For Jehovah claims the prerogative of knowing all things, to the exclusion of all other beings.

The two kinds of knowledge which consists in searching the hearts of men, and knowing all the secrets of futurity, are peculiar to Jehovah, but both these kinds of knowledge belong to Christ. They are claimed by Him in the New Testament, in the same language they are claimed by Jehovah in the Old Testament. By the knowledge of futurity, the true God distinguishes Himself from all creatures. I am God, and there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,' Isa. xlvi, 9– 10. But this knowledge of futurity belongs also to Christ. 'Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him,' John vi, 64. Though prophets and apostles have often, by express revelation, obtained a knowledge of particular events in futurity, no one ever pretended to have this knowledge from his own power. The moment the spirit of vision was withdrawn from the prophet, the future was a blank, dark as a starless midnight: not so with Christ, for when it is said, Jesus knew their thoughts,' it is added, that He PERCEIVED IN HIS SPIRIT that they so reasoned; not by a spirit that was given to Him for a particular purpose, as to the prophets, but by His own spirit; by an original faculty, which, as we have seen, belongs only to God.

Like God, Christ also searches the heart. I the Lord search the heart, and try the reins, saith Jehovah,' Jer. xvii, 10. • And all the Churches shall know that I am He that searcheth the reins and the heart,' responds Jesus Christ. Thou, even thou, only knowest the hearts of all the children of men,' 1 Kings viii, 39. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.'Here again Christ claims this heart-searching prerogative in 'the full style and majesty of the Jehovah of the Old Testament.' As then Christ expressly claims that from which God excludes all creatures, Christ cannot be a creature, but must be God Himself. To these attributes which belong to Christ, OMNIPOTENCE should also be added; as no being can possess a degree of power beyond its capacity, it is impossible that almighty power should be DELEGATED to any being in the universe. To Him who alone possesses it, there was none to give it; and He can impart it to none, unless He first bestow an infinite capacity; and to do that would be creating one equal to Himself, which is impossible. Therefore to communicate omnipotent power is not the prerogative of God Himself. If, then, Christ possess this, He must always have possessed it: He must be God.

That He did possess it, is evident from His own Godlike claims. 'Whatsoever things,' says He, the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise,' for all things the Father hath, are mine,' John xvi, 15. But if this be so, that Christ does whatsoever things God the Father does, and if He is the proprietor of all that belongs to the Father, then most certainly omnipotent power invests Him. And this is that which is most expressly ascribed to Him, where it is affirmed, ' HE IS THE ALMIGHTY,' Rev. i, 8.

Now if our great Redeemer swayed a control over all nature, if He could still the winds and the waves-cure the most inveterate disVOL. VI.-October, 1835.

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eases-reject infernal spirits-pardon the sins of the guilty-summon the dead from a state of putrefaction-scrutinize the hearts of all the living-and like the God of the prophets, throw open the secrets of futurity-and all this in His own name, and by His own power-if He could be with His ministers through all the coming ages of time-be present with His worshippers wherever two or three are met in His name, over the whole globe-be exalted to absolute dominion over all beings, in earth and heaven-be the object of supreme adoration from men and angels-be associated with the Father in the highest ascriptions made to the Godhead-bear the awful names appropriated to the great Jehovah and if He did possess those terribly sublime attributes without which there could be no God-the attributes omnipotence, omniscience, and eternity--if men and angels, earth and heaven, all things visible and invisible, owe their existence to His fiat, and their continuance to the word of His power-if He is to fold up creation like a garment, and remove its mighty mass when He has done with it-if He is to quicken all the dead at the resurrection morn -become the universal Judge of the accountable universe, and pronounce the unchangeable destinies of all concerned in the final judgment-if all this be so, who will deny supreme Divinity to the Savior of the world?

:

Finally, we were to show in the last place, That the Gospel proceeds on the supposition that Christ possesses supreme Divinity.

1. It does this first, by supposing that an atonement for sin has been made. That the Gospel, as a saving system, rests on the doctrine of atonement, is so evident to a reader of the New Testament, that the great evidences of it furnished by that volume scarcely need be thrown together. The few following scriptures, therefore, are all that shall be adduced for its support: He hath made Him to be sin (a sin offering) for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.' 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.' And He is the propitiation for our sins.' Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood.'. 'I lay down my life for the sheep.' 'He gave Himself for us-the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.' • Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.'

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By these citations, and many more similar ones that might be made, the fact of the atonement is most fully sustained. For here Christ is said to take the sinner's place, and for the express purpose that the sinner might be made righteous through this substitution. And, by that strong expression of the punitive nature of His sufferings, He is said to be a 'curse for us,' for the sole object of redeeming us from the curse of the law; that when He died for the unjust, it was that as such He might bring them to God. And that His death propitiated the wrath of offended Majesty is here made unquestionable by the repeated assertion that He was 'set forth to be a propitiation for our sins.'

But if Christ be not God, He has made no atonement by His death: for how could a creature supply the delinquency of other creatures? If the sufferer be a mere creature, his powers to suffer were received from the Creator. How then could he take his Maker's property, and merit something by it from his Maker? But if the sufferer could do

something in behalf of others above what is required of him, on his own account, just so far his services might have been dispensed with,-just so far his services are dispensed with; for justice can never REQUIRE one to merit for another. But if any part of his services can be dispensed with, for the same reason all his services may be; and then, as his Maker has no claim on his services, He cannot justly punish him for devoting them to another. And if this is true concerning one created intelligence, it certainly may be true of all created intelligences; and then the whole government of God is eternally at an end. It is therefore impossible for any created being to merit any thing from his Creator in behalf of another; consequently Christ is either God, or there can be no merits in His death. This conclusion has been so powerfully felt by the rejecters of our Lord's Divinity, that now all the intelligent among them openly discard the atonement. Indeed, so clear and forcible are the reasons that conduce to this conclusion, that no man of letters would hazard his reputation for intelligence by embracing these premises and rejecting the conclusion.

By those less accustomed to push out principles to legitimate consequences, it has been asked, whether God could not accept any sacrifice for sin, which Himself might appoint, whether it were the blood of an animal, or of a man, or of any other being? God can undoubtedly. But God cannot consistently appoint any sacrifice to take away sin, unless it consist of more than a mere creature. For an arbitrary appointment to execute a particular purpose, can add no new excellency to the nature of him so appointed. And it is the excellency of the thing sacrificed, in which alone the merits of the sacrifice are found. Hence the Scriptures constantly connect with the merits of the cross the very Divinity of the sufferer. It was Jehovah who was pierced, Zech. xii, 10. It was God that purchased the Church with His own blood, Acts It was the Lord that bought us, 2 Peter ii, 1. It was the Lord of glory that was sacrificed, 1 Cor. ii, 8. Indeed, if a mere creature sacrifice could take away sin, as some of the rejecters of our Savior's Godhead maintain, how egregiously did St. Paul blunder in asserting that it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin!'

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You will readily perceive that these arguments, like nearly all we have employed in this discourse, overturn the Arian no less than the Socinian system. For the distance must ever be the same between the Creator and the highest created intelligence in the universe, that it is between the Creator and a mere man; as all beings alike can bear no comparison to the infinite One.

I care not then how high you place Christ above the brightest cherub that burns in Jehovah's presence; only deny Him supreme Divinity, and you make Him no less a dependent being than the infant that sleeps in your arms. For what can be more chimerical than to imagine a being between the creature and the Creator, one that was neither made nor existed of himself? What can be more absurd than to suppose such a being to exist; a being that neither had beginning, or was without beginning-one that is dependent on another, and yet dependent on All these contradictions, and many more, are involved in that strange system which denies that Christ is a mere created, dependent creature, and yet maintains that He is not the supreme God.

no one.

2. The Gospel, as a system, can have no existence when the doctrine of pardon is rejected. For it declares that all have sinned;' that we are children of wrath, even as others;' that there is none that doeth good,' and that judgment has come upon all men, to condemnation.' Now unless this system provides for pardon, it necessarily leaves man interminably in this state of guilt, wrath, and condemnation.

As a saving system, therefore, the Gospel can exist no longer than it involves the doctrine of pardon. But this doctrine involves the proper Godhead of Jesus Christ; for we have just shown that there can be no atonement unless he that makes it be supreme; and if we now prove there can be no forgiveness without an atonement, we shall have thereby demonstrated that the atoning Messiah is God.

If then sin could be pardoned without satisfaction by atonement, it must either be done according to the law it has violated, or in opposition to that law. If according to the law, then the law makes provision for its own violation. But this is impossible; for were it so, the law would threaten the offender with death, and at the same time counteract its own operations, by providing for the offender's escape. The penalty of violating it would be the blessing of pardon, and not the curse it had threatened: that is, the provision it makes would destroy the threat which it utters, and the penalty which it threatens, would annihilate the remedy it proposes. So this marvellous law would DEVOUR ITSELF. But if these absurdities are too glaring to allow us to push the principle any farther, let us next inquire whether sin can be pardoned in opposition to the law it has broken. If it can, then in pardoning it God must act against His own law. But if He can act against one of His laws, He can, for the same reason, act against all His laws; and then, by this single conclusion, all the moral perfections of His nature are blotted out for ever.

It must then be impossible to pardon sin, without satisfaction by atonement. The doctrine, therefore, of pardon necessarily involves that of our Redeemer's Godhead.

3. The Gospel attributes to Christ two natures, one of which is perfectly human, and the other which is supremely Divine.* References

*This doctrine has been rejected because of its mysteriousness. That it involves mystery, there can be no doubt; otherwise, it would be unlike any other subject to which created minds extend. What is there in the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom, which in the manner of its being, is not impenetrably mysterious ? Where has there been a mind so highly gifted, as to perceive how gravity ACTS? how motion is communicated? how a vegetable grows, or how his own blood circulates? Though these are objects of his own senses, he can no more perceive How they are, than he can perceive how three persons are one Jehovah. Only confound the MANNER HOw a thing is so, with the FACT that it is so, and there is no one truth in nature, or revelation, but will be wanting evidence to command rational belief. Now it is by confounding these two distinct things, that this objection against the Godhead of Christ has all its force. A fact may be revealed, clear as vision, and yet everlasting ages may not unfold the reasons of it. The eternity of Jehovah is an unquestionable fact, but where is there a created mind that can comprehend HOW He is unbeginning? By close attention it will appear that the mystery of our Savior's Divinity originates in the same cause in which every other mystery does, viz. the want of capacity in finite minds to grasp the whole. As then our faith has nothing to do with the mystery, but merely with the fact that involves the mystery, the mysteriousness of a well authenticated fact should never unsettle our faith in the truth of it.

are so numerously made in the New Testament record to natures so dissimilar in our Lord's person, that the rejecters of His Divinity have never been able to reconcile them to their system. These scriptures may be ranked in three classes: the first are expressive merely of His humanity. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;' He was an hungered, thirsty, weary;' of the last judgment no man knoweth the time, neither the Son, but the Father;' Then shall the Son also, Himself, be subject to Him that put all things under Him.' Such passages are as clearly referable to humanity, as those in the second class are to Divinity. Adorn the doctrine of God our Savior;' My Lord and my God;' Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ;' And the Word was God." These, and the like scriptures, can no more be restricted to the limited import of the former class, than Jehovah can be equalled by a creature. There is a third class of passages, by which is brought to view the twofold nature of our Lord. Among these are, The Word was made flesh;' 'Of whom, concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever.'

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Now if our Lord possessed two natures, it would indeed have been surprising, if each one respectively had never been referred to. Had He been merely man, no matter how replete with communicated grace, He could never, without blasphemy, be entitled God. Had He not been man—had His Divinity absorbed His manhood, He could not, in truth, be represented as in the first class of quotations. But if these two natures remain in Him unseparated and yet distinct, then these texts, otherwise irreconcilable, most fitly express the two natures of His person.

Some things are certainly true of the human soul, that are not true of the body. We attribute sometimes to the one what we deny to the other; though we usually speak of them together, as they form but one person. In like manner some things are true of the manhood of Christ, which cannot be offered of His Godhead. Thus, when our

Lord speaks of the poor, He says, • Me ye have not always with you.' Yet on another occasion He assures His apostles that He would be 'with them always:' and when praying in the audience of His disciples He says, 'Now I am no more in the world;' and again, 'The Son of man which is in heaven.'

Now all these propositions cannot be true of either His human or Divine nature; but they are most exactly true of His two natures respectively. Though He was not always here with respect to His human nature, He is always present with His ministers, as to His Godhead. He was not in heaven as to His manhood, but He was there as to His Divine nature. And indeed it would be an easy task to collect a score of texts directly contradictory, were they all applied to one nature in Christ. The propositions that He was made lower than the angels, and yet that He was so vastly above them that they were commanded to adore Him; that He was the son of David, and yet that He was David's Lord; that He was before Abraham, and yet was not born until the days of Augustus Cesar; that the earth and the heavens were the work of His hands, and yet these had stood four thousand years before the angel shouted His birth; that He had glory with the Father before the world was, and yet forty centuries had been