have been not only a logical incongruity; it would have been a source of dangerous errors in theology. Paul and Barnabas had seen a miracle and a sermon procure an offer of their own deification at Lystra; and the general disposition of the heathens afforded them a strong probability, that the history of Jesus Christ, which is made up of miracles and sermons, expressive of extraordinary wisdom and power, would procure a deification also of him. If Jesus Christ be only a creature, the distance between him and the creator God is beyond all conception infinitely greater than that between Jesus Christ and Paul; and Jesus and Paul being both creatures, on different lines, indeed, in the scale of being, but both at a distance, infinitely remote from the self-existent God, it would signify very little to which of the two the honours of the Deity were transferred. We naturally expect, that men, who rent their clothes * in abhorrence of confounding the creature with the Creator, should express the nature of God, and the natures of all creatures, in the most circumspect language. In speaking of Jesus Christ, where the temptation to idolatry was the stronger, we naturally expect a more than ordinary caution; the case required it. The writers of the new testament knew these things. They professed to lay aside excellency of speech and of wisdom, and to declare the testimony of God in WORDS OF TRUTH AND SOBERNESS.† They did more; they spoke, they said, in WORDS WHICH THE HOLY GHOST TAUGHT. I take up *Acts xiv. † 1 Cor. ii. 1. Acts xxvi. 25. 1 Cor, ii. 13. blood. the new testament, and read these words of truth and soberness, in which the Holy Ghost teacheth me the nature of Jesus Christ; and I find these propositions. The word was GOD.* GOD was manifest in the flesh. His name is Emanuel, GOD with us. John turned many to THE LORD THEIR GOD. The Jews crucified the LORD OF GLORY. GOD purchased the church with his GOD laid down his life for us.* Jesus Christ is LORD OF ALL.† Christ is OVER ALL GOD BLESSED FOR EVER. We shall all stand, before the judgment-seat of CHRIST, so every one of us shall give account of himself to GOD. These are a few of many propositions, which the new testament writers lay down relative to Jesus Christ. If the writers intended to affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ, these are words of truth and soberness if not, the language is incautious and unwarrantable, and to address it to men prone to idolatry for the purpose of destroying idolatry, is a strong presumption against their inspiration. Two considerations render this reflection the more important. First, the Greek language, in which these authors wrote, was not a poor contracted tongue; but "from its propriety and universality, it was made for all that is great, and all that is beautiful, in every subject, and under every form of writing." By the richest words in this copious language the new testament writers describe Jesus Christ. The language would have * Mat. i. 23. § Luke i. 16. 1 John iii. 16. † Acts x. 36. * John i. 1. † 1 Tim. iii. 16. Rom. ix. 5. afforded lower terms to express an inferior nature; but it could have afforded none higher to express the nature of the Supreme God. Farther. These authors addressed their writings not to the literati, to philosophers and scholars; but to the common people; and consequently they used words in their plain popular signification. The common people, it seems, understood the words in our sense of them; for, in the Dioclesian persecution, when the Roman soldiers burnt a Phrygian city inhabited by christians, men, women, and children submitted to their fate, calling upon CHRIST THE GOD OVER ALL.* II. Compare the style of the new Testament with the state of the Jews at the time of its publication. The Jews, who in earlier ages had been given to idolatry, had been freed from that fatal propensity in the Babylonish captivity. Moses and the prophets had given them a written revelation of the one living and true God, and had described him by select names and titles, the application of which to any other beings they had positively forbidden. In the time of Jesus Christ the Jews were zealous defenders of the unity of God, and of that idea of his perfections, which their scriptures excited. Jesus Christ, and his apostles, professed the highest regard for the Jewish scriptures. They constantly appealed to them. They directed people to search them. They declared, the scriptures could not be broken. Yet the writers of the new Testament described Jesus. *Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. viii. cap. 2. Christ by the very names and titles by which the writers of the old Testament had described the Supreme God. The TITLES given to I [Jehovah] aM THE I will SAVE them by Jehovah is exalted as HEAD ABOVE ALL.† The TITLES given to I [Jesus] am THE John went before the face of THE HIGHEST.|| Jesus Christ is LORD OF GLORY.S The SAVIOUR born is Christ THE LORD.¶ The second man is THE LORD FROM HEAVEN. * Christ is THE HEAD OF ALL principality and power.† If they, who described Jesus Christ to the Jews by these sacred names and titles, intended to con vey an idea of his deity, the description is just, and the application safe: but if they intended to describe a mere man, they were surely of all men the most preposterous. They chose a method of recommending Jesus to the Jews, the most likely to alarm and enrage them. Whatever they meant, the Jews understood them in our sense, and took Jesus Christ for a BLASPHEMER. We stone thee said they, for BLASPHEMY; because thou, being a man, MAKEST THYSELF GOD** Should any one of you, my brethren, standing in St. James's Park, and seeing a gentleman carrying in a sedan, preceded by extraordinary attendants,' ask a man of veracity, who is he? and should your friend answer, IT IS HIS MAJESTY; IT IS THE KING; IT IS THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN; would you not instantly take the gentleman in the sedan for our present most gracious sovereign George III? And should it afterwards appear, that the gentleman in the sedan was not his majesty, but one of the secretaries of state, would you not reproach your informer with either ignorance, or a wilful design of imposing on you? These titles are no more descriptive in England of George III. than the titles above were in Judea of the Supreme God. The enemies of Christ took him for a BLASPHEMER; the disciples of CHRIST took him for THE TRUE GOD:† both acted very naturally; both took the titles in the commonly received meaning. ་ |