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you. All things that the Father hath, are mine: therefore faid I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you," John xvi. 12, 13, 14, 15. What is this but faying, that as they are as yet unable to bear the full revelation of his nature, he will in a future time shew it to them by the Spirit, who fhall speak as he fhall receive of Chrift. And that it is the full declaration of the Godhead, which, he fays, they are as yet unable to bear, and which he will reveal by the Spirit who shall testify of the truth, is evident from the testimony which he proceeds to fay this Spirit fhall bear to him; for "he fhall glorify him," having received that which he is to thew from Chrift, whose it is, and from the Father, whose it is, equal poffeffors of the glory which shall be revealed. A triumph over death, and an ascent into heaven, were first to intervene; and thefe, added to every miracle performed in the prefence of multitudes, were facts, which, when referred to, were fully fuffcient to fhew forth a power that none could doubt to be the power of God; and if the Holy Ghoft, by miracles fubfequent to fuch an act as that of rifing from the darkness of the grave to the manfions of light, fhould teftify of him who had fo acted, that he was God, I fee not how a more proper line of evidence could have been adopted, or a more certain means of fpreading information among men, not hardened against the receipt of it, devised: nor do I fee it to be less than an impious prefumption to deny the attefted fact, because we have not ourselves had the conduct of the evidence, and therefore do not find it where it is not reasonably to be expected.

The doctrine of Chrift's godhead then may be confidered as imparted to us by four different forts of revelation; firft, by the prophecies and the law, or, in general terms, that which was called the fcriptures, be

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fore the writing of the New Testament, to which wê are referred, and told that "they are they which testify of me:" fecondly, by the testimony of our bleffed Saviour himself, whether by words or works, throughout the writings of the evangelifts: thirdly, by the testimony of the apoftles, confirmed by the Holy Ghoft, to which our Saviour usually referred enquirers into his nature, whether delivered by them in the gospels, which were written after the Holy Ghoft had been given to the writers; or by their explanation of the nature and the purposes of his having come and suffered in the flesh, in their fermons throughout the A&s, and in their epiftles: and fourthly, by the teftimony of Chrift himself, after his afcenfion and reaffumption of that glory wherewith he had been glorified before the world was, delivered by his having fent the comforter according to his frequent promifes that he, and that the father (promifcuously named) would fend him; by his compliance with the prayers of the apoftles; his appearance in divers circumftances; and by the vision fhewed to St. John in the revelation, in which he speaks of himself in the fame terms, as God, before his incarnation, had spoken to the prophets.

This is the order in which the evidence is placed before us, and in which I fhall therefore produce it in the following chapter. Were it to be stated according to the degree of its strength, it ought to be reversed.

There is yet another fpecies of teftimony borne to the divinity of our gracious Redeemer, refulting from the reconcileablenefs of the whole of facred writ, upon the adopting this propofition as a datum, namely, that Chrift is God. Were a fubject to be treated fo enigs matically by a man of sense, as that it should escape the understanding of all his readers, and yet leave them

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convinced upon the credit of the author, that the book itself was worth ftudy and labour; were there fcarce an intelligible fentence contained in the book, and yet a certainty that it contained much matter; and were there at length to arife a man whose ready faculties fhould alight upon one propofition by which that whole book should be explained, to which every obfcure afsertion fhould be referred, and by the reference to which they should become clear and perfpicuous; and fhould it therefore appear, that this propofition was the object of every fentence, the darknefs of which it difpel!ed; could any man pretend that this was not the object of the writer; or conceive that any one point, thus borne down upon by every argument, was not the point intended to be illuftrated and proved? certainly not. And if, on the other hand, the contradictory of that propofition was a point to which the process of the argument fo little referred, as that it fhould ftill continue obfcure when referred to it; would any man fay that this was the writer's object? certainly not. Exactly fuch is the state of the Bible; every pofition falls into fense, the tenour of it becomes a courfe of argument the instant that the divinity of our Saviour in union with manhood is acknowledged to be its object; whereas, upon a denial of this propofition, there is not on earth a book fo fraught with contradictions and irreconcileable abfurdities, as that which is acknowledged to be the word of the God of truth. Partial quotations therefore, and paffages taken from the whole confiftent word of God, are to be confidered as of no value whatsoever in argument; they cannot afford any proof of any thing; and nothing contained in the facred writings is to be explained but as it ftands in context with the whole. Nothing less therefore than the whole of the Bible is to be confidered as the gofpel of Chrift; and from the whole, taken together, his almighty Godhead is to be deduced. CHAP.

G

CHA P. III.

The Evidence of our Saviour's Divinity afforded by the

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Scriptures.

S I have already faid that the Old Testament affords but a very fmall part of the teftimony of the Godhead of Jefus Chrift, I fhall produce but few feparate paffages from it, under the head of prophecy : fuch as receive their explanation from the New Teftament, being better brought under that head. It is not to fhew that the prophets have foretold our Lord and Saviour that I am engaged, for that were an eafy office; but to fhew that they have foretold his divinity; and that the expected Meffiah was, though ignorantly, by them declared to be God himself.

From the prophecies of the Old Testament I take the following proofs of the Godhead of Jefus Chrift.

I.

"Therefore the Lord himself fhall give you a fign, behold a virgin fhall conceive, and bear a Son, and fhall call his name Immanuel," Ifaiah vii. 14. This prophecy is referred to by St. Matthew, declared to be of our Saviour, and the name interpreted to be “God with us."

II.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his fhoulder: and his name fhall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," Ifaiah ix. 6.

III.

"Thus faith the Lord the King of Ifrael, and his Redeemer the Lord of Hofts, I am the firft, and I am

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the laft, and befides me there is no God," Ifai. xliv. 6. This affertion is made by God to Ifaiah, and by Jefus Chrift (verbatim) to St. John, Rev. ii. 8. God, in the fubfequent verfes, declares his prerogatives to the prophet; the fame are applicable to the fame firft and laft, "is there a God befides me? yea there is no God, I know not any." This God then is Jefus Chrift.

IV.

"Awake, awake, put on ftrength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the antient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it which hath dried the fea, the waters of the great deep, that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pafs over?" Ifai. li. 9. 10. The answer to this call has the following words in it, "But I am the Lord thy God, that divided the fea, whose waves roared: the Lord of Hofts is his name," Ifaiah li. 15. To this entire chapter, and the two following, I refer for the explanation of these texts which I have brought to evince the divinity of Jefus Chrift, and which I take to be even of themselves fufficient for that purpose. The arm of the Lord is here invoked, and in making anfwer, the arm of the Lord declares “I am the Lord thy God." The arm of the Lord, and the Lord God, are then with Ifaiah fynonimous terms; but he afterwards fays "the Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth fhall fee the falvation of our God," Ifaiah lii. to: and again, "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Ifaiah liii. 1. To the former of these two texts St. Luke refers, and declares exprefsly that it is fpoken of Jefus Chrift, for he relates that they were uttered by St. John the Baptift, whofe office it was to be the forerunner of our Saviour, Luke iii. 6. To the latter St. John refers, chap. xii. verfe 38, where he quotes the verfe at large concerning the unbelief in

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