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can the same being be God to-day and only man to-morrow? Let not the supposed personal identity of God and Jesus be lost sight of, and then say if the same person can now agonize as a sufferer and a moment hence be incapable of suffering; or if the same person can suffer and not be capable of suffering at one and the same time? Either there is a personal oneness tween deity and humanity, or there is not. If there is, then that, which is essential to constitute a person, as consciousness, will, &c. must be common to both, just as all other persons have an individual consciousness, one will, &c. In that case there can nothing happen to the complex person God-man, of which the whole person shall not be alike and at one time conscious. But if the personality of the Mediator be such, that there is a distinct consciousness to the human part, and a distinct consciousness to the divine part of the person, two separate minds and wills, where is the difference between such a person, so constituted, and two different persons, two separate beings? The union is no union where there is no participation, where one part may even die and the other not be conscious of it. There is left us then, no more than what every Unitarian admits, that God dwelt in the man Jesus, in such a manner, as that when necessary, divine power and wisdom were manifested through his agency. A personal oneness without a common consciousness is impossible. But a common consciousness would imply that the divine part felt what the human endured. This could not be. There remains only the supposition that God and Jesus had two consciousnesses, in other words two minds; and what more would there be wanting to make them two distinct intelligences, two separate beings?

The doctrine of a double nature in Christ, assumes that whatever was done by him properly divine, was done by that part of himself which was divine, in other words, by "God the Son," the second distinction in the Trinity. It is never pretended that the other distinctions were in personal union with a man. The Father did not become incarnate, nor the Holy Spirit.

the Word," who became man.

It was the Son, "God See Bibl. Theol. 2d vol.

The Son, he also de

p. 154. Now our Lord expressly declares that his miracles were done by the Father. clares, can do nothing of himself. Throughout the New Testament there is no instance in which Christ's works, or doctrine are attributed to any other than the Father. How is this? Was it necessary, notwithstanding his personal oneness with the second person in the Trinity, that the Father should empower him, teach him, sustain him? Was it necessary that the Spirit should be poured out upon him at his baptism, when the Deity in person was so united to him as to constitute one and the same being with him? Was it necessary for the Father to send him aid and comfort during his agony in the garden, if that God to whom he then prayed, and who, he feared, had forsaken him, was even then part of his own person?

In humble prayer, our blessed Lord once exclaimed “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth!" "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." And Paul says of himself, "I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Apostles Peter and John in a prayer recorded at length, express themselves thus: "Lord thou art God, who hast made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is;—against thy holy servant Jesus, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the

Gentiles and the whole people of Israel, were gathered together." All men are also taught when they pray, to address the Father, being assured that the true worshippers worship the Father. But Trinitarians affirm, that Jesus is Lord of Heaven and Earth. "He is now in heaven,

where he will eternally exercise the privilege of governing all things by divine power." Bibl. Theol. p. 175, 2d Vol. "When Christ is presented as sitting at the right hand of God, the meaning is, that he is participating in divine sovereignty." Morus' Dissert. de Discrim. sensus. But do the Scriptures warrant this? He who sitteth at the right hand of God is one who was raised from the dead, and who hath declared, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I also overcome and am set down with my Father on his throne. To him will I give power, even as I received of my Father." Shall we say that he who ruleth the universe was once a dead man in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea? Shall we say that this dominion is of the nature of a privilege to be won by obedience as was the glory of Christ, and to be shared among several? If the Mediator be the only Potentate, his person includes not the Father or Spirit, and where then are they to have dominion ? Are they too subject to the Son?

That dominion which Jesus indeed possesses is of another kind; his throne is not that of the universe. It is a dominion over the spiritual society, the Church, composed of "all things which he hath reconciled unto the Father, whether they be things in heaven, or things on earth, and you who were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works." Colossians i. 20, 21, and context. Compare also chap. ii. 10, 15, and Ephes. i. 10. ii, 5, 6, 10. iii. 9, 10.

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We have room for little more. But may we not ask, what advantage is gained by the theory of a double nature? Does it make Jesus a teacher more worthy of our reliance? No. He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God. Jesus says of himself, ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. He that is of God heareth God's words. the Father hath taught me, even so I speak.-All this Unitarians receive, and they feel that Jesus has all the claims of a divine teacher and messenger, and is to be obeyed as implicitly as if he were God himself, personally instructing mankind. What more than divine authority can his doctrines have? Do we gain any thing to our Lord's character by this theory. Surely not. For we look up to him as a sinless being, a spotless example of the highest possible virtue;-can our brethren regard him as more perfect? Are the miracles of Jesus diminished in consequence by those who deny the double nature? What are they on any hypothesis, but works of a divine power, and evidences of a divine commission? Our Lord's miracles were none the less important because God wrought them by him instead of their being wrought by him, being God. The resurrection, judgment, and retributory state are in like manner unaffected by this theory of two natures. It is really a matter quite unimportant whether we adopt or reject it, so far as these are concerned. Accordingly, Trinitarians found its whole importance upon its relation to the death of Jesus, and to divine worship. And even here, can any man deny that he who' when he prayeth' says 'Our Father' is addressing the true object? Or will any one pretend that he

who so believeth that Christ died for our sins, as himself to die unto sin and live ever after unto God, has believed in vain ?-Besides, it is allowed by Trinitarians that they cannot define wherein that union consists. If so, can they be sure, after all, that it is such as makes personal oneness? They do not know that it is more than a union without identity, for they do not know at all in what it consists. No matter for the word "union," while we are ignorant of the thing for which it stands. Neither if we use it are we the better, nor if we reject it are we the

worse.

RIGHT METHOD OF INQUIRY IN RELIGION.

WHEN we are sufficiently impressed with the importance of having some fixed notions of religious belief, conscience next lays upon us her injunctions in regard to the spirit and temper in which we are to conduct our inquiries. That we may the better retain her dictates in our minds, we shall endeavor to embrace them under three principal ones. A fair and unbiassed state of mind; a proper sense of our own weakness and liability to error;—and a firm though modest reliance on our own understanding, as the guide and counsellor given us by God;-comprise perhaps the most important requisites for a right and conscientious course of religious inquiry. A fair and unbiassed state of mind, one of the rarest endowments of a christian character, is also one of the best marks of a strong and well-regulated understanding. It is accompanied and characterized by a supreme regard to truth, as the most desirable of all good. It holds the balance with an unshaken hand, amidst contending opin

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