3. The following passage the bishop gives us from Justin's Epistle to Diognetus, p. 498."He, the Almighty, the creator of all things, the invisible God, hath implanted among men, and engraven in their hearts, the heavenly truth, the Word, holy and incomprehensible; not sending, as any one would conjecture, a servant, an angel, a prince, an earthly potentate, or one to whom he had entrusted the administration of heavenly things,but the artificer and maker of all things, by whom he formed the heavens, and shut in the sea in its proper bounds: whose mysteries all the elements faithfully observe: from whom the sun has received his charge to measure out the day, whom the moon obeys, when he commands her to shine in the night, and the stars which follow the course of the moon; by whom all things are ordered and bounded, to whom all things are subject, the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is; the fire, the water, the abyss; what is in the heights and depths, and betwixt them: Him he hath sent to them. For what end? As a man would think to tyranize over them? To awe and terrify them?-No: He sent him as a king sends a king, his son, in clemency and meekness: He sent him as a God: He sent him to man-he sent him to save."

4. The bishop quotes Athenagoras to the same purpose, p. 131.- "The Son of God is the Word of the Father, in idea and energy. All things were made by him, and for him; the Father and Son being one,-the Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son, by the unity and power of the Spirit. The Son of God is the Mind and Word of the Father." And (p. 143, 144,) produces from Irenæus, a disciple of Polycarp, a passage

still more explicit." Nor shall any thing made, and in subjection, be compared with the WORD of God, by whom all things were made, who is our Lord Jesus Christ. Because, whether they are angels or archangels, or thrones or dominions, they are made by him who is God over all, by his Word. So St. John hath told us. For when he had said of the Word of God, that he was in the Father, he added." All things were made by him, and without him was nothing made." David, also, when he had particularly enumerated his praises, added, "for he commanded, and they were created; and spoke and they were made." Whom did he command? The Word, by whom the heavens were made, and the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Now the things that are made, are different from Him that made them; and those appointed, from Him that appointed them. He is unmade, without beginning, without end; he wants nothing, is self-sufficient, and gives to all other things their being. The things made by him had a beginning, and, as such, may have an end, are subject-indigent. It is altogether necessary they should have a different name, especially among men of any discernment of such things. So that He who made all things, with his Word, be justly and alone called God and Lord; but not that those who are made, should participate, or justly take to themselves, the name of their Creator."

5. In the two following pages the bishop quotes two more passages from Irenæus to the same purpose." The Son, who is the Word of God, laid out these things from the beginning, the Father not standing in need of angels for the cre

ation of the world, and the making of man, for whom the world was created, nor again wanting a ministerial power for making these things that are made, and the disposing the affairs of the world, after the formation of man, but having a sufficient and ineffable one. For his own offspring, and impress ministers to him in all things, i. e. the Son and holy Spirit, the Word and Wisdom, to whom angels are subject, and minister.” Again-"All things were made by him, and without him was nothing made.” Here is no exception, but the Father made all things by him, whether visible or invisible, sensible or intellectual, temporal, for a certain purpose, or eternal. He made all things, not by angels, or powers, different from his mind; for the God of all things wants nothing, but his Word and Spirit making, disposing, and governing all things, and giving being to them.

6. The same doctrine Irenæus delivers in another place, p. 214.-"There is only one God, the creator, who is above all principality and power, and dominion and dignity. He is the Father, the God, the creator, the builder, the maker, that made those things by himself, i. e. who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, by his Son and Holy Spirit."Again, p. 369 of Iranæus' works, "The angels then did not make, did not form us: They could not make the image of God, nor any but the Word of God; no power distinct (separate) from the father. Nor did the Father stand in need of them to make what he had before designed, as if he had not hands of his own. He has always with him his Word and Wisdom, the Son and Spirit, by whom, and in whom, he freely made

all things, and to whom he spake, saying,-Let us make man after our image and similitude."

7. To testimonies of Justin, Athenagoras, and Irenæus, disciples of the apostolical fathers, I shall add from the bishop, a passage of Origen, which the bishop defends as perfectly orthodox: "The Word, the Son of God, is the immediate, and, as it were, the very framer of the world: The Father of the Word, in that he ordered the Word, his Son, to make the world, its primary creator."-Origen, p. 317.

8. The fathers, therefore, at least in these passages, (which it will not be doubted bishop Bull has fairly represented,) approve this doctrine,that though the Father is primary creator, yet that the Son, his Word is the immediate creator and framer of the world. But that he did not do this as a being separate from the Father, but in such a sense, one with him, that the Father, creating the world by him, might be said to cre ate it by his own hands, as Irenæus' phrase is, or by himself; according to the words of Isaiah, ch. xliv. 24, "I am Jehovah that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens ALONE, that spreadeth abroad the earth by MYSELF." For as the Holy Spirit, who is undoubtedly of a nature properly divine, is the Spirit of the Father, and proceedeth from the Father, but though sent forth, is never separated from him: so, in like manner, the Word is the Word of the Father; and though he says, he "proceeded forth, and came from God, and that he came not of himself, but the Father sent him," John viii. 42, yet he is still united to him, and one with him, "is still in the Father, and the Father in

him."

INTRODUCTORY.

We now proceed to lay before the reader two letters, from the celebrated letters of the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, to Doct Priestly. We shall then make some practical remarks on them and the preceding chapter.

LETTER II.

Doctor Priestly is mistaken, when he asserts that the prophets always spoke of the Messiah as of a mere man like them. selves, and that the Jews never expected that the Mes. siah could be more than a man. In opposition to this error, this letter proves that our first parents expected a divine Messiah, and that the divine person, who appeared to the Patriarchs and to Moses, was Jehovah the Son, or Christ in his pre-existent state.

REV. SIR,

You might have given us, at least, twenty lines of plain uncontroverted truth in the beginning of your history, but regardless of so decent a caution, you stun us at once by a glaring, antichristian paradox. In the sixteenth line of your huge work, (for we need not go by pages to reckon up your errors) speaking of the thoughts which the Jews entertained of the Messiah, you say, none of their prophets gave them an idea of any other than a man like themselves in that illustrious character, and no other did they ever