to His divine nature, making His manhood an adjunct; whereas to say that man is God, does the contrary of both of these,—leads us to consider Him a man personally, with some vast and unknown dignity superadded, and that acquired of course after His coming into existence as man. The difference between these two modes of speaking is well illustrated in the recent work of a Socinian writer, whom on account of the truth and importance of his remarks, it is right, with whatever pain, to quote.
"A quick child, though not acquainted with logic, . . . will perceive the absurdity of saying that Edward is John..... As the young pupil must be prepared to infer from the New Testament, that a perfect man is perfect God, he must be imperceptibly led to consider the word God as expressing a quality, or an aggregate of qualities, which may be predicted of more than one, as the name of a species; just as when we say John is man, Peter is man, Andrew is man ..... And so it is, with the exception of a few who, in this country, are still acquainted with that ingeniously perverse system of words, by means of which the truly scholastic Trinitarians (such as Bishop Bull and Waterland, who had accurately studied the fathers and the schoolmen,) appear to evade the logical contradictions with which the doctrine of the Trinity abounds; all, as I have observed for many years, take the word God, in regard to Christ, as the name of a species, and more frequently of a dignity."—Heresy and Orthodoxy, p. 91.
It will be observed of this passage, that the writer implies that the orthodox mode of speaking of the Incarnation is not exposed to a certain consequence, to which the mode at present popular is exposed, viz. the tendency to explain away Christ's divinity. Man is God, is the popular mode of speech; God is man, is the Catholic. To return. It seems then that Mr. Erskine proceeds in the orthodox way, illustrating the doctrine that God became man; Mr. A. starting with the earthly existence of our Lord does but enlarge upon the doctrine that a man is God. Mr. Erskine enforces the Atonement, as a Manifestation of God's moral character; Mr. A. the life of Christ with the same purpose,—with but slight reference to the doctrine of the Expiation, for of course he whose life began with his birth from Mary, had given up nothing, and died merely because other men die. Here then is something very like Socinianism at first sight.
But again, let us see how he conducts his argument. Here
