, by the apostle Paul in his epistles, and by our Lord himself.

"In whom the fulness of deity substantially dwells." Dr. Doddridge in his note. He adds, “I assuredly believe, that as it contains an evident allusion to the Shechinah in which God dwelt, so it ultimately refers to the adorable mystery of the union of the divine and human natures in the person of the glorious Immanuel." But there is no evidence whatever of any allusion to the Shechinah, much less could such an allusion afford any warrant to the strange supposition of a physical union of the self-existent deity with the created spirit which animated the body of Christ, so as of the two to constitute one single intelligent agent. Dr. Whitby, in his Commentary, understands SEOTS of the divine essence: but in his Last Thoughts, p. 83, he explains it, with Dr. Clarke, (No. 645,) of the fulness of divine wisdom and power. Beza finds in this text (illustris hic locus si quisquam alius) the whole mystery of two natures in one hypostasis, and of the equality of the Son with the Father. Erasmus, in his usual manner, acknowledges that all which is said concerning the divine nature of Christ is true, but that this text has no reference to it: "eam rem hic non agit Paulus." He, with Grotius, explains the text of the doctrinə of Christ which excels and supersedes the law of Moses.