Let me add that a mighty and comparatively new argument against the
Socinians may be most unanswerably deduced from this reply of our
Lord's, even were it considered as a mere 'argumentum ad homines':
--namely, that it was not his Messiahship that so offended the Jews, but
his Sonship; otherwise, our Saviour's language would have neither force,
motive, or object. "Even were I no more than the Messiah, in your
meanest conceptions of that character, yet after what I have done before
your eyes, nothing but malignant hearts could have prevented you from
adopting a milder interpretation of my words, when in your own
Scriptures there exists a precedent that so much more than merely
justifies me." And this I believe to be the meaning of the words as
intended to be understood by the Jews in question; though, doubtless,
Fuller's sense exists 'implicite'. No candid person would ever call it
an evasion, to prove the injustice and malignity of an accuser even from
his own grounds:--"You charge me falsely; but even were your charge
true, namely, that I am a mere man, and yet call myself the Son of God,
still it would not follow that I have been guilty of blasphemy." But as
understood by the modern Unicists, it would verily, verily, be an
evasive ambiguity, most unworthy of Christian belief concerning his
Saviour. Common charity would have demanded of him to have said:--"I am
a mere man: I do not pretend to be more; but I used the words in analogy
to the words, 'Ye are as Gods'; and I have a right to do so: for though
a mere man, I am the great Prophet and Messenger which Moses promised
you.
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