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IV.

We have a very fhort epiftle of St. Jude, who was one of our Lord's kindred; in which there is nothing different from what he, and the other apoftles declared by the mouth of Peter, concerning their divine mafter. He has one paffage indeed, which fome have ignorantly misrepresented; wherein, fpeaking of certain falfe teachers of his time, St. Jude accufes them of denying God, the only (g) fovereign, dermolm, and our Lord Jefus Chrift. And he probably alludes to thofe early corrupters of the gospel by a mistaken philofophy, who would not allow Jefus to be the Son of the creator of the world, which they maintained to have been made by an inferior lefs perfect being; but that Jefus was fent by the fupreme God, who was perfectly good, to rectify the errors of the creator. Into fuch miftakes do men fall, when they leave the

written

bleffings; and he is alfo in the fame place faid to have raised Jefus Chrift from the dead: which affuredly befpeaks Jefus to have been a mortal creature: for God cannot die. To have overlooked this, and many other fimilar but stronger paffages of the like fort, in the epiftles of this eminent difci ple of Chrift, must have been blameable in one who can fo peremptorily declare him to be the teacher of a Trinity in Unity. This is repeated by me here to guard you against being mifled by fuch authorities.

(g) Dr. Doddridge gives the fame turn to the translation, in his paraphrafe.

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Of the other apoftles, who were with our Lord in his life time, and who now joined with Peter in this prayer, we have nothing remaining in writing; but we are affured, from fatisfactory evidence, as well as from what the apoftle Peter here declares concerning their fentiments, that wherever they went, they would bear teftimony to that grand truth of revelation, that there was but one only true God, the God of their fathers; and that Jefus was a man of their own nation, and the highly favoured fervant and messenger of that God, and the teacher of his will to men,

SECTION XI.

St. Luke's record of the manner in which the gospel was firft preached to the heathen world.

Acts x. You are inforined at large, of Peter being exprefsly commiffioned by Almighty God, to bring a man of rank, one of the heathen world, to the knowlege of the gofpel. Now in carrying on his converfion, what does the apostle teach him? that Jefus Chrift was

fpirit, God? No fuch thing.

a man of Nazareth in Judea; I 3

God? or, the holy But that Jesus was and the holy ghost

or

or holy fpirit, was the gift of divine powers, which God beftowed upon him, to qualify him to teach his will with authority to mankind; and that though he was cut off by violent and wicked inftruments for his many virtues and zeal in the difcharge of his great office, the Almighty had vindicated his innocence, and fhewn his high estimation of him by appointing him to be the president and judge, at that future day, when all those who fhould be found alive, and the innumerable dead, were to be called to give account of themselves.

After this opening made; Acts xiii. xiv. &c. Paul and Barnabas are, by divine appointment, fent forth by the rest of the apoftles, to preach the gospel to the whole heathen world. And in their travels, for this great defign, into different countries; they first acquaint them, every where, with the holy life of Jefus, a man of their own nation; his appointment from God to teach his will to the world; and his unjust death in the cause of the truth he delivered: but whom God claimed and confirmed to be his approved fervant and messenger to mankind, by reftoring him to life in three days. And Paul exprefsly informs his Athenian audience, that the God, that made the world, had recently manifested his will and holy laws by the man, viz. Jefus Chrift; whom he had dignified, by appointing him to pafs fentence upon mankind, at a future day, according to their actions, good of evil. COROL

COROLLARIES,

deducible from the foregoing facts.

I.

Whoever teaches that there is any person who is God, but the God of Ifrael, the living God, the God that made the world; or that Jefus Chrift

is

any other than a human being, the highly favoured fervant of God, teaches a doctrine contrary to that of the apostles, and condemned by them.

II.

St. Paul holds forth the fame doctrine concerning God and Chrift in his epiftles, which he preached to the Athenians. And it is pointed out in this work, and has been proved by others, that his words concerning a new creation by Jefus Chrift, and in all other places, are misunderstood and mifreprefented, where any would fix a contrary meaning on them, viz. that there is any God, or crefor but the fingle perfon of the Father of the univerfe; or that Jefus Chrift is God, or any other originally than one of the human race,

III.

It has been much difputed among christians of different perfuafions and opinions, whether the'

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cpiftle, that goes under the name of Barnabas, was written by Paul's companion, or by fome other of that name, or by fome one perfonating Barnabas. I confess, I rather incline to think it not written by Paul's companion. But if there be any thing in it, that speaks of Jefus Chrift as preexistent, or employed in creating the world, or as any other than a human being, it would be a proof that it could not be written by the true Barnabas, who taught a different doctrine in the fcriptures,in preaching Chrift to the heathens, as St. Luke affures us.

Some of the christian writers, after the council of Nice, and others in our own times, who would have the holy Jefus to be God as well as man, have been much perplexed, that the apostles in their fermons to jews and gentiles, fhould omit all mention of Chrift as God; and particularly that Paul and Barnabas at Lyftra, and that Paul again at Athens, fhould fpeak of him moft decifively as a man only, the creature of the living God, the creator of the world. And they have endeavoured to account for it by saying, that the apostles refrained from naming Chrift as God, or teaching that there were Three Divine Perfons, each of them God, left they should thereby confirm the heathens in their idolatry; and alfo by alleging, that it was neceffary to ufe great caution towards their countrymen, the jews, because that they would

not

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