own Scriptures in so doing, there being an inferior sense of the word, in which the prophets of old, to whom the word of God came, were called 90 (Gods). Now as these holy prophets are here called 9801, (Gods,) when spoken of collectively in the plural number, each considered separately must have been called 905, which would in English naturally, if not necessarily, be translated by every English writer having no previous bias upon his mind, with the indefinite article prefixed, ‘a God,' and not anarthrous, as you say, 'God;' for where ten or more persons are called gods, no Englishman writing of one of them would say that he was God, but that he was a God; and so of each of the others, that he was a God also, as has been actually done in the passage in Exodus, chap. vii. ver. 1, where the supreme Being, speaking to Moses, says, "See, I have made thee a God unto Pharaoh.” After all, it is in reality of little importance in what sense the Jews supposed our Lord to have made himself God, or how the word Jov, which they made use of, is to be rendered; as our Lord intimated to them, in language too plain to be misapprehended, that they had been utterly mistaken, for that he had never made himself Joy, (God, or a God,) at all; but that they had charged him with blasphemy, because he had said that he was the Son of God.

It is a most singular fact, that there is scarcely any part of this celebrated passage, so often quoted by trinitarians in support of their doctrine, which will

not be found, when attentively considered, to be in direct opposition to it. I shall give one more instance of it from the conclusion. Our Lord says, that he was sanctified and sent into the world by the Father. His sanctification and mission, we perceive, are mentioned together; as if both took place at the same time, or the former immediately, or shortly, preceded the latter, and took place with a view to it, in order to qualify him for it. But what occasion could there be for him to be sanctified, who, according to the trinitarian hypothesis, was from all eternity most holy, wise, just, and good? If he was sanctified at, or just before, his mission, or at any other time whatever, it follows, that during the whole of an antecedent eternity he must have been unsanctified. If it should be said by the trinitarian, contrary to our Lord's words, (who never speaks of himself by parts and parcels, but as one entire being,) that it was only his human nature that was then sanctified,-this, though it agrees perfectly with the unitarian system, that at a certain period of his life he was by the Father sanctified and sent into the world-that is, sent among the people to preach the Gospel to them,-will not correspond at all with the trinitarian doctrine, which represents the divine Logos, the second person in the Trinity only, as having been sent from heaven into this world to unite with the human nature, which previously to the supposed miraculous conception had no existence. Supposing it however to have been the divine Logos,

that was sanctified, and sent into the world by the Father, there are other unavoidable inferences which are utterly irreconcileable with the trinitarian scheme. He that sanctifies must, whilst language has any meaning, be considered as greater, or holier, than he who is sanctified by him, as our Saviour himself says, "Which is greater, the gift, or the altar which sanctifies the gift?" Matt. xxiii. 19. In like manner, he who sends his messenger to finish certain work which he had given him to do, (John xvii. 5,) will always be deemed to be superior to the messenger he has dispatched to perform it. How is it also upon the trinitarian hypothesis, that the Holy Ghost had no concern with our Lord's sanctification; and that he is never represented as having been sent by the Holy Ghost, but by the Father only? I am aware that there is another meaning of the Greek word which has been rendered sanctified,' by trinitarian translators: but as that will, if possible, militate still more strongly against their system, they will not feel much inclined to adopt it.

It was in reply to an observation made in your former letter,-that the word of God which came to the prophets of old was the Eternal Logos, meaning the second person in the Trinity, namely, our Saviour,— that I produced the parallel passage of the word of Samuel coming to all Israel, to shew that there was no more reason for considering the word of God which came to the prophets to be a person, than the

word of Samuel which came to all Israel: and I quoted the first verse of the first chapter of the Hebrews, as containing direct proof, that it was the Father who spoke by the prophets, and not the Son. This last quotation you pass over in silence; but say that you do not conceive Samuel's word a person, because no other Scripture leads you to adopt such an opinion: neither do I for the same reason; nor do I consider the word of the Father to be a person, because in figurative language it is sometimes personified, as wisdom' is in the Old Testament, and as various properties and attributes are in a variety of writers, sacred and profane, ancient and modern. There have been a few instances of the passage in the Psalms, "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made," having been produced to prove that the Son, or Logos, made the material heavens; till it was noticed that this was followed by the words, "and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth;" when it became evident that, if the word of the Lord by which the heavens were made was to be taken literally, and was to denote a person, the breath of his mouth, by which all the hosts of them were made, must likewise be taken literally, and mean a person also.

Your quotation from the first chapter of St. John's Gospel depends, not only upon the supposed accuracy of the common version, but upon particular meanings which trinitarians have been accustomed to give to

EV

certain words, without any evidence whatever, till they have at last come to think, that they can mean nothing else. In the first place they universally understand, without a shadow of proof, or even of probability, the words evap (in the beginning), to mean, ‘in the beginning of the world,' the period of the creation of this terraqueous globe; but it is remarkable, that though the apostle uses this expression in more than twenty instances, in fourteen of which it is used to denote the beginning of our Lord's ministry, which there is the strongest reason to think is the sense in which he uses it here, he never once makes use of it to allude to the creation of the world. Why then are we, without any reason, and contrary to all probability, to put this construction upon it? If we reject it, (and I will venture to affirm no critic would adopt it in the interpretation of any other writings under such circumstances,) every one acquainted with Scripture phraseology knows, that being with God' does not mean being God, but being favoured with manifestations of the Divine presence, and with communications of the Divine will, in which sense Moses and other messengers and prophets of the Most High are represented as having been with God; and thus understood, the passage will be perfectly clear and rational. In the beginning of our Lord's ministry he was favoured with a manisfestation of the Divine presence, and with a revelation of the Divine will, and he is, in language common in Scripture, called the Word, which is thus