capable of, till he can find one, though ever so forced and foreign, that will save harmless the opinion which he was before-hand resolved to maintain, even against the most natural and obvious sense of the text which he undertakes to interpret: just as if a man should interpret ancient statutes and records by mere critical skill in words, without any regard to the true occasion upon which they were made, and without any manner of knowledge and insight into the history of the age in which they were written.”

Such are the reasonings of Tillotson upon this introduction to John's Gospel. To me they are perfectly satisfactory and, when considered in connection with the great chain of evidence from the beginning of the world to the present time, they contain an unquestionable proof of the eternal divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. (For further evidence on this important passage of Holy Scripture, consult Burnet on the Articles, art. 2, p. 54-56; Bull's Judgment of the Catholic Church, c. 2; Grotius, Lightfoot, Hammond, and Whitby, on the place. See also Dr. Randulph's Vindication, p. 2, p. 23-32. The learned Bishop Pearson hath vindicated the orthodox interpretation with his usual ability in his Exposition of the Creed, p. 116119. See likewise Mr. Charles Leslie's unanswerable reasonings on these verses of St. John, in his excellent Dialogues on the Socinian Controversy.)

"Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.”—(John ii. 24, 25.) In this passage, the Apostle bears witness to the omniscience of his Divine Master, which is an attribute peculiar to the Deity.

"Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God." (John xiii. 3.) In these words, John declares

the pre-existence and omnipotence of Christ: an omnipotence indeed derived from his Father; but this is what all are agreed in: Seeing the Son of God confessedly acts by a power derived from his Father, as truly as every earthly offspring acts by a power derived from his earthly parent. We may observe farther, that this same divine author tells us expressly, that he wrote his Gospel in order to prove Jesus to be Christ, and the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through his name.

"Many other signs truly," says he, "did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."—(John xx. 30, 31.) This is a proper close to a book, where the author had first insisted on the personal dignity of the Redeemer, and then confirmed what he had advanced by an induction of particular and supernatural actions, together with a variety of reasonings on those actions. And, upon the whole, it satisfactorily appears, that the person of whom the Apostle had been writing, was indeed the true and proper Son of God, who was in the beginning with God, and who was God, but who, in the fulness of time, was made flesh for the redemption of the human race.

And I am,

Rev. Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

VERAX,

A CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

POSTSCRIPT.

As to the eternal generation of Christ, which you object so violently to, I assert, without fear of contradiction, that

Christ as the Word, is begotten by eternal generation from God the Father; and I will demonstratively prove it from one single verse of Scripture, viz. the 7th of the 2nd Psalm, and which will suffice to set this dogma beyond the possibility of a doubt. "The Lord hath said to me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." It is most certain that these words are to be understood of the Messiah, or of Christ; for, not to say anything of the ancient Jews, who all understood them of the Messiah, as the very learned Huet decidedly proves in his Evangelical Demonstration, 77th Proposition, No. XIV. we can have no better interpreter of these words than St. Paul, who was ravished into the third heaven. Now this great Doctor of the Gentiles expressly says, that those Words were said of Jesus Christ (Acts xiii. 33): "This same (promise) hath God fulfilled to our Children, raising up Jesus Christ again, as in the second Psalm also is written: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." And in his Epistle to the Hebrews (i. 4): "Being made so much better than the Angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name above them. For to which of the Angels has he said at any time: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Now, let us weigh every word of this important passage:-1st. "The Lord has said to me; not to others, but to me, as the word; to me, singularly and properly. Next, "Thou art my Son;" Thou, and no other: Christ, therefore, is the only begotten, and single Son of God; not adoptive, as all just Men and Angels are, but natural, begotten "from the womb," that is, out of the substance of God, as it is said, Psalm cix. 3: "From the womb before the day-star I begot thee." In a word, he is the Son of God, that, according to the Apostle (Heb. i. 4, 5),—this denomination cannot belong to any other. "To which of the Angels has he said at any time: Thou art my Son, this day have

I begotten thee?"-this day, that is to say, from all eternity, or "before the day-star;" as it is said, Psalm cix. --Psalm v. 3. And, "from the days of eternity" (Micheas, v. 2); because, as the Eternity of God exists always entire, and is an indivisible and immoveable Now, on which, St. Augustine observes, Psalm ii. No. 2, "Nothing is past, as if it had ceased to be, nor future, as it were not as yet." It is most properly expressed by the word Hodie, this day; and hence God himself expressed his eternal and permanent Being by a word, in the present tense (Exod. iii. 14): "I am who am. Thus shalt thou say to the Children of Israel: He who is, has sent me to you." Many other passages I might bring forward in support of the dogma under consideration, but this one text, taken from the 2nd Psalm, being so very peremptory and decisive, puts the question at rest for ever.

The Christian Fathers of the Church are all on the side of the Christian Dogma. St. Ignatius Martyr, in his Epistle to the Magnesians, speaks thus: "There is one God, who has made himself known by Jesus Christ his Son; who is his Eternal Word, that went out from him not after a silence;" that is to say, not as if there had been a time in which the Word did not exist." Unus est Deus, qui seipsum reddidit per Jesum Christum filium Suum; qui est ipsius verbum sempiternum non post silentium progressum." But I refer you to Dialog-cum Tryph. Athenegoras in his Apology for the Christians. St. Theophilus of Antioch, in his 2nd Book to Autoloyeus. St. Irenæus, 3rd Book against Heresies, c. xviii. Tertullian against Praxeas, c. viii. St. Clement of Alexandria, who explicitly teaches, that the Eternal Word made this Universe.—“Unus est Christus, qui est in patre co-eternum verbum." St. Dionysius of Alexandria, in his Epistle to Paul of Somosata.

Therefore from the testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers,

it is incontrovertibly demonstrated, that it was the steady and uniform belief of the first ages of the Church, that Jesus Christ, as the Word, is begotten by the Father, by an ineffable and eternal Generation, and that, of course, he is True God; although some would endeavour, in the face of all truth, to persuade the Public, that the Ante-Nicene Fathers were all Unitarians.-(See Letter XVI.)

LETTER IV.

TO THE REV. CHARLES LE BLANC.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST ARGUED FROM SOME PASSAGES

IN THE EPISTLE OF 1ST ST. JOHN.

Humanity and Deity of Christ-The Docetæ, Cerinthians, and Ebionites censured-The Apostle maintains that Jesus Christ is the only Propitiation for Sin-Why Socinians deny the atonement-View of the doctrine given by Dr. Samuel Johnson-Displays the infinity of the love of God-Jesus one with the Father and the Holy Ghost-Objections answered-Authorities citedReference to other authorities-Jesus Christ the True God and Eternal Life -Opinion of Doddridge-Clarke and Whiston.

REV. SIR,

This same Apostle begins his first Epistle with a description of the divinity and humanity of Jesus, and ends it with the strongest declaration of his supreme Deity. And all this he does in opposition to the several heresies of the age in which he lived. For, it is well known by the learned, there were some then who denied the divinity of our Saviour, and others who ran into the contrary extreme