DISSERTATION I. 217 John i. 1, 14. " The Word, who was with God, and who war God, was made flesh, and dwelt among us." IX. May there not he such a close and intimate union or oneness between God and a creature,' as that the actions and characters öf`either of them maybe attributed to the whole com- pound being ? And may not till lay a foundation for such divine expressions concerning Christ, Viz. That "he is Jehovah, the great Godover all, God blessed for ever Jesus Christ the wine yesterday, to-day,' and for ever; and let all the angels of God worship him, which are characters belonging to the true God ; And yet concerning this same person Jesus Christ, is it not said also, he eat, drank, slept, walked, groaned and died, which are characters belonging to man ? X. May not this intimate union or oneness between God and a creature, give occasion for the actions and properties of the than tobe attributed to God ? And may we not this way ac- count for such expressions as these; Acts xx. 28. 0° God bath purchased the church with his own blood. 1 John iii. 16. " God laid down his lifeforas. 'God manifest in the flesh, was received up into glory ; 1 Tim. iii. 16 ? Note, This figure of speech, whereby the . peculiar attri- butes of one nature are ascribed tó another, is called a comma= uicatión Of properties : And it is usual in all languages, and iu all nations, when two distinct beings are united into one coal- ition principle of action. So we say of a wise woman, she is a prudent body ; so of à drunkard, that he is a thirsty soul. We often call a witty or skilful man, an ingenious headpiece, and we give the name of a sleepy soul to a sluggard ; because soul and body being united compose a man, therefore some property of body is oftentimes attributed to the soul, and some property of soul attributed to the body. XI. Is not this a more natural, more easy, and more scrip- tural method of accounting for the attribution of divine names and properties to our Lord Jesus Christ, than for us to take the peculiar and distinguishing names, titles, characters and proper- ties of godhead which are applied to Christ, andsink them to a diminutive and inferior sense, and thus apply them to the man Christ Jesus ? Would not every reader, even a Turk or an In- diani, readily believe these names and characters to be iucom. municably dtvine, and appropriate only to the great God, if they did not read them applied also to Jesus Christ ? And would they * I will allow the author of the a Sober Appeal to Turk or an Indian," to have given as fair a gloss to his coeesruction of those scriptures in another sense, as any writer has done :.Butin several places it is evident with how much difficulty and hardship those texts are strained to any other meaning than what the Trinitarian writers have generally given them. Where the gloss of that author is fairest, and most likely to prevail on readers, it shall be considered in some future papers, if the present essays are well received by the world.
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