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."
Letter V. p. 72.
If Dr. Priestley had formed his estimate of human virtue by that great standard which requires love to God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves,—instead of representing men by nature as having "more virtue than vice,"—he must have acknowledged with the Scripture, that the whole world lieth in wickedness—that every thought and imagination of their heart is only evil continually—and that there is none of them that doeth good, no not one.
To this the Unicists would answer, that by