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is nowhere represented as coming alone to reign and establish his kingdom. He always comes with God to reign under him. As Judge, he says, "Come, ye blessed of my Father." He cannot come by his own power, nor does he himself know when that period shall be. For Paul says: "Until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his own times, HE shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords." According to the conception of this book, God himself is to come and dwell among men. "And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." The Messiah is to reign with him, or under him, and share his throne. In the heavenly Jerusalem is to be "the throne of God and the Lamb." The coming of God is to be simultaneous with the coming of Christ. So Paul represents in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians. "Even so, them which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him.” This being the case, that, according to the Messianic ideas of the Jews, Christ and God were both to come to reign over the church, to raise the dead, and to judge the world, there is no objection to interpreting the declaration, "Behold, I come quickly," as having been spoken by the angel in the person of God, and all ground is removed for the assertion, that Jesus and God are represented as identical.

Such, then, are the doctrinal aspects of the Book of Revelation. So far is it from teaching the Trinity,

or anything approaching to it. So strictly and absolutely does it maintain the unity of God, the inferiority and dependence of Christ, and the impersonality of the Holy Spirit.

LECTURE VII.

INCARNATION.

COLOSSIANS, II. 9.

FOR IN HIM DWELLETH ALL THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD BODILY.

The doctrine is, that

AMONG the doctrines involved in the Trinity, is that of the Incarnation, as it is called. That doctrine I propose now to consider; first, what it is, and in the second place, how it is proved. God the Son, at the conception of Jesus, became connected in some mysterious way with his human soul, so that a person was formed, the elements of which were, a human soul, the second Person of the Trinity, and a human body. This is called the mystery of the incarnation. I propose to consider first the doctrine, and then those passages of Scripture which are thought to prove it.

It is not too much to say, that the whole doctrine of the Trinity depends upon it. And not only so, it depends on the utmost nicety of definition. If it is proved, that the whole Deity became incarnate in Christ, then the doctrine of the Trinity is gone, for then all distinction of persons is lost, and all those

relations of the persons to each other, which are necessary to the atonement, will be destroyed. Then, if incarnation is made to mean the simple indwelling of the Deity in Christ, then the Trinity is equally destroyed. In that case, it will merely amount to sensible presence of God in the soul of Christ, a conscious communion of Christ with God, whereas his presence, though actually pervading all spirits, is usually unconscious and insensible.

When we speak of the incarnation of God, various relations of the Deity to time and space are suggested, of the most puzzling character. The unchangeable, (for all the attributes of Deity must be possessed, and equally, by each person of the Trinity,) changes his mode of existence. After having existed from all eternity in a purely spiritual state, he commences an existence in connection with a corporeal frame and a finite soul. He, who fills immensity, and who of course cannot change his place, becomes incarnate in a habitation of clay, the intimate associate, and more, of an infant, subject to an infant's wants and weaknesses. Sometimes the human soul is asleep, as when Christ and his disciples were in the ship. Then the thought is suggested, how this could be, Divine Mind never slumbereth nor sleepeth? What sort of a union could there be between a slumbering soul and a God who cannot sleep? The incarnation of God is a thought which does not bear examination. The more we think of it, the more improbable it becomes. It is not only antecedently improbable, but it does not agree with the actual history of Jesus of

when the

Nazareth. Were there a real incarnation, then the complex person so composed must have possessed intrinsically all Divine attributes; Jesus Christ, or the person who went by that name, must have been omnipotent and omniscient; and if this combination was necessary to his official character, then whenever he spoke or acted in his official character, he ought to have possessed these atrributes. Every instance, then, in which Christ spoke or acted in his official character, as dependent for power or knowledge, he contradicted or disclaimed the doctrine of incarnation. He who affirms that God gave the spirit to Christ not by measure, denies the doctrine of incarnation. He, who was composed of one mind, which was God, and another mind, which was man, could not receive the Spirit without measure, could not receive the Spirit at all; for that which is infinite can receive no increase, that which is omniscient cannot be inspired, that which is omnipotent can receive no accession of power. On one occasion he says of himself, "that he could pray the Father, and he would send him more than twelve legions of angels." If the Supreme Ruler of the Universe were incarnate in him, what need of any prayer? He might have commanded them himself, without any prayer. Go with him, then, in his agony in garden. If omnipotence made a part of his person, whence that agony, whence that prayer? If omnipotence was within him, why should he have prayed to omnipotence without him. And then, when he was crucified, how could he utter that prayer, "Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit." Or how could

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