them. Therefore, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apostle comforts them on that very ground: "We have not an high

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priest which cannot be touched with the

feeling of our infirmities, but was in all "points tempted like as we are." This very provision then, which the Almighty has made in his mercy, as a source of comfort and encouragement to us and our infirmities, is abused by these Unitarians into an argument to support their denial of his Godhead, to make the Judge of all flesh mere flesh in himself, and to do away all his title to real and proper Deity! They act thus, in the face of all that evidence which was miraculously given throughout the ministry of Jesus, in proof of the truth of his assertions, that he was himself the very and eternal God; one and the same, in Deity, with the Father; though distinct, in Personality, as the Son. These are truths on which we have before insisted in proving from holy Scripture the Deity of the Son. But we are necessarily again re

d Heb. iv. 14, 15.

minded of them in this place, where the truth, that Christ Jesus shall be the Judge of quick and dead, is not the matter in dispute; but where we find it asserted by the unbeliever, that he will come in that capacity only with a delegated authority; not acting in right of his own Godhead, but only as a man empowered and commissioned by God.

e

St. Paul tells us, that God hath given assurance that Jesus will come again to judgment," in that he hath raised him from "the dead." But this assurance, which is the accomplishment of his own repeated prediction, and the seal to the truth of all his assertions, seems to have little or no weight with the modern sceptic. Yet this is the test to which our Lord repeatedly put his claim to actual Godhead; as when he said, "Destroy this temple, and in "three days I will raise it up." Christ had entered into the temple, and asserted his right to that holy place, in which none but the Most High could possess any right,

e Acts xvii. 31.

f John ii. 19.

by casting out those whose occupations were profanation to it, and by the expressions which he used in so doing. The Jews, seeing him perform that act of authority, and hearing the language with which he accompanied it, demand a sign from him. Now it must be remarked, that the Jews always comprehended throughly the expression used by our Saviour, when he called himself the Son of God. They knew that it implied actual Godhead, and condemned him for blasphemy on that very charge. In like manner, when he here said, "Make not my Father's house a "house of merchandize," they understood that he called God his Father; not generally, as the Father of all; nor more particularly, as he is the Father of the righteous; but most peculiarly," making "himself equal with God;" as we find that he was considered to have done, by calling God his own Father. It was re

g 1 John v. 18.

h Пlarega idiov. Justin Martyr shews that the name, the Son of God, is not applicable to Christ merely in common with holy men. Apolog. i. 44. ‘O de vios ex&

served for the Socinians and their followers to go beyond the Jews; to put a misconstruction on that expression, and degrade, if they had been able, him whom they acknowledge for their Saviour, to a mere mortal. The Jews understood that he claimed equal Godhead with the Father, and of this they demanded a sign. Very rarely did our Lord comply with that insolent demand; never, indeed, in the sense in which they made it. And when he did so, it was by a future sign, which at once gave proof of his foreknowledge, and pointed to that decisive evidence on which, more perhaps than on any other single proof, he rested his claim to Omnipotence; namely, his own resurrection by himself from the dead. To that fact then, though hitherto unperformed, he referred the Jews, as to a complete demonstration that he was very God. To that fact his Apostle St. Paul afterward appealed, as a proof

νου, Ὁ μονος λεγόμενος κυρίως υἱος, &c. and in his Dialogue with Trypho, 332. Μονογενης πατρι των όλων, ιδίως εξ αυτού λογος και δυναμις γεγενημενος, και ύστερον ανθρωπος δια της παρθενου γενόμενος.

that he, the same Lord Jesus, was ordained to be Judge of quick and dead. And such a proof it was. Our Saviour had distinctly foretold the future judgment, when all flesh should appear upon their trial before God. He had declared himself to be the Son of God, equal to, and one with, the Father. He had required “that "all men should honour the Son, even as

they honour the Father;" and that, because the "Father. hath committed all "judgment to the Son." He had claimed Supreme Deity, when he cried openly among the Jews, "I and my Father are "one." If then he was actually God, all flesh is to be judged by him as God, and not as mere man in commission under God. That he was God, he himself put to the test of his rising again the third day after his death; and therefore St. Paul well declared, that his having so done was full proof that he was to be the Judge of quick and dead.

These are plain and direct inferences,