God. Did Christ censure him for it? By no means, but on the contrary he reproached him rather for not having believed sooner. "Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed." John xx. 28.

SECOND ARgument.

CCXI. From the nature of God, which is ascribed to Jesus Christ in the Scriptures.

I. Testimony.

Isaias vi. 1. and the following verses.

"I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated, and his train filled the temple-and they (the seraphims) cried, Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of Hosts; all the earth is full of his glory." No one assuredly doubts but that all this is to be understood of the true, supreme, and only God. But all this is to be understood of Jesus Christ according to St. John, xii. 41. "These things said Isaias, when he saw his glory, and spoke of him." Jesus Christ is, therefore, the supreme God, the Lord of Hosts, &c.

II. Testimony.

The same, Isaias, xxxv. 4.

"Behold, your God will bring the revenge of recompense: God himself will come and will save you. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free." That the Prophet is here speaking of the true supreme God, is manifest, first from the 2d verse, "They shall see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God." Next because he is called "your God," that is, the God of the Israelites, and salvation is ascribed to him. But Jesus Christ, in St. Math. xi. 4, applies to himself the said text of Isaias. Jesus Christ is, therefore, the God of the Israelites, and, therefore, the supreme God.

III. Testimony.

Malachias, iii. 1.

"Behold, I send my Angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the Angel of the Testament, whom you desire, shall come to his Temple." The Angel whom God sent before his face, is John the Baptist, who prepared the way to Jesus Christ.Math. iii. 3, and Luke, i. 76. Whence I thus argue: He, before whose face John was to be sent, is "The Jehovah, the supreme God, the God of Israel, the Lord of Hosts, the Ruler, who is to come to his Temple," and who, in St. Luke, i. 76, is called the "Most High."

Now Jesus Christ is the very same before whose face John was sent. Math. xi. 10. "For this is he of whom it is written, behold I send my Angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee." Therefore Jesus Christ is "The Jehovah, the most High, the God of Israel, the Lord, who is to come unto his temple," and who, of course, has a temple, and consequently is God, for none but God can have a temple. Jesus Christ, therefore, is true God.

IV. Testimony.

St. John, X. 28, and following.

"And I give them (the sheep of Christ) life everlasting, and they shall not perish forever, and no man shall snatch them out of my hand. That which my Father has given me is greater than all and no one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father. I and the Father are one." The drift of the reasoning of Christ is manifestly this: no one can snatch my sheep out of the hand of my Father, therefore neither out of my hand and why not? because "I and the Father are one;" that is to say, we have one and the same power. Christ therefore speaks here of an identity of nature, an equality of power, as otherwise his mode of reasoning would be far from being conclusive. Christ therefore is one with the Father in

power, nature, and substance, consubstantial therefore with the Father.

The same perfect identity of nature and substance of the Son with the Father is manifestly implied in the following texts: "The Father is in me, and I in the Father," 38, and xiv. 9, "Philip, he that seeth me, seeth the Father also. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?" xvi. 15, "All things whatsoever the father hath are mine." xvii. 9, "I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me; because they are thine and all mine are thine, and thine are mine." Unless we strip words of their natural meaning, these texts cannot possibly signify but a perfect identity of nature between the Father and the Son.

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From that perfect unity of the substance of Christ with the Father, Christ shows to the Jews, that he does, in every respect, the same works which the Father doeth. John v. 17, "My Father worketh until now, and I work." Which words the Jews thought to imply so necessarily an identity of nature, that they were about to put Christ to death as a blasphemer.— John, x. 18, "Hereupon, therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he did not only break the Sabbath, but also said, that God was his Father, making himself equal to God." Did Christ correct this impression of the Jews, as one would think it was becoming his wisdom and goodness to do, if he had not been God? So far from it, that he confirmed them in their opinion by various arguments, derived, first, from an equality of life or living essence, verse 26. "For, as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself." In the second place, from an equality of operation, verse 19. "What things soever He (the Father) doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner." Thirdly, from an equality of honour and worship due to God only, verse 23. "That all men may honour the Son as they honour the Father." Therefore, the Son enjoys a perfect equality of nature and consubstantiality with the Father; therefore he is true God.

V. Testimony.

Philippians, ii. 6.

"Who, being in the form of God, thought it no robbery himself to be equal to God, but debased himself by taking the form of a servant, being made to the likeness of men, and in shape found as a man." Upon which passage I thus reason: By the "form of a servant" the Apostle unquestionably understands not the outward appearance, but the very nature of a man, in virtue of which he was "made to the likeness of men, and in shape found as a man." Any one that would deny this position, must necessarily maintain, that Christ was man in appearance only, and not in reality. From this indubitable truth I infer therefore, the Apostle by the phrase "the form of God," which in the same passage he opposes to the "form of man," cannot be supposed to have understood any thing else but the nature or substance of God, in consequence of which "he thought it no robbery himself to be equal to God,” or what is tantamount, to be true God. The original word, vagxwv, subsisting, instead of being in the form of God, admits of no other construction. For it would be repugnant to all principles of sound philosophy, good sense, and human language to use, if form denote no more than outward appearance, the term subsisting, which in its direct and native signification implies a communication, or participation of, and inbeing in the same nature. For when we say that a man subsists in the form of a man, we do not assuredly mean that he is only outwardly like other men, or that he has only the figure of a man but that he is really a man, and has the human nature com municated to him. Hence, in whatever other signification this word μon, form, may at times be used either by sacred or profane writers, it is undeniable, from the aim of the Apostle and the context, that it can bear no other construction in this passage, than that which we have assigned it. No wonder, therefore, if all the Greek fathers in unison with all the christian world, the Theodorets, the Basils, the Chrysostoms, the Theophilacts, &c. (I suppose these truly great men understood their own language, and, without meaning any thing

like disrespect, better too than our Unitarian doctors,) no wonder, I say, that these great scholars, so eminent for their eloquence and purity of language, explained the passage under consideration, as we do. This short developement is of itself sufficient to overturn the jarring and absurd expositions into which Unitarian interpreters, not knowing in their embarrassments what way to turn, have run. See J. Sparks, VI. Letter to Dr. Wyatt, p. 239, 242.

There occurs another most illustrious proof of the Godhead of Jesus Christ, in the following passage of the same chapter, "Wherefore God also hath exalted him, and has given him a name which is above every name: That, in the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those that are in heaven, on earth, and in hell. And that every tongue should confess, that the Lord Jesus Christ is, in the glory of God, the Father." This passage needs no comment: It so speaks to the mind and the heart of the reader, that it requires no small degree of violence to understand it of a mere man : nothing but the idea of a God-man can give it a reasonable and satisfactory meaning. And, first, that "name which is above every other name," what else can it be but the incommunicable, the wonderful name of the Supreme God? Now, which is that name? It is that adorable name which " was called by the angel before Christ was conceived in the womb." Luke, ii. 12; It is the most holy name of JESUS, i. e. Saviour of the world. Wonderful name! which essentially imports the idea of one that is both God and man; man, in order to be able to satisfy God; and God, in order to give to that satisfaction that infinite dignity and merit, which might equal it to the infinity of the offence of which fallen man stood guilty. God without man could not suffer, man without God could suffer, but not give to the offended Diety the condign satisfaction which the divine justice exacted: To execute, therefore, a work of such magnitude as that of the redemption of mankind, a work so infinitely above all created nature, nothing less was required than a God-made-man, a Jesus, true God and true

man.