ral tenor of the sacred writings, and to his own ex press 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 say that he could not communicate such power to any of his creatures?

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. Indeed

C

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

my argument, as I shall shew hereafter; and a person who should see no other part of our correspondence than your letter, would suppose that I had never urged it.

One would think too, that we were in the present day so ignorant of the Greek language, as to know little, or nothing, of the use of the Greek article, and were unable to translate correctly such passages in their writers, as depend for their construction upon the insertion or omission of it; but those who are conversant in Greek literature do not represent the state of it to be such. We have a great number of their very best writers remaining, and have the means of judging, as we do by consulting good writers in our own language, in what manner, and in what senses, they used their article, and how they were to be understood when they inserted or omitted it before a noun. To prove, however, that Secs with the article was not applicable to Christ, but to God the Father only, in the opinion of a very learned Christian writer who flourished not only when the Greek was a living language, and all the niceties belonging to it perfectly understood, but I believe nearer to the age of the apostles than any of the writers you allude to, I shall produce evidence from the writings of one of the fathers themselves. Thus in Origen's Com. vol. ii. p.47*, you will find that he says, λεκτεον γαρ αυτοις ὅτι τότε μεν αυτοθεος ὁ Θεός εστι,

Huetius's edit. vol. ii. p. 46, 47,

είναι

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διοπερ και ὁ σωτηρ φησιν εν τη προς τον πατερα εύχῃ· ἵνα για νωσκωσι σε τον μονον αληθινον θεον παν δε τό παρα το αυτο θεος μετοχη της εκεινε θεοτητος θεοποιουμενον, οὐκ ὁ θεος, αλλα θεος κυριωτερον αν λέγοιτο ω παντως πρωτοτοκος πασης κτίσεως, άτε Θεον πρωτος τω προς τον Here you will perceive, that this learned writer, and very early father, expressly declares, that he who is God of himself is 9ɛos, that is, God with the article, and applies this to the Father in the words of our Saviour, who calls him the only true God. He then further says, But every one who is not God of himself, being made God by the participation of his divine nature, is not to be called & 90s, that is, God with the article, but 9805, that is, God without the article ; amongst whom he particularly specifies Christ, the first born of every creature. Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius also advert to the insertion of the article in the one place, and the omission of it in the other, and explain it in a similar manner.

I believe it will be found, that the general tenor of the Scripture writings supports the construction of these learned authors; for though Jeos without the article is frequently applied to God the Father, yet 6 9805 with the article is usually, for any thing I know, universally, (where no particular heathen god is mentioned or referred to,) applied to God the Father only; and seemingly for the best of all possible reasons, par excellence (as the French say), to distinguish him from all others, to whom the word has been applied in an

inferior and less strict sense of it, as the God, or the only God; whilst as to our Saviour and other persons, --for there are many in the Scriptures to whom it would be easy to refer, who are designated by the word 980s, the term being often used in a lower sense, to denote prophets, magistrates, and rulers,-it is applied to them without the article; and in the passage of St. John now in dispute, where our Saviour intimates, that the word might without impropriety have been applied to himself, as it had been to God's prophets and messengers of old, it is used without the article.

Suppose, for instance, that Moses was one of those prophets to whom the word 'God' had been applied in the Jewish Scriptures, and our Saviour's remark had been, Is it not written in your law, I said to Moses Thou art 90s (without the article),—would not any one translating this into a modern language, which possesses an indefinite, as well as a definite article,-as the English language for instance, which has in this respect an advantage over the Greek,-supply the indefinite article, and render it 'a God?' In reality, the meaning is so clearly to be collected from the context, that it is useless for this purpose to enter further into the consideration of any supposed niceties in the construction of the Greek article and after all, I think you will find by reference to my letter, that my rendering was 'God,' intimating only in a parenthesis that in the original it was Jeos, God, or a God, in the