affect our heart. If we rise no higher in our views than the human nature in which he appeared, instead of ascending the top of Jacob's towering ladder, we lie grovelling as at its foot. It is far from being suffici ent to conceive or speak of Christ as an extraordinary man, for so were the prophets and apostles. An extraordinary man may be a mere man; but as for our Jesus, he was more than a man. He was "the child born,” and at the same time, "the mighty God," Isa. ix. 6. "The Word made flesh," John i. 14. "God manifested in the flesh," 1 Tim. iii. 16. "Though the son of Adam with respect to his human nature," Luke iii. 23-38. "Yet in his divine he was the Son of God," Rom. i. 4. How justly therefore is he called wonderful! It is observable, that scripture speaking of him, either as to his person or his office, generally adds some mark of distinction, to point out his supereminent dignity. For instance, is he a Son? he is the only Son of God. Is he a brother? he is the First-born among many brethren, Rom. viii. 29. Is he fair? he is Fairer far than the children of men, Psalm xlv. 2. Is he a plant? he is the Plant of Renown. Is he a rose? he is the Rose of Sharon, Cant. ii. 1. Is he a star? he is the Morning Star, Rev. xxii. 16. Is he a sun? he is the Sun of Righteousness, Mal. iv. 2. Is he a messenger? he is One among a thousand, Job xxxiii. 23. Is he a priest? he is a great High Priest, Heb. iv. 14. Is he a prince? he is the Prince of Peace, Isa. ix. 6. Is he a king? he is a King of Righteousness and of Peace, Heb. vii. 2. Is he a captain? he is the Captain of Salvation, Heb. ii. 10. So true is it that in all things he ever has the pre-eminence, Col. i. 18.

2dly. What has been said, may serve for reproof to such as doubt or deny the Divinity of Christ, and consequently speak of him in terms not the most honourable. Arianism and Socinianism have come in like a flood, and thereby many are carried away. They consider Christ either as an inferior kind of God, or as a mere, though extraordinary man. Such are false teachers, bringing in damnable heresies, denying in effect the

Lord who bought them, 2 Pet. ii. 1. They may at times, and to serve a turn, affect to speak highly of him. But after all, they are a voice, and nothing else. Fair as their speeches may appear, and specious their piety, their doctrine is poisonous. The author* more than once alluded to, may but too, too justly be ranked among their number. Of the many prayers interspersed through his book, there is none to the Lord Jesus Christ. Dying Stephen prayed more to him in his last moments, than that Doctor has done in the progress of 500 pages. And no marvel that he was so sparing, seeing he considered him not as the great God, but as an extraordinary man: a martyr, who in his testimony could scarcely be mistaken. How criminal in the professors, the very teachers of Christianity, to deny, or to conceal the Godhead of the Son! How contrary such a conduct to that of the wise master-builder! 1 Cor. iii. 10. He taught that Christ was in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be altogether equal with him. If all the angels of God worship our Jesus, Heb. i. 6. how inexcusable the men who deny him divine honours! If it be the Father's will," That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father," John v. 23. what must be their guilt who pay greater honours to the one than to the other! If the Father himself acknowledge that the Son is God, Heb. i. 8. how accumulated their guilt who say that he is only a man. They make the God of truth a liar. And doing so, shall they escape the vengeance of his arm? Do they know the Son better than the Father does? He has called him God, and the most that they assert is, that he is an extraordinary man. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united!

3dly. From what has been said, we may see that it is our indispensible duty to contend for the divinity of the Son. If we should earnestly contend for the faith

* Dr. M'Gill.

which was once delivered to the saints, Jude 3. then surely for that which is one of its capital articles. The Godhead of the Son, is no matter of doubtful disputation, like many things which are litigated amongst the divided parties in our Zion. No: it is written so very plainly in scripture, that he who runs may read. It is not extrinsical to Christianity, but so essential to it, that whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, 1 John ii. 23. To expunge it from the Christian creed, is as if men should go about to strike the sun out of the firmament. The natural sun does not more certainly diffuse his benign influences through the material system, Psalm xix. 6. than the Sun of Righteousness does his through the whole of revealed truth. All the rays of evangelic truth issue from him, and all its lines centre in him. His divinity denied, we may drop our tear, and with better reason than Mary say, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him," John xx. 13. If he be only a man, we may hang our harps upon the willows, for we are yet in our sins. But certain, as his own and his Father's testimony can make us, "that he is the true, the eternal God," let us agonize for this precious, this foundation truth. If there be a precious stone in all the temple, this, this is it. While therefore pretended builders openly reject it, let us in a declarative manner keep it where God has laid it. While they in their wisdom treat it as a stone of stumbling, let us regard it as more precious than the golden wedge of Ophir. Let us not be ashamed of the truth, but contend for it as heaven's precious depositum committed unto us. Let the zeal of the adversaries serve as a whetstone to ours. Shall they be more eager to propagate error, than we to preserve and promote the truth? God forbid. Only while we contend, let us do it with temper, well knowing that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." Let the edge of our indignation be directed, not against the persons, but the errors of

men.

4thly. From what has been said, we may learn what it was that gave weight and worth to the obedience and sufferings of Christ. It was the dignity of his person. Because he was God, both it and they were infinitely valuable. Had he been a man only, neither of them could have been of infinite worth. It is not more certain that there is a gradation in the worth of matter, than in that of moral agents. "As gold is more precious than brass, and silver than iron, so man is preferable to the beasts that perish," Job xxxv. 11. And of consequence human blood must of necessity be much more precious than brutal. In answer to that important question, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God?" Calves and rams are mentioned first; and if these are found insufficient, the man's first-born is proposed to atone for his transgression, and the fruit of his body to burn for the sin of his soul, Mic. vi. 6, 7. But if the blood of man be more precious than that of calves and of goats, surely the blood of God must excel the former, far more than that does the latter. As far as God is superior to man, so must his obedience and sufferings be to all that man can do or suffer. How is it that the blood of bulls and of goats could not possibly take away sin, Heb. x. 4. and yet that the blood of Christ perfectly did? Heb. ix. 26. Why, this arose not merely from the appointment of Heaven, but from the infinite difference betwixt the two in point of intrinsic value. It was not possible that the one should take away sin. Omnipotence itself could not give it that value, no more than it can work contradictions. And it was as impossible that the other should not take away sin, since it was the blood of God. So it was in truth, and so it is styled in holy scripture. "God hath purchased his church with his own blood," says the apostle, Acts xx. 28. As the body of Jesus might be called the body of God, 1 Cor. xi. 27. and his soul, the soul of God, so his blood might justly be called the blood of God. For though body and blood belonged immediately to the human nature, yet that nature sub

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sisting in the person of the Son, that body was his, and that blood was his. They were not the body and blood of one who was a man and no more, but of one who was God. Hence it is written, that God laid down his life for us, 1 John iii. 16. Though the life was human, yet the person who laid it down was divine. Hence the act receives its denomination, not from the nature, but from the person. It is certain that both his obedience and sufferings terminated in the human nature, and could not possibly extend to the divine. Yet still they were the obedience and sufferings of him who was a divine person, and therefore of infinite value. It was the person who obeyed and suffered, though in his human nature only. But though his obedience and sufferings were finite both in duration and degree, being accomplished in a limited time, and in a finite nature, yet they were of infinite weight and worth, being the obedience and sufferings of an infinite person. Had Christ been a man only, his sufferings could not have been satisfactory to divine justice; there being in that case no proportion between the offence and the punishment. And observable it is, that they who impugn the Deity of the Son, do also deny the necessity of the satisfaction.

5thly. From what was said, we may see what gratitude we owe to the Son of God in condescending to be our Saviour. We owe him disinterested love for what he is in himself, being in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be altogether equal with him. But we owe him infinite thanks on account of what he hath done for us. What he is in himself, and what he hath done, are two very different things. The one was necessary, the other not. He could not but be what he is, viz. in the form of God, and altogether equal with him. But had he so pleased, he might never have done what he has done. He could not but be God, but he might never have been a man. He could not but be in the form of God, but he was under no necessity to take upon him the form of a servant.