Note 165 — Quest. IX., X., XI. (continued 5)

See Dr. Waterland’s defence of the divinity of Christ, serm. iv. pag. 127. & seq. where he proves, that the exclusive terms of One, only, &c. do not except the Son, so as to deny him to have the same Godhead with the Father: this he proves from several scriptures, viz. Mat. xi. 27. No one knoweth the Son, but the Father; nor any one the Father, save the Son; it does not follow from hence, that the Father does not know himself nor the Son himself: and when it is said, in 1 Cor. ii. 11. The things of God knoweth no one, but the Spirit of God; this does not exclude the Son, for that would contradict the scripture but now mentioned; no more than the Son’s only knowing the Father excludes the Holy Ghost, which would be contrary to this scripture; so in Rev. xix. 12. it is said, that the Son had a name written which no one knew but he himself: none ever thought that the Father was excluded by this exclusive term; so when God the Father saith, in Isa. xliv. 24. I am he that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself: this would contradict many other scriptures, which speak of the Son as the Creator of all things, if he were to be excluded by it. Again, when the Psalmist saith, concerning the Father, in Psal. lxxxiii. 18. that his name alone is Jehovah, we must set aside all those scriptures in which our Saviour is called Jehovah, if he is contained in this exclusive term. See more to this purpose in the said sermon, in which this argument is managed with a great deal of judgment. I shall only take leave farther to cite what is well observed in page 33. “That, perhaps the word God in those places, namely, such in which there are these exclusive terms, is to be understood in the indefinite sense, abstracting from the particular consideration of this or that person, in like manner as the word man often stands not for any particular human person, but the whole species, or human nature; as when we say, man is frail; man is mortal, or the like.”