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assumption, therefore, implies another-namely, that there is just as much evidence in the Bible that Jesus Christ is "a de"ceiver and an Antchrist," as there is that Jesus Christ is God. Now, is this Mr. Yates's bona fide conviction? I cannot believe that it is: because, before I can believe it, I must not only suppose him destitute of all candour, but bereft also of understanding, or given up to "strong delusion." Judging from the volume before me, I do not, I must honestly say, reckon candour amongst the cardinal virtues of his character; but of understanding, I know that he has been endowed with more than an ordinary share. May God dispose him, on this occasion, to make a proper use of it!-But we have not yet done with his assumptions. He assumes still further, that the primitive Christians (that is, the Christians to whom John wrote, the Christians of apostolic times) were as entire strangers to the doctrine of Jesus Christ being the true God, as they were to the self-contradictory absurdity of his being a deceiver and an Antichrist. I say, he assumes this; for he does no more than barely assert it; and the assertion, like what precedes, is a mere begging of the question in dispute. Yet, instead of saying, as he ought to have said, "To beg I am ❝ ashamed," he does it with all possible composure and nonchalance, without the slightest symptom of " confusion of face." "The second argument," says Mr. Yates, "advanced to that the person here asserted to be the true God' " is Jesus Christ, is, that the same God is also called eternal "life. The expression will be allowed by all to be figura❝tive. It means, that the person so called was the giver, or "the promiser, of eternal life. It is maintained by Unitarians, ❝as a great and leading principle of their system, that all the "blessings communicated to mankind through Jesus Christ "originate in the wisdom and goodness of the one true God.

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"Agreeably to this general maxim, they assert, that the Fa"ther promises and gives eternal life through Jesus Christ. "The Father, therefore, is properly the eternal life:' Jesus "Christ is also the eternal life,' but in an inferior sense. "Hence St. Paul observes, that eternal life is the gift of God THROUGH Jesus Christ our Lord."" Page 188.

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I cannot be filling up my pages by transcribing long paragraphs from my former volume. If the reader will take the trouble of looking over page 40th of that volume, he will at once perceive, that, in the extract just made, Mr. Yates has thought proper entirely to evade my argument; which is derived from a comparison of the text in question with the opening of the Epistle. He does not so much as look near it; although it is mentioned by me as "the circumstance which in my mind placed the matter beyond dispute."-What reason Mr. Yates might have for this, I leave the reader to conjecture. I leave him also to compare for himself any remaining reasonings on this text; as I dread the imputation of repetition and tediousness.

For the same cause, I must decline entering into any enlarged additional discussion of the particular usage of the Greek language respecting the definite article, on which the argument for our Lord's divinity is founded, which is deduced from such passages as Tit. ii. 13. and 2 Pet. i. 1. I shall dismiss this part of the subject with two or three brief observations.

1. Mr. Yates wraps up the argument in terms of such vague generality, as pretty clearly to show, that he felt himself at a loss for any passages of the same construction with those in question, to confront with them, as evidences that they ought to be, or at least might be, rendered according to the common version:- -"We find in the New Testament," says he, " numerous passages, in which God and our Lord Jesus

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"Christ are mentioned in conjunction. While they resemble "one another in this one circumstance, they differ in an end"less variety of ways respecting THE USE OR THE OMISSION, ❝ and also THE ARRANGEMENT of articles, pronouns, and adjec"tives. Owing to these irregularities, some of them are, "considered by themselves, ambiguous. But others can only be "translated in such a manner as to make a clear and marked "distinction between God and our Lord Jesus Christ. I con❝ceive, that the unambiguous examples ought to serve as our "guides towards the just interpretation of those passages in "which the sense is not fixed by the grammatical construction. "For these reasons, the received translation ought to be fol❝lowed in the passages in question, even though no regard "were paid to the doctrines of the Divine unity and the in"feriority of Jesus Christ." Pages 190, 191.-Now, Mr. Yates would have done more to his purpose, had he produced a few texts, in which the construction, with regard to the use of the article, is the same as in Tit. ii. 13. and 2 Pet. i. 1. while they contain, notwithstanding, "a clear and marked dis"tinction between God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”—Whatever varieties he may find in the use, omission, and arrangement of articles, pronouns, and adjectives, unless he can bring forward indisputable instances of the kind I have described, these varieties (which, however, with respect to the article, I do not believe to be so endless as he represents them) can avail him nothing. In the verse immediately following 2 Pet. i. 1. there is a marked distinction between "God" and " Jesus our Lord:" but it is worthy of notice, that the construction is changed. In the first verse, we have, “ ἐν δικαιοσύνη του Θεου ήμων και Σωτήρος Ιησου « Χριστου ;” in the second, “ ἐν ἐπιγνώσει του Θεού, και Ιησου του Κυρίου "wv." On the other hand, the precisely parallel construction, adduced by me from the eleventh verse of the same chapter, and

rendered by our English translators agreeably to the principles of syntax contended for, is left by Mr. Yates unnoticed. In both verse 1st and verse 11th, the position of the pronoun uwv (our) appears to me to render the received translation quite unaccountable. Had the words been του Θεού και Σωτηρος

wv Insou Xgiotou, we should still have maintained, even from this arrangement, the validity of our argument. But the case is still more decisive from the real order of the words, FOU EQU ΗΜΩΝ και Σωτηρος Ιησου Χριστου. Surely, on all the principles of Greek construction, the possessive pronoun belongs here, in the first instance, to του Θεου. Το disjoin it from του Θεου, which precedes, and connect it with naι Σwrngos nuwv, which follows, as our translators have done, is, I should think, without a parallel. It must belong to TOU OU; and if it does, it must belong also to Σωτηρος ήμων: for any instance of the phrase του Θεου ήμων και Σωτ Ingos Ingou Xgiorou, meaning "of OUR God, and THE Saviour "Jesus Christ," is, I presume, as little to be found as the other.

2. With regard to Tit. ii. 13. Mr. Yates ought to have adduced not only texts of the same construction, yet requiring a different translation from that maintained in our argument; --but also instances of the appearing of the Father being mentioned in Scripture as the object of Christian hope, along with the appearing of Jesus Christ.

3. With regard to Mr. Belsham, the particular part of his strictures on this subject, to which I applied the strong epithet of "shamefully disingenuous," was solely that in which he makes the supposition of the controversy on the great doctrine of our Lord's divinity being "reduced to this."-Mr. Belsham could not but be aware that such language was nothing better than empty gasconade; and that those against whom he thus writes were as far as possible from bringing forward their criticisms on the use of the article, from any

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consciousness felt by them of their necessity to the support of their system, in consequence of the failure of other arguments. -On this ground, I am not disposed to think the remarks on Mr. Belsham in Note E. overstrained. If any of my readers, however, shall reckon them unduly severe, I am quite contented to class Mr. Belsham's language amongst those "strong state"ments, or perhaps over-statements, to which every man is ❝liable, in defending his own side of an interesting question.'

Having made these brief remarks, I leave the reader to reperuse my observations on this class of texts, in Discourse III.; to compare them with those of Mr. Yates; to consult also, if he has the opportunity, my references in Note E. along with those of Mr. Yates and Mr. Belsham; and, with his Greek Testament before him, to form his own judgment.

I proceed to Mr. Yates's animadversions on the instances in which the name JEHOVAH is given to Christ.

He admits, that, " in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, "JEHOVAH is used as the peculiar and appropriate name of "the one supreme God."-In this case, therefore, there is not, as there was in the former, any inferior sense of the name: all that we have to do is, to ascertain the fact, that the name is given to Jesus Christ.

Mr. Yates, as before, is determined not to be satisfied with any testimony on this point produced from the Bible, unless it be expressed in the direct ipsissima verba of his own dictation." Instead of direct Scripture testimonies," he says, « Mr. Wardlaw only brings forward remote deductions, form"ed by the comparison of one set of passages with another." "We might reply," he immediately adds, "that arguments

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so complicated are not the proper kind of evidence to estab❝lish such an awful, stupendous, and infinitely important “doctrine.” (P. 193.)—It belongs to the reader to judge, how

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