which is meant by perfon when applied to one man to distinguish him from another. It is fomething in the divine nature, in one respect more like the diftinction of perfons among men, than any other thing we are acquainted with; but, in another respect perfectly unlike this personality, as it implies identity and unity infeparable from this diftinction.

But why darken counsel with words on this fubject, it relates to the nature, nay, to the peculiarities of the nature of God; it is therefore fully known to none but God himself. Could we fully comprehend the nature of God, one of these two impoffibilities muft take place; either he muft cease to be God, or we to be creatures.

I have often pitied the folly and criminality of those men, who define by terms of human invention the nature of God, and the modes in which he exifts and acts, and who confider every deviation from these technical terms of human invention as impiety or atheism; and also of those men, who perceiving fomething like diftinct perfonality attributed to Chrift in fcripture, have impioufly and boldly denied that he is true God. Ah! vain man doft thou imagine, that thou canft fully comprehend the divine nature? Can the fhort span of thy little faculties measure the infinitude of Deity? Art thou unable to comprehend thine own nature, and to know how in thyself matter and

spirit are united and operate upon each other? Do the effences of the plaineft things totally escape thy notice? Does a perfect knowledge of the smallest herb exceed thy boafted powers? and dareft thou to deny The Word of God to be true God, because thou canst not comprehend the mode of his existence in the unity of the divine nature? Tempt not yourselves, by the fame delufion by which Satan at firft deceived the human race when he faid, "For God doth know, that in the day 46 you ea thereof your eyes fhall be opened, and

ye fhall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Let us not think, that we can know what is above the ken of creatures. Let us never attempt to be wife above what is written.

If we attend to the import of the Word of God, as the name by which Chrift was known before he had created this world, or took our nature upon him, we fhall find that, although we may know much of its meaning, yet none but he himself, as God, knows it fully. The very nature and ufe of a word is to reveal the mind of the perfon who speaks: Hence the Word of God fignifies that which reveals the mind and will of God. Chrift is therefore ftiled the Word of God, his peculiar character and office to to men the nature and the will of fore and after his incarnation.

because it is make known God, both be

Matth. xi. 27%.

None knoweth the Son but the Father: neither

"knoweth

knoweth any the Father, fave the Son, and he to whomfoever the Son will reveal him." After the words none and any I have left out the vord man, because it is not in the original, and he addition of it greatly contracts the meaning of that verfe. Whatever way pure fpirits perceive and enjoy one another, in our prefent embolied state, in which our spirits perceive, feel, and ct, through the channel of our bodily fenfes, and n which we cannot directly fee an immaterial fubtance by our bodily eyes, the nature and will of God are revealed to us in a manner suited to our refent organs of perception. By visible objects nd external revelation, the nature and will of God are manifefted to men. hief agent in all these visible works: and, as it eems to be as it were the peculiar department of he fecond perfon to reveal the nature and will of

But Chrift is the

od by these, both before and after his incarnaon, it is probable that he is therefore called the Vord of God. Here, for want of precise terms, e are obliged to use fuch as are too vague when pplied to this fubject.

As all things were created by the Word of God, e reveals, to all nations and ages, the nature and vill of God, fo far as they are proclaimed by the works of creation. As all judgement is committed the Son, and as he reigns in the moral governent of the world, as King of kings and Lord of lords,

lords, he reveals the nature and the will of God, by the course of providence. In no age does he leave God without this witnefs. When he took the human nature upon him, by his whole conduct he exhibited the moft juft views of the nature and will of God, in a way the most adapted to the faculties of men. It was when "the Word was "made flesh, and dwelt among men, full of grace "and truth, that they beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father."

66

By tracing intellectual and moral qualities in ourselves, and by feparating in idea every imperfection from them, and adding infinitude to them, we form the ideas which we entertain of the intellectual and moral perfections of God. Thus formed, we are obliged to express them in very abstracted terms; but abstract terms are intelligible only to those perfons, who are accuftomed to think not of things themselves, but of ideas or the impreffions of things on their own minds, which is not the cafe with the greatest proportion of mankind. Hence we are under the neceffity of speaking to them, of the divine perfections, as it were in an unknown tongue, which cannot convey knowledge to their minds. But, in the life of Jefus, every intellectual and moral quality, in their divine perfection, were exhibited in a vifible form, and clothed as it were with a body. There were no defects in either, as they appeared in him, to be taken a

way

way before they could be applied to God. He was the wisdom and power of God. He fpake as never man fpake. In him the Godhead dwelt bodily. He was full of truth. In perception, feeling, affection, and conduct, he never deviated from the truth. He was full of grace. He betowed the most ineftimable bleffings on men, in the most gracious manner;-bleffings which none but God could bestow, and bestowed, as all divine bleffiugs are, from pure unmerited grace and benevolence. The divine perfections, which adorned his character, were taught by his life, in a way qually fuited to the philofopher and to the peaant, to the rich and to the poor. His perfect knowledge of future events, and of the secret thoughts of men's hearts, taught men the omnfcience of God, in a way fuited to every capaciy. By a word rendering the ftormy winds and raging waves a calm, raifing the dead to life from thir coffins and their graves, and making an armed band of regardlefs foldiers fall proftrate on the gound before him as dead men, he taught the omnbotence of God. Continually going about doing good; crouding favours upon his bitterest enemis; ftrictly just to all both in a private and public character; rendering unto all their due, to God the things that are God's, and to Cæfar the things that are Cæfar's; fuffering on the crofs, to fatisiy the demands of divine juftice, to fupport

the