i. 18. The Lord grant that he may find "mercy of the Lord in that day," which some of the orthodox have dignified with the title of loca efficacissima, in settling the doctrine of a godman. (See the Unitarian Tracts, 4to. 1691. vol. i. tract Brief Hist. of Unitarians, p. 15. 21.) And it confirms this reasoning from Exod. iii. 14, to prove the divinity of Moses, that this very kind of language is elsewhere unequivocally applied to Moses : "The Lord commanded my Lord "to give the land," &c. Numb. xxxvi. 2.

Moses may be proved to be God,

11. From his being the Son of God. All advo

cates for a godman hold, that the son of God
is God himself, though they deny that the
son is the father, because that would be to
"confound the persons" of the godhead.
This is a mystery; but that is so much the
better, as long as it is orthodox. Now that
Moses was the son of God, appears clearly
from Hosea xi. 1. "I called my son out of
Egypt," compared with Exod. iii. 4. Heb.
xi. 27. Commentators, I know, understand
the words in Hosea as spoken of the whole
body of the Israelites; but then it ought to
have been plural, my sons: or, if it means
them all, yet Moses was one, and the most
distinguished one of them. Or it
Or it may refer
to Moses primarily, and to the nation second-
ari'y, and that may be the reason for using
the singular number in the particular con-

nection

nection and context in which it stands in Hosea. But I think it most agreeable to the analogy of the faith, to understand the word son, of an individual, and that individual to be Moses; because, nobody was ever so emphatically called, in such a particular way, as he was, Exod. iii. 4, nor called so truly out of Egypt. For he himself was out of Egypt at the time and place when and where the call was made. The call itself, twice repeated, was out of the midst of the bush, which bush was out of Egypt; and it was made for the purpose of his finally quitting that country, and not only of his coming out of it himself, but of bringing reluctantly out of it for ever, all his countrymen, who can never be considered as coming out of it, any otherwise than they came out through him, because they never came voluntarily, and were often clamorous to be led back again. But Moses was called out of Egypt in every sense of the word, and so is here styled the son of God. And that he was the son of man, I suppose all will allow. Exod. ii. 1, 2. And so he had a divine and a human nature.

Moses may be proved to be God, 12. From the mysterious circumstances attending his birth, death, and resurrection. No man ever so completely experienced the new birth as he did; for, after he was born once, he was born again, and became the son of a second mother. Exod. ii. 10. When he died,

he

he was buried by the Lord, which, perhaps, from what we have before seen, may mean himself. However that be, no man could ever find his sepulchre. Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6. And that he came to life again, appears from Matt. xvii. 3. And it seems from Deut. xxxiv. 7, as if he had this life in himself; and to confirm this, we are no where told that God raised him from the dead, but, on the contrary, that God buried him. He also wrote the account of his own death, for he wrote the book of Deuteronomy, in which we read that account. No man, nor I think any other being, except a godman, could be capable of doing this. To such a being, nothing can be easier. He relates in his divine. nature, what he undergoes in his human nature. It is said, in Jude 9, that "Michael "the archangel contended with the devil "about the body of Moses." This I think every body must see to be a symbolical representation of the two natures in Moses contending with each other: the one, the divine, which was heavenly, spiritual, angelic; the other, the human, which was earthly, "sensual, devilish." Jam. iii. 15. Jannes and Jambres too (2 Tim. iii. 8.), who are such mysterious personages, that the commentators could never find out who they were, or properly identify their existence, seem, some how or other, to typify the opposition made to Moses in his twofold capacity: whether they

are

Moses

are to be considered as types or anti-types, I do not take upon me to decide, having but little skill in that sort of theology.

may be proved to be God,

13. From its being blasphemy and sin of the highest kind to speak against Moses. Acts vi.

11. Numb. xxi. 5, 7. Observe, that in the text from the Acts, the words Moses and God are joined together in the same case, by the copulative x, and that the preposition us, which is prefixed to the first noun, is omitted before the second; and, therefore, by Mr. Sharp's rule, which I have shewn to be equally applicable to prepositions as to articles, (see Letter the second, page 32.), Moses and God refer to the same person. Observe too, that Moses stands first, a cir cumstance which, the fathers as well as some of their sons, consider as going a great way towards proving a person to be equal with God. In the two passages from Numbers, Moses being mentioned jointly' with God, the sin most certainly amounts to supreme, i. e. to blasphemy.

Moses may be proved to be God,

14. From the Israelites believing in him, in the

same manner as they did in the Lord. Exod. xiv. 31.; and from the Lord's coming down from heaven, for the express purpose of making them so believe in Moses for ever. Exod. xix. 9. Our version has believe only, in these passages; but in the hebrew it is believe in.

Moses may be proved to be God,

15. From his having a prophet. Exod. vii. 1. Now

there are no prophets mentioned in scripture but those of the Lord, or those of a false God. Moses, therefore, not being a false God, must be the true. Also, from his having angels and ministers at his command. Numb. xx. 14. Deut. ii. 26. Exod. xxiv. 13. Josh. i. I. In our common version the two first texts read messengers, but in the hebrew the words, in all the four texts, are the very same as those in Psal. civ. 4. So that if we could but get a corrected version,' by some good, sound, believer, we should here have some new proofs' and testimonies in favour of Moses's divine nature, which

6

ought not to be with-held from the mere english reader.' (Sharp's Rem. p. 44.)

Moses may be proved to be God,

16. From the Israclites being baptized into [IS, the same as in Matt. xxviii. 19.] Moses. 1 Cor. x. 2. To be baptized into any one, is the same as to be baptized into his name, as appears clearly from comparing Rom. vi. 3. Gal. iii. 27, with Acts ii. 38. viii. 16. Now, all sound divines hold,* that he into whom, or into whose name, any one is baptized, be

* And among these, the present bishop of London, Dr. Porteus, who has unadvisedly asserted, that the baptismal form (Matt. xxviii. 19), is "one principal ground of the doctrine of "the trinity." See his Lectures, vol. ii. p. 335. If this be the principal ground, may we not ask-what can be the weak ground?

comes