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Psalm, is transfused into the citation from the history. So, in the account of the preaching of John the baptist, recorded in St. Luke,* where the office of the harbinger is copied from the fortieth chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah; it will be found on turning to the passage, that with expressions designatory of the future Christ, there are intermixed other expressions inapplicable to created being. Christ's forgiving of sins and his healing of diseases, in virtue of his own authority, strongly mark the high character here pleaded for. Accordingly in the prophet Isaiah,† where he is de. scribing the gospel age in the performance of many miraculous cures; the person by whom these things are to be done, is arrayed in attributes more than human. In analogy with this, it is affirmed and not denied concerning the ancient Jewish targums (or interpretations,) that there are in many places the expression-" The word of the Lord" for "the Lord" himself: For instance, in the passage already quoted from the one-hundred and tenth Psalm, they have "The Lord said to his word:" and in Gen. xxviii. 21. it is "Abraham worshipped and called upon the name of the word of Jehovah." A variety of instances might be brought to prove, that St. John did not take his peculiar style from the Platonick philosophy, as same imagine: it being familiar to the ancient Jews; from whom it probably came to Plato, with the learning which he drew from Egypt. And further, when St. John is said to have designed his gospel against the errour of Cerinthus; it is not that this heretick held the proper humanity of Jesus, or that the Messiah, who taught and performed the miraculous works of the gospel, was mere man; but it was pretended, that the divinity was united to him at his baptism, and left him before his crucifixion: the offence being, as with the Jews, at the ignominy of the cross. Hence the † xxxv. 4, 5, 6.

* iii. 4, 5, 6

importance of laying down such positions, as are found in the beginning of the gospel of St. John.

The following texts from the Acts of the Apostles, are here referred to as to the purpose-vii. 59: in which St. Stephen is represented in the act of prayer to Jesus Christ; presumptive of his divinity: and-viii. 14. and 21.; in both which places, the calling on his name implies invocation of him, as a property of the Christian profession.

Before the recording of intended references to passages in the Epistles, there may be propriety in offering specimens of the interpretation of them, by the opponents of the doctrine; in the instances of the texts contained in the lecture.

When it is said of Christ-" In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;"* it is thought to mean no more, than where it is supposed of believers that they may be "filled with all the fulness of God,"-that is, with the graces of the Holy Spirit. God's being "in Christ reconciling the world unto himself," is supposed to be the same with the doing of this through Christ; although there is nothing in the original, countenancing this emendation. And the words "God blessed for evermore," are interpreted to be not joined to Christ, named immediately before, but an exclamation of praise: doubtless by a very singular construction, put on the form of expression in the original.

To similar schemes of interpretation, there are entrusted the following texts-Rom. ix. 5; x. 12, 13, 14; xiv. 12.-1 Cor. x. 9.-2 Cor. viii. 9; xii. 8, 9; xiii. 14.-Philipp. ii. 5-8.-Col. i. 15-20.-1 Tim. iii. 16.-Heb. i. 2; and follow. ing: vii. 3; xiii. 8.-1 Pet. i. 11.

To the above, there may be added from the book of Revelation-i. 17.-ii. 23.-xxii. 20. Some of the cited passages should be more distinctly no

Col. ii. 9. Eph. iii. 19. 1 Cor. v. 19. § Rom. ix. 5!

ticed; were it not that they will again come into view in the fourth section.

To the above-cited testimonies, others of great weight may be added; in compliance with a rule of criticism, which some learned men have of late years urged, with evidence drawn from their stores of Greek literature. The rule is, that when the Greek copulative connects two personal substantives, the article preceding the first noun and not the second, the same person is contemplated in them both. The application of the rule to some texts, in which the Almighty Father is referred to, may be seen in the following instances:-Gal. i. 4. -1 Thess. i. 3.-2 Thess. i. 1., ii. 16. In each of these, the rendering might be, as in the last"God, even our Father:" and it would be utterly inadmissible, to conceive of two characters as de. signed, in any one of them. In like manner, it is contended, that the rendering of 1 Tim. v. 21. should be not as at present-"I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ;" but "I charge thee before God, even the Lord Jesus Christ." The rule has been sustained by innumerable quotations from the Greek fathers, and from the Greek classicks: and, so far as is here known, any attempts to invalidate it have been very feeble and inefficient. Under it, the following texts, in addition to that specified, may be referred to-Eph. v. 5.-2 Thess. i. 12.-Titus, ii. 13.-2 Pet. i. 1.—Jude, 4.*

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On this subject of the divinity of Christ; the advocates of it have always conceived, that they derive great advantage from the testimony of the primitive Church. For although, among Protestants, the only standard of truth is in the Holy

The rule is said to have been suggested by Theodore Beza; and some say, by others also. But it has been of late years opened and applied by Granville Sharpe, Esq. The authors who have sustained it by the fruits of their laborious researches are the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, D. D. and the Rev. T. F. Middleton, D. D.

Scriptures; yet, on the ground of moral evidence, the ground on which alone the authenticity of any book of Holy Scripture can be demonstrated-it seems contrary to all our experience of human nature to suppose, that immediately after the decease of the apostles, the very essence of the system should have become changed, and this without op. position, throughout all the countries in' which it had been received.

To avoid this pressing difficulty, the opponents fix on a particular time, when they affirm the change to have taken place. That time is about half a century after the decease of the last of the apostles, when Justin Martyr wrote his Apology; in which there are conceded to be express testimonies to the doctrine in question. About thirty years afterwards, Irenæus wrote; and within twenty or thirty years afterwards, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian. It is not denied, that all these exhibit the doctrine as the faith of the Church. That they should have done this in the face of the world-two of them in apologies addressed to the emperours and the senate of Rome-while the opinion was notoriously of modern origin; and that two of these men should have been honoured as martyrs, without a single voice raised to impeach the idolatry of what they taught; would prove mankind to have been differently constituted in those ages, than at present.

All this, however, is on the erroneous presumption, that of the scanty remains possessed of still earlier writers, there are no express testimonies to the divinity of the Redeemer. The contrary may be easily made to appear. The Roman Clement, who is mentioned as having "his name in the book of life", says "The sceptre of the majesty of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not come in the splendour of arrogancy and pride, although he had power to do so, but in humility."+ Hermes, supposed to + Ch. 16.

* Philipp. iv. 3.

be the person mentioned by St. Paul in Rom. xvi. 14, says "The Son of God is more ancient than any creature; insomuch, that he was counsel to the Father, in making the creatures."* This refers to Gen. i. 1. and 26. In the former of which verses, the Hebrew of "God" is in the plural number, and that of the verb "made" is in the singular: and in the latter of the verses, there is the consultation“Let us make man, &c." Certain it is, that the fathers of the primitive Church considered those places as to the purpose, for which Hermes quoted them.

Ignatius, affirmed by some, but perhaps without sufficient evidence, to have been the very child taken by Christ in his arms, as related in Mark, ix. 36, says with allusion to an ancient heresy-"There is one God, who hath manifested himself through Jesus Christ his son, who is his eternal word, who came not forth from silence." And the Father had said before, of the same blessed person, "Who, begotten of the Father before all ages, was God the word, the only begotten son:"+ And in the account of the martyrdom of the same Father, we read‡— Having prayed to the Son of God for the Churches, for the ceasing of the persecution, and for the brethren's love of one another, he was led to the amphitheatre.

Finally, there is the testimony of St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who had conversed with the apostles; and is supposed by some to have been the angel of the said Church, to whom one of the messages in the book of Revelation is addressed. Eusebius has handed down an epistle from the Church of Smyrna, giving a narrative of the martyrdom of their bishop, addressed to the whole Christian world. The epistle relates, that the Jews hindered his flock from gathering the bones, lest they should

Ninth Simil. + Sect. 6. Eusebius, lib. iv. cap. 15. $ Ch. 17..

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