affords me an opportunity of observing, that I am at all times ready to extract what is excellent from the writings of any man, even from those of PRIESTLEY, BELSHAM, or DRUMMOND, or any other Unitarian. But as to whether Mr. LOCKE was a Unitarian or not, I do not know; nor, as far as my argument is concerned, do I care: for though he was a philosopher of the first class, invested with great powers of intellect, which qualified him to be a guide and conductor through the intricate mazes of scientific research, yet Mr. LOCKE, as well as every other man who wishes to know the way of salvation, and how, as a sinner, he can be reconciled with God, must approach the Gospel as a little child, and learn at the feet of Jesus; for "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?"

I shall now examine the principle by which Mr. Porter has reconciled the passage in REV. xix. 12, with the omniscience of the Father. The passage in REV. xix. 12, is as follows: "He had a name written which no one (s) knew but he himself;" and the question which I proposed to Mr. Porter was this, How could he reconcile this declaration, that no one but Christ knew the name which he bore but he himself, with the omniscience of the Father? and what solution of this difficulty would he propose? He has now informed us, that he adopts the same view of the passage which King James' translators have chosen, and that he understands the Greek word dus in a restricted sense, as denoting "no man;" so that, instead of translating the word ouds in its plain and obvious sense, as denoting no one," whether created or uncreated, he understands it in a more limited sense, as it occurs in the English version of the passage. Now, I shall apply the very same principle of restriction to the interpretation of MARK Xiii. 32: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels which are in heaven; neither the Son, but the Father:" and I reconcile this declaration with the omniscience of Christ in the very same manner, by understanding it as referring only to the human knowledge of the Saviour. I assume it as a Scripture truth, that Christ was omniscient as to his higher nature. This is evident from comparing JER. Xvii. 9, 10, with REV. ii. 23; and from many other passages. I argue, therefore, that I must interpret MARK xiii. 32, upon a principle which will not contradict this doctrine. I, therefore, explain this text as referring to the knowledge which Christ possessed in his human nature. I proved to you, on yesterday, that when Christ assumed our nature, he became "in all things like unto his brethren;" but this would not have been true, if he had not assumed our ignorance. This passage, therefore, affords no objection against the Deity of Christ. What right, however, had Mr. Porter to quote this passage as affording an argument against my system? It is an affirmative proof of that part of my second proposition, which asserts that the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect man. It is an essential attribute of a "perfect man" to possess a faculty of progressively acquiring knowledge, and, after all his acquirements, to be capable of only a limited amount of knowledge; and, in reference to Christ, I prove the former by LUKE ii. 52, which asserts that "Jesus increased in wisdom;" and I prove

the latter by reference to the passage under consideration, which asserts that there was something which he was ignorant of. As to his divine nature, I again remark, that there is a copiousness of proof to demonstrate that his knowledge is one with the Father's; as, for instance, in his own declarations: "As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father;" "No one knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any one the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him :" and from the language of Peter, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee," which is equivalent to a regular syllogistic inference, that because Christ knew all things, he therefore knew that Peter loved him; but it is evident that Peter would have been a bad logician, if he had used the word "all" in this passage in a restricted sense, as he could not have inferred from Christ's knowing some things, that he knew that Peter loved him, in as much as this fact might have been among the some things which, on this supposition, Christ did not know. The "all things," therefore, in the language of Peter, must mean "all things" in an absolute and unrestricted sense; otherwise his argument would be bad logic. To reconcile these declarations, therefore, of the omniscience of Christ with MARK Xiii. 32, I am obliged to consider the latter passage as a positive and affirmative proof that Christ possessed a true human mind; and I will not submit to be placed on the defensive, in reference to this text, as I regard it as a necessary affirmative proof of part of my second proposition.

As to the passage thrown up against me in 1 JOHN v. 7," There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one," I beg to ask, What right had Mr. Porter to bring it forward? Did I quote this text as an argument, amongst the passages to which I yesterday referred? Certainly not: and surely Mr. Porter had no right to criticise any passage as an argument on my side, unless what I have actually advanced. But as he has asserted that this text is an interpolation, I call upon him to bring forward, in detail, the proofs by which he supports this assertion.

Mr. Porter has rested some of his arguments upon an assumption, that I hold it as a principle, that the word Father, in Scripture, is always used in the sense of Creator. I beg to say, that I have made no such assertion. What I believe, in reference to this subject, is, that in several passages the term "Father" is unquestionably used in the sense of "Creator;" as, for instance, in MAL. ii. 10: "Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?" I also believe, that the term Father is used to designate what we term the First Person of the Trinity, as the Father of Christ, which he is in a vastly different sense from that in which he is the Father of Christians. There is a remarkable combination of these two senses of the term Father in JOHN XX. 17, in which Christ says: "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and unto my God and your God." He does not say, "I ascend unto our Father and our God;" but he uses language which clearly marks the distinction which there is in the import of the terms which he employs, when applied to himself and to his people. I therefore infer, that the term

L

"Father" is used, in Scripture, in two senses: it is applied to the Father of Christians, and to the Father of Christ.

As to the wise declaration which Mr. Porter made in his last speech, that "he would not answer Mr. Bagot's criticisms, because his most strenuous exertions would fail to produce conviction;" this was a very good reason, indeed; and I beg to express my obligations to him for it, and to assure him that I perfectly concur with him in recognising the validity of the reason which it assigns!

I stated yesterday, that the Scriptures speak of Christ in three points of view; as Mediator-as perfect man-and as perfect God. As Mediator, I believe that he is subordinate to the Father, who sustains the higher office; and I now wish to advance a few additional proofs of his mediatorial subordination. These you will find in Roм. xv. 5, 6; 2 Cor. i. 3; xi. 31; EPH. i. 3; COL. i. 3; 1 THESS. i. 3-9; 1 PET. i. 3. On examining these passages at your leisure, you will find that they all prove satisfactorily the mediatorial subordination of Christ to the Father. I wish, however, to make a remark upon one or two of them.

In 1 THESS. i. 9, we read of Christians "turning to God from idols, to serve the living and true God." Now it is easy to show, from a comparison of this text with other parts of Scripture, that Christ is "the living and true God;" for the eternal employment of the glorified saints is represented in REV. xxii. 3, as "serving God and the Lamb;" and the Father has given this command, in reference to Christ, which is recorded in HEB. i. 6, "Let all the angels of God worship him." Now, unless Mr. Porter allow, that Christianity has done nothing more than turn men from one system of idolatry to another, it must follow, from these texts, that Christ is the living and true God.

Again: I would remark, in reference to 2 COR. i. 3,-" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," that it proves the Deity of the Holy Ghost; for we read, in LUKE i. 35, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God." Hence it is evident, that the Holy Ghost is the Father of the Son of God; and, consequently, is God.

Mr. Porter has again referred to the Lord's Prayer, upon which I have already commented; and must now revert to it, in order to correct a misapprehension into which he has fallen. He seemed to think that I spoke of that prayer as if it was to be exclusively offered up to Christ. I certainly hold no such opinion. I believe, that the words "Our Father" are a general designation of the Divine Being -Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And I beg leave again to say, that I do not consider it necessary to deny the true Deity of the Father, as a preliminary to proving the true Deity of Christ.

In reference to MATT. vi. 14,-"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you," which Mr. Porter quoted in order to prove the Deity of the Father, I beg to remark, that it establishes a principle by which the Deity of the Son necessarily follows, as the Son also exercises the same divine prero

gative of forgiving sins, as is asserted in CoL. iii. 13: «Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."

I must now refer to the mode by which Mr. Porter endeavoured to obviate the argument for the Deity of Christ, which I derived from JOHN xiv. 14: "If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." He produced the declaration of Christ, in JOHN xvi. 23: "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you;" and he told us, with the most perfect composure, that the latter passage explains the former, so as to bring it into consistency with his views! I should be anxious to know on what principle the latter text explains the former? Does Mr. Porter apply to the interpretation of Scripture, some principle of criticism similar to that by which positive and negative quantities in algebraic computations destroy and neutralize each other? Does he place the sign of plus before one passage, and of minus before another; and then, by an algebraic calculation, neutralize the one by the other? For my part, I believe the two declarations contained in these two portions of the word of God. I believe that the Father will give what the Christian prays for in the name of Christ; and I also believe that Christ will give what the Christian prays for: for I believe that "what things soever the Father doeth, the same doeth the Son likewise." JOHN V. 19. And I would not wish to apply the principle which Mr. Porter has adopted, of neutralizing Scripture, by a rule similar to that by which positive and negative quantities in algebra destroy each other.

Mr. Porter has laid great stress upon the fact, that Christ prayed to the Father only, whilst he was upon earth. I answer, Is there not a sufficiency of Scripture evidence, to demonstrate the duty of praying to Christ? did not Stephen pray to him in his dying hour? did not the Apostle Paul pray to him thrice, to be delivered from the thorn in the flesh? and were not Christians designated as those who called upon the name of Christ? Does Mr. Porter require of me to produce evidence of Christ's praying to himself! Surely this is manifestly one of those duties, in support of which he could not leave his own example. In many points, the example of Christ, considered as a model for our moral imitation, was defective: he did not leave the example of being a good husband or a good father; and, from the nature of the thing, he could not leave us an example of praying to himself: it were absurd to expect it. We must obviously look to the conduct of the apostles and disciples, as recorded in the rest of Scripture, for practical evidence in support of this duty.

The next passage which Mr. Porter quoted, was JOHN xi. 41: "Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me."-But this, however, is not a prayer for ability, to perform the miracle of raising Lazarus; and the words which follow in the 42d verse explain the object of the Saviour in this address: "And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." Mr. Porter has asked the following question, upon which he seemed to lay considerable stress: "If Christ be God, why should

he have prayed at all?"-I answer this question by simply proposing another: "If Christ was man, why should he have lived without prayer?"

He next referred to JOHN xv. 26, in which Christ says to his disciples, "I will pray the Father, and he will send you another Comforter."-But this passage only supplies me with part of the argument, by which I prove, that the Father and the Son are one, in the act of sending the Spirit to the church: the remainder of the argument, which attributes the exercise of the same prerogative to Christ, occurs in JOHN XV. 26, "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father."

I shall now direct your attention to the prayer of our Saviour, which is recorded in the 17th chapter of JOHN, which Mr. Porter evidently regards as supplying him with irrefragable arguments against the doctrine of the Deity of Christ. This prayer, however, was presented to the Father in "the days of his flesh," and is easily accounted for by the official station which the Redeemer occupied as the great High Priest of his people's profession. It was customary for the High Priest, immediately before the great day of atonement, to offer up a solemn prayer to God-first, for himself; secondly, for the sons of Aaron, who were joined with him in the priesthood; and, thirdly, for the entire congregation of the people. If you examine this prayer of Christ's, you will find an exact correspondence with this arrangement. From verse 1 to 5, he prays for himself; from verse 6 to 19, he prays for the Apostles, who were, in a subordinate sense, united with him in the great office of preaching the Gospel; and from verse 20 to the end, he prays for his whole church: and the time when he offered up this prayer was immediately before that solemn hour, in which he offered himself without spot to God, and it was uttered by him in his official character as our great High Priest.

I shall now refer to some parts of this prayer, in order to show that the language it contains is totally inconsistent with the condition of a creature. In the first verse, he prays in these remarkable words: "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." Now, imagine a creature presenting such a prayer as thisasking his Creator to glorify him, in order that he might glorify his Creator! Imagine, for instance, Gabriel himself, who stands upon a lofty elevation within the sunshine of the eternal throne, adopting such language in prayer to that Being who imparts to him all that seraphic intelligence which gives emphasis and vigour to the anthem in which he celebrates the matchless glory of his Creator! Nor is the language which occurs in the fifth verse more consistent with the character and condition of a creature: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." In this passage, Christ takes a retrospective view of the glory which he had with the Father before the creation of the world, in terms which prove that his glory was precisely the same as the glory of the Father; and he takes a prospective view of the glory which he should resume when the period of his official subordination had expired. Now, I ask, does this verse contain