characterizes the Father by the very same divine titles which are assumed by Christ in the 17th and 18th verses of the same chapter; and consistency requires that we should not give a different interpretation to the very same terms in the two cases.

In REV. i. 17, the title of First and Last is assumed by Christ: "Fear not, I am the first and the last ;" also in chap. ii. 8, "These things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive;" and in REV. xxii. 13, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."

In REV. xvii. 14, two titles of Deity are ascribed to Christ: "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them; for he is King of kings, and Lord of lords;" and also in chap. xix. 16, "And he hath on his vesture, and on his thigh, a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords."

In the following passages the title "God" is applied to Christ: EPHES. v. 5, "In the kingdom of Christ and of God," which, according to the Greek, might be more distinctly rendered, "In the kingdom of him who is Christ and God."-2 THESS. i. 12, "According to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ," or "of our God and Lord Jesus Christ."-2 PET. i. 1, "Through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” or “of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ."

In 1 JOHN iii. 2 and 5, Christ is spoken of under the title of "God:"-" Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." "And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins."-It is evident that the person designated in these two verses by the pronoun "he" is the Lord Jesus Christ; but, grammatically speaking, this pronoun must refer to the word "God" in the second verse; therefore Christ is here styled God.

MARK

We advance the following proofs of Christ's having received and recognised, whilst upon earth, many acts of homage and petition, which, if he were a merely created being, he should have rejected upon a principle of piety, and because such honours were of too high a nature to be paid to any but one invested with true and proper Deity.-MATTH. viii. 2. "There came a leper, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." describes the circumstance thus, chap. i. 40. "There came a leper, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him;" and LUKE v. 12. "fell on his face, and besought him, saying," &c. The answer of our Saviour completely recognised, and therefore justified, as correct the ascription of personal ability which the entreaty contained, "I will: be thou clean."-MATTH. ix. 18. "There came a certain ruler, and worshipped him." LUKE expresses it, chap. viii. 41. "He fell down at Jesus' feet.”—MATTH. xiv. 33. "They that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, "Of a truth thou art the Son of God." -Matth. xv. 25. "Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me." MARK says, chap. vii. 25. "She fell at his feet."

Upon these instances we remark, that they are as express and positive acts of devotion, as that which Peter is described as refusing from Cornelius, in Acтs x. 25. "As Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him; but Peter took him up, saying, Stand up, I myself also am a man :" and thatas the apostle Paul defines idolatry, in Rom. i. 25. to consist in worshipping and serving the creature besides the Creator" (for so Taga, in the Greek, should be translated) our Saviour would have displayed an equal concern for maintaining the exclusive prerogatives of God, if God had been an infinitely superior being to him, to whom he was indebted for existence, and whom he ought therefore to have worshipped himself.

In the 45th PSALM, the application of which to Christ is proved in the first chapter of the Epistle to the HEBREWS, we read this command in the 11th verse, addressed to the Church: "He is thy Lord, and worship thou him."

In LUKE xxiv. 51, 52, the Apostles are described as having worshipped him immediately after his ascension: "And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven, and they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy."

In ACTS i. 24, the Apostles are represented as thus praying to him, and at the same time ascribing to him a knowledge peculiar to Deity: "And they prayed and said, Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen."-It is evident that the Lord here addressed was the Lord Jesus, as he had originally chosen the twelve Apostles, as they were to be his Apostles, and as the election of a successor to Judas properly belonged to Christ's mediatorial office as "head over all things to his Church."

In ACTS xiv. 23, we read, "And when they had prayed (or, praying to) with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed."-The Lord on whom they believed was manifestly Christ.

In ACTS vii. 59, 60, we read, "And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.". Here the dying martyr is represented, in the most solemn manner, as addressing to Christ two prayers, the very same as those which the Saviour, "in the days of his flesh," offered up to his Father on the cross, and also as ascribing to Christ the very same divine powers and prerogatives as Christ ascribed to his Father; and, at the same time, we are told that Stephen was full of the Holy Ghost, and therefore incapable of an act of idolatry.

In 2 COR. xii. 8, 9, we read, "For this cause I besought the Lord thrice that it (the thorn in the flesh) might depart from me. And he said unto me, "My grace is sufficient for thee: my strength is made perfect in weakness."-The Lord to whom the Apostle. prayed is then said to be Christ: "Most gladly therefore will I ra

ther glory in my infirmities, that the power (or strength) of Christ may rest upon me." Now here we have an instance of repeated prayer to the Saviour, by an apostle who has elsewhere said: "In every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." PHIL. iv. 6.

In REV. iv. 17, we read this command: "Worship him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters ;" which is equivalent to an express and direct command to worship Christ ; for "by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth." COL. i. 16.

So frequent was the practice of praying to Christ in the Apostolic Church, that its members were characterised and known by a title derived from the custom; as in the language of Ananias, in ACTS ix. 14. "And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name;" and of Paul, in 1 Cor. i. 2. "And unto all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord."

In REV. v. 14, Christ is represented as the object of worship to the inmates of heaven: "And the four beasts said, Amen; and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever;" for this description of the person whom they worshipped, is identically the same as that by which Christ designates himself, in ch. i. 18. "I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore." In the Greek the expressions are precisely the same in the two passages; or, if we exclude the words "him that liveth for ever and ever" from the text of REV. v. 14, as GRIESBACH does, we have then a more direct argument; for the passage will read thus: "The elders fell down and worshipped;" i. e. they worshipped "him that sitteth upon the throne and the Lamb," mentioned in the preceding verse.

The book of the REVELATION closes with a solemn prayer to Christ, chap. xxii. 20: "Even so come, Lord Jesus."

II. I SHALL NOW PRODUCE ANOTHER CLASS OF PROOFS; NAMELY, PASSAGES IN WHICH DIVINE ATTRIBUTES OR PREROGATIVES ARE AS

CRIBED IN COMMON TO CHRIST, AND JEHOVAH, OR GOD.

The kingdom of God is represented as the kingdom of Christ, EPH. v. 5: "No whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man which is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."

The Apostles are the servants of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ in the same sense, as in JAMES i. 1: "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ;" for there is not any expression here which could convey the idea of any distinction.

Christ, under the designation of the Lamb, is associated with "him that sitteth upon the throne," as the object of worship and adoration to the inhabitants of heaven; as in REV. v. 11-13: "And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the

throne, and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever."-Now upon the principle asserted by ISAIAH, chap. xlviii. 11, "that God will not give his glory to another," and also as there could not be idolatry or creature-worship in heaven, "the Lamb that was slain" must have been invested with the One Godhead with the Father, in order to justify his being thus associated with the Father, as the object of the most sublime, ample, and emphatic ascription of homage which the Bible contains.

In REV. xx. 6, we read that they who have part in the first resurrection, "shall be priests of God and of Christ." Now, as a priest is the servant of Deity, this passage either inculcates idolatry, or the doctrine of the Deity of Christ.

By comparing REV, xxii. 6 with REV. xxii. 16, we have a strong proof by Christ's Deity. The former passage is, "The Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done." The latter passage is, "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the church." Now the angel sent is, in both these verses, asserted to be the angel of the Sender, who is called in one passage, "the Lord God of the holy prophets," and in the other "Jesus." The inference is una. voidable, that these are two designations of Christ.

In the Epistle of Paul to Titus, the Apostle, in speaking upon the redemption by Christ, uses indifferently the expressions "God our Saviour," and "Christ our Saviour," in such a form as to identify God and Christ. As, for instance, TITUS i. 3, "According to the commandment of God our Saviour;" chap. i. 4, "Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour ;” chap. ii. 10, "That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things; chap. ii. 13, "The glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; "chap. iii. 4, "The kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man ;" chap. iii. 6, "Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour."-Now upon these verses, I remark, that it is to salvation in the highest sense of the word to which the apostle alludes; but Jehovah has said (Isa. xliii. 11), “I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour:" it therefore follows, unavoidably, that the names "Christ" and "God," which are interchanged in the above passages and in many others, are common designations of the ONE Saviour. Or if we even admit that the title "God our Saviour" refers to the Father, still as Christ is also called our Saviour in the same sense, the same conclusion must follow, that he is One God with the Father, since it is the universal doctrine of the Bible, that there is but ONE Saviour in the sense spoken of in these passages.

III. I SHALL NOW ADVANCE A THIRD CLASS OF PROOFS; NAMELY,

OF INSTANCES IN WHICH DECLARATIONS AND ASCRIPTIONS PECU

LIARLY REFERRING TO DEITY IN one part of SCRIPTURE, ARE REFERRED TO CHRIST IN ANOTHER.

In Isa. ch. vi. we have an account of the Prophet receiving his commission from a being who is described as "the Lord," the "Lord of hosts," sitting upon the throne of supreme and universal empire, before whom the angels worshipped, and whose glory is described as filling the whole earth; or who, in one word, is the true God. But according to the testimony of JOHN, ch. xii. 41, it was Christ in his pre-existent Deity whom the Prophet saw; for the Apostle having just quoted from the 9th and 10th verses of this chapter of Isaiah the commission which the Prophet received, immediately adds, in reference to the vision which accompanied the delivery of this commission: "These things, said Esaias, when he saw his glory (i. e. Christ's glory), and spake of him."

In Isa. xliii. 11, Jehovah is represented as saying: "I, even I, am the Lord, and beside Me there is no Saviour.”—But in 2 PĒT. iii. 18, these titles, which are described as the exclusive attributes of Deity, are given to Christ: "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

In ISA. xlv. 22, 23, Jehovah is represented as saying: "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself; the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return; that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." But the Apostle Paul, in ROм. xiv. 10, 11, expressly quotes these words with a direct application to Christ: "For we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God."

In ISA. viii. 13, 14, 15, Jehovah is thus described: "Sanctify Jehovah of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread: and he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence, to both the houses of Israel; for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken."-But this description is, in 1 PET. ii. 7, 8, referred to Christ: "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious; but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient."

In ISA. xl. 3, it is prophesied, that John the Baptist should be "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God."-But in LUKE iii. 4, this prophecy is said to be fulfilled by John's appearing to prepare the way of Christ; as it is written in the book of Esaias the prophet, saying: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."