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incarnation of a preexistent spirit, and leave no excuse for the disbelief of that doctrine. The incarnation involves the miraculous conception; which, notwithstanding its imputed fabrication, and the motives of that fabrication, " many Unitarians have believed, and others. . . have wished to be "true" and may God grant, that the faith of the many may be confirmed, and the wishes of others be fulfilled, by a just consideration of the argument in its favour. The existing accounts of it confessedly appear in all manuscripts and in all versions, which are now extant, and were known at a period, when interpolation was all but impracticable, and when the plain and straight current of tradition from apostolical men could not have been polluted by an innovation so absurd, or turned into a channel so devious, as the supposed fiction is represented to be. It is a difficulty greater than any which is alleged against the authenticity of the narrative, that the impositions of a very ordinary inventor should

have been admitted into two of the Gospels, and immediately approved in the Church, with but one dissentient voice, among the Gentiles or the Jews, and that a voice of but feeble power and authority. On the admission, therefore, of the narrative, we are justified in inferring, from the words of authentic Scripture, that "Jesus "was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and "born of the Virgin Mary." We believe also, that Jesus Christ is our Lord, not only our Master and Teacher, but in that sense in which he is Lord of all; and in which "no man can say that he is Lord, "but by the Holy Ghost"." Finally, we believe, that he is God, not in virtue of his prophetic office, which is denoted by that sacred name in one only text of the New Testament, in which it is used in the plural form; but the Word, which was in the beginning before prophet or people existed, was God', was "in the form of God, and

b Matt. i. 18. 20. 23. 25. Luke i. 27. 34, 35. c Acts x. 36.

e John x. 34, 35. Ps. lxxxii. 6.

d 1 Cor. xii. 3.

f John i. 1.

thought it not robbery to be equal with "God," is even "over all, God blessed "for evermore." In the confession of

Thomas, he is " my Lord, and my Godi!" in the prediction of Isaiah, he is "the mighty God:" in the declaration of John, he is the true God':" he is the one, that hath spoken of himself; “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and "the ending, saith the Lord, which is, "which was, and which is to come, the Almightym."

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3." A Unitarian Christian holds the divi"nity, although not the deity of Christ. "He holds the divinity of his mission, the divinity of his doctrine, the divinity of "his precepts, and the perfection of his example... He reverences Jesus as under God, the only Lord of conscience; the

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only King and Head in his kingdom, the "Church; as his Saviour and Redeemer;

Philip. ii. 6. h Romans ix. 5. i John xx. 28. k Isaiah ix. 6. See Waterland's Sermons at Lady Moyer's Lecture, Sermon VI.

1 1 John v. 20.

m Rev. i. 8.

"as to him the Author, Prince, or Leader; "the Dispenser of eternal life, and as his "final Judge1.” He apprehends, that there is "no reason to believe, that he was any thing more than what the Prophets fore

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told, and his Apostles taught, viz. the "chosen servant of God, the long predict"ed Messiah, the Prophet who was to

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come into the world:" "the grand sub"ordinate agent in the Christian scheme, " and therefore, in reference to the king"dom of the Messiah, the greatest of all

"beings under God P." He sees "clear, ઈ "collected, and decisive evidence, from the "whole tenor of the New Testament, that "Jesus Christ was a human being in all

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respects like to his brethren, only, that "God was with him, in a sense in which "he never was with any other individual of mankind, for that he communicated the

n

Estlin, p. 27, 28. Belsham's Lett. to the Bp. of London, p. 34. Carpenter, p. 24. 234. 269.

o Belsham's Letters to the Unitarian Christians in South Wales, p. 18.

P Carpenter, p. 82. 295.

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spirit without measure unto him." The belief of "an Unitarian, as far as it respects "the Person and Office of our Saviour, is, "that God appointed the man Christ Jesus "to declare to mankind his mind and will "respecting their duty and expectations; " in other words, to reveal the doctrines of "free pardon and everlasting life, to point ❝out the conditions by which these bles"sings are to be acquired, and to declare "the consequences of impenitence and dis"obedience:" and he does "not think, "that the Scriptures teach any end of the "mission and death of our Saviour, which " is not included in these, or at least sub"servient to them.”

4. Without staying to invalidate these propositions, derogatory as they are to the Person and Office of our Saviour, we may proceed to collect the more specific statements of the doctrine of the Atonement, which is said to rest " upon its own evi

q Belsham's Letters to the Unitarian Christians, p. 17, 18. Carpenter, p. 24.

I Carpenter, p. 6. 7. 8. 291. 308.