ing that no man could take away his life from him, but that the act of his decease would be his own

voluntary deed. Then, referring them to the relation in which he stood to his disciples, like a shepherd to his flock, he asserts his complete authority over them, and his absolute power to crown them with eternal life. "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.” Having thus stated that they were as safe in his hands as in his Father's, and that the custody was alike secure, he utters these remarkable words, "I and my Father are one." The impression made upon the bystanders by this singular and emphatic conclusion, was that to which all rational men must inevitably come. They considered it equivalent to a full assertion of deity, and in their indignation at his presuming to arrogate supreme power to himself, they threatened to stone him. When Jesus remonstrated with them on their violence, and demanded for which of his works they were going to punish him, their answer was, "For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." In this passage the distinction between the persons of the Father, and the Son, is maintained, but without any difference in their powers. The Father indeed gives the sheep to the Son, but the Son is equally able with the Father to defend them, and in unity of essence they are declared to be one.

There is

another remarkable passage in our Saviour's life, which not only exhibits this unity, but asserts it in direct and explicit terms. He said to his disciples, "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father, that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake." But, without going into a detail of matters, we may briefly remark, that the Scriptures declare, that he came down from heaven, that he existed in the beginning, was before all things, and was God. David calls him his Lord, though in a human sense he was his son, as being lineally descended from him; and the prophet Isaiah designates him, The Everlasting Father. He styles

himself the Son of God, affirms his unity with the Father as to nature, operation, and very words, claims creation and judgment for his own, controls the elements, accepts the homage of his disciples, and sends his Spirit, the Spirit of God, into their hearts.

Nor is his divinity less fully developed by his acts than declared by his words. His miracles were

all wrought by his own immediate power, and not by the instrumentality or influence of another. We never find him, like the Prophets of old, praying for ability to work his wonders, nor attributing his success to any extraneous or foreign agency. He speaks as one having authority, and acts as one who is governed by his own will. As man he refers his power and success to God, but at the same time he shows that God was in him of a truth. His cure of diseases, his control of the elements, his perception of future events, his intimate knowledge of men's thoughts, his entire command over life and death, his raising himself from the grave, his wonderful appearances after his resurrection, his manifestations to St. Paul and St. John after his visible ascension into heaven; in short, his whole life from first to last, from the Babe in the manger. at Bethlehem to the glorified Lamb on Mount Sion, and surrounded by the heavenly choir, all proclaim his divinity as Son of God, the second person in the adorable Godhead, one with the Father and with the Holy Ghost, very God of very God, begotten, not made, who in his person never had a beginning, and in his power and prerogatives, his attributes and essence, shall never have an end.

To him who attentively considers the two natures of Christ as they stand exhibited in his wonderful character, the difference between them will be very obvious, yet, at the same time, that difference will be easily reconciled with the end of his coming, and the necessity of the case. He came to make recon

ciliation for sin. Any reconciliation between God and man necessarily implies an atoning mediator. Some instrument there must be, both to be the organ of reconciliation, and to render the evidence of its ratification public and obvious. If, then, a body, as the Psalmist states, was prepared by God as the fittest instrument (and surely God had a right to choose the medium), and if that body was a human body as being analogous to man who stood in need of atonement, it does not seem to be any violence done to reason, or any thing preposterous and out of nature, that God should ally himself to this intended victim, inhabit his frame, direct his powers, and accept his sufferings as a satisfaction for sin. That the mode of this incarnation, and all the operations and circumstances of it, should, in their particulars, be involved in impenetrable mystery, an humble, teachable, and godly mind will readily conceive. But that the thing itself should be too startling to admit of any solution or any credence; that, because it cannot be fully explained, it should not be received at all; that men, whose religious impressions are made to depend on faith and not on sight, should reject the truth delivered to them, because that truth does not meet their views, or agree with their modes of reasoning or powers of conception, is nothing less than to make human nature, with all its feeble and limited capacities, the perfect and only standard of religious knowledge and divine authority, and to bring down the infinite wisdom of God to the weak inventions of men.

Our blessed Saviour, in all his conversations,

maintained a very nice and accurate and accurate distinction between his two natures, and it is this very accuracy, this nicety of discrimination, which so much perplexes the advocates for reason. On the same occasion, almost in the same breath, he spoke of acting by God's instrumentality, and yet as invested with the attributes of God; as one sent on a commission, and yet accomplishing his own purposes; as devoted to death, and yet dying by a voluntary martyrdom. He showed himself sensible to human infirmity, yet superior to the angels of heaven; liable to the accidents of life, yet more powerful than the winds and waves; all which matters are perfectly reconcileable with the notion of two natures, but in no other way can they be made to harmonise. It is a very singular and striking fact, that the Jews had pretty correct notions of this two-fold nature of the Messiah. When they objected to him, it was not for assuming the honours and the offices of deity, as a thing repugnant to reason and foreign to all calculation or belief, but because he was not a divine person according to their views and desires. He seemed to be a poor, friendless, and obscure character, without pretensions to divine origin, or heavenly authority. The very plea on which the High Priest declared that he ought to die, was for confessing upon his oath that he was the Son of God. This was the true basis of their accusation; this the substance of their malice and revenge. These words became the signal for a general attack