ever. How should this greatest of the "teachers sent from God" have been so peculiarly unfortunate in his forms of speech? -Exalt him as highly as you please; still there must have been an infinite distance between him and the Most High that gave him his commission: so that on the Arian and the Socinian hypotheses the difficulty alike remains.

2. It is not only singular that he alone should have used language that produced this impression ;-it is, if possible, still more singular, that, when the impression had been made, he never, in any instance, contradicted it in terms so explicit as effectually to remove it from the minds of his hearers. Even on this occasion, to which Unitarians appeal with so much confidence, whatever explanation we may give of the language of his answer to the charge of blasphemy, the fact is clear, that it was language which did not effectually take off, if indeed it at all diminished, the impression which his former words had produced. Notwithstanding his reply, they "still sought to "take him; but he escaped out of their hands.”—In attending to the language itself, we shall see that it was neither fitted, nor could be intended, to remove the conception they had formed:-but at present, I take the fact alone that it did not produce this effect;-and I ask, first, Could any thing be more easy than to give a plain and distinct denial of the charge that he "made himself God?"—and, secondly, this being the easiest thing imaginable, is it for a moment to be conceived, that, on the supposition of the falsehood of the charge, it should not have been done and done with peremptory decision, in terms that could not be mistaken? A mere human prophet is charged with having claimed equality with the God that sent him-with "making himself God:" -and this prophet, instead of being anxious to disown the imputation in explicit terms, and to eraze from the minds

1

of his hearers, every vestige of an impression so foul and so false, continues to employ, in his reply to the charge, language of equivalent, or even (let it be supposed) of ambiguous import, and leaves the impression as he found it!— Unitarians may eulogize the character of Jesus Christ :-but a supposition such as this must shock the mind of every considerate reader, as in fact attaching such a stain to it as "all "Ocean's waters" could not wash out. *

3. The question, then, is, Does Jesus, in this reply, disavow the interpretation put upon his words by the Jews, and declare himself the Son of God in the same sense in which they were called gods "to whom the word of God came?"-In answer to this question, let it be observed, in addition to the preceding general remarks

1st. In the passage quoted-Psalm lxxxii. 6. " I said, Ye "are gods," the persons addressed are not prophets,-nor in any one of the instances adduced by Mr. Yates is it to prophets that the name is applied. They are the Jewish rulers; the Judges of Israel. These are the persons to whom "the word of God came;" or, as Bishop Pearce explains the phrase, "with whom the judgment of God was:"-they had their commission to govern Israel according to the Divine law, being especially appointed by Jehovah, as his representatives, and as types of his Anointed.

2dly. What Mr. Yates says of Christ "vindicating the ap"plication to himself of the title GOD" in this passage, is not true. It is not this title that he here takes to himself. He vindicates his calling himself "the Son of God," from the circumstance of the Jewish rulers having been called "gods" in the language of ancient inspiration. The passage, there

*See further on this subject, Discourses on the Socinian Controversy, pages 101, 102.

fore, whatever might be the ground on which the title gods was applied to them, furnishes no proof of the application of this title, in the same inferior and subordinate sense, to Christ; since this is not at all the designation to which he here asserts his right. In this view, it is nothing to Mr.

Yates's purpose.

3dly. When Jesus says "I and my Father are one," "the preceding context explains his meaning to be, one in purpose and in power. No one was able to pluck the sheep out of his hand; and no one was able to pluck them out of the Father's hand: and the reason assigned for this is, that he and his Father were one-i. e. one in will, and affection, and purpose, and one in the possession of power to accomplish that purpose;-power alike superior, in himself as in the Father, to all the power of creatures that could oppose it. This unity of purpose and power, expressed in such terms, justifies the inference to unity of nature:-or else, unity of nature is the thing directly expressed, as accounting for the possession and exercise of equal power. So the Jews, we have seen, understood him. And can we

for an instant suppose, that by such strong and pointed language, he meant no more than a merely official connexion with the Father, and the possession of a title to the appellation "Son of God" in a sense entirely the same in kind with that in which Jewish magistrates were called "gods?" On such a supposition, the previous language is most unaccountable. It is such as seems hardly susceptible of any consistent interpretation, short of that which the Jews put upon it;-such as no prophet of God ever used before him;-and why such terms should have been employed to express a claim so simple, and so very far below what they seemed to express, it belongs to Unitarians to show.

4. Let us try, then, if we can find the true meaning of the reply of our Lord to the charge of blasphemy.

1st. Some have conceived that Jesus here reasons on the assumption that the Jews were right in viewing him as no more than a man,-not admitting this, but supposing it; and then, having taken them on their own ground, putting it to them, how they could convict him of blasphemy in calling himself the Son of God, when they knew that mere men, the Judges of Israel, had been called in their own Scriptures by the appellation "gods, and children-or Sons-of the Most High." This has too much of the appearance at

least of evasion.

2dly. The more common interpretation is derived from the typical character sustained by those rulers who receive in the passage quoted, the title of gods. That title, it is alleged, belonged to them on account of their typical relation to the Messiah. He was to be in reality what they were typically called. Their designation foreshadowed the true dignity of Him whom they represented: and, as "the scripture cannot be falsified," the meaning of the designation required to be fulfilled, by the Antitype possessing in reality, what the Type possessed only in name. He, therefore, could not be justly charged with blasphemy, for claiming to himself that Divine dignity which had been pre-intimated in this typical designation. +

* See Poole's Annotations.

+ See Scott, Guyse, and others, on the passage.The following explanation, suggested by a learned critical friend while these pages were passing through the press, is somewhat different from either of those mentioned. I introduce it here, because, in such circumstances, it becomes me to be diffident of my own judgment. The question for the reader to determine will be, in what way the argument of our Lord is most fully and consistently brought out." In Psal. LXXXII. "6. I am inclined to think that Christ is the speaker-that he owns he had called "Judges of Israel sons of God,' as types of Messiah; that he, however, dis"owns the assembly of the wicked which was to enclose him,' which he prophetically addresses, and predicts their rejection and fall-The argument in

3dly. The true point of our Lord's answer appears to me to be somewhat different. It is to be found, I think, in the authority being the same for his applying to himself the title Son of God, in a sense implying equality with the Father, with that which had given the title of gods to the Jewish rulers,

In the first place, it is very obvious that there could be no blasphemy in the case, if, in assuming a title and mode of speech which implied his equality with the Father that sent him, he intimated only what was true;-i. e. if he really was more than man.-The reference, then, is first to the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures. These called the Jewish rulers gods; and "the Scripture cannot be broken,” —that is, the language of these inspired records cannot be excepted against. But these Scriptures warranted him, as Messiah, to use a title implying equality with the Father; for they had represented him as a person who was to sustain this high dignity. Thus in Psalm ii. 8; cx. 1: Isa. ix, 6: with vii. 14: Psalm xlv. 6: Jer. xxiii. 6. &c.-How, then, could he be justly charged with blasphemy, if the Scripture cannot be broken, and he used no higher title, no title of higher import, than the Scripture, which they acknowledged to be the word of God, assigned to the Messiah? There could be no blasphemy in using Scriptural appellations in their Scriptural sense, in speaking of himself in terms perfectly in unison with the representations of prophecy.

In the second place, he had presented abundant and

"John x. I think is-If he (the prophetic Messiah) called his types Gods, or "sons of God,' (and the language of Scripture ye cannot condemn) do ye charge "with blasphemy him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world,' "(the Messiah now come, and approved among you by miracles, &c. to be the "same that spoke in the Psalms) because he applies the same language to him"self (the Antitype) ?"-In this explanation, as in the second of those given in the text, it is understood, that the Antitype possessed a claim to the titles in question in a higher sense than the Type.