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art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one (§) in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one (), even as we are one (v)."

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It has been sometimes urged, that our Lord's divinity is proved by his being in the Father, and the Father in him:' but from this passage it appears de monstrably, that such is not the meaning, as he requests that his disciples may be also in his Father.

The nature of the glory which his Father had given him,-probably the power of working miracles, or of cooperating with his Father in his great plan for the deliverance of mankind from the dominion of sin and death, has been also misunderstood; for he informs us, that the very same glory had been communicated by him to them. It is observable likewise, that he mentions every thing he had, as having been given to him by his Father; and claims nothing, nor seems to have been conscious of having any thing, in his own right, or from the Holy Ghost: for when he says in another place, "I have power to lay down my life, and have power to take it up again ;" in order to exclude all idea of his having such power originally, or independently of the Father, he immediately adds, "This commission I have received from my Father;" meaning evidently, that his authority was delegated and subordinate, exercised by virtue of a commission,— or, as the common version renders it still more strongly, a command,-received from a superior.

After a mature consideration of all this, I am at a loss to conceive why it should be improper for our blessed Lord, though originally a man like ourselves, to say, 'I and the Deity are one thing, or one and the same thing,' when he expressly states, that they were so in the very same sense in which he prayed that all his disciples also might be one thing. And I cannot coincide in opinion with you, that unless the words be taken in what is called the Orthodox sense, they do not suit the train of his argument, as it appears to me that they suit it exactly. He had before said, "I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand;" and he assigns as a reason for no one's plucking them out of his hand, “ my Father who gave them me is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out my Father's hand: I and my Father are one," or one and the same thing. The meaning of which is clear upon my construction, namely, My Father, out of whose hand no one is able to pluck the sheep, having given them to me, and being united with me in the same plan for their preservation, the plucking them out of my hand would be one and the same thing with plucking them out of his, which no one can do.

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We are both agreed that our blessed Lord did not, and could not, use the word ɛis (because it could not be his intention) to represent his Father and himself as one person. Our difference is upon the word,

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which I am content to take as it stands, but which you interpret by introducing the words, to 9tov, under a videlicet, as being to be understood, without any thing in the context to support it, these words not having been previously made use of in the whole of this discourse. The introduction of them is not only begging the question, but contrary to all rules of construction, to all the internal evidence, and to all probability. One would suppose from this singular construction, that the words To JELOV were in familiar use with our blessed Lord, and that having used them just before, he intended that they should be under ́stood again in this passage; but how great would be the astonishment of a stranger to these discussions to be informed, that neither our Lord in any of his discourses, nor the evangelist in any of his writings, has ever used the word Jov at all; but that our Lord a little further on in the same gospel, having again used the disputed word &, has referred to his previous use of it, and shewn that he used it in both places in a sense that would not admit of the interposition of the word JOY!

You say, that we are only assured of our preservation by the power of Christ, from the consideration that he is one in power and authority with the Father. If nothing more is meant by this, than the kind of unity mentioned above, I subscribe to it; but if it be meant, that he has any proper power or authority of his own, I must dissent, as it is contrary to the gene

ral tenor of the sacred writings, and to his own express declarations, which represent his power as given to him, and all his authority as delegated. He expressly says, "Of mine own self I can do nothing."

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My Father, who dwelleth in me, he doth the works." How many illustrious prophets, and chiefs, had the mighty God invested with power to save and preserve the Israelites and others, before the coming of our Saviour! and what was to prevent him from enduing this greatest of the prophets, whom he has raised from the dead, and made a prince, a ruler, and a judge, over all mankind, with power to save and preserve them, both in the present world, and also in that future world, in which "he hath given him authority to reign, and to execute judgement;" though that power, notwithstanding it might be called in one sense his, when it had been given to him, is wholly delegated, and in strictness the power of the Father; and he is not one in power and authority with the Father, any otherwise than as acting as his agent, and cooperating with him in the accomplishment of his glorious designs and purposes? Who shall limit Omnipotence, and that he could not communicate such power to any of his creatures?

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The next passage in your letter is as follows. "The same remark concerning the Greek fathers applies to your criticism on the absence of the article, which they considered no evidence of the reading a God,' nor was it ever urged against them when the Greek article was better understood than it is now.

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the English mode of rendering it entirely anarthrous, God, is a fairer interpretation of the Greek than yours of a God; for the intention of the Greek writer was to express a meaning different from the God, that is, the God of some particular people."-Now really, my dear sir, when it is considered that these fathers, and the councils of which they were members, in conjunction with the sovereigns of those days, persecuted the ancient unitarians, who were their opponents, and have taken care to prevent their writings from coming down to us, of which we know little or nothing, but what their adversaries have thought fit to notice in their answers to them, it is rather a strong assertion, that any particular objection was never urged against them, when it may have been done hundreds. of times, without our knowing it; and it may very well have happened with them, as it sometimes does with controversial writers in our own times, that, finding things urged against them with so much strength, as to preclude any prospect of a satisfactory answer, they pass them, sometimes possibly by accident and sometimes by design, sub silentio, and proceed to other parts of their adversary's work which promise them greater success.

Your own letter furnishes a striking instance of the imperfect representations we may suppose to have been given by the trinitarian fathers of the writings, and arguments, of their antagonists, the unitarians, as you have, by pure accident I have no doubt, taken no notice of what I considered the strongest part of

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