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most decisive evidence that "the Father had sanctified "and sent him into the world,"-i. e. had set him apart to his high office, and given him his commission. Now, in mentioning this so particularly here, the sentiment which he intended to express, does not seem to be, that the Father's having sanctified and sent him into the world, entitled him to the appellation Son of God, but rather, that it entitled him to credit in the representations he gave of himself. His commission from the Father, established by so many infallible "proofs," placed his word, in point of authority, on a level with the testimony of their own inspired records. He whom "the Father had sanctified and sent into the world," instead of being charged with blasphemy, ought to have been believed in what he said of himself, on the evidence of his Divine commission. If they admitted, that "the Scripture "could not be broken," that, being of Divine authority, its language was not to be excepted against, they ought also to have admitted that his language respecting himself was not to be excepted against, seeing his declarations were proved to be of Divine authority,-proved to be the declarations of one whom "the Father had sanctified and sent into "the world," by evidence even more abundant and irrefragable than that on which they received the Old Testament Scriptures. On this principle, he is not to be considered as at all reducing the high import of the title by which he called himself, and of what he had said respecting his union with the Father, but as admitting that the sense in which his hearers had understood him was the right sense, and asserting, on the ground of his Divine commission, his title to confidence and to belief.

In the third place, in full consistency with this view of his words, we find him immediately appealing to the evidence by

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which his Divine mission was established ;—and making this appeal, with a particular reference to what he had just said of himself:-" If I do not the works of my Father, believe me “not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works; "that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in "him."-Do not these words mean, in the connexion in which they stand-" that ye may know and believe, that what "I have just said of myself, which has incensed you thus against me, is true?-that I and my Father are' indeed ❝one?"-His words had been interpreted in a sense which, if he was a mere created messenger of God, must have been infinitely offensive to his mind. Yet he thus affirms the truth of them in terms of equivalent import;-terms which confirmed the misunderstanding, and maintained the zealous fury of his hearers: Therefore"-i. e. on account of what he had last said, which they perceived to be nothing different in meaning from what he had said before," therefore "they sought again to take him." Surely had the Jews understood him (as Unitarians insist he ought to be understood) as entirely disclaiming their inference, they would not thus instantly have offered violence to him again,—such as made it necessary that he should " escape out of their

"hands."

I cannot but consider the particular connexion in which the words" that ye may know and believe that the Fa"ther is in me, and I in him," are here introduced, as an evidence that we do not misinterpret such phraseology, when wę number it amongst the proofs of the Saviour's Divinity. This is a point, however, on which a few additional remarks may be necessary.

The passage usually adduced in opposition to this inference, is John xvii. 21. “That they all may be one, as thou, Fa

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"ther, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one "in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent "me." It is argued from this passage, that the union declared to subsist between Christ and the Father, is no other in kind than the union of his people with himself, and with the Father, and with one another.-But before this conclusion be admitted, let the following things be consi dered

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First. There are two meanings of which the language of the passage is equally susceptible. It may express sameness, or it may express only similarity or resemblance. We must adopt the one most consistent with the tenor of the Scriptures. Before we adopt the first, and consider it as expressing the sameness of the union between the Father and the Son, with the union of the people of God in the Son and in the Father, we must set aside all the mass of evidence by which Jesus Christ is proved to be God, equal with the Father, and therefore one with him in a higher sense. -Secondly. It is no uncommon thing to use the language of comparison, when we mean to intimate resemblance, only in so far as the compared objects admit of resemblance.— Were I, for example, to say, respecting two very intimate friends, that they are one, as a husband and his wife are one, it would not, I presume, be difficult to understand, that the specialties of the conjugal union were not included in the comparison: nor would any person be so foolish as to infer, that the one union was not at all different in kind, but only in degree, from the other. The idea expressed, every one would perceive to be, that there subsisted between these friends a unity of affection, of feeling and desire, of interests and enjoyments, like that which distinguishes the closest and tenderest of earthly connexions.—So in the case

before us. There may subsist a unity of essence between the Father and the Son, and yet this may not be in the contemplation of the speaker ;-but only a unity of mind, and heart, and counsel, and joy, between the people of God and their Father and Redeemer, and one another,-resembling that perfect unity of pure and everlasting love, of holy purpose, and of infinite, and necessary, and immutable happiness, which subsists amongst the THREE who are ONE.

Thirdly. The preceding observations go no farther than to show, that the Unitarian inference from the words of Christ's intercessory prayer, is not a valid one.-But we may go a step beyond this. The language appears to me to be such as it is difficult to conceive any human prophet, or any mere creature, to have used. It is language, on this supposition, of strange and unexampled familiarity.

"That they also may be one in us:"-" that they may "be one, even as we are one." Surely our minds must revolt from the idea of a mere human prophet thus familiarly associating himself with the Most High. We can hardly imagine, indeed, any creature, feeling his infinite distance, to express himself thus to the Great Supreme, in those terms of easy intimacy which characterize the intercourse of equals. A similar observation was before made on John xiv. 23. I know not how it may affect the reader's mind. On my own, I confess, it presses with great force. Should this be imputed to prejudice, I cannot help it. I hope it has a higher and purer source ;-some small measure of that sentiment of "reverence and godly fear," that awful sense of distance, which, instead of diminishing, must increase in the direct ratio of the elevation and holiness of the creature by whom it is felt. I consider the language of this passage as parallel to Gen. i. 26. " Let

❝us make man:" Gen. iii. 22. "Behold the man is become "as one of us :" Gen. xi. 7. "Let us go down, and there "confound their language" and Isa. vi. 8. "Who will 66 go for us?"

We have thus seen that the passage, John x. 34, 35, to which Mr. Yates so repeatedly and confidently refers, instead of warranting his conclusion that wherever we find the name God applied to Jesus Christ, it ought to be understood in its inferior sense, as meaning "one to whom the word of "God came," is itself a powerful evidence of the contrary. An exception, indeed, is made by Mr. Yates hypothetically,— "unless there be some particular circumstances in the mode of "application, which point him out as THE SUPREME GOD, "THE ONE LIVING AND TRUE GOD, THE GOD OF Gods, "or THE GOD WHO IS ABOVE ALL."-But the manner in which certain texts answering to this description are disposed of, when they are brought forward, will satisfy every one acquainted with this controversy, that, be the "circumstances of "the application of the name," or the epithets accompanying it, what they may, no passage will be left without some attempt to invalidate and destroy its evidence in support of the obnoxious truth.

An instance of the justice of this remark occurs immediately in Mr. Yates's strictures on Isa. vii. 14. "Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name "Immanuel :" and Isa. ix. 6.:-" For unto us a child is "born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall "be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called-THE "MIGHTY GOD:"-the 'two first texts on which he proceeds to comment. Respecting these he thus writes :-"If, "as I have shown above, the title GOD belonged to all "unto whom the word of God came,' these two passages

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