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stake. How then does it appear, that "God spared not his own Son ?"

You will probably plead, that the Man Jesus was united to the Person of the Son of God, and that Person suffered in his human nature. But, sir, as you predicate personality on the Son or Divine nature, and do not allow personality to the human nature, it will, I suspect, be difficult for you to prove that any Person suffered on the cross: for the sufferings fell simply on a nature to which you do not allow personality. As, in your view, the Son was the self-existent God, and could not suffer in his Divine nature, He could not suffer in any nature. The man was only an appendage to his Person, mysteriously connected; and yet so far was the union from being very intimate or essential, that the appendage or the Man might suffer the severest agonies, and the Son or real Person be at the same time in a state of infinite felicity.

Abraham's offering his son Isaac, has long been considered as typical of the conduct of God in giving his Son to die for us. Suppose we should add to the scriptural account the following ideas-That Abraham knew beforehand that his son was incapable of suffering, and that all the sufferings would fall on another man, to whom his son was mysteriously united; and that Isaac also understood the matter in the same light when he consented to be bound and laid upon the altar. Would not this additional account, if believed, depreciate, in our estimation, the conduct of Abraham and Isaac, at the rate of ninetynine per cent.?

This illustration may serve to show how much your hypothesis, when understood, tends to lower down our ideas of the greatness of the love of God in giving his

SON to die for us; and also the love and submission of the Son in consenting to make his life an offering for our sin.—I would, however, by no means intimate, that you and others, view the love of God in this depreciated light. For I think it probable that it is with you, as I am sensible it was with myself the plain representations of Scripture, by the help of analogy, superseded the force of theory.

It has been, and I think justly, supposed, that the dignity of the Son of God gave value to the sufferings of the cross. And if we consider the Son of God to be what his title imports, a derived Intelligence of Divine origin and dignity, the one by whom God created the world; if we consider this self-same Intelligence as personally and really suffering the death of the cross, we may perceive something, in view of which we may well exclaim, "Behold, what manner of love!"

But if the sufferings of the cross did not really fall on that very Son, who had sustained pre-existent glory in the "form of God," but on a man who had existed less than forty years, who had acted in public character not more than four or five; how small the degree of condescension on the part of the sufferer, how small the display of the love of God, and of what diminished value are the sufferings of the cross! In the Assembly's Catechism we are taught, that "Christ's humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, being made under the law; undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time."

Yet this same Catechism teaches us to believe, that Jesus Christ was personally the self-existent God

I will then ask, whether there he one particular of what is said respecting the humiliation of Christ, which can possibly be true? Was the self-existent

God ever born? Was he ever in a low condition ?
Was he ever made under the law?
Did he ever

suffer the wrath of God, or the cursed death of the cross? Was God ever buried ?-If the self-existent God has not passed through such scenes, then the SON of God has not, according to your doctrine respecting the Son. Therefore, according to your theory, all the abasement, which can be supported, falls on the Man to which the Son was united: And this Man you suppose had no existence until he was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary; of course, he had no glory to leave, or lay aside, when he came into the world. As he never had been rich, it was impossible for him to become poor for our sakes. He had no opportunity to say, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God;" and so far as his humiliation consisted in "being born, and that in a low condition," there was nothing voluntary in it; and it could be no evidence of any love or condescension in him.

To make out your theory of the humiliation and abasement of the Son of God, you have to take into view two distinct intelligent Beings; one of which you affirm to be the self-existent God, and the other a proper Man. This God, or Son of God, you find had been in a state of pre-existent dignity and glory; and he, as you suppose, was united mysteriously to a Man; this Man was born in low circumstances, endured the miseries of this life, and suffered death on the cross; and by virtue of his union to the Son of God, he was enabled to bear a vastly greater weight of suffering than he could otherwise have endured.

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But, sir, is this all that is intended by God's SPARING NOT HIS OWN SON ? Is this the way in which the SON of God BARE our sins in his owN BODY on the tree? What, sir, was the real condition of the SON of God, the self-existent God, from the birth of the Man Jesus till this Man rose again from the dead ? According to your theory, the Son of God, during the whole of that period, was in a state of infinite glory and felicity, and as incapable of suffering the agonies of death as the Father. How then can it be true, that "Though a SoN, yet learned he obedience by the things which HE SUFFERED ?" As it respects the real character of the SUFFERING SAVIOR, what is your theory better than Socinianism enveloped in mystery?

LETTER III.

No absurdity in the hypothesis that Christ is truly the SON of God.

REV. SIR,

evidence that But a contrary

WHAT has been exhibited in the preceding Letters, it is hoped, will be sufficient to satisfy impartial minds that the Scriptures afford abundant Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God. belief has been so long and so generally prevalent, that it may be necessary to say something farther on the subject, with a view to show that the natural import of the terms the Son of God, or God's own Son, implies no contradiction or absurdity.

That God is a self-existent Being, is acknowledged by all Christians; and I shall freely admit, that it is

ENT SON.

impossible with God to beget or produce a SELF-EXISTBut what have we to do with the mode of God's existence, in determining whether it be possible with him to produce a Son? What have we to do with the mode of Adam's existence, in determining whether Seth could be his Son ? Respecting Adam, it is said, "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." And probably Adam was a man in size or stature at his first existence. Could not Seth be the son of Adam, unless the mode of his having existence was the same with Adam's ?

When Adam was in existence, he had a nature by which he was distinguished from God and from angels. Such a nature Seth derived from Adam. Selfexistence may be essential to the Divine nature in God, and proper creation might be essential to the human nature in Adam. And as human nature in Seth might be derived from the created nature of Adam, why may it not be true that Divine nature in the SON was derived from the self-existent nature of GOD?

We often speak of Divine nature, angelic nature, and human nature; but what do we know of either, excepting certain properties, attributes, or qualities ? Are we not unable to teil what is the radical difference between an angel and a human soul? Yet we believe there is some radical distinction. So we may be unable to ascertain the radical distinction between the Divine nature, and human nature, e clusive of the different modes of existence. Yet, aside from those attributes which simply respect the modes of existence, there may be some radical difference between

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