Socinianism and Imagination

Faustus Socinus worshipped Jesus Christ, and said that God had given him the power of being omnipresent. Davidi, with a little more acuteness, urged that mere audition or creaturely presence could not possibly justify worship from men; -- that a man, how glorified soever, was no nearer God in essence than the vulgarest of the race. Prayer, therefore, was inapplicable. And how could a _man_ be a mediator between God and man? How could a _man_ with sins himself offer any compensation for, or expiation of, sin, unless the most arbitrary caprice were admitted into the counsels of God? -- And so, at last, you see, it was discovered by the better logicians amongst the Socinians, that there was no such thing as sin at all.

It is wonderful how any Socinian can read the works of Philo Judeus without some pause of doubt in the truth of his views as to the person of Christ. Whether Philo wrote on his own ground as a Jew, or borrowed from the Christians, the testimony as to the then Jewish expectation and belief, is equally strong. You know Philo calls the Logos [Greek: yios Theoy], the _Son of God_, and [Greek: agap_athon te non], _beloved Son_. He calls him [Greek: arhchierheus], _high priest_, [Greek: deuterhos Thehos], _second divinity_, [Greek: ei an Theoy], _image of God_, and describes him as [Greek: eggutat_o m_adenhos ovtos methorhioy diast_amatos], the _nearest possible to God without any intervening separation_. And there are numerous other remarkable expressions of the same sort.