042
Defense of an Essay, &c.
DEC.
Scoll. "And what can we understand by this testimony, 'the Word was God,' but that he was possessed of the same Divine nature and perfections with the Father?”
Henry. "The Word was with God. (1) In respect of essence and sub- stance; for the Word was God, a distinct Person or substance (subsistence?), for he was with God; and yet the same in substance, for he was God.”
Poole. "The Word was God; this speaks of the oneness and sameness of his essence with that of the Father. The term God, which in the foregoing words is to be taken Personally for God the Father, is here to be taken essen- tially, as it signifieth the Divine Being."
Burkitt. "Learn hence, 3d, his Divine essence. The Word was God. Here St. John declares the Divinity, as he did before the eternity of our blessed Savior. The Word was God, say the Socinians, that is a god by office, not by nature, as being God's ambassador."
Tholuck. "By so the Evangelist wished to designate that Divine essence in which the Son was equal to the Father."
Erasmus, " - dicere vult; Verbum particeps erat Divina essentiæ."
In the former part of this pamphlet, I have shown that the ancient Councils and the Protestant Reformers of the 16th century agree in regarding the word God as the absolute name of Jehovah, indicating his essence. In addition to this I show that Tertullian, Pearson, Waterland, Usher, Stillingfleet, Bloomfield, Stuart, Hodge, and Tholuck, agree in this view; to these I have now added the name of almost every Commentator whose works are within my reach. I can not fancy in what quarter Dr. L has pushed his inquiries to assert, as he has done, his firm conviction, that not "a single writer of emi- nonce can be brought forward to controvert his position that Elohim is a re- lative term."
But to all this, Dr. Legge replies, "I have carefully counted the number of times in which Elohim is used in the O. T. The word is used in all 2,555 times. ..........With relative force apparent, 1,476 times; with the definite article, 357 times; and simply (¿. e. standing absolutely), as in the first verse of Gene- sis, 722 times."
Before Dr. Legge expects us to lay any stress upon these numbers, he should have shown that the absolute name of a Being, or the absolute appellative name of a class of beings, can not be used with relative force apparent,” as the word Elohim is in the O. T.; or else his numbers all go for nothing. In some languages, the phrases "my man" and "my woman" are used to desig- nate the relationship of husband and wife (or, as it is commonly said in Eng- lish, man and wife), and yet no one would question the fact that the word man in these languages was an absolute, appellative noun. If the question was raised, to what class of beings does this individual belong, it would bring out an answer that would at once settle the point. Ans. "He is a man." Here the word man, being the predicate of the sentence, tells us of what nature the being in question is; as we saw above the word God declares in the 1st verse of St. John Gospel, and in the sentences, "Very God and very inan," &c.