Peter supposed and asserted that the miraculous parts of Christ's character, were to be ascribed to this unction of the Holy Spirit, and not to the second Person of the Trinity making a part of him.

We read on one occasion, when the ship he was in was like to sink, he was found asleep on a pillow. Could that be true of a Being, "who never slumbereth nor sleepeth?" But it is objected that it was his human nature that was sleeping. We turn to the original proposition with which we started. "The very and eternal God took man's nature, and Godhead and manhood were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ." If Godhead and manhood were joined together into one Person, Christ, never to be divided, he certainly acted as the Christ during his whole ministry. It must either be true that God slept, which is impious, or that these two natures were divided, and the compound Person, Christ, ceased to exist. He was weary on the well of Samaria. Can Almighty Power be weary? His soul was exceeding sorrowful. Can God be sorrowful? He was in an agony. agony? The person then here weary, sorrowful, agonizing, excluded, did not comprehend the second Person in the Trinity. But this is contrary to all ideas of personality, and contradicts the fundamental law of this very union, that it never was to be divided.

Can God be in an spoken of as being

But the great trial of this hypothesis comes when we read of his crucifixion. The boldest of the

supporters of the two natures, is startled when he comes to the proposition that God died, or a Person of the Godhead. Most of them, therefore, evade this awful supposition, by saying, that the human nature only suffered. Then, according to this hypothesis, the Person Christ did not suffer at all, for the union of the Divine and human natures, which composed that Person was dissolved before the approach of death. Besides, he himself declared "it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." The suffering was as important as any other part of the mission.

Do we, then, go too far when we say that there is not the least shadow of evidence in the birth, the life, and death of Christ, that there was any such being as the second Person of the Trinity, who made a part of his person? Do not all the circumstances we have mentioned, negative such a supposition?

Let us next examine and see if we can detect any evidence of this Being in what he did. In the first place, he prayed to God. Would a second Person of the Trinity, equal in power and glory, pray to the first? But it is said he prayed for an example. If he prayed for an example, want what he prayed for. He Would you have Christians imitate him in his insincerity, and pray merely to set an example to others?

merely, he did not

prayed insincerely.

But he prayed in secret, in the darkness and retirement of the night. He certainly prayed in

earnest when he was in an agony in the garden. When he retired from his disciples and said, "O! my Father, let this cup pass from me." Is it said there that he prayed in his human nature? We answer that this resort to the human nature must not be made too often, lest it beget the suspicion that the Divine nature, which was absent so often, and on such important occasions, might not have been present at all. The fact is, that two natures in the person of Christ, is not only utterly improbable in itself, but surrounded by innumerable and insuperable difficulties.

He committed his soul to God in the following remarkable words, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Is this the act of a God? Do we detect in this any indication of the indissoluble connection of that soul with the second Person of the Trinity? It would have been safe, certainly, in such custody. I seriously ask you, when you approach the last scenes of the Saviour's life, in his sufferings, in his sorrows, is not all idea of an impassible, infinite Person making a part of him gradually dissipated? Is not the crucifixion of a God, as far from being intimated by the narrative, as it is altogether shocking to all our conceptions of the nature and attributes of Deity?

We now come, in the third place, to what he said. Would it be enough to disprove the second Person of the Trinity, very and eternal God, making a part of his person, never to be divided, if in the only person in which he ever spoke or acted, as the

Christ, he should expressly, and in so many terms, deny his possession of every essential attribute of God, such as almighty and independent power, underived and independent existence, infinite and unlimited knowledge? If he should deny that his miracles were done by himself, and say they were all done by the Father? If he should say that all his miraculous words were given him by the Father, and of course not prompted and suggested by the second Person, who made a part of him, as is supposed; would all this explicit denial; "I can of mine own self do nothing." "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." "Oh, Father, I have given them the words which thou hast given me." "I cast out devils by the Spirit of God;" and at the grave of Lazarus, "I thank thee, Father, that thou hast heard me." Would all this explicit denial avail to disprove the existence of such an infinite being as the second Person of the Trinity in him? No! That is all evaded by saying that he said all these things in his human nature. We shall consider this evasion of the human nature by and by. In the mean time we observe that, if the Father, the first Person in the Trinity, did all that was miraculous in Christ, if he communicated to him all that he said and did, requiring Divine power and knowledge, then there was nothing left for the second Person to do. He did and said nothing, never acted in any case of which we have any knowledge or intimation. We have then no evidence of his existence. It is a mere hypothesis.

sons.

But he spoke these things in his human nature. Men do not speak in natures. They speak in perThe pronouns, "I," "me," "myself," stand for and represent persons, not natures. And it is the very essence of this hypothesis, that Godhead and manhood were joined together in one Person, Christ, never to be divided. "I," "me," "myself," then, being personal pronouns, take in the whole Person, however many natures there may be in it. Whatever, then, he says of this "I," "me," " "myself," must be true of his whole person. We have not the least intimation to the contrary in the whole Gospels. It will not do for a man to say "I cannot think," meaning, in his own mind, his corporeal nature, his body cannot think, because "I" takes in the whole person. What he says is not true, un'less the whole person cannot think, because "I" takes in the whole person. He, then, who says “I cannot think," meaning by a mental reservation his body, and not declaring that he does so, equivocates, "palters in a double sense," uses language in such a way that, if it were to become common, would make it utterly impossible to tell what was meant by what was said.

It is a law of veracity, laid down in the most common books which treat of moral obligation, that to speak the truth, you must say that which is true in the sense in which you know you will be understood by your hearers. To say that, which, without further explanation will mislead your hearers, without giving the explanation, is to equivocate.