CHAPTER VI.

IN Chapter VI. Mr. Yates examines "THE PASSAGES IN WHICH THE PECULIAR ATTRIBUTES OF Deity are SUPPOSED "TO BE ASCRIBED TO CHRIST.”

1. Eternal existence.

His remarks on the passages adduced under this particular, strikingly shew the imbecility of his cause.

* John viii. 58. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abra"ham was, I am."-No attempt is made to invalidate my reasoning on this text. "Mr. Wardlaw remarks," says Mr. Yates, "concerning this passage, 'Our Lord expressly affirms, "that he existed before Abraham.' The truth of his observa❝tion will be admitted probably by all Unitarians who believe "in the pre-existence of Christ." Page 202.-Is Mr. Yates himself, then, one of these? He does not say. The words of Jesus must mean something. What then does he understand to be their meaning? He does not tell us. And such is his way. When he thinks he can make any text to comport with the simple manhood of Christ, he tries it. When he feels himself pinched by any text on this hypothesis, he takes refuge behind that of his pre-existence, as the first of creatures. We are left thus to conclude, that Mr. Yates considers it as a matter of little or no consequence, whether Jesus was the first and most exalted of creatures, or a mere man, the offspring of Joseph and Mary; and the Scriptures as leaving this point quite unsettled. No matter what he be, it should seem, provided it can be shown that he is not God.

"After sounding his shrill clarion," Mr. Yates continues, "through three pages, over the Socinian expositors, he ob

"name Jehovah is directly given to Jesus of Nazareth, "proves nothing but the exigency of the case." (P. 200.)But the case is as far as can be imagined from being a case of exigency; and therefore, although I have seen nothing to shake my established opinion of the object and import of the text, I feel no solicitude to press it, and shall leave it to the judgment of the reader.

For similar reasons, I have omitted Zech. xi. 12, 13. in the enumeration of passages in the second edition of my Discourses. The passage, with its application by the Evangelist Matthew,* (chapter xxvii. 9, 10.) is, in various respects, obscure and difficult. Newcome says, on the words ""a goodly price that I have been prized at by them :' "Jehovah calls the price of his prophet his own price;

* The words of the Evangelist are: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken "by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the "price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, "and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.”—With the difficulty as to the name of the prophet, for which different solutions sufficiently satisfactory have been proposed, we have at present nothing to do. Neither is it my intention to discuss the various observations of critics and commentators, made with the view of bringing the quotation in the Evangelist to a correspondence with the words of Zechariah, I merely wish to suggest for consideration a thought that has occurred to me respecting the verse in Matthew, which may not, after all, be new. May not those words in the verse, which are not to be found in the prophet, and from which one of the chief difficulties relative to the quotation arises, be intended by the sacred historian, not as a part of the quotation, but as a parenthetical explanation of his own? On this supposition the verse would stand as follows:-" Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Zechariah the prophet, "saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver'--(the price of him that was "valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value)—and gave them for "the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.'"-In the parenthesis, the historian makes a general reference to the transaction related by the prophet.--The quotation will then be, They took the thirty pieces of silver, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me:"-between which and the words of the prophet, the difference is not very wide:-" And I took the thirty pieces of "silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." The substitution of sdwxa for idwxav would nearly complete the harmony. But for this, although it has a place amongst the various readings, the authority does not appear at all sufficient. For another view of the passage, I refer the reader to Dr. Campbell's translation of the Gospels.

"and commands that it should not be accepted, but given "to another;—and to the potter, to foreshadow the trans"action related Matth. xxvii. 7." (Minor Prophets, Note on the text.)-But might not JEHOVAH call the price his own price for a different reason than its being the price of his prophet?-the price paid, on the occasion referred to by the prophet, being intended to foreshadow the payment of the same price afterwards, for the life of the Son of God;-for JEHOVAH, when he appeared for their salvation, in the person of Jesus Christ?

The argument derived from the comparison of Rom. xiv. 10, 11. with Isa. xlv. 23. stands in its full force, unaffected by Mr. Yates's Unitarian gloss.-Let any reader peruse the verses in Rom. xiv. with the preceding context. He will there find that CHRIST is THE MASTER whom Christians serve; the LORD, to whom they live, and to whom they die, in opposition to living and dying to themselves,—whose they are in life and in death, and to whom they must render their final account. To impress on their minds the remembrance that this Lord is not a mere man,-a mere fellow-creature like themselves; having reminded them that "we shall all stand before the "judgment-seat of CHRIST," he quotes, in proof of this, Isa. xlv. But the whole force of the argument, and appropriateness of the quotation, depend on the circumstance of the speaker in that passage being the same with CHRIST. The speaker speaks in his own person: "As I live-every knee shall bow to me," &c. Now, unless this be CHRIST, what evidence at all does the passage contain, that we are to stand before his judgment-seat?

"The whole force of the apostle's argument," says Dr. Guyse," stands on this, that it was the Son, inclusively at "least, who swore by himself,' or, as I live,' every knee ❝ shall bow to me,' &c. For if we suppose it to be the Fa

"ther, exclusive of the Son, who said, 'I sware by myself,' "or as I live,' every knee shall bow to me,' &c. this "would have been so far from proving, as the apostle in"tends and argues, that we shall all stand before the judg❝ment-seat of Christ,' that it would have proved just the con

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trary; because Christ is not that God that there sware by ❝ himself, and consequently not that God, whom by that oath "we are obliged to stand before, and bow the knee, and con❝fess to. But if Christ is that God who there'sware that every "knee should bow, and every tongue confess to him,' then "the proof is cogent and unanswerable, that we all shall stand before his judgment-seat.'

On 1 Cor. i. 30, 31. compared with Isa. xlv. 25. Mr. Yates simply says, "That the title LORD is here equivalent to JEHO❝VAH, is evident from the passage of Isaiah alluded to by the "apostle, Isa. xlv. 25. The meaning evidently is, that "men should glory in God, by whom Christ has been made unto "them wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and re"demption." Page 201. Put this is not by any means so very clear. Christ is, in the 30th verse, designated as our "righte"ousness," (which, as distinguished from sanctification, means "our justification:")-The passage in Isaiah says, " IN THE LORD (JEHOVAH) shall all the seed of Israel BE JUSTIFIED.” CHRIST, then, is " JEHOVAH, in whom all the seed of Israel “ARE JUSTIFIED, and in whom they glory."

The application of the title "MY LORD," in Psal. cx. 1. to CHRIST, made by Christ himself, and particularly noticed by me, in closing this branch of the subject, Mr. Yates passes over sub silentio. He must either have felt it too much for him, or thought it too little. The Pharisees of old were in the former predicament.

* Sermons on the Deity of Christ, Sermon III.

CHAPTER VI.

IN Chapter VI. Mr. Yates examines "THE PASSAGES IN “WHICH THE PECULIAR Attributes of DEITY ARE SUPPOSED "TO BE ASCRIBED TO CHRIST."

1. Eternal existence.

His remarks on the passages adduced under this particular, strikingly shew the imbecility of his cause.

John viii. 58. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abra"ham was, I am."-No attempt is made to invalidate my reasoning on this text. "Mr. Wardlaw remarks," says Mr. Yates, "concerning this passage, Our Lord expressly affirms, "that he existed before Abraham.' The truth of his observa❝tion will be admitted probably by all Unitarians who believe "in the pre-existence of Christ." Page 202.-Is Mr. Yates himself, then, one of these? He does not say. The words of Jesus must mean something. What then does he understand to be their meaning? He does not tell us.-And such is his way. When he thinks he can make any text to comport with the simple manhood of Christ, he tries it. When he feels himself pinched by any text on this hypothesis, he takes refuge behind that of his pre-existence, as the first of creatures. We are left thus to conclude, that Mr. Yates considers it as a matter of little or no consequence, whether Jesus was the first and most exalted of creatures, or a mere man, the offspring of Joseph and Mary; and the Scriptures as leaving this point quite unsettled. No matter what he be, it should seem, provided it can be shown that he is not God.

"After sounding his shrill clarion," Mr. Yates continues, "through three pages, over the Socinian expositors, he ob