municable attributes; that Christ is one, is a derived and dependent being, and is our Saviour, because he has been made so by his Father and our Father, by his God and our God.

15*

LECTURE VIII.

GOD AND CHRIST.

I. TIMOTHY, II. 5.

FOR THERE IS ONE GOD, AND ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN, THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.

I HAVE hitherto been considering those texts of Scripture, which are thought to teach that God subsists in three persons. I have given those passages their true meaning, as I suppose, leaving every person to form his own judgment as to the satisfactoriness of my explanations. I shall now take the other side, and bring forward those passages which prove, not the unity of God alone, but shut out of his being every other person whom the Trinitarian may be disposed to include in it. I shall then consider how the force of these passages is evaded, or the explanations which are offered to show that these passages are consistent with the doctrine that there are three persons in the Deity. Every text in the Bible, in which the word God appears, without any intimation of plurality in his being, is an argument for his unity. The word God conveys no idea of plurality. It is connected

It

with singular pronouns, "I" and "me; is represented as one consciousness, one agent, single and undivided. Every such text is an argument for the unity of God. Every such text requires of the Trinitarian an explanation, why, in that particular case, the language of Scripture is just as it would be if there were no such distinction of persons in God. would have been exceedingly easy to have kept up this distinction throughout the Bible, by substituting the word Trinity for the word God. Then there could have been no mistake. If the thing existed, or the doctrine existed, no reason certainly can be given, why the name should first have come into existence some ages after Christ, and after the Bible was finished. It would have been equally easy for Moses to have written down, upon the stone at Horeb, "Jehovah your God, Jehovah is a Trinity," as "Jehovah is One." And it seems to me, if it had been an important doctrine he would have done so. He left a perpetual form of benediction to be used by the priests in blessing the people. "Jehovah bless thee and keep thee; Jehovah make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Now it would have been just as easy, if there were three persons in God, to have said: "The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless thee, and keep thee," &c. All these things must be explained by the Trinitarian, in order to make it probable that the doctrine was true, and yet passed over in such profound silence.

But in the New Testament we have better oppor

tunities of testing this doctrine. God and Christ are often brought together into the same sentence. In those cases we have an opportunity of judging what relation the writers considered them to bear to each other; whether of equal persons in a Trinity, or whether Deity is represented as belonging to both. Take, for instance, the text with which I commenced this lecture; "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Now, for myself, I can scarcely conceive of any language, which the Apostle could have used, which would more explicitly have affirmed the Unity, and denied the Trinity. There is one God, not in opposition to the many gods of the heathen alone, but to the exclusion of the mediator. One argument for the Trinity has been, that a mediator must partake of the nature of both parties, between whom he mediates. But here that argument is cut up by the roots. Here it is asserted, that the man Christ Jesus is fully competent to that office. What is necessary to the office of a mediator? He must have something to communicate, and proper credentials to authenticate his mediation. Moses was the mediator of the first covenant. The law was the communication with which he was entrusted. The miracles in Egypt, in the Red sea, and in the desert, were his credentials. And they were effectual to bring about a peculiar relation between the Israelites and God, greatly to their advantage. So the Gospel, the New Covenant, is the communication with which Jesus Christ was entrusted. The mission of John the Baptist, his own miracles, death,

me."

resurrection, and ascension, were the credentials by which his mission and his covenant were authenticated. And they were effectual to establish a peculiar relation between God and the Christian church. No especial. nature is necessary to the performance of this mediatorship, except such an one as to enable him to deliver the message, make the communication, and exhibit the miraculous testimonials. To this mediatorship, our Apostle declares the man Christ Jesus to have been fully competent. He was to originate nothing. "My doctrine," said he, "is not mine, but his that sent me." "I have given them the words, which thou hast given "I have greater witness than that of John, for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me." Such is the testimony of Christ concerning himself, and it coincides precisely with the Apostle Paul's. He puts his mediatorship, not upon the ground of his nature, but on the ground of his commission, on the ground, not of his being God, or having in himself any portion of the divine nature; but of his having received his doctrines from God, and his having received power from God to work miracles, in proof of the divine origin of his doctrines. But it is said, that one part of his work demanded an infinite agent, the making atonement for the sins of the world. This required the second Person of a Trinity. Sin is an infinite evil, and therefore demands an infinite remedy. It is committed against an Infinite Being, and therefore must be atoned for by