T. I saw him kneel down, and I heard him address two prayers to Jesus Christ; one for himself, the other for his enemies. The first was,

Lord Jesus receive my spirit; and the last, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. He fell asleep as soon as he had uttered the last of these ejaculations.

C. Did our compassionate master appear to him again at the place of execution, as he had appeared to him in the hall?

T. I heard nothing of such an appearance.*

C. His death very much resembled that of our Saviour. His two last prayers were evidently taken from the lips of our departing Lord. You remember one of his petitions was, Father! forgive them and another, Father! into thy hands I commend my spirit. The forgiving of sins, and the beatifying of a departing soul, are works of Tehovah; to him Jesus Christ applied for both; and Stephen by applying to Jesus for both these blessings, has proved, that, in his opinion, Jesus and Jehovah are one.

T. The murderers of Stephen, then, will continue to think, that he was guilty of blasphemy? C. Undoubtedly. They will say, God is an allsufficient being. His allsufficiency is the ground on which our scriptures claim religious worship for him. The invocation of others implies an in

* Timon had not read a late Apology, which says, "Stephen saw "Jesus, when he prayed to him."

† Luke xxiii. 34. 46.

Gen. xvii. 1. § Psa. xcv. xcvii. Isa. xl. &c.

sufficiency in God.* The forgiveness of sin is one

of his most glorious works. departing soul is another. crifice. And the law says,

The receiving of a Prayer is called saHe that sacrificeth

unto any other God, save unto JEHOVAH ONLY, he shall be utterly destroyed. Thus will the good man's character lie under a charge of constructive blasphemy. Had Stephen taken Jesus Christ, as some of our countrymen take him, for a good man only, he would have been guilty of RELATIVE blasphemy by invoking him, for he would have given a sanction to a practice, which evidently tends to dishonour God, by diverting some of the noblest acts of the mind from him, and by fixing them on a creature, contrary to his express command, THOU SHALL WORSHIP ΝΟ OTHER GOD: FOR JEHOVAH, WHOSE NAME IS JEALOUS, IS A JEALOUS GOD.* The lapidation of Stephen, however, cannot be justified in either of these cases; for the law relates only to REAL blasphemy, as I said before.

I leave the application of the truths, which, for variety-sake, I have thrown into a dialogue form, and pass to another evidence of Christ's divinity.

VI. Observe, my brethren, the application of old testament passages which belong to Jehovah, to Jesus Christ in the new testament, and try whether you can acquit the writers of the new tes

*

2 Kings i. 3. † Dan. ix. 9. Exod. xxxiv. 7. Luke vii. 49. Psa. xxxi. 5. § Psa. cxli. 2. cxvi. 17. || Exod. xxii. 20. ¶ John vii. 12. * Exod. xxxiv. 14.

tament of misrepresentation, on supposition that Jesus is not God. This observation does not so much regard the force of the terms; as the wisdom and equity of those, who apply them. In men, who pretend to inspiration, we have a right to look for the utmost precision. What should we have thought of Peter, if he had claimed the crown of Judea from the reigning prince, and had said in support of his claim, It is written, DAVID'S seed shall endure for ever, and HIS throne as the sun before me ?* And what then? it would have been said, What have you to do with what is predicted of another person? Let us apply this to the subject in hand. St. Paul says We shall all stand before the judgment seat of CHRIST. That we shall all be judged, we allow. But how do you prove that Christ shall be our judge? Because, adds the Apostle, As I live, saith THE LORd, every knee shall bow to ME, and every tongue shall confess to GOD.† What sort of reasoning is this? How does this apply to Christ if Christ be not God? and how dare a man quote one of the most guarded passages in the old testament for such a purpose? The passage is this. There is NO GOD ELSE BESIDE ME. A just God and a Saviour, there is NONE BESIDE ME. I am God, and THERE IS NONE ELSE. Unto ME every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. The Apostle's reasoning is this. Jehovah says, every knee shall bow to him. Jesus is Jehovah. Therefore every knee shall bow to Jesus.

*Psa. lxxxix. 20. 36. † Rom. xiv. 10, 11. Isa. xlv. 20, &c.

way.

John the Baptist is he, who was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, Prepare ye the * Isaiah saith, Prepare the way of THE LORD, make straight a highway for OUR GOD. Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold YOUR GOD. Behold, the LORD GOD will come, and feed his flock like a shepherd. But what has John the Baptist to do with all this description, if Jesus Christ be only a messenger, of Jehovah, and not Jehovah himself; for Isaiah saith, Prepare ye the way of JEHOVAH?

A prophet, speaking in the name of God, says, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall look upon ME, whom they pierced. An evangelist says, One of the soldiers with a spear pierced the side of Jesus, and the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.§

A prophet says, I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne, high, and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. And Seraphims cried one to another, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, IS THE LORD OF HOSTS, the whole earth is full of HIS glory. An evangelist saith, These things said Esaias, when he saw HIS glory, and spake of HIM; that is of Jesus.T

A prophet says, The LORD OF HOSTS HIMSELF shall be for a stone of stumbling. An Apostle says, Christ is that stone of stumbling.†

It would be endless to enumerate all the passages, which are thus applied to Jesus Christ. Allow Jesus Christ to be God, and all these applications

Zech. xii. 10. § John *Isa. viii, 13, 14

* Matt. iii. 1. 3. † Isa. xl. 3, 9, 10, 11. xix. 34, 36, 37. || Isa. vi. 1, 2, 3. John xii. 39. 1 Peter ii. 8.

are proper. If we deny it, the new testament, we must own, is one of the most unaccountable compositions in the world, calculated to make easy things hard to be understood.

Let us take a single passage of the old testament,. and let us see what the application of it to Jesus Christ proves. John the Baptist sends two of his disciples to Jesus Christ to ask him, Whether he were the expected Messiah? The messengers find him in a crowd of diseased people. To one, who had been blind, he gives sight. To another, who had been deaf, he gives hearing. He cleanseth lepers, and makes the lame walk. Having healed the infirmities of their bodies, he addresseth himself to the disorders of their minds, and speaks with an authority unknown to the scribes. By the gracefulness of his deportment, he obtains the attention of his hearers. By the truth of his doctrine, he obtains the assent of their minds. By cloathing his ideas with images, the archetypes of which had produced pleasure and pain in his hearers, he obtains an authority over their hearts, and excites, as he pleases, the hopes, the fears, the joys, the sorrows, of his audience. Having opened these grand springs of human action, he gives plain and profitable rules of conduct for the producing and promoting of social happiness. John's messengers took the first opportunity of delivering their message. John Baptist, say they, hath sent us to thee, saying, Art thou he that should come, or look we for another? Jesus answering, said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what