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4. He is fuch a Son as can fay, All things that the Father hath, are mine, being fully poffeffed of the most incommunicable attributes of the Supreme Being. If the Father fay, I Jehovah fearch the heart; I try the reins, Jer. xvii. 10-the Son fays, with equal truth, I am He that fearcheth the reins and the heart, Rev. ii. 23. If Solomon faid to the Father, Thou, even Thou only knoweft the hearts of all the children of men, Kings viii. 39.the Apostles fay to the Son, Thou knoweft the hearts of all men, Acts i. 24, John ii. 24. Doth the Fa

ther fay, I am the first, and I am the laft; and befides me there is no God, Ifa. xliv. 6?-the Son fays, I am the firft, and I am the laft: I and the Father are one, Rev. i. 17. John x. 30. Doth the

Father fay, I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, Rev. i. 8.-the Son, his adequate Image, echoes back the awful declaration, and Lays, I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, Rev. xxii. 13. Is the Father called King of kings, and Lord of lords, 1 Tim. vi. 15 ? the Son is proclaimed Lord of lords, and King of kings, Rev. xvii. 14. Doth St. Paul call the Father Lord of all, Rom. x. 12 ?—St. Peter fays of the Son, He is Lord of all, Acts x. 36. And to crown these glorious teftimonies, if Ifaiah names Jehovah the mighty God, Ifa. x. 21. he gives the very fame title to the Son, Chap. ix. 6.—and the Apoftle calls him, Over all God blessed for ever, Rom. ix. 5. And if the Father is fo incomprehenfible, that no one knoweth him (fully) but the Son, the Son is likewife fo incomprehenfible, that no one knoweth him (fully) but the Father, Mat. xi. 27. If no man cometh to the Father but by the Son, John xiv. 6. no man can come to me (fays the Son) except the Father draw him, John vi. 44. And as Philip did not fatisfactorily know the Father, be fore the joyful day, in which the Son revealed him to the Apoftles by the Spirit, (fee John xiv. 8, 20, 23. and Acts ii. 1.) fo St. Paul did not fatisfactorily know the Son, till it pleafed God to reveal his Son in him, by filling him with the Holy Ghoft, who alone can favingly teach us to call

Jefus

Jefus Chrift Lord, my Lord, and my God! Gal. i. 16. Acts. ix. 17. and 1 Cor. xiii. 3.

From this common, equal, and full participation of the highest titles, and most diftinguishing perfections of the Supreme Being, it follows, that the Son (with refpect to Deity; is as perfectly equal to the Father, though all the Son's Deity came from his Divine Father; as Ifaac (with refpect to humanity) was equal to Abraham, though all the humanity of Ifaac came from his human parent.

5. Accordingly our Lord was not only declared Son of God with power by his rifing from the dead; but he declared himself the very source and fountain of life: I am the refurrection and the life, (faid he) he that believeth in ME, though he were dead, yet fhall he live; and whofoever laveth and believeth in me, fhall never die, John xi. 25. Could the Father speak ftronger words to declare himfelf the true and living God? Nor ought we to wonder, that the Son fhould fpeak in fo lofty a manner; for being the Truth itself, he must speak the truth-he muft fpeak as the oracles of God, which reprefent the Father and the Son as fo perfectly united, that they are one inexhauftible fpring of life and action, of grace and peace. No man hath feen God (the Father) at any time; the only bogotten Son, who is (even while on earth) in the bofom of the Father, (and who came in the flesh) he hath declared him, John i. 18. I am not alone, but I and the Father who fent me, John viii. 16. Believe that the Father is in me, and I in him, John x. 38. He that hath feen me hath feen the Father: I am in the Father, and the Father in me, John xiv. 9, 11. They have not known the Father, nor me, John xvi. 3. Whofo denieth the Son, hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son, hath the Father alfo, 1 John ii. 22, &c. Mercy from God the Father, and from the Lord Jefus Chrift, the Son of the Father: He that abideth in Chrift, hath the Father and the Son, 2 John ver. 3, 9. If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father alfo, John xiv. 7. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth nat

the

the Father, John v. 23. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son, 1 John i. 3.

From thefe, and the many Scriptures, where mercy and all bleffings are equally and jointly implored from God the Father, and from the Son of God, we conclude, that, as the natural Sun, and the blazing Radiance which it continually generates, make but one wonderful luminary-fo the Father, and the Son, who is the brightness of his Father's glory, make but one God over all bleffed for ever.

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CHA P. IV.

That our LORD claimed the divine honour of being the PROPER SON of GOD the FATHER, and laid down his human life in proof of this very truth.

ESUS CHRIST, fays St. Paul, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but took upon him the form of a fervant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death, even the death of the crofs, Phil. ii. 6, &c. Hence the carnal Jews, who judged of him merely according to their carnal reason, being offended at him, verified the truth of Ifaiah's prophecy: He is defpifed and rejected of men, a man of forrows and acquainted with grief. But who fhall declare his generation? The Jews, I fay, judging of him according to the flesh, charged him with blafphemy, and fought to kill him, because he faid that God was his (do proper) Father, making himfelf equal with God: although, like a true Son, he acknowledged that the Father (in point of paternity) was greater than him, yet he never declared himself of the fuppofed blafphemy, but defended himself by proper appeals to his works: I and the Father are one, (ev soμev) so intimately one, that the Son can do nothing of himfelf, but (like a Divine Son, in the most perfect

Unity

Unity with his Father who preceeds him) he does what he feeth the Father do: for what things foever the Father doeth, thofe alfo doeth the Son likewife, whether they be the creation, or the prefervation of worlds the fixing, or the controlling of the laws of Nature) For as the Father hath (a divine and quickening) life in himfelf, fo hath he given to the Son to have (a divine and quickening) life in himfelf. For as the Father raifeth the dead, and quickeneth them, even fo the Son quickeneth whom he will. [Nay, added our Lord, there is one thing which the Father leaves entirely to the Son:] For the Father judgeth no man; but hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all men fhould honour the Son as they honour the Father, John v. 18, 26-x. 30. Thus our Lord, far from pleading not guilty to the charge of making himfelf equal with God, proved by two unanswerable reafons, that divine honours are due to Him, as well as to the Father: 1. He does the very works of his Father jointly with him And 2. The Father hath, over and above, committed to him the most awful and tremendous of all works that of judicially killing and faving alive for the Father judgeth no man, in the daily course of providence, as well as in the Great Day: This divine work is the Son's honourable prerogative, that none fhould fcruple to honour Him as they honour the Father.

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Let us fee how this Divine Son defended himfelf against the fame charge on another occafion. When he had afferted, that He and his Father were one, the Jews took up ftones again to ftone Him, faying, We flone thee for blafphemy, and becaufe thou, being a man, makeft thyfelf God. What a fair opportunity had our Lord here, to difclaim divine honours, and to fet kindly the Jews to rights, if they had mistaken his meaning. But far from doing this, he tries to convince them of his Divinity, by a rational argument, and by a further appeal to his god-like works.

1. By a rational argument.-Is it not (faith he) witten in your law, I faid, Ye are Gods? If he cal

led

led them Gods, unto whom the Word of God (o Xoy05 -the Logos) came, fay ye of Him, whom the Father hath fanctified and fent into the world, Thou blafphemeft; because I faid, I am the Son of God? John x. 31, &c. The force of this argument may be better understood by a fhort paraphrafe. It is just as if our Lord had faid, If the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, gives the honorary title of gods, to the Prophets, Judges, and Kings of Ifrael, whom God appointed to be types of me, the Head of the Prophets, and the Judge of all the earth, do ye not act very inconfiftently with the Scriptures, which cannot be broken, when you fuppofe that I blafpheme, by faying, I am the Son of God? If the bare Types and Forerunners of me, are titular gods in your own account, are you not as unreasonable as you are unjust, to be offended at me for faying I am the Son of God? whereas I might have roundly faid, that I am, in union with my Father, God over all bleffed for ever. If my fhadows are called gods without blafphemy, do ye not break at once through the word of God, and through the bounds of common sense, when ye fay, that I, the Sum and SUBSTANCE of all Types and Figures-I the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, who am fent by my Father with god-like credentials, blafpheme, when I declare that I am the Son (the proper Son) of GOD?

2. After our Lord had advanced this convincing argument, he proceeded to an argument, the ftrength of which was felt by all thofe who had eyes and a grain of candour, I mean an appeal to his works. If I do not the works of my Father, (the works of God) believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: fo fhall ye know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him, or (to use his former expreffion) that I and my Father are One, John x. 30, 37, 38.

The effect of this laft argument fhews, that our Lord, far from having made any concession to the Jews, stood to his point, viz. that He and the

Father

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