9, 10), that recollection might have given occasion to an expression which probably Thomas himself could not have perfectly explained; as is often the case with such words as escape us when we are under the most overpowering surprise. But yet the expression might be equivalent to saying, "He! my Lord! with whom God is most intimately united, and is in him! in whom I behold God as it were present before me!" Or a person raised from the dead might be regarded as a divinity; for the word "God" is not always used in the strict doctrinal sense. J. D. MICHAELIS: Anmerk. on John xx. 28; as quoted by J. P. Smith in Script. Test., vol. ii. pp. 68–9. Many other remarks of a similar character will (D. v.) be introduced into the volume consisting of interpretations of texts in the Gospels. Now, we shall willingly admit, that the apostles themselves were believers under this idea mostly [namely, that the title "Son of God" denotes the same thing as Messiah or Christ], during our Saviour's residence upon earth; as it is certain they had not the whole mystery of the divine will, the grand scheme of man's redemption, clearly and fully made known to them before our Lord's ascension into heaven. ... It would be ridiculous to suppose that the apostles could believe their Master to be the Son of God in the highest [the Trinitarian] when "they all forsook him and fled." — WM. HAWKINS: Discourses on Scripture Mysteries, pp. 63-4. sense, ... Yet this writer says that Jesus frequently asserted his truly divine nature to his disciples, who must have understood him. We can scarcely think it strange that Jesus should have spoken less clearly and explicitly than his apostles after him, respecting the relation which he bore to God the Father, and that he never declared himself the Creator of the world (an argument apparently in the Socinians' favor), when we consider that a different method would have been unworthy of the divine wisdom, which required that the Jews should be drawn off, by slow degrees, from their too contracted notions respecting the Unity of God, and gradually imbibe just sentiments in relation to the Messiah. J. F. FLATT: Dissertation on the Deity of Christ; in Biblical Repertory for 1829, or new series, vol. i. pp. 174-5. As it was our blessed Lord's Divinity, which, we have seen, he studiously concealed, but wished all men to come to the knowledge of, &c. OXFORD OR ANGLICAN DOCTORS: Tracts for the Times, No. 80, in vol. iv. p. 38. It would be unreasonable to expect that this doctrine [the Trinity in Unity] should have been fully revealed till the day of Pentecost. ... In the histories, therefore, written by those evangelists who confine themselves exclusively to a recital of some leading discourses of our Lord, and to an account of some of his principal miracles, I should expect to find fewer traces of these higher doctrines. In Mr. Belsham's own words, I would ask, “When our Lord was so very cautious in discovering himself to be the Messiah, would he, at the same time, make no hesitation in declaring himself to be the very eternal God'?” "What would have been the effect upon the apostles," says he again, "the instant the amazing truth was communicated to them? Their faculties would be absorbed in terror and astonishment; no more free conversation, no more asking of questions, no more attempts to impose upon him, or to rebuke him; the greatest awe and distance would instantaneously take place, and all the endearing and familiar relations of master, instructor, companion, and friend, would at once have been broken off." The little impression which our Saviour's miracles made upon the apostles, and the wavering and unsettled conviction of their minds as to his being the Messiah after all (Luke xxiv. 11, 25), is evident from many passages. Such a frame of mind as this would be incapable of receiving and comprehending doctrines more abstruse, when even the testimony of their senses produced so little effect upon them. I should therefore be prepared to expect that the grand disclosure of Christ's divine nature would not be formally made to them till that period should arrive when they should be "able to bear all things;" which period, from John xvi. 12, 13, we learn to be the epoch of the descent of the Holy Ghost. - DR. LONGLEY, Bishop of Ripon: The Brothers' Controversy, pp. 54–7. ... --- It is to be observed, that the Lord Jesus professedly withheld the full manifestation of his doctrines till the period subsequent to his death and resurrection. . . . If we duly consider these features of the early Christian economy, we shall not expect to find a full declaration of the doctrine respecting our Lord's person [meaning, of course, as God-man] in the narratives of the evangelists, or in his own discourses; but we shall rather look for intimations, for principles implied in facts and assertions, and for conclusions from such facts and assertions deduced by minute attention and close examination on our own part. To demand that this doctrine [that of the pre-existence of Christ], supposing it to be true, should have been taught by our Lord himself, in the most clear and decisive manner, is not reasonable; for ... it was of the very genius and character of his ministry, that by it the peculiar doctrines of the Christian dispensation should not be fully unfolded. . . . Jesus himself appears to have plainly insisted, in his own teachings, upon no doctrines but those which were generally admitted by his countrymen as resting on the authority of Moses and the prophets. — DR. J. P. SMITH: Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, vol. i. pp. 429-30, 509. The relation between the disciples and their divine Master ... was like that between children and their parents, in this also, that, as they had ever found a ready present help in him for all their wants, he stood in the place of God to them, as a father stands to his child. It is true he also was God. This, however, they knew not: they did not regard him as God, but much more as a man, like, though far superior in power and wisdom, to themselves. JULIUS CHARLES HARE: Mission of the Comforter, vol. i. pp. 9, 10. See that portion of the present work which treats of the simplicity of our Lord's teachings, pp. 230-3. Notwithstanding all the constraint and cautiousness observable in some of the extracts just made, the writers cannot help acknowledging, that the Saviour did not teach that the apostles, during his ministry, did not recognize that Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not assert - the dogma of a Trinity in Unity, or of any other nature in Jesus Christ than that which was human. But, if these doctrines are of essential importance in the scheme of salvation, or if they constitute a main element in Christianity, as they are represented in the discourses and writings of many theologians, does it not seem strange and incredible, that, while its Founder taught, and in his life exhibited, the great doctrines of the Divine Unity, the Fatherhood of God, and the fraternity of man, he should never have instructed his followers, either by announcement, or through his teachings and his prayers by clear implication, that there were three persons in the one God; and that he himself, though the meek and lowly one, though the guest of publicans and the washer of his disciples' feet, though the disclaimer of absolute goodness, of perfect knowledge, and of independent power, and though acting as the Sent and Anointed of the Father, was at the same time the equal of Jehovah and the same Being, the second person of an infinite and everglorious Trinity? And does it not seem equally amazing and incredible, that, if he did express or clearly imply these mysteries, and the apostles, through their Jewish prejudices and the feebleness of their capacities, could not understand or appreciate the knowledge which their Lord imparted, none of the evangelists should in any instance allude to the dulness of the Twelve in being unable to discern his essential Divinity as well as his Messiahship? SECT. IV. THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD, OR OF THE DEITY OF CHRIST, NOT DIVULGED IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. It is certain that those necessary doctrines of faith [namely, those of the Holy Trinity, the Deity of Christ, &c.] which were but lightly touched upon in the Gospels and the Acts, are distinctly and fully explained in these Epistles. . . . . . Most of the choicest and sublimest truths of Christianity are to be met with in the Epistles of the apostles, they being such doctrines as were not clearly discovered and opened in the Gospels and the Acts. DR. JOHN EDWARDS: Socinianism Unmasked, pp. 41, 79. ..... These passages are taken from one of the books penned by this learned but bitter controversialist against Locke's "Reasonableness of Christianity," and are chiefly aimed at the sentiment expressed by the great philosopher, that it is not in the Epistles of the New Testament, which were written for the resolving of doubts and the reforming of mistakes, but in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, that men are to learn what are the fundamental articles of faith. St. Luke,... in his second treatise, in which he lets us know what the apostles did after they had received the Holy Ghost, tells us how our Lord fulfilled his promise of his future presence; how the apostles, after their receiving of the Holy Ghost, baptized converts, bestowed the gifts of the Spirit upon those that were worthy to receive them, founded churches, and positively declared that there was no other name given under heaven by which men could be saved, but only the name of Jesus Christ. This is what we can chiefly gather from these two books of this evangelist. DR. WILLIAM WOTTON: Sermon on the Omniscience of the Son of God, p. 50. In that portion of his Sermon which precedes the present extract, Dr. WOTTON says that in St. Matthew's Gospel " we see very little which directly leads us to believe that Jesus Christ was really God." After stating that this evangelist all along pursues ideas suitable to the state of humiliation in which Christ appeared, he goes on to state that St. Mark had constantly in view, and abridges, the Gospel of Matthew; and that St. Luke's narrative, though comprehending much not in the two foregoing evangelists, all tends to the same purpose, namely, that our Saviour was sent from above to preach the gospel, with full power to save those who should believe in him. After quoting Christ's declaration to his disciples, that "all power was given to him," &c., and his promise, that "he would be with them to the end of the world," the learned writer says that St. Luke goes farther, and, in his second treatise, narrates what the apostles did after they had received the Holy Spirit, according to the extract we have made above. In the contents of his Sermon, when referring to these passages, the writer thus expresses the nature of his sentiments: "Little of the Divinity of the Son of God in St. Matthew, pp. 49, 50; St. Mark and St. Luke follow the same method, p. 50." After perusing WOTTON's abstract of the Acts of the Apostles, it would not, we think, be an unfair inference for the reader to draw, that Luke must have represented the first preachers of the gospel as saying very "little" indeed "of the Divinity," or, as we would express it, of the Deity," of the Son of God." We know how frequently this passage [Matt. xxviii. 19] is quoted as a proof of the doctrine of the Trinity, by many, indeed, who do not believe this doctrine, and wish perhaps to undermine it. I must confess that I cannot see it in this point of view. The eternal Divinity of the Son - which is so clearly taught in other passages, particularly John i. 1-14 and Rom. ix. 5 — is here not once mentioned; and it is impossible to understand from this passage, whether the Holy Ghost is a person. The meaning of Jesus may have been this: Those who were baptized should, upon their baptism, confess that they believed in the Father and in the Son, and in all the doctrines inculcated by the Holy Spirit, both those which occur in the Old Testament, as well as those which the apostles were to deliver under the influence of divine inspiration, and which as yet they had not learned; that they were to receive and believe these doctrines, and, in one word, embrace the whole divine revelation. In fact, I do not believe that the words in the form of baptism can signify more, because it was impossible, for the majority of those who believed, to think more upon the subject at the time; for they were not regularly instructed in the mystery of the Trinity before baptism, and only received complete instruction in the doctrines of Christianity after baptism. Read only the second chapter of the Acts, where three thousand were baptized in one day. What did these persons know of the Divinity of Christ, of which Peter, in his discourse, did not say one word? What did they know of the personality of the Holy Ghost? They were not doctrines of the Jewish church, which, in the first instance, might be assumed; and yet they are baptized (presuming the apostles to have fulfilled these commands of Jesus) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. What could they otherwise think but that |