242 Tit! AILIAfi INVITLH TO ORTHODOX FAITH. cate their cbmpnission ? And thus, if they set up our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the appellant allows to be called God in an infe- rior sense, and proposed him as another god, another object of religious worship, did they not hereby sap the foundations of all their own pretences to a divine commission, and seem to give the Jews, theircountrymen, a right to stone them to death, accord- ing to their own law? And I humbly question, whether all their miracles could have been a sufficient protection to them. Let it be considered further, that when the Jews took up stones to stone our Saviour, they pronounced him worthy of death according to their law, for that he being a man made him- self god ; John x. M. Whereas the words which our Saviour spake were these, I and m:/ Father are one ; verse 30. He doth not deny himself to be God, which seemed very necessary to be done at such an important juncture as this, if he had not been the true God, nor doth hedeclare himself to be a God dif- ferent from the Father, which might have given the Jews a juster pretence to stone pini ; but his words are, I and my Fa- ther are one ; which represent him to be the saine God as the Father, or to be God by virtue of some personal oneness with the godhead of the Father. Nor canI conceive how any thing else but the supposition of this doctrine could have so honourably vindicated our Saviour's conduct at this juncture, and at the same time have taken away all just pretence from the Jews for attempting to stone him Since he did not preach up another God, his miraculous works obliged them to believe all that he said, and to these mighty works he appeals ; verse 32. Where- as, if he had preached up himself as another god, that Jewish law seems to stand in force against him notwithstanding his spiracles. I confess this thought has something in it very solemn and awful ; it carries, in my esteem, very great weight with it, and confirms me in the belief; that Jesus Christ has communion in the godhead of the Father, and is in a proper.sense the same God ;, otherwise I cannotsee how he could be made an object of religious worship : For if he be God only in an inferior sense, thenhe is another god, and seems hereby. to lie exposed to the condemnation of this sacred rule in Deuteronomy ; this divine test of future prophets which Jehovah gave to Israel by the Mouth of Moses. The learned Dr. Waterland is so positive on this head, that he asserts, The worship of the saine one God, exclusive of all others, is for ever made unchangeable by this text. " First Defence of the Queries." If it should be objected by an Arian here, That this, and all other prohibitions under the Old Testament,to worship any other god, must be construed with a particular relation to those false !rods and idols of the heathen nations of which the Jews were in
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