Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 455

1850.

Defense of an Essay, &c.

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very wrong view, and (give me leave to add) to very little purpose. Had you found ever an ancient testimony, declaring that Christ was constituted God over all, you would have done something; the rest are impertinent, and come not up to your point. The word God was never looked upon as a word of office or dominion, but of nature and substance; and hence it is that the ancients never speak of Christ's being constituted God." Waterland's Works, Vol. II, p. 415.

"The truth is, God denotes all perfection, and Father denotes relatim of order, and a particular manner of existing, all which you con- fusedly blend together, as if signified by the one word God." Ibid, P. 510.

Bishop Stillingfleet says, "We do not say that three persons are but one person, or that one nature is three natures; but that there are three persons in one nature. If, therefore one individual nature be communicable to three persons, there is no appearance of absurdity in this doctrine. And on the other side, it is impossible that there should be three Gods, where there is one and the same individual nature; for three Gods must have three several divine natures, since it is the divine essence which makes a God.” Enchiridion Theologicum, Vol.

1,

P. 427. Quotations on this point might be extended ad libitum, but those given above are enough to show that the word God, by the usus loquendi of orthodox writers of the Christian Church of all ages, is an absolute, not a relative term, and that it does indicate the essence of Jehovah.

Dr. Legge endeavors to sustain his proposition that “God is not a generic, but a relative term," by what he calls a grammatical or syntactical proof, which proof he fortifies with two considerations, and the great name of Newton. The grammatical proof is that the English word God may be used, either with or without the English arti- cles. The first consideration, which fortifies the view derived from the grammatical uses of the word, is that "it (supposing the word God to be a relative term) meets and explains all the facts of the case; second,

"that the manner in which the name is vindicated to Jehovah in the Old Testament is inexplicable excepting on this view.”

We shall take up these severally in the order in which they are above stated.

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"

The grammatical proof is thus stated by Dr. Legge. Grammatical propriety is not violated by any of the forms of expression :—God made the world, a God made the world, the God made the world, Gods made the world.

Let us take any generic term of the animal king- don, and try to use it in the same way, and we shall find at nuprac

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