SECTION XLVII.

St. John's Declaration of Christ's Divinity.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made, that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men." "That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." John i. 1-9. See Bp. Horne's Sermons, p. 79.

If these texts of Scripture (and the same observation will apply to all similar passages of the Old and New Testament) are to be understood as implying the proper divinity of Christ, "that by Him the world was made," &c., the conclusion follows, that his character and mission are of universal importance to all men; and consequently, that the Heathen are interested in him, as the Maker, the Saviour, and the Judge of mankind. Their ignorance of his mission can form no argument against this

inference: "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not," ver. 10.

To ascribe to Christ an equality with the Father, and then to limit the benefits of his mission to the members of the Christian Church; to ascribe to his atonement an infinite value, and then to confine its importance to a small portion of mankind; this is one out of various contradictions which have grown up with the systems of artificial theology. If Christ be God, then, as God he must bear the same relation to all men. To represent him as the national and tutelary Deity of the Jews or the Christians, is to explode his divinity, and to reduce him to the level of Moses or one of the prophets.

This remark is of very wide and comprehensive application; it applies to every text in the Old and New Testament, which would show that Jesus is Jehovah. "I and my Father are one." "He who hath seen me, hath seen the Father." "Before Abraham was, I am," &c. All passages of this description, if adduced to prove the

divinity of Christ, must fail of their effect, unless we attribute to him such a universality in all his offices as can alone be suitable to Deity.

The force of this argument has long been felt by Unitarians, who would claim, on this account, a superiority over the system of orthodoxy. "It has often appeared to me," says Dr. Carpenter, "that if Unitarians did no more than annihilate the dreadful tenet, that all must be plunged into eternal and irremediable anguish, who do not possess faith in Christ, and even particular forms of faith; it would have been worthy of all acceptation. The Unitarian has more honourable notions of the God of love, than to imagine that he will make hundreds and thousands of millions miserable, solely because they do not receive him as their Saviour, whose name they have never heard. And yet if this be not so, then the doctrines of modern orthodoxy are not true." Beneficial Effects of Unitarianism, p. 21.

Pudet hæc opprobria nobis,

Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.

SECTION XLVIII.

The Angelic Mission.

SINCE angels came down from heaven to earth to proclaim the birth of Christ, it seems utterly inconsistent with such an embassy, to suppose the intelligence which they brought had not a universal relation to mankind. To have proclaimed a local or partial benefit, appears altogether at variance with their characters, nor were such the terms of their tidings: "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill towards men." These expressions are not capable of a confined or limited meaning, and to interpret them in such a manner as would exclude the great majority of mankind in all ages from the beneficial influence of Christ's advent, is to deprive them of their necessary meaning. "By this song," says Bishop Taylor, "they not only referred to the peace which at that time put all the world at ease; but to the great peace, which the new-born prince should make

between his earth and all mankind." Life of Christ, vol. i. P. 69.

Here then is the difficulty of all who deny the doctrine of universal redemption, as it relates to the Heathen,-they admit, the annunciation of the Gospel to have been universal, but they confine its good effects to the knowledge of a limited portion of the human race.

Note.

"The expression (πavrì τy law) 'to all the people,' seems adapted to the present conceits of the Jewish nation, which apprehended nothing of God's favourable intentions to the community of men; but, in effect, it is to be understood extensively, in reference to all people. For the Saviour, the Christ, the Lord, of whom this good news did report, was not only to be the Redeemer of that small people, but of the world, of every nation, of all mankind. 'Men's eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all the peoples, távtwv twv Xawv•'" Barrow, p. 349.