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Qxivoμéra dségos, ver. 7. In fact, the heliacal "rising" of a star being properly its " apparition," as opposed to its occultation; the phenomenon was chosen, with the justest propriety, to determine a period which, as it must have been marked by some mode of calculation, could be only marked by that which was known to the people, to whom the prophecy was delivered. We have by this time, we trust, scarcely left our author an inch of ground to stand upon. In the remaining part of his work, he exercises his happy talent at exposition, in proving that the peculiar doctrines of our faith are subverted by the sacred Canon; on which, for nearly eighteen hundred years, the civilized world has rather curiously believed them supported. The great secret of the magic by which our conjurer effects this change, lying in the explanation of the ternis "Son of God" and "Son of Man;" we shall suffer him to explain them; beginning with his favourite title.

"The phrase (Son of Man) means two things, one, that Jesus being a man, possessed the nature and constitution of man; the other, that being the son of a man, he had a man for his father,”

P. 206.

As we are sufficiently grateful for the instruction afforded in this learned distinction, which bottoms, as usual, on a critical knowledge of Greek; and as it reconciles the inveterate blunder which has hitherto conceived him the son of man who has a man for his mother *; we will justify the remark by learned autho rity. If we are not deceived, on this very learned and subtle distinction, Johanna Southcott and Mr. Tozer, who admitted the advent of the Son of Man, founded their notion of the necessity of a second Shilo, to be the Saviour of women.

To proceed to our author's second definition;

"As the phrase Son of God means a pre-eminently authorized servant of God, so Jesus became the Son of God, solely by receiving his authority from God, and by the declaration of God when he received it." P. 201. "It is also a fact beyond all contro

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*Nestor. ap. Socrat. Hist. Eccl. Lib. VII. cap. xxxii. p. 380. 1. 36. Magia ya demos; which is accordingly rendered by Liberatus, Breviar. p. 12. ed. Garner. quoniam Maria homo fuit." A native Greek, who was contemporary with the Apostles, even expresses himself in the following extraordinary terms; Plutarch. in Lycurg. cap. iii. Tom. I. p. 87. ed. Lond. 1729. rw de παραγαγὼν ἔχει τα τόκε τὴν ἄνθρωπον, ὡς ἤσθετο τίκτυσαν εἰσέ πεμψε παρέδρες ταῖς ὠδῖσιν αὐτῆς καὶ φύλακας, Conf. S. Epiphan. Har. xxxv. p. 261. a.

version

version, that the enemies of the Gospel and the Apostles of Christ, who surely were the best judges of the language which they used, meant by the phrase, Son of God, not a divine being, but the Messiah whom the Jews expected to reign over them." P. 203.

Having furnished the researcher's last observation with autho. rity, may we beg to be furnished with an authority for this deduction; different from an assumption of the point in dispute, from the sacred text, the meaning of which is at present contested. Or, as an equivalent, may we beg to see his learned exposition reconciled with the plain statement of Origen; whose testimony, until it be set aside, fully evinces, that the author of this conjecture should have rather brought a small share of learning than a doubtful portion of confidence, to the discussion of the question, which he has determined. For that early father denies just as peremptorily as our author affirms, that "the enemies of the Gospel," either Jews or Gnostics, applied this title to the Messiah; and insinuates, that those who supposed otherwise were equally ignorant of the facts and language of Scripture. The consequence is inevitable, that while they rejected the truth, they must have understood the term, in the identical sense in which it is at this day used by the Orthodox; but as our author gravely observes, they" were surely the best judges of the language which they used:" the inference may now be left to himself.

Having exhibited these proofs of Unitarian learning; the following remark of “ a celebrated modern writer" may be now subjoined, from our author, as a speaking evidence of Unitarian sagacity.

"Son of man is a name, title, or character, which Christ hás given himself so often in the Gospels, that it highly deserves to be well understood. St. Matthew has this title thirty times; St. Mark fifteen times; St. Luke fifteen times; St. John ten times.

The great and perhaps only reason why Christ so often called himself the Son of Man, was undoubtedly to prevent the idolatrous notions and practices of his followers, in succeeding ages." P. 205. n.

From viewing this inference, which, if it have any meaning, must impeach the observation of the Epistolary writers in the same breath that it asserts the accuracy of the Evangelists; let us now observe how this unquestionably extraordinary fact affects the system of the orthodox; "It is remarkable" observes

*Orig. contr. Cels. Lib. I. cap. xlix. p. 366. a. b. Lib. V. cap. Ixii. p. 625. b. conf. cap. lxi. p. 624. e.

a great

a great luminary of the last century*, " that after the death of our Saviour, the Apostles never make use of these terms, nor call him any longer the Son of Man. As he was now received into glory, and become the LORD of life, they speak of him in a different manner." And, in fact, this distinction leads. us to the full force of the titles, Son of God, and Son of Man; which our author has so ingeniously confounded: the latter title being the proper designation of our Lord in his humiliation; in which he emptied himself of that glory which he had with the Father, before the foundation of the world.

The signification of this title being determined, or indeed forming no matter of dispute, it affords an adequate explanation of the correspondent title, Son of God. For both titles being ascribed to the same divine person, the sense of the more abstruse is necessarily ascertainable from that of the more obvious. The inference is therefore plain, that the higher title indicates a being as much the Son of God, as the inferior indicates a being literally the Son of Man; in fact, partaking as much as any human offspring of the whole nature of the parent.

This sense is, however, not merely deducible, from the analogy of the terms Father and Son, or their reference to the subjects God and Man, but is strictly tenable in the explicit language of Scripture. (1.) The relation in which Christ stood to God, is limited by the phrase "dios Пarng, Joh. v. 18. ïdios “Tiós, Rom. viii. 32: for the epithet "dios, as opposed to aλλórgios, explicitly marks out Christ, not merely as a Son of God, but as the Son of no other Father but God. (2.) The Apostle St. John illustrating and confirming this sense, terms our Lord ovoyevns Tios; Job. i. 14. not merely the begotten Son, excluding the notion of creation; but "the only begotten Son," excluding all other sons from this peculiar mode of generation, which implies the communication of the whole nature to the offspring. (3.) The common description which the Scriptures give of this filiation represents it as infinitely superior to that of all created or secondary existences; not merely human but angelical; Heb. i. 4-8, &c. (4.) The above distinction is acknowledged by our Lord, in his common language, who it is observed ‡ never uses the phrase ὁ ἄνθρωπος πατής με, but declining even the phrase Πατὴρ ἡμῶν, opposes Πατήρ με, to Πατὴρ ὑμῶν, Joh. xx. 17. thus

* Bryant, Sentim, of Phil. on the Logos. P. I. p. 4. ed. Cambr. 1797.

+ Euseb. contr. Marcel. p. 42. d.

p. 193.

S. Epiphan. Hær, xxxv. p. 260. c.

Pears. on Creed. Vol. I,

clearly

dearly discriminating between the parental authority of God as the universal Father, and his eternal paternity, as Father of his' only begotten Son. (5.) It is further acknowledged by the whole body of the Jews; Joh. v. 18. "Therefore the Jews sought to kill him, because he had said-that God was his Father' [πατέρα ἴδιον ἔλεξε τὸν Θεόν] making himself equal with God, [loov EZUTòν TOIV T ]*. Id. x. 33. "The Jews answered [ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν Θεῷ] him saying, for a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou being a man, makest thyself God."

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Whatever be the benefit which our author's work may derive from the bulk of the volume and quantity of the matter, he is now fully at liberty to reap. The perusal may be safely recommended to the reader, who has patience adequate to the attempt, and wishes to have an experimental proof of the exalted pitch of folly and obstinacy to which the human mind may be raised, in opposing the truth; where the greatest degree of ignorance which is consistent with the largest proportion of conceit, have their full and unrestricted operation on its faculties.

We have now, we trust, fully attained the object with which we undertook the present Review; and have not only demonstrated the pitiable imbecility of the vile production before us; but have evinced the unassailable stability of the truths to which it is opposed. But though we have incidentally exhibited specimens of the talents and acquirements of its author, we feel conscious that we have conveyed but a faint and inadequate idea of the work. To do justice to the blunder, ignorance, and dishonesty which are profusely scattered through every part, nay page of it, would indeed require a volume, much larger than we could find patience to read, much less to compose. Whatever be the subjects on which the author speaks, whether on his trusty friends Philo or Josephus, or his christian brethren the Ebionites and Esseans, we discover the same total ignorance of the subject on which he is engaged. As these are charges which may be made good and valid in a narrow space; we shall offer a few specimens, by which they seem to be substantiated beyond controversion.

We insist but incidentally on the practical blunder on which our author has founded and erected his system; in which he undertakes to vindicate the Unitarian Creed, by proving the whole body of the Scripture text corrupted, from which it either derives its purity, or fixes its foundation in the clouds. If we even overlook this absurdity, another directly stares us in the

Vid. Cyril. ut supr. p. 341. n. §.

face.

face. The origin which he assigns those sophisticated parts of the sacred text, in ascribing them to the early Hereticks, involves a contradiction not less supremely absurd. Both the sects, into which they branched, rejected the prophetical wri tings, on which the proscribed passages are obviously built; nay, rejected the very doctrines which those passages tend to support: the Gnostics having denied that our Lord was at all born, the Ebionites that he was born unless in the natural way +.

Let us even wave these objections, and grant, that the testimonies to which he appeals, are genuine, and, in point; even on their evidence, his theory may be fundamentally overthrown, by means of the very concessions, which he has made. Slender as the support is which the Unitarian Creed derives from the testimony of Jews or Heathens, even this nominal or apparent advantage, he has contrived to betray into the enemies' hands. The doctrine of the Trinity, which his predecessors have commonly traced to the corruptions of Platonism; he absolutely vindicates from the aspersion, explicitly denying that they possess any thing in common. The mystic theology of St. John he affirms is only to be explained by the modified Platonism of Philo. Though Philo has explicitly maintained all the peculiar doctrines of the Orthodox Faith, without acknow ledging one characteristic tenet of the Unitarian Creed: though he has absolutely abjured that Creed, by denying that any thing human or corporal could be annexed to the Son of God. The allegorising spirit of Philo still afforded a loop-hole of evasion, to escape the consequences of these unanswerable concessions, Yet even this advantage the ingenious advocate before us has contrived to throw away; from the first passage which he quotes from Philo, he not only infers, but proves, the personality of the Logos, asserting his identity with Christ (p. 4.).

Having advanced so much to illustrate and set off our author's polemical talents; we would not willingly dismiss the subject of his work, without offering some specimens of his skill in translation. In a reference to Orig. Lib. II. we are informed, p. 181, "and other Jews give the name of Ebionites to those who received Jesus as the Christ." The original of this passage is thus expressed; καὶ Εβιοκαῖοι χρηματίζεσιν οἱ ἀπὸ Ικδαίων τὸν Ιησῶν, ὡς Χριστὸν παραδεξάμενοι, in which, of course,

* Vid. supr. p. 243. n. I.

+ S. Iren. adv. Hær. Lib. I. cap. xxiv. § 2. p. 100. cap. xxvi. 1. p. 105.

‡ Bryant. ub. supr. Præf. p. v. P. I. p. 16-22.

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