them perfectly agreed, and corroborate each other's testitimony. In the passage referred to in Matthew, however, as parallel to our text, though the words "nor the Son" are certainly omitted, we find a word added which will probably be regarded, by the attentive and candid reader, as nearly if not fully equivalent. "Of that day and hour," says our Lord, according to St. Matthew, "no one knoweth, no, not the angels in heaven, but the Father only." Must not the word "only" be regarded as indirectly excluding the Son, as well as angels and men? If so, St. Matthew and St. Mark perfectly harmonize, though the latter must be regarded as reporting our Lord's words with greater fulness and accuracy.

It appears, then, that there is not a particle of external critical evidence against the genuineness of our text. Every manuscript and version, of any value, contains it, and a parallel passage, in another evangelist, confirms and vindicates its testimony. What plea, then, can be urged for casting it out as an interpolation? Perhaps the learned commentator would say, for I have not yet had an opportunity of consulting his work, that he is induced to do so, solely because the passage, as it stands, conveys a doctrine clearly contradicted and confuted by every other part of sacred scripture. The omniscience of Jesus, which this passage, if authentic, certainly disproves, he would perhaps assert to be the doctrine of all that remains of the New Testament. Were his supposed assertion correct, I do not hesitate to admit that his case would be a strong one. If the infinite knowledge of Jesus were indeed, without controversy, the doctrine, directly and distinctly laid down, of every other part of scripture, then would it be incontestably necessary to regard and treat as an evident interpolation an insulated passage so directly opposed to it. I confess, and I am not ignorant at the risk of what often repeated but unjust insinuations I do so, that were I a Trinitarian, convinced from serious examination that the Deity, and consequently the omniscience, of Jesus Christ,

See Appendix, Note E.

was the doctrine of the whole New Testament besides, I should much rather choose to question the authority and genuineness of a single passage like that before us, from internal evidence, than attempt to distort it, by far fetched criticisms, from its obvious and only sense, and impose upon it meanings which it evidently will not and cannot admit.

The case, however, we shall probably find, upon examination, is very far indeed from being such as we have imagined, and as some conscientious and pious Christians may perhaps suppose. Laying aside all consideration of the text, and its parallel passage in Matthew, the doctrine of the infinite knowledge of our blessed Lord, to confine our attention to this single attribute of Deity, does not, I think, by any means, appear to be the doctrine of scripture. On the contrary, I am persuaded that the thoughtful and attentive, if likewise an unprejudiced reader of the New Testament, will find, no one or two, but many passages that directly militate against it, and none in which it is clearly and unquestionably asserted. To enter at length into this inquiry, and to say all, or nearly all, that might be said in defence of the opinion Just advanced, neither my time, nor my regard for those upon whose patience I have already trespassed, will permit me; I shall therefore endeavour to comprise, in a few brief observations, designed rather to suggest than to supply matter for reflection, what I have to say on this head.

And, in the first place, it may be observed, we find in scripture many express declarations, proceeding from the lips of our Lord himself, that the knowledge which he possessed was not his own, but derived from him that sent him, from which, if admitted, it would seem to be an obvious and necessary inference, that he could not be the omniscient God. To instance a few of these, in the 5th chapter of St. John's gospel, and the 30th verse, we find these words ascribed to our Lord, "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who

hath sent me." In the 7th chapter of the same evangelist, the 14th and following verses, we read that "about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. And the Jews marvelled, saying, how knoweth this man letters having never learned? Jesus answered them, and said, my doctrine is not mine but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory : but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him." In the 8th chapter, the 28th and 29th verses, we find our Lord thus addressing the Jews-" Then said Jesus unto them, when ye have lifted up the son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him." And afterwards, at the 40th verse, "But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God." In the 12th chapter, the 49th and 50th verses, we find our Lord expressing himself in the same manner, "I have not spoken of myself," says he, "but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." And once more, in the beautiful and solemn prayer which we find recorded in the 17th chapter of the same gospel, he thus addresses that Being from whom he always professed that all his knowledge and his power were derived. "Now," says he, speaking of his chosen followers, "now they have known that all things, whatsoever thou hast given me, are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me."

These passages, and others that might be produced of similar import, will appear, I cannot help thinking, to the

candid and unprejudiced mind, perfectly irreconcileable with the doctrine of the omniscience and deity of Jesus Christ. I am not ignorant of the answer that will be returned. It will be said, I know, that the Son, though equal in nature and essence, assumed a character, and acted a part, as it were, in the economy of redemption, inferior to the Father; and that it is in this view only that he is said to be taught, instructed, commanded, sent by him. To all this it may be sufficient to reply, referring you with confidence to the New Testament, for the best and most satisfactory proofs of the justice of this opinion, that such an interpretation has no foundation whatsoever in the testimony of scripture. I cannot, indeed, for my own part, regard it in any other light than as a mere hypothesis, "the work of men's hands," framed to solve a fancied difficulty. The dramatic fiction thus supposed-the assumption of separate characters by the three parts or forms, persons or subsistences of the Godhead, appears to me,and I would say it with all due respect for the many excellent persons who hold an opinion directly opposite, doubtless on grounds which they deem satisfactory,-not only contradictory to the unity, but inconsistent with the truth, unworthy of the dignity and wisdom, and altogether unsupported by the word of God.

In the scriptures, I think, we may look in vain, even for the rudiments,-for the bare outline of that scheme or economy which is so distinctly laid down, and so minutely described, in all its parts, by every modern champion of what is generally termed orthodoxy. We find nothing there, no, not a single text, as far as I can see, which speaks,-of an eternal three-fold distinction in the essence of Deity;-of the arrangement of an economy of redemption, agreed upon before all worlds, between the three distinct, yet substantially identical persons, alike infinite and divine, of the one infinite Godhead ;-of the necessity of an infinite sacrifice, in the person of one of these, in order to atone for the sins of a finite and created being, against the infinite Triune Creator;-of the consequent voluntary condescension of the second divine person, and

his perfect union with a perfect man, in order to provide such a sacrifice. These doctrines, it is true, how myste rious soever we may deem them, and whatever contradictions they may appear to us to involve, we can nevertheless see distinctly laid down in almost every Trinitarian work, in commentaries, and sermons, and polemical tracts-in the writings of men, whose sincerity we cannot doubt, whose ingenuity and eloquence we may admire, and whose piety and virtue we must love and respect; but we cannot see them-for myself, I declare it seriously and deliberately, that I cannot perceive even a trace of them—where enly we ought to be convinced by seeing them, in the scriptures. To me, therefore, and to all who think with me, they cannot serve, in the least degree, to explain or modify those clear, direct, and unambiguous passages, in which Jesus is spoken of, and speaks of himself, as an inferior being, instructed, commanded, sent by the Supreme.

I observe, in the second place, and upon similar grounds, that prayer is an act which it is impossible to suppose could be performed by a being, himself omniscient-himself God. We find our blessed Master frequently, nay constantly engaged in earnest prayer to his heavenly Father; using the same language, and assuming the same devout and lowly attitude, as the rest of our feeble species; bowing down his body, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, while he calls upon the Most High; indicating, in short, by every outward sign, that he regarded the object of his worship not only as distinct from himself, but infinitely superior. Is it possible for us to imagine, when we see him thus engaged, thus prostrate, that he was nevertheless the supreme omniscient God? If we could think so, must we not suppose that his prayers too, as well as his expressions of inferiority and dependence, are to be explained by the intervention of the gratuitous hypothesis before alluded to;-that he is to be regarded as praying, not from himself, as the Son of God, but merely in his

See Appendix, Note F.