in conjunction with the Son. For it is not Christ who is the great mystery of godliness,' but God the Father in Christ, as appears from Col. ii. 2. 'the mystery of God and of the Father, and of Christ.' 2 Cor. v. 18, 19. all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ....to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.' Why therefore should God the Father not be in Christ through the medium of all those offices of reconciliation which the apostle enumerates in this passage of Timothy? God was manifest in the flesh-namely in the Son, his own image; in any other way he is invisible: nor did Christ come to manifest himself, but his Father, John xiv. 8, 9. 'Justified in the Spirit'-and who should be thereby justified, if not the Father? Seen of angels'-inasmuch as they desired to look into this mystery, 1 Pet. i. 12. Preached unto the Gentiles'-that is, the Father in Christ. 'Believed on in the world'—and to whom is faith so applicable, as to the Father through Christ? 'Received up into glory'-namely, he who was in the Son from the beginning, after reconciliation had been made, returned with the Son into glory, or was received into that supreme glory which he had obtained in the Son. But there is no need of discussing this text at greater length: those who are determined to defend at all events the received opinion, according to which these several propositions are predicated not of the Father but of the Son alone, when they are in fact applicable both to the one and the other, though on different grounds, may easily establish that the Son is God, a truth which I am far

from denying-but they will in vain attempt to prove from this passage that he is the supreme God, and one with the Father.

The next passage is Tit. ii. 13. the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.' Here also the glory of God the Father may be intended, with which Christ is to be invested on his second advent, Matt. xvi. 27. as Ambrose understands the passage from the analogy of Scripture. For the whole force of the proof depends upon the definitive article, which may be inserted or omitted before the two nouns in the Greek without affecting the sense; or the article prefixed to one may be common to both.* Besides, in other languages, where the article is not used, the words may be understood to apply indifferently either to one or two persons; and nearly the same words are employed without the article in reference to two persons, Philipp. i. 2. and Philem. 3. except that in the latter passages the word Father is substituted for great. So also 2 Pet. i. 1. through the righteousness of [our] God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.' Here the repetition of the pronoun uv without the article, as it is read by some of the Greek manuscripts, shows that two distinct persons are spoken of. And surely what is proposed to us as an object of belief, especially in a matter involving a primary article of faith, ought not to be an inference forced and extorted from passages relating to an entirely different subject, in which the readings are sometimes various, and the

* On the importance of the Greek article, see Mr. Granville Sharp's Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article, &c.; Dr. Wordsworth's Six Letters to Mr. Sharp; Mr. Boyd's Supplementary Researches; and Bp. Middleton's Doctrine of the Greek Article.

sense doubtful,-nor hunted out by careful research from among articles and particles,-nor elicited by dint of ingenuity, like the answers of an oracle, from sentences of dark or equivocal meaning-but should be susceptible of abundant proof from the clearest sources. For it is in this that the superiority of the gospel to the law consists; this, and this alone, is consistent with its open simplicity; this is that true light and clearness which we had been taught to expect would be its characteristic. Lastly, he who calls God great, does not necessarily call him supreme, or essentially one with the Father; nor on the other hand does he thereby deny that Christ is the great God, in the sense in which he has been above proved to be such.

Another passage which is also produced is 1 John iii. 16. hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.' Here however the Syriac version reads illius instead of Dei, and it remains to be seen whether other manuscripts do the same.* The pronoun he, exsivos, seems not to be referred to God, but to the Son of God, as may be concluded from a comparison of the former chapters of this epistle, and the first, second, fifth and eighth verses of the chapter before us, as well as from Rom. v. 8. God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' The love of God, therefore, is the love of the Father, whereby he so loved the world, that he purchased it with his own blood,' Acts xx. 28. and for it laid down his life,' that is, the life of his only begotten Son, as it may be explained from John iii. 16. and by analogy from many other passages. Nor is it ex

* The Ethiopic version reads auroũ. Mill omits Osov.

traordinary that by the phrase, his life,' should be understood the life of his beloved Son, since we are ourselves in the habit of calling any much-loved friend by the title of life, or part of our life, as a term of endearment in familiar discourse. But the passage which is considered most important of all, is 1 John v. part of the twentieth verse-for if the whole be taken, it will not prove what it is adduced to support. '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.' For ' we are in him that is true in his Son,'-that is, so far as we are in the Son of him that is true :- this is the true God;' namely, he who was just before called him that was true,' the word God being omitted in the one clause, and subjoined in the other. For he it is that is he that is true' (whom that we might know, we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding') not he who is called the Son of him that is true,' though that be the nearest antecedent,-for common sense itself requires that the article this should be referred to 'him that is true,' (to whom the subject of the context principally relates,) not to the Son of him that is true."* Examples of a similar construction are not wanting. See Acts iv. 10, 11. and x. 16. 2 Thess. ii. 8, 9. 2 John 7. Compare also John xvii. 3. with which passage the verse in question seems to corres

*This is the interpretation of Benson, Wetstein, Schleusner, Macknight, &c. In support of the other construction, see Beza, Whitby, and particularly Waterland, Works, Vol. II. p. 123.

pond exactly in sense, the position of the words alone being changed. But it will be objected, that according to some of the texts quoted before, Christ is God; now if the Father be the only true God, Christ is not the true God; but if he be not the true God, he must be a false God. I answer, that the conclusion is too hastily drawn; for it may be that he is not 'he that is true,' either because he is only the image of him that is true, or because he uniformly declares himself to be inferior to him that is true. We are not obliged to say of Christ what the Scriptures do not say. The Scriptures call him God, but not him that is the true God;' why are we not at liberty to acquiesce in the same distinction? At all events he is not to be called a false God, to whom, as to his beloved Son, he that is the true God has communicated his divine power and glory.

They also adduce Philipp. ii. 6. who being in the form of God'—but this no more proves him to be God than the phrase which follows- took upon him the form of a servant'—proves that he was really a servant, as the sacred writers nowhere use the word form for actual being. But if it be contended that the form of God is here taken in a philosophical sense for the essential form, the consequence cannot be avoided, that when Christ laid aside the form, he laid aside also the substance and the efficiency of God; a doctrine against which they protest, and with justice. To be in the form of God,' therefore, seems to be synonymous with being in the image of God; which is often predicated of Christ, even as man is also said, though in a much lower sense, to be the image of God, and to be in the image of God, that