not sin, and could not disobey, for what was he exalted? On this head the scripture is plain: "he was made perfect by sufferings;" he "learned obedience by the things which he suffered;" "he laid down his life that he might receive it again ;" "therefore God has highly exalted him, and given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man." If Christ were God, he could neither be made perfect, nor learn obedience, nor receive his life again, nor be exalled, nor be authorized or commissioned to dispense judgment: he therefore was not God. If he was made perfect, if he learned obedience, if he received his life from God, if he was exalted by God, if he had authority given him from God as the delegated judge of men, he was not God.

ACTS iii. 14, 15. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of Life, whom God hath raised from the dead.

Jesus, in Acts iv. 27, is called "thy holy child;" in Rev. iii. 7, "he that is holy;" and in Mark i. 24, he is miraculously acknowledged by the ma-. niac as 66 THE HOLY ONE of GOD." There is no pretence for the inference that he is "THE HOLY ONE of ISRAEL," or God himself. "The prince of life" is properly the leader to life, "the firstborn from the dead;" but it is thought to mean that the Jews killed THE IMMORTAL GOD!

JOHN vi. 40. This is the WILL OF HIM that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day. JOHN X. 18. I have power [authority, or commission, ε{8σiav] to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

It is mere evasion to ascribe the resurrection of Jesus, and his power of raising the dead, to his own inherent divinity, when he distinctly refers them to the will and commandment of his FATHER. Such is also the uniform language of

the Apostles. Acts xiii. 30, "But God raised him from the dead;" and Paul thus explains the raising of the dead by Jesus, 2 Cor. iv. 14, "Knowing that HE which raised up the Lord JESUS shall raise us up also by JESUS.'

No argument, therefore, for the supreme Deity of Christ, can be raised on the passage in John ii. 19,"Destroy this temple [the temple of my body], and in three days I will raise it up."

The following is quoted in proof of the divinity or superior nature of JESUS.

ACTS ii. 24. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

If "possible" alluded to his inherent immortality, Christ would have raised up himself: it was not possible, because GOD had decreed the contrary. The Apostle proceeds to quote David: "My flesh shall rest in hope, because thou WILT NOT leave my soul in hell [my life in the grave]: neither suffer thy holy one to see corruption.'

If "possible" alluded to his inherent immortality, the resurrection of Christ affords in itself no ground of proof, and is in itself no conclusive demonstration, of the resurrection of man; and the reasoning of Paul, "if Christ be not risen, ye are still your sins" (or under death, the penalty of sin), is inconsequent; and his assertion that "as by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead," is not true in fact, and is a mere sophism.

in

JOHN XX. 28. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

This ejaculation is thought decisive as to the resurrection of Jesus having convinced the Apostle Thomas that Jesus, who had spoken-of himself to the disciples as having "come forth from the Father," who had told them that "after his departure he would pray for them to the Father,"

and who had said that "the laying down his life and taking it again" was a "commandment and commission received from his FATHER," was himself that very FATHER; and that he, concerning whom the Apostles afterwards uniformly speak, as "raised from the dead by GOD," was himself that very GOD by whom he was raised. On this, several considerations occur :

1. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was not a necessary proof that Jesus was GOD; there is therefore no reason why it should have convinced Thomas that he was GOD.

2. It is impossible that Thomas could have drawn any such inference; because Jesus had distinctly said, that the taking his life again was a "commandment or commission which he had received of his Father:" John x. 18.

3. John the Evangelist, who relates the circumstance, draws no such inference: xx. 31, "These are written, that ye might believe [not that Jesus was God, but] that JESUS is THE CHRIST, the SON OF GOD; and that believing ye might have life through his name." As " they were called Gods to whom the word of GOD came;" as they were styled Gods, who, like Solomon, were anointed of God, "the Word was GOD," or a God; and in the received and consistent Jewish phraseology, Thomas ejaculated, as is evident from John's own interpretation of the words and the statement of his design in recording them, 66 My Lord, the Son of God!" "My Lord, the Christ!"

It was not the doubt of Jesus being God, in which the incredulity of Thomas consisted; for none of the Apostles had ever any such idea, as no such idea is traceable through any one of the narrations of the resurrection. "We have seen the Lord," was the information which Thomas doubted. The disbelief of his resurrection, by I which his own predictions were verified, and by

which he was declared to be "the Son of God," was a disbelief of his being the Christ; and the exclamation at sight of the risen Jesus, " My Lord and my God!" confessed him as the Christ; as he who, having come from God, was to them as God. It should be observed that some do not regard this ejaculation of Thomas as a personal address to Christ at all, but as an expression of adoration and thanksgiving to the LORD GOD, who "had raised up his Son Jesus." Such was the opinion of Dr. Whitby: see his Last Thoughts, p. 78.

Whichsoever of these senses be received, either is to be preferred before an interpretation which involves a perfect contradiction; and which supposes the Supreme God to have raised up the Supreme God. "He that can receive it, let him receive it."

REV. ii. 23. I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts.

Elisha searched the heart when he knew the thoughts of Gehazi, 2 Kings v. 25. Peter searched the heart when he read the thoughts of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts v. 3, 9. Whatever enlargement of powers, or of spiritual dignity and superintendance in the Gospel economy, might be consequent on Christ's glorified state of being after death, proves nothing with respect to original dignity of nature; and as the above powers are shown to have been occasionally communicated by God, the exercise of them does not prove that their possessor is God himself.

The same observation holds of whatever supernatural knowledge Jesus displayed while performing "the work which the Father gave him to do: John ii. 24, 25, "He knew all men; and needed not that any should testify of man; for he knew what was in man." John xxi. 17, "Lord! thou knowest all things."

Jesus expressly disavowed any power or knowledge but what he derived from God. "I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things:" John viii. 28. The same expression is used in reference to the Apostles, and might equally prove their omniscience. 1 John ii. 20, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." Acts i. 2, "Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments to the Apostles whom he had chosen." Had Jesus possessed knowledge or authority in himself, he would of himself have given instructions to the Apostles, and not through the assistance or influence of the Holy Spirit of God. MATTHEW XXviii. 20. Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. [The age, alwvos: the Jewish age, after which miraculous agency was withdrawn from the church.]

Several visible interpositions of Christ are recorded after his ascension; as in Acts ix. 5, 10. "And as all things [a phrase commonly used in reference to the gospel dispensation] were delivered unto him by his FATHER," there can be no difficulty in supposing that during the concluding æra of the Jewish dispensation, or even now, and throughout the Gospel ages, he may be employed in some high mysterious agency for the government of his church. But this again proves nothing as to powers possessed before his birth, or essential to his nature.

MATT. xviii. 20. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

To this language of spiritual presence, brought forward like that in the former passages, in proof that Christ is omnipresent, and therefore God, the same reasoning applies. But it is used also of Moses, Deut. xxxi. 23, "THOU [Joshua] shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I