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ing said, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham our Lord," declares, with his peculiarly solemn mode of introduction, "Verily, verily, I Before Abraham was I am.' say unto you, I had priority of existence, together with a continuation of it to the end of time. Nor did the Jews mistake his meaning; but being filled with indignation at so manifest a claim of Divinity, "they took up stones to stone him.” We must therefore conclude that our Saviour existed not only before John the Baptist, but also before the patriarch Abraham; and consequently, that he did exist at least two thousand years before he was born.

7. He created all things. John i. 3, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." Again: Col. i. 15, 16, 17, "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers: all things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." But if he was before all things, and if all things were created by him, it is evident that he did exist before the creation, consequently before his incarnation, which did not take place until four thousand years after the creation. “

8. The last passage which I shall quote, may properly, both from its dignity and explicitness, close the whole. John xvii. 5, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine ownself, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. On this passage, Mr. Watson very appropriately remarks, "Whatever this glory was, it was possessed by Christ before the world was, or as he afterwards expressed it, before the foundation of the world. That question is therefore not to be confounded with the main point which determines the pre-existence of our Lord: for if he was with the Father, and had a glory with him before the world was,

and of which he emptied himself when he became man, then he had an existence, not only before his incarna tion, but before the very foundation of the world." So conclusive is this passage in proving the pre-existence of Christ, that as Dr. Harwood says, "Were there no other intimation in the whole New Testament of the pre-existence of Christ, this single passage would irrefragibly demonstrate and establish it. Our Saviour, here in a solemn act of devotion, declares to the Almighty that he had a glory with him before the world was, and fervently supplicates that he would be graciously pleased to reinstate him in his former felicity. The language is plain and clear. Every word has great moment and emphasis:-Glorify thou me with that glory which I enjoyed in thy presence before the world was. Upon this single text I lay my finger. Here I posit my sysAnd if plain words be designedly employed to convey any determinate meaning; if the modes of human speech have any precision, I am convinced, that this plain declaration of our Lord, in an act of devotion, exhibits a great and important truth, which can never be subverted or invalidated by any accurate and satisfactory evidence."

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Having, therefore, proven, in opposition to the Socinian hypothesis, from the plainest possible testimony; testimony which no criticism, and no unlicensed comment, has been able to shake or obscure, that our Saviour had an existence before his incarnation, and even before the "foundation of the world," in conclusion we would remark, that if Jesus Christ did exist previous to his incarnation, if he possessed any nature before his advent into this world, it must have been either a human angelic or Divine nature. That it was not a human nature, is evident from the fact that no one can believe in the pre-existence of human souls. That it was not an angelic nature, is also clear from Heb. ii. 16, "For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham." Also, from Heb.

i. 4, 5, "Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee?" If, then, he had a more excellent name, and was made better than any of the angels, and if he took not upon him their nature, it is clear that he was not one of them; and if, in his pre-existent state, he possessed neither a human nor angelic nature, it is evident that he must have been a DIVINE BEING.

II. Christ is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the God worshiped by the Jews, Jer. iii. 31, 32. "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt." The Jehovah who led the Israelites out of Egypt and gave them their law, is here plainly introduced as the author of the new Covenant. This new Covenant, according to the argument of the Apostle Paul in the 8th chapter of Hebrews, is the Gospel dispensation, of which Christ is evidently the author; consequently he must be the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the God of the Jewish people, who led them out of the land of Egypt, and gave them their law, amid the most awful displays of Divine Majesty on the trembling summit of Sinai, where, as well as in after ages, he received the worship of the children of Israel; for, according to the above passage, the same person is author of both the Old and New Covenant.

The same doctrine is taught, with equal clearness, in that celebrated prediction recorded in Malachi iii. 1.

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare my way before me; and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in; behold he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts."

The characters under which the person who is the subject of this prophecy is described, are, the Lord, a sovereign ruler, the owner of the temple, and therefore a Divine prince or governor, he 'shall come to his temple.' The temple,' says Bishop Horsley, in the writings of a Jewish prophet, cannot be otherwise understood, according to the literal meaning, than of the temple at Jerusalem. Of this temple, therefore, the person to come is expressly called the Lord. The lord of any temple, in the language of all writers, and in the natural meaning of the phrase, is the divinity to whose worship it is consecrated. To no other divinity was the temple of Jerusalem consecrated, than the true and everlasting God, the Lord Jehovah, the Maker of heaven and earth. Here, then, we have the express testimony of Malachi, that the Christ, the Deliverer, whose coming he announces, was no other than the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Jehovah had delivered the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage; and the same Jehovah was to come in person to his temple, to effect the greater and more general deliverance of which the former was but an imperfect type.'

Now, this prophecy is expressly applied to Christ by St. Mark. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.' It follows from this, that Jesus is the Lord, the Lord of the Temple, the Messenger of the Covenant mentioned in the prophecy; and bearing these exact characters of the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who was the King of the Jews; whose temple was HIS, because he resided in it, and so was called 'the house of the Lord; and who was the Messenger' of the Covenant; the identity of the person cannot be mistaken. One coincidence is singularly striking. Jehovah had his residence in the Jewish tabernacle and temple, and took possession, or came suddenly to both, at their dedication, and filled them with his glory. On one occasion,

Jesus himself, though in a state of humiliation, comes in public procession to the temple at Jerusalem, and calls it his own; thus at once declaring that he was the ancient and rightful Lord of the Temple, and appropriating to himself this eminent prophecy. Bishop Horsley has introduced this circumstance in king and convincing manner.

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"A third time Jesus came still more remarkably as the Lord to his temple, when he came up from Galilee to celebrate the last passover, and made that public entry at Jerusalem which is described by all the Evangelists. It will be necessary to enlarge upon the particulars of this interesting story: for the right understanding of our Saviour's conduct upon this occasion depends so much upon seeing certain leading circumstances in a proper light,—upon a recollection of ancient prophecies, and an attention to the customs of the Jewish people, that I am apt to suspect, few now-a-days discern in this extraordinary transaction what was clearly seen in it at the time by our Lord's disciples, and in some measure understood by his enemies. I shall present you with an orderly detail of the story, and comment upon the particulars as they arise: and I doubt not but that by God's assistance I shall teach you to perceive in this public entry of Jesus of Nazareth, (if you have not perceived it before,) a conspicuous advent of the great Jehovah into his temple. Jesus, on his last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, stops at the foot of Mount Olivet, and sends two of his disciples to a neighboring village to provide an ass's colt to convey him from that place to the city, distant not more than half a mile. The colt is brought, and Jesus is seated upon it. This first circumstance must be well considered; it is the key to the whole mystery of the story. What could be his meaning in choosing this singular conveyance? It could not be that the fatigue of the short journey which remained was likely to be too much for him on foot; and that no better animal was to be procu