never claimed any honour nor respect on his own account, nor as due to himself as a person only inferior to the most high God; but such as be longed only to a prophet, an extraordinary messenger of God, to listen to the message and truths which he delivered from him. He in the most decisive terms declares the Lord God to be one person; and simply, exclusive of all others, to be the sole object of worship. He always prayed to the one God as his God and Father. He always spoke of himself as receiving his doctrine and power from him, and again and again disclaimed having any power of his own. John v. 19: Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do notbing of himself. John xiv. 10: The words which I speak unto you, I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. He directed men to worship the Father; and never let fall the least intimation that himself or any other person whomsoever was the object of worship. (See Luke xi. 1, 2. Matt. iv. 10.) He says in John xvi. 25, And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Christ cannot be that God to whom prayer is to be offer ed, because he is the high priest of that God to make intercession for us. (Acts vii. 25.) And if Christ be not the object of prayer, he cannot be either God or the maker and governor of the world under God. The apostles to the latest period of their writings speak the same language, representing the Father as the only true God, and Christ as a man, the servant of God, who raised him from the dead, and gave him all the power of which he is possessed, as a reward for his obedience. In Acts ii. 22, the apostle Peter calls Christ a man approved of God, &c.; and in Acts xvii. the apostle calls him the man whom God has ordained. 1 Tim. ii. 5: There is one God, and me Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Had the apostle Paul considered Christ as being any thing more than a man with respect to his nature, he could never have argued with the least propriety or effect, that as by man came death, so by man came also the resurrection of the dead: for it might have been replied, that by man came death; but not by man, but by God, or the Creator of the world under God, came the resurrection from the deal. The apostles directed men to pray to God the Father only. Acts iv. 24. Rom. xvi. 27, &c. This denomination maintain that repentance and a good life are of themselves sufficient to recommend us to the divine favour; and that nothing is necessary to make us in all situations the objects of his favour, but such moral conduct as he has made us capable of. That Christ did nothing by his death or in any other way to render God kind and merciful to sinners; or rather that God is of his own accord disposed to forgive men their sins, without any other condition than the sinner's repentance, is declared by the Almighty himself constantly and expressly in the old testament, and never contradicted in the new. Isai. lv. 7: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. See also Ezek. xviii. 27. This most important doctrine of the efficacy of repentance alone on the part of the sinner, as sufficient to recom mend him to pardon with God, is confirmed by Christ himself, Matt, vi. 12: If ye forgive men their trespasses,. your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But above all, the beautiful and affecting parable of the prodigal son, (Luke xv.) is most decisive that repentance is all our heavenly Father requires to restore us to his favour. The Unitarians of all ages have adopted the sentiments of Pelagius, with respect to human nature.* * The name of Unitarians is also claimed by those christians who believe there is but one God, and one object of religious worship; and that this one God is the Father only, and not a trinity consisting of Father, Son, and holy Ghost. They may or may not believe in Christ's. pre-existence. The term is thus defined by the celebrated Dr. Price, and applied by him to what he calls a middle scheme between Athanasianism and Socinianism. His plan and a few of the arguments he brings to support it may therefore be inserted under this appellation.—It teaches, that Christ descended *Priestley's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. p. 143. History of Early Opinions, vol. i. pp. 10-51, vol. iii. pp. 7-27. vol. iv. p. 67. Corruptions of Christianity, vol. 1. p. 135, Disquisitions, vol. i. p. 376. Institutes, vol. 1. p, 281. Appeal, pp. 19-47. Theological Repository, vol. iv. pp. 20436, Lindsey's View of the Unitarian Doctrine, &c., p. 355. Vindicia Priestleianæ, pp. 223--227, Apology, p. 186. Anwer to Robinson's Plea. to this earth from a state of pre-existent dignity; that he was in the beginning with God, and that by him God made the world; and that by a humiliation of himself which has no parallel, and by which he has exhibited an example of benevolence that passes knowledge, he took on him flesh and blood, and passed through human life, enduring all its sorrows, in order to bless and save a sinful race. By delivering himself up to death, he acquired the power of delivering us from death. By offering himself a sacrifice on the cross, he vindicated the honour of those laws which sinners had broken, and rendered the exercise of favour to them consistent with the holiness and wisdom of God's government; and by his resurrection from the dead, he proved the efficacy and acceptableness of his sacrifice. Christ not only declared, but obtained the availableness of repentance to pardon; and became by his interposition not only the conveyer, but the author and means of our future immortality. This was a service so great, that no meaner agent could be equal to it, and in consequence of it offers of full favour are made to all. No human being will be excluded from salvation, except through his own fault; and every truly virtuous man from the beginning to the end of time, let his country or religion be what it will, is made sure of being raised from death and being made happy for ever. In all this the supreme Deity is to considered as the first cause, and Christ as his gift to fallen man, and as acting under that eternal and self-existent Being, compared with whom no other being is either great or good, and of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things. Our learned author argues in this manner to prove the pre-existence of Christ.+ The history of our Saviour, ás given in the new testament, and the events of his life and ministry, answer best to the opinion of the superiority of his nature. Of this kind are his introduction into the world by a miraculous conception; the annunciations from heaven at his baptism and transfi Our learned author considers the destruction of being as the main circumstance in the punishment of the wicked. + Previous to this our author brings arguments to prove that there is one supreme God, and one object of religious worship. These are omitted, as the principal texts which are made use of to prove the inferiority of Christ to God the Father, are inserted in the Arian plan. The arguments here brought are only such as distinguish this denomination from the Socinians, guration, proclaiming him the Son of God, and ordering all to hear him; his giving himself out as come from God to shed his blood for the remission of sins; his perfect innocence, and sinless example; the wisdom by which he spake as never man spake; his knowledge of the hearts of men; his intimations that he was greater than Abraham, Moses, David, or even angels; those miraculous powers by which, with a command over nature like that which first produced it, he ordered tempests to cease, and gave eyes to the blind, limbs to the maimed, reason to the frantic, health to the sick, and life to the dead; his surrender of himself to the enemies who took away his life, after demonstrating that it was his own consent, gave them their power over him; the signs which accompanied his sufferings and death; his resurrection from the dead, and triumphant ascension into heaven. There are in the new testament express and direct declarations of the pre-existent dignity of Christ. John i. 1, compared with the 14th verse: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, &c. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. John iii. 13: No one has ascended up into heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven. John vi. 61: What if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? John viii. 58: Before Abraham was I am. See also John xvii. 5, 2 Cor. viii. 9, Phil. ii. 5, and following verses. There remain to quote the texts which mention the creation of the world by Jesus Christ. In Heb. i. 2, we read that God, who in former times spoke to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last times spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed the heir of all things; by whom also he made the worlds. John i. 3, 10. Col. i. 16.* The doctrine of God's forming the world by the agency of the Messiah gives a credibility to the doctrine of his interposition to save it, and his future agency in new-creating it; because it leads us to conceive of him as standing in a particular relation to it, and having an interest in it. The doctrine of Christ's simple humanity, when viewed According to our author, the formation of the world by Christ does not imply creation from nothing, that probably being peculiar to almighty power; but only an arrangement of things into their present order, and the esta blishment of that course of nature to which we are witnesses. Christ is not the original creator, but only God's minister in creating. in connexion with the scripture account of his exaltation, implies an inconsistency and improbability which falls little short of an impossibility. The scriptures tell us that Christ, after his resurrection, became Lord of the dead and living; that he had all power given him in heaven and earth; that angels were made subject to him; that he is hereafter to raise the dead and judge the world, and finish the scheme of the divine moral government with respect to the earth, by conferring eternal happiness on all the virtuous, and punishing the wicked with everlasting destruction. Can it be believed that a mere man could be advanced at once so high as to be above angels, and to be qualified to rule and judge the world? Do not all things rise gradually, one acquisition laying the foundation of another, and perhaps for higher acquisitions? The power, in particular, which the scriptures teach us Christ possesses, of raising to life all who have died and all who will die, is equivalent to the power of creating a world. How inconsistent is it to allow that he is to restore and new create this world, and yet to deny he might have been God's agent in originally forming it! *Price's Sermons, pp. 153-192. This plan coincides with the foregoing Unitarian system, in rejecting the trinity of the Godhead; the divinity of Christ; his being a proper object of prayer; the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity; and such a total* corruption of our natures by original sin, as deprives us of free-will, and subjects us before we have committed actual sin to the displeasure of God and future punishment; and also in rejecting absolute predestination, particular redemption, irresistable grace, andi justification by faith alone. It differs from the foregoing in two respects :-(1.) In asserting Christ to have been more than any human being.. (2.) In asserting that he took upon him human nature for a higher purpose than: merely revealing to mankind. the will of God, and instructing them in their duty and in the doctrines of religion.* The celebrated Dr. Priestley calls those philosophical unitarians, who in the early ages of christianity explained the doctrines concerning Christ according to the principles of the philosophy of those times. As the sun was supposed to emit rays and draw them into himself again, so the divine Being, of whom they imagined the sun to be an image, Price's Dissertations, p. 134. |