the chief priests and Pharisees, Matt. xxvii. 63. . .. Further, it is the title which those gave to Jesus, who, at the time they gave it, knew nothing about him. In this manner the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well addressed him (John iv. 11), when she knew no more of him than that he was a Jew, which would not recommend him to her regard. Thus also he was addressed by the impotent man who lay near the pool of Bethesda (chap. v. 7), who, as we learn from the sequel of the story, did not then know the person who conversed with him, and who soon proved his benefactor. . . . Our interpreters have, in this particular [in generally translating Kúpos "Lord," instead of "Sir,” when applied to Jesus in the Gospels], followed neither the Hebrew idiom nor the English, but adapted a peculiarity, in regard to Jesus Christ, which represents most of his contemporaries as entertaining the same opinions concerning him which are now entertained among Christians. Now, nothing can be more manifest than that, in those days, the ideas of his apostles themselves were far inferior to what we entertain. GEO. CAMPBELL: The Four Gospels, Diss. vii. part i. sects. 13, 14.

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§3. CHRIST AS SAVIOUR OR REDEEMER.

When we are acquainted by Christ for what end he came into the world, and suffered and died, and rose again, we may discover the wisdom and goodness of God in it, in sending us such a Saviour, and in qualifying him in so excellent a manner for the work of our redemption; but we cannot safely draw any one conclusion from the person of Christ which his gospel hath not expressly taught, because we can know no more of the design of it than what is there revealed. — DR. WILLIAM SHERLOCK: Knowledge of Christ, chap. iii. sect. 3.

It was because God the Father infinitely loved his Son, and delighted to put honor upon him, that he appointed him to be the Author of that glorious work of the salvation of men. PRESIDENT EDWARDS: Sermon 3; in Works, vol. iii. p. 600.

As the grace of Christ is the meritorious, so the love of the Father is the original, cause of all spiritual blessings. The former source is traced to another still beyond. The Father is represented in Scripture as originating the salvation of man, as giving and sending his Son: "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son; "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" [John iii. 16; 1 John iv. 10]. Jesus Christ always speaks of himself as sent by the Father. - ROBERT HALL: Notes of Sermons; in Works, vol. iv. p. 568.

The Lord Jesus uniformly represented himself as performing all his acts for the instruction and salvation of men, in the most perfect subserviency to the will of his Father, and dependence upon him; and this fact he stated in a variety of expression, and on different occasions, so as to manifest an anxiety to impress it deeply on his followers. DR. J. P. SMITH: Scripture Testimony, vol. ii. p. 84.

The whole work of our redemption is attributed to God as its ultimate Author, and God is called our Saviour, because he produced the man Jesus by immediate creation, placed him in an entirely peculiar union with the Godhead; because God sent his Son; because Christ did, and still does, every thing according to the will of God; and because he was given us by God to be the Author of our salvation. STORR & FLATT: Biblical Theology, b. iv. § 75.

He through whom the Deity opens, as it were, afresh his intercourse with human nature, becomes necessarily the Redeemer, not from one special spiritual burden, pressing on one particular period, but from the burden which weighed down the whole human race, at all times and everywhere. — E. L. MAGOON: Republican Christianity, p. 107.

Many citations of a similar character might be here introduced; but they will more properly come under the texts which they serve to explain.

§ 4. CHRIST AS MEDIATOR.

The mediatorial exaltation of Jesus Christ is everywhere in the New Testament attributed to the Father; as, for example, when it is said, after a description of his humiliation, "Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above every name," Phil. ii. 10. DR. J. P. SMITH: Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, vol. ii. p. 84.

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There is the utmost care taken in Scripture, . . that, in all that Jesus did, he should be represented as acting in concurrence with the Father of all, for the fulfilment of his decrees, and the manifestation of his glory. The Lord Jesus Christ, as Mediator and as conducting his mediatorial kingdom, is manifestly to be distinguished in Scripture from the Sovereign of the universe. As Mediator, he is inferior to the Sovereign of the universe. He is a servant (having taken on him the form or condition of a servant), engaged in a peculiar service, subordinate to the general government of the universe. In his person he was inferior to God; for when the Word, who was "with God," and who "was God," "was made flesh," and was "found in fashion as

a man," he descended to the condition of a created being. That one person, Jesus, the Mediator between God and man, who combined in his person the divine and human nature, was inferior to the invisible, eternal Deity, as unallied to any creature. He was a person formed, by the will and wisdom of God, for a particular end connected with his universal government: he had therefore a beginning, that is, there was no person uniting in himself the nature of God and man from eternity; and the person so constituted was necessarily inferior to Him who in this sense created him. And the Lord Jesus, thus constituted, was inferior to the Father of all, not only as to his person, but as to his office. He was appointed, delegated, sent to the fulfilment of it. He was Mediator between God and man, but not an independent Mediator, nor a Mediator provided by man; but a Mediator provided by the mercy and wisdom and power of God. — JAMES CARLILE: Jesus Christ the Great God our Saviour, pp. 317-18.

Because Christ is thus sent by the Father with a commission what to do and teach, it follows, even without the direct scriptural statement of the fact, that he is subordinate to the Father; since, without contradiction, he who sends is greater than he who is sent. The attempt to explain such declarations of our Lord as the following, "My Father is greater than I" (John xiv. 28), on the simple ground of his humanity, would be, in our apprehension, entirely unsatisfactory; for his subordination to the Father, as the receiver to the giver, extends to those offices that are manifestly above the capacity of a finite nature. Of that subordination of the Son to the Father which runs through all the scriptural representations concerning him, we have no new explanation to give; for we regard the old explanation, that of official investiture, as abundantly sufficient. The Son receives from the • Father his mediatorial office in all its parts; he acts under him and by his authority, and is thus less than the Father; not merely as "the man Christ Jesus," but also as "God manifest in the flesh." But the question still remains, How can any but a Divine Being receive the office which the Father commits to the Son? PROFESSOR E. P. BARROWS Article 2, in the Bibliotheca Sacra for October, 1854; vol. xi. pp. 700–1.

By "a Divine Being," the writer evidently means God, or a being equal to God; for he adopts not the Arian hypothesis. But would it not be more rational to ask, How could a being who is infinitely powerful, and all-perfect in himself, have committed to him by another person any authority or office whatever?

SECT. VII. THE MORAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST, THAT OF A FINITE AND DEPENDENT BEING.

Jesus alone, of all the human race, by the strength and light imparted from above, was exempt from sin, and rendered superior to temptation. — HORSLEY.

§ 1. AS EXHIBITED IN HIS HABITUAL PIETY.

Among the qualities by which Jesus is so peculiarly distinguished, there is none which more attracts our observation, and commands our applause, than a vigorous and fervent spirit of piety, an entire resignation to the will of God, an implicit submission to his pleasure. Nor is there any principle which he inculcates more earnestly and more frequently upon his disciples than the necessity and propriety of having recourse to God in prayer, of absolute dependence upon him, of the most ardent love and filial awe toward him, of the most anxious and incessant endeavor to obey his will and to promote his glory. The Being whom he thus professed to honor, and whom he enjoined his followers to adore, was undoubtedly the Jehovah of Israel, the Source to which Moses referred his authority, the Founder of the civil and religious polity established among the Jews. BISHOP MALTBY: Illustrations of the Truth of the Christian Religion, chap. vi. p. 260.

It is apparent, from multiplied expressions of Jesus and from all his acts, that the will of his Father, which he was entirely certain that he perfectly understood, was the only rule and the living power of his conduct. To God, as the Source of his spiritual life, was his soul ever turned; and this direction of his mind was a matter of indispensable necessity to him. It was his meat and his drink to do the will of his Father. Without uniting himself to God wholly, consecrating himself to God unreservedly, feeling himself to be perfectly one with God, he could not have lived; he could not have been at peace in his spirit a single instant. In every thing which he said and did, he pointed to the Fountain of truth and goodness; to the Father, who permitted

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the Son to have in himself, and to exhibit to man, a heavenly life that was pure, perfect, and self-sufficient. CHARLES ULLMANN: Sinless Character of Jesus, sects. iv. and viii.; in Selections of German Literature, pp. 407, 444.

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The piety of Christ was uniform and complete. His supreme to God was divinely manifested in the cheerfulness with which he undertook the most arduous, and at the same time the most benevolent, of all employments; and, of course, that which was most pleasing to him, and most honorable to his name. His faith was equally conspicuous in the unshaken constancy with which he encountered the innumerable difficulties in his progress; his patience, in the quietness of spirit with which he bore every affliction; and his submission, in his ready acquiescence in his Father's will, while requiring him to pass through the deepest humiliation, pain, and sorrow. However humbling, however distressing, his allotments were, even in his agony in the garden and in the succeeding agonies of the cross, he never uttered a complaint. But, though afflicted beyond example, he exhibited a more perfect submission than is manifested by the most pious men under small and ordinary trials. No inhabitant of this world ever showed such an entire reverence for God, on any occasion, as he discovered on all occasions. He gave his Father, at all times, the glory of his mission, his doctrines, and his miracles; seized every proper opportunity to set forth, in terms pre-eminently pure and sublime, the excellence of the divine character; and spoke uniformly in the most reverential manner of the word, the law, and the ordinances, of God. At the same time, he was constant and fervent in the worship of God. — DR. TIMOTHY DWIGHT: Sermon 51; in Theology Explained, vol. ii. pp. 155–6.

That Christ was properly a human person will appear, if we consider the state and circumstances in which he was placed while he lived in this world. For, 1. He was fixed in a state of dependence. This he repeatedly and plainly acknowledged. "Then Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do." Again he said, "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but, as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things." And again, "The words I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." These are plain expressions of his dependence upon his Father. And it was upon this ground that he so frequently