clothed with a mantle dipped in blood: and his name is called THE WORD OF GOD: and the armies which are in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and pure; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, that with it he might smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he shall tread the wine-press of the fierce anger of Almighty God: and he had on his mantle and on his thigh, a name written, KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS." If I have shown any undue warmth in reciting this passage, and giving my evidence on this point, I trust the Court will excuse it, and attribute it to the feelings of disgust and indignation excited in my mind, by those who talk of elevating such a mighty and august personage as this, to the rank of a demigod!1 Att. Gen. To go from this point to another. — What is your opinion and belief, as to the Jehovah of the Old Testament being the same with Christ in the New? and how does this opinion and belief either differ from, or agree with, what the Defendant Belsham has published? Witness. On. this point I am directly at issue with all the Defendants. My firm opinion is, that the Logos of St. John was the Jehovah Adonai of Nares's Reply, p. 38. the Jews; the Angel of God's Presence; the Angel of both Covenants; the Appearing God. It is thus that we can fairly assimilate the terms of the Old and New Testament, and illustrate the one by the other. When JEHOVAH appeared in the Shechinah to the patriarchs, it was "in the glory of God;" and is not the Son of God described by the Apostle to the Hebrews as "the brightness of God's glory?” Was not the Angel that was sent to the patriarchs above every thing distinguished by that most peculiar circumstance of bearing the very name of God or JEHOVAH, a name wholly incommunicable to creatures? "Behold! I send an angel to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared; beware of him, and obey his voice; provoke him not, for he will not pardon your trangressions, for MY NAME is in him." Now this Angel is repeatedly spoken of by Moses as JEHOVAH, in a manner the most striking and remarkable. Nothing, however, is more to the purpose than the relation given in Exodus, where it is said, "The Angel of the Lord appeared unto him (Moses) in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and the bush was not consumed; and Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD (Jehovah) saw that he turned aside to see, GOD called unto him out of the midst of the bush." (iii. 2-4.) It is certain that the ANGEL of God, who, under the patriarchal and legal dispensations, had the name of GOD in him, was called JEHOVAH, spake in the first person as JEHOVAH, calling himself"The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," appeared in the visible glory of God, was worshipped as God; yet we know, and are assured upon testimony the most unexceptionable, that " no man has seen the Father at any time." But this great and ineffable name of JEHOVAH was also by the prophets given to the Messiah; for the prophecy of Jeremiah declares that the name by which the Messiah shall be called is, JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.1 And what do we read in Isaiah? 66 "I, even I, am JEHOVAH, besides me there is No SAVIOUR;" and yet St. John emphatically declares Jesus Christ to be the SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD.2 The great name of JEHOVAH being thus given by the prophets to the Messiah, and, by implication at least, if not directly, ascribed to Jesus Christ by the writers of the New Testament, is it any wonder to find the Apostle to the Hebrews insisting so much 1 Ch. xxiii. 6. 2 See Nares's Reply, p. 88. and note. Compare Isaiah, ch. xliii. and John, iv. 42. The Prophet also says (xliv. 6.): "Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts, I am the First and the Last, and besides me there is no God.”— Now, this very character of the God of Israel, Christ assumes to himself in the Revelation, "I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last." (Rev. xxii. 13.) NAME every "that at on the superiority of Christ above the Prophets of the Old Testament, describing him as the "effulgence and the brightness of God's glory," and "the express image of his person;" as "sitting 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". 66 a NAME which is above the NAME of JESUS every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father?" These are the several plain and strong declarations of the Apostle Paul: but, to sum up the whole, and to bring the matter to a perfect focus, I will add that clear, explicit, and incontrovertible passage of this Apostle to his disciple Titus: "The grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity. These things speak and exhort.” 2 Att. Gen. But one of the Defendants has al 1 Philip. ii. 9—11. 2 Chap. ii. 13—15. And as for the Clementine Homilies, they are, as Dr. Jortin admits, as undoubtedly a romance as "Gulliver's Travels," and contain as much truth as Lucian's "True History:" but, at any rate, they are good evidence of the existence of Unitarianism in the second century.1 Witness. I beg, my Lord, to decline answering the Defendants any further questions. If this person speaks the sentiments of the Unitarians, and he has undoubtedly been invested with the honour of being their accredited organ, we are to understand that no confidence is to be placed in the general sense or opinion of the early Christian Fathers. Why, then, have the Unitarians challenged us to adduce the writings of these Fathers against their position, that Christ was solely a human being, by one saying, "It is absolutely necessary that the less learned should be told what, upon enquiry, will be found to be undeniably true, viz., that the Fathers of the three first centuries, and consequently all Christian people for upwards of three hundred years after Christ, till the council of Nice, were generally Unitarians?" 2 Another asserts that "the Unitarians have made it evident, from undoubted testimonies of the Fa 1 Belsham's Reply to the Bishop of St. David's, p.96. |