PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 • 
 
 DONATION OF 
 
 SAMUEL AO NEW, 
 
 i 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
 eyft. 
 
 
 BT 201 .B14 1838 
 
 Baillie, Joanna, 1762-1851. 
 
 A view of the general tenour- 
 of the New Testament 
 
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A VIEW 
 
 OF 
 
 THE GENERAL TENOUR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 REGARDING 
 
 THE NATURE AND DIGNITY 
 
 OF 
 
 JESUS CHRIST; 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 A COLLECTION OF THE VARIOUS PASSAGES 
 
 IN 
 
 THE GOSPELS, ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, 
 AND THE EPISTLES, 
 
 WHICH RELATE TO THAT SUBJECT. 
 
 TO WHICH ARE NOW ADDED 
 
 A CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 THE LATE BISHOP OF SALISBURY, 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 REMARKS ON THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST, 
 \ND ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 By JOANNA BAILLIE. 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed by Richard and J. E. Taylor, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street; 
 AND SOLD BY SMALLFIELD AND SON, NEWGATE STREET. 
 
 1838. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/viewofgeneraltenOObail 
 
PREFATORY NOTICE. 
 
 That nothing may be found in the following pages 
 but what has been set forth more ably before, will 
 not I trust be deemed any good reason for consi¬ 
 dering this publication as a useless one. In the 
 present times the multitudes of new works follow¬ 
 ing each other in rapid succession, which the most 
 diligent reader can scarcely overtake, yet is un¬ 
 willing entirely to relinquish, is a very unfavour¬ 
 able circumstance for acquiring the information 
 to be found in the old, and makes former authors 
 to be very much neglected and forgotten. It is 
 from short works and periodical publications that 
 our young people now receive their information 
 and impressions ; and what maybe perused at one 
 continued sitting, will often give the mind clearer 
 ideas,and impulses more invigorating,than length¬ 
 ened and recondite writings of far greater learning 
 and ability. Nay, the very deficiencies and wants 
 of a concise work will sometimes set a young 
 person to think for himself, who might, perhaps, 
 at the conclusion of what is called a course of 
 reading, have only found his memory possessed 
 of many confused, mutilated, contradictory ideas, 
 with which he would have but little inclination to 
 
IV 
 
 PREFATORY NOTICE. 
 
 occupy his thoughts any further. If these pages 
 collect for the reader, under one general view, 
 what he would not have collected for himself, they 
 are useful; and should they not be found to con¬ 
 tain one observation which has not been often and 
 better expressed before, yet still, as connected 
 with such a simple unbroken exposition of Scrip¬ 
 ture authority, they are useful and deserving of 
 attention. What does it signify where ideas are to 
 be found, to one who, from the habits, pursuits, 
 and prepossessions of the times, is withheld from 
 searching after them ? And above all, they ought 
 to be reckoned useful, should they induce a 
 youthful reader to become acquainted with the 
 best writers of all sects on the present momentous 
 subject; doing it, however, with a prudent caution 
 against ingenious and subtle reasoning, which a 
 good cause seldom requires, and from which a 
 bad cause so often receives its greatest or only 
 support. 
 
 Hampstead, 
 
 April 11, 1831. 
 
P R E F A C E 
 
 TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 It was once my intention not to publish a second 
 edition of the “ New Testament View,” but to 
 leave one behind me prepared for the press, to be 
 published by my executor ; for in truth I had 
 done for conscience’ sake what it was painful for 
 me to do, and was willing to be at rest. But after 
 a time, for reasons that need not be specified, I 
 could not do so without giving some cause for a 
 suspicion that I had changed my opinions regard¬ 
 ing the subject of my tract. 
 
 Some months after the publication of the “ New 
 Testament View,” the late Bishop of Salisbury pub¬ 
 lished an answer to it in a letter addressed to the 
 author, entitled, “ Remarks on the General Tenour 
 of the New Testament regarding the Nature and Dig¬ 
 nity of Jesus Christ.” He was so obliging as to send 
 me a copy of it, preceded by a short note, in which 
 he said, “ It would give me great pleasure to receive 
 from you your opinion of any part of it in which 
 you may think me mistaken.” I was very unwill¬ 
 ing to enter into any public controversy with His 
 Lordship, a task for which I felt myself unqualified ; 
 but not to have stated to him my opinion of the 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 chief points in his letter, for his own private satis¬ 
 faction, when requested to do so, would have shown 
 a want of the respect due to his character as a 
 scholar and a clergyman, and an insensibility to 
 the courtesy and charitable forbearance with which 
 he had treated what he might naturally have con¬ 
 sidered as a very presumptuous publication. I 
 therefore obeyed him, and stated in a letter of no 
 great length the objections that arose in my mind 
 to his public answer to my tract. He received it 
 in good part, and wrote to me again : thus other 
 communications passed between us that make a 
 continuation of the subject of my little work, and of 
 the “Remarks ” of my learned opponent. This cor¬ 
 respondence cannot, I readily confess, be thoroughly 
 understood but by those who have read His Lord¬ 
 ship’s public letter ; yet as that work has passed 
 through two editions, while the other which gave 
 occasion for it has not, properly speaking, passed 
 through one, I may presume the reader to be ac¬ 
 quainted with it, or at least to have it in his power 
 to become so. 
 
 After all these letters had been written and the 
 dates of them become old, a tract, published in 1836, 
 entitled, “ Christian Theology, or the Doctrine of 
 the Trinity and the Ministration of the Holy Spirit, 
 the leading and prevailing doctrine of the New 
 Testament; addressed to the humblest understand¬ 
 ing as well as to the most enlightened, in a second 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Vll 
 
 letter to Mrs. Joanna Baillie,”—appeared. The chief 
 purpose of this public letter is'to confute what I had 
 alleged,— : namely, that a person of plain understand¬ 
 ing, previously uninstructed in the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, might read through the whole of the New 
 Testament without being aware that such a doctrine 
 is taught in it. This work states all the different 
 passages which the author conceives must have en¬ 
 abled an unlearned reader of ordinary capacity, from 
 a diligent perusal of Scripture, to make out the 
 doctrine for himself, and dwells particularly on 
 the famous text of St. John concerning the three 
 witnesses, of the authenticity of which he has no 
 doubt. My last letter is in answer to this, which 
 drew from my candid and liberal opponent a note 
 full of courtesy and kindness ; and thus ended our 
 amicable controversy, in a spirit of Christian cha¬ 
 rity that has too seldom accompanied such differ¬ 
 ences of opinion. 
 
 Having then altered my intention, as above men¬ 
 tioned, I wrote not long since to His Lordship, 
 telling him of my proposed second edition of the 
 “ View,” and saying I should be glad to add to it 
 the letters that had passed between us on the sub¬ 
 ject. To this communication I received an imme¬ 
 diate and favourable reply, which 1 beg to subjoin 
 to the others ; and one also received a short time be¬ 
 fore, which, though not connected with the subject 
 in question, I have pleasure, now that he is no 
 
VI11 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 more, in presenting to the reader, because it shows 
 the amiable feeling and discriminating taste of the 
 writer, at an age when both are often supposed to 
 be blunted. It was occasioned by bis having sent 
 me some printed verses on serious subjects, and my 
 having in return sent to him my lines on the death 
 of Sir Walter Scott, and a manuscript copy of Mrs. 
 Hemans’s beautiful death-bed sonnet. I have plea¬ 
 sure also in doing so, because it contains a just tri¬ 
 bute to our most accomplished poetess, the beauti¬ 
 ful living light of whose genius has been so lately ex¬ 
 tinguished, though its reflected rays will remain with 
 us for ever. I am truly concerned that his letters 
 must nowbe presented to the public as posthumous; 
 and feel that the late melancholy event that made 
 them so, has deprived myself (though personally 
 unknown to him) of a mild, charitable and liberal 
 opponent,—of a sincere well-wisher and friend. 
 
 To the present edition I have added communi¬ 
 cations with an acute and ingenious friend on a sub¬ 
 ject very nearly connected with the “ New Testa¬ 
 ment View,” and naturally arising out of it. I 
 had requested my friend to state to me the chief 
 objections made by the second sect of Unitarians 
 to the supposed pre-existence of our Saviour ; and 
 this being complied with, I endeavoured to answer 
 their objections by pointing out various texts, drawn 
 from the Gospels and Epistles, that appeared to me 
 strongly to support the idea of his pre-existence. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 IX 
 
 And I am now glad to have an opportunity of 
 touching upon this subject; for in my tract I have 
 been thought to condemn their opinions in too sum¬ 
 mary a way, without showing grounds for my dis¬ 
 sent. 
 
 Some apology, I feel, ought to be made for the 
 detached reflections inserted at the end; yet as they 
 are all allied to the main design of the book and are 
 not very long, I trust their being thus produced 
 will be pardoned. 
 
 In an Appendix will be found an exposition of 
 texts, similar to those in the main body of the work, 
 from the Revelation of St. John ; and I do so, not 
 because I have altered my opinion regarding the 
 authenticity of that book, but that those readers 
 who do receive it as of good authority may have 
 the satisfaction of seeing in sequence what it actu¬ 
 ally contains relating to the present subject. 
 
 And now I must be allowed to say a few words of 
 grateful acknowledgment for the various friendly 
 letters I have received since the publication of the 
 “ New Testament View,” from excellent people 
 who have thought my opinions expressed therein 
 very erroneous, and have anxiously wished to con¬ 
 vince me of my errors, by laying before me the chief 
 arguments made use of by orthodox divines in sup¬ 
 port of their creeds. Supposing me not to be ac¬ 
 quainted with those arguments before, there was 
 good cause indeed why I should no longer be al- 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 lowed to remain in ignorance. The diligent pains 
 taken by them for my instruction, I feel very sen¬ 
 sibly as a real Christian kindness, and they have 
 my sincere thanks. I have received also from most 
 benevolent persons, who seemed to think that my 
 salvation was in danger from my errors in belief, 
 letters of friendly warning ; and to them I am par¬ 
 ticularly beholden ; for they did, not in the spirit 
 of dictation, but of real humanity, what was pain¬ 
 ful for themselves to save a soul from destruction. 
 Can any service deserve grateful acknowledgments 
 more than this ? 
 
 To the Clergymen of the Established Church— 
 those who have long been my friends and ac¬ 
 quaintances, and whom I hope to retain as such to 
 the end of my days,—I feel myself much indebted. 
 Many of them, firm in the belief of, and zealous for 
 the orthodox doctrine, have not suffered their own 
 prepossessions to stand in the way of kindness to 
 an offender, as they might naturally deem me to be. 
 They have on every occasion, as far as I know, 
 treated me with mild forbearance ; I have received 
 acts of friendship, and favour, and courtesy from 
 some of them, and I do not know one of them all 
 who has in regard to myself departed from that 
 Christian grace so eloquently described by St. Paul. 
 “ Charity suffereth long and is kind,” says the 
 apostle of their Lord, and I feel that they have 
 obeyed his instructions. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 A View of the General Tenour of the New Testament re¬ 
 garding the Nature and Dignity of Jesus Christ . 1 
 
 Additional Notes... Ill 
 
 Correspondence with the Bishop of Salisbury. 115 
 
 Remarks on the Pre-existence of Christ. 147 
 
 Remarks on Toleration and Fanaticism. 161 
 
 Texts from the Revelation of St. John relating to the Dig¬ 
 nity of Christ . *. 177 
 
 Reflections connected with Modern Discoveries in Science. 
 
 —On the Natural Associations of Young People taken 
 
 from Mean Representations of Sacred Subjects. 193 
 
 Christ considered as a Light from God . 198 
 
 Some Remarks on Sacrifices as connected with the Doctrine 
 
 of Atonement . 208 
 
 Regarding the Authority of Creeds. 216 
 
 On the Causes and Consequences of Scripture Phraseology 224 
 
 Note. 229 
 
 Note on Sir Isaac Newton. 232 
 

 
 > 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A VIEW 
 
 OF THE GENERAL TENOUR OF 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 REGARDING THE 
 
 NATURE AND DIGNITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 Concerning the nature and dignity of our 
 
 blessed Saviour there have been many different 
 opinions, professing to rest upon the testimony of 
 Scripture ; but three great distinct doctrines are 
 the groundwork of all. The high church doctrine 
 of the Trinity makes Jesus Christ God, equal in 
 power, and all other attributes, with the supreme 
 God, or God the Father. That which is commonly 
 called the Arian, supposes him to be a most highly 
 exalted Being, who was with God before the crea¬ 
 tion of the world, and by whose agency it probably 
 was created, by power derived from Almighty God. 
 That which is denominated the Socinian, regards 
 him as the great Missioned Prophet of God, sent 
 into the world to reveal his will to men ; to set 
 them an example of perfect virtue ; and to testify 
 the truth of his mission by the sacrifice of his life*. 
 
 * See Note 2 at the end. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 These three rules of belief stand far apart, though 
 the two last are very often confounded with each 
 other. The advocates for the first or high church 
 doctrine, taking it for granted that the chief reason 
 for dissenting from their authoritative and esta¬ 
 blished belief is its being incomprehensible, when 
 taken along with the unity of God, use, and justly 
 use, in its defence a powerful argument:—“ Every 
 thing round us,” say they, “ is a mystery : we know 
 not how our own volition effects one movement 
 of our body ; we know not how a seed put into the 
 earth produces an herb or a tree; we know not 
 how the smallest leaf bursts the little bud attached 
 to the parent stem, and unfolds itself to the air ; 
 and shall we reject what is taught in Scripture, be¬ 
 cause we are unable to comprehend it?” On this 
 ground they stand strong*. 
 
 But no Christian—no Protestant Christian, re¬ 
 gulates, or at least ought to regulate, his faith by 
 any thing but what appears to him to be really 
 taught in Scripture. To human reason, the noblest 
 
 * It will be readily perceived that when it is said, as above, 
 “ on this ground they stand strong,” it only regards the argu¬ 
 ment when ignorance is supposed to be the cause of dissent; as 
 in our Saviour’s beautiful illustration of the power of the Spirit 
 to Nicodemus :—“ The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
 hearest the sound thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh or 
 whither it goeth.” But when the want of comprehension arises 
 from a statement of things contradictory to human reason, or 
 what appears to the objector to be so, the analogy advanced on 
 behalf of the Trinitarians—what has often been urged by them— 
 is of no avail. This distinction did not present itself to my mind 
 at the time, though immediately upon its being pointed out to me 
 by a more acute friend, I perceived its force ; and I am glad of 
 this opportunity to acknowledge the oversight. 
 
INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 3 
 
 gift of our heavenly Father, are submitted the proofs 
 of our Scripture’s authenticity—its claim to being 
 received as the word of God ; and to human reason 
 also must be submitted the interpretation of its 
 meaning. The deepest scholar, when he has ex¬ 
 amined the original words of any passage of Scrip¬ 
 ture, and clothed it in corresponding words of his 
 own native tongue, is a better judge of its meaning 
 than a man of natural good sense, who knows no 
 language but his own, only in as far as he may 
 have compared that passage with others in the ori¬ 
 ginal versions, relating to a similar subject. Put a 
 translation of the passage in question, and transla¬ 
 tions of those related to it, under the consideration 
 of the unlearned man of sense, and he becomes as 
 competent a judge of its meaning as the scholar. 
 There is no honest way of establishing any religious 
 doctrine but setting before the mind those passages 
 of Holy Writ in which they are taught, or have 
 been supposed to be taught. Now, the most liberal 
 and judicious clergyman, in preaching upon such 
 subjects, can only support the doctrine which he 
 advocates by a partial production of scripture evi¬ 
 dence, and can scarcely be supposed to offer to his 
 audience the opinions of an unbiassed mind. In 
 proportion to the importance of a doctrine, it is 
 required that the whole scriptural passages regard¬ 
 ing it should be given to the consideration of the 
 sincere Christian; and if he be really sincere, the 
 tediousness and monotony of the task will not de¬ 
 ter him from undertaking it, and going through it 
 thoroughly. Indeed, there is no other way of coming 
 to clear and satisfactory conclusions. To form de- 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 cided opinions on particular insulated portions of 
 any work, without regarding their agreement with 
 the plain general tenour of the whole, would be un¬ 
 wise and unfair ; but more especially so, should that 
 work, like our Sacred Writ, abound in metaphorical 
 expressions. 
 
 I am ignorant if any general collection of texts 
 bearing on the present subject has been already laid 
 before the public; but, as far as I know, there is 
 none on so simple a plan as the following, which is 
 the fairest and, I should suppose, the most useful 
 way of treating it. Surely the fairest; for the pe¬ 
 culiar doctrines of all denominations of Christians 
 are professedly founded upon Scripture ; and a full 
 exposition of Scripture must, therefore, be considered 
 as equally friendly to them all,—as that which they 
 ought all to desire, if their professions be sincere. 
 The most useful also, as the mind of the reader 
 will remain in an unexcited state, which can seldom 
 be the case when following the ingenious arguments 
 of a treatise or discourse. 
 
 I presume, then, to lay before the reader all the 
 texts, as they follow one another, in the Gospels, 
 the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles, which 
 appear to me to have any reference to the nature, 
 dignity and offices of Jesus Christ; leaving him to 
 draw from them what conclusions his honest judg¬ 
 ment shall dictate. To the Old Testament I do 
 not refer ; for the Jews were the best judges of the 
 peculiar idioms and grammatical distinctions of 
 their own language ; and any conclusions founded 
 upon these, which they have at no time entertained 
 or admitted, can he but slight authority. I have 
 
INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 also refrained from producing any texts from the 
 Revelation; because it appears to me that a vision 
 vouchsafed to St. John, or to any holy person what¬ 
 ever, is not proper authority for any doctrine ; and 
 this I should have said had the book in question 
 been always received as canonical, or admitted into 
 the canonical list by a less meagre majority of 
 votes. 
 
 In producing these passages of Scripture,, I almost 
 always transcribe the whole of a sentence, though 
 the whole should not bear upon my subject; and 
 as many of the sentences in the Epistles are long, 
 involved, and crowded with matter, this may appear 
 to be an unnecessary demand upon the attention : 
 but I thought it better to do so, than to be sus¬ 
 pected of holding back any part that might really 
 be, or that might be supposed to be, explanatory. 
 I have set down, likewise, passages which may ap¬ 
 pear to bear upon my subject very dubiously; but 
 this will at least be admitted as an error on the 
 safe side. It is better to be redundant in testimony, 
 where the subject is of great importance, than to 
 be deficient. I have also produced the short ser¬ 
 mons, or declarations of their faith, addressed by 
 the Apostles to the people at the first promulgation 
 of the Gospel, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, 
 as well as the prefatory sentences at the beginning 
 of each Epistle, and the benedictory conclusions, 
 though not immediately, and sometimes not at all, 
 connected with the doctrines in question, because 
 they frequently contain short declarations of their 
 faith, and would, though nothing else of their wri¬ 
 ting remained, give one a good idea of what they 
 
6 
 
 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 conceived to be the most important tenets of their 
 religion. For it will surely be allowed that the 
 early declarations of belief, addressed by the Apostles 
 to the first converts, contained what they conceived 
 to be of most importance for them to know ; and 
 that any after, additional doctrines that were not 
 a direct promulgation from the blessed Founder of 
 their religion, must be considered as of less import¬ 
 ance, and by no means fundamental. The strong 
 meat that St. Paul recommended for the nourish¬ 
 ment of men, in contradistinction to the milk to be 
 given to babes in the faith, is indeed an after de¬ 
 cision of the Apostle’s, under the inspiration of the 
 Holy Spirit; but it relates to the relieving of gen¬ 
 tile converts from the ceremonial observances of 
 the Jewish law,—a matter that did not naturally 
 offer itself to the consideration of St. Paul or any 
 of the Apostles, till converts from the Gentiles had 
 been actually gained. I do not mean, however, 
 to insinuate that the following collection of texts is 
 free from deficiency; and should be much better 
 pleased with a reader who searches for himself, to 
 see whether I have omitted any thing which ought 
 to have been produced, than with one who takes for 
 granted that it is complete. 
 
 It may be urged, that if candid Christians would 
 diligently examine the Scriptures for themselves, 
 regarding every important doctrine entertained by 
 the different sects to which they belong, there would 
 be no need of such a work as the present. Yet 
 even were this the case, there would be great diffi¬ 
 culty, when reading the Bible with this intention, 
 to recollect, as they proceeded, what they had 
 
INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 7 
 
 already passed, and, consequently, in perceiving 
 how one passage relates to another ; for the perusal 
 of intervening passages, not connected with the 
 object in view, would necessarily create confusion, 
 by exciting other interests, and dividing the atten¬ 
 tion. It is to save the diligent and well-intentioned, 
 as well as the impatient and indolent, a salutary 
 task, which they would never, perhaps, execute in 
 this way to their own satisfaction, that I offer to 
 the public the following pages*. Taking the com¬ 
 mon version (bearing date the year 1765), printed 
 by authority at Cambridge, for my guide, no injury, 
 at least, can be done to the established doctrine of 
 the church; for the learned divines who made that 
 translation, under authority, were all professed be¬ 
 lievers of the established doctrine, and would there¬ 
 fore naturally give that sense to the words of every 
 passage which was most favourable to their own 
 tenets. I am no scholar; but when I admit this 
 to be the case, I would not be understood to con¬ 
 sider want of learning as any disqualification for 
 a task like the present. On the contrary, it is per¬ 
 haps an advantage, by suppressing all presumptuous 
 desires which learning might create to correct the 
 established translations of particular texts, and to 
 attempt thereby to bias the opinions of others from 
 slight and inconclusive differences. Good inten¬ 
 tions, a clear common understanding, and the ab¬ 
 sence of those acquirements which naturally impose 
 an authority over the judgments of men, are the 
 best qualifications for such an undertaking. 
 
 The most liberal clergyman of the various esta- 
 
 * See Note 2 at the end. 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 blished churches, and, thank God ! there are many 
 such, could scarcely, with the purest intentions, 
 remain unconstrained by the reproach he might 
 incur, and still more by the pain he would inflict, 
 in collecting portions of Scripture that would to 
 many appear unfriendly to the community to which 
 he belonged. Indeed, he would feel that, in doing 
 so, he would by many be considered a latitudina- 
 rian, unfit for the charge committed to him; and 
 that, so considered, his means of being useful to 
 his parochial flock would be greatly abridged. It 
 is to an unlearned lay person of no authority to 
 whom a task of this nature reasonably belongs; 
 and, as far as these qualifications go, there is surely 
 no vanity implied in supposing myself in some de¬ 
 gree competent to it. 
 
 We cannot, I should think, be far wrong in be¬ 
 lieving that the simplest and most obvious meaning 
 of the words, when not inconsistent with the gene¬ 
 ral scope of the context, is the real meaning of any 
 passage of the Gospels or Epistles ; for, under the 
 guidance of the Holy Spirit, the writers were com¬ 
 missioned to instruct the simple and ignorant. 
 Now, this would have been very imperfectly done, 
 had they left matters important to our faith to 
 be only deduced, by ingenious processes of rea¬ 
 soning, from their words, by the Christian teachers 
 who should follow them in succeeding ages, and 
 teachers, too, not guided by divine inspiration. 
 If, to avoid this difficulty, we suppose the Holy 
 Spirit to have guided also the successive fathers of 
 the church, who in many points differed from one 
 another materially, how shall we get out of the la- 
 
INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 9 
 
 byrinth? One teacher, of honest character, is as 
 well entitled to call himself inspired as another, and 
 we should then be forced to take refuge from con¬ 
 fusion and discord in an infallible earthly guide ; 
 which, to the great misfortune of Christendom^ was 
 at last actually done. Nay, we must own, that 
 something near akin to it was also done by the 
 leaders of the Protestant church, enlightened as 
 they comparatively were, when they asserted that 
 such and such of their own explanations of Scrip¬ 
 ture must necessarily be believed. 
 
 I shall no longer occupy the time of the reader 
 with further observations, but reserve what else I 
 would offer to his consideration till the end, when 
 he shall have perused the following extracts. 
 
10 
 
 SAINT MATTHEW’S GOSPEL. 
 
 Chap. II. v. 11.—“ And when they were come 
 into the house (viz. the wise men of the East), they 
 saw the young child with Mary his mother, and 
 fell down, and worshipped him : and when they had 
 opened their treasures, they presented unto him 
 gifts ; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 16, 17. — “ And Jesus, when he 
 was baptized, went up straightway out of the water; 
 and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he 
 saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and 
 lighting upon him : and lo, a voice from heaven, 
 saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased.” 
 
 Chap. IX. v. 2. to 6.— <c And behold, they brought 
 to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed : 
 and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of 
 the palsy; Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be for¬ 
 given thee. And, behold, certain of the scribes 
 said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. 
 And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Where¬ 
 fore think ye evil in your hearts ? For whether is 
 easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to say, 
 Arise, and walk ? But that ye may know that the 
 Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, 
 (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take 
 up thy bed, and go unto thine house.” 
 
 Chap. X. v. 40.—“ He that receiveth you re- 
 ceiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him 
 that sent me.” 
 
saint Matthew's gospel. 
 
 11 
 
 Chap. XI. v. 25, 26, 27.—“ At that time Jesus 
 answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord 
 of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these 
 things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed 
 them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it 
 seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered 
 unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the 
 Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the 
 Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the 
 Son will reveal him.” 
 
 Chap. XII. v. 5, 6.—“ Or have ye not read in 
 the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests 
 in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blame¬ 
 less ? But I say unto you, That in this place is 
 one greater than the temple.” 
 
 Again, from the 15th to the 29th inclusive.— 
 “ But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself 
 from thence : and great multitudes followed him, 
 and he healed them all; and charged them that 
 they should not make him known : that it might 
 be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, 
 saying, Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; 
 my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased : I will 
 put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judg¬ 
 ment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry • 
 neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. 
 A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax 
 shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto 
 victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust. 
 Then was brought to him one possessed with a 
 devil, blind, and dumb : and he healed him, inso¬ 
 much that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. 
 And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not 
 
12 
 
 saint Matthew’s gospel. 
 
 this the son of David? But when the Pharisees 
 heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out 
 devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. 
 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, 
 Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to 
 desolation ; and every city or house divided against 
 itself shall not stand : and if Satan cast out Satan, 
 he is divided against himself; how shall then his 
 kingdom stand ? and if I by Beelzebub cast out 
 devils, by whom do your children cast them out ? 
 therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast 
 out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom 
 of God is come unto you. Or else how can one 
 enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, 
 except he first bind the strong man ? and then he 
 will spoil his house.” 
 
 Again, in v. 47. to 50.—“Then said one unto 
 him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren are with¬ 
 out, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered 
 and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? 
 and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth 
 his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my 
 mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do 
 the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same 
 is my brother, and sister, and mother.” 
 
 Chap. XIV. v. 33.—“ Then they that were in 
 the ship (viz. who had seen him walking on the 
 sea) came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth 
 thou art the Son of God.” 
 
 Chap. XVI. v. 13. to 18.—“ When Jesus came 
 into the coasts of Cesarea Philippi, he asked his 
 disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son 
 of Man am ? And they said, Some say that thou 
 
saint Matthew’s gospel. 
 
 13 
 
 art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, 
 Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto 
 them, But whom say ye that I am ? And Simon 
 Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the 
 Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and 
 said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona ; 
 for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, 
 but my Father which is in heaven.” 
 
 Again v. 27.—“ For the Son of Man shall come 
 in the glory of his Father with his angels ; and then 
 he shall reward every man according to his works.” 
 
 Chap. XVII. v. 5.—“ While he yet spake (viz. 
 Peter), behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: 
 and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, 
 This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; 
 hear ye him.” 
 
 Chap. XVIII. v. 18, 19, 20.—“ Verily I say unto 
 you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be 
 bound in heaven : and whatsoever ye shall loose on 
 earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto 
 you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as 
 touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be 
 done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 
 For where two or three are gathered together in my 
 name, there am I in the midst of them.” 
 
 Chap. XIX. v. 16, 17.—“ And, behold, one came 
 and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing 
 shall I do, that I may have eternal life ? And he 
 said unto him, Why callest thou me good ? there 
 is none good but one, that is God : but if thou wilt 
 enter into life, keep the commandments.” 
 
 Chap. XX. v. 20. to 23.—“ Then came to him 
 the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, 
 
14 
 
 SAINT M ATTHEW*S GOSPEL. 
 
 worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of 
 him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou ? She 
 saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may 
 sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the 
 left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, 
 Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of 
 the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized 
 with the baptism that I am baptized with ? They 
 say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto 
 them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be bap¬ 
 tized with the baptism that I am baptized with: 
 but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not 
 mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom 
 it is prepared of my Father.” 
 
 Again, v. 26, 27, 28.—“ But it shall not be so 
 among you : but whosoever will be great among 
 you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will 
 be chief among you, let him be your servant: even 
 as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, 
 but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
 many.” 
 
 Chap. XXI. v. 4, 5.—“ All this was done that it 
 might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, 
 saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy 
 King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an 
 ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.” 
 
 Chap. XXII. v. 41. to 45.—“ While the Phari¬ 
 sees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 
 saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? 
 They say unto him, The son of David. He saith 
 unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him 
 Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit 
 thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies 
 
saint Matthew's gospel. 
 
 15 
 
 thy footstool ? If David then call him Lord, how 
 is he his son ?" 
 
 Chap. XXIII. v. 8, 9, 10.—“ But be not ye 
 called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; 
 and all ye are brethren. And call no man your fa¬ 
 ther upon the earth : for one is your Father, which 
 is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for 
 one is your Master, even Christ." 
 
 Again, v. 38, 39.—“ Behold, (speaking of Jeru¬ 
 salem) your house is left unto you desolate. For I 
 say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till 
 ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name 
 of the Lord." 
 
 Chap. XXIV. v. 30, 31.—“And then (after 
 speaking of the tribulation of the latter days, &c.) 
 shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven : 
 and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, 
 and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the 
 clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And 
 he shall send his angels with a great sound of a 
 trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect 
 from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the 
 other." 
 
 Chap. XXV. v. 31, 32, 33.—“ When the Son of 
 Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels 
 with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his 
 glory : and before him shall be gathered all nations ; 
 and he shall separate them one from another, as a 
 shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and 
 he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the 
 goats on the left." 
 
 Chap. XXVI. v. 26. to 29.—“ And as they were 
 eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake 
 it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; 
 
16 
 
 saint Matthew’s gospel. 
 
 this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave 
 thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all 
 of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, 
 which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 
 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the 
 fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new 
 with you in my Father’s kingdom.” 
 
 Again, v. 38, 39.—“ Then saith he unto them 
 (his disciples), My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even 
 unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. 
 And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, 
 and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, 
 let this cup pass from me ; nevertheless not as I 
 will, but as thou wilt.” 
 
 Again, v. 52, 53.—“ Then said Jesus unto him 
 (the disciple who had cut off the ear of the high 
 priest’s servant), Put up again thy sword into his 
 place : for all they that take the sword shall perish 
 with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now 
 pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me 
 more than twelve legions of angels ?” 
 
 Again, v. 62. to 66.—“ And the high priest arose 
 and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what 
 is it which these witness against thee ? (viz. that 
 Jesus had said he would destroy the temple of God, 
 and rebuild it in three days.) But Jesus held his 
 peace. And the high priest answered and said unto 
 him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell 
 us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. 
 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said : nevertheless 
 I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of 
 Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming 
 in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent 
 his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy: 
 
saint Matthew’s gospel. 
 
 17 
 
 what further need have we of witnesses? behold, 
 now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? 
 They answered and said, He is guilty of death.” 
 
 Chap. XXVII. v. 46.—“ And about the ninth 
 hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, 
 lama sabachthani ? that is to say, My God, my God, 
 why hast thou forsaken me?” 
 
 Chap. XXVIII. v. 16. to 20.—“ Then the eleven 
 disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain 
 where Jesus had appointed them. And when they 
 saw him they worshipped him : but some doubted. 
 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All 
 power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go 
 ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them 
 in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things 
 whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am 
 with you alway, even unto the end of the world. 
 Amen.” 
 
 Throughout St. Matthew’s Gospel the power of 
 working miracles, with all the wisdom and know¬ 
 ledge of Christ, is spoken of as derived from God. 
 In the 25th chapter, where it is said, “ When the 
 Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy 
 angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne 
 of his glory,” &c. there is indeed no mention 
 of the glory being derived ; but in turning back to 
 the 16th chapter will be found these expressions, 
 relating to the same grand events, verse 27, “ For 
 the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Fa¬ 
 ther with his angels, and then he shall judge every 
 man according to his works.” 
 
 c 
 
SAINT MARK’S GOSPEL. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1, 2, 3.—“ The beginning of the go¬ 
 spel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ; as it is writ¬ 
 ten in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger 
 before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before 
 thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
 Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make liis paths 
 straight.” 
 
 Again, v. 7. to 11.—“And (viz. John Baptist) 
 preached, saying. There cometh one mightier than 
 I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not 
 worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have 
 baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you 
 with the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those 
 days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, 
 and was baptized of John in Jordan : and straight¬ 
 way coming out of the water, he saw the heavens 
 open, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon 
 him. And there came a voice from heaven, saying, 
 Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased.” 
 
 Again, v. 23, 24.—“ And there was in their sy¬ 
 nagogue (viz. the synagogue of Capernaum) a man 
 with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, saying, 
 Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou 
 Jesus of Nazareth ? art thou come to destroy us ? 
 I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” 
 
 Again, v. 34.—“ And he healed many that were 
 sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils ; 
 and suffered not the devils to speak, because they 
 knew him.” 
 
SAINT MARK’S GOSPEL. 
 
 19 
 
 Chap. II. v. 5. to 12.—“ When Jesus saw their 
 faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy 
 sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of 
 the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their 
 hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies ? 
 who can forgive sins but God only ? And imme¬ 
 diately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they 
 so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them. 
 Why reason ye these things in your hearts ? Whe¬ 
 ther is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy 
 sins be forgiven thee ; or to say, Arise, take up thy 
 bed and walk ? But that ye may know that the 
 Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins (he 
 saith to the sick of the palsy), I say unto thee, 
 Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into 
 thine house. And immediately he rose, took up 
 the bed, and went forth before them all; in so 
 much that they were all amazed, and glorified God, 
 saying, We never saw it on this fashion.” 
 
 Again, v. 27, 28.—“ And he said unto them 
 (viz. the Pharisees who had been reproving the dis¬ 
 ciples for plucking ears of corn on the sabbath day) 
 The sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
 the sabbath : therefore the Son of Man is Lord 
 also of the sabbath.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 11, 12. —“And unclean spirits, 
 when they saw him, fell down before him, and 
 cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. And he 
 straitly charged them that they should not make 
 him known.” 
 
 Again, v. 32. to 35.—“ And the multitude sat 
 about him ; and they said unto him, Behold, thy 
 mother and thy brethren without seek thee. And 
 
20 
 
 SAINT MARK’S GOSPEL. 
 
 he looked round about on them which sat about 
 him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren. 
 For whosoever shall do the will of God the same is 
 my brother, and my sister, and mother.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 37. to 41.—“ And there arose a 
 great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the 
 ship, so that it was now full, and he was in the 
 hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And 
 they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest 
 thou not that we perish ? And he arose and re¬ 
 buked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be 
 still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great 
 calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fear¬ 
 ful ? How is it that ye have no faith ? And they 
 feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What 
 manner of man is this, that even the wind and the 
 sea obey him ?” 
 
 Chap. VIII. v. 27, 28, 29.—“ And Jesus went 
 out and his disciples into the towns of Cesarea 
 Philippi; and by the way he asked his disciples, 
 saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am ? 
 And they answered, John the Baptist: but some 
 say Elias ; and others, One of the prophets. And 
 he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am ? 
 And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art 
 the Christ.” 
 
 Again, v. 38.—“ Whosoever shall be ashamed 
 of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful 
 generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be 
 ashamed when he cometli in the glory of his Father, 
 with the holy angels.” 
 
 Chap. IX v. 7.— “ And there was a cloud that 
 overshadowed them (viz. on the Mount of Transfi- 
 
21 
 
 SAINT MARK’S GOSPEL. 
 
 guration) : and a voice came out of the cloud, say¬ 
 ing, This is my beloved Son; hear him.” 
 
 Again, v. 36, 37.—“ And he took a child and 
 set him in the midst of them ; and when he had 
 taken him in his arms, he said unto them, Who¬ 
 soever shall receive one of such children in my 
 name, receiveth me ; and whosoever shall receive 
 me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.” 
 
 Chap. X. v. 17, 18.—“ And when he was gone 
 forth into the way, there came one running, and 
 kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what 
 shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And 
 Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? 
 there is none good but one, that is, God.” 
 
 Again, v. 39, 40.—“ And Jesus said unto them, 
 (viz. the sons of Zebedee) Ye shall indeed drink of 
 the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that 
 I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized : but to 
 sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not 
 mine to give ; but it shall be given to them for 
 whom it is prepared.” 
 
 Again, v. 44, 45.—“ And whosoever of you will 
 be the cliiefest shall be servant of all. For even the 
 Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” 
 
 Chap. XII. v. 6, 7, 8.—“ Having yet therefore 
 one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also unto 
 them, (viz. the wicked husbandmen in the parable 
 of the vineyard) saying, They will reverence my 
 son. But those husbandmen said among them¬ 
 selves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and 
 the inheritance shall be ours.” 
 
 Again, v. 35, 36, 37.—“ And Jesus answered 
 
22 
 
 SAINT MARK'S GOSPEL. 
 
 and said, while he taught in the temple, How say 
 the Scribes that Christ is the Son of David ? for 
 David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord 
 said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I 
 make thine enemies thy footstool. David there¬ 
 fore himself calleth him Lord ; and whence is he 
 then his son ? ” 
 
 Chap. XIII. v. 24. to 27.—“ But in those days, 
 after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, 
 and the moon shall not give her light; and the 
 stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are 
 in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they 
 see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great 
 power and glory. And then shall he send his angels, 
 and shall gather together his elect from the four 
 winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the 
 uttermost part of heaven.” 
 
 Again, v. 32.—“ But of that day and that hour 
 knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in 
 heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” 
 
 Chap. XIV. v. 23, 24, 25.—“ And he took the 
 cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to 
 them : and they all drank of it. And he said unto 
 them, This is my blood of the new testament, which 
 is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I will 
 drink no more of the fruit of the vine until thcit day 
 that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” 
 
 Again, v. 35, 36.—“ And he went forward a little, 
 and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were 
 possible, the hour might pass from him. And he 
 said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee : 
 take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not what 
 I will, but what thou wilt.” 
 
saint mark’s gospel. 23 
 
 Again, v. 60. to 64.—“ And the High Priest 
 stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, 
 Answerest thou nothing ? what is that which these 
 witness against thee? But he held his peace, 
 and answered nothing. Again the High Priest 
 asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, 
 the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: 
 and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right 
 hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. 
 Then the High Priest rent his clothes, and saith, 
 What need we any further witnesses? Ye have 
 heard the blasphemy : what think ye ? And they 
 all condemned him to be guilty of death.” 
 
 Chap. XV. v. 34.— fC And at the ninth hour 
 Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, 
 lama sabachthani ? which is, being interpreted, My 
 God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” 
 
 Chap. XVI. v. 15 to 19.—“ And he said unto 
 them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
 Gospel to every creature. Pie that believeth and is 
 baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not 
 shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them 
 that believe : In my name they shall cast out devils ; 
 they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take 
 up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly thing, 
 it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the 
 sick, and they shall recover. So then, after the 
 Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up 
 into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.” 
 
 The most striking passage in the foregoing Gospel 
 is to be found in the second chapter, from verse 5 
 to 12. But the forgiveness of sins here mentioned 
 
24 
 
 saint luke’s gospel. 
 
 is a release from bodily punishment, the conse¬ 
 quences of sin. For when Jesus perceived what 
 was passing in the minds of the Jews present, he 
 said, “ Why reason ye these things in your heart. 
 Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, 
 Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to say, Arise, take up 
 thy bed and walk ? But that ye may know that 
 the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sin, 
 (he saith to the sick of the palsy) I say unto thee, 
 Arise, and take up thy bed and walk.” Releasing 
 the sick person from the bodily punishment of sin. 
 When our Saviour would have sinners released from 
 the punishments of another world, awarded to deep 
 moral guilt, it is from his heavenly Father he re¬ 
 quests it. “ Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do.” 
 
 / 
 
 SAINT LUKE’S GOSPEL. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 32, 33.—(The announcing angel says 
 to Mary) “ He shall be great, and shall be called 
 the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall 
 give unto him the throne of his father David: and 
 he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; 
 and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” 
 
 Again, v. 35.—“And the angel answered and 
 said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon 
 thee, and the power of the Highest shall over¬ 
 shadow thee : therefore also that holy thing which 
 shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of 
 God.” 
 
25 
 
 saint luice’s gospel. 
 
 Again, v. 76. to 79.—“ And thou child (speak¬ 
 ing of John Baptist) shalt be called the Prophet of 
 the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of 
 the Lord to prepare his ways ; to give knowledge 
 of salvation unto his people by the remission of 
 their sins, through the tender mercy of our God ; 
 whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited 
 us, to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in 
 the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way 
 of peace.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 8. to 14.—“ And there were in the 
 same country shepherds abiding in the held, keep¬ 
 ing watch over their hock by night. And, lo, the 
 angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory 
 of the Lord shone round about them ; and they 
 were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, 
 Fear not: for, behold I bring you good tidings of 
 great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto 
 you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, 
 which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign 
 unto you ; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swad¬ 
 dling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly 
 there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly 
 host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in 
 the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward 
 men.” 
 
 Again, v. 25. to 32.—“ And, behold, there was 
 a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon ; and 
 the same man was just and devout, waiting for the 
 consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon 
 him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy 
 Ghost, that he should not see death before he had 
 seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came by the Spirit 
 
26 
 
 saint luke’s gospel. 
 
 into the temple : and when the parents brought in 
 the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of 
 the law, then took he him up in his arms, and 
 blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy 
 servant depart in peace, according to thy word : 
 for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou 
 hast prepared before the face of all people ; a light 
 to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people 
 Israel. ,, 
 
 Chap. III. v. 16, 17.—“ John answered, saying 
 unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; 
 but one mightier than I cometh, the latcliet of 
 whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose : he shall 
 baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with lire : 
 whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly 
 purge his door, and will gather the wheat into his 
 garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire un¬ 
 quenchable.” 
 
 Again, v. 21, 22.—“Now when all the people 
 were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also 
 being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, 
 and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape 
 like a dove upon him, and a voice came from 
 heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in 
 thee I am well pleased.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 41.—“ And devils also came out 
 of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ 
 the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered 
 them not to speak: for they knew that he was 
 Christ.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 18. to 25.—“ And, behold, men 
 brought in a bed a man which was taken with a 
 palsy : and they sought means to bring him in, 
 
saint luke’s gospel. 
 
 27 
 
 . and to lay him before him. And when they could 
 not find by what way they might bring him in be¬ 
 cause of the multitude, they went upon the house¬ 
 top, and let him down through the tiling with his 
 couch into the midst before Jesus. And when he 
 saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins 
 are forgiven thee. And the Scribes and the Phari¬ 
 sees began to reason, saying, Who is this which 
 speaketh blasphemies ? Who can forgive sins, but 
 God alone ? But when Jesus perceived their 
 thoughts, he answering said unto them, What 
 reason ye in your hearts ? Whether is easier, to 
 say, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to say, Rise up 
 and walk ? But that ye may know that the Son 
 of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he 
 said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, 
 Arise, and take up thy couch, and go unto thine 
 house. And immediately he rose up before them, 
 and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to 
 his own house, glorifying God.” 
 
 Chap. VI. v. 5.—“ And he said unto them (the 
 Pharisees who had found fault with his disciples for 
 plucking ears of corn on the sabbath day), That 
 the Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath.” 
 
 Chap VII. v. 22, 23.—“ Then Jesus answering- 
 said unto them (the disciples of John, sent to in¬ 
 quire if Jesus were he that should come, &c.), Go 
 your way, and tell John what things ye have seen 
 and heard ; how that the blind see, the lame walk, 
 the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are 
 raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached. And 
 blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in 
 
 me. 
 
28 
 
 saint luke’s gospel. 
 
 Chap. VIII. v. 20, 21.—“ And it was told him 
 by certain which said, Thy mother and thy brethren 
 stand without, desiring to see thee. And he an¬ 
 swered and said unto them, My mother and my 
 brethren are these which hear the word of God, and 
 do it.” 
 
 Again, v. 28.—“ When he (the man possessed 
 by devils) saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down 
 before him, and with a loud voice said, What have 
 I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most 
 high? I beseech thee, torment me not.” 
 
 Chap. IX. v. 26.—“ For whosoever shall be 
 ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the 
 Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in 
 his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy 
 angels.” 
 
 Again, v. 35.—“ And there came a voice out of 
 thecloud, saying,This ismybeloved Son; hear him.” 
 
 Chap. X. v. 21, 22.—“ In that hour (when the 
 seventy disciples were returned with joy from their 
 mission) Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank 
 thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou 
 hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent 
 and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Fa¬ 
 ther ; for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things 
 are delivered to me of my Father: and no man 
 knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who 
 the Father is but the Son, and he to whom the Son 
 will reveal him.” 
 
 Chap. XI. v. 31, 32.—“ The queen of the south 
 shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this 
 generation, and condemn them : for she came from 
 the utmost parts of the earth to heai^ tlife wisdom 
 
saint luke’s gospel. 
 
 29 
 
 of Solomon ; and, behold, a greater than Solomon 
 is here. The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the 
 judgment with this generation, and shall condemn 
 it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas ; 
 and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” 
 
 Chap. XII. v. 8, 9, 10.—“ Also I say unto you, 
 Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall 
 the Son of Man also confess before the angels of 
 God : but he that denieth me before men shall be 
 denied before the angels of God. And whosoever 
 shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall 
 be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth 
 against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.” 
 
 Chap. XIII.v.35.—“Behold, your house, (speak¬ 
 ing of the Jews, as he lamented over Jerusalem) is 
 left unto you desolate: and verily 1 say unto you, 
 Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye 
 shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of 
 the Lord.” 
 
 Chap. XVII. v. 24, 25.—(Speaking to the Pha¬ 
 risees, who had asked him when the kingdom of 
 God should come,) <c For as the lightning, that 
 lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth 
 unto the other part under heaven; so shall also 
 the Son of Man be in his day. But first must he 
 suffer many things, and be rejected of this genera¬ 
 tion.” 
 
 Chap. XVIII. v. 18, 19.—“ And a certain ruler 
 asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do 
 to inherit eternal life ? And Jesus said unto him, 
 why callest thou me good ? none is good, save one, 
 that is God.” 
 
 Chap. XXII. v. 28, 29, 30.—(Speaking to his 
 
30 
 
 saint luke’s gospel. 
 
 disciples at their last supper,) “ Ye are they which 
 have continued with me in my temptations. And I 
 appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath 
 appointed unto me ; that ye may eat and drink at 
 my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones jud¬ 
 ging the twelve tribes of Israel.” 
 
 Again, v. 66. to 71.—“And as soon as it was 
 day, the elders of the people and the chief priests 
 and the scribes came together, and led him into their 
 council, saying, Art thou the Christ ? tell us. And 
 he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not be¬ 
 lieve : and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, 
 nor let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit 
 on the right hand of the power of God. Then said 
 they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he 
 said unto them, Ye say that I am. And they said, 
 What need we any further witness ? for we ourselves 
 have heard of his own mouth.” 
 
 Chap. XXIII. v. 3, 4.—“ And Pilate asked him, 
 saying, Art thou the King of the Jews ? And he 
 answered him and said, Thou sayest it. Then said 
 Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find 
 no fault in this man.” 
 
 Again, v. 46.—“ And when Jesus had cried with 
 a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hand I com¬ 
 mend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up 
 the ghost,” 
 
 Chap. XXIV. v. 18. to 21.—“ And one of them 
 (the disciples on the way to Emmaus), whose name 
 w r as Cleopas, answering, said unto him, Art thou 
 only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known 
 the things which are come to pass there in these 
 days ? And he said unto them, What things ? And 
 
saint lure’s gospel. 
 
 31 
 
 they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, 
 which was a prophet mighty in deed and word be¬ 
 fore God and all the people: and how the chief 
 priests and our rulers delivered him to be con¬ 
 demned to death, and have crucified him. But we 
 trusted that it had been he which should have re¬ 
 deemed Israel.” 
 
 Again, v. 25, 26.—“Then he said unto them, 
 O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the 
 prophets have spoken : ought not Christ to have 
 suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ?” 
 
 Again, v. 45. to 53.—“ Then opened he their un¬ 
 derstanding, that they might understand the Scrip¬ 
 tures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and 
 thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from 
 the dead the third day : and that repentance and 
 remission of sins should be preached in his name 
 among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And 
 ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I 
 send the promise of my Father upon you : but tarry 
 ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with 
 power from on high. And he led them out as far as 
 to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed 
 them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, 
 he was parted from them, and carried up into hea¬ 
 ven. And they worshipped him, and returned to 
 Jerusalem with great joy : and were continually in 
 the temple, praising and blessing God.” 
 
 There is nothing in the foregoing Gospel of St. 
 Luke that ascribes any power but power derived 
 from God to Jesus Christ, unless we consider these 
 words in the tenth chapter as denoting a claim to 
 
32 
 
 saint joiin’s gospel. 
 
 equality with the Father : “ All things are delivered 
 to me of my Father : and no man knoweth who the 
 Son is but the Father ; and who the Father is but 
 the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.” 
 The real meaning, or what appears to he the real 
 meaning of those words, will be found in my answer 
 to a letter from the late Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 SAINT JOHN’S GOSPEL. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1, 2, 3.—“ In the beginning was the 
 Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
 was God. The same was in the beginning with God. 
 All things were made by him ; and without him was 
 not any thing made that was made.” 
 
 Again, v. 10. to 14.—“ He (speaking of Christ 
 as the true light, which lighteneth every man that 
 cometh into the world) was in the world, and the 
 world was made by him, and the world knew him 
 not. He came unto his own, and his own received 
 him not. But as many as received him, to them 
 gave he power to become the sons of God, even to 
 them that believe on his name : which were born, 
 not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
 will of man, but of God. And the Word was made 
 flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, 
 the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,) full 
 of grace and truth.” 
 
 Again, v. 18.—“ No man hath seen God at any 
 time ; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom 
 of the Father, he hath declared him.” 
 
 Again, v. 26, 27.—“ John answered them (the 
 
saint John’s gospel. 
 
 33 
 
 Pharisees), saying, I baptize with water : but there 
 standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he 
 it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, 
 whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.” 
 
 Again, v. 29 to 34.—“ The next day John seeth 
 Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb 
 of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. 
 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man 
 which is preferred before me : for he was before me. 
 And I knew him not: but that he should be made 
 manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing 
 with water. And John bare record, saying, I saw 
 the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and 
 it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he 
 that sent me to baptize with water, the same said 
 unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit de¬ 
 scending, and remaining on him, the same is he 
 which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw 
 and bare record that this is the Son of God.” 
 
 Again, v. 48 to 51.—“ Nathanael saith unto him, 
 Whence knowest thou me ? Jesus answered and 
 said unto him. Before that Philip called thee, when 
 thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael 
 answereth and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the 
 Son of God ; thou art the King of Israel. Jesus 
 answered and said unto him, Because I said unto 
 thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou ? 
 thou shalt see greater things than these. And he 
 saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Here¬ 
 after ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God 
 ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 12 to 19.—(Speaking to Nicodemus, 
 he says,) “ If I have told you earthly things, and 
 ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 saint John’s gospel. 
 
 heavenly things ? And no man hath ascended up 
 to heaven, hut he that came down from heaven, 
 even the Son of Man which is in heaven. And as 
 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even 
 so must the Son of Man he lifted up ; that whoso¬ 
 ever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
 eternal life. For God so loved the world that he 
 gavehis only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
 in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 
 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn 
 the world ; but that the world through him might be 
 saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned ; 
 but he that believeth not is condemned already, be¬ 
 cause he hath not believed in the name of the only- 
 begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, 
 that light is come into the world, and men loved dark¬ 
 ness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” 
 
 Again, v. 30. to 36.—(John Baptist, speaking of 
 Jesus, says,) “ He must increase, but I must de¬ 
 crease. Fie that cometh from above is above all : 
 he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of 
 the earth : he that cometh from heaven is above 
 all. And what he hath seen and heard, that he 
 testifieth ; and no man receiveth his testimony. 
 He that hath received his testimony hath set to 
 his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath 
 sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth 
 not the Spirit by measure unto him. The Father 
 loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his 
 hand. He that believeth on the Son hath ever¬ 
 lasting life: and he that believeth not on the Son 
 shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth oh 
 him.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 16. to the end of the chapter.—“ And 
 
saint John’s gospel. 
 
 35 
 
 therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought 
 to slay him, because he had done these things on a 
 sabbath day. But Jesus answered them, My Father 
 worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews 
 sought the more to kill him, because he not only 
 had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was 
 his Father, making himself equal with God. Then 
 answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, 
 I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, 
 but what he seeth the Father do: for what things 
 soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. 
 For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all 
 things that himself doeth: and he will shew him 
 greater works than these, that ye may marvel. For 
 as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth 
 them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. 
 For the Father judgeth no man ; but hath commit¬ 
 ted all judgment to the Son: that all men should 
 honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. 
 Fie that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the 
 Father which hath sent him. Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you, He that hearethmy words, and believeth 
 on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall 
 not come into condemnation ; but is passed from 
 death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The 
 hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall 
 hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they that 
 ' hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in him¬ 
 self, so hath he given to the Son to have life in him¬ 
 self ; and hath given him authority to execute judg¬ 
 ment also, because he is the Son of Man. Marvel 
 not at this ; for the hour is coming in the which all 
 that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall 
 
 d 2 
 
36 
 
 saint John’s gospel. 
 
 come forth ; they that have done good, unto the re¬ 
 surrection of life; and they that have done evil, 
 unto the resurrection of damnation. I can of mine 
 own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my 
 judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, 
 but the will of the Father which hath sent me. If 
 I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. 
 There is another that beareth witness of me, and I 
 know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is 
 true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness of 
 the truth. But I receive not testimony from man : 
 but these things I say that ye may be saved. He 
 was a burning and a shining light; and ye were 
 willing for a season to rejoice in his light. But I 
 have greater witness than that of John: for the 
 works which my 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. Ye 
 have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen 
 his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in 
 you ; for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. 
 Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have 
 eternal life ; and they are they which testify of me. 
 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have 
 life. I receive not honour from men. But I know 
 you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I 
 am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me 
 not: if another shall come in his own name, him 
 ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive 
 honour one of another, and seek not the honour 
 that cometh from God only ? Do not think that I 
 will accuse you to the Father: there is one that 
 
saint John’s gospel. 
 
 37 
 
 accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For 
 had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me : 
 for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his wri¬ 
 tings, how shall ye believe my words ? ” 
 
 Chap. VI. v. 32, 33.—“ Then said Jesus unto 
 them (the Jews who had asked a sign from him, as 
 Moses had given by feeding the Israelites with 
 manna), Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave 
 you not that bread from heaven ; but my Father 
 giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the 
 bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven 
 and giveth life unto the world.” 
 
 Again, v. 38.—“ For I came down from heaven, 
 not to do mine own will, but the will of him that 
 sent me.” 
 
 Again, v. 57.—(Still speaking of himself as the 
 bread from heaven,) “As the living Father hath 
 sent me, and I live by the Father ; so he that eateth 
 me, even he shall live by me.” 
 
 Again, v. 62.—(Speaking as before to the same 
 Jews,) “ What and if ye shall see the Son of Man 
 ascend up where he was before ? ” 
 
 Again, v. 68, 69.—“ Then Simon Peter answered 
 him, Lord, to whom shall we go ? thou hast the 
 words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure 
 that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living 
 God.” 
 
 Chap. VII. v. 16, 17, 18.—“Jesus answered 
 them (the Jews who murmured against him at the 
 great feast in the Temple) and said, My doctrine is 
 not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will 
 do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether 
 it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. He 
 
38 
 
 saint joiin’s gospel. 
 
 that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but 
 he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same 
 is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.” 
 
 Chap. VIII. v. 28, 29.—“ Then said Jesus unto 
 them (the Jews who were cavilling at him in the 
 Temple after he had delivered the woman taken in 
 adultery), When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, 
 then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do no¬ 
 thing of myself; hut as my Father hath taught me, 
 I speak these things. And he that sent me is with 
 me : the Father hath not left me alone ; for I do 
 always those things that please him.” 
 
 Again, v. 42.—“ Jesus said unto them, If God 
 were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded 
 forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, 
 but he sent me.” 
 
 Again, v. 56. to 59.—(Still speaking to the same 
 Jews,) “ Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my 
 day : and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the 
 Jews 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. Then took they up stones to cast at him : 
 but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the Temple, 
 going through the midst of them, and so passed 
 by.” 
 
 Chap. IX. v. 35. to 38.—“ Jesus heard that they 
 had cast him (the man born blind who had been 
 restored to sight) out: and when he had found him 
 he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of 
 God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, 
 that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto 
 him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that 
 
saint John’s gospel. 
 
 39 
 
 talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. 
 And he worshiped him.” 
 
 Chap. X. v. 27. to 40.—“My sheep hear my 
 voice, and I know them and they follow me: and 
 I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never 
 perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of 
 my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is 
 greater than all; and none is able to pluck them 
 out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are 
 one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone 
 him. Jesus answered them, Many good works 
 have I shewed you from my Father; for which of 
 those works do ye stone me ? The Jews answered 
 him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not, 
 but for blasphemy ; and because that thou, being a 
 man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, 
 Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods ? 
 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God 
 came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye 
 of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent 
 into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, 
 I am the Son of God ? If I do not the works of 
 my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though 
 
 you believe not me, believe the works ; that ye may 
 
 \ 
 
 know and believe that the Father is in me, and I 
 in him. Therefore they sought again to take him : 
 but he escaped out of their hands.” 
 
 Chap. XL v. 25, 26, 27.—“ Jesus said unto her 
 (Martha), I am the resurrection, and the life: he 
 that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall 
 he live ; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, 
 shall never die. Believest thou this ? She saith unto 
 him, Yea, Lord : I believe that thou art the Christ, 
 
40 
 
 saint John’s gospel. 
 
 the Son of God, which should come into the 
 world.” 
 
 Again, v. 41, 42.—“ Then they took away the 
 stone from the place where the dead was laid. 
 And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I 
 thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew 
 that thou hearest me always : but because of the 
 people which stand by I said it, that they may be¬ 
 lieve that thou hast sent me.” 
 
 Chap. XII. v. 31.—Now is the judgment of this 
 world: now shall the prince of this world be cast 
 out.” 
 
 Again, v. 44. to 47.—“ Jesus cried, and said, 
 He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but 
 on him that sent me. And he that seeth me, seeth 
 him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, 
 that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in 
 darkness. And if any man hear my words, and be¬ 
 lieve not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge 
 the world, but to save the world.” 
 
 Again, v. 49, 50.—“ For I have not spoken of 
 myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me 
 a commandment, what I should say, and what I 
 should speak. And I know that his commandment 
 is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, 
 even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.” 
 
 Chap. XIII. v. 3 .—“ Jesus knowing that the Fa¬ 
 ther had given all things into his hands, and that 
 he was come from God, and went to God.” 
 
 Again, v. 13, 14.—“ Ye call me Master and 
 Lord : and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your 
 Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also 
 ought to wash one another’s feet.” 
 
saint John’s gospel. 
 
 41 
 
 Again, v. 20.—“ Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
 He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth 
 me ; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that 
 sent me.” 
 
 Again, v. 31, 32.—“Therefore, when he was 
 gone out (Judas Iscariot), Jesus said, Now is the 
 Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 
 If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify 
 him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.” 
 
 Chap. XIV. entire.—“ Let not your heart be 
 troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in me. 
 In my Father’s house are many mansions : if it 
 were not so, I would have told you. 1 go to pre¬ 
 pare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a 
 place for you, I will come again, and receive you 
 unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. 
 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. 
 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither 
 thou goest ; and how can we know the way ? Jesus 
 saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and 
 the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by 
 me. If ye had known me, ye should have known 
 my Father also : and from henceforth ye know him, 
 and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, 
 shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith 
 unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and 
 yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? he that hath 
 seen me hath seen my Father ; and how sayest thou 
 then, Shew us the Father ? Believest thou not that 
 I am in the Father, and the Father in me ? the 
 words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: 
 but the Father, that dwelleth in me, he doeth the 
 works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and 
 
42 
 
 saint John’s gospel. 
 
 the Father in me ; or else believe me for the very 
 works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He 
 that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he 
 do also ; and greater works than these shall he do ; 
 because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye 
 shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father 
 may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any¬ 
 thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep 
 my commandments : and I will pray the Father, 
 and he shall give you another Comforter, that he 
 may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of 
 truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it 
 seeth him not, neither knoweth him : but ye know 
 him ; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 
 I will not leave you comfortless ; I will come to 
 you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no 
 more ; but ye see me : because I live, ye shall live 
 also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my 
 Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath 
 my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that 
 lovetli me ; and he that loveth me shall be loved of 
 my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest 
 myself to him. Judas saith unto him (not Iscariot), 
 Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto 
 us, and not unto the world ? Jesus answered and 
 said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my 
 words : and my Father will love him, and we will 
 come unto him, and make our abode with him. 
 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings : 
 and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the 
 Father’s which sent me. These things have I spoken 
 unto you, being yet present with you. But the 
 Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 
 
saint John’s gospel. 
 
 43 
 
 Father will send in my name, he shall teach you 
 all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, 
 whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave 
 with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the 
 world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart 
 be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have 
 heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come 
 again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, 
 because I said, I go unto the Father : for my Father 
 is greater than I. And now I have told you before 
 it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye 
 might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with 
 you : for the prince of this world cometh, and hath 
 nothing in me. But that the world may know that 
 I love the Father; and as the Father gave me com¬ 
 mandment, even so I do.” 
 
 Chap. XV. v. 9, 10.—“ As the Father hath loved 
 me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 
 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my 
 love ; even as I have kept my Father’s command¬ 
 ments, and abide in his love.” 
 
 Again, v. 23, 24.—“ He that hateth me, hateth 
 
 my Father also. If I had not done among them 
 
 the works which none other man did, they had not 
 
 had sin: but now have thevboth seen and hated both 
 
 %/ 
 
 me and my Father.” 
 
 Again, v. 26, 27.—“ But when the Comforter is 
 come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, 
 even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the 
 Father, he shall testify of me ; and ye also shall 
 bear witness, because ye have been with me from 
 the beginning.” 
 
 Chap. XVI. v. 7. to 15.—“Nevertheless I tell 
 
44 
 
 saint John's gospel. 
 
 you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go 
 away : for if I go not away, the Comforter will not 
 come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him 
 unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove 
 the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judg¬ 
 ment : of sin, because they believe not on me ; of 
 righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye 
 see me no more ; of judgment, because the prince 
 of this world is judged. I have yet many things to 
 say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. How- 
 beit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will 
 guide you into all truth : for he shall not speak of 
 himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall 
 he speak: and he will shew you things to come. 
 He shall glorify me ; for he shall receive of mine, 
 and shall shew it unto you. All things that the 
 Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he 
 shall take of mine, and shew it unto you." 
 
 Again, v. 27. to 31.—“ For the Father himself 
 loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have be¬ 
 lieved that I came out from God. I came forth 
 from the Father, and am come into the world : 
 again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. 
 His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou 
 plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure 
 that thou knowest all things, and needest not that 
 any man should ask thee ; by this we believe that 
 thou earnest forth from God. Jesus answered them, 
 Do ye now believe?" 
 
 Chap. XVH. entire.—“These words spake Jesus, 
 and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, 
 the hour is come ; glorify thy Son, that thy Son 
 also may glorify thee : as thou hast given him power 
 
saint John’s gospel. 
 
 45 
 
 over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as 
 many as thou hast given him. And this is life 
 eternal, that they might know thee the only true 
 God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I 
 have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished 
 the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, 
 O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with 
 the glory which I had with thee before the world 
 was. I have manifested thy name unto the men 
 which thou gavest me out of the world : thine they 
 were, and thou gavest them me ; and they have 
 kept thy word. Now they have known that all 
 things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. 
 For I have given unto them the words which thou 
 gavest me ; and they have received them, and have 
 known surely that I came out from thee, and they 
 have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for 
 them : I pray not for the world, but for them which 
 thou hast given me ; for they are thine. And all 
 mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glo¬ 
 rified in them. And now I am no more in the 
 world, but these are in the world, and I come to 
 thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name 
 those whom thou hast given me, that they may be 
 one, as we are. While I was with them in the 
 world, I kept them in thy name : those thou gavest 
 me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the 
 son of perdition; that the scripture might be ful¬ 
 filled. And now come I to thee ; and these things I 
 speak in the world, that they might have my joy ful¬ 
 filled in themselves. I have given them thy word ; 
 and the world hath hated them, because they are not 
 
46 
 
 saint John’s gospel. 
 
 of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray 
 not that thou sliouldest take them out of the world, 
 but that thou sliouldest keep them from the evil. 
 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the 
 world. Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word 
 is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, 
 even so have I also sent them into the world. And 
 for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might 
 be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for 
 these alone, but for them also which shall believe 
 on me through their word ; that they all may be 
 one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that 
 they also may be one in us : that the world may 
 believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory 
 which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they 
 may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and 
 thou in me, that they maybe made perfect in one; 
 and that the world may know that thou hast sent 
 me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. 
 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given 
 me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my 
 glory, which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst 
 me before the foundation of the world. O righteous 
 Father, the world hath not known thee : but I have 
 known thee, and these have known that thou hast 
 sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, 
 and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou 
 hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” 
 
 Chap. XIX. v. 7, 8, 9.—“ The Jews answered 
 him (Pontius Pilate), We have a law, and by our 
 law he ought to die, because he made himself the 
 Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that 
 
saint John’s gospel. 47 
 
 saying, he was the more afraid; and went into the 
 judgment-hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art 
 thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.” 
 
 Chap. XX. v. 17.—“ Jesus saith unto her (Mary 
 Magdalene), Touch me not; for I am not yet as¬ 
 cended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and 
 say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your 
 Father; and to my God, and your God.” 
 
 Again, v. 21. to the end of the chap.—“Then 
 said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you : as 
 my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And 
 when he had said this, he breathed on them, and 
 saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose 
 soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; 
 and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. 
 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was 
 not with them when Jesus came. The other disci¬ 
 ples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. 
 But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands 
 the print of the nails, and put my finger into the 
 print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, 
 I will not believe. And after eight days, again his 
 disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then 
 came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the 
 midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to 
 Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my 
 hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into 
 my side ; and be not faithless, but believing. And 
 Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and 
 my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou 
 hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they 
 that have not seen, and yet have believed. And many 
 other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his 
 
48 
 
 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 disciples, which are not written in this book. But 
 these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus 
 is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing 
 ye might have life through his name.” 
 
 Through the whole of the foregoing Gospel of 
 St. John, it is the derived powers of Christ, the 
 power bestowed upon him by God to do all things, 
 that is held forth to the disciples, with the excep¬ 
 tion of the introductory exordium, which at the 
 same time is not inconsistent in one point of view 
 with the sequel. 
 
 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1, 2.— {£ The former treatise have I 
 made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to 
 do and teach, until the day in which he was taken 
 up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had 
 given commandments unto the apostles whom he 
 had chosen.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 22. to 40. (containing all that part 
 of St. Peter’s first address to the Jews and others 
 who wondered at the gift of tongues, just then con¬ 
 ferred on the apostles, which relates to the offices 
 and dignity of Jesus Christ).—“ Ye men of Israel, 
 hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man ap¬ 
 proved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, 
 and signs, which God did by him in the midst of 
 you, as ye yourselves also know : him, being deli¬ 
 vered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge 
 of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have 
 crucified and slain; whom God hath raised up, 
 
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 49 
 
 having loosed the pains of death : because it was 
 not possible that he should be holden of it. For 
 David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord 
 always before my face ; for he is on my right hand, 
 that I should not be moved : therefore did my heart 
 rejoice, and my tongue was glad ; moreover also my 
 flesh shall rest in hope : because thou wilt not leave 
 my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy 
 One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to 
 me the ways of life ; thou shalt make me full of joy 
 with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me 
 freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that 
 he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with 
 us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and 
 knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, 
 that of the fruit of his loins, according to.the flesh, 
 he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne ; he 
 seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of 
 Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his 
 flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God 
 raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore 
 being by the right hand of God exalted, and having 
 received of the Father the promise of the Holy 
 Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see 
 and hear. For David is not ascended into the hea¬ 
 vens : but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my 
 lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy 
 foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of 
 Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that 
 same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and 
 Christ. Now when they heard this, they were 
 pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and to 
 the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 shall we do ? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, 
 and be baptized every one of you in the name of 
 Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
 receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise 
 is unto you, and to your children, and to all that 
 are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God 
 shall call.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 12. to the end of the chapter, (con¬ 
 taining St. Peter’s second address to the Jews, oc¬ 
 casioned by the miracle performed by him and St. 
 John on the lame man, at the gate of the temple). 
 —“ And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the 
 people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? 
 or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our 
 own power or holiness we had made this man to 
 walk ? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of 
 Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his 
 Son Jesus ; whom ye delivered up, and denied him 
 in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined 
 to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and 
 the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto 
 you ; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath 
 raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. 
 And his name, through faith in his name, hath 
 made this man strong, whom ye see and know; 
 yea, the faith which is by him hath given him 
 this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. 
 And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance 
 ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things, 
 which God before had shewed by the mouth of all 
 his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so 
 fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, 
 that your sins may be blotted out, when the times 
 
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 51 
 
 of refreshing shall come from the presence of the 
 Lord ; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before 
 was preached unto you : whom the heaven must 
 receive until the times of restitution of all things, 
 which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his 
 holy prophets since the world began. For Moses 
 truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord 
 your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like 
 unto me ; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever 
 he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, 
 that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, 
 shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, 
 and all the prophets from Samuel, and those that 
 follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise 
 foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the 
 prophets, and of the covenant which God made 
 with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy 
 seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. 
 Unto you first, God, having raised up his son Jesus, 
 sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of 
 you from his iniquities.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 23. to 31.—“ And being let go, (viz. 
 from the council of the high priest and rulers,) they 
 went to their own company, and reported all that 
 the chief priests and elders had said unto them. 
 And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice 
 to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art 
 God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the 
 sea, and all that in them is : who by the mouth of 
 thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen 
 rage, and the people imagine vain things ? The 
 kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were 
 gathered together against the Lord, and against his 
 
 e 2 
 
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, 
 whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius 
 Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, 
 Avere gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy 
 hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. 
 And now, Lord, behold their threatenings : and 
 grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they 
 may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand 
 to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done 
 by the name of thy holy child Jesus. And when 
 tjiey had prayed, the place was shaken where they 
 were assembled together: and they were all filled 
 with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of 
 God with boldness.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 29. to 32.—“ Then Peter and the 
 other apostles answered (the chief priests, &c. in 
 council) and said, We ought to obey God rather 
 than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, 
 whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God 
 exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a 
 Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and for¬ 
 giveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these 
 things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God 
 hath given to them that obey him.” 
 
 Chap. VII. v. 55, 56.—“ But he (viz. Stephen) 
 being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly 
 into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus 
 standing on the right hand of God, and said, Be¬ 
 hold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man 
 standing on the right hand of God.” 
 
 Again, v. 59, 60.—“ And they stoned Stephen, 
 calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive 
 my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with 
 
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 53 
 
 a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. 
 And when he had said this, he fell asleep.’’ 
 
 Chap. VIII. v. 36, 37.—“ And as they went on 
 their way, they came unto a certain water : and the 
 eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder 
 me to be baptized ? And Philip said, If thou be¬ 
 lie vest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he 
 answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is 
 the Son of God.” 
 
 Chap. IX. v. 20.—“ And straightway he (viz. 
 Paul, immediately after his conversion) preached 
 Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of 
 God.” 
 
 Chap. X. v. 34. to 43. (Containing St. Peter’s 
 address to the devout centurion and his household, 
 who were the first Gentile converts).—“ Then Peter 
 opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive 
 that God is no respecter of persons: but in every 
 nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteous¬ 
 ness, is accepted with him. The word which God 
 sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by 
 Jesus Christ; (he is Lord of all;) that word, I say, 
 ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, 
 and began from Galilee, after the baptism which 
 John preached ; how God anointed Jesus of Naza¬ 
 reth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who 
 went about doing good, and healing all that were 
 oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. 
 And we are witnesses of all things which he did, 
 both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem ; 
 whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God 
 raised up the third day, and showed him openly ; 
 not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen 
 
54 
 
 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink 
 with him, after he rose from the dead. And he 
 commanded us to preach unto the people, and to 
 testify that it is he which was ordained of God to 
 be the Judge of quick and dead. To him gave all 
 the prophets witness, that through his name who¬ 
 soever believeth in him shall receive remission of 
 sins.” 
 
 Chap. XIII. v. 23. to 39. (Containing that part 
 of St. Paul’s discourse in the synagogue at Antioch, 
 that regards the offices and dignity of Jesus Christ.) 
 —“ Of this man’s (David’s) seed hath God accord¬ 
 ing to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, 
 Jesus: when John had first preached before his 
 coming the baptism of repentance to all the people 
 of Israel. And as John fulfilled his course, he said, 
 Whom think ve that I am ? I am not he. But, 
 behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of 
 his feet I am not worthy to loose. Men and brethren, 
 children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever 
 among you feareth God, to you is the word of this 
 salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem, 
 and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor 
 yet the voices of the prophets which are read every 
 sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning 
 him. And though they found no cause of death in 
 him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. 
 And when they had fulfilled all that was written of 
 him, they took him down from the tree, and laid 
 him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the 
 dead : and he was seen many days of them which 
 came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who 
 are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare 
 
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which 
 was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the 
 same unto us their children, in that he hath raised 
 up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the second 
 Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten 
 thee. And as concerning that he raised him up 
 from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, 
 he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mer¬ 
 cies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another 
 Psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see 
 corruption. For David, after he had served his 
 own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, 
 and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: 
 but he whom God raised again, saw no corruption. 
 Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, 
 that through this man is preached unto you the for¬ 
 giveness of sins : and by him all that believe are 
 justified from all things, from which ye could not 
 be justified by the law of Moses.” 
 
 Chap. XVII. v. 30, 31.—“ And the times of this 
 ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth 
 all men every where to repent: because he hath 
 appointed a day in the which he will judge the world 
 in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordain¬ 
 ed ; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, 
 in that he hath raised him from the dead.” 
 
 Chap. XX. v. 18. to 21.—“ And when they were 
 come to him (viz. the elders of the church of Ephe¬ 
 sus whom Paul had sent for to meet him at Miletus), 
 he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day 
 that I came into Asia, after what manner I have 
 been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with 
 all humility of mind, and with many tears, and 
 
56 
 
 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait 
 of the Jews : and how I kept back nothing that was 
 profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have 
 taught you publicly, and from house to house, tes¬ 
 tifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, 
 repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord 
 Jesus Christ.’’ 
 
 Again, v. 26, 27, 28.—“ Wherefore I take you 
 to record this day, that I am pure from the blood 
 of all men. For I have not shunned to declare 
 unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed there¬ 
 fore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the 
 which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to 
 feed the church of God, which he hath purchased 
 with his own blood.” 
 
 Chap. XXII. v. 12. to 16.—“ And one Ananias, 
 a devout man according to the law, having a good 
 report of all the Jews which dwelt there, came unto 
 me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, re¬ 
 ceive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up 
 upon him. And he said, The God of our fathers 
 hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his 
 will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the 
 voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness 
 unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. 
 And now why tarriest thou ? arise, and be baptized, 
 and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the 
 Lord.” 
 
 Chap. XXVI. v. 22, 23. (Paul pleading before 
 Agrippa gives this brief summary of his doctrines). 
 —“ Having therefore obtained help of God, I con¬ 
 tinue unto this day, witnessing both to small and 
 great, saying none other things than those which the 
 
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 57 
 
 prophets and Moses did say should come: that Christ 
 should suffer, and that he should be the first that 
 should rise from the dead, and should show light 
 unto the people, and to the Gentiles.” 
 
 In the foregoing books of the Acts of the Apostles 
 it is only derived power that is ascribed to Jesus 
 Christ.—In the 20th Chap. v. 28, there are these 
 words,, “ Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and 
 unto all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost 
 hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, 
 which he hath purchased with his own blood.” The 
 pronoun he is certainly applied to God. If there 
 be any version in which, in place of a pronoun, the 
 name of Jesus or of Christ is inserted, I know not. 
 As it stands, it makes one solitary passage, invol¬ 
 ving the Trinitarian doctrine, while all the rest of 
 the book leans a contrary way. 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 7. (Containing the introduc¬ 
 tory professions).— 4 ‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, 
 called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel 
 of God, (which he had promised afore by his pro¬ 
 phets in the holy scriptures,) concerning his Son 
 Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed 
 of David according to the flesh; and declared to 
 be the son of God with power, according to the 
 spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead : 
 by whom we have received grace and apostleship, 
 for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his 
 
58 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 name ; among whom are ye also the called of Jesus 
 Christ; to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, 
 called to be saints : grace to you, and peace, from 
 God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.’’ 
 
 Chap. II. v. 12. to 16. (In connection, leaving 
 out the long parenthesis between, which is not ne¬ 
 cessary to the complete sense of the sentence, nor 
 relevant to our subject).—“For as many as have 
 sinned without law shall also perish without law : 
 and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged 
 by the law ; in the day when God shall judge the 
 secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my 
 gospel. ” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 23. to 26.—“ For all have sinned, 
 and come short of the glory of God ; being justified 
 freely by his grace through the redemption that is 
 in Christ Jesus : whom God hath set forth to be a 
 propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare 
 his righteousness for the remission of sins that are 
 past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, 
 I say, at this time his righteousness : that he might 
 be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in 
 Jesus.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 23, 24, 25.—“ Nowit was not writ¬ 
 ten for his (Abraham’s) sake alone, that it was im¬ 
 puted to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be 
 imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus 
 our Lord from the dead ; who was delivered for our 
 offences, and was raised again for our justification.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 1.—“Therefore being justified by 
 faith, we have peace with God through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Again, v. 10, 11.—“For if, when we were ene- 
 
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 59 
 
 mies, we were reconciled to God by the death of 
 his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be 
 saved by his life. And not only so, but we also 
 joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 
 we have now received the atonement.” 
 
 Again, v. 15.—“ But not as the offence, so also 
 is the free gift. For if through the offence of one 
 many be dead, much more the grace of God, and 
 the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, 
 hath abounded unto many.” 
 
 The same thought is repeated in verses 17. to 
 
 21 . 
 
 Chap. VI. v. 8. to 11.— “Now if we be dead 
 with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with 
 him: knowing that Christ being raised from the 
 dead dieth no more ; death hath no more dominion 
 over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin 
 once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 
 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead in* 
 deed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord.” 
 
 Chap. VIII. v. 3.—“ For what the law could not 
 do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God send¬ 
 ing his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 
 for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” 
 
 Again, v. 8. to 11.—“ So then they that are in 
 the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the 
 flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of 
 God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the 
 Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ 
 be in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the 
 Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the 
 Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
 
60 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead 
 shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit 
 that dwelleth in you.” 
 
 Again, v. 16, 17.—“The Spirit itself beareth 
 witness with our spirit, that we are the children of 
 God : and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, 
 and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer 
 with him, that we may be also glorified together.” 
 
 Again, v. 28, 29.—“ And we know that all things 
 work together for good to them that love God, to 
 them who are the called according to his purpose. 
 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate 
 to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he 
 might be the first-born among many brethren.” 
 
 Again, v.-32, 33, 34.—“ He that spared not his 
 own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall 
 he not with him also freely give us all things ? Who 
 shall lay any tiling to the charge of God’s elect ? 
 It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemn - 
 eth ? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen 
 again, who is even at the right hand of God, who 
 also maketh intercession for us.” 
 
 Chap. IX. v. 5.—“Whose (speaking of the Is¬ 
 raelites) are the fathers, and of whom as concern¬ 
 ing the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God 
 blessed for ever. Amen.” 
 
 Chap. X. v. 8, 9.—“ But what saith it ? (viz. the 
 righteousness that is by faith.) The word is nigh 
 thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart : that is, 
 the word of faith, which we preach ; that if thou 
 shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and 
 shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
 him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” 
 
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 61 
 
 Chap. XIV, v. 8. to 12.—“ For whether we live, 
 we live unto the Lord ; and whether we die, we die 
 unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, 
 we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ both died, 
 and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both 
 of the dead and living. But why dost thou judge 
 thy brother ? or why dost thou set at nought thy 
 brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment- 
 seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith 
 the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every 
 tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of 
 us shall give account of himself to God.” 
 
 Cbap. XV. v. 5. to 9.—“ Now the God of pa¬ 
 tience and consolation grant you to be like-minded 
 one toward another according to Christ Jesus ; that 
 ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, 
 even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Where¬ 
 fore receive ye one another, as Christ also received 
 us, to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus 
 Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the 
 truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto 
 the fathers : and that the Gentiles might glorify 
 God for his mercy ; as it is written, For this cause 
 I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing 
 unto thy name.” 
 
 Chap. XVI. v. 25. to the end of the chapter, 
 being the conclusion of the Epistle.—“ Now to him 
 that is of power to stablish you according to my 
 gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according 
 to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept 
 secret since the world began, but now is made mani¬ 
 fest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according 
 to the commandment of the everlasting God made 
 
62 
 
 EPISTLE I. TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 known to all nations for the obedience of faith : to 
 God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for 
 ever. Amen.” 
 
 THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
 
 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 9.—“ Paul called to be an apo¬ 
 stle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and 
 Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which 
 is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ 
 Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place 
 call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both 
 theirs and ours : grace be unto you, and peace from 
 God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace 
 of God which is given you by Jesus Christ ; that 
 in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utter¬ 
 ance, and in all knowledge ; even as the testimony 
 of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come 
 behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ; who shall also confirm you unto 
 the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye 
 were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus 
 Christ our Lord.” 
 
 Again, v. 22, 23, 24.—“ For the Jews require a 
 sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we 
 preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling- 
 block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto 
 them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ 
 the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” 
 
EPISTLE I. TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 63 
 
 Again, v. 30, 31.—“ But of him (God) are ye in 
 Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, 
 and righteousness-, and sanctification, and redemp¬ 
 tion : that, according as it is written, He that glo- 
 rieth, let him glory in the Lord.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 7, 8.—“ But we speak the wisdom 
 of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which 
 God ordained before the world unto our glory: 
 which none of the princes of this world knew : for 
 had they known it, they would not have crucified 
 the Lord of glory.” 
 
 Chap. III.v. 21,22,23.—“ Therefore let no man 
 glory in men. For all things are yours ; whether 
 Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, 
 or death, or things present, or things to come ; all 
 are yours; and ye are Christ’s ; and Christ is 
 God’s.” 
 
 Chap. VIII. v. 4, 5, 6.—“ As concerning there¬ 
 fore the eating of those things that are offered in 
 sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is no¬ 
 thing in the world, and that there is none other God 
 but one. For though there be that are called gods, 
 whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods 
 many, and lords many,) but to us there is but one 
 God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in 
 him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all 
 things, and we by him.” 
 
 Chap. X. v. 1. to 5.—“Moreover, brethren, I 
 would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all 
 our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed 
 through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses 
 in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the 
 same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spi- 
 
G4 
 
 EPISTLE I. TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 ritual drink ; for they drank of that spiritual Rock 
 that followed them : and that Rock was Christ. 
 But with many of them God was not well pleased : 
 for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” 
 
 Chap. XI. v. 1, 2, 3.—“ Be ye followers of me, 
 even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, 
 brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and 
 keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. 
 But I would have you know, that the head of every 
 man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the 
 man ; and the head of Christ is God.” 
 
 Chap. XII. v. 4, 5, 6.—“ Now there are diversi¬ 
 ties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are 
 differences of administrations, but the same Lord. 
 And there are diversities of operations, hut it is 
 the same God which worketh all in all.” 
 
 Chap. XV. v. 20. to 28.—“But now is Christ risen 
 from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them 
 that slept. For since by man came death, by man 
 came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in 
 Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive. But every man in his own order : Christ the 
 first-fruits ; afterward they that are Christ’s at his 
 coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have 
 delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; 
 when he shall have put down all rule and all au¬ 
 thority and power. For he must reign, till he hath 
 put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy 
 that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put 
 all things under his feet. But when he saith, all 
 things are put under him, it is manifest that he 
 is excepted, which did put all things under him. 
 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, 
 
EPISTLE II. TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 65 
 
 then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him 
 that put all things under him, that God may be all 
 in all.” 
 
 Chap. XVI. v. 24.— ££ My love be with you all in 
 Christ Jesus. Amen.” 
 
 THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
 
 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 4.— ££ Paul, an apostle of Jesus 
 Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy our bro¬ 
 ther, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, 
 with all the saints which are in all Achaia: grace 
 be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and 
 from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be God, even 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
 mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth 
 us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to com¬ 
 fort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort 
 wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” 
 
 Again, v. 18. to 22.— ££ But as God is true, our 
 word toward you was not yea and nay. For the 
 Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among 
 you by us, even by me, and Silvanus, and Timo- 
 theus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. 
 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in 
 him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he 
 which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath 
 anointed us, is God ; who hath also sealed us, and 
 given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 14. to the end.— ££ Now thanks be 
 unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 EPISTLE II. TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 Christ, and maketli manifest the savour of his 
 knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto 
 God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are 
 saved, and in them that perish : to the one we are 
 the savour of death unto death ; and to the other 
 the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient 
 for these things ? For we are not as many, which 
 corrupt the word of God; but as of sincerity, but 
 as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 3. to 6.—“ But if our gospel be hid, 
 it is hid to them that are lost : in whom the god of 
 this world hath blinded the minds of them which 
 believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of 
 Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto 
 them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ 
 Jesus the Lord ; and ourselves your servants for 
 Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light 
 to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, 
 to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
 God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 18. to the end.—“And all things 
 are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by 
 Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of 
 reconciliation ; to wit, that God was in Christ, re¬ 
 conciling the world unto himself, not imputing their 
 trespasses unto them ; and hath committed unto us 
 the word of reconciliation. Now then we are am¬ 
 bassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech 
 you by us ; we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye re¬ 
 conciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin 
 for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made 
 the righteousness of God in him.” 
 
 Chap. VIII. v. 9.—“For ye know the grace of 
 
EPISTLE II. TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 67 
 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet 
 for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his 
 poverty might be rich. ,, 
 
 Chap. XI. v. 30, 31.—“ If I must needs glory, I 
 will glory of the things which concern mine infirmi¬ 
 ties. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth 
 that I lie not.” 
 
 Chap. XII. v. 19.—“ Again, think ye that we 
 excuse ourselves unto you ? we speak before God 
 in Christ: but we do all things, dearly beloved, for 
 your edifying.” 
 
 Chap. XIII. v. 2, 3, 4.—“ I told you before, and 
 foretell you, as if I were present, the second time ; 
 and being absent now, I write to them which here¬ 
 tofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come 
 again, I will not spare : since ye seek a proof of 
 Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not 
 weak, but is mighty in you. For though he was 
 crucified through weakness, yet he lived by the 
 power of God. For we also are weak in him, but 
 we shall live with him by the power of God toward 
 you.” 
 
 Again, v. 11. to the end, concluding the Epistle. 
 —“Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of 
 good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace ; and 
 the God of love and peace shall be with you. 
 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints 
 salute you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and the love of God, and the communion of the 
 Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.” 
 
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 5.— “Paul, an apostle, (not of 
 men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God 
 the Father, who raised him from the dead ;) and all 
 the brethren which are with me, unto the churches 
 of Galatia: grace be to you, and peace, from God 
 the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us 
 from this present evil world, according to the will 
 of God and our Father : to whom be glory for ever 
 and ever. Amen.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 19, 20.— “Wherefore then serveth 
 the law ? It was added because of transgressions, 
 till the seed should come to whom the promise was 
 made ; and it was ordained by angels in the hand 
 of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator 
 of one : but God is one.” 
 
 Again, v. 26.—“For ye are all the children of 
 God by faith in Christ Jesus.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 4. to 7.—“But when the fulness of 
 the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made 
 of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them 
 that were under the law, that we might receive the 
 adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God 
 hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, 
 crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more 
 a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of 
 God through Christ.” 
 
 Chap. VI. v. 18. which concludes the Epistle.— 
 “Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be 
 with your spirit. Amen.” 
 
69 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
 EPHESIANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 12.—“Paul, an apostle of Jesus 
 Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are 
 at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: grace 
 be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and 
 from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God 
 and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath 
 blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly 
 places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in 
 him before the foundation of the world, that we 
 should be holy and without blame before him in 
 love : having predestinated us unto the adoption of 
 children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to 
 the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the 
 glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us ac¬ 
 cepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemp¬ 
 tion through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, ac¬ 
 cording to the riches of his grace ; wherein he hath 
 abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence ; 
 having made known unto us the mystery of his will, 
 according to his good pleasure which he hath pur¬ 
 posed in himself: that in the dispensation of the 
 fulness of times he might gather together in one all 
 things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and 
 which are on earth ; even in him : in whom also we 
 have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated 
 according to the purpose of him who worketh all 
 things after the counsel of his own will: that we 
 should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted 
 in Christ.” 
 
70 
 
 EPISTLE TO TIIE EPHESIANS. 
 
 Again, v. 15, to the end of the chapter.—“Where¬ 
 fore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord 
 Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give 
 thanks for you, making mention of you in my 
 prayers ; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the Father of Glory, may give unto you the spirit 
 of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 
 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened ; 
 that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, 
 and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance 
 in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness 
 of his power to us-ward who believe, according to 
 the working of his mighty power, which he wrought 
 in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and 
 set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 
 far above all principality, and power, and might, 
 and dominion, and every name that is named, not 
 only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 
 and hath put all things under his feet, and gave 
 him to be the head over all things to the church, 
 which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth 
 all in all.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 4. to the end of the chapter.—“ But 
 God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love where¬ 
 with he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, 
 hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace 
 ye are saved ;) and hath raised us up together, and 
 made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
 Jesus : that in the ages to come he might shew the 
 exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward 
 us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved, 
 through faith ; and that not of ourselves : it is the 
 gift of God : not of works, lest any man should 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 71 
 
 boast. For we are his workmanship, created in 
 Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath be¬ 
 fore ordained that we should walk in them. Where¬ 
 fore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in 
 the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that 
 which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made 
 by hands ; that at that time ye were without Christ, 
 being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and 
 strangers from the covenants of promise, having no 
 hope, and without God in the world : but now in 
 Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are 
 made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our 
 peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken 
 down the middle wall of partition between us ; 
 (having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the 
 law of commandments contained in ordinances; for 
 to make in himself of twain one new man, so making 
 peace ; and that he might reconcile both unto God 
 in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity 
 thereby :) and came and preached peace to you 
 which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For 
 through him we both have access by one Spirit unto 
 the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers 
 and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, 
 and of the household of God; and are built upon 
 the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus 
 Christ himself being the chief corner stone ; in 
 whom all the building fitly framed together groweih 
 unto an holy temple in the Lord : in whom ye also 
 are budded together for an habitation of God through 
 the Spirit.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 8. to the end of the chapter.— 
 
72 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, 
 is this grace given, that I should preach among the 
 Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to 
 make all men see what is the fellowship of the 
 mystery, which from the beginning of the world 
 hath been hid in God, who created all things by 
 Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the prin¬ 
 cipalities and powers in heavenly places might be 
 known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 
 according to the eternal purpose which he purposed 
 in Christ Jesus our Lord ; in whom we have bold¬ 
 ness and access with confidence by the faith of 
 him. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my 
 tribulations for you, which is your glory. For 
 this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in 
 heaven and earth is named, that he would grant 
 you, according to the riches of his glory, to be 
 strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner 
 man ; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; 
 that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may 
 be able to comprehend with all saints what is the 
 breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and 
 to know the love of Christ which passeth know¬ 
 ledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of 
 God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding 
 abundantly above all that we ask or think, accord¬ 
 ing to the power that worketh in us, unto him be 
 glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all 
 ages, world without end. Amen.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 4. to 7.—“ There is one body, and 
 one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of 
 
EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPTANS. 
 
 73 
 
 your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
 God and Father of all, who is above all, and through 
 all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is 
 given grace according to the measure of the gift of 
 Chris t.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 2 .— f ‘ And walk in love, as Christ 
 also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us 
 an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smell¬ 
 ing savour.” 
 
 Again, v. 18. to 21.—“ And be not drunk with 
 wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 
 speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and 
 spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your 
 heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all 
 things unto God and the Father in the name of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ ; submitting yourselves one to 
 another in the fear of God.” 
 
 Chap. VI. v. 23, 24. being the conclusion of the 
 Epistle.—“ Peace be to the brethren, and love with 
 faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord 
 Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.” 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
 PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 6.—“ Paul and Timotheus, the 
 servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ 
 Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and 
 deacons : grace be unto you, and peace from God 
 our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I 
 thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 
 
74 
 
 EPISTLE TO TIIE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 always in every prayer of mine for you all making 
 request with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel 
 from the first day until now ; being confident of 
 this very thing, that he which hath begun a good 
 work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus 
 Christ.” 
 
 Again, v. 9, 10, 11.— “ And this I pray, that 
 your love may abound yet more and more in know~- 
 ledge, and in all judgment; that ye may approve 
 things that are excellent ; that ye may be sincere 
 and without offence till the day of Christ ; being 
 filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by 
 Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” 
 
 Chap II. v. 5. to 11.—“ Let this mind be in you, 
 which was also in Christ Jesus : who, being in the 
 form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with 
 God ; but made himself of no reputation, and took 
 upon him the form of a servant, and was made in 
 the likeness of men : and being found in fashion as 
 a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient 
 unto death, even the death of the cross. Where¬ 
 fore God also hath highly exalted him, and given 
 him a name which is above every name : that at 
 the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things 
 in heaven, and things in earth, and things under 
 the earth ; and that every tongue should confess 
 that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
 Father.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 3. and part of the following which 
 concludes the sentence.—“ For we are the circum¬ 
 cision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice 
 in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. 
 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh.” 
 
EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 75 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 6, 7.—“ Be careful for nothing; 
 but in every thing by prayer and supplication with 
 thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto 
 God. And the peace of God, which passeth all 
 understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds 
 through Christ Jesus.” 
 
 Again, v. 20. to 23. concluding the Epistle.— 
 “ Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever 
 and ever. Amen. Salute every saint in Christ 
 Jesus. The brethren which are with me greet you. 
 All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of 
 Cesar’s household. The grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ be with you all. Amen.” 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
 COLOSSIANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. J. to 4.—“ Paul, an apostle of Jesus 
 Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our bro¬ 
 ther, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ 
 which are at Colosse : Grace be unto you, and peace 
 from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard 
 of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which 
 ye have to all the saints.” 
 
 Again, v. 13. to 21.—“ Who (viz. God the Fa¬ 
 ther) hath delivered us from the power of darkness, 
 and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear 
 Son ; in whom we have redemption through his 
 blood, even the forgiveness of sins : who is the image 
 
76 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 
 for by him were all things created, that are in heaven 
 and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether 
 they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
 powers : all things were created by him, and for 
 him : and he is before all things, and by him all 
 things consist. And he is the head of the body, 
 the church : who is the beginning, the firstborn 
 from the dead ; that in all things he might have the 
 pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in 
 him should all fulness dwell ; and, having made 
 peace through the blood of his cross, by him to re¬ 
 concile all things unto himself; by him, I say, 
 whether they be things in earth, or things in 
 heaven.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 8. to 13.—“ Beware lest any man 
 spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after 
 the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, 
 and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the 
 fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete 
 in him, which is the head of all principality and 
 power : in whom also ye are circumcised with the 
 circumcision made without hands, in putting off the 
 body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of 
 Christ : buried with him in baptism, wherein also 
 ye are risen with him through the faith of the ope¬ 
 ration of God, who hath raised him from the dead.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 1,2, 3.—“ If ye then be risen with 
 Christ, seek those things which are above, where 
 Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your 
 affection on things above, not on things on the 
 earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with 
 Christ in God.” 
 
EPISTLE I. TO THE Til ESSA LON IANS. 
 
 77 
 
 Again v. 17.—“ And whatsoever ye do in word 
 or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving 
 thanks to God and the Father by him.” 
 
 THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
 THESSALONIANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1.—“ Paul, and Silvanus, and Timo¬ 
 tile us, unto the church of the Thessalonians which 
 is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: 
 Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, 
 and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Again, v. 9, 10.—“ For they themselves shew of 
 us what manner of entering in we had unto you, 
 and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the 
 living and true God ; and to wait for his Son from 
 heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, 
 which delivered us from the wrath to come.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 13, 14, 15.—“ For this cause also 
 thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye 
 received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye 
 received it not as the word of men, but as it is in 
 truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh 
 also in you that believe. For ye, brethren, became 
 followers of the churches of God which in Judea 
 are in Christ Jesus : for ye also have suffered like 
 things of your own countrymen, even as they have of 
 the Jews: who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their 
 own prophets, and have persecuted us ; and they 
 please not God, and are contrary to all men.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 11, 12, 13.—“ Now God himself 
 and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct 
 
78 
 
 EPISTLE II. TO THE THESSALONIANS. 
 
 our way unto you. And the Lord make you to 
 increase and abound in love one toward another, 
 and toward all men, even as we do toward you : to 
 the end he may stablish your hearts unblame- 
 able in holiness before God, even our Father, at the 
 coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 9, 10. —“ For God hath not appoint¬ 
 ed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we 
 wake or sleep, we should live together with him.” 
 
 Again, v. 18.—“In every thing give thanks: 
 for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concern¬ 
 ing you.” 
 
 Again, v. 27, 28. which conclude the epistle.— 
 “ I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read 
 unto all the holy brethren. The grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” 
 
 THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
 
 THESSALONIANS. 
 
 Chap. I. v, 1,2.—“Paul, and Silvanus,andTimo- 
 theus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God 
 our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace unto 
 you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord 
 Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Again, v. 11, 12.—“Wherefore also we pray 
 always for you, that our God would count you 
 worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good plea¬ 
 sure of his goodness, and the work of faith with 
 power : that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according 
 to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 
 
EPISTLE I. TO TIMOTHY. 
 
 79 
 
 Chap. II. v. 13. to the end of the chapter.—“ But 
 we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, 
 brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath 
 from the beginning chosen you to salvation through 
 sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth : 
 whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the ob¬ 
 taining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. There¬ 
 fore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions 
 which ye have been taught, whether by word or our 
 epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and 
 God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath 
 given us everlasting consolation and good hope 
 through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish 
 you in every good word and work.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 16, 17, 18. concluding the epistle. 
 —“ Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace 
 always by all means. The Lord be with you all. 
 The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which 
 is the token in every epistle : so I write. The grace 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” 
 
 THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL TO 
 
 TIMOTHY. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1, 2.—“Paul, an apostle of Jesus 
 Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, 
 and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; unto 
 Timothy, my own son in the faith : Grace, mercy, 
 and peace, from God our Father, and Jesus Christ 
 our Lord.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 3. to 6.—“ For this (viz. subjection 
 to kings and authorities) is good and acceptable in 
 
80 
 
 EPISTLE II. TO TIMOTHY. 
 
 the sight of God our Saviour ; who will have all 
 men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge 
 of the truth. For there is one God, and one me¬ 
 diator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus ; 
 who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified 
 in due time.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 16.—“And without controversy 
 great is the mystery of godliness : God was mani¬ 
 fest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of an¬ 
 gels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the 
 world, received up into glory.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 21.—“ I charge thee before God, 
 and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, 
 that thou observe these things without preferring 
 one before another, doing nothing by partiality.” 
 
 Chap. VI. v. 13. to 17.— “I give thee charge in 
 the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and 
 before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate wit¬ 
 nessed a good confession ; that thou keep this com¬ 
 mandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the 
 appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in his 
 times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only 
 Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who 
 only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which 
 no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath 
 seen, nor can see : to whom be honour and power 
 everlasting. Amen.” 
 
 THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL TO 
 
 TIMOTHY. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1, 2.—“Paul, an apostle of Jesus 
 Christ by the will of God, according to the promise 
 
EPISTLE TO TITUS. 
 
 81 
 
 of life which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my 
 dearly beloved son : Grace, mercy, and peace, from 
 God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” 
 
 Again, v. 8. to 11.—“Be not thou therefore 
 ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me 
 his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions 
 of the gospel according to the power of God : who 
 hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, 
 not according to our works, but according to his 
 own purpose and grace, which was given us in 
 Christ Jesus, before the world began ; but is now 
 made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath 
 brought life and immortality to light through the 
 gospel: whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and 
 an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 22., which concludes the epistle. 
 —“The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. 
 Grace be with you. Amen.” 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO TITUS. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 5.—“ Paul, a servant of God, 
 and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the 
 faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the 
 truth which is after godliness; in hope of eternal 
 life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before 
 the world began ; but hath in due times manifested 
 his word through preaching, which is committed 
 unto me according to the commandment of God 
 our Saviour; to Titus, mine own son after the 
 common faith : Grace, mercy, and peace, from 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 
 
 God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our 
 Saviour.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 9. to 14.—“ Exhort servants to be 
 obedient unto their own masters, and to please them 
 well in all things ; not answering again ; not pur¬ 
 loining, but shewing all good fidelity ; that they 
 may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all 
 things. For the grace of God that bringeth salva¬ 
 tion hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, 
 denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should 
 live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this pre¬ 
 sent world; looking for that blessed hope, and the 
 glorious appearing of the great God and our Sa¬ 
 viour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, 
 that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and pu¬ 
 rify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good 
 works.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 4. to 7.—“ But after that the kind¬ 
 ness and love of God our Saviour toward man ap¬ 
 peared, not by works of righteousness which we 
 have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, 
 by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of 
 the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly 
 through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being 
 justified by his grace, we should be made heirs ac¬ 
 cording to the hope of eternal life.” 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO PHILEMON. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1, 2, 3.—“ Paul, a prisoner of Jesus 
 Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon 
 our dearly beloved, and fellow labourer, and to our 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 83 
 
 beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellow soldier, 
 and to the church in thy house : Grace to you, and 
 peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ.” 
 
 Again, v. 25. which concludes the epistle.— 
 “ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your 
 spirit. Amen.” 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Chap. I.—“ God, who at sundry times and in di¬ 
 vers manners spake in time past unto the fathers 
 by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken 
 unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir 
 of all things, by whom also he made the worlds ; 
 who being the brightness of his glory, and the ex¬ 
 press image of his person, and upholding all things 
 by the word of his power, when he had by himself 
 purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high ; being made so much better than 
 the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a 
 more excellent name than they. For unto which 
 of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, 
 this day have I begotten thee ? And again, I will 
 be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son ? 
 And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten 
 into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of 
 God worship him. And of the angels he saith, 
 Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a 
 flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy 
 throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of 
 righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou 
 
 g 2 
 
84 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity : there¬ 
 fore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with 
 the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And, Thou, 
 Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of 
 the earth ; and the heavens are the works of thine 
 hands. They shall perish ; but thou remainest; 
 and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and 
 as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall 
 be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years 
 shall not fail. But to which of the angels said he 
 at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make 
 thine enemies thy footstool ? Are they not all mi¬ 
 nistering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who 
 shall be heirs of salvation?” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 9. to 13. (After saying that we did 
 not yet see all things put under Christ, he continues 
 thus:)—“ But we see Jesus, who was made a little 
 lower than the angels for the suffering of death, 
 crowned with glory and honour; that he by the 
 grace of God should taste death for every man. 
 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by 
 whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto 
 glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect 
 through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth 
 and they who are sanctified are all one : for which 
 cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, say¬ 
 ing, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in 
 the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. 
 And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, 
 Behold I and the children which God hath given 
 me.” 
 
 Chap.III. v. l.to 6.—“Wherefore, holy brethren, 
 partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 85 
 
 Apostle and High priest of our profession, Christ 
 Jesus ; who was faithful to him that appointed him, 
 as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For 
 this man was counted worthy of more glory than 
 Moses, inasmuch as he who hath budded the house 
 hath more honour than the house. For every house 
 is budded by some man ; but he that built all things 
 is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his 
 house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things 
 which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a son 
 over his own house ; whose house are we, if we 
 hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the 
 hope firm unto the end.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 4. to 10.—“ And no man taketh this 
 honour (viz. the honour of the priesthood) unto 
 himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. 
 So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an 
 high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art 
 my Son, to day have I begotten thee. As he saith 
 also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever 
 after the order of Melchisedec. Who in the days 
 of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and sup¬ 
 plications with strong crying and tears unto him 
 that was able to save him from death, and was heard 
 in that he feared ; though he were a Son, yet learn¬ 
 ed he obedience by the things which he suffered ; 
 and being made perfect, he became the author of 
 eternal salvation unto all them that obey him ; 
 called of God an high priest after the order of 
 Melchisedec.” 
 
 Chap VIII. v. 1, 2.—“ Now of the things which 
 we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an 
 high priest, who is set on the right hand of the 
 
86 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 throne of the Majesty in the heavens ; a minister 
 of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which 
 the Lord pitched, and not man.” 
 
 Chap. IX. v. 13, 14.—“ For if the blood of bulls 
 and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling 
 the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh"; 
 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who 
 through the eternal Spirit offered himself without 
 spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works 
 to serve the living God?” 
 
 Chap. X. v. 11, 12, 13.—‘‘And every priest 
 standetli daily ministering and offering oftentimes 
 the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins : 
 but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for 
 sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God; 
 from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made 
 his footstool.” 
 
 Chap. XII. v. 1, 2.—“ Wherefore seeing we also 
 are compassed about with so great a cloud of wit¬ 
 nesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin 
 which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with 
 patience the race that is set before us, looking unto 
 Jesus the author and finisher of our faith ; who for 
 the joy that was set before him endured the cross, 
 despising the shame, and is set down at the right 
 hand of the throne of God.” 
 
 Again, v. 22, 23, 24.—“ But ye are come unto 
 mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable 
 company of angels, to the general assembly and 
 church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, 
 and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just 
 men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the 
 
EPISTLE I. OF PETER. 
 
 87 
 
 new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that 
 speaketh better things than that of Abel.” 
 
 Chap. XIII. v. 20, 21.— <c Now the God of peace, 
 that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, 
 that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood 
 of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in 
 every good work to do his will, working in you that 
 which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus 
 Christ; to whom be glory for. ever and ever. 
 Amen.” 
 
 THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1.—“ James, a servant of God and 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which 
 are scattered abroad, greeting.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 1.—“ My brethren, have not the 
 faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, 
 with respect of persons.” 
 
 THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 10.—“ Peter, an apostle of Jesus 
 Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pon- 
 tus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect 
 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, 
 through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, 
 and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace 
 unto you, and peace, be multiplied. Blessed be the 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which 
 according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us 
 
88 
 
 EPISTLE 1. OF PETER. 
 
 again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance in¬ 
 corruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, 
 reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the 
 power of God through faith unto salvation ready to 
 be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly 
 rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are 
 in heaviness through manifold temptations; that 
 the trial of your faith, being much more precious 
 than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with 
 fire, might be found unto praise and honour and 
 glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: whom 
 having not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now 
 ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy 
 unspeakable and full of glory : receiving the end of 
 your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” 
 
 Again, v. 17. to 22.—“And if ye call on the 
 Father, who without respect of persons judgeth ac¬ 
 cording to every man’s work, pass the time of your 
 sojourning here in fear: forasmuch as ye know that 
 ye were not redeemed, with corruptible things, as 
 silver and gold, from your vain conversation recei¬ 
 ved by tradition from your fathers; but with the pre¬ 
 cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish 
 and without spot: who verily was foreordained be¬ 
 fore the foundation of the world, but was manifest 
 in these last times for you, who by him do believe 
 in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave 
 him glory; that your faith and hope might be in 
 God.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 1. to 6.—“Wherefore laying aside 
 all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, 
 and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire 
 
EPISTLE II. OF PETER. 
 
 39 
 
 the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow 
 thereby : if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is 
 gracious. To whom coming, as unto a living stone, 
 disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and 
 precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a 
 spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spi¬ 
 ritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. ,, 
 
 Chap. III. v. 21,22.—“ The like figure (viz. those 
 who were saved with Noah in the ark) whereunto 
 even baptism doth also now save us (not the put¬ 
 ting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer 
 of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrec¬ 
 tion of Jesus Christ; who is gone into heaven, and 
 is on the right hand of God ; angels and authori¬ 
 ties and powers being made subject unto him.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 11.—“ If any man speak, let him 
 speak as the oracles of God ; if any man minister, 
 let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: 
 that God in all things may be glorified through 
 Jesus Christ; to whom be praise and dominion for 
 ever and ever. Amen.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 10, 11.—“ But the God of all grace, 
 who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ 
 Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make 
 you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To 
 him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. 
 Amen.” 
 
 THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1. to 4.—“Simon Peter, a servant 
 and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have 
 
90 
 
 EPISTLE I. OF JOHN. 
 
 obtained like precious faith with us through the 
 righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: 
 grace and peace be multiplied unto you through 
 tbe knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, ac¬ 
 cording as his divine power hath given unto us all 
 things that pertain unto life and godliness, through 
 the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory 
 and virtue; whereby are given unto us exceeding 
 great and precious promises : that by these ye 
 might be partakers of the divine nature, having 
 escaped the corruption that is in the world 
 through lust.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 18., which concludes the epistle. 
 —“ But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be 
 glory both now and for ever. Amen.” 
 
 THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN. 
 
 Chap. I. v. 1, 2, 3.—‘‘That which was from the 
 beginning, which we have heard, which we have 
 seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, 
 and our hands have handled of the Word of life ; 
 (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, 
 and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal 
 life, which was with the Father, and was manifested 
 unto us ;) that which we have seen and heard de¬ 
 clare we unto you, that ye also may have fellow¬ 
 ship with us : and truly our fellowship is with the 
 Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Chap. II. v. 1,2.—“My little children, these 
 things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if 
 
EPISTLE I. OF JOHN. 
 
 91 
 
 any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 
 Jesus Christ the righteous : and he is the propitia¬ 
 tion for our sins; and not for ours only, but also 
 for the sins of the whole world.” 
 
 Again, v. 22, 23, 24.—“ Who is a liar but he 
 that denieth that Jesus is the Christ ? He is anti¬ 
 christ, that denieth the Father and the Son. Who¬ 
 soever denieth the Son, the same hath not the 
 Father : [but] he that acknowledged the Son hath 
 the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you, 
 which ye have heard from the beginning. If that 
 which ye have heard from the beginning shall re¬ 
 main in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and 
 in the Father.” 
 
 Chap. III. v. 21, 22, 23.—“ Beloved, if our heart 
 condemn us not, then have we confidence toward 
 God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, 
 because we keep his commandments, and do those 
 things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is 
 his commandment, That we should believe on the 
 name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, 
 as he gave us commandment.” 
 
 Chap. IV. v. 2, 3.—“ Hereby know ye the Spirit 
 of God: Every spirit that confessed that Jesus 
 Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit 
 that confessed not that Jesus Christ is come in the 
 flesh is not of God : and this is that spirit of anti¬ 
 christ, whereof ye have heard that it should come ; 
 and even now already is it in the world.” 
 
 Again, v. 14, 15.—“ And we have seen and do 
 testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Sa¬ 
 viour, of the world. Whosoever shall confess that 
 
92 
 
 EPISTLE I. OF JOHN. 
 
 Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and 
 he in God.” 
 
 Chap. V. v. 5. to 12.—“ Who is he that over- 
 cometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus 
 is the Son of God ? This is he that came by water 
 and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, 
 but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that 
 beareth witness, because the spirit is truth. For 
 there are three that bear record in heaven, the Fa¬ 
 ther, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these 
 three are one. And there are three that bear wit- 
 nesin earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood : 
 and these three agree in one. If we receive the 
 witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for 
 this is the witness of God which he hath testified of 
 his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God 
 hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not 
 God hath made him a liar; because he believeth 
 not the record that God gave of his Son. And this 
 is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, 
 and this life is in his Son.” 
 
 Again, v. 19, 20, 21., which conclude the epistle. 
 —“ And we know that we are of God, and the 
 whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know 
 that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an 
 understanding, that we may know him that is true, 
 and we are in him that is true, even in his Son 
 Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal 
 life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 
 Amen.” 
 
EPISTLE OF JUDE. 
 
 93 
 
 THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN. 
 
 Verses 1,2, 3.—“ The elder unto the elect lady 
 and her children, whom I love in the truth; and 
 not I only, but also all they that have known the 
 truth; for the truth’s sake, which dwellethin us, and 
 shall be with us for ever. Grace be with you, 
 mercy, and peace from God the Father, and from 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in 
 truth and love.” 
 
 THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE. 
 
 Verses 1, 2.—“ Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, 
 and brother of James, to them that are sanctified 
 by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, 
 and called : mercy unto you, and peace, and love, 
 be multiplied.” 
 
 Again, v. 4.—“ For there are certain men crept 
 in unawares, who were before of old ordained to 
 this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace 
 of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the 
 only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Again, v. 24, 25., which conclude the epistle. 
 —“Now unto him that is able to keep you from 
 falling, and to present you faultless before the pre¬ 
 sence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only 
 wise God our Saviour, he glory and majesty, do¬ 
 minion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” 
 
 The exhortations and arguments naturally belong¬ 
 ing to Epistles frequently occasion metaphorical ex- 
 
94 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 pressions with involved sentences, and the meaning 
 is not so clearly and simply given as in a narrative ; 
 yet through the whole of the Epistles, with the ex¬ 
 ception of a very few doubtful passages, our blessed 
 Saviour is always represented as deriving his power 
 from God. 
 
 THE reader has now seen, as far as I am able to 
 judge, all the passages to be found (excluding the 
 Revelation) in the New Testament, which bear upon 
 the nature, dignity, and offices of Jesus Christ, and 
 may consider for himself how far either of the three 
 sects, mentioned in the beginning of these pages, is 
 borne out in its peculiar doctrine. Yet I feel that 
 I should not act with perfect rectitude were I to 
 conceal what have been my own impressions, after 
 having surveyed and considered the whole; and I 
 avow them the more readily, because I am an un¬ 
 learned person, whose opinion can be of no import¬ 
 ance or authority, and who cannot therefore bias 
 the judgment of others as capable of forming an 
 opinion on this important subject as myself;—that 
 is to say, every unlearned reader of common un¬ 
 derstanding. I also do it the more readily, because, 
 excepting sermons which I have heard preached in 
 the episcopal church on that particular Sunday 
 appointed for the inculcating the first-mentioned 
 doctrine, and sermons occasionally read on the 
 same subject and for the same purpose, with one or 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 95 
 
 two tracts, urging the chief arguments upon which 
 it has been founded, I am ignorant of all contro¬ 
 versy which different sects have entered into, regard¬ 
 ing what is called the divinity of Christ. 
 
 No offence, I hope, will be taken at the use I 
 here make of the term sects , which is commonly 
 applied to a smaller number of Christians as di¬ 
 stinguished from a greater, whose tenets are sup¬ 
 ported by the law of the land. I use it here in a 
 wider sense, as divisions of that church which con¬ 
 sists of every believer who receives the New Testa¬ 
 ment as the word of God,—The Greek, the Roman, 
 the Lutheran, the English, the Presbyterian, with 
 the various subdivisions, occasioned by dissenters 
 from each. All established churches are such only 
 regarding the country by whose laws they are up¬ 
 held ; regarding Christianity at large they are not 
 so, and may then with propriety be designated sects. 
 
 It appears to me that Jesus Christ, through the 
 whole of the Gospels, speaks of himself as receiving 
 his power from God. In the Acts and the Epistles 
 likewise the apostles speak of him as deriving his 
 power and glory from God the Father, not only when 
 he is mentioned as a man upon earth, but in his 
 glorified state after his ascension. And indeed it is 
 as ascended to heaven and on the right hand of God 
 that they almost constantly speak of him to the ear¬ 
 liest converts. There are but two passages in the 
 New Testament which appear to me clearly to favour 
 the first of our three mentioned sects, or our high 
 Church doctrine, which, with little limitation, may 
 be termed the professed doctrine of all established 
 churches in Christendom ; and these are the three 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 96 
 
 first verses of St. John’s Gospel, and that passage 
 from the 5th to the 12th verse of the second chapter 
 of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians. The latter 
 seems to me the strongest and most direct. ‘ 4 Being,” 
 says the apostle, “ in the form of God, he thought 
 it not robbery to be equal with God.” Of the first 
 part of the passage, Paley and Sherlock*, though 
 drawing from it different conclusions, say that the 
 words in the original will bear a different interpre¬ 
 tation. Of this I cannot pretend to judge ; but if, 
 in our common version of the Epistle, the interpre¬ 
 tation or translation of the first part of the passage 
 be right, it is very obvious that the last, which says, 
 “ therefore God, even his God,” &c. &c. must be 
 wrong, for they are utterly inconsistent with one 
 another.! The introductory verses to St. John’s 
 
 * See Paley’s Sermons on Hebrews xiii. 8., and Sherlock’s 
 Sermons on Philippians ii. 9. 
 
 t The usual reply to this objection,—that the exaltation here 
 meant regards Jesus Christ in his human nature only,—appears 
 to me an ingenious subtlety to evade the objection, not to answer 
 it. To be exalted beyond every name that is named in heaven, 
 would certainly be great honour to human nature, as personified 
 in Christ; but would be no honour or exaltation at all to that Di¬ 
 vine Being, who had thought it no robbery to be equal with God. 
 Besides, whether Paley and Sherlock, or the translators of our 
 common version of the New Testament were the most competent 
 scholars, is not of much consequence; for no scholarship can esta¬ 
 blish the meaning of a particular word as the true meaning of 
 the author, when contradictory or inconsistent with the context. 
 When a writer intentionally uses such a word he gives the reader 
 notice of the seeming inconsistency, and gives some reason for 
 his having, notwithstanding, so used it. When he gives no such 
 notice, we have a right to suppose that the word was intended 
 
 v! 
 
 by him to coincide with the other parts of the passage in which 
 he has placed it, not to oppose them. 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 97 
 
 Gospel, where it is said “ in the beginning was the 
 Word,” &c. &c. are not in my opinion so strong 
 as the above-mentioned assertion of St. Paul ; for 
 a being so great and excellent as to be endowed with 
 power and wisdom to create this world, might be 
 called God from such derived glory, without imply¬ 
 ing any equality with the supreme God from whom 
 he has derived every thing. And in admitting such 
 latitude in the use of this divine title, we are in some 
 degree authorized by our Saviour himself. When 
 accused of blasphemy by the Jews for seeming to 
 make himself equal with God, this is his defence : 
 —“ Is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods ? 
 If he called them gods unto whom the word of God 
 came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye 
 of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent 
 into the w T orld, Thou blasphemest; because I said, 
 I am the Son of God ?” If we suppose him, as St. 
 John and St. Paul assert, to have created this world, 
 we may likewise naturally suppose that our sun and 
 all that revolves round it w r ere created by him, act¬ 
 ing with the delegated power of his great Father. 
 And the discoveries of modern astronomy make this 
 a less extravagant notion than it would have been 
 in the days of the apostles, when the earth was be¬ 
 lieved to be the centre of the universe. For by 
 what agents the Supreme Being may have thought 
 fit to people the regions of space with such innu¬ 
 merable suns and planets which our mortal eyes as¬ 
 sisted and unassisted do behold, it is not for us to 
 conjecture: we look up and adore, and then with 
 becoming reverence bow down our heads to the 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 earth.* This idea, too, appears to me in beautiful 
 accordance with the doctrines of atonement and me¬ 
 diation for our transgressions which are so plainly 
 taught throughout the New Testament, and is re- 
 concileable with all that is said of our blessed Lord 
 in holy writ. There are besides a very few expres¬ 
 sions in the epistles of Saint Paul which seem to 
 favour in some degree, this high church doctrine, 
 and might by a subtle reasoner be made to support 
 it; but with subtle reasoning this work has nothing 
 to do, and my reader has no doubt noticed those 
 expressions, and is as well qualified to judge of them 
 as I can pretend to be. In short, it appears to me, 
 that a person of plain sense, who, being previously 
 unacquainted with this article of our orthodox creed, 
 should read the New Testament with serious atten¬ 
 tion, might do so without being aware that such a 
 doctrine is therein taught at all. For in reading a 
 book full of figurative expressions, he would never 
 think of understanding any of them literally when 
 at variance with the general sense of what they were 
 introduced to enforce and illustrate. Metaphor 
 gives both lightness and strength to instruction ; for 
 containing, as it does, an implied simile or compa¬ 
 rison, the imagination enjoys its pictured object 
 while the understanding is making out its lesson. 
 To receive such forms of speech literally, leads to 
 confusion and absurdity; and whether an expres¬ 
 sion in any book ought to be received literally or 
 metaphorically, must be known by its agreeing or 
 not agreeing with the context. How shall we, for 
 instance, deal with the four following passages of 
 
 * See Note 4 at the end. 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 99 
 
 scripture? “ This is my body broken for you,” &c. 
 “ This is my blood shed for the remission of sins.” 
 “ I and my Father are one.” “Neither pray I for 
 these (his disciples) alone, but for them also which 
 shall believe in me through their word : that they 
 may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, 
 that they also may be one in us : that the world 
 may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory 
 which thou gavest me, I have given them ; that 
 they may be one, even as we are one.” “ If thy right 
 hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee ; 
 it is better for thee to go into life halt and maimed, 
 than having two hands or two feet to be cast into 
 hell fire.” If we take the first of these passages 
 literally, the doctrine of transubstantiation is esta¬ 
 blished. If the second is so taken, viz. as not mean¬ 
 ing union of concord only, but identity, our high 
 church creeds will be upheld by it to their utmost 
 stretch ; but what shall we do, then, with the third, 
 where the same expression is repeated ? for there, 
 we must be satisfied with the union of concord alone, 
 as identity of the disciples with each other and with 
 their blessed Master is impossible. The last of the 
 above texts, “if thy right hand offend thee,” &c. 
 enjoins what is, indeed, possible, but has not, I be¬ 
 lieve, given much disturbance to either churchmen 
 or laity, though as well entitled to do so as some 
 others which have been causes of bitter contention. 
 Metaphor is meant to give clearness and scope to 
 interpretation, not to chain it down or encumber it 
 with shackles. It is fitted to give pleasing exercise 
 to two of our noblest faculties. Imagination and 
 understanding are natural and pleasant helpmates, 
 
 h 2 
 
100 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 who work to one another's hands very profitably, 
 and were not bestowed upon us by the great Giver 
 of all good gifts that we should divide and separate 
 them as aliens from one another. 
 
 Of the second sect, whose opinions, as far as I 
 am capable of judging, agree best with the whole 
 tenor of Scripture, I will say nothing. 
 
 As to the third, which considers Jesus Christ as 
 a mere man*, sent into the world with God’s high 
 mission to his brethren, it seems at variance with so 
 many plain passages of Scripture, that it cannot, I 
 should think, by those who view the subject in the 
 simple way here recommended, be considered as 
 standing upon any solid foundation. 
 
 There are good and pious Christians of all de¬ 
 nominations, and so far from uniformity of belief 
 being a blessing, we may thank God that he has 
 permitted various sects to exist. Much good, we 
 may suppose, has arisen from the various habits and 
 tempers of sincere believers, how different soever 
 and opposed to one another ; and what our Saviour 
 said to those who condemned both his own open 
 and sociable manners, and the abstemious austerity 
 of John the Baptist, is in some degree applicable to 
 them, “ Wisdom is justified of all her children.” 
 One good effect we can evidently trace : with per¬ 
 fect uniformity of opinion, we could not reasonably 
 have had the same firm trust in the authenticity of 
 Scripture which we now possess. Christians differ¬ 
 ing from Christians in various points of faith, kept 
 a jealous eye upon each other; and, generally speak¬ 
 ing, neither hypocritical policy nor mistaken zeal 
 
 * See Note 2 at the end. 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 101 
 
 durst venture to alter it. Had it not been for this, 
 during the dark ages, and before the art of printing 
 was invented, the genuine Scripture, in all human 
 probability, would have been entirely lost, or so in¬ 
 termixed with absurdities and monkish inventions, 
 that we could have had no reasonable confidence in 
 it. I say nothing of the room which this want of 
 uniformity has created for the exercise of Christian 
 forbearance and charity ; would to God we had pro¬ 
 fited by such opportunities more than we have ! It 
 is not, therefore, with any vain design of combating 
 the settled opinions of any class of believers that I 
 have undertaken this collection of scriptural pas¬ 
 sages, but that persons of sincere piety and common 
 understanding may see laid before them what the 
 New Testament contains regarding the nature and 
 dignity of Christ, and judge for themselves. I firmly 
 believe that, for want of such an aid, many a young- 
 person supposing the Scripture to teach what it hath 
 not taught, has turned from revealed religion with a 
 wounded or indifferent mind. 
 
 In these days, when the spreading of our religion 
 in distant heathen countries, and also among the 
 Jews, is so zealously contemplated and pursued, an 
 exposition like the present becomes more necessary, 
 that doctrines from which many of them may be 
 supposed peculiarly to revolt, may not be con¬ 
 sidered by them as necessarily making a part of 
 Christian faith.* Instead of placing certain doctrines 
 
 * Our missionaries abroad have often begun their ministry in 
 this manner. (See the Life of Martin and others.) This has al¬ 
 ways appeared to me as unwise as it is unwarranted. In speak¬ 
 ing of the progress of their labours in the East to men acquainted 
 
102 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 like a stumbling-block on the very threshold of in¬ 
 struction, it surely becomes every Protestant mis¬ 
 sionary to assure his proselytes, that no Christian, 
 with the Bible in his hand, is required to believe 
 what does not appear to him to be plainly taught 
 therein. It is on this acknowledged maxim that the 
 Protestant church takes her stand ; and well had it 
 been for her had she always acted consistently with 
 it. The high-strained doctrine of what is called the 
 Catholic Church regarding the present subject, was 
 one great cause in promoting the rise and progress 
 of Mahomedanism ; without this, the religion of 
 Mahomet, humanly speaking, would probably never 
 have existed. And it will, so speaking, be the great¬ 
 est obstacle to the conversion of the Jews. How 
 far their conversion at this period of time may be 
 desirable, I am not competent to judge; but it is ob¬ 
 vious to any common understanding that the sin¬ 
 gular state in which that nation has existed since 
 the destruction of Jerusalem up to the present day, 
 and their being the preservers of the ancient pro¬ 
 phecies connected with our religion, are strong 
 proofs to which we can appeal for its truth—proofs 
 which would have been destroyed had they been 
 converted so early as before the reformation and 
 the invention of printing. Their not having been 
 so seems to be a wise appointment of Providence 
 for our good; and it is, perhaps, desirable that it 
 should not be disturbed till greater progress has 
 
 with India, I have been told that the lives of the missionaries have 
 gained them great respect among the Hindoos, from their bene¬ 
 volence and good conduct, whilst their doctrines have made little 
 or no impression at all. 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 103 
 
 been made in converting the other nations of the 
 earth. This, however, I say with all diffidence and 
 humility, and trust that it will not be considered as 
 arising from any indifference on a subject so serious 
 and important. 
 
 I hope it is not presumptuous to suppose that 
 these extracts may be of use to such Christians, 
 [and there are, probably, many] who, with the best 
 dispositions and a humble diffidence of their own 
 judgment, still find it impossible to believe sincerely 
 in the doctrine of the Established Church on the 
 points in question, and suffer from it great unhap¬ 
 piness in their own minds. Seeing the whole which 
 the New Testament declares concerning the dignity 
 and nature of our blessed Saviour set before them 
 at once, freed from the disjointing division of 
 verses, they will perceive on what authority the 
 doctrine really rests ; and if they cannot satisfy 
 their minds by any decided belief, will at least feel 
 less uneasiness in being led by the dictates of their 
 own reason to dissent from it. It may also prevent 
 them from thinking it is necessary, in all points of 
 faith, to agree with those whom we join in public 
 worship, since all Protestant doctrines rest profess¬ 
 edly on Scripture alone, and the right of private 
 judgment in the understanding of that Scripture. 
 The Church of England herself, as becomes a Pro¬ 
 testant church, acknowledges this in the sixth of 
 her thirty-nine articles, however dictatorial the 
 terms in which they are generally couched : “ Holy 
 Scripture containeth all things necessary to salva¬ 
 tion ; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor 
 may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any 
 
104 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 man that it should be believed as an article of faith, 
 or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” 
 And no person, I should think, who abstains from 
 repeating those parts of her Liturgy which are con¬ 
 trary to what appears to him to be the meaning of 
 Scripture, need at any time scruple to join in the 
 public worship which she hath appointed ; taking 
 care at the same time that, by keeping the books 
 open, or by a mechanical muttering of the lips and 
 bowing of the head as a sign of assent, he do not 
 appear to repeat it ; which would be deceitful and 
 very wrong. And it would surely be a becoming 
 mark of respect to Christians of other sects and deno¬ 
 minations, if he sometimes joined, as occasion might 
 offer, in their public worship, which would promote 
 a liberal and charitable spirit among those who pro- 
 fessedlv follow one noble Master,—a Master who 
 was, while on earth, most open and liberal in an 
 age and generation when narrowness and bigotry 
 did most particularly prevail. Do not Christians 
 assemble in the house of God to adore his goodness, 
 and t@ offer up their tribute of thanksgiving and 
 praise with that increased emotion which arises 
 from social communion, far more than to make 
 declaration of dogmas ? Are not all assembled there 
 as the dependent creatures of one beneficent and 
 almighty Parent, and as sinners for whose sake a 
 generous Saviour was willing to live and to die ? 
 And what form of words should be allowed to dis¬ 
 turb such natural and holy feelings ? He who will 
 not join a religious assembly, where any part of the 
 service does not agree with his belief, will find him¬ 
 self often debarred from social worship; and surely 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 105 
 
 while he joins in the general devotions of those who 
 in particular tenets differ from himself, he may, even 
 while those parts of the service are repeated which 
 he most objects to, though silent, exercise that in¬ 
 ward sentiment of brotherly goodwill and considera¬ 
 tion for others, which so well become the followers 
 of Jesus Christ, and receive benefit to his soul.— 
 In doing so, while he manfully and honestly avows 
 what his real opinions are, he can never be justly 
 accused of hypocritical conformity. Indeed, by re¬ 
 maining on these terms with the established insti¬ 
 tution *—an institution containing within itself full 
 power to alter or modify its articles and liturgy, he 
 would more probably contribute hereafter to the 
 freeing a greater number of Christians from pro¬ 
 fessions of belief appearing to them unwarranted 
 by Scripture, than by separating from it. So at 
 least it appears to me ; though, at the same time, I 
 honour from my heart all those who, contrary to 
 every kind of worldly interest, have separated from 
 it for conscience’s sake. 
 
 Above all, I hope, that a serious perusal of the 
 preceding extracts will incline the reader, what con¬ 
 clusion soever he may draw from them, to feel 
 charitablv towards all who differ from him in 
 
 J 
 
 opinion ; knowdng that piety to Almighty God, and 
 gratitude to his Messiah, with the generous impulses 
 and virtuous actions naturally flowing from such 
 sentiments, belong exclusively to no sect. Had 
 unity of faith been necessary to salvation, w 7 e must 
 
 * I mention institution in the singular, as the Kirk of Scot¬ 
 land, equally established by law, mixes no professions of belief 
 with her public worship. 
 
106 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 suppose that God, by the operation of his Holy 
 Spirit, would have bestowed such unity on sincere 
 Christians. It will be the good intention and sin¬ 
 cerity with which we examine Scripture, not the re¬ 
 sult of that examination, for which we shall be called 
 to account. And let us consider how little dif¬ 
 ference, as to the effects upon our hearts and con¬ 
 duct, a difference of opinion on various points of 
 faith is calculated to produce. We shall begin with 
 the doctrine of Atonement, which has so often been 
 the subject of controversy :—What difference can 
 it make in our adoration and love of God, or our 
 love and gratitude to His blessed and generous Son, 
 to contemplate Christ as having atoned for our sins, 
 or as being only a Mediator, pleading for our par¬ 
 don ; since in either case we believe him to have left 
 for a time the happiness and glory of heaven, to be¬ 
 come a man upon earth, that he might suffer and 
 die for our sakes? We shall next consider the doc¬ 
 trine of Original Sin, which has been no less strenu¬ 
 ously controverted. Does he, who after a diligent 
 examination of scripture, believes that man was, for 
 some cause which we need not here examine, made 
 liable to sin, and furnished with both the good and 
 bad dispositions necessary for a state of trial and 
 probation ; and by the mercy and goodness of God, 
 through the merits and intercession of Christ, will 
 have his imperfect obedience and improvements in 
 virtue accepted—does such a man feel less love and 
 gratitude to the Divine Being, than one who, after 
 a similar examination, supposes that he is sent into 
 the world with only bad dispositions, incapable 
 by nature of any good thing, but as he is acted 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 107 
 
 upon by an after operation of grace ? Our capa¬ 
 bility of good and means of attaining to a better 
 state of existence in either case comes equally from 
 God; and we are equally bound to follow every good 
 suggestion of the mind, and repress every one that 
 is evil. Excellent fruits have sprung from the hold¬ 
 ers of both these tenets ; but censuring the one class 
 or despising the other cannot be reckoned among 
 them. Lastly, let us consider the doctrine of Faith, 
 which has set Christians at variance more than any 
 other, particularly in the present day. That faith 
 alone effects our salvation without works, but must 
 still have its sincerity proved by works, or that 
 faith producing good works, or in conjunction with 
 good works, procures the same blessed result, is a 
 subtle distinction, works being necessary and faith 
 also necessary to him who embraces either opinion. 
 And would the preachers of faith not put works out 
 of sight by forbearing to mention them at all, or 
 mentioning them slightly, and were the preachers 
 of works more zealous in inculcating that gratitude 
 and piety by which the highest and purest morality 
 is produced and cherished, it would be of little con¬ 
 sequence on which side of the question any one 
 might range himself. 
 
 There seems to be a kind of humility in suppo¬ 
 sing that we can do nothing for ourselves, and this 
 has often won converts to the first-mentioned notion 
 of faith. But what is pride and what is humility 
 in relation to man with his Maker ? Every thing 
 we possess we derive from him ; and he who bows 
 down his reason and calls himself a worm of the 
 earth, has not a stronger sense of the infinite per- 
 
108 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 fections of Almighty God, or of the immeasurable 
 distance between the Creator and the created, than 
 he who gratefully prizes his own powers of mind, 
 which enable him in some degree to perceive the 
 wisdom, power, and goodness of the Deity in his 
 varied works,—prizes them the more as being the 
 generous gift of-the beneficent Lord of all. Hu¬ 
 mility and pride are terms which properly relate to 
 man as connected with fellow men. It is that dis¬ 
 position which makes a man willing to allow the 
 merits of others, and to think himself inferior to 
 them, and ready to condescend to those who are 
 his inferiors, that is properly humility : it is that 
 disposition which assumes superiority over others, 
 and disregards the wrong and distress occasioned 
 by it, which is properly called pride. Do we honour 
 God by depreciating the noblest of his works with 
 which we have any means of being acquainted— 
 a rational soul ? Such an idea monks and fanatics 
 may entertain, but does it become those who have 
 had the sacred Scripture spread freely before them ? 
 who have therein contemplated the most exalted, 
 beautiful, and generous of all characters—our bless¬ 
 ed Saviour ? who have considered the main tenor 
 of his pure and excellent precepts, the promises and 
 hopes vouchsafed for our encouragement, and his 
 perfect, animating, and noble example ? 
 
 It is frequently urged by well-meaning persons, 
 that in our belief of the doctrines contained in the 
 Bible there must be a complete prostration of our 
 poor limited reason. True ; when our reason assents 
 to the words of that book in the sense proposed, 
 as being the words of God. But this is a prelimi- 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 109 
 
 nary which human reason must settle, unless each 
 individual be gifted with inspiration. Yes, we 
 must subject our understanding to such high au¬ 
 thority ; and it is, therefore, more imperatively our 
 duty to study the whole of Scripture, to the best of 
 our abilities, for ourselves. To set aside w T hat ap¬ 
 pears to us from the general tenor of the whole to 
 be plainly taught therein, to follow the interpreta¬ 
 tions given by others of particular passages, is not 
 a prostration of reason to God, but to man. To 
 show that it is a prostration of reason likewise to 
 the declared opinions of men, who, with fewer ad¬ 
 vantages than ourselves, did from ambition, from 
 fear, from a desire of conciliating others, from the 
 love of peace and hatred to contention, not even 
 dare to use their own reason, would not be difficult; 
 but the design of these pages forbids me to attempt 
 it. Shall we, from a mistaken notion of presumption, 
 treat our sacred volume in a way which v 7 ould be 
 most unjust and injurious to any secular work ? 
 Should we take our opinion of the writings of any 
 great poet or philosopher from detached passages, 
 declared by some peremptory critic as containing 
 the beauty and vigour of the whole, not daring to 
 use the affections and faculties of our own mind in 
 perusing it ? This might do well for increasing the 
 consequence of the critic, but would be a heinous 
 wrong and indignity to the author. 
 
 But do not let my reader suppose that I recom¬ 
 mend a blind, wilful adherence to one’s own judg¬ 
 ment. It is well for us to consult understandings 
 superior to our own, as v r e have opportunity in the 
 writings and conversation of the pious and intelli- 
 
110 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 gent; but having done so, it is by no means well 
 to give up our own opinion to theirs, unless they 
 have convinced our reason that their opinions are 
 better founded than our own. 
 
 That the right of private judgment in interpret¬ 
 ing Scripture must promote peace and Christian 
 charity we cannot doubt. For one who has diligently 
 examined the whole scope of what is taught there, 
 and has found the difficulty of coming to deter¬ 
 mined conclusions on many points, will he more 
 ready to make allowances for the opinions of those 
 who dissent from him ; and being convinced that it 
 is the intention and sincerity with which we read 
 and examine, and not our skill in doing so, that 
 will be most acceptable to our Great Master, he 
 will be relieved from the depressing idea, that right 
 belief in particular doctrines is necessary to sal¬ 
 vation ;—an idea which has, perhaps, occasioned 
 more persecution in the Christian Church than 
 either pride, covetousness, or the love of domina¬ 
 tion. For who will scruple to do that, which he 
 supposes will exterminate errors of faith that must 
 necessarily lead to the eternal destruction of human 
 souls ? It will naturally tend to quell the perni¬ 
 cious activity of intemperate zeal,—“ the wrath of 
 man, which worketh not the righteousness of God.” 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note 1. 
 
 Many efforts of mind have in vain been made to conceive the 
 possibility of the separate persons of three co-eternal Beings per¬ 
 fectly and equally perfect in attributes, making one Deity. This, 
 however, appears clear, and a matter evident to human intellect, 
 that beings so existing would be actually resolved into one; for 
 being equally omniscient, each must know every thing which the 
 others know ; being equally powerful and omnipresent, must be 
 infinitely effective in operation over boundless space ; and being 
 equally wise, would necessarily will the same decrees. With 
 reverence be it spoken ; were the number of such beings three, or 
 any other number, the unity would be equal; but what is meant 
 by a separation of persons in this immensity of perfection, or what 
 would be the use of such separation, it would be very difficult if 
 not impossible to say. In other points, too, connected with this 
 sublime and awful subject, we are apt to set aside plain sense for 
 the more fanciful intricacies of metaphysics. It has been assert¬ 
 ed by some, that to the Divine mind the whole of eternity is but 
 as one moment; for, say they, “ the present, past, and future are 
 all equally before HIM, and therefore there can be no succession 
 which marks time to inferior beings.” That the past, present, 
 and future are all perfectly known to God, is certain; but that 
 they appear or lie before his sight in the same way, is by no means 
 so. The past may be as perfectly known as the present, yet in 
 a different manner, which shall distinguish it from the present. A 
 human being of good memory knows as perfectly, or nearly so, 
 what passed before his eyes yesterday, or an hour ago, as if it 
 were actually passing at the present moment, and you can sup¬ 
 pose his memory to become perfectly perfect, without in the 
 slightest degree confounding the present with the past; and this 
 remark applies equally to the future, in a mind endowed with 
 foreknowledge. 
 
112 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Let us suppose that-the past, present, and future presented 
 themselves in the same way before the Divine mind, and then, to 
 simplify the matter to our own apprehension, let us suppose the 
 whole course of one man’s existence as it would be displayed 
 to his Creator; would he not become multiplied as the various 
 incidents of his life, into a million of men, his infancy, youth, 
 manhood, and age (to say nothing of what follows age and death), 
 making one equally vivid portraiture of his repeated semblances, 
 were there no such distinction as I have intimated above ? The 
 human mind is as incapable of comprehending an endless moment, 
 as it is of comprehending a boundless point, or as it is of com¬ 
 prehending that a thing may exist and not exist at the same time. 
 
 Note 2, p. 1, and p. 100. 
 
 I have lately been informed by a friend in habits of intimacy 
 with many learned and intelligent Dissenters, and whose author¬ 
 ity I cannot doubt, that the second class of Unitarians, as above 
 described, reject the appellation of Socinians ; and I have no right, 
 most certainly no inclination, to designate any respectable body of 
 men by a name which they decline. I beg therefore that my reader 
 will bear this in mind, and consider them only as the second or 
 lower sect of Unitarians.—And to the general statement which I 
 have ventured to make of their opinions as distinguished from 
 those of the first sect, another very intelligent and enlightened 
 friend has made the following objections. Having quoted my 
 words in the first page, viz. “ regards him as the Great Missioned 
 Prophet of God, sent into the world to reveal his will,” he pro¬ 
 ceeds thus : This representation would not be admitted by the 
 generality of those who hold the third doctrine, mentioned in 
 page 1, as adequately expressing their views. It might have 
 been added, that they believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah 
 preordained of God before the Creation to redeem the world by 
 bringing to mankind the assurance of a resurrection to eternal 
 life through his own death and resurrection ; and they are not 
 conscious that their opinions prevent them from regarding him 
 (equally with those who hold the second doctrine) as “ a most 
 highly exalted Being;” or from believing his exaltation to be as 
 great as it is possible for any derived Being to attain,—as sitting 
 at the right hand of God, and appointed to raise mankind from 
 
NOTES. 
 
 113 
 
 the dead and to be their judge. He further adds, “The expres¬ 
 sion * mere man ’ also in page 100, though it may have been 
 used by some who hold the third Doctrine, is liable to mislead. 
 Believing Jesus Christ to be the Messiah, they cannot perhaps, 
 correctly be said to consider him as a mere man.” 
 
 NOTE 3, page 7*. 
 
 Besides the above-mentioned difficulties to the reader in ex¬ 
 amining the Scripture, he will meet with others in attending to 
 the expounders of it. In listening to sermons from the pulpit, or 
 in reading them at home, a young person is often led away from 
 the general meaning of scripture, by the over-anxiety of the preacher 
 to do what he deems justice to his subject,—to make the most of 
 his particular text. Hence come long sermons, in which a simple 
 precept is so drawn out and loaded with collateral ramifications, 
 that to follow it seems to be a most intricate and difficult task. 
 For instance, “ Of every idle word that a man shall speak, he must 
 give an account in the day of judgement ” becomes a perplexing 
 and astounding declaration, as handled by an ingenious Divine; for 
 he is not satisfied with showing that all which is irreverent to¬ 
 wards God, or injurious to man, though spoken with no direct bad 
 intention, but from an indifference to what is becoming in itself, or 
 what may affect the good of others, is culpable; but he must give 
 an elaborate account of all the useful purposes for which the fa¬ 
 culty of speech was bestowed upon man,—praising God and in¬ 
 structing others being the end of every thing that ought to be said, 
 all else lying under the construction of idle words. And having 
 taken this dilated view of the precept, the common intercourse of 
 society becomes a most perilous thing. Had the preacher been 
 less elaborate and less ingenious, the hearer or reader might have 
 apprehended that it was henceforth his duty to abstain from 
 saying any thing, however trifling or amusing, that might convey 
 to others an injurious impression of his neighbour, or give him 
 pain ; and that all slight, uncalled for ejaculations, connected with 
 the Divine name or attributes, are irreverent and offensive. And 
 many other precepts of scripture have been made perplexing and 
 ineffectual by a well-meant but injudicious endeavour to make the 
 
 * Erroneously referred to in p. 7 as Note 2. 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 most of a subject. In this way also particular doctrines are en¬ 
 forced, and the general sense of scripture, regarding them, kept 
 out of sight. 
 
 NOTE 4, page 98. 
 
 How amply and nobly do the discoveries in astronomy, since 
 the days of our Saviour, illustrate his affectionate promise to his 
 sorrowing disciples ! “ In my Father’s house are many mansions. ” 
 “I go to prepare a place for you.” Worlds innumerable are now 
 known to exist: when he spoke those words, besides this earth 
 there was no local habitation upon which the imagination could 
 rest. A vague idea of a city or region in the air, or the cloudy 
 pavilions of an Olympus, was all they could form to themselves. 
 And with how much sublimity may the immortality of the soul 
 be exposed by later divines, when they do not use the aid of other 
 means to heighten our conceptions which are by no means calcu¬ 
 lated to do so ! When they say of the immensity of space, that 
 stars exist so far beyond the ken of our most assisted sight that 
 thousands of years would be required to convey one of their beams 
 to the earth, they confound, but do not enlarge our ideas of space. 
 We cannot even in imagination conceive space to be bounded ; and 
 that any of its regions should remain empty is not analogous to 
 what is known of nature; therefore all that such statements as¬ 
 sert are implied in our original ideas of space, and there is no in¬ 
 creased sublimity or salutary awe regarding the Divine Being 
 produced by such specifications. That there is under the lowest 
 imaginable deep a lower still, as Milton in far better words, which 
 I cannot repeat, expresses it, is all that can be represented to our 
 thoughts, and is truly sublime: calculating the myriads of feet 
 that could or could not plummet it, would diminish the effect; 
 and the same remark is applicable to height and width. Neither 
 can we conceive duration to have a bound. As much illustration 
 as the mind can naturally follow is useful, but we should beware 
 of going further. We lose by it what had been conceived of vast 
 expansion ; for it contracts and closes in upon us again by being 
 set before the mind’s eye as a comparatively fractional portion of 
 space. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 To the late Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 My Lord, October 5, 1831. 
 
 I am greatly obliged by the pains Your Lordship 
 has taken to correct the errors into which I have 
 fallen according to the orthodox view of the subject; 
 and I am still more obliged by the gentleness and 
 charity with which you have pointed out my errors ; 
 for the able and the learned do not always condescend 
 so gracefully to what must naturally appear to them 
 the presumption of ignorance. Let me then en¬ 
 treat Your Lordship to accept in good part my sin¬ 
 cere thanks, and still to extend your forbearance 
 while I mention, as you have encouraged me to do, 
 some parts of your able tract that appear to me to 
 rest upon ingenious reasoning rather than real 
 grounds,—such grounds at least as to a common un¬ 
 derstanding produces conviction. For a person like 
 myself to enter into any public controversy with a 
 scholar and divine of your eminence and character, 
 would be altogether unbecoming ; but I owe it, my 
 Lord, as a mark of respect, to lay before you pri¬ 
 vately my reasons for dissenting from the argu¬ 
 ments contained in the letter which you have done 
 me the very great honour of addressing to me ; and 
 1 am quite assured that however weak or unsatis¬ 
 factory they may appear to you, they will be recei- 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 ved with all the favour and indulgence I could de¬ 
 sire. 
 
 In page 2 it is said, “ This is our stronghold, 
 that the doctrine which we profess is the doctrine 
 which was taught by Christ and his Apostles, and 
 by the Fathers of the primitive church.” As it ap¬ 
 pears to me, that without previous instruction in 
 the doctrine of the Trinity, a person of plain sense 
 might read the whole of the New Testament without 
 being aware of such a doctrine being contained in 
 it, to conceive how it should immediately have be¬ 
 come the received doctrine of the first Christians is 
 very difficult. Upon what grounds this is asserted 
 I am ignorant. 
 
 The passage produced to show that the man of 
 plain sense cannot judge without learning, does not 
 appear to me satisfactory,—“ Looking for the bless¬ 
 ed hope of the great God and our Saviour Jesus 
 Christ.” If the translators of our received version 
 of the New Testament, who were all asserters of the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, have given it so, we are well 
 entitled to think they are right, notwithstanding 
 any nicety of language which a profound Greek 
 scholar conceives to be against them. 
 
 What is urged regarding the authority of the Old 
 Testament as a confirmation of the New, and the 
 references made to it by our Saviour and his Apostles, 
 is very just, but not as applied to the point in ques¬ 
 tion. Our Saviour and his Apostles confirmed what 
 they taught to the Jews, by the sense which the 
 Jews themselves entertained of the different passages 
 of the Old Testament,—such prophecies as they 
 acknowledged to belong to the Messiah, not by such 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 117 
 
 as were not acknowledged by them, which would 
 have been of no use to their arguments. 
 
 I readily allow that my collection of texts would 
 have been more complete if it had not excluded the 
 first chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, but then I 
 must have taken in the whole passage relating to 
 the annunciation, which I felt some reluctance to do; 
 and the testimony there given to the divinity or 
 dignity of Christ is that which is found in so many 
 other passages where he is called the Son of God, 
 that little would have been gained by it. 
 
 What Your Lordship says against declining the 
 authority of the Revelation of St. John for sup¬ 
 porting any doctrine because it is a vision, is very 
 ably urged, yet here again I must be allowed to ob¬ 
 serve that the instances you produce,—God pro¬ 
 claiming the law on Mount Sinai by vision and au¬ 
 dible sound, the visions of the prophets, &c.— were 
 accompanied by power or followed by fulfilment, 
 which with the vision in question is not the case. 
 If St. Paul declared his visions, he at the same time 
 performed his miracles*. 
 
 You say, my Lord, that you were disappointed 
 in not finding in my collection several important 
 passages relative to the Holy Spirit; but I wished 
 to confine myself to one important view, and to 
 make my tract as little tedious as possible. 
 
 * As far as relates to St. Paul I am quite wrong; for if the 
 book of Revelation were undoubtedly written by St. John, who 
 had proved his inspiration by miracles as well as St. Paul, his 
 visions would be of equal authority. I would gladly expunge the 
 last sentence of the above passage, did I not feel myself bound to 
 give my letter as originally written. 
 
118 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 Your good wishes for the enlightening of my 
 mind, and the prayer you quote in connection with 
 those wishes, I accept with all humility and thank¬ 
 fulness. Indeed, my Lord, you may quote to me 
 without offence that excellent prayer, which (with 
 the exception of the doxology at the end, which 
 does not appear to me to be founded on Scripture) 
 I assent to sincerely ; and I receive it as if you had 
 laid your hands upon my head and given me your 
 blessing*. 
 
 All the observations and arguments from page J 7 
 to 23 are well urged and ingenious, yet seem to me 
 strongly to support the supposition of our Saviour’s 
 great derived power and dignity as the Son of God, 
 rather than his equality with the Supreme Being. 
 All that universal power and presence which was 
 given to him for the governing of the world and the 
 Church, do not necessarily imply omniscience and 
 omnipresence equal to those attributes in the Su¬ 
 preme Being. As to the anger of the Jews being 
 a proof that they understood him to make himself 
 one or equal with the Great Jehovah, that appears 
 to me quite inconclusive, for calling himself the Son 
 of God at all was sufficient to make them ready to 
 stone him. 
 
 * The prayer alluded to above: “ O God, who didst teach the 
 hearts of thy faithful people by the sending to them the light of 
 thy Holy Spirit; grant us by the same Spirit to have a right 
 judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy com" 
 fort, through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth 
 and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, 
 world without end.”—See the Bishop’s first printed Letter to me, 
 page 11. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 119 
 
 Permit me next to notice that passage which is 
 to be found from the 5th to the 12th verse in the 
 2nd chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, 
 of which I have ventured to say, that if the transla¬ 
 tion or interpretation of the first part of the pas¬ 
 sage be right, the last must be wrong. I beg to 
 reply that Your Lordship’s defence of its consist¬ 
 ency is not to my mind satisfactory. For Jesus 
 Christ, who was, before he came into the world, 
 equal with God the Father, in being received into 
 heaven after his death, did naturally and of right 
 re-assume his equality, and could not be said to 
 have received his exaltation from God: and with 
 what propriety could it be asserted that he was, even 
 then, in his state of exaltation t£ Lord to the glory 
 of God the Father”? The idea of his being reward¬ 
 ed in his human nature with honours that of right 
 belonged to him in his divine, seems to me too 
 subtle to be of any real use for the support of your 
 doctrine. 
 
 The passage “God was manifest in the flesh” 
 (Tim. iii. 16.) may mean no more than that the 
 beneficence and power of God were manifested in 
 the life of Jesus Christ, as it is said in some small 
 degree (though ineffably inferior to this manifesta¬ 
 tion) to be in the lives of all good men ; and there are 
 versions of the New Testament in which this ex¬ 
 pression is materially changed. Griesbach’s edition 
 has it thus : “ He who was manifest in the flesh was 
 justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto 
 the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up 
 into glory”—and Griesbach was a Trinitarian. 
 
 You next assert, my Lord, in respect to the intro- 
 
120 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 ductory verses of St. John’s Gospel, that “ He who 
 created the world and sustains it by his providence 
 must be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, 
 which are infinite and therefore incommunicable at¬ 
 tributes.” This is true indeed if he created it by his 
 own, and not by derived power. Who can confi¬ 
 dently say, what vast degrees of power, extension 
 of knowledge and of presence God might think fit 
 to impart to his blessed Son, whom he delegated to 
 the work of creating a world? 
 
 Eternity,you add,is also an infinite and underived 
 power, and that it is expressly ascribed to the word 
 by St. John in his first Epistle. “ For the life was 
 manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness and 
 show unto you that eternal life which was with the 
 Father and was manifested unto us.” Jesus Christ 
 may well be called, as regards us, eternal life, for 
 through his generous mediation we hope to receive 
 it. It is in this sense that I understand those words. 
 
 After again mentioning that text in Tit. ii. 13. 
 which I have noticed before, you proceed to show 
 very justly that the texts, “ This is my body given 
 for you,” &c., “ This is my blood shed for the re¬ 
 mission of sins,” are perfectly explained by the con¬ 
 text ; but you have omitted mentioning the other 
 texts that follow in connection, “ I and my Father 
 are one,” “ Neither pray I for these (his disciples) 
 alone, but for them also which shall believe in me 
 through their word, that they may be one, as thou, 
 Father, art in me and I in thee, that they may also 
 be one in us,” to which there is no context to show 
 that the unity of the Father with the Son is differ¬ 
 ent from the unity of Christ with his disciples. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 121 
 
 Last of all, my Lord, you come to that disputed 
 passage of St. John concerning the three witnesses 
 in heaven, the authenticity of which you appear to 
 me to maintain with great acuteness. To give any 
 opinion upon it as being a genuine text, would ill 
 become an unlearned person like me; but its im¬ 
 portance as establishing the doctrine of the Trinity 
 I do not perceive. It seems to me no more than 
 is implied in the 28th chap. 19th verse of St. Mat¬ 
 thew’s Gospel, “ Go ye therefore and teach all na¬ 
 tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” the three 
 powers concerned in redeeming and purifying sin¬ 
 ful creatures from their sins, whether those powers 
 be equal in attributes or not. Things and persons 
 may with great propriety be mentioned in the same 
 sentence as contributing to one great or useful end, 
 without being supposed to be in every other respect 
 equal. 
 
 Having now stated all that, from Your Lordship’s 
 kind indulgence, I have felt myself called upon to 
 say, I beg leave to thank you for the instruction I 
 have received from your learned and ingenious 
 treatise. Those who are on the orthodox side of 
 the question have good cause to be pleased with 
 my little tract, poor as it may appear to them in 
 other respects, for having been the means of calling 
 forth in so amiable and Christian a spirit a view of 
 the chief scriptural evidences for their opinions. 
 
 I was from home for some days on a visit to a 
 friend when your book came from Rivington’s, and 
 since my return I have been obliged to be in London 
 to see a very dear friend who is about to leave 
 London for the winter, and this must plead my ex- 
 
122 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 cuse for being so long of thanking your Lordship for 
 the honour of receiving your present, and for delay¬ 
 ing to obey your commands by making such remarks 
 on the objections stated in your letter as have oc¬ 
 curred to me. 
 
 I have the honour to be, &c., 
 
 J. Baillie. 
 
 P.S. I have by some unaccountable omission 
 passed over that part of the letter which regards the 
 words of St. Thomas when he had seen the wounds 
 in the body of his Lord. In connection with all that 
 is related on that occasion, those words, “ My Lord 
 and my God,” may be more naturally received as an 
 exclamation than a declaration. If one who had 
 thought that the death of Christ had put an end 
 to all his promises, and levelled him with the dead, 
 should all at once, on being convinced that he was 
 risen from the dead (a wonder which had been per¬ 
 formed by his Master upon others during his life), 
 acknowledge him to be God, this would be a trans¬ 
 ition of mind which is inconceivable. Taking the 
 words as an exclamation, they become quite con¬ 
 sistent and natural. 
 
 I ought also to have stated that I will attempt to 
 make no reply to the various arguments in support 
 of your doctrine from page 49 to 58 of your letter, 
 drawn from many detached expressions in Scripture, 
 which are too refined, ingenious, and subtle, to bring 
 any solid conviction to a plain unlearned person of 
 common capacity. Pray pardon me, my Lord ! I 
 am constrained with all due deference and respect 
 to make this confession. 
 
 Hampstead, October, 1831. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 123 
 
 Palace, Salisbury, December 9th, 1831. 
 
 Madam, 
 
 Your kind acceptance of my printed letter, and 
 the very obliging terms with which you acknowledge 
 the perusal of it, encourages me to pursue the sub¬ 
 ject with you in the hope which prompted my for¬ 
 mer letter, that I may contribute to remove the 
 doubts which prevent your entire assent to the ge¬ 
 nerally received doctrine of the Christian Church 
 regarding the doctrine of the Trinity. In your last 
 letter you observe, “It appears to me, that without 
 previous instruction in the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 a person of plain sense might read through the 
 whole of the New Testament, without being aware 
 of such a doctrine being contained in it.” You 
 think “ It is very difficult to conceive how it should 
 immediately have been the received doctrine of the 
 first Christians and you add, “ I know not upon 
 what grounds this is asserted.” 
 
 Though I do not consider such want of perception 
 of the doctrine by an unlearned reader to be a de¬ 
 cisive argument against it, yet it does appear to me 
 to be a most reasonable test of its obvious scriptural 
 evidence. On this ground I am desirous of pur¬ 
 suing the subject of our inquiry ; and if I should be 
 able to show to your satisfaction, that a man of plain 
 sense cannot attentively read through the whole of 
 the New Testament without perceiving that the 
 doctrine of the Trinity is clearly and expressly con¬ 
 tained in it, even though he should have had no 
 previous instruction in the doctrine, you would, I 
 think, find no difficulty, in conceiving how, with the 
 literal testimony of Scripture, it should immediately 
 
124 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 have become the received doctrine of the first Chris¬ 
 tians ; nor could you want any subsequentauthorities 
 to prove its early prevalence in the primitive church. 
 
 Before we proceed, I shall state here the com¬ 
 monly received doctrine of the Trinity, which can¬ 
 not be better done than in the words of the first 
 article of our Church :— 
 
 “ There is but one living and true God, everlast¬ 
 ing, without body, parts, or passions, of infinite 
 power, wisdom, and goodness, the maker and pre¬ 
 server of all things both visible and invisible. And 
 in the unity of the Godhead there be three persons 
 of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” 
 
 It is the declared doctrine of our Church, that 
 whatever is not read in Scripture, nor may be “ pro¬ 
 ved thereby, is not to be required of any man that 
 it should be believed as an article of faith.” There 
 is nothing (I am persuaded) in the language of our 
 Church doctrine of the Trinity which may not be 
 proved by Scripture, and which has not often been 
 so proved by men eminent for their learning and 
 knowledge of the sacred writings. But our present 
 inquiry is, “Is the doctrine of the Trinity so de¬ 
 clared in the New Testament as to be obvious to 
 a man of plainunderstanding previously uninstructed 
 in the doctrine?” I think it is. By a man of plain 
 understanding I mean one who is ignorant of any 
 language but his own, but is of competent discern¬ 
 ment in the perception of what he reads. Wholly 
 uninstructed in the doctrine of the Trinity, no one 
 can be supposed to be, who has been born, baptized, 
 and catechized in a Christian country ; but he may 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 125 
 
 be unconversant in controversy, ingenious, and open 
 to conviction, which is all I think that your propo¬ 
 sition requires. Such a reader taking the Scripture 
 as he finds it delivered in his own native language, 
 and receiving it on the authority of the learned men 
 who translated it, cannot, as it appears to me, read 
 through the New Testament without perceiving 
 the doctrine expressed in the infinite attributes of 
 the Son and of the Holy Spirit, as well as of the 
 Father. For instance, if it should appear to him 
 from what he reads in the New Testament that the 
 Son of God is of the same divine nature with the 
 Father, and that the Holy Spirit is of the same di¬ 
 vine nature with the Father, the plainest under¬ 
 standing must conclude that the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same divine 
 nature. Again, if it should appear to him from 
 what he reads in the New Testament that the Son 
 of God and the Holy Spirit possess the same infi¬ 
 nite attributes of eternity, omnipotence, omniscience 
 and omnipresence as the Father does, it must be 
 obvious to him that the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Spirit must be of one and the same divine and 
 infinite nature. If now our unlearned reader should 
 be told that there can only be one infinite nature— 
 only one living and true God, he would, I think, 
 not hesitate to conclude that the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost (being of one substance, power, 
 and eternity,) must necessarily be the one living 
 and true God. 
 
 I proceed now to apply what is here said to the 
 text of the New Testament. Our unlearned reader 
 cannot read through the New Testament without 
 
126 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 perceiving that the Son of God is called God (John 
 i. 1.) and that the Holy Spirit is called God. (Acts v. 
 4.) If therefore he is previously uninstructed in Arian 
 or Socinian principles, he must naturally believe, on 
 the authority of the written word, that the Son of 
 God is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, as the 
 Father is God. 
 
 Our unlearned reader cannot read through the 
 Gospel of St. John without perceiving that the Son 
 of God speaks of himself in such terms as to be un¬ 
 derstood by the Jews who heard him, “to make 
 himself God and equal with God.” And he will 
 not be surprised that the Jews so understood him, 
 when he finds that St. Paul, who derived all his 
 knowledge of the Gospel from Christ himself, says, 
 “ He thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” 
 (Philip, ii. 6.) 
 
 If our unlearned reader reflects on what he reads, 
 he must conclude that equality with God cannot 
 mean less than unity of nature with God. When 
 therefore he reads in the Gospel of St. John that 
 the Son of God says, “ I and my Father are one,” 
 he must believe that the Son of God is one with 
 the Father in unity of the divine nature, especially 
 when he also reads that the Son of God says, “ He 
 that hath seen me has seen the Father ;” and learns 
 from St. Paul that “ the Son was the express image 
 of the Father,” and that in him dwelt all the ful¬ 
 ness of the Godhead bodily. 
 
 Our unlearned reader cannot read through the 
 New Testament without perceiving not only that 
 the Son of God is one with the Father, but that 
 the Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 127 
 
 For St.John in his first epistle says, “ There are three 
 that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, 
 and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.” 
 
 If any man of plain understanding, unacquainted 
 with the disputes of controversy, receives the words 
 of this passage as they are in the text, and has 
 learnt from his preceding knowledge of the New 
 Testament that the Father is God, the Son is God, 
 and the Holy Spirit is God, and that the Son is 
 one with the Father ; he cannot fail to conclude 
 from this text that the Holy Spirit is one with the 
 Father and the Son, and that “ the three are one” 
 in the unity of the divine nature. 
 
 It appears to me then, that a man of plain sense, 
 if he believes the New Testament to be of divine 
 revelation, cannot read it through without seeing 
 that the doctrine of the Trinity is clearly expressed 
 in the infinite attributes of the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Spirit, and in their united love to 
 mankind in the work of creation, of redemption, and 
 sanctification ; and in the gifts and graces and in¬ 
 fluences which they severally communicate to be¬ 
 lievers. 
 
 Your observation, my dear Madam, on the in¬ 
 ability of a man of plain understanding to discover 
 throughout the New Testament the doctrine of the 
 Trinity without previous instruction, I thought so 
 important, that I was unwilling to write to you 
 again till I had very attentively considered it; and 
 I shall be happy to receive your frank opinion as 
 before on the contents of this letter, and on any 
 part of it in which you may think my conclusions 
 from Scripture to be defective. 
 
128 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 Though from the view which I have so far taken 
 of the subject, the doctrine of the Trinity appears 
 to be intimately connected with the whole oeconomy 
 of men’s salvation, and to he clearly expressed in 
 the attributes of the three Divine persons, that a 
 man of plain sense and competent discernment can¬ 
 not read through the New Testament without being 
 aware of the doctrine, though previously uninstruct¬ 
 ed in it, yet, as I said before, his not perceiving it 
 for want of instruction would be no argument 
 against the truth of the doctrine. When Philip 
 said to the man of Ethiopia, “ Understandest thou 
 what thou readest ?” his answer was, “ How should 
 I except some man should guide me ?” (Acts viii f 
 30, 31.) He was reading a passage of the Prophet 
 Isaiah relative to the humiliation and sufferings of 
 the Messiah ; he did not understand the application 
 of the prophecy till he was instructed by Philip. 
 His inability to understand the prophecy without 
 instruction was no proof that it did not relate to 
 the Messiah. He was instructed and believed. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 
 Your very faithful servant, 
 
 T. Sarum. 
 
 Answer to the Bishop of Salisbury's Letter which is 
 dated from the Palace, Dec. 9 th, 1831. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I am very sensible of your goodness in being so 
 solicitous to remove from my mind opinions that 
 you consider as erroneous, but I am nevertheless 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 129 
 
 obliged honestly to confess that my belief on the 
 subject in question is not changed by the perusal— 
 the serious and diligent perusal—of Your Lordship’s 
 friendly letter which I had the honour to receive 
 some days ago. The chief point which you seem 
 most anxious to maintain is, that an unlearned 
 person,—previously uninstructed in the doctrine of 
 the Trinity, would find it out for himself by care¬ 
 fully reading the New Testament. But your un¬ 
 learned man, my Lord, is a person very differently 
 circumstanced from the one whom I have taken into 
 consideration. “ By a man of plain understanding 
 I mean one who is ignorant of any language but his 
 own, but is of competent discernment in the per¬ 
 ception of what he reads. Wholly uninstructed in 
 the doctrine of the Trinity, no one can be supposed 
 to be, who has been born, baptized, and catechized 
 in a Christian country ; but he may be unconver- 
 sant in controversy, ingenious, and open to convic¬ 
 tion, which is all I think that your proposition re¬ 
 quires —these are Your Lordship’s words : but I 
 mean one who has never been catechized, never 
 heard of the doctrine of the Trinity ; a person dif¬ 
 ficult indeed in a Christian country to find, but who 
 can easily be imagined to exist. That such a one 
 would conceive the various passages you allude to 
 as containing the implications you maintain, I do 
 not believe. Those passages are all more or less 
 obscure, and have been made to support your ar¬ 
 gument with much pains and ingenuity, while equal 
 ingenuity has been employed to show that they do 
 not support it. Such an unlearned man as I ima¬ 
 gine, would receive his opinions from the plain, 
 
 lv 
 
130 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 clear passages that represent our blessed Lord as 
 deriving all his authority from God his Father, both 
 when he is mentioned as a man upon earth, and as 
 in his glorified state after his ascension ; passages 
 that are not merely to be found here' and there, but 
 are spread over the whole of the New Testament, 
 making the plain scope and tenour of it. Permit 
 me to mention two of the texts which you seem to 
 think most convincing on your side of the question. 
 (Phil. ii. 6) “He thought it not robbery to be equal 
 with God.” Our unlearned man on reading this would 
 certainly, if he stopped there, consider it as a very 
 bold expression ; hut if he continued to read the 
 whole passage throughout, ending in these words, 
 “ Wherefore God has highly exalted him, and given 
 him a name which is above every name, that at 
 the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things 
 in heaven and things on earth, and that every 
 tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to 
 the glory of God the Father”—he would, I think, 
 very naturally conclude that the word robbery was 
 an improper translation because inconsistent with 
 what follows it. The other passage is from St. John, 
 “ I and my Father are one.” Were he to stop short 
 here, he would think it a very strange expression; but 
 were he to read a subsequent chapter (the 17th) he 
 would find these words also, “Neither pray I for 
 these alone (the disciples), but for them also which 
 shall believe on me through their word; that they 
 all may be one , as thou, Father, art in me and I in 
 thee, that they also may be one, in us ; that the 
 world may believe that thou hast sent me ; and the 
 glory which thou gavest me I have given them, 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 131 
 
 that they may be one even as we are one ; I in them 
 and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in 
 one, and that the world may know that thou hast 
 sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved 
 me.” Were he, I think, to read all this, he would 
 certainly suppose that the word one was only in¬ 
 tended to express the union of affection and con¬ 
 cord not identity ; which could not at all lead him 
 to the discovery of the Trinitarian doctrine. 
 
 I come now to that which is urged at the end of 
 your letter regarding the man of Ethiopia and the 
 apostle Philip. Doubtless it is desirable to receive 
 instruction on obscure subjects ; the Ethiopian was 
 reading a sacred prophecy and could not possibly 
 understand it: had an account of our Saviour’s life 
 and precepts been put into his hands to read, he 
 would not have returned after reading it such an 
 answer as that recorded in the Acts, but would have 
 judged of it as his own reason directed, and would 
 not, I conceive, by Philip or any of the apostles, 
 have been reproved for doing so. 
 
 I am sorry that I cannot agree with Your Lord- 
 ship on a subject which you think of so much 
 importance ; but as a Protestant Bishop I am sure 
 you will readily allow the right of private judge¬ 
 ment in reading the Scripture ; and that what, after 
 a diligent reading and examination of it, appears to 
 any one to be the meaning thereof,—that and that 
 only ought to form the ground of his belief. 
 
 Permit me again to thank you for your Christian 
 solicitude on my account, and believe me, 
 
 My Lord, &c. &c., 
 
 J. Baillie. 
 k 2 
 
!32 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 Palace, Salisbury, Dec. 23rd, 1831. 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 
 In the following letter I shall confine our inqui¬ 
 ries to the man of plain sense as described in your 
 last, in order to see how far such a reader is capable 
 of apprehending the doctrine of the Trinity, clearly 
 expressed, as I believe it to be, in the New Testa¬ 
 ment, namely, the doctrine that the Father,the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost are three eternal, omniscient 
 and omnipresent Persons (humanly speaking, for 
 want of an adequate term); and that the three Divine 
 Persons are one and the same Supreme Deity. 
 I shall endeavour to show in this letter that the 
 doctrine may be acquired from the first three books 
 of the New Testament by a reader of plain under¬ 
 standing, who is of competent discernment in the 
 perception of what he reads, though he has never 
 been catechized, and has never heard of the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, according to the limitation of your 
 last letter. But I must premise, that this restriction, 
 which precludes all previous instruction on the sub¬ 
 ject, appears to me not to accord with the usual 
 methods of rational inquiry, or necessary to the dis¬ 
 covery of truth as to the doctrine in question. There 
 is no department of knowledge that does not require 
 its introductory lessons and preliminary principles. 
 There are “Principles of the oracles of God, and 
 principles of the doctrine of Christ,” as St. Paul in¬ 
 forms us, (Heb. v. 12, 13) which are necessary to 
 the right apprehension of the doctrines of Chri¬ 
 stianity. Our Saviour’s injunction: “Search the 
 Scriptures, (of the Old Testament) for they are they 
 which testify of me,” shows that a knowledge of the 
 Old Testament is indispensable to a right under- 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 133 
 
 standing of the New. “ The testimony of Jesus 
 is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. x. 9, 10.) for “ to 
 him give all the prophets witness,’’ (Acts x. 43.) 
 from Moses to Malachi, from the prediction of the 
 Fall to the latest annunciation of his approaching 
 Advent; and of the Messenger who was to precede 
 him, and prepare the way, “The way of the Lord,” 
 called by Jeremiah “ the Lord our righteousness ” 
 (xxiii. 6 .)-—our Justijier and Saviour , and by Isaiah 
 “the mighty God” (ix. 6.). The Old Testa¬ 
 ment was the precursor to the Gospel, as the 
 Baptist was to Christ. “ The Law,” that is the 
 Old Testament, “ was our schoolmaster to bring us 
 unto Christ,” (Gal. iii. 24.). The foundation of the 
 doctrine of the Trinity is laid in the writings of the 
 Old Testament, in the creation of the world by the 
 Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, (Gen. i. 1, 
 2, 3, 26 ; iii. 22.) and in the writings of the Pro¬ 
 phets, who were inspired by Christ, (Pet. i. 11.) and 
 by the Holy Spirit (Pet. i. 21.). The intimate con¬ 
 nection of the Old Testament with the New is ob¬ 
 vious from the numerous direct citations from the 
 Old Testament, or allusions to it, there being be¬ 
 tween two and three hundred of the former, and 
 more than one hundred of the latter ; which have 
 been selected and appended to some editions of the 
 New Testament. 
 
 But, for the present, to confine our inquiry to the 
 first three books of the New Testament; the man of 
 plain understanding, who, you think, might read 
 through the New Testament “ without being aware 
 of the doctrine of the Trinity,” you say is “ one 
 who has never been catechized and has never heard 
 
134 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 of the doctrine of the Trinity ; a person indeed diffi¬ 
 cult in a Christian country to be found, but who 
 may easily be supposed to exist.” Admitting such a 
 person to exist, and to be at least so far acquainted 
 with the history of the New Testament as to know 
 that the genuineness of its writings has been au¬ 
 thenticated by historical and traditional evidence 
 beyond the credibility of the most accredited works 
 of heathen antiquity,—admitting such a person to 
 exist, we will suppose him to commence his reading 
 of the sacred volume, both unacquainted with the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, and at the same time equally 
 unprejudiced by preconceived opinions against it, 
 and to approach it with the simplicity of the Be- 
 reans (Acts xvii. 10, 11.) “ searching the Scripture 
 daily whether these things are so” as we Christians 
 profess and believe; and therefore content to re¬ 
 ceive what is written as he finds it. 
 
 In the first page of the first of the historical books 
 of the New Testament he finds an account of an 
 extraordinary child, conceived in the womb of his 
 Mother by Divine influence : the historian says, 
 “ Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this wise. 
 When as his Mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, 
 before they came together, she was found with child 
 of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, 
 being a just man, and not willing to make her a 
 public example, was minded to put her away pri¬ 
 vately. But while he thought on these things, be¬ 
 hold the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a 
 dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not 
 to take unto thee Mary thy wife ; for that which is 
 conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost.” 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 135 
 
 \ 
 
 If any man of plain sense should be so ignorant 
 of Christianity as to say with certain Ephesians, 
 (Acts xix. 2.) “We have not so much as heard 
 whether there be any Holy Ghost,” he may, in 
 due time, abundantly obtain that knowledge from 
 their teaching. At present let him proceed with 
 the first of the historical books, and he will find 
 immediately after the fore-cited passage, that the 
 birth of the child here recorded, was the fulfilment 
 of an ancient prophecy in the Sacred Writings of 
 the people among whom he was to be born, which 
 is thus expressed : “ Behold, a Virgin shall be with 
 child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall 
 call his name Emanuel, which, being interpreted, 
 is God with us.” From this narrative we must 
 perceive that a child so conceived and born, with¬ 
 out a human father, must be, as Adam was, the 
 Son of God, and that in so high and peculiar a 
 manner as to entitle him to be called “ God with 
 us.” In this short narrative of the first book of 
 the New Testament, there is enough to excite in 
 an unprejudiced mind an ardent interest to know 
 more of the history of a child so distinguished by 
 the circumstances of his birth from any merely 
 human condition. In the immediate sequel rela¬ 
 tive to his birth, occur two incidents calculated to 
 confirm the interest thus excited: one the annun¬ 
 ciation of his birth to the shepherds, “ Behold, I 
 bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be 
 to all people. For to you is born this day in the 
 city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord;” 
 (Luke ii. 11.) (in that high sense in which he is 
 predicted by the Prophets ;) the other the arrival of 
 “ Wise men from the east,” who came to Jem- 
 
136 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 salem to inquire, “ Where is he who is born King 
 of the Jews?” saying that they “came to worship 
 him.” They were directed to go to Bethlehem, 
 where the young child was. And when they came 
 into the house, they saw the young child with Mary 
 his Mother, and fell down and worshiped him, 
 (Matth. ii. 1,2, 11.) Our reader’s admiration of 
 what manner of child this should be, will not be 
 lessened by finding, at a later period in the same 
 history, a great Prophet of those days proclaiming 
 himself his forerunner and messenger, sent to pre¬ 
 pare the way of the Lord, and bearing testimony 
 to a declaration of his divinity by a voice from 
 heaven at his baptism. “ Now when all were bap¬ 
 tized, it came to pass that Jesus also being bap¬ 
 tized, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost 
 descended in a bodily shape like a dove, and lighted 
 upon him ; and a voice came from heaven, which 
 said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well 
 pleased.” (Luke iii. 21,22.) He whose birth proved 
 him to be the Son of God, is here declared by God 
 himself to be his beloved Son. Our inquirer can¬ 
 not read this passage without perceiving in it an 
 express evidence of the three Divine Persons, the 
 Father, the Son of God, and the Holy Ghost; and 
 more especially in the account which the same hi¬ 
 storian has previously given of the birth of Christ: 
 “ The Angel answered and said unto her, The Holy 
 Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the 
 Highest shall overshadow thee ; therefore that holy 
 child which shall be born of thee shall be called the 
 Son of God.” (Luke i. 35.) From this passage, it 
 must be evident to our inquirer that the Father, and 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one,—one in na- 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 137 
 
 ture but distinct in person. In the first of these 
 historical books is that important passage, which 
 is the foundation of our Christian profession, our 
 Saviour’s commission to his disciples to teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost, (Matth. xxviii. 19.) 
 Our inquirer cannot read this, compared with the 
 preceding passages, without some perception of the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, in the distinct personality, 
 mutual relation, and identity of nature, in the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Without pursuing the subject further at present, 
 I shall be glad to hear from you, how far you think 
 what I have stated in this letter verifies my propo¬ 
 sition, that a man of plain sense cannot read the 
 first three books of the New Testament without 
 being aware of the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 
 Your very faithful Servant, 
 
 T. Saru m. 
 
 Palace, Salisbury, December 27. 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 
 If Sir Isaac Newton was a Trinitarian, as I be¬ 
 lieve, (M. Biot says that there is absolutely nothing 
 in his writings to justify or authorize a contrary 
 opinion,) I should then think it great injustice to 
 his memory to represent him as a Socinian. But the 
 injustice which I mention in my Appendix is of a 
 different kind: it is the restatement and revival of 
 
138 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 opinions as his which he had deliberately sup¬ 
 pressed from publication. 
 
 In my last letter I omitted two passages of the 
 Gospels (Matth. xi. 27, and Luke x. 22.) very signi¬ 
 ficant, as they appear to me to be, of the identity of 
 Divine nature in the Father and the Son. “ No one 
 knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth 
 any the Father save the Son, and he to whomso¬ 
 ever the Son will reveal him.” Though our un¬ 
 learned inquirer does not read Greek, he will not, 
 according to your description of him in your 
 “ View,” be unwilling to read a translation of what 
 one of the most learned Greek Commentators * 
 says of the passages in his comment on the former. 
 “ The Evangelist does not mean knowledge of the 
 Son and the Father in a general sense, but of their 
 nature ; for all believers are aware of the existence 
 of the Son and the Father, but no one knoweth 
 the Son and the Father as to their nature. For 
 St. Luke says, ‘ No one knoweth who the Father 
 is but the Son, nor who the Son is but the Father.* 
 Christ therefore in saying this, manifestly declares 
 his equality with the Father. For if the Father is 
 known to the Son in the same degree as the Son is 
 known to the Father, and they alone have this 
 knowledge, they are equal to each other.** 
 
 I have the, &c., 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 T. Sarum. 
 
 * Euthymius Zigabenus. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 139 
 
 An Answer to two Letters from the Bishop , dated 
 Dec. 23 rd and Dec. 2 7th, 1831. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 A long illness, from which I am not yet quite 
 recovered, has prevented me from answering your 
 two last letters. I have not, till within a few days, 
 had sufficient strength to write more than a few 
 lines at a time. 
 
 I have read them both with attention, and at the 
 end of all, find myself just of the same opinion 
 regarding our unlearned man as before. The pas¬ 
 sages you point out from the New Testament, viz. 
 what relates to the birth of Christ,—the Angel’s 
 speech to Joseph,—the address of the Angel on 
 the annunciation to Mary,—the annunciation of 
 his birth by the Angels to the shepherds,—the star 
 that guided the Magi, and their worship of the child, 
 &c., would lead him naturally to suppose that Christ 
 Jesus, who is throughout the New Testament called 
 the Son of God in a more pre-eminent way than good 
 men or the former inspired Prophets, was a being of 
 a very exalted nature; but that he was God, and equal 
 to the Supreme God, would, I am confident, never 
 come into his thoughts. It appears to me, that all 
 the passages produced to prove the Trinity by Your 
 Lordship and other zealous churchmen, go no fur¬ 
 ther than proving him to be of a highly exalted 
 nature, and his pre-existence. Here seems to be the 
 limit of what we were intended to know. 
 
 Your second letter of the 27th of December be¬ 
 gins by reverting again to Sir Isaac Newton. If 
 the suppression of his manuscripts which doubted 
 
140 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 the authenticity of some passages of the New Tes¬ 
 tament takes away, as I have readily admitted, all 
 right (if they have no other proofs) from the Uni¬ 
 tarians to class him with themselves, it gives no 
 right to the Trinitarians to rank him as a Socinian 
 on the supposition that he had not suppressed them. 
 There lies an immeasurable difference between the 
 opinions of the two sects ; and that these last should 
 be so apt to call all who differ from them Trinita¬ 
 rians, and the Trinitarians so apt to call all who 
 do not acknowledge their doctrines Socinians, is, I 
 should imagine, no mean proof that the great truth, 
 which it was not intended we should know, lies 
 somewhere between those extremes*. 
 
 I come now to the last and most important part 
 of the letter,—those texts from the Gospels of St. 
 Matthew and St. Luke which you seem to think 
 contain an undeniable argument for the Trinitarian 
 doctrine, or (to use your own words) “ of the identity 
 of the divine nature in the Father and the Son.” 
 “No one”—my version of the Bible says “no man”; 
 however, the difference is of little consequence ; 
 Jesus addressed those words to the Jews or dis¬ 
 ciples who stood round him,—“No one knoweth the 
 Son but the Father, neither knoweth any one the 
 Father save the Son and he to whom the Son will 
 reveal him.” That the Father who appointed the 
 Son to the merciful mission of redeeming mankind, 
 alone knew the extent of his designs, is certain ; and 
 
 * I believe I have not, above, expressed myself distinctly. 
 The immeasurable distance relates to the Trinitarians and Soci¬ 
 nians ; and I apprehend I am wrong in supposing that the So¬ 
 cinians are apt to call all who differ from them Trinitarians. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 141 
 
 that the Son knew the Divine perfections and de¬ 
 signs of the Father better than any earthly being, 
 is certain ; and this appears to me the natural mean¬ 
 ing of the words, addressed to such auditors. And 
 that they meant no intimation of equality or iden¬ 
 tity with the Father is made manifest by the con¬ 
 cluding words of the sentence, “Neither kfioweth 
 any one the Father but the Son, and he to whom¬ 
 soever the Son will reveal him.” If the knowledge 
 which the Son had of the Father could be revealed 
 by him to another, it could not be a knowledge that 
 implied equality and identity with the Father; for 
 then the person, man or Angel, to whom the Son 
 might give such a revelation, would thereby become 
 equal with God. It therefore can give no support 
 to the doctrine of the Trinity, though it appears to 
 me to give some countenance to the belief of the 
 pre-existence of Christ. 
 
 Notwithstanding then all the learning and inge¬ 
 nuity of Your Lordship, I abide by my first opinion, 
 that a man of plain sense, previously unacquainted 
 with the doctrine of the Trinity, might read through 
 the whole of the New Testament without being 
 aware of such a doctrine being contained in it, and 
 would therefore never think of searching here and 
 there through the whole Bible for texts supposed to 
 bear upon the subject. I believe that he would not 
 find it there, for the best of all reasons, viz. that 
 the Apostles themselves did not know such a doc¬ 
 trine. This I know is bold language for a private 
 gentlewoman to use in addressing a learned Prelate, 
 but I know also that you will readily pardon it. 
 
 And now, my Lord, with many thanks for the 
 
142 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 pains you have taken with me, let me entreat that 
 an end may be put to this correspondence, which, I 
 hope, will close with the same feelings of courtesy 
 and Christian charity with which it began. 
 
 I must not conclude my letter without offering 
 my best thanks for the honour of having received a 
 copy of-the President’s speech to the members of 
 the Royal Literary Institution, and for your very 
 kind inquiries during my illness. 
 
 I remain, &c., &c., 
 
 J. Baillie. 
 
 A Letter to the Bishop in answer to his note which is 
 dated November 4th , 1832, after he had sent me a 
 duplicate of his Appendix , in which Sir Isaac Neiv- 
 ton is mentioned. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I return many thanks for the Appendix on Sir 
 Isaac Newton’s suppression, &c.; and very readily 
 admit that if the Unitarians have no other proof 
 of that great man’s being on their side of the ques¬ 
 tion than his having once doubted the authenticity 
 of a text supposed to support or declare the doc¬ 
 trine of the Trinity, the expression of which doubts 
 he afterwards suppressed, they are not entitled to 
 reckon him among their number. However, it does 
 not appear to me to settle the point as to his opi¬ 
 nion of the doctrine itself. A man, I can well ima¬ 
 gine, may be a stanch Trinitarian who does not be¬ 
 lieve that particular text to be authentic; and, con- 
 trarywise, may believe that text to be perfectly au¬ 
 thentic without being a Trinitarian. But there is 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 143 
 
 one thing in which I have by no means the honour 
 of agreeing with Your Lordship, viz. that his being 
 a Unitarian would be injurious to the memory of 
 our great philosopher. Who could doubt that such 
 a man would examine the Scriptures with since¬ 
 rity' and diligence ? and the result of such an ex¬ 
 amination could never be imputed to him as a 
 crime. It would neither, as I conceive, affect our 
 esteem of his character, nor our admiration of his 
 exalted and wonderful faculties. He stands in need 
 of no vindication. 
 
 Forgive this warmth of expression, and believe 
 me, &c., &c., 
 
 J. Baillje. 
 
 To the Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 My Lord, May, 1835. 
 
 I received, two days since, your work on Chris¬ 
 tian Theocrasy, and feel greatly obliged to Your 
 Lordship for this proof of your notice and the in¬ 
 terest you take in the spiritual improvement of my¬ 
 self and those who entertain opinions similarto mine. 
 I have read it with great attention, and am pleased 
 that your benevolence has led you to consider what 
 a humble, unlearned inquirer would probably think 
 on reading the New Testament with no previous in¬ 
 formation regarding the doctrine in question. You 
 have produced various passages, from which, with 
 much ingenuity, you make it appear that he must 
 have found out the doctrine of the Trinity for 
 himself. But Your Lordship does not seem to take 
 into the account that this unlearned inquirer would 
 
144 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 naturally receive his impressions of the Christian 
 faith from the general tenour of Scripture, which 
 always speaks of Jesus Christ as deriving all his 
 power from God, whether he be called the Son of 
 God, or the Son of Man, or Saviour, or by whatever 
 title he is named; and that also he would perceive 
 that the language of Scripture is often figurative, 
 and must not be always taken in a literal sense. 
 Bearing these two facts in his mind, I can scarcely 
 imagine that such a person would come to the same 
 conclusion with Your Lordship and the learned Di¬ 
 vines of your Church. And I beg further to add, 
 that, when any person acts from delegated or de¬ 
 rived power, it is a common mode of speech to men¬ 
 tion such acts, indifferently, either as done by the 
 delegate or his superior ; so that the creating of 
 this world or any other great act of power by Jesus 
 Christ, as stated in the Gospels or Epistles, is no 
 proof of his equality with the Supreme God, and 
 would therefore give no notion of a Trinity to the 
 mind of the uninstructed ; at least I think so. 
 
 I will not, my Lord, pretend to follow you through 
 the detail of your ingenious Tract, where learning 
 is accompanied, as it ought always to be, with mild¬ 
 ness and candour ; it would be presumptuous in me 
 to attempt it. Begging then to offer my grateful 
 thanks for the honour you have done me, which I 
 feel very sensibly, 
 
 I remain, &c., &c., 
 
 J. Baillie. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 145 
 
 Palace, Salisbury, July 28, 1836. 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 
 Many thanks for your obliging letter received 
 on Saturday, and its faithful and interesting por¬ 
 trait of Sir Walter Scott, and Mrs. Hemans’s beauti¬ 
 ful sonnet, which arrived this morning. There is 
 something peculiarly touching in the time, the sub¬ 
 ject and the occasion of this death-bed sonnet, and 
 in the affecting contrast between the blessed groups 
 she describes and her own (humanly speaking) help¬ 
 less state of sickness; and that again contrasted with 
 the hopeful state of her mind with which the son¬ 
 net concludes,—expressive both of the quiet com¬ 
 forts of a Christian Sabbath and the blessed fruits 
 of profitable affliction. Her sweet chimes on “Sab¬ 
 bath Peace ” appear to me very characteristic of 
 the writer, I had the gratification of voting, in a 
 Committee of the Royal Society of Literature, for 
 the King’s fifty pounds with which Mrs. Hemans’s 
 Poem on Dartmoor was rewarded; and for the 
 King’s Gold Medal, with which Sir Walter Scott 
 was distinguished. 
 
 I am, my dear Madam, 
 
 With sincere respect and regard, 
 
 Your faithful Servant, 
 
 T. Sarum. 
 
 Southampton, Jan. 6, 1837. 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 
 I am glad to hear that you are so soon to publish 
 a second edition of “ The New Testament Views, ” 
 &c. You are most welcome to make the use you 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 propose of my private letters to you, subsequent to 
 the publication of your Tract ; and though I am 
 of an age which forbids (as you will see in the in¬ 
 closed advertisement) my‘ indulging the hope of 
 pleasure in the pursuit of future inquiries, I cor¬ 
 dially wish you health and freedom from pain as 
 long as life is permitted to you. I have been at 
 intervals for some months a great invalid. I found 
 benefit in the medical advice at Salisbury, and am 
 certainly better for my residence here ; and am, I 
 believe, as well as most octogenaries can expect to 
 be. Adieu, and believe me to be, 
 
 With great respect, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 T. Sarum. 
 
 [The signature of the above letter only was written 
 hy his own hand.] 
 
147 
 
 REMARKS 
 
 ON THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Some of the principal Objections to the Pre-existence 
 
 of Christ , stated at my request by a Friend who 
 
 had read and thought much on the subject. 
 
 My objections to the hypothesis that he (Jesus 
 Christ) had a superior nature before his earthly 
 existence, are, 
 
 First, That this doctrine nullities the many de- 
 clarations made by himself and his Apostles con¬ 
 cerning his manhood. 
 
 Secondly, That it involves us in the difficulties of 
 the double nature , in common with the Trinitarians. 
 
 Thirdly, That it obliges us to take literally ex¬ 
 pressions which, according to the phraseology of 
 the Jews and early Christians, ought to be taken 
 figuratively. 
 
 Fourthly, That it invalidates the example ;—for 
 if Christ was not like unto us, of the same nature, 
 he is no example to me either in doing or suffer¬ 
 ing. 
 
 I cannot approve more than you do of any at¬ 
 tempt to conciliate opponents by an equivocal use 
 of language : I doubt however whether many per- 
 
 l 2 
 
148 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 sons who consider themselves as Trinitarians, mean 
 more by the Divinity of Christ than what Milton 
 expresses :— 
 
 “ In him all his Father shone 
 Substantially express’d, and in his face 
 Divine compassion visibly appear’d, 
 
 Love without end, and without measure grace 
 
 that is,—the attributes of the Deity radiated from 
 “ the man whom he had chosen.” We cannot 
 discern God through any other medium. 
 
 My answer to those objections were: 
 
 To the first,—That <c this doctrine nullifies the 
 many declarations made by himself and his Apo¬ 
 stles concerning his manhood:”— 
 
 A pre-existent spirit, clothed in a human form, 
 and having all the natural feelings and faculties of 
 a man, may be spoken of as a man with perfect 
 propriety ; and his speaking of himself as such does 
 not appear to me to nullify or destroy the supposi¬ 
 tion that he formerly owned a different form of ex¬ 
 istence. He generally spoke of himself as the Son 
 of Man, and Brother to those whom he was sent 
 by his heavenly Father to instruct, being the most 
 familiar and engaging light in which he could be 
 viewed by them, and most favourable to their im¬ 
 bibing that spirit of love and charity which per¬ 
 vaded all his precepts. But he sometimes spoke 
 of himself as more than man, in a way that appears 
 to me quite inconsistent (making all allowance for 
 figurative language) with the idea of his having had 
 no being till he was born into the world of his 
 mother. The Apostles, particularly St. Paul, some- 
 
PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 149 
 
 times speak of him in the same manner, although 
 they generally mention him as the Son of Man, and 
 as the Son of God pre-eminently, as well as in that 
 sense in which all good men may be called the sons 
 of God. Whatever objections we might make to 
 the heathen notion of the transmigration of souls, 
 we should never say that it nullified or destroyed 
 the properties of a man, whether he remembered 
 his pre-existence or not. Benevolence and justice 
 and all virtues are of the same nature, though in 
 different degrees, through the whole range of intel¬ 
 ligent beings, whether angels or men. 
 
 To the second,—“ That it involves us in the dif¬ 
 ficulties of the double nature , in common with the 
 Trinitarians — 
 
 How does it do so ? The soul or spirit is the 
 same spiritual being in whatever form it may be 
 encompassed. If it put off an angelic covering, 
 and be clothed in flesh and blood, it is still the 
 same ; it does not wear them both at one time, and 
 none of its qualities are necessarily changed or con¬ 
 founded by those changes of condition. The double 
 nature of the Trinitarians is very different from 
 this ; for making Christ equal with God, he is 
 omnipresent, yet confined to one place while he 
 lived upon earth, and, after the resurrection, inha¬ 
 biting the body with which he was invested when 
 he dwelt with men. He is omnipotent, yet prays 
 to the Father, as receiving every thing from him. 
 He is eternal, yet derives his being—is begotten of 
 the Father—begotten from all eternity. The sim¬ 
 plest understanding can comprehend a spiritual 
 being, remaining the same under a succession of 
 
150 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 bodily coverings ; but the Trinitarian double na¬ 
 ture nobody can comprehend. 
 
 The progress of an infant till it gains the full ca¬ 
 pacity of a man,—what we are taught in Scripture 
 took place in Jesus,—is not inconsistent with a pre¬ 
 vious higher condition. The bodily change from 
 one state to another would probably be as a passing- 
 sleep ; and waking from it might be similar to what 
 we have all experienced. Have we not, in waking 
 from a deep, death-like repose, produced, perhaps, 
 by the fatiguing journey of the preceding day, first 
 felt a consciousness, becoming slowly more and 
 more distinct, and then opened our eyes, which, daz¬ 
 zled by the light, discovered nothing distinctly ; 
 our knowledge of where we were, how we were, who 
 we were, coming to us gradually from a succession 
 of feeble recollections ? And were we, on being 
 thoroughly awaked, to find ourselves invested with 
 a different body to that in which this profound sleep 
 had found us, our identity would be perfectly pre¬ 
 served in our own thoughts. There would be no 
 idea produced of two natures, for the soul or spi¬ 
 rit is the individual. The progress of the mind of 
 the child Jesus may not improperly be compared 
 to such a waking from sleep. He would not, while 
 a child or man upon earth, live and act at the same 
 time in heaven : there would be a simple existence, 
 and no double nature : having had one body, and 
 afterwards another, would no more injure his iden¬ 
 tity, than a man’s would be injured by wearing 
 successively two different cloaks. 
 
 To the third,—“ That it obliges us to take lite¬ 
 rally expressions which, according to the phraseo- 
 
PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST- 
 
 151 
 
 logy of the Jews and early Christians, ought to be 
 taken figuratively — 
 
 This, as far as it goes, is a good objection ; but 
 a list of subjoined texts will, perhaps, convince 
 you that there are passages, both in the Gospels 
 and Epistles, that cannot by any latitude of figura¬ 
 tive language be received as conveying any other 
 meaning than the previous existence of our Saviour 
 in a state of glory. Without admitting this mean¬ 
 ing, they would not make sense at all. 
 
 To the fourth,—“ That it invalidates the ex¬ 
 ample ;—for if Christ were not like us, of the same 
 nature, he is no example to me either in doing or 
 suffering— 
 
 This is a plausible argument, but does not appear 
 to me of any force. A man inspired by the spirit 
 of God, bestowed upon him in such an extraordi¬ 
 nary degree that he could work the greatest mira¬ 
 cles, and foresee events, was so differently circum¬ 
 stanced from other men, that his example could 
 only affect them as illustrating the will of God, and 
 the beauty and excellence of virtue. How weak 
 would be our temptations to transgress, if, instead 
 of faith, we had a perfect knowledge of another 
 world, in which good actions are rewarded and bad 
 punished, with a clear view of our own death, the 
 time and manner of it ever before us ! A pre-ex¬ 
 istent being could not have greater assurance of 
 the durable glory and happiness of heaven, the 
 misery produced by sin, and the fleeting nature of 
 earthly pleasures, than a man so inspired and so 
 endowed would have : for you admit that, beyond 
 all other inspired persons, the spirit of God was 
 
152 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 shed upon him without measure. There is there- 
 fore no more similarity between him and other men 
 in the one case than in the other. The beauty and 
 excellence of virtue shone forth in both ; not what 
 creatures circumstanced as we are can or mav do. 
 
 J 
 
 The example of our blessed Master is perfect, as 
 demonstrating the will of God ; and it is on that 
 account our duty to follow it, as nearly as we are 
 able, under the circumstances in which we our¬ 
 selves are placed. 
 
 If Christ existed in a state of glory and hap¬ 
 piness before he came into the world to live and 
 suffer for mankind, condescending to become their 
 Brother, that he might save them from sin and 
 destruction, his generosity is transcendent and in¬ 
 effable ; if he was only a man on whom the spirit 
 of God was shed without measure, we are indeed 
 greatly his debtors, and must feel for him deep 
 gratitude, admiration and love, but not in an equal 
 degree : and it appears to me strange that any 
 sect of Christians should endeavour with zeal to 
 establish that doctrine which favours the lowest 
 estimate of gratitude. 
 
 Far be it from me to suppose that our salvation 
 depends upon our belief of any speculative doctrine 1 
 If we are sincere, and have candidly examined 
 what we believe, no more is required of us : but 
 I earnestly wish that what is most favourable to 
 elevated thoughts and grateful feelings were the 
 prevailing faith among Unitarians. It is, I believe, 
 most in concord with the general, though not de¬ 
 clared opinions of Christians ; and the Trinitarian 
 doctrine would give wav to it more readily than to 
 
PRE-EXISTENCE OE CHRIST. 
 
 153 
 
 one of inferior elevation. High churchmen are 
 probably more afraid of it than of the doctrine 
 which is most opposed to their own. Hence it is, 
 that in discourses from the pulpit on this subject, 
 the orthodox preacher generally directs his argu¬ 
 ments against the lower grade of Unitarians, while 
 the higher remains unnoticed. 
 
 Passages in the New Testament regarding the Pre- 
 existence of Christ; with Observations. 
 
 St. Matthew’s Gospel, chap. xxii. from the 41st 
 to the 46th verse.—“ While the Pharisees were ga¬ 
 thered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What 
 think ye of Christ ? Whose son is he ? They say 
 unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, 
 How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, 
 The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right 
 hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool ? If 
 then David call him Lord, how is he his Son ?” 
 
 In St. Mark, chap. xii. verse 35, and in St. Luke, 
 chap. xx. verse 41, the same argument is used by 
 our Saviour, indicating that he had a higher descent 
 than belonged to him as the Son of David. 
 
 Now that the foretold Son of David, the Messiah, 
 who was to restore the kingdom, a universal king¬ 
 dom, to Israel, should be a greater man than his an¬ 
 cestor David, was what none of the Jews would 
 deny; and David calling him Lord, on that account, 
 was not a question that would have puzzled either 
 Scribe or Pharisee. A higher than an earthly de¬ 
 scent is therefore implied, and would certainly per¬ 
 plex them. 
 
154 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 St. John’s Gospel, chap. vi. verses 32, 33.— 
 “ Then Jesus said unto them, (viz. the Jews, who 
 had been saying, 4 Our Father did eat manna in the 
 desert,’ &c.) Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses 
 gave you not that bread from heaven. For the 
 bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, 
 and giveth light unto the world.” 
 
 If the words, cometh down from heaven , were not 
 meant to express his pre-existence, they have no 
 appropriate or distinct meaning : for declaring the 
 will of God, attested by miracles, had belonged to 
 Moses and other Prophets, who said that they were 
 sent by God, but never that they came down from 
 heaven. Further on too, in the 38th verse, are these 
 words : “ For I came down from heaven, not to do 
 mine own will, but the will of him that sent me 
 an expression which implied that he had been in 
 heaven before he came into the world ; for if it 
 were merely figurative, denoting that his doctrine 
 was heavenly, the same might be said of every in¬ 
 spired teacher. 
 
 St. John’s Gospel, chap. viii. verses 56-58.— 
 “ Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and 
 he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto 
 him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou 
 seen Abraham ? Jesus said unto them, Before Abra¬ 
 ham was, I am.” This cannot be taken as only 
 declaring the importance of the Christian religion, 
 and its having been in the contemplation of God 
 from the beginning,—therefore, mentioned with its 
 founder as in existence before it actually existed,— 
 without a very forced construction, such as Trini¬ 
 tarians so often use, and are reproached for using. 
 

 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 155 
 
 The Jews certainly understood him as asserting his 
 own existence before the existence of Abraham, 
 and he allowed them to think so without pointing 
 out their error. Trinitarians urge this as a strong 
 argument for their doctrine, but the pre-existence 
 of Christ is an easy, plain explanation of the text 
 without having recourse to mysteries. The I am is a 
 correct expression, denoting a continued existence 
 from any period down to the present moment; and 
 the plain sense of the passage requires that it should 
 be taken as a verb, not as a name or title. 
 
 St. John’s Gospel, chap. xvi. verses 27-29.— 
 Jesus, in comforting his disciples, says to them, 
 “ For the Father himself loveth you because ye have 
 loved me, and have believed that I came out from 
 God. I came forth from the Father, and am come 
 into the world ; again I leave the world, and go to 
 the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now 
 speakest thou plainly and speakest no proverb. 
 Now are we sure that thou knowest all things and 
 needest not that any man should ask thee ; by this 
 we know that thou earnest from God. Jesus an¬ 
 swered them, Do ye now believe ?” 
 
 He had on every occasion, during his ministry, 
 declared that the doctrines he tauglitwere from God, 
 who had sent him to preach and to save men from 
 sin, such declarations being supported by miracles : 
 it would not then be a new and desired relief to 
 their minds to know that God sent him into the 
 world with this mission. But if by forth from God, 
 he expressed that he had existed in heaven before 
 he came into the world, they had stronger cause for 
 confidence in his power to protect them, after he 
 
156 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 should be taken from them. That they understood 
 his words in this sense is perfectly clear ; and that 
 their Divine Master acquiesced in their so under¬ 
 standing it is also clear, for it is said, Jesus an¬ 
 swered them, “ Do ye now believe ?” 
 
 St. John’s Gospel, chap. xvii. verse 5.—After 
 praying that his Father would glorify him, and en¬ 
 able him to give eternal life to his followers, he says, 
 “ And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own 
 self, with the glory which I had with thee before 
 the world was.” 
 
 If by the world is here meant the Christian dis¬ 
 pensation, what glory belonged to Christ before the 
 Christian dispensation? None, certainly, if his being 
 born into the world of his parents was the beginning 
 of his existence. It would be a very forced construc¬ 
 tion— nay, an abuse of language, to suppose that 
 the glory here attributed to him was merely that of 
 having been foreseen as the Saviour of men before 
 he was born. Praying to be restored to a foreseen 
 glory, seems to me a nugatory prayer with no 
 meaning, and therefore should not be received 
 as the real prayer of our blessed Lord. 
 
 1st Corinthians, chap. xv. verse 47. — “ The first 
 man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man is the 
 Lord from heaven.” 
 
 This seems to imply a previous existence, and the 
 foregoing context, which goes to prove that there 
 are spiritual bodies as well as natural bodies, con¬ 
 firms it. If the second man had not a spiritual 
 body before he appeared on earth, how could he 
 be called the Lord from heaven ? for it is evident 
 that doctrines are not here meant, but bodies. 
 
PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 157 
 
 2d Corinthians, chap. viii. verse 9.—“For ye 
 know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, 
 though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became 
 poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” 
 
 Now, what kind of riches is here meant ? Our 
 Lord was born of poor parents, and during the 
 course of his life possessed no worldly riches. If 
 spiritual riches are what St. Paul in this passage 
 ascribes to him, when did he ever resign them, and 
 become poor ? He never was more spiritually rich 
 than at the terrific hour when he gave up his life 
 upon the cross. If he came from a pre-existent 
 state of glory, the words have a plain and import¬ 
 ant meaning ; but supposing him not to have ex¬ 
 isted till he was born into the world, no appropriate 
 or sensible meaning can be attached to them. 
 
 Philippians, chap. ii. verses 5-7. — “Let this 
 mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, 
 being in the form of God, thought it not robbery 
 to be equal with God ; but made himself of no re¬ 
 putation, and took upon him the form of a servant, 
 and was made in the likeness of men.” 
 
 The expression thought it not robbery to be equal 
 with God , being set aside as capable of a different 
 meaning, and as inconsistent with the context, the 
 passage must be understood as asserting the pre¬ 
 existence of Christ in a state of glory : for if he 
 had no existence before he came into the world, 
 what glory did he resign when he made himself of 
 no reputation, and took upon him the form of a 
 servant ? If he had no pre-existence, his glory was 
 all acquired after he came into the world. 
 
 Colossians, chap. i. verses 15, 16.—“Who is 
 the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of 
 
158 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 every creature : for by him were all things created,' 
 that are in heaven and that are in earth, whether 
 they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
 powers : all things were created by him and for 
 him.” 
 
 If being called the first born of every creature 
 means only the first man in the Christian dispen¬ 
 sation, the Apostle is telling the Colossians no more 
 than what must of necessity be the case, since he 
 was the founder of that religion,—and nothing that 
 could particularly exalt his Master in their estima¬ 
 tion, which it was evidently his intention to do; and 
 that which is added, “ for by him were all things 
 created that are in heaven and that are in earth,” 
 becomes an unmeaning pomp of words. So, at least, 
 it appears to me. 
 
 Hebrews, chap. i. verse 2.—“ Hath in these 
 last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath 
 appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made 
 the worlds.” If by the worlds the Apostle meant 
 the moral worlds to be formed by the operation of 
 Christianity, it is a very constrained expression, 
 for those worlds were not yet, or but very imper¬ 
 fectly, formed. If he meant the moral or intellec¬ 
 tual worlds from the beginning, Christ must have 
 been pre-existent; and if he meant the natural 
 world, Christ must have pre-existed. 
 
 I have ventured to say above, that the orthodox 
 preacher generally directs his arguments against 
 the lower grade of Unitarians while the higher re¬ 
 mains unnoticed; and may I not also venture to 
 say, that in so doing they verify a common obser- 
 vaiton; viz. disputants contend more keenly with 
 
PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 T59 
 
 one another in proportion to the smallness of the 
 difference for which they contend ? Trinitarians 
 and the lower sect of Unitarians approach, I ima¬ 
 gine, nearer to one another in their doctrines, when 
 thoroughly examined, than they are aware of, or 
 would be willing to admit. 
 
 The Trinitarian must suppose that the child 
 Jesus had inclosed in his body an omniscient, om¬ 
 nipresent, omnipotent spirit, which directed all the 
 actions of that body, while at the same time it was 
 efficiently every where ; or he must suppose that 
 a portion or emanation of the Divine Mind dwelt 
 in the body of our Saviour. The first seems so ex¬ 
 travagant and so impossible to conceive, that I be¬ 
 lieve by far the greater proportion of the sect take 
 refuge in the second. If so, in what does their be¬ 
 lief differ from the doctrine of those who do not 
 acknowledge Christ’s pre-existence, but consider 
 him as a man filled with the Holy Spirit, as no other 
 man ever was, and as after his death continuing so 
 endowed for ever ? for a portion or emanation of 
 the Divine Mind not being inclosed in the child 
 Jesus till after his birth, there could be no pre-ex¬ 
 istence. That he entered after death into a state 
 of power and glory, both sects agree. I have said, 
 in regard to the first-stated supposition of the Tri¬ 
 nitarians,—“ so impossible to conceive for if the 
 Divine Mind during the life-time of Jesus Christ 
 filled the whole universe, it must have been a con¬ 
 fined or special manifestation of it that he possessed, 
 and after his death was either again absorbed in the 
 Divine Mind, or still continued separated in his 
 spiritual body. In the one case both pre-existence 
 
160 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 and existence after death are taken away; in the 
 other the pre-existence only, which would bring 
 the belief of the Trinitarians and the Socinians to 
 nearly the same thing. The distinct pre-existence 
 of Christ as a highly exalted Being under the Su- 
 pieme God, removes all difficulties, and the mind 
 of man can contemplate such a belief without doing 
 violence to his natural understanding or feelings. 
 
161 
 
 REMARKS 
 
 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM, &c. 
 
 How slowly and imperfectly have we advanced 
 in our feelings and opinions regarding religious tole¬ 
 ration ! When Martin Luther and his brother re¬ 
 formers claimed the right of private judgement in 
 interpreting the Scripture in opposition to the dic¬ 
 tation of an assumed infallible judge, a great step 
 was made ; yet it soon appeared, that when power 
 fell into their own hands, their notion of this right 
 was confined, or nearly so, to those whose interpre¬ 
 tations coincided with their own. Both sides were 
 willing to suffer persecution and death in prefer¬ 
 ence to renouncing their opinions ; but that no au¬ 
 thority could rightfully compel a man to deny his 
 genuine belief, and that whatever appeared to any 
 man (after due endeavours to understand the real 
 meaning of Scripture) to be the right interpretation 
 of it, ought to be his creed—his undisturbed creed, 
 —was a concession still far. distant. We have now, 
 thank God! legal freedom, without danger of bodily 
 suffering or confiscation of property, to confess our 
 opinions and worship God in our own way in this 
 country ; and almost every where over the whole of 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 Europe, this, if not legally, is virtually the case. 
 But how do we stand as to the inward toleration of 
 Christian charity which the heart gives to others 
 who differ from ourselves ? Do not the orthodox, in 
 speaking of those whom they deem erroneous, often 
 speak thus, or words equivalent to it: “ We do not 
 condemn him for being of a different opinion from 
 us, but because he is obstinate and will not take the 
 right means to acquire true faith by humility and 
 prayer”? In vain does the heterodox brother reply, 
 “ 1 have prayed, humbly prayed, for God’s spirit 
 to direct me to a right understanding of Scripture, 
 and after studying it with all care and diligence my 
 erroneous conclusions (as you call them) remain the 
 same.” But the reply is, “You do not pray with 
 fervid faith, unweariedly. Continue to pray, and 
 your prayers will be granted at last.” The other 
 rejoins, “ How shall I know when my prayer is 
 granted ?”—“ When you think as I do,” will be the 
 modest answer,—not in direct words indeed, but in 
 such as imply it. The laws of the land do not allow 
 us to burn or imprison those who differ with us in 
 religious faith, and they are obeyed; the laws of 
 Christian charity do not allow us to censure or dis¬ 
 like them on that account, and surely they ought 
 also to be obeyed. Do we not sometimes hear the 
 very name of Christians denied to those who believe 
 in the divine mission of Jesus Christ, and receive 
 him in faith as the Son of God, who lived and died 
 that he might deliver men from sin and misery, be¬ 
 cause, according to the tenets of this or the other 
 church, they are not orthodox ? It is a humiliating 
 and a pitiful thing to think of! In short, the hete- 
 
ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 163 
 
 rodox brother is not to pray to God that he may 
 rightly understand Scripture, but that he may be 
 orthodox ; for until he become so, according to the 
 doctrines of established orthodoxy, he must con¬ 
 clude that God has not heard his prayers. Is not 
 this virtually saying to God Almighty/ 4 1 know that 
 such a doctrine is right, and do thou, O Lord ! give 
 me a perfect conviction of it ”? Surely this is most 
 presumptuous and unbecoming. 
 
 Fanaticism is a state of mind that makes us follow 
 with a disproportionate zeal, unexamined or slight¬ 
 ly examined, convictions of certain alleged para¬ 
 mount duties, to the neglect or exclusion of others 
 which are obscured or forgotten in the ardour of 
 excitement. A natural temperament, with circum¬ 
 scribed views of the general facts and circumstances 
 before him, most commonly lead a man into this 
 dangerous state ;—dangerous, not as regarding his 
 salvation, (for the sincere fanatic is often a good 
 man) but dangerous to the community in which he 
 lives. Such men think their own opinions exclu¬ 
 sively right. They pick their religion from scattered 
 texts, saying with the most perfect confidence and 
 satisfaction, 44 Is not the Bible the Word of God ? 
 and is not this in the Bible ?” Yet often what they 
 adopt most ardently is not even founded on texts of 
 their own picking, but those that have been pressed 
 into the service as Scripture proofs by some zealot, 
 bewildered with peculiar notions of his own,—by 
 some one who has believed himself to be commis¬ 
 sioned to convert Christians with the Bible in their 
 own hands, which they believe to be the Word of God. 
 Yes, to convert them, as notbeingalready Christians, 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 but standing in need of his conversion,—that is to 
 say, to be trained to think as he thinks on certain 
 points of faith. Or perhaps they follow one, who, 
 partly sincere, partly ambitious, aims to be the 
 founder of a new sect or the reviver of an old. 
 
 Though fanaticism is not confined to religion,— 
 for there are also fanatics in poetry, in painting, in 
 music, in politics, who wrong the truth in each of 
 those departments in nearly the same way,—yet the 
 religious fanatic is the most hurtful of all; and one 
 of the great advantages arising from an established 
 church is the regular gathering together under one 
 pastor, who is appointed for life, and whose income 
 does not depend on their favour, the inhabitants of a 
 parish, who so circumstanced are less apt to follow 
 extravagant and fanciful doctrines. This pastor, 
 belonging to a class of men liberally educated, is 
 more likely to instruct them in that faith and those 
 duties which rest upon the general tenour of Scrip¬ 
 ture and the example of Jesus Christ, than one whose 
 consequence depends upon pleasing and attracting 
 many hearers. There is one danger however in the 
 establishment; that the church —their own church, 
 with all its orthodoxy, will stand, with the clergy 
 belonging to it, in the place of the Christian religion 
 as taught by Christ and his Apostles ; and that more 
 sermons in the course of each successive year will 
 be preached on that subject, than on what relates to 
 moral conduct and to the purifying of the heart. 
 Perhaps there never was a time when clergymen of 
 all establishments were more apt to fall into this 
 error. The weak parts of a city or fortress should 
 in real warfare be most stoutlv defended, because it 
 
ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 165 
 
 is by them that the enemy will enter; but it will 
 readily be allowed that the reverse is the case with 
 the strongholds of religion, which have been so often 
 circled and fenced by synods and councils, though 
 they were left free and open in their own strength 
 and dignity by the wise and liberal Founder. 
 
 And what is the stronghold, the loftiest impreg¬ 
 nable tower of our religion ? Is it not the character 
 of Jesus Christ ? His character is the strongest 
 proof of his divine mission; so strong, that it would 
 tax beyond his power the most independent think¬ 
 er, who is at the same time a reasonable one, to 
 suppose him an impostor or a fanciful imagination 
 of some other impostor. This appears to my mind 
 impossible. Yet his character is not, in comparison 
 with other topics, often dwelt upon by our pulpit 
 divines. Dr. Channing, as far as my reading goes, 
 is the only one who has displayed it usefully and 
 powerfully in all its natural beauty and brightness, 
 with an ardour and eloquence befitting a subject so 
 noble. In the beginning of his discourse on the 
 character of Jesus Christ, he expresses himself thus: 
 
 “The character of Jesus Christ may be studied 
 for various purposes. It is singularly fitted to call 
 forth the heart, to awaken love and moral delight. 
 As an example, it has no rival. As an evidence of 
 his religion, it yields to no other proof; perhaps 
 no other proof has so often conquered unbelief.” 
 Further on in the same discourse, after stating the 
 effects of our familiarity with the Gospel history in 
 preventing us from being struck as we should other¬ 
 wise be with the beauty and perfection of his cha¬ 
 racter, he adds, “ From habit men look on this 
 
166 
 
 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 glorious creation with insensibility, and are less 
 moved by the all-enlightening sun than by a show 
 of fire-works. It is the duty of a moral teacher 
 almost to create a new sense in men, that they may 
 learn in what a world of beauty and magnificence 
 they live. And so in regard to Christ’s character ; 
 men become used to it, until they imagine there is 
 something more admirable in a great man of their 
 own day, a statesman or a conqueror, than in him, 
 the latchet of whose shoes statesmen and con¬ 
 querors are not worthy to unloose.” After having 
 shown how completely the declarations and doc¬ 
 trines of Jesus Christ contradicted the universal ex¬ 
 pectation of the Jews regarding their Messiah, and 
 repeating many of the sublime passages in his ad¬ 
 dresses to the people, he says, “ When I succeed 
 in realizing the import of such passages, I feel my¬ 
 self listening to a Being such as never before and 
 never since spoke in human language: I am awed 
 by the consciousness of greatness which these sim¬ 
 ple words express; and when I connect this great¬ 
 ness with the proofs of Christ’s miracles which I 
 gave you in a former discourse, I am compelled to 
 exclaim with the centurion, ‘ Truly this was the 
 Son of God.’ ” 
 
 We are taught by Scripture that the Spirit of 
 God dwelleth in us ; by this we understand that all 
 generous, affectionate, and good dispositions of our 
 hearts are the effects of that Spirit, and its ope¬ 
 rations are known by a virtuous life. But a more 
 striking conviction of its divine influences, all men 
 have felt sometimes in the course of their lives, when 
 good suggestions have suddenly sprung up in their 
 
ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 167 
 
 minds, without being introduced by previous asso¬ 
 ciations, or by any that they could detect: and to 
 follow such suggestions—to follow them with ar¬ 
 dour, guided by reason, becomes our duty, which, if 
 we neglect, we fall into that offence which is called 
 by the Apostle “ quenching the Spirit.” The outward 
 manifestation of the Spirit however must be proved 
 to others, and this can only be done by some act or 
 sign that is supernatural. The gift of speaking 
 various tongues conferred upon the Apostles at 
 Pentecost could be proved to be supernatural, by 
 the knowledge which the Jews had of the Apo¬ 
 stles as uneducated, unlearned men, and bv the 
 strangers from various countries then present at 
 Jerusalem, who knew and acknowledged the lan¬ 
 guages spoken by them as real, genuine languages 
 of their respective countries. It was not a mere 
 manifestation of their being inspired by God, but it 
 was also the most useful gift that could have been 
 bestowed upon them as Apostles. They could go 
 forth to all nations qualified to teach everywhere. 
 It was peculiarly appropriate ; for it was necessary 
 that the Gospel should be at first promulgated by 
 those who had seen and known Jesus Christ, who 
 had listened to his teachings and beheld his mira¬ 
 cles ; and those being ignorant, some of them not 
 young, there was no time for them to qualify them¬ 
 selves by acquiring in a natural way foreign lan¬ 
 guages for their great office. At no other period 
 of the Christian dispensation was this the case but 
 at the beginning. A disciple or missionary, who 
 was sent to any stranger country fifty or sixty 
 years after, taught the language of that country in 
 the natural way, was as well qualified for his 
 
168 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 mission as if he had been taught by immediate in¬ 
 spiration. When the outward evidences of the Holy 
 Spirit ceased as to tongues amongst Christians, may 
 be pretty surely inferred from this consideration. 
 Yet notwithstanding, in these days there are some 
 who say that the Holy Spirit is bestowed upon them 
 for the propagation of the Gospel. The sounds utter¬ 
 ed by them, however, have not yet been recognised 
 by a native of any distant country as his native 
 language. If the natives of any pagan country were 
 to acknowledge in those sounds the language of his 
 own nation, it might be inferred that the speaker 
 was appointed by the Spirit to go and convert that 
 nation ; and pious people hereafter, thoroughly ex¬ 
 amining into the truth of the whole matter, would 
 supply him with means to do so. Yet he would 
 probably in a natural way acquire the language ne¬ 
 cessary for his mission in a shorter time than would 
 be required to establish the authenticity of his pre¬ 
 tensions to a preternatural gift, with those who were 
 to provide the means for his being transported with 
 proper necessaries to the place of his destination. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that some countenance 
 is given to the supposition, that sounds or words 
 without meaning either to the speaker or the hearers, 
 were sometimes uttered by the first Christians, as 
 from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which may 
 be learnt from the 14th chapter of 1st Corinthians: 
 but it seems to have been a very great annoyance 
 to St. Paul, who liked not this vain ostentation of 
 gifts, and knew well that the foolish vanity of man 
 will mix itself with every thing—even those that 
 ought to be most sacred. How ready in all ages 
 have men been to separate religion, or what they 
 
ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 169 
 
 deemed religion, from reason ! In these days, when 
 arts and sciences have advanced to such a state of 
 perfection—the progressive effects of reason through 
 many ages,—is it not wonderful, that in what is most 
 important, a great proportion of mankind are as far 
 behind as they were centuries ago ? We find people, 
 sane on every other point, considering the use of 
 reason on sacred subjects as presumptuous. A pro¬ 
 stration of reason they esteem the most acceptable 
 offering they can present to their Creator who en¬ 
 dowed them with reason,—the very gift that distin¬ 
 guishes them from animals. There can be no religion 
 without reason; and there is no religion that will 
 bear the examination of reason so well as the Chris¬ 
 tian in its genuine state,—the state in which it came 
 from its blessed Founder and his Apostles, before 
 ambitious or philosophical churchmen presumed to 
 model it to their own crude, fantastical learning, 
 or their worldly purposes of acquiring dominion 
 and wealth. 
 
 Reason in opposition to grace ! What doth this 
 mean? Are they not both from God? “The 
 heavens declare the glory of God, and the firma¬ 
 ment showeth his handy-work.” This is the voice of 
 reason; and a sister voice from the corresponding 
 feelings of the heart naturally awakened by it, which 
 is the voice of grace, what response doth it make ? 
 “ Praise God for all his wonderful works and his 
 goodness to the children of men.”—“Blessed are 
 the peace-makers ! ”—“ Judge not, and ye shall not 
 be judged.” This is genuine though refined reason ; 
 and grace answers to it, “ Love God, who sent his 
 Son into the world to teach us to love one another, 
 
J 70 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 and love the generous Saviour who was willingly- 
 sent on such a blessed mission.” But hciS not 
 reason, taken as a guide, produced in our own days 
 all kinds of cruelty and wrong ? No ; it was the 
 reverse of reason, assuming her name ; and the 
 name of religion has often been equally usurped 
 and abused. Reason examines, looks behind and 
 before, and on either side ; but the atrocities in 
 France were committed bv those who were reck- 
 less of consequences, and grasped only at the pow¬ 
 er and gratifications of a few weeks or days ;—by 
 political fanatics, as fantastical, blinded and cruel, 
 as those belonging to theology. 
 
 That reason and grace are friends, not opponents, 
 is pleasingly illustrated by an anecdote of an emi¬ 
 nent philosopher, so lately our living contemporary. 
 Sir James Mackintosh, who during the various 
 changes of his active career was so fond of meta¬ 
 physics and all discussions connected with it, to¬ 
 wards the end of his days, it would appear, thought 
 of God as more nearly connected with his individual 
 creatures, and then gratitude and devotion sprung 
 up in his mind. Then it was that he seems to have 
 examined the Scriptures for himself, and that the 
 character of Jesus Christ took hold of his faith and 
 his affections ; and this, even in the weak state of 
 his bodily frame, raised him above gloomy and ex¬ 
 clusive ideas. “ What is the name of that man 
 who writes upon decrees and upon election?” said 
 he to the friends attending his sick bed. Not 
 receiving an answer, he paused for some time, and 
 then added, with a smile, ‘ c He cannot frighten me 
 now.” By those expressions we must suppose that 
 
ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 171 
 
 some gloomy works upon election and free grace 
 for a few Christians, while the greater portion of 
 mankind are doomed to eternal misery, had actually 
 made some impression on his mind. And how 
 sweetly was it further illustrated by his answer to a 
 kind friend and nurse, who had gently reproved him 
 for praying that God would relieve his sufferings 
 by death ! “ He was silent a little and thoughtful, 
 and then answered, ‘ I thought we might have such 
 perfect confidence in God, that we might even 
 venture to make known to him all our sufferings 
 and all our wants, and that he would not be offended. 
 It was in this belief I asked him to put an end to 
 my sufferings ;—with submission, however, I desire 
 to ask it.’ ” And may I be permitted to contrast 
 the foregoing anecdote with another of older date, 
 in which neither reason nor grace were concerned, 
 but much well-meant devotional respect ? It is re¬ 
 corded in Isaac Walton’s Lives, that a friend of his 
 engaged various readers to repeat the Psalms of 
 David day and night throughout the whole year in 
 his private chapel, so that the godly sound should 
 never cease within its sacred walls. This pious 
 arrangement the good Isaac Walton greatly com¬ 
 mends : and perhaps the framers of our church 
 liturgy were actuated with somewhat of a similar 
 impression when they appointed the whole book of 
 Psalms to be repeated in the service by the clergy¬ 
 man and congregation verse by verse alternately; 
 those portions that may apply to every Christian 
 congregation, those that may apply to a few, and 
 those that are applicable to no Christian congre¬ 
 gation whatever. Thus children and grown people 
 
2 72 
 
 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 of every condition call upon God to curse their 
 enemies, confess themselves stained with blood- 
 guiltiness, or confidently lay claim to the favour of 
 God, as having washed their hands in innocency. 
 
 How far apart have the opinions of many thought¬ 
 ful and excellent people stood regarding the doctrine 
 of the atonement! There are two prevailing notions 
 on that most interesting subject. First, that all 
 mankind having sinned and fallen short of what 
 they felt and knew to be their duty to God, they 
 could have no claim to a life of happiness after 
 death, whether original sin from our first parents 
 were attached to them or not: that God in his mercy, 
 considering the transcendent generosity of his Son 
 Jesus Christ,—who was willing to be sent into the 
 world to reveal more perfectly his will to mankind 
 —to save them from sin and the consequences of 
 sin—to suffer and die for their salvation,—for 
 Christ’s sake pardons their sins, when repented of 
 and abandoned, and bestows upon sinful creatures 
 what they could never have earned for themselves. 
 That God should so love the world, shows there was 
 still some root or foundation of goodness in the 
 creatures he had made, and that the fall (whatever 
 that may be) only put them into a state of weak¬ 
 ness and liability to sin—into a state of trial;—that 
 their imperfect obedience was for their Saviour’s 
 sake rewarded, not only as if it had been perfect 
 obedience, hut far beyond it; not merely enabling 
 them to escape punishment, but to receive ever¬ 
 lasting happiness. We are well assured the Supreme 
 God loves virtue, the highest degree of which is 
 devoted suffering for the welfare of others; and 
 
ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 173 
 
 that the generous devotion of his Son should move 
 him to grant every favour consistent with his own 
 attributes to such an Intercessor, we cannot pos¬ 
 sibly doubt. “ On him (our blessed Saviour) were 
 laid the sins of us all”—“ with his stripes we are 
 healed”—are expressions of perfect propriety, when 
 our sins are acknowledged as the cause of his suffer¬ 
 ings, and our redemption from sin and misery as 
 the consequence. The frequent expressions in 
 Scripture of his becoming or being made a sacrifice 
 for us, are quite consistent with common modes of 
 speech; as when we say, that a man who dies for 
 the good of his country, or gives up his fortune for 
 the benefit of his friends and fellow-men, sacrifices 
 his life or sacrifices his fortune for such noble pur¬ 
 poses. And thus the perfect obedience and suffer¬ 
 ings of our self-devoted, generous Friend have atoned 
 for our imperfect obedience and repented sins. 
 
 The second rests upon the assumption that God 
 could not, consistently with his attribute of justice, 
 pardon mankind either for the imputed sins of their 
 first parents or those they have themselves com¬ 
 mitted, unless he receive an equivalent;—that the 
 sufferings of Christ became an equivalent for the 
 sins of all the human race, namely for the punish¬ 
 ment which, without him, they should have endured 
 to all eternity;—that Christ not only intercedes for 
 us, but has purchased us with a price. We know 
 that the Judge of all the earth will do what is right, 
 and that justice as an attribute of the Deity is the 
 same in nature, though infinitely more perfect than 
 justice in man. Would it be justice in man to 
 punish a creature submitted to his power for doing 
 
174 
 
 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 what he could not help doing? Surely not ; and 
 our supposed liability to eternal punishment for 
 original sin, as well as actually committed sins that 
 have been repented of, is not consistent with the in¬ 
 ward sense of justice in the human mind implanted 
 there by God himself; and therefore we must sup¬ 
 pose that this view of the doctrine of the atonement 
 is not consistent with the justice of God any more 
 than with his other attributes. Because we had 
 no claim, even from perfect obedience, to the hap¬ 
 piness of heaven, does this make it reasonable to 
 suppose, that sins which we could not help com¬ 
 mitting, or repented of and forsook, should by a 
 just God be punished everlastingly ? I apprehend 
 that very few Christians can entertain such a belief 
 when brought in close contact with their deliberate 
 thoughts. They have forced it upon themselves by 
 fancying that they exalt their obligations to their 
 Saviour by extending the benefits derived from his 
 sufferings and death to a rescue from everlasting 
 torments, not only due to incorrigible sinners, but 
 repentant sinners, and even children, to whom no¬ 
 thing can be imputed but original sin. They do 
 this without considering that the gratitude we owe 
 to any benefactor is in proportion to what he has 
 done or suffered for our advantage, not to the mag¬ 
 nitude of the benefit: for we must know that the 
 generous Friend, who has suffered to procure for us 
 a great happiness, would have been willing to suffer 
 as much to procure that happiness, joined to an ex¬ 
 emption from great misery, to which we should 
 otherwise have been condemned. Nay, suffering 
 to procure a smaller good for an object of com- 
 
ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. i75 
 
 passion, is a stronger proof of love from the gene¬ 
 rous sufferer than if he equally suffered to procure 
 a greater. It therefore appears to me that the 
 maintainers of the last-mentioned notion of the 
 doctrine of the atonement, while they oppose the 
 high attribute of justice in God Almighty, add no¬ 
 thing to our real causes for love and gratitude to 
 our blessed Redeemer. 
 
 It may be urged that the belief of eternal suffer¬ 
 ing for original sin is not more injurious to God’s 
 attribute of justice, than the evil that exists in the 
 world and the misfortunes that befall good men in 
 it. But there is an obvious answer to this—we 
 believe the rational inhabitants of the world to be 
 in a state of trial, and that all partial evil conduces 
 to purify and prepare their souls for a happier ex¬ 
 istence ; which is a perfectly different supposition. 
 It may then be asked, Why was evil introduced 
 into the world, since men might have been created 
 good at once without all this discipline ? Then 
 follows another answer not quite so obvious,—But 
 for evil, how should we feel or understand what is 
 meant by good ? In one of Dr. Channing’s able and 
 eloquent discourses, speaking of the Christian’s life 
 as one of self-denial, is the following passage:—“ It 
 is true, that as we are now made, our appetites 
 and desires often war against reason, conscience, 
 and religion. But why is this warfare appointed ? 
 Not to extinguish these high principles, but to 
 awaken and invigorate them. It is meant to give 
 them a field for action, occasion for effort, and 
 means of victory. True virtue is thus opposed and 
 endangered ; but virtue owes its vigour and hardi- 
 
176 
 
 ON TOLERATION AND FANATICISM. 
 
 hood to obstacles, and wins its crown by conflict. 
 I do not say, that God can find no school for cha¬ 
 racter, but temptation and trial and strong desire ; 
 but I do say, that the present state is a noble school. 
 You, my hearers, would have the path of virtue, 
 from the very beginning, smooth and strewed with 
 flowers ; and would this train the soul to energy ? 
 You would have pleasure always coincide with duty; 
 and how then would you attest your loyalty to duty? 
 You would have conscience and desire always speak 
 the same language and prescribe the same path ; 
 and how then would conscience assert its supremacy? 
 God has implanted blind desires which often rise 
 up against reason and conscience, that he may give 
 to these high faculties the dignity of dominion and 
 the joy of victory. He has surrounded us with ri¬ 
 vals to himself, that we may love him freely, and 
 by our own unfettered choice erect his throne in 
 our souls. He has given us strong desires of infe¬ 
 rior things, that the desire of excellence may grow 
 stronger in all. Make such a world as you wish, 
 let no appetite or passion ever resist God’s will, no 
 object of desire ever come in competition with duty; 
 and where would be the resolution and energy and 
 constancy and effort and purity, the trampling 
 under foot of low interests, the generous self-sur¬ 
 render, the heroic devotion, all the sublimities of 
 virtue, which now throw lustre over man’s nature, 
 and speak of his immortality ?” It is evil then 
 which makes our passage through this world a state 
 of progress and improvement, and gives us assu¬ 
 rance that our abiding-place is in a higher and 
 nobler region. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 TEXTS FROM THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN 
 
 RELATING TO THE DIGNITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 Chap. I. ver. I, 2, 3, (containing the introduction 
 to the vision,)—“The revelation of Jesus Christ 
 which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants 
 things which must shortly come to pass ; and he 
 sent and signified it to his servant John ; who bare 
 record of the word of God, and of the testimony of 
 Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed 
 is he that readeth, and they that hear the words 
 of the prophecy, and keep those things which are 
 written therein: for the time is at hand.” 
 
 Ver. 4, 5, 6, (containing the salutation,)—“ John 
 to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be 
 unto you, and peace from him which is, and which 
 was, and which is to come ; and from Jesus Christ, 
 who is the faithful Witness, and the first-begotten 
 of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth: 
 unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins 
 in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests 
 to God and his Father; to him be glory and domi¬ 
 nion for ever, Amen.” 
 
 Ver. 8.—“ I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning 
 and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and was, 
 and is to come, the Almighty.” 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Ver. 10, (and on to the end of the chapter,)—“ I 
 was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard be¬ 
 hind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, I am 
 Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; and what 
 thou seest write in a book, and send it unto the 
 seven Churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, 
 &c. &c. &c. And I turned to see the voice that 
 spake to me, and, being turned, I saw seven golden 
 candlesticks ; and, in the midst of the seven golden 
 candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed 
 with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the 
 paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hair 
 were white like wool, as white as snow : and his eyes 
 were as a flame of fire, and his feet like unto fine 
 brass, as if they burned in the furnace; and his voice 
 as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right 
 hand seven stars ; and out of his mouth went a two- 
 edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun 
 shineth in his strength. And when I saw him I fell 
 at his feet as dead ; and he laid his right hand upon 
 me, saying unto me, Fear not. I am the first and 
 the last: I am he that liveth and was dead, and be¬ 
 hold I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and have the 
 keys of Hell and Death. Write the things which 
 thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the 
 things which shall be hereafter, the mystery of the 
 seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and 
 the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are 
 the angels of the seven churches; and the seven 
 candlesticks are the seven churches.” 
 
 In the salutation, God Almighty and Jesus Christ 
 are kept perfectly distinct from one another, and the 
 ascription of Alpha and Omega given to God Al- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 179 
 
 mighty. From the 10th verse to the end of the 
 chapter, the Alpha and Omega are given to Jesus 
 Christ as lord or ruler of the seven churches. This 
 shows that the faithful and true witness, who calls 
 himself the beginning of the creation of God, is Jesus 
 Christ; and shows also in what sense the ascription 
 of the Alpha and Omega belong to him. 
 
 Chap. II. contains the admonitions to the churches 
 of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, and Thyatira. 
 
 Chap. III. contains admonitions to the churches 
 of Sardis and Philadelphia, up to the 12th verse. 
 Ver. 12 and 13.—“ Him that overcometh will I 
 make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall 
 go no more out: and I will write upon him the 
 name of my God, and the name of the city of my 
 God, which is the new Jerusalem, which cometh 
 down out of heaven from my God ; and I will write 
 upon him my new name. He that hath an ear to 
 hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
 seven churches. And to the angel of the Laodice- 
 ans write these things, saith the Amen, the faithful 
 and true witness ; the beginning of the creation of 
 God.” 
 
 In this last passage it seems to be the Spirit of 
 God which calls himself “ the Amen, the faithful 
 and true witness ; the beginning of the creation of 
 God.” 
 
 Yer. 21.—“ To him that overcometh will I grant 
 to sit with me on my throne, even as I also over¬ 
 came and am set down with my Father on his 
 throne.” 
 
 n 2 
 
180 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Chap. IV. I shall transcribe the whole of this 
 chapter, not because I think any thing regarding the 
 doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in it, but be¬ 
 cause it is appointed to be read for the Epistle by the 
 Church on Trinity Sunday, and must therefore have 
 been supposed to relate to it.—“ And after this I 
 looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven ; 
 and the first voice which I heard was as it were a 
 trumpet talking with me, which said, Come hither, 
 and I will show you the things which must be here¬ 
 after. And immediately I was in the Spirit: and 
 behold a throne was set in the heaven, and one sat 
 on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon 
 like a jasper and a sardine stone ; and there was a 
 rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto 
 an emerald. And round about the throne were four 
 and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four 
 and twenty elders, sitting clothed in white raiment; 
 and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And 
 out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunder- 
 ings and voices : and there were seven lamps of fire 
 burning before the throne, which are the seven 
 spirits of God. And before the throne there was a 
 sea of glass, like unto crystal: and in the midst of 
 the throne and round about the throne were four 
 beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first 
 beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a 
 calf, and the third beast had a face as a man , and 
 the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the 
 four beasts had each of them six wings about him, 
 and they were full of eyes within ; and they rest not 
 day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God 
 Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 181 
 
 when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks 
 to him that sat on the throne, and worship him who 
 liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders 
 fall down before him who sat on the throne, and cast 
 their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art 
 worthy, O Lord, to receive honour and glory and 
 power ; for thou hast created all things, and for thy 
 pleasure they are and were created.” 
 
 Chap. V. ver. 1.—“ And I saw on the right hand 
 of him that sat on the throne a book, written within 
 and on the back side, and sealed with seven seals.” 
 John having wept much because no one was found 
 worthy to open the seals of the book, ver. 5, saith: 
 “ And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: 
 behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of 
 David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose 
 the seven seals thereof.” 
 
 Ver. 6, (and on to the end of the chapter)—“ And 
 I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne, and of 
 the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood 
 a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns 
 and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, 
 sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took 
 the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon 
 the throne; and when he had taken the book, the 
 four beasts and the four and twenty elders fell down 
 before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, 
 and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers 
 of the saints. And they sung a new song, saying, 
 Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the 
 seals thereof; for thou wast slain and hast redeemed 
 
182 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and 
 tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us 
 unto our God kings and priests : and we shall reign 
 on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice 
 of many angels round about the throne, and the 
 beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 
 ten thousand times ten thousand thousands of thou¬ 
 sands ; saying, with a loud voice, Worthy is the 
 Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches 
 and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and 
 blessing. And every creature which is in heaven 
 and on the earth and under the earth, and such as 
 are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I say¬ 
 ing, Blessing and honour and glory and power be 
 unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the 
 Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, 
 Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down 
 and worshiped him that liveth for ever and ever.” 
 
 In the above chapter, Him who sat upon the 
 throne, and the Lamb which received the book 
 from his hands, are kept perfectly distinct from 
 each other. 
 
 Chap. VI. After the seven seals have been 
 opened by the Lamb, with the mention of the 
 plagues that followed, the three last verses of the 
 chapter run thus “ And the kings of the earth, 
 and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief 
 captains, and the mighty men, and every bond-man, 
 and every free-man hid themselves in the dens and 
 in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the moun¬ 
 tains and rocks, Fail on us, and hide us from the 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 183 
 
 face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the 
 wrath of the Lamb : for the great day of his wrath 
 is come, and who shall be able to stand ?” 
 
 Chap. VII. ver. 9.— <£ After this I beheld, and, lo, 
 a great multitude which no man could number, of 
 all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, 
 stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed 
 with white robes and palms in their hands, and cried 
 with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God 
 which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb. 
 And all the angels stood round about the throne 
 and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell 
 before the throne on their faces, and worshiped God, 
 saying, Amen. And one of the elders answered, 
 saying, What are these which are arrayed in white 
 robes, and whence come they ? And I said unto 
 him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said unto me, 
 These are they which came out of great tribulation, 
 and have washed their robes and made them white 
 in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they be¬ 
 fore the throne of God, and serve him day and night 
 in his temple ; and he that sitteth on the throne 
 , shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no 
 more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun 
 light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which 
 is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and 
 shall lead them unto living fountains of waters : 
 and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. 5 ' 
 
 Chap. XI. ver. 15 (and on to the end)—“ And the 
 seven angels sounded, and there were great voices 
 
184 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, 
 and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four 
 and twenty elders which sat before God on their 
 seats, fell upon their faces, and worshiped God, 
 saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, 
 which art, and wast, and art to come ; because thou 
 hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned. 
 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, 
 and the time of the dead that they should be judged, 
 and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy ser¬ 
 vants the prophets and to them that fear thy name, 
 small and great, and shouldest destroy them that 
 destroy the earth. And the temple of God was 
 opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple 
 the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings 
 and voices and thunderings and earthquake and 
 great hail/* 
 
 \ 
 
 Chap. XII. After the first part of the chapter, 
 which describes a woman clothed with the sun, &c. 
 and the birth of her son, and the dragon waiting to 
 devour the child, comes verse 10.—“ And I heard 
 a loud voice, saying in heaven, Now is come salva¬ 
 tion and strength, and the kingdom of our God, 
 and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of 
 our brethren is cast down which accused them be¬ 
 fore our God day and night.” 
 
 Again, ver. 17.—“ And the dragon was wroth 
 with the woman, and went to make war with the 
 remnant of her seed which keep the commandments 
 of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 185 
 
 Chap. XIII. After the first part, giving an ac¬ 
 count of a beast coming out of the sea, follows 
 verse 8.—“ And all that dwell on the earth shall 
 worship him (the beast) whose names are not writ¬ 
 ten in the book of life of the Lamb, slain from the 
 foundation of the world.” 
 
 Chap. XIV. ver. 1.—“ And I looked, and, lo, a 
 Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with him a hun¬ 
 dred and forty and four thousand, having his Fa¬ 
 ther’s name written in their foreheads.” 
 
 Again, ver. 4, 5.—“ These are they which fol¬ 
 low the Lamb, whithersoever he goeth : these were 
 redeemed from among men, being the first fruits 
 unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth 
 was no guile; for they were without fault before 
 the throne of God.” 
 
 Again, ver. 7. (after an angel is sent forth ha* 
 ving the Gospel to preach on the earth)—“ Saying 
 (the angel speaks) with a loud voice, Fear God and 
 give glory to him, for the hour of his judgement is 
 come ; and worship him that made heaven, and 
 earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” 
 
 Verse 12 says, (after the account of an angel 
 proclaiming the fall of Babylon)—“ Here is the pa¬ 
 tience of the saints : here are they that keep the 
 commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” 
 
 Ver. 14, 15, 16.—“ And I looked, and behold a 
 white cloud, and upon the cloud sat one like unto 
 the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown 
 and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another an¬ 
 gel came out of the temple, crying with a loud 
 voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy 
 
186 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 sickle, and reap; for the time is come for thee to 
 reap ; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he 
 that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the 
 earth, and the earth was reaped.” 
 
 Ver. 18,19,20, which conclude the chapter, relate 
 that another angel came out from the altar with a 
 sickle, and gatheredthe vines of the earth which were 
 cast into the wine-press of the wrath of God, &c. 
 
 Chap. XV. The two first verses tell of those 
 who have gotten the victory over the beast, and 
 stand on the sea of glass having the harps of God. 
 
 Ver. 3.—“ And they sing the song of Moses the 
 servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, 
 Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God 
 Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King 
 of Saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and 
 glorify thy name ? for thou only art holy; for all 
 nations shall come and worship before thee ; for 
 thy judgements are made manifest.” 
 
 Chap. XVI. After three angels have poured out 
 their vials, ver. 5, 6, 7.—“ And I heard the angel 
 of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, 
 whichwast, and art, and shalt be, because thou hast 
 judged thus ; for they have shed the blood of thy 
 saints and prophets, and thou hast given them 
 blood to drink ; for they are worthy.” 
 
 Chap. XVII. After an account of the woman, 
 sitting on a scarlet-coloured beast, &c. and the ten 
 horns that received power from the beast, ver. 14. 
 
 -—“ These shall make war with the Lamb, and the 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 187 
 
 Lamb shall overcome them : for he is Lord of Lords 
 and King of Kings, and they that are with him are 
 called and chosen and faithful.” 
 
 Chap. XIX. from the 1st to the 17th verse. 
 —“ And after these things, I heard a great voice 
 of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; sal¬ 
 vation and glory and honour and power unto the 
 Lord our God: for true and righteous are his judge¬ 
 ments ; for he hath judged the great whore which 
 did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath 
 avenged the blood of his servants at her hands. 
 And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke 
 rose up for ever and ever. And the four and 
 twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and 
 worshiped God, that sat on the throne, saying, 
 Alleluia. And a voice came out of the throne, say¬ 
 ing, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that 
 fear him, both small and great. And I heard as it 
 were the voice of a great multitude, and as the 
 voice of many waters, and as the voice of many 
 thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God 
 omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice 
 and give honour to him ; for the marriage of the 
 Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. 
 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed 
 in fine linen, clean and white; for the fine linen is 
 the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, 
 (the conducting angel) Write, blessed are they which 
 are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
 And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings 
 of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him : 
 and he said unto me, See thou do it not; I am thy 
 fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the 
 
188 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 testimony of Jesus : worship God ; for the testi¬ 
 mony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And I 
 saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and 
 he that sat upon him was called faithful and true, 
 and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. 
 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head 
 were many crowns ; and he had a name written 
 that no man knew but he himself; and he was 
 clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, and his name 
 is called the Word of God. And the armies which 
 were in heaven followed him on white horses, 
 clothed in fine linen, white and clean ; and out of 
 his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he 
 should smite the nations ; and he will rule them 
 with a rod of iron : and he treadeth the wine-press 
 of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And 
 he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name 
 written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” 
 
 Chap. XX. ver. 6.—“ Blessed and holy is he 
 that hath part in the first resurrection ; on such 
 the second death hath no power; but they shall be 
 priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with 
 him a thousand years.” 
 
 Again, ver. 11.—“ And I saw a great white 
 throne and him that sat on it, from whose face the 
 heavens and the earth fled away, and there was no 
 place for them. And I saw the dead, small and 
 great, stand before God; and the books were opened; 
 and another book was opened which is the book of 
 life : and the dead were judged out of those things 
 which were written in the books, according to their 
 works.” 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 189 
 
 Chap. XXI. ver. 1st and on to the 8th.—“ And 
 I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first 
 heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and 
 there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy 
 city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out 
 of heaven. And I heard a great voice out of hea¬ 
 ven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with 
 men, and they shall be his people, and God himself 
 shall be with them, and be their God. And God 
 shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there 
 shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, 
 neither shall there be any more pain ; for the for¬ 
 mer things are passed away. And he that sat upon 
 the throne said, Behold I make all things new. And 
 he said unto me, Write ; for these words are true 
 and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I 
 am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end: 
 I will give unto him that is athirst, of the fountain 
 of the water of life freely. He that overcometh 
 shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and 
 he shall be my son.”—Yer. 22, 23, (after de¬ 
 scribing the new Jerusalem as the Lamb’s wife 
 descending from heaven,)—“ And I saw no temple 
 therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
 are the temple of it. And the city had no need of 
 the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the 
 glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the 
 light thereof.” 
 
 Chap. XXII. and last, ver. 1.—“ And he showed 
 me a pure river of the water of life, clear as cry¬ 
 stal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of 
 the Lamb.” Again, ver. 3.— <c And there shall be no 
 
190 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 more curse ; but the throne of God and of the Lamb 
 shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him.” Ver. 
 6.—“ And he said unto me, These things are faith¬ 
 ful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets 
 sent his angel to show unto his servants the things 
 which must shortly be done.” Ver. 8.—“ And I, 
 John, saw these things and heard them. And when 
 I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before 
 the feet of the angel which showed me these things. 
 Then he said unto me, See thou do it not; for I am 
 thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, 
 and of them which keep the sayings of this book : 
 worship God.” Ver. 10 and 11. (the same per¬ 
 son still continuing to speak whom he was forbid 
 to worship ; and, without any intimation of the per¬ 
 son of the speaker being changed, follows ver. 12 
 and on to the end of the chapter,)—“ And behold I 
 come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give 
 every man according as his work shall be. I am 
 Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the 
 first and the last. Blessed are they that do his 
 commandments, that they may have a right to the 
 tree of life, and may enter in through the gates 
 into the city. For without are dogs and sorcerers 
 and whoremongers and murderers and idolaters, 
 and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. And I 
 Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto these 
 things in the Churches. I am the root and off¬ 
 spring of David and the bright Morning Star. 
 And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let 
 him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is 
 athirst come: and whosoever will, let him take the 
 water of life freely. For I testify unto every man 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 191 
 
 that heareth the words of the prophecy of this 
 book : If any man shall add unto these things, God 
 shall add unto him the plagues that are written in 
 this book; and if any man shall take away from 
 the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall 
 take away his part out of the book of life, and out 
 of the Holy City, and from the things which are 
 written in this book. He which testifieth these 
 things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even 
 so come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ be with you all. Amen.” 
 
 As originating and finishing everything relating 
 to the Church, the Alpha and Omega is ascribed 
 to God Almighty, and also to the Lamb (or Christ), 
 and in one place to the Spirit of God; but God 
 Almighty and the Lamb are always (as far as I can 
 judge) kept perfectly distinct through the whole 
 book of Revelation. God is represented exclusively 
 as seated on the throne ; the Lamb as standing 
 before it or in it. The beasts and the elders are 
 represented as standing or being within the throne, 
 and once the elders are said to be seated within 
 the throne. Chap. iii. ver. 21. (Christ, I believe, 
 being the speaker) it is said—“ To him that over- 
 cometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne, 
 even as I also overcame and am set down with 
 my Father on his throne;” and this is the only 
 passage in which Christ is said to be seated on 
 the throne. 
 
 / 
 
 o 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * ' 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 » 
 
 
 
 
 i- 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
193 
 
 REFLECTIONS 
 
 CONNECTED WITH MODERN DISCOVERIES 
 IN SCIENCE, AND WITH THE NATURAL 
 ASSOCIATIONS OF YOUNG PEOPLE TAKEN 
 FROM MEAN REPRESENTATIONS OF SACRED 
 SUBJECTS, 
 
 As I have already surmised, these views, drawn 
 from the general tenor of the New Testament re¬ 
 garding our Saviour, are in perfect accordance with 
 our enlarged knowledge of the Universe, received of 
 late years from the discoveries of Sir William Her- 
 schel and other diligent observers of the heavens. 
 That God should commit the care and government 
 of one or a community of worlds to a highly exalted 
 Being, resembling Himself in moral qualities, and 
 endowed by Him with all wisdom and power for 
 such a glorious and beneficent charge, is not incon¬ 
 sistent with any immensity of creation that can be 
 conceived. And this great Vicegerent of the Most 
 High may be made perfect by suffering,—may live 
 for a time as the elder Brother of those committed 
 to his care,—may suffer and die for their sakes ; 
 yes, we may suppose it to be so, and what natural 
 feeling in the human heart, what noble faculty does 
 man possess that can be offended by it ? There 
 is no human relation so amiable and engaging as 
 
 o 2 
 
194 
 
 REFLECTIONS CONNECTED WITH 
 
 that of an elder Brother, at the head of his Father’s 
 family, giving up his own indulgence and sacrificing 
 everything to promote the interest and happiness 
 of the younger children ; and our Saviour seems 
 particularly to have wished his disciples to consider 
 him in this light. No painful or overpowering 
 feelings of awe cast any shade over this beautiful 
 tie. In contemplating the immensity of creation, 
 how well does this view harmonize with the idea of 
 a world, or a connected system of worlds, being 
 consigned to the care and authority of some highly 
 endowed Being by the Great Father, Creator and 
 Lord of all! a Being whose instrumentality in 
 creating the worlds,—the material or intellectual 
 worlds,-—has been appointed by the Supreme God ! 
 Such a sublime and generous elder Brother would 
 do and suffer much for his kindred charge,—could 
 offer such a propitiation on their behalf as would 
 be acceptable to his God and Father and their God 
 and Father. We can know no more about this 
 than what is taught us. But that God should offer 
 up himself a sacrifice to God, as orthodoxy asserts, 
 throws confusion over the whole, and has no natural 
 feeling in the human soul to respond to it. A 
 Trinity in Unity puts all natural faculties to a stand; 
 so that if the Scriptures, which it is said reveal it 
 and command us to believe it, can, from any allow¬ 
 able use of language and the general tenor of their 
 teachings, be explained in a way more consonant 
 to our natural feelings and understanding, we ought 
 not and cannot be called upon to believe it, or to 
 declare that we do so ; for doing it sincerely is out 
 of our power. 
 
MODERN DISCOVERIES IN SCIENCE. 
 
 195 
 
 It seems to be with a consciousness of great 
 weakness on this point that the Liturgy of the En¬ 
 glish Church has been so filled up, not only with 
 creeds,but with responses and ejaculations appended 
 to every division of the service declaratory of this 
 doctrine. Had Scripture supported it, the Church 
 would have had no occasion to take so much pains. 
 There are probably more young men deterred from 
 embracing the Christian religion by this doctrine of 
 the Trinity than by any other cause. There may 
 be too much confusion and contention regarding 
 religious establishments in these days to effect any 
 change of Liturgy; which is to be lamented: but 
 what cannot be done by public authority every 
 single-hearted, sincere Christian may do for himself, 
 by merely forbearing to repeat the Nicene and 
 Athanasian creeds, or any responses that decidedly 
 declare the doctrine. Young men will probably be 
 the first to do this, and others will follow them. 
 
 The Church has done much good by protecting 
 learned men, preserving books, infusing a spirit of 
 humanity among warlike nations, providing means 
 for instructing a distinct body of men to instruct 
 others in the history and precepts of Christ, which 
 would otherwise have been lost or concealed from 
 the laity, who had no books, and knew not how to 
 read the few they might have had : all this and 
 more we owe to the Church, but as a framer of 
 articles of belief we owe her little. The particular 
 learning and ingenuity of churchmen are not wanted 
 in these days, when books abound and almost every 
 individual can read. Yet, even in these days, a 
 church, whether Episcopal or Presbyterian, is still 
 
196 
 
 REFLECTIONS CONNECTED WITH 
 
 most useful in educating a priesthood qualified to 
 give religious and moral instruction to the people,— 
 providing pastors for them, who, being independent 
 of the flocks whom they feed, will not improperly 
 court their favour by preaching to please their 
 humours or prejudices. This is now the most 
 essential service that a church can effect; and long 
 may it be enabled, with temperate dignity and firm¬ 
 ness, to do so ! 
 
 The greatest names in the literature of England, 
 —names so often produced to prove that learning 
 and genius do not unfit their possessors from being 
 humble Christians,—have not stood high with their 
 countrymen as to what is called Orthodoxy ; and 
 many have succeeded them whose manly, simple 
 minds have been enlightened, elevated and satisfied 
 by what is so plainly taught in Scripture that a 
 wayfaring man may read it, as not to be disturbed 
 by the various explanations of metaphorical lan¬ 
 guage so frequently used in the Bible and other 
 
 % 
 
 Eastern writings. It has been said that ere long 
 there will be none but Unitarians and Roman Ca¬ 
 tholics left in the Christian world. It may be so; 
 those will remain in it who think that the Gospels 
 and Epistles teach us all that is necessary for our 
 salvation : and those who think traditions of certain 
 forms and opinions having prevailed among holy 
 men who came after the Apostles,—writings of 
 churchmen called Holy Fathers,—are equally neces¬ 
 sary to guide our faith, under the authority of popes 
 and councils, will also remain—the religious men 
 of Europe. How desirous have people always been 
 to establish additions to promulgated doctrines or 
 
MODERN DISCOVERIES IN SCIENCE. 
 
 197 
 
 opinions of any great Teacher! The history of 
 Greece with her philosophers, of Eastern Buddha 
 and his many personified attributes, and of the dif¬ 
 ferent sects of Mahometans, prove it sufficiently. A 
 work upon this subject, simple enough and learned 
 enough to do it justice, would be instructive and 
 curious. When all this is well considered, as it is 
 likely to be ere many years pass away, there will 
 be less controversy and more Christianity in the 
 world. It may seem presumptuous to risk such a 
 conclusion ; but as metaphysical fancies put one 
 another out of repute, which they are likely to do, 
 and readers of Scripture read it, as other books are 
 read, with an earnest desire to understand the plain 
 story and general purport of the whole, and as such 
 unsophisticated reading is connected with the gene¬ 
 ral discoveries of these times, in the heavens above 
 and the earth beneath,—-the extended wonders that 
 surround us,—we may be allowed to hope that it 
 will come to pass. The Christian religion will then 
 be in harmony with its own Scriptures, with the 
 enlarged knowledge of facts now attained, and with 
 the natural feelings and faculties of man. Churches 
 will then differ w T ith charity from one another as to 
 ecclesiastical government and the ceremonies of 
 worship, but will modestly refrain from imposing 
 articles of faith as necessary to salvation. Our 
 learned men will then become religious men, as 
 indeed the greater proportion of them have always 
 been, though refusing to be bound by clerical rules 
 of orthodoxy, drawn from traditions, and from the 
 notions of men who are called the Holy Fathers. 
 
198 
 
 CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT 
 
 FROM GOD. 
 
 That Christ is the Light sent by God into the 
 world is a figurative expression found in various 
 passages of the Gospels and Epistles, particularly 
 bv St. John. In his narration of the life of Jesus, 
 he seems to enter more spiritually into the cha¬ 
 racter of his Divine Master than the other Evan¬ 
 gelists, who were more intent on recording his 
 actions than portraying the exaltation and beauty 
 of his mind. And it was natural that the favourite 
 disciple and bosom friend should do so. Christ 
 as the light of the world is an appropriate and 
 beautiful metaphor, and may be justly applied to 
 him above all the other intellectual lights that were 
 ever sent from God. Besides particular passages, 
 indications of this often met with in the simple 
 narrative of his actions and precepts, show him in 
 the character of a Teacher sent from God to the 
 whole world, not exclusively to any country or race. 
 Light is cheering, warming, and capable of being 
 widely diffused ; and these appear to be in a pre¬ 
 eminent degree the qualities of that Light sent by 
 God our Father to guide us to Himself. 
 
 Every good man who comes into the world and 
 instructs man by his precepts and example, is a 
 
CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 199 
 
 teacher sent from God, whether he be aware of it or 
 not, or whether they who observe him and listen to 
 him be aware of it or not; and among the heathen 
 as well as Jews there have been many such. But 
 their ideas and exertions were narrow and con¬ 
 fined, and mingled with prejudices and deceptions 
 that prevented a very wide range of usefulness froim 
 being the result of their exertions. Nay, some of 
 their wisest philosophers believed that the voice of 
 nature within their own breasts, contradicting the 
 absurd idolatrv that surrounded them, was an in- 
 ward revelation peculiar to themselves, which the 
 unlearned and common people ought not to know, 
 and fit to be taught to the superior orders alone. 
 The initiated into their mysteries would have been 
 mortified had a large portion of the nation been as 
 enlightened as themselves ; so that the good they 
 did (and we may suppose they did considerable 
 good) was confined within narrow bounds. The 
 most enlightened of the priesthood of barbarous 
 tribes, and even of Greece and her colonies, made 
 the virtue most acceptable to the gods consist in 
 devoting themselves in battle to the glory of their 
 own particular country, while general benevolence 
 was not at all taken into consideration. From the 
 teachers of the East even down to the present times, 
 the highest virtue seems to have been self-devotion 
 to bodily suffering for the gratification of their 
 deities, and their own exaltation in another world, 
 or absorption into the essence of God. This sub¬ 
 lime annihilation, as the reward of a virtuous life 
 on earth, was not very encouraging to the natural 
 desires and aspirations of human nature. 
 
200 CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 
 
 How different from all this is the light that 
 beams from Jesus Christ! It was calculated to 
 guide all races and nations, to promote peace and 
 affection and general self-sacrifice for the good of 
 others, love and charity over the whole world. It 
 was fitted for this by the simplicity of its rites and 
 precepts, and by the endearing tie by which the 
 Divine Master condescended to unite himself to 
 those whom he taught,—the bands of love,—the 
 gentle authority of an elder brother. No cumbrous 
 ceremonies or forms of worship were enjoined, no 
 inflictions on the body as pleasing to God, no 
 austerity and privations to distinguish them from 
 others and create uncharitable divisions! Two 
 rites of easy fulfilment were appointed by him who 
 gave up the joys of heaven for a season and died 
 as a man upon earth for our sake,'—Baptism and 
 the Lord’s Supper ; the one an emblem of that 
 purity required of his followers, the other an em¬ 
 blem of the most generous and beneficent act ever 
 performed on earth. “ Do this in remembrance of 
 me,” expresses a natural desire that what he had 
 done should be contemplated in the hearts of his 
 immediate and all succeeding disciples,—a simple 
 commemoration that could not but figuratively 
 prove spiritual nourishment to vivify and warm the 
 heart which faithfully received it,—a form of words 
 that required no mystical interpretation to make it 
 be felt and understood. “ Do this in remembrance 
 of me.” There is a tenderness in the request in 
 unison with every generous feeling of the heart. 
 How much unintelligible absurdity, contention and 
 uncharitableness would have been spared, had 
 
CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 201 
 
 churchmen of all sects been satisfied to understand 
 it as a sensible unlearned countryman with the 
 Bible as his guide would have done ! So little did 
 our Saviour care for forms and seasons, that he left 
 no directions as to the manner or frequency of their 
 holding this commemoration ; the first converts 
 were left to themselves on this point, which was 
 afterwards settled by the Apostles as good order 
 and conveniency dictated. It was the inward cul¬ 
 tivation of the heart, purity of thoughts, faith, love 
 and gratitude, that were enjoined as raising the 
 mind of man to his Creator,—those inward move¬ 
 ments of the heart, from which all good works do 
 proceed, were continually mentioned most earnestly 
 by him who was sent from God to be the Light of 
 the world, not the light of particular countries or 
 divisions of men. 
 
 Having briefly considered how pre-eminently 
 fitted our Saviour is to be the Light of the whole 
 earth, one naturally turns to contemplate the actual 
 progress Christianity has made upon it, and what 
 good it has produced. A common observer will 
 examine his map, and having noted down Europe 
 (with the exception of Turkey) as a Christian 
 country, and various spots on the surface of Syria 
 and Arabia with some Christian establishments in 
 the East, and then on the western hemisphere 
 surveying the various settlements belonging to the 
 Spaniards and Portuguese, &c., will say with a dis¬ 
 couraged mind, “ Alas ! how great a portion of the 
 globe,—the greater portion of it,—remains over¬ 
 shadowed with darkness, to say nothing of many 
 nations under the delusions of Mahomet! ” Con- 
 
202 CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 
 
 sidering also the many churches in Asia now ex¬ 
 tinct, and only known to ecclesiastic writers and 
 studiers of antiquity, will he not be ready to ex¬ 
 claim, “ Is this the expansion of a light given to 
 enlighten the world?” 
 
 But let us take another view, and a fairer one, 
 of the light that has proceeded from the promulga¬ 
 tion of the Gospel. We receive the history of its first 
 spreading as connected with the acts of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, and those who immediately proceeded 
 from the superintending Council of Apostles at 
 Jerusalem. But other apostles, Thomas, Philip, 
 and Bartholomew, were at the same time actively 
 employed in planting churches in Asia that existed 
 for many years ; and though now suppressed and 
 in ruins, have, we cannot but believe, left good 
 effects behind them. It is by the good effects of a 
 religion, not by the extent of ground which the 
 professors of it may cover, that we are to estimate 
 its progress and usefulness. Are the inhabitants 
 of those parts of Asia where Christian communities 
 once flourished in no better condition as to feelings 
 and morals than they would have been in had 
 Christianity never instructed their ancestors ? Has 
 the good that may be found in the precepts and 
 laws of the Koran been derived from no other 
 source than the revelations of Mahomet ? It would, 
 I believe, be a very partial knowledge of history 
 that would warrant any one to answer in the affir¬ 
 mative. Moral light has one quality corresponding 
 to natural light, the power of penetrating darkness 
 through the smallest passage. A cell of deep dark¬ 
 ness to the eye of one who has just entered, will 
 
CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 203 
 
 not seem so intensely dark to the poor prisoner 
 who dwells in it. He will be sensible of the small¬ 
 est ray passing through the smallest aperture; and 
 it will make things dimly visible to him which to 
 
 the other are entirely concealed. But the Eastern 
 
 %/ 
 
 churches have not all been destroyed. Nestorian 
 Christians, supposed, and with strong reason, to be 
 the ten lost tribes of Israel, settled from the time 
 of their original captivity in Koordistan and its 
 confines, and, converted by the Apostles at the be¬ 
 ginning of the Christian sera, remain to the present 
 times. The zeal of modern missionaries, better 
 directed than it was at first, in teaching their con¬ 
 verts useful arts at the beginning of their ministry 
 instead of doctrines and catechisms, has been very 
 successful, and will, we trust, continue to be directed 
 with the same moderation and good sense. 
 
 Yet it must be owned, after all that may be said 
 on the subject, the guiding rays that have emanated 
 from the great Light sent to enlighten the world, the 
 progress of Christianity has not been what was na¬ 
 turally to be expected from its native excellence : and 
 the unwise zeal of churchmen of all denominations, 
 striving to make their own notions of doctrines, 
 forms and liturgies, ecclesiastical governments, &c., 
 a pattern for every other sect or division of Chris¬ 
 tians, is justly chargeable with this want of pro¬ 
 sperity. It may be thought that for a lay, unlearned 
 person to advance opinions on such a subject is 
 presumptuous. But it is difficult to refrain from 
 doing so, when we see everything around us con¬ 
 nected with church establishments in confusion ;— 
 the English church drawing closer to that of Rome 
 
204 CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 
 
 in the most trivial things, as well as the great 
 stumbling-block to Protestants, Transubstantiation; 
 the Scotch dividing itself into two, for the sake of 
 certain opinions respecting the appointment of her 
 clergy to benefices ; while a power still exists in 
 the country to correct, change, or re-enact every¬ 
 thing either in church or state. Under a benefi¬ 
 cent Providence, that brings order out of confusion, 
 and makes the folly as well as the wrath of man to 
 obey his wise appointments, let us hope the result 
 of all will be good. The children of those who are 
 now so anxious that surplices and gowns, places 
 for some portion of the prayers to be repeated in 
 and places for others, that every ceremony of wor¬ 
 ship may be brought as near as possible to the 
 primitive Church such as they imagine it to have 
 been, may think all this of little importance. They 
 may even deny the authority of traditions altogether 
 as compared to the Gospels and Epistles of the New 
 Testament, and receive the writings of the Fathers as 
 of no more value than the sermons and dissertations 
 of many a good priest and bishop who have suc¬ 
 ceeded them. Those who are now wrangling with 
 one another upon the question of whether the ap¬ 
 pointing to benefices should be committed to the 
 people at large or to patrons, may think that neither 
 the one rule nor the other will fill the pulpits of 
 their native land with conscientious, learned, and 
 sound-headed clergymen. They may possibly be 
 led to think that a power to appoint, vested in the 
 people, in patrons, and in the clergy themselves, 
 acting in presbyteries, would be more likely to pro¬ 
 duce a respectable and efficient body of pastors than 
 
CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 205 
 
 any other means. They may very possibly think 
 that young men educated for the Ministry will not 
 be the worse for being ignorant to what class of 
 the community they shall probably owe their pre¬ 
 ferment. The more narrow and exclusive sects of all 
 denominations are at present, the more clearly may 
 their successors perceive and feel that the Christian 
 Church, under that great Light which enlightens 
 the whole world, is the Church of God, in which 
 are found all sects believing in Jesus Christ as the 
 Son and Sent of God, however different as to 
 creeds, forms of worship, or ecclesiastical govern¬ 
 ment they may be. The methodical ways of doing 
 good to the poor, so prevalent in modern times, have 
 been a happy result from division of sects provoking 
 one another to beneficent deeds; and why may we 
 not hope for others ? Perhaps a perfectly united 
 church, where all profess the same doctrines and 
 conform to the same forms of worship, would be the 
 most dangerous state, as to the real benevolence 
 and devotion of its members, in which it could 
 be placed. Man’s natural desire for domination, 
 whether acting by official authority, singly, or in 
 bodies, forms a temptation that even the real sanc¬ 
 tity and good intentions of the clergy have not 
 always enabled them to resist. 
 
 So much have the character and history of Christ 
 as displayed in the New Testament struck many 
 contemplative minds as a Light sent from God to 
 enlighten the world, that German philosophers have 
 been occupied of late in endeavouring to prove that, 
 whether the authenticity of the Gospels be main¬ 
 tained or not, the power of them for moral instruc- 
 
206 CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 
 
 tion and for elevating the soul is the same. We 
 readily agree that from an invented story, where 
 the characters are delineated with skill, and in har¬ 
 mony with our conscious feelings of what is good 
 and beautiful, much instruction and salutary im¬ 
 pressions may be derived when taken by the reader 
 as a fiction ; but when that which has once been 
 received as a truth is no longer so received, it be¬ 
 comes impotent. He knows little of human nature 
 who does not know this ; and it would tax the ex¬ 
 cellent gift of charity too hardly, to suppose that 
 any endeavour upon such principles to weaken our 
 faith in the authenticity of Scripture could be made 
 without having the ambition of literary applause 
 more in mind than the real advantage of society. 
 An example founded on abstract ideas, or doubtfully 
 supposed to have such a foundation, will have little 
 effect upon human decision in the hour of strong 
 temptation. 
 
 The grand idea of a Supreme God, infinite in 
 power, wisdom and goodness, and of a Vicegerent 
 or Son administering his will in this and (it may 
 be) in other worlds, is in accordance with all the 
 enlargement of knowledge which the progress of 
 science can bestow upon man. This sublime faith is 
 fitted for every age and country. It is the light of 
 God shown to us most brightly through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ; and though a framework of creeds, 
 explanatory articles and catechisms may be erected 
 about it as a defence, it will be found to obstruct 
 the light, not to protect it, for it needs no defence. 
 And if one community of Christians like one form 
 of worship or one form of church government better 
 
CHRIST CONSIDERED AS A LIGHT FROM GOD. 207 
 
 than another, they will not differ about it as a thing 
 necessary to salvation. Philosophers and country¬ 
 men will be Christian brothers, neither of them 
 despising or censuring one another. There is no 
 other system that has been received by the nations 
 of the earth which is in accordance with what the 
 heavens declare of the glory of God, and the disco¬ 
 veries of science are continually revealing. What 
 becomes of the gods of Mount Ida with all their 
 majesty of clouds, their feastings and their feuds ? 
 What becomes of Odin and his warriors, transmuted 
 into gods, and drinking mead in a magnificent hall 
 from the skulls of their enemies ? What becomes 
 of the eastern Buddha with all the personified attri¬ 
 butes of deity, monstrous and grotesque, around 
 him ? What becomes of these and many more that 
 need not be named, when taken in connexion with 
 this ? 
 
 p 
 
208 
 
 SOME REMARKS ON SACRIFICES 
 AS CONNECTED WITH THE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 ATONEMENT. 
 
 In all nations from the earliest times, offerings 
 were presented to the Giver of all good things as an 
 acknowledgement of his bounty, and in testimony 
 of gratitude in the worshiper, whose oblations were 
 poured from the cup or spread on the altar for the 
 acceptance of his God. We read in the Old Tes¬ 
 tament of family sacrifices or feasts when a scat¬ 
 tered kindred met together, to strengthen natural 
 affections and religious impressions. Thus Jona¬ 
 than makes an excuse to his father Saul, that 
 David had earnestly requested that he might go to 
 a yearly sacrifice held in his own family ; and in 
 other passages of Scripture allusions to it will be 
 found. The daily sacrifices instituted by Moses 
 seem to have been regular acknowledgements of 
 God’s bounty, combining also a daily provision for 
 the Priests. The most solemn of all were the burnt 
 offerings for the expiation of sin. But whether 
 they were sacrifices of expiation, or thanksgiving, 
 or family devotion, it was the spirit in which they 
 were offered that made them acceptable to God, 
 not their worldly worth or value. In how many 
 
SOME REMARKS ON SACRIFICES. 
 
 209 
 
 passages of Scripture is this declared ! Psalm 50, 
 verse 7 : “ Hear, O my people, and I will speak ; 
 O Israel, I will testify against thee : 1 am God, even 
 tliv God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices 
 to have been continually before me. I will take no 
 bullock out of thy house, nor he-goat out of thy 
 folds ; for every beast of the forest is mine, and 
 the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the 
 fowls of the mountains, and the beasts of the field 
 are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee ; 
 for the world is mine and the fulness thereof. Will 
 I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats? 
 Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows 
 unto the Most High, and call upon me in the day 
 of trouble and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt 
 glorify me.” Isaiah, chap. i. verse 10: “ Hear the 
 word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, and give ear 
 unto the law of God, ye people of Gomorrah. To 
 what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices 
 unto me ? saith the Lord,” &c. “ Bring no more 
 
 vain oblations; incense is an abomination; the 
 new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, 
 I cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn 
 meeting,” &c. “ Wash ye and make ye clean ; put 
 
 away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; 
 cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; seek judgement, 
 relieve the oppressed, plead for the widow.”—Cain 
 had made his offering to God as well as Abel, but 
 with a very different result. Abraham’s readiness 
 to sacrifice his son, which is justly received as a 
 type or emblem of the death of Christ, sets the 
 meaning of sacrifices in the clearest point of view. 
 What was it that Abraham offered to God? for it 
 
210 SOME REMARKS ON SACRIFICES AS CONNECTED 
 
 was offered virtually, though the victim was not 
 actually slain. Was it not the generous confidence 
 of his heart, which felt that the Lord in resuming 
 his gift would do what is beneficent and right, 
 though his present command was to human nature 
 very grievous,—would fulfill his promise to him in a 
 better way than he could comprehend ? Was it not 
 this which God was pleased to accept from his 
 servant Abraham,—more precious than the blood 
 of many victims ? 
 
 Having considered the accepted value of that 
 sacrifice recorded in the Old Testament, and re¬ 
 ceived by Christians as a type of our Saviour’s 
 sacrifice on our behalf called the Atonement, let us 
 with reverence contemplate this awful event. What 
 was it Jesus Christ offered to his Heavenly Father 
 on our behalf? Was it not a generous willingness 
 to give up the glories of heaven, to be clothed in a 
 human body with all its infirmities, to live his whole 
 term upon earth in humble indigence, to strive with 
 all the perverse opposition of his countrymen, un- 
 weariedly endeavouring to instruct them, to win 
 them from evil both of action and thought, and to 
 do all this with the prophetic view of a cruel and 
 ignominious death always before his eyes ? Surely 
 this was a noble sacrifice, worthy to be offered to 
 the God and Father whom he adored, and to induce 
 his Heavenly Father to appoint him to be the Me¬ 
 diator between sinful man and his offended Maker, 
 who was not willing that any should perish, but that 
 all who lived uprightly, or repented of their sins, 
 should be raised after death to a better state of 
 existence. The sacrifice of his life on the cross, 
 
WITH THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 21 1 
 
 which is so constantly held out to Christians, makes 
 but a part of it. It is to be regretted that, by so 
 many Christian teachers, God Almighty has been 
 represented as a God of wrath, who having ap¬ 
 pointed the whole race of Adam to everlasting death 
 as the forfeit of the first parents’ transgression, 
 would not be appeased till he received the blood 
 »of an innocent victim as a compensation for the 
 vengeance due to him. What was the punishment 
 man became liable to by the fall, which is termed 
 death, we do not know: probably that after being 
 punished or rewarded for his own particular sins 
 and virtues he should cease to be ; and, by the 
 mediation of Christ, we are made capable of being 
 put into a state of trial,—a state in which we may 
 gain immortal life,—a state of blessed progression. 
 That God should send his Son into the world to 
 effect this happy change in the condition of men, 
 is perfectly consistent with his Divine attributes : 
 that Christ was willing to be sent on such a mis¬ 
 sion, makes him most worthy of the love of God 
 and of man. 
 
 St. Paul, who was willing to become all things to 
 all men that he might gain a few, in his Epistle to 
 the Hebrews has insisted much on the parallel be¬ 
 tween the high priest of the Jews and Jesus Christ, 
 and between the efficacy of his bloodshedding and 
 that of the blood shed on the altars of Israel by the 
 ordinances of the law; and no doubt it would 
 attract and conciliate the Jews: but it has been 
 injurious to after-converts of other nations, by lead¬ 
 ing them to conceive the Heavenly Father of their 
 Divine Master as a severe and vindictive Being;— 
 
212 SOME REMARKS ON SACRIFICES AS CONNECTED 
 
 converts to a religion too that inculcates the for¬ 
 giveness of injuries beyond all other religions pro¬ 
 mulgated on earth. The Calvinistical reformers of 
 other days were continually insisting on the right 
 we have to salvation, as a thing bought for us with 
 a price which God could not withhold : and many 
 bold and irreverent words were thundered from 
 their pulpits most inconsistent with the character 
 of Christ’s Father and our Father, his God and our 
 God. Their religion so taught strengthened them 
 in a Christian warfare of suffering, perseverance and 
 self-denial; but the graces of mutual love and cha¬ 
 rity,—the charity that thinketh no evil,—became, 
 it is to be feared, comparatively weak. Christ as 
 the typical sacrifice for man, the just for the unjust, 
 was always in their thoughts : as the intercessor 
 and mediator, who from his own transcendent 
 goodness, and consequent favour of his Father, 
 was appointed to be the Saviour of men from sin 
 and its consequences, he was seldom contemplated. 
 That they were not as merciful and forgiving as 
 
 other sects in those davs, when toleration of reli- 
 
 %> 
 
 gious opinions from principle was practised by 
 scarcely any denomination of Christians, though 
 sometimes in the writings of enlightened indivi¬ 
 duals, it would be unjust to aver. 
 
 But the evil of these opinions regarding the doc¬ 
 trine in question has not passed away with those 
 days. We have now indeed many sincere main- 
 tainers of that doctrine, whose minds do not appear 
 to be hardened by it, and who abound in works of 
 goodness and charity ; but we have those also who 
 do not heartily embrace Christianity, because of 
 
WITH THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 213 
 
 the view which they suppose it gives of the Divine 
 Being, contradictory of his attributes as impressed 
 by nature on our hearts. How many, who but for 
 this would have peace in believing, conform to the 
 religion of their country with misgivings, coldness 
 and reserve, or absent themselves from public wor¬ 
 ship altogether ! How many are checked in their 
 private devotions when the idea of a vindictive 
 God stands between them and the grateful adoring 
 love they would naturally and gladly feel! I hope 
 our enlightened clergymen of all denominations 
 will take this into consideration more than they 
 have hitherto done. Jesus Christ through the 
 whole of his ministry is continually giving glory to 
 God, and ascribing every good thing he does as 
 done through the power of God enabling him. “ I 
 come in my Father’s name and ye believe me not; 
 if another come in his own name, him will ye be¬ 
 lieve.” “At that day ye shall ask in my name ; 
 and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father 
 for you, for the Father himself loveth you because 
 ye have loved me and believed that I came out from 
 God.” And through the whole of this chapter 
 and the following, containing our Saviour’s last 
 discourse to his disciples, it is the love of God 
 upon which he dwells. The frequent mention he 
 makes as giving himself as a sacrifice for the sins 
 of men is obviously said in a metaphorical sense. 
 “ The food from heaven is my flesh that I shall 
 give for the life of man. My flesh is meat indeed, 
 and my blood is drink indeed,” evidently means 
 that it is the spiritual sustenance for the soul of 
 man, supplied by the precepts and example of his 
 
214 SOME REMARKS ON SACRIFICES AS CONNECTED 
 
 whole life. He says nothing of his earthly body 
 being offered up to deprecate the wrath of God on 
 man’s behalf. All this, by a perusal of the New 
 Testament, a scrupulous and uneasy Christian may 
 find out for himself; but it would be well if a con¬ 
 scientious clergyman would now and then explain 
 it from the pulpit. I say nothing of the occasion 
 it gives for infidels to justify their disbelief. For 
 on those who, from the beauty and perfection of 
 his character, the purity and wisdom of his pre¬ 
 cepts, and the simple story of his life given in the 
 four Gospels, are not convinced that he came from 
 heaven on a Divine mission, no point of doctrine 
 would have any effect. 
 
 Let us now consider how this view of the Atone¬ 
 ment agrees with the opinions of the three different 
 sects of Christians noticed at the beginning of this 
 book. With the belief of the Arians, who suppose 
 the pre-existence of our Saviour in a highly exalted 
 state before he became man, it is perfectly consist¬ 
 ent, for his noble generosity is the more transcend¬ 
 ent,—the more worthy for his previous exaltation, 
 of the favour of his Heavenly Father. With that 
 of the Socinians (as they are called), who receive 
 him as a man on whom the Holy Spirit was shed 
 beyond measure, his devoted generosity, though 
 very great, is less wonderful. With the ideas of 
 the Trinitarians it cannot be said either to agree or 
 disagree, for it eludes all conceivable estimation. 
 God and Christ, with all reverence I would speak 
 it, being merged in one, how their love, admira¬ 
 tion and favour regarding one another could act, 
 no human intellect can conceive. But as I have 
 
WITH THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 215 
 
 already said, our obligations to Christ for his in¬ 
 effable goodness in living and dying to save us from 
 sin and punishment are most worthy of our deep¬ 
 est gratitude in whatever light we behold them. 
 
 The grand question as to the attributes of God, 
 “ How came sin into the world?” has, we know, 
 perplexed many a benevolent mind ; and I will 
 answer it by another question, How came heroes 
 and martyrs, how came the devoted, the self-deny¬ 
 ing, the compassionate, into the world ? 
 
216 
 
 REGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF 
 
 CREEDS. 
 
 There are two ways of examining the High Church 
 doctrine of the Trinity. On the one we set out, 
 being beforehand imbued with an idea of it as a 
 Catholic doctrine, received by the most learned and 
 able of Christian divines, who believed it to be fully 
 warranted by Scripture or fully taught there. On 
 the other we set out as simple untaught people of 
 common sense, who examine as we go along the 
 whole of what is presented to us there. 
 
 Taking the first path, though intending to follow 
 Scripture, we have many other guides,—so many 
 that we are bewildered among them. One after 
 another points to various texts or passages, con¬ 
 taining, as he says, undoubted proofs that Christ 
 and his Apostles taught the doctrine as a funda¬ 
 mental article of faith. But probably we shall not 
 perceive that those texts, though brought in contact 
 to support one another, are almost constantly, from 
 their own immediate contexts, so materially changed 
 as to render them unfit for the purpose required ; as 
 for instance, “ I and my Father are one ; ” That all 
 men may honour the Son even as they honour the 
 Father ; ” “ Before Abraham was, I am “ Who, 
 being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to 
 
REGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF GREEDS. 217 
 
 be equal with God;” and also appropriating, as 
 proofs of their own doctrine, the innumerable parts 
 of the New Testament where Christ is called the 
 Son of God ;—as if no Being, however good and 
 exalted, could be called the Son of God unless he 
 were equal in duration and power with his Almighty 
 and everlasting Father. 
 
 Taking the second-mentioned path, we set oat 
 as simple untaught people, who are to be guided 
 by the plainly declared general tenor of Scripture, 
 and say to ourselves at the end of our examination, 
 Is this doctrine really taught in the New Testa¬ 
 ment ? Should we, if undirected by sermons and 
 commentaries, have perceived that such a doctrine 
 is taught by Jesus Christ and his Apostles ? The 
 host of texts mentioning Christ as the Son of God 
 would be no obstacle to our concluding that it is 
 not taught by them; for the natural idea of Son 
 and Father does not imply equality, and is a general 
 expression in all languages pointing out character 
 and resemblance only. 
 
 The great purpose of the foregoing pages of this 
 hook has been to enforce the duty of every Chris¬ 
 tian examining for himself the grounds of his faith 
 as they are to be found in the books of the New 
 Testament, aided also with a competent knowledge 
 of the Old, with which it is naturally connected. 
 I have shown to the best of my ability all the pass¬ 
 ages in the Gospels and Epistles bearing upon the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, either as favouring or not 
 favouring it. But a shorter method may be pur¬ 
 sued of being in possession of all that can be said 
 to establish its authority, by reading the Epistles 
 
218 REGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF CREEDS. 
 
 and Gospels, with the morning and evening Les¬ 
 sons, appointed by the Church for those Sundays 
 and Holydays on which the Athanasian Creed is 
 ordered to be read ; for surely, having such damna¬ 
 tory threatenings annexed to it, it required that 
 the authority by which it is imposed should be made 
 manifest. To make this easy, I annex a list of all 
 the Sundays and Holydays on which the Church 
 orders it to be repeated :— 
 
 Christmas Day. 
 
 Morning. Isaiah, chap. ix. to the 8th verse. 
 Luke, chap. ii. to the 15th verse. 
 
 Evening. Isaiah, chap, vii., 10th verse to the 17th. 
 Titus, chap, iii., 4th verse to the 9th. 
 
 Epiphany. 
 
 Morning. Isaiah, chap. lx. Luke, chap. iii. to 
 verse 23. 
 
 Evening. Isaiah, chap. xlix. John, chap. ii. to 
 verse 12. 
 
 St. Matthias. 
 
 Morning. Wisdom of Solomon, chap. xix. 
 
 Evening. Ecclesiasticus, chap. i. No proper 
 second lessons. 
 
 Easter Sunday. 
 
 Morning. Exodus xii. Romans vi. 
 
 Evening. Exodus xiv. Acts ii. to verse 22. 
 
 Ascension Day. 
 
 Morning. Deut. x. Luke xxiv., from v. 44 to 
 the end. 
 
 Evening. 2 Kings ii. Eph. iv. to v. 17. 
 
REGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF CREEDS. 219 
 
 Whitsunday. 
 
 Morning. Deut. xvi. to verse 18. Acts x., from 
 v. 34 to the end. 
 
 Evening. Isaiah xi. Acts xix. to verse 21. 
 
 St. John Baptist. 
 
 Morning. Malachi iii. Matthew iii. 
 
 Evening. Malachi iv. Matthew xiv. to verse 13. 
 
 St. James. 
 
 Morning. Ecclus. xxi. Evening. Ecclus. xxii. 
 
 St. Bartholomew. 
 
 Morning. Ecclus. xxiv. Evening. Ecclus. xxix. 
 
 St. Matthew. 
 
 Morning. Ecclus. xxxv. Evening. Ecclus. xxxviii. 
 
 St. Simon and St. Jude. 
 
 Morning. Job xxiv., xxv. Evening. Job xlii. 
 
 St. Andrew. 
 
 Morning. Proverbs xx. Evening. Proverbs xxi. 
 
 Trinity Sunday. 
 
 Morning. Genesis i. Matthew iii. 
 
 Evening. Genesis xviii. 1st John, v. 
 
 I have not set down the Gospels and Epistles of 
 each of the above days, as they can so easily be 
 found in the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 When all this has been laid before a simple un¬ 
 learned mind, what does it amount to ? Very little, 
 
220 REGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF CREEDS. 
 
 it appears to me, if anything. But after this con¬ 
 clusion a very important question arises—how and 
 when was this doctrine deemed by the Church 
 necessary to salvation among Christians ? It is a 
 question not easily to be answered. It probably 
 crept in among them by degrees, as the Christian 
 leaders who succeeded the Apostles became ambi¬ 
 tious of being esteemed men of learning, and there¬ 
 by increasing their influence in the world and the 
 number of their converts. St. Peter was the most 
 active and powerful in preaching the Gospel at the 
 beginning of its course, and proved, as his Master 
 foretold, a rock, or the rock upon which he then 
 founded his Church. Yet St. Paul afterwards, who 
 became so eminent among the Gentile nations, 
 had what would be considered as the advantage 
 over him in being a man of learning, acquainted 
 with the poetry and philosophy of the Greeks. But 
 in Paul’s address or sermon to the Athenians, 
 it is the power and goodness of the only One 
 Supreme God that he so eloquently teaches (Acts, 
 chap. xvii. verse 22, and on to the end). St. Paul 
 well knew that their most eminent philosophers 
 had peculiar speculations of their own regarding the 
 Divine Essence, somewhat resembling what Chris¬ 
 tians in subsequent years called the Trinity; and 
 had his own faith leant to that doctrine, after having 
 quoted one of their poets, he would naturally have 
 mentioned his further accordance with the writings 
 of their great men. But this he does not do, though 
 he was always ready to seize upon any circumstance 
 that might dispose his hearers to receive favourably 
 the Gospel which he so zealously preached. The 
 
REGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF CREEDS. 221 
 
 only declaration of St. Paul that can be considered 
 as a declaration of his faith, is to be found in his 
 Epistle to the Ephesians, 4th chapter, verses 4, 5, 6, 
 when, after exhorting to keep the unity of the spirit 
 in the bond of peace, he adds, “ There is one body 
 and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope 
 of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 
 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and 
 through all, and in you all.” 
 
 The Nicene Creed, with no damnatory clauses 
 joined to its articles of belief, agrees, if not strictly 
 examined, with the Athanasian ; but long before the 
 introduction of either of these, there had existed 
 another and much simpler creed, containing only 
 what was plainly taught in Scripture, and which 
 with some additions constituted what has been 
 called the Apostles’ Creed*. Why was it so 
 called? For this plain reason, no doubt, that it 
 contained all the material points of doctrine taught 
 by the Apostles, unmixed with any subsequent 
 additions. In these days, when a great portion 
 of the English clergy are endeavouring to bring 
 the doctrines and ceremonies of the Church as 
 near the Roman Catholic notions and forms as 
 they can, that anything will be done to remove 
 Creeds that are in the opinion of very many Chris¬ 
 tians unwarranted by Scripture, and to weed from 
 the Liturgy such prayers and responses as coincide 
 with them and depend upon them, cannot be rea¬ 
 sonably expected. But a time may not be very 
 
 * “ That which now passes under the title of the Apostles’ 
 Creed seems to have been peculiar to the Roman church, and that 
 very anciently, as to the chief articles thereof; for it appears 
 that in process of time it hath been somewhat altered, especially 
 by addition.”—Barrow’s Exposition on the Creed. 
 
222 REGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF CREEDS. 
 
 far distant when an enlightened majority of the 
 clergy, with bishops and archbishops at their 
 head, may deem it right to petition the Sovereign 
 to call a Convocation, which being assembled will 
 have full power to remove from the Liturgy every 
 part that does not appear to them to be plainly 
 founded on the Word of God. If our highest 
 Church Court, with the Sovereign presiding as head 
 of the Church, has not power to do this, it can 
 scarcely be called a Church at all. 
 
 Returning to the same unanswered question, I 
 request to observe, that though St. Paul claimed for 
 his new religion no kindred with the writings of the 
 Greek philosophers concerning the Essence of the 
 Deity, the great success of his ministry in those 
 parts of the empire originally peopled with Grecian 
 colonies would induce Christian teachers succeed¬ 
 ing him to become students of Greek writers ; and 
 the notions drawn from them would gradually and 
 silently make their way from disciple to disciple 
 with no public record or date attached to them. 
 When they became strong enough in numbers to 
 attack others, then they probably began to call 
 themselves the Church , and to persecute or be per¬ 
 secuted as the changeable circumstances of the 
 times might induce. The sect whose faith seems 
 most plainly supported by the general tenor of the 
 New Testament, and then strong enough to divide 
 the Christian world, was after a time, when an em¬ 
 peror became a Christian of the Grecian school, 
 declared to be heretic by the asserters of the Trinity, 
 who at the same time pronounced themselves to be 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
 In all religions, the doctrines of the founders, 
 
REGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF CREEDS. 223 
 
 whether transmitted to posterity by written accounts 
 or oral tradition, have been departed from, and 
 loaded with additional matter perplexing and incon¬ 
 gruous, which has been brought forward by the 
 priesthood as of more importance than that which 
 was originally divulged. That a religion founded 
 by One whose transcendently beautiful character, 
 admirable precepts, and well-attested acts, showed 
 
 that he was sent from God, above all other revela- 
 
 \ 
 
 tions, should be treated bv his after-followers and 
 disciples in the same way, is one of the appoint¬ 
 ments of Divine Providence that we cannot fully 
 understand, though we may be sure that it will 
 ultimately prove to be a wise appointment. That 
 those additions were made from lust of lucre and 
 domination we cannot well doubt. But had men 
 been less ambitious, sordid, and bigoted, how 
 should our hearts be stirred within us as they now 
 are by the example of martyrs and sufferers who 
 nobly endured to the end all the scourgings of 
 power and buffetings of the world for the sake of 
 a faith which they believed to be true, and worthy 
 to be maintained at the expense of all that human 
 nature can endure or relinquish ! 
 
 Q 
 
4 
 
 224 
 
 ON THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES 
 OF SCRIPTURE PHRASEOLOGY. 
 
 In the heathen mythology, offerings to the gods 
 were considered as somewhat bestowed upon the 
 particular god whom the votary wished to propi¬ 
 tiate ; as something added in some way or other to 
 the honour and gratification of that god, and claim¬ 
 ing in return a grant of benefits and favours. No 
 deity of their celestial synod could be supposed to 
 say, “ I need no bullock out of thy house, nor he- 
 goat out of thy folds, for every beast of the forest 
 is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” A 
 liberal man who loaded the altars with his gifts, 
 could, in his imagination, make the gods his debtors; 
 and under such circumstances, that he should also 
 be a humble man was scarcely to be expected. 
 
 The Jews worshiped the Maker and Lord of the 
 whole earth ; yet this did not prevent them from 
 claiming merit for the multitude of their offerings, 
 and from being ostentatious of their alms and their 
 prayers ; these were considered as giving to God 
 what they might have withheld or given less boun¬ 
 tifully, or in some degree as putting seed into the 
 ground to be returned to them an hundredfold. 
 And if God should not regard or reward their wor- 
 
ON SCRIPTURE PHRASEOLOGY. 
 
 225 
 
 ship and their offerings, the praises of men and the 
 worldly advantages arising from such seeming sanc¬ 
 tity were well worth obtaining at considerable cost. 
 The prevalence of such religious display had become 
 very great in the latter days of the Jews in Jeru¬ 
 salem. It is not then very wonderful, that when 
 Jesus Christ came among them he found self-suffi¬ 
 ciency and hypocrisy the besetting sin of the whole 
 nation, and that his admonitions and discourses 
 were frequently directed against it. To his generous 
 self-devoting character, such a sin (even humanly 
 speaking) must have been peculiarly offensive. 
 Those simple-hearted men who had been his fol¬ 
 lowers could not but adapt their teachings to his 
 views of the national propensity ; and through the 
 whole of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles 
 this is to be distinctly and abundantly traced, viz. 
 that man cannot benefit his Creator; that when he 
 has done his best, he is still an unprofitable servant; 
 that we are prone to evil, and cannot subdue our 
 bad dispositions but by the Spirit of God aiding 
 our own endeavours ; that we are altogether desti¬ 
 tute of everything that can justify pride or boasting. 
 These doctrines throughout the Acts of the Apostles 
 and the Epistles are continually insisted upon, while 
 at the same time strict morality is enforced upon 
 us to make our calling and election sure. From 
 such teachings, the familiar language of the early 
 Christians could not fail to be mixed with phrases 
 connected with their faith ; and while their Chris¬ 
 tian warfare with the heathen world continued, it 
 
 t 
 
 would be natural and appropriate. 
 
 When Christianity spread over the Roman em- 
 
226 ON THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES 
 
 pire, and its teachers acquired power,—when few 
 could read Scripture,—and still more afterwards, 
 when few T were allowed to read it,—such forms of 
 speech faded away, and then returned the old hea¬ 
 then and Jewish ideas regarding the efficacy of 
 sacrifices. The individual man or woman, however 
 virtuous, could have no merit of anv avail; but the 
 Church had it in abundance, and could communi¬ 
 cate it ; and worldly offerings of affluent sinners 
 through her became acceptable as a gift given to 
 God himself. This state of things no doubt put 
 all technical expressions of humility out of use. A 
 Crusader fighting for the Cross would not be in¬ 
 clined to underrate his exertions, nor be encouraged 
 to do so by those who directed his conscience. The 
 blustering oaths of barons and military retainers 
 were all that in daily conversation marked their 
 connexion with religion. This, though mitigated 
 by some degree of revived learning and growing 
 civilization, continued to be the case till the Refor¬ 
 mation, when the roused-up reformers, with the 
 Bible in their hands and imprinted on their memo¬ 
 ries, very naturally reverted to the energetic phra¬ 
 seology of St. Paul, and the contemporary writers 
 of Christian Epistles. Professions of the deepest 
 conviction of man’s total inability to do of himself 
 any good work whatever deserving the acceptance 
 of God, w r ere continually mixed with common con¬ 
 versation ; and in truth they suffered so much, and 
 struggled so nobly in the cause of truth, that they 
 seemed to be entitled to make use of evangelical 
 language, and it was natural in them to do so. 
 Afterwards, when various Protestant sects, free 
 
OF SCRIPTURE PHRASEOLOGY. 
 
 227 
 
 from any danger of worldly loss on account of 
 their faith, and only quarrelling with one another 
 for pre-eminence, continued to make use, as if by 
 habit, of the same expressions on every common 
 occasion, it became incongruous and absurd. Very 
 bad consequences followed from this. It gave oc¬ 
 casion for the leading men and youth of those days, 
 connected with a reckless and profligate court, to 
 make a mockery of all outward signs of religion 
 and all pretensions to virtue from religious motives, 
 and from them it spread like a pestilence over the 
 inferior gentry of the country. An old man of the 
 higher class might sometimes be seen at church, 
 but of middle-aged and young men scarcely any. 
 The son of a pious mother behoved to go there by 
 stealth if he went by himself, and not in attendance 
 upon her. 
 
 But after all this miserable state of things has 
 passed away, and these Scriptural phrases still re¬ 
 main in use with some Protestants of different sects, 
 what, it may be asked, is the harm of such lan¬ 
 guage ? Great harm, I am fully persuaded. The 
 frequent allusions to the inherent wickedness of man, 
 and his total inability to do any good work without 
 the aid of the Holy Spirit, and the daily professions 
 of very worthy people as being in their own estima¬ 
 tion on a level with the greatest of sinners, has and 
 cannot but have a very bad moral effect on a great 
 proportion of the community. There are indeed 
 excellent people, who, professing such an exagge¬ 
 rated humility, are at the same time as diligent to 
 add good works to their profession, as if works were 
 necessary to salvation ; but this is a constrained 
 
228 
 
 ON SCRIPTURE PHRASEOLOGY. 
 
 position of the mind, and cannot be steadily main¬ 
 tained. Another objection to such phraseology is, 
 that, often entering into every-day conversation, it 
 makes no beneficial impression when it otherwise 
 might. An expression that would on rare and fit¬ 
 ting occasions move the heart,—bring tears into 
 the eyes of an unconcerned hearer,—if it has been 
 familiarly used on unfitting occasions will make 
 no impression at all, perhaps one that is offensive. 
 
 Christian humility should be in accordance with 
 common sense, linked with our native conscious¬ 
 ness of right and wrong ; both being as truly the 
 gift of God as any of the superadded gifts received 
 by grace. Through the whole of the New Testa¬ 
 ment this is plainly implied. All the moral exhor¬ 
 tations of the Apostles are founded upon it; and 
 though St. James reproves a presumptuous manner 
 of announcing intentions regarding worldly schemes 
 and journeys, &c., we have little reason to believe 
 he would have been pleased to hear —please God — 
 by God's permission , or words of similar import, 
 prefacing an intention of a very frequent or familiar 
 kind. Nay, may we not suspect that such modes 
 of speaking keep young persons of delicate minds 
 from speaking to others of religious impressions, 
 because their own native thoughts as they arise in 
 their hearts cannot find a proper reverential utter¬ 
 ance ? A framework of technical language has 
 been appropriated to the subject from which they 
 shrink with distaste, while thev know not how to do 
 without it. 
 
229 
 
 i 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Along with the doctrine of Christ’s co-equality with the Su¬ 
 preme God, who sent him to earth to do his will and save men 
 from ruin, some well-meaning divines have been fond of setting 
 forth the meanness of his earthly condition with offensive exag¬ 
 geration, and producing no increase in the pious mind of gratitude 
 or love Women ministered to him of their substance, and they 
 represent him as a beggar : though surrounded by disciples who 
 had left all to follow him, and by many also who had benefited 
 by his miracles, how could it otherwise be but that they should 
 minister of their substance spontaneously ? They represent the 
 whole of his course upon earth as one of misery and humiliation, 
 though crowds of his countrymen followed him from city to city 
 to see his wonderful works and to listen to his precepts and pa¬ 
 rables, and are fond of applying to him passages in the Psalms 
 and the Prophets, such as, “ His face is more marred than any 
 man’s, and when he is seen there is nothing to be desired,” &c.; 
 and what David said of himself when under the self-degradation 
 of remorse, “ I am a worm and no man.” It was the priests, the 
 scribes, and the pharisees who hated Jesus of Nazareth, and 
 stirred up the vilest of the Jews, who were ready to be their 
 hirelings for any purpose, to put him to death. And this idea is 
 fully supported by the account given of the great success of 
 Peter’s first preaching to the people, when three thousand at one 
 time and five thousand at another were added to the number of 
 believers. Those three~and five thousand did not come from the 
 ferocious rabble who insulted him on his way to Golgotha, we 
 may well suppose, but from those who had heard him teach, and 
 seen him stretch out his hands to cure the maimed and diseased,— 
 to awaken the dead : from those who had known how tenderly he 
 pitied the most helpless part of the community, and took children 
 to his arms to bless them. It was with the distresses of these that 
 his prophetic mind sympathized when he said, “ Woe to them 
 who are with child and give suck in those days!” It has been 
 done, no doubt, with a good intention, to increase our sense of 
 
230 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 the great sacrifice he made of himself for our sakes. But such 
 marks of indignity to one who came from a previous exalted state, 
 to which, after enduring the pain of natural death, he was to 
 return, could be no mortification. The mockery and contempt 
 of men were to him as the grimaces of an ape or the spitting of 
 a toad are to a man. Some notion of his estimate of worldly 
 honour may be drawn from that passage in the Gospel where he 
 says to his disciples, “ Whether is greatest: he who sitteth at 
 meat, or he who serveth ? Is not he who sitteth at meat ? but I 
 am among you as he who serveth.” He was born into the world 
 with the bodily infirmity of shrinking from pain and death, and 
 had the near prospect of it before his eyes from the commence¬ 
 ment of his difficult and perilous ministry. This was his human 
 trial, in which we are called if need be to imitate him. I am the 
 more earnest on this subject, because of the bad effects hu¬ 
 miliating representations of our Saviour’s worldly condition are 
 apt to leave on the imaginations of young persons. Even the 
 pictures of Christ by painters of high reputation, and engraved 
 by good artists for the decoration of what are called pictorial 
 Bibles and other grave publications, do, I am persuaded, much 
 mischief. They defraud the young mind of a less distinct, but 
 far more engaging image of its own forming, that would have 
 dwelt there. 
 
 That Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by the priesthood 
 and rulers of the Jews, not by the nation at large, is clearly 
 shown from the difficulty they had in securing his person,—their 
 coming upon him by night guided by his false Apostle, and the 
 frequent expressions in the Gospels, “ they sought to lay hands 
 upon him, but durst not because of the people.” This entirely 
 agrees with history, w T ith the behaviour of the Roman governor 
 when Jesus was brought to his tribunal, and with what is said of 
 Herod’s being glad to see him, expecting to have his curiosity 
 satisfied, &c.; and it is also consistent with the manner in which 
 Josephus, the Jewish historian, mentions him. It has been sup¬ 
 posed that those passages from Josephus were interpolations sub¬ 
 sequently added by Christians ; but if we receive them as original 
 text, considered along with the circumstances of the writer him¬ 
 self, they are perfectly consistent. 
 
 One unhappy consequence of a received opinion that our 
 Saviour was persecuted and crucified by the nation at large, has 
 
NOTE. 
 
 231 
 
 been the cruelty and injustice with which the Jews in after-times 
 were treated by very unchristian Christians. Now that men 
 are more enlightened, it is reasonable to hope they will be less 
 prejudiced, and will receive their contemporaries of the Hebrew 
 nation into their society as children of Abraham, through whom, 
 taking the advantages of the Christian religion in their most con¬ 
 fined sense, all nations of the earth are blessed. A desponding, 
 melancholy reader will shake his head at this ; and looking 
 around the world, on all the slave-merchants, all the greedy 
 graspers of unjust gains, all the oppressors of the industrious 
 poor, all the corrupted and selfish beings under the name of 
 Christians in every land, will feel his mortified spirit sink within 
 him. But let him not dwell on this sad view. He ought to turn 
 his thoughts, not to the Christian Church or Churches, but to the 
 general tendency of Christianity itself. He must think of it as 
 a Spirit of light, now less or more pervading nations who have 
 never directly heard it preached, and mitigating evils that no 
 other remedy could have reached,—a reflection from that Light 
 which our Almighty Father hath sent into the world. In taking 
 this view of the Jews as connected with the Christian religion, 
 we shall more readily shake off our long-cherished enmity to that 
 unhappy race ; and, favoured by the events of present times, re¬ 
 gard them with altered and brotherly feelings. Such a change 
 will be the true forerunners of that blessed state foretold by the 
 Prophet of Israel, when the lion shall lie down with the kid, and 
 they shall not hurt nor destroy on God’s holy mountain. 
 
232 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE ON SIR ISAAC NEWTON. [Seepp. 137, 139, & 142.] 
 
 Since my correspondence with the late Bishop 
 of Salisbury has been printed off, I have been asked 
 by a friend if I was aware of the grounds (exclusive 
 of the work on the disputed texts from St. John's 
 Epistle and 1 Tim. iii. 16.) on which Newton has 
 been considered as a Unitarian. I answered in the 
 negative, and begged of him to point out to me 
 where they are to be found ; which request he has 
 complied with in a very friendly manner, and I am 
 glad to be permitted to make use of them here in 
 the form of a note, and given in his own words. 
 
 The desire to find that the wisest and best of men have held 
 opinions similar to our own upon subjects of the highest import¬ 
 ance, is a natural feeling, and entitled to respect; and as the 
 names of Newton, Milton, Locke, &c., have been so frequently 
 adduced by writers in defence of revealed religion as firm believers 
 in Christianity, it is not to be wondered at that the Bishop should 
 have had much reluctance in admitting that Sir Isaac Newton’s 
 views of its doctrines were so different from his own. Incredu¬ 
 lous, however, as he may have been as to the unitarianism of 
 Newton, other trinitarian writers do not hesitate to admit it. 
 Thus Dr. Chalmers, after having, in the second of his Astronomical 
 Discourses, remarked that “ we see in the theology of Newton 
 the very spirit and principle which gave all its stability and all 
 its sureness to the philosophy of Newton,” thinks it requisite in 
 his preface to qualify what he had said*, as “ liable to miscon¬ 
 struction ” if not further explained, alleging that Newton had 
 not “ at all times succeeded in his interpretation; else he would 
 never have abetted the leading doctrine of a sect, or a system, 
 which has now [as Dr. Chalmers surmises] nearly dwindled away 
 from public observation.” M. Ramsay also, who was Newton’s 
 contemporary, represented him as having endeavoured “ to re- 
 
 * See Mardon’s Letter to Dr. Chalmers; 1818. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 233 
 
 establish Arianism, by the agency of his celebrated disciple and in¬ 
 terpreter Dr. Clarke.*” And in later times Bishop Horsley, who 
 inserted in his edition of Newton’s works (1785) the first com¬ 
 plete copy of Sir Isaac’s “ Historical Account of Two notable 
 Corruptions of Scripture” from a MS. in his own hand-writing in 
 the possession of Dr. Ekens, Dean of Carlisle, appears to have 
 seen clearly enough that Sir Isaac’s reasoning was such as was 
 incompatible with his being a Trinitarian. On his expression 
 with regard to the baptismal form, as being “ the place from which 
 they tried at first to derive the Trinity,” Bishop Horsley adds the 
 following note :—“ The insinuation contained in this expression, 
 that the Trinity is not to be derived from the words prescribed for 
 the baptismal form, is very extraordinary to come from a writer 
 who was no Socinian” 
 
 We have the direct evidence upon this point of Mr. Whiston, 
 who was first Sir Isaac Newton’s deputy in the mathematical 
 professorship at Cambridge, of which he generously gave him the 
 entire salary, and who on his resignation was recommended by 
 him to the Heads of Colleges for his successor, and enjoyed his 
 friendship for many years, as we learn from his Authentic Records, 
 Part II, 1071. In this work, (p. 1076) we have the following 
 account:— “ Sir Isaac Newton was one who early and thoroughly 
 
 had examined the system and records of Christianity.In 
 
 particular, Sir Isaac Newton was one who had thoroughly exa¬ 
 mined the state of the Church in its most critical juncture, the 
 fourth century. He had early and thoroughly discovered that the 
 old Christian faith, concerning the Trinity in particular, was then 
 changed; that what has been long called Arianism , is no other than 
 old uncorrupt Christianity ; and that Athanasius was the grand and 
 the very wicked instrument of that change. This was occasionally 
 known to those few who were intimate with him all along; from 
 whom, notwithstanding his prodigiously fearful, cautious and sus¬ 
 picious temperf, he could not always conceal so important a disco¬ 
 very. Nor need I now crave the reader’s belief of my testimony in 
 
 * “ M. le Chevalier Newton etoit persuade de la verite de la religion; 
 mais il voulut raffiner sur les anciennes erreurs Orientales, et renourella 
 l’Arianisme par l’organe de son fameux disciple et interprete M. Clarke.” 
 
 f Mr. Locke, in a letter to Sir Peter King, speaks of Newton as “a 
 little too apt to raise in himself suspicions where there is no ground:” 
 he also mentions “ his wonderful skill in divinity, and his great know¬ 
 ledge in the Scriptures, wherein,” he adds, “ I know few his equals.”— 
 Life and Correspondence, p. 259. 
 
234 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 this case. Sir Isaac Newton has left not a few undeniable testi¬ 
 monials of it behind him, witness his MS. Dissertations upon two 
 of the famous New Testament texts concerned in that contro¬ 
 versy, 1 Tim. iii. 16., and 1 John, v. 7., both whose present 
 readings he took to be Athanasian interpolations. Mr. Le Gierke 
 mentions these Dissertations in his epistle before Dr. Kuster’s 
 edition of Dr. Mill’s Greek Testament, without seeming to know 
 their author; he having received copies of them from the famous 
 Mr. Locke; and, I suppose, without any intimation that they 
 were Sir Isaac Newton’s. However, the reader need not go so 
 far as Holland for satisfaction here, since these Dissertations were 
 both put into Latin by a common friend of Sir Isaac Newton’s and 
 mine, many years ago, at Sir Isaac Newton’s own desire; and, 
 
 I suppose, with a design to have them then printed ; though, upon 
 what occasion I can only guess, they were not printed at that 
 time, and are now in the hands of Sir Isaac Newton’s executors.” 
 
 The “common friend” of Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Whiston 
 here alluded to as having made the translation into Latin, we 
 learn from Wetstein* (Prolegomena, p. 185.), to have been Mr. 
 Hopton Haynes, whose express testimony we also have as to the 
 religious opinions of Sir Isaac Newton. This gentleman is men¬ 
 tioned by Whiston in his Memoirs, where, speaking of a paper 
 
 % 
 
 which he had written relative to infant baptism, approved by 
 Hoadley and Clarke, he adds :—“ I sent this paper also by an 
 intimate friend, Mr. Haines, to Sir Isaac Newton, and desired to 
 know his opinion. I afterwards found that Sir Isaac Newton 
 was so hearty for the Baptists as well as for the Eusebians or 
 Arians, that he sometimes suspected they were the two witnesses 
 in the Revelation.” This intimacy of Mr. Hopton Haynes with 
 Sir Isaac Newton naturally resulted from their being associated 
 for more than thirty years in the Mint, where he was the King’s 
 Assay-master. He w^as a learned and able scripture critic, as his 
 work “on the Attributes and Worship of God” evinces; and 
 we have it on his authority that “ Sir Isaac Newton did not 
 believe our Lord’s pre-existence, being a Socinian as we call it, 
 in that article; that he much lamented Mr. Clarke’s embracing 
 Arianism, which opinion he feared had been, and still would be, 
 
 * “ — Multis sed frustra egi, ut ab haeredibus Newtoni, apud quos 
 illas integras turn Anglice turn ab Hoptono Flayne Latine conversas de- 
 litescere resciveram, quod nostro exemplari deerat, impetrarem.” 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 235 
 
 if maintained by learned men, a great obstruction to the progress 
 of Christianity.” 
 
 Wetstein, as above quoted, bears testimony to the profound 
 skill and judgement of Newton in Scripture criticism, which he 
 represents as most extraordinary in a man so much occupied in 
 studies of another kind*; and states that he had so brought to¬ 
 gether his proofs with regard to the disputed texts as to amount 
 very nearly to mathematical evidence ; and that this, too, in great 
 measure resulted from his thorough acquaintance with ecclesi¬ 
 astical history, and with the writings of the Latin and Greek 
 Fathers. Mr. Whiston also speaks of him as deeply versed in 
 •this branch of learning, (Authentic Records, Part II. 1078.) “ He 
 has also left, 1 suppose, more papers concerning the fourth cen¬ 
 tury, and that fatal change that was then made in the Church by 
 Athanasius and his followers : of which period he has long ap¬ 
 peared to me to be one of the greatest masters that ever was.” 
 And this seems greatly to have contributed to his rejection of the 
 Trinity, according to the following account in Whiston’s Life of 
 Dr. Clarke :—“ About this time I discovered that my friend Mr. 
 Clarke had been looking into the primitive writers, and begun to 
 suspect that the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity was not the 
 doctrine of those early ages ; which I had not then any particular 
 knowledge of.”...“ Whether Mr. Newton had given Mr. Clarke 
 yet any intimations of that nature,—for he knew it long before this 
 time ,—or whether it arose from some inquiries of his own, I do 
 not directly know: though I incline to the latter.” Page 12. 
 
 That the design of Sir Isaac’s elaborate Dissertation on the Two 
 notable Corruptions of Scripture was to overthrow two of the 
 main arguments for the Trinity, it would seem preposterous 
 to question: and we learn that he was at the pains to send 
 copies of it in his own hand-writing to some of his friends; and 
 commissioned Mr. Locke to get it published in Holland either in 
 Latin or French. (See the Life and Correspondence of Locke, 
 by Lord King, p. 215, 230.) The copy of it which Le Clerc had 
 was in the hand-writing of Mr. Locke, who, in his correspond¬ 
 ence with him on the subject never disclosed the author’s name. 
 
 * His theological knowledge is thus referred to in his epitaph :— 
 “Naturae, Antiquitatis, S. Scripturae, 
 
 Sedulus, sagax, fidus interpres, 
 
 Dei Opt. Max. majestatem philosophia asseruit, 
 
 Evangelii simplicitatem moribus expressit.” 
 
236 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 As to the Bishop of Salisbury’s allusion to Newton’s suppres¬ 
 sion of his Dissertation, this is no ground for inferring a change 
 of opinion. From the first he showed his anxiety not to be known 
 as the author, which is by no means surprising, considering his 
 “fearful, cautious temper,” his public station, and the severe in- 
 forcement at that time of penal laws against those who impugned 
 the Trinity. In 1662 the Unitarian Biddell died in the dungeon to 
 which he had been dragged from his pulpit. Aikenhead was exe¬ 
 cuted for denying the Trinity in 1696 ; and the Act for punishing 
 impugners of the Trinity passed in 1699. Emlyn was imprisoned in 
 1703, and Elwall was prosecuted in 1726, the year before Newton 
 died. He was, moreover, so fond of quiet, “ that at an early period 
 of his career he was almost led to abandon even his darling Philo¬ 
 sophy when he found that she was such a ‘ litigious lady ’ as to 
 threaten him with a controversy and yet he had not escaped 
 imputations of infidelity, and even of atheism f, which some of 
 the bigots of his day had charged upon him,—imputations which 
 must have been very painful to one who valued religion as he did. 
 His caution therefore with regard to publication, was in exact 
 accordance with his character and the circumstances of his times. 
 Even at a later period the learned Lardner published anonymously 
 his famous letter on the Logos, after having suffered it to remain 
 twenty-nine years in his cabinet; and the opinions of Milton 
 upon the Trinity lay hid in the State Paper Office until the pub¬ 
 lication of his work De Doctrina Christiana by the Bishop of 
 Winchester in 1825. 
 
 * Mr. Whewell’s Newton and Flamsteed, p. 12. 
 
 *j* Ibid. p. 10.—Whiston’s Authentic Records, II. 1080.—Prof. Rigaud 
 in the Philosophical Magazine for 1836, p. 221.—So also Locke was 
 charged with scepticism by Bishop Stillingfleet and others ; and Leibnitz 
 thus commends his caution in not allowing himself to be drawn by the 
 Bishop into an open avowal of disbelief in the Trinity: “ II a trop de 
 jugement pour donner prise a Messieurs les ecclesiastiques, qui sont 
 les directeurs naturels des peuples, et dont il faut suivre les formulaires 
 autant qu’il est possible.”—Letter to Dr. Burnet, Locke’s Life, p. 196. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by Richard and John E. Taylor, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 
 
V