chosen the absurdity of rendering ayyedot throughout this chapter by "messengers," but in the next chapter, as though the subject would, by that time, be out of the reader's mind, they return to the common version, "angels." Thus they make the "spirits and flames of fire," or, as they render it, "winds and flames of lightning," to be the ancient prophets or messengers, not angels; and of these same prophets and messengers, who lived several thousand years ago, their translation affirms that they are sent forth to minister for them who shall be (in future!) heirs of salvation." The absurdity is so apparent, that it is scarcely necessary to add, that, in the New Testament, though "angel" is sometimes applied to men, yet "angels of God" is a phrase never used but to express an order of heavenly intelligences.

"It remains, therefore, that Christ's kingdom is that kingdom of Jehovah which the inspired poet celebrates as the occasion of universal joy. And this will farther appear by the sequel of the song. After four verses, in which the transcendent glory, the irresistible power, and inscrutable perfection of the Lord, who, to the joy of all nations, reigneth, are painted in poetical images, taken partly from the awful scene on Sinai which accompanied the delivery of the law, partly from other manifestations of God's presence with the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness, he proceeds, in the sixth verse, The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory.' We read in the 19th Psalm, that the heavens declare the glory of God.' And the glory of God, the power and the intelligence of the Creator, is indeed visibly declared in the fabric of the material world. But I cannot see how the structure of the heavens can demonstrate the righteousness of God. Wisdom and power may be displayed in the contrivance of an inanimate machine; but righteousness cannot appear in the arrangement of the parts, or the direction of the motions of lifeless matter. The heavens, therefore, in their external structure, cannot declare their maker's righteousness. But the heavens, in another sense, attested the righteousness of Christ when the voice from heaven de

If, however, either prophets or angels were commanded to worship Christ, his Divinity would be equally proved, and, therefore, the note on this text in the New Version teaches, that to" worship Christ" here means to acknowledge him as their superior; and urges that the text is cited from the LXX., Deut. xxxii. 43, " where it is spoken of the Hebrew nation, and, therefore, cannot be understood of religious worship." But whoever will turn to the LXX., will see that it is not the Hebrew nation, but Jehovah, who is exhibited in that passage as the object of worship; and if, there-clared him the beloved Son of God, in whom the Fafore, the text were cited from the book of Deuteronomy, and the genuineness of the passage in the LXX. were allowed, for it is not in the present Hebrew text, it would only afford another proof, that, in the mind of the apostles, the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Christ of the New are the same being, and that equal worship is due to both. We have, however, an unquestioned text in the Old Testament, Psalm xcvii. 7, from which the quotation is obviously made; where, in the Hebrew, it is "worship him all ye gods," a probable ellipsis for "the angels of the Aleim;" for the LXX. uses the word "angels." This psalm the apostle, therefore, understood of Christ, and in this the old Jewish interpreters agree with him;(2) and though he is not mentioned in it by any of his usual Old Testament titles, except that of Jehovah, it clearly predicts the overthrow of idolatry by the introduction of the kingdom of this Jehovah. It follows, then, that as idolatry was not overthrown by Judaism, but by the kingdom of Christ, it is Christ, as the head and author of this kingdom, of whom the Psalmist speaks, and whom he sees receiving the worship of the angels of God upon its introduction and establishment. This, also, agrees with the words by which the apostle introduces the quotation. "And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world," the habitable world; which intimate that it was upon some solemn occasion, when engaged in some solemn act, that the angels were commanded to worship him, and this act is represented in the 97th Psalm as the establishment of his kingdom. Bishop Horsley's remarks on this psalm are equally just and beautiful.

"That Jehovah's kingdom in some sense or other is the subject of this Divine song, cannot be made a question, for thus it opens- Jehovah reigneth.' The psalm therefore must be understood either of God's natural kingdom over his whole creation; of his particular kingdom over the Jews his chosen people; or of that kingdom which is called in the New Testament the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of Christ. For of any other kingdom besides these three, man never heard or read. God's peculiar kingdom over the Jews cannot be the subject of this psalm, because all nations of the earth are called upon to rejoice in the acknowledgment of this great truth, Jehovah reigneth, let the earth rejoice; let the many isles be glad thereof.' The many isles are the various regions of the habitable world.

"The same consideration, that Jehovah's kingdom is mentioned as a subject of general thanksgiving, proves that God's universal dominion over his whole creation cannot be the kingdom in the prophet's mind. For in this kingdom a great majority of the ancient world, the idolaters, were considered, not as subjects who might rejoice in the glory of their monarch; but as rebels who had every thing to fear from his just resentment.

(2) "Psalmos omnes, a xciii. ad ci., in se continere mysterium Messie, dixit David Kimshi."-ROSENMUL

ᏞᎥᏝ Ꭱ .

ther was well pleased; and when the preternatural darkness of the sun at the crucifixion, and other agonies of nature, drew that confession from the heathen centurion who attended the execution, that the suffering Jesus was the Son of God; 'And all the people see his glory. The word people, in the singular, for the most part denotes God's chosen people, the Jewish nation, unless any other particular people happen to be the subject of discourse. But peoples, in the plural, is put for all the other races of mankind, as distinct from the chosen people. The word here is in the plural form, And all the peoples see his glory.' But when, or in what did any of the peoples, the idolatrous nations, see the glory of God? Literally they never saw his glory. The effulgence of the Shechinali never was displayed to them, except when it blazed forth upon the Egyptians to strike them with a panic; or when the towering pillar of flame, which marshalled the Israel ites in the wilderness, was seen by the inhabitants of Palestine and Arabia as a threatening meteor in their sky. Intellectually, no idolaters ever saw the glory of God, for they never acknowledged his power and Godhead: had they thus seen his glory, they had ceased to be idolaters. But all the peoples, by the preaching of the Gospel, saw the glory of Christ. They saw it literally in the miracles performed by his apostles; they saw it spiritually when they perceived the purity of his precepts, when they acknowledged the truth of his doctrine, when they embraced the profession of Christianity, and owned Christ for their Saviour and their God. The Psalmist goes on, Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols. Worship him, all ye gods.' In the original this verse has not at all the form of a malediction, which it has acquired in our translation from the use of the strong word confounded. Let them be ashamed.' This is the utmost that the Psalmist says. The prayer that they may be ashamed of their folly and repent of it, is very different from an imprecation of confusion. But in truth the Psalmist rather seems to speak prophetically, without any thing either of prayer or imprecation--they shall be ashamed.' Having seen the glory of Christ, they shall be ashamed of the idols, which in the times of ignorance they worshipped. In the 8th and 9th verses, looking forward to the times when the fulness of the Gentiles shall be come in, and the remnant of Israel shall turn to the Lord, he describes the daughter of Judah as rejoicing at the news of the mercy extended to the Gentile world, and exulting in the universal extent of Jehovah's kingdom, and the general acknowledgment of his Godhead."(3)

The argument of the apostle is thus made clear; he proves Christ superior to angels, and therefore Divine, because angels themselves are commanded "to worship him."(4) Nor is this the only prophetic psalm in

which the religious worship of Messiah is predicted. The 72d Psalm alone is full of this doctrine. "They shall FEAR thee as long as the sun and moon endure." All kings shall WORSHIP (Or FALL DOWN) before him; all nations shall SERVE him." "PRAYER shall be made ever for (or to) him, and daily shall he be PRAISED." Finally, as to the direct worship of Christ, the book of Revelations, in its scenic representations, exhibits him as, equally with the Father, the object of the worship of angels and of glorified saints; and, in chapter Eth, places every creature in the universe, the inhabitants of hell only excepted, in prostrate adoration at his footstool. "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."

To these instances are to be added all the DOXOLOGIES to Christ, in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and all the BENEDICTIONS made in his name in common with theirs; for all these are forms of worship. The first consist of ascriptions of equal and Divine honours, with grateful recognitions of the Being addressed, as the author of benefits received; the second are a solemn blessing of others in the name of God, and were derived from the practice of the Jewish priests and the still older patriarchs, who blessed others in the name of Jehovah, as his representatives.

acquisition of the greatest good. Mercy, the compas. sion of infinite goodness, conferring its richest bestowments of holiness and happiness on the ruined, miserable, and helpless. Peace, the tranquil and delightful feeling which results from the rational hope of possessing these enjoyments. These are the highest blessings that Omnipotent Benevolence can give, or a dependent nature receive. To desire such blessings, either in the mode of direct address or in that of precatory wish, from any being who is not possessed of omnipotent goodness, would be, not innocent and proper,' but sinful and absurd in the highest degree. When, therefore, we find every apostle whose epistles are extant, pouring out his 'expressions of desire,' with the utmost simplicity and energy, for these blessings, as proceeding from our Lord Jesus Christ,' equally with God our Father,' we cannot but regard it as the just and necessary conclusion that Christ and the Father are one in the perfection which originates the highest blessings, and in the honour due for the gift of those blessings."(6)

So clearly does the New Testament show that supreme worship was paid to Christ, as well as to the Father; and the practice obtained as a matter of course, as a matter quite undisputed in the primitive church, and has so continued, in all orthodox churches, to this day. Thus heathen writers represented the first Christians as worshippers of Christ; and, as for the practice of the primitive church, it is not necessary to quote passages from the fathers, which are so well known, or so easily found in all books which treat on this subject. It is sufficient evidence of the practice, that when, in the fourth century, the Arians taught that our Lord was a superangelic creature only, they departed not, in the instance of worship, from the homage paid to him in the universal church; but continued to adore Christ. On this ground the orthodox justly branded them with idolatry; and, in order to avoid the force of the charge, they invented those sophistical distinctions as to superior and inferior worship which the papists, in later times, introduced, in order to excuse the worship of saints and angels. Even the old Socinians allowed Christ to be the object of religious adoration; so impossible was it even for them, to oppose themselves all at once to the reproving and condemning universal example of the church of Christ in all ages.

Of the first, the following may be given, as a few out of many instances. "The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me to his heavenly kingdom to whom be GLORY for ever and ever," 2 Tim. iv. 18. "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: to him be GLORY both now and for ever. Amen." 2 Peter iii. 18. "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father: to him be GLORY and DOMINION for ever and ever. Amen." Rev. i. 5, 6. When we consider the great difference between these doxologies and the commendations but sparingly given in the Scriptures to mere men; the serious and reverential manner in which they are introduced; and the superlative praise they convey, so far surpassing what humanity can deserve, we cannot but suppose, that the being to whom they refer is really Divine. The ascrip- Having, then, established the fact of the worship of tion of eternal glory and everlasting dominion, if ad- Christ by his immediate followers, whose precepts and dressed to any creature, however exalted, would be idol- example have, in this matter, been followed by all the atrous and profane."(5) Of benedictions the com- faithful; let us consider the religious principles which mencement and conclusion of several of the episties the first disciples held, in order to determine whether furnish instances, so regular in their form, as to make they could have so worshipped Christ, unless his true it clearly appear, that the apostles and the priests of the Divinity had been, with them, a fundamental and uniNew Testament constantly blessed the people ministe-versally received doctrine. They were Jews; and rially in the name of Christ, as one of the blessed Tri- Jews of an age in which their nation had long shaken off nity. This consideration alone shows that the bene- its idolatrous propensities, and which was distinguished dictions are not, as the Socinians would take them, to by its zeal against all worship, or expressions of relibe considered as cursory expressions of good-will.-gious trust and hope, being directed, not only to false "Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the gods (to idols), but to creatures. The great principle Lord Jesus Christ." This, with little variation, is the of the law was, "Thou shalt have no other gods before common form of salutation; and the usual parting be- (or besides) me." It was, therefore, commanded by nediction is, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be Moses, "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him with you all;" or, more fully, "The grace of our Lord shalt thou serve;" which words are quoted by our Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of Lord in his temptation, when solicited to worship Sathe Holy Ghost be with you all." In answer to the tan, so as to prove that to fear God and to serve him Socinian perversion, that these are mere "wishes," it has are expressions which signify worship, and that all been well and wisely observed, that "this objection other beings but God are excluded from it. overlooks, or notices very slightly, the point on which shalt WORSHIP the Lord thy God, and him only shalt the whole question turns, the nature of the blessings thou serve." The argument, too, in the quotation, is sought, and the qualities which they imply in the Per- not that Satan had no right to receive worship because son as whose donation they are deliberately desired. he was an evil spirit; but that, whatever he might be, These blessings are not of that kind which one creature or whoever should make that claim, God only is to be is competent to bestow upon another. They refer to worshipped. By this also we see that Christianity the judicial state of an accountable being before God, made no alteration in Judaism, as to the article of docto the remission of moral offences, to the production trine, for our Lord himself here adopts it as his own and preservation of certain mental qualities which principle; he quotes it from the writings of Moses, and none can efficaciously and immediately give but he who so transmitted it, on his own authority, to his followers. holds the dominion of human minds and feelings, and Accordingly, we find the apostles teaching and practo the enjoyments of supreme and endless felicity. They tising this as a first principle of their religion. St. are grace, mercy, and peace. Grace, the free favour of Paul (Rom. i. 21-25) charges the heathen with not the Eternal Majesty to those who have forfeited every glorifying God when they knew him, and worshipping claim to it, such favour as in its own nature and in the and serving "the creature more than (or besides) the contemplation of the supplicant, is the sole and effec- Creator, who is blessed for ever." "Wherein the apostive cause of deliverance from the greatest evils, and tle," says Waterland, "plainly intimates, that the

(5) HOLDEN'S Testimonies.

(6) SMITH'S Person of Christ.

"Thou

Creator only is to be served, and that the idolatry of the heathens lay in their worshipping of the creature. He does not blame them for giving sovereign or absolute worship to creatures, they could scarcely be so silly as to imagine there could be more than one supreme God; but for giving any worship to them at all, sovereign or inferior."(7) Again: when he mentions it as one of the crimes of the Galatians, previous to their conversion to Christianity, that they "did SERVICE unto them which by nature were no gods," he plainly intimates, that no one has a title to religious service but he who is by nature God; and, if so, he himself could not worship or do service to Christ, unless he believed him to possess a natural and essential Divinity.

been convicted of it before the judges: The apology he must have made for it, I suppose, must have run thus, Gentlemen, though I have sacrificed to other gods, yet, I hope, you'll observe, that I did it not absolutely: I meant not any absolute or supreme sacrifice (which is all that the law forbids), but relative and inferior only. I regulated my intentions with all imaginable care, and my esteem with the most critical exactness I considered the other gods, whom I sacrificed to, as inferior only, and infinitely so; reserving all sovereign sacrifice to the supreme God of Israel.' This, or the like apology, must, I presume, have brought off the criminal, with some applause for his acuteness, if your principles be true. Either you must allow this; The practice of the apostles, too, was in strict ac- or you must be content to say, that not only absolute cordance with this principle. Thus, when worship supreme sacrifice (if there be any sense in that phrase), was offered to St. Peter, by Cornelius, who certainly but all sacrifice, was by the law, appropriated to God did not take him to be God, he forbade it: so also Paul only. and Barnabas forbade it at Lystra, with expressions of "Another instance of worship is, making of vows, horror, when offered to them. An eminent instance is religious vows. We find as little appearance of your recorded, also, of the exclusion of all creatures, how-famed distinction here, as in the former case. ever exalted, from this honour, in Rev. xix. 10, where the angel refuses to receive so much as the outward act of adoration, giving this rule and maxim upon it, Worship GoD;" intimating thereby, that God only is to be worshipped; that all acts of religious worship are appropriated to God alone. He does not say, "Worship God, and whom God shall appoint to be worshipped," as if he had appointed any besides God; nor "Worship God with sovereign worship," as if any inferior sort of worship was permitted to be paid to creatures; but simply, plainly, and briefly," Worship GOD."

From the known and avowed religious sentiments, then, of the apostles, both as Jews and as Christians, as well as from their practice, it follows, that they could not pay religious worship to Christ, a fact which has already been established, except they had considered him as a Divine Person, and themselves as bound, on that account, according to his own words, to honour the Son, even as they honoured the Father.

The Arians, it is true, as hinted above, devised the doctrine of supreme and inferior worship, and a similar distinction was maintained by Dr Samuel Clarke, to reconcile the worship of Christ with his semi-Arianism. The same sophistical distinctions are resorted to by Roman Catholics to vindicate the worship of angels, the Virgin Mary and departed saints. This distinction they express by λατρεια and δουλεια. St. Paul, however, and other sacred writers, and the early fathers, certainly use these terms promiscuously and indifferently, so that the argument which is founded upon them, in defence of this inferior and subordinate worship, falls to the ground; and, as to all these distinctions of worship into ultimate or supreme, mediate or inferior, Dr. Waterland has most forcibly observed, 1. "I can meet with nothing in Scripture to countenance those fine-spun notions. Prayer we often read of; but there is not a syllable about absolute and relative, supreme and inferior prayer. We are commanded to pray fervently and incessantly; but never sovereignly or absolutely that I know of. We have no rules left us about raising or lowering our intentions, in proportion to the dignity of the objects. Some instructions to this purpose might have been highly useful; and it is very strange, that, in a matter of so great importance, no directions should be given, either in Scripture, or, at least, in antiquity, how to regulate our intentions and meanings, with metaphysical exactness; so as to make our worship either high, higher, or highest of all, as occasion should require.

2." But a greater objection against this doctrine is, that the whole tenor of Scripture runs counter to it. This may be understood, in part, from what I have observed above. To make it yet plainer, I shall take into consideration such acts and instances of worship, as I find laid down in Scripture; whether under the old or new dispensation.

"Sacrifice was one instance of worship required under the law; and it is said, 'He that sacrificeth unto Any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed,' Exod. xxii. 20. Now suppose any person, considering with himself that only absolute and sovevereign sacrifice was appropriated to God, by this law, should have gone and sacrificed to other gods, and have

(7) Defence of Queries.

We

read nothing of sovereign and inferior, absolute and
relative vows: that we should imagine supreme vows
to be appropriate to God, inferior permitted to angels
or idols, or to any creature.
"Swearing is another instance much of the same
kind with the foregoing. Swearing by God's name is
a plain thing and well understood; but if you tell us
of sovereign and inferior swearing, according to the
inward respect or intention you have, in proportion to
the dignity of the person by whose name you swear, it
must sound perfectly new to us. All swearing which
comes short in its respects, or falls below sovereign,
will, I am afraid, be little better than profaneness.

"Such being the case in respect of the acts of religious worship already mentioned, I am now to ask you, what is there so peculiar in the case of invocation and adoration, that they should not be thought of the same kind with the other? Why should not absolute and relative prayer and prostration appear as absurd as absolute and relative sacrifice, vows, oaths, or the like? They are acts and instances of religious worship, like the other; appropriated to God in the same manner, and by the same laws, and upon the same grounds and reasons. Well then, will you please to consider whether you have not begun at the wrong end, and committed an υστερον προτερον in your way of thinking. You imagine that acts of religious worship are to derive their signification and quality from the intention and meaning of the worshippers; whereas the very reverse of it is the truth. Their meaning and signification is fixed and determined by God himself; and therefore we are never to use them with any other meaning, under peril of profaneness or idolatry. God has not left us at liberty to fix what sense we please upon religious worship, to render it high or low, absolute or relative, at discretion, supreme when offered to God, and if to others inferior: as when to angels, or saints, or images, in suitable proportion. No: religion was not made for metaphysical heads only; such as might nicely distinguish the several degrees and elevations of respect and honour among many objects. The short and plain way, which (in pity to human infirmity and to prevent confusion) it has pleased God to take with us, is to make all religious worship his own; and so it is sovereign of course. This I take to be the true scriptural, as well as only reasonable account of the object of worship. We need not concern ourselves (it is but vain to pretend to it) about determining the sense and meaning of religious worship. God himself has taken care of it; and it is already fixed and determined to our hands. It means, whether we will or no, it means, by Divine institution and appointment, the divinity, the supremacy, the sovereignty of its object. To misapply those marks of dignity, those appropriate ensigns of Divine majesty; to compliment any creature with them and thereby to make common what God has made proper, is to deify the works of God's hands, and to serve the creature instead of the Creator, God blessed for ever. We have no occasion to talk of sovereign, absolute prayers, and such other odd fancies: prayer is an address to God and does not admit of those novel distinctions. In short, then, here is no room left for your distinguishing between sovereign and inferior adoration. You must first prove,

(8) Defence of Queri

unto but to minister;" and as to be in the form of a servant is not, therefore, to have the appearance of a servant, but to be really a servant, so to be in the form of God is to be really GoD. This is rendered still stronger by the following clause, which is exegetic of the preceding, as will appear from the literal rendering, the force of which is obscured by the copulative introduced into the common version. It is not, "and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men," but "being made in the likeness of men," which clearly denotes that he took the form of a servant by "being made in the likeness of men," so that, as Bishop Pearson irresistibly argues,

"The phrase 'in the form of God,' not elsewhere mentioned, is used by the apostle with respect unto that other, of the form of a servant,' exegetically continued in the likeness of men;' and the respect of one unto the other is so necessary, that if the form of God be not real and essential as the form of a servant, or the likeness of man, there is no force in the apostle's words, nor will his argument be fit to work any great degree of humiliation upon the consideration of Christ's exinanition. But by the form is certainly understood the true condition of a servant, and by the likeness is infallibly meant the real nature of man: nor doth the fashion, in which he was found, destroy, but rather assert, the truth of his humanity. And therefore, as sure as Christ was really and essentially man, of the same nature with us, in whose similitude he was made so certainly was he also really and essentially God, of the same nature and being with him, in whose form he did subsist."(2)

64

The greatness of him who "humbled himself" being thus laid down by the apostle, he proceeds to state what, in the process of his humiliation, he waived of that which was due to his greatness. He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation;" or, as many choose to render it, "he emptied himself." Whether the clause, "thought it not robbery," be translated "esteemed it not an object to be caught at, or eagerly desired, to be as God," or did not think it a " usurpation;" or, as our translators have it, a "robbery" to be equal with God, signifies little; for, after all the criticism expended on this unusual phrase, that Christ had a right to that which he might have retained, but chose to waive when he humbled himself, is sufficiently established both by the meaning of the word and by the connexion itself. Some Socinians allow the common translation, and their own version is to the same effect,--he "did not esteem it a prey," which can only mean, though they attempt to cloud the matter in their note, that he did not esteem that as his own property to which he had no right.(3) That, then, which he did not account a prey," a seizure of another's right or property, was "to be equal with God." Whether, in the phrase To iva loa Oεw, to be equal with God, toa is to be taken adverbially, and translated as, like as, God; or, by enallage, for the singular adjective masculine, and to be rendered equal to God, has been matter of dispute. The grammatical authority appears to predominate in favour of the latter,(4) and it is supported by several of the fathers and the ancient versions; but here, again, we are not left to the niceties of verbal criticism. If taken in either way, the sense is much the same; he thought it not a robbery or usurpation to be equal with God, or as God, which, as the sense determines, was an equality of honour and dignity; but made himself of no reputation. For as the phrase, the form of God, signifies his essential Divinity, so that of which he "emptied" or divested himself for the time was something to which he had a right consequent upon his Divinity; and if to be equal with God, or to be as God, was his right as a Divine Person, it was not any thing which he was essentially of which he divested himself, for that were impossible; but something which, if he had not been God, it would have been a robbery and usurpation either to claim or retain. This, then, can be nothing else than the assumption

of a Divine majesty and glory; the proclamation of his own rights, and the demand of his creatures' praise and homage, the laying aside of which, indeed, is admirably expressed in our translation, "but made himself of no reputation!" This is also established by the antithesis in the text. "The form of a servant" stands opposed to "the form of God,"-a real servant to real Divinity; and to be "equal" with God, or as God, in glory, honour, and homage, is contrasted with the humiliations of a human state. "In that state he was made flesh," sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, subject to the infirmities and miseries of this life; in that state he was "made of a woman, made under the law," and so obliged to fulfil the same; in that state he was born, and lived to manhood in a mean condition; was "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;" in that state, being thus made man, he took upon him "the form of a servant." If any man doubt how Christ emptied himself, the text will satisfy him," by taking the form of a servant:" if any still question how he took the form of a servant, he hath the apostle's solution,-"by being made in the likeness of men." And being found in fashion as a man; being already by his exinanition, in the form of a servant, he humbled himself, becoming "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."(5) The first stage of his humiliation was his assuming "the form of a servant;" the completion of it, his "obedience unto death." But what say the Socinians? As with them to be in the form of God means to be invested with miraculous powers, so to empty or divest himself, was his not exerting those powers in order to prevent his erucifixion. The truth, however, is, that he "emptied" himself, not at his crucifixion, but when he took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; so that, if to divest or empty himself be explained of laying down his miraculous gifts, he laid them down before he became man, that is, according to them, before he had any existence. There is no alternative, in this and many similar passages, between orthodoxy and the most glaring critical absurdity.

CHAPTER XVI.

HUMANITY OF CHRIST-HYPOSTATIC UNION-ERRORS
AS TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST.

In the present day, the controversy as to the person of Christ is almost wholly confined to the question of his Divinity; but, in the early ages of the church, it was necessary to establish his proper humanity. The denial of this appears to have existed as early as the time of St. John, who, in his epistles, excludes from the pale of the church all who denied that Christ was come in THE FLESH. As his Gospel, therefore, proclaims the Godhead, so his epistles defend also the doctrine of his humanity.

The source of this ancient error appears to have been a philosophical one. Both in the Oriental and Greek schools it was a favourite notion, that whatever was joined to matter was necessarily contaminated by it, and that the highest perfection of this life was abstraction from material things, and, in another, a total and final separation from the body. This opinion was also the probable cause of leading some persons, in St. Paul's time, to deny the reality of a resurrection, and to explain it figuratively. But, however that may be, it was one of the chief grounds of the rejection of the proper humanity of Christ among the different branches of the Gnostics, who, indeed, erred as to both natures. The things which the Scriptures attribute to the human nature of our Lord they did not deny; but affirmed that they took place in appearance only, and they were, therefore, called Docete and Phantasiasta. At a later period, Eutyches fell into a similar error, by teaching that the human nature of Christ was absorbed into the Divine, and that his body had no real existence. These errors have passed away, and danger now lies only on one side; not, indeed, because men are become (3)" Non rapinam, aut spolium alicui, detractum, less liable or less disposed to err, but because philodurit."-ROSENMULLER. So the ancient versions. sophy, from vain pretences to which, or a proud re"Non rapinam arbitratus est."-Vulgate. "Non rapi-liance upon it, almost all great religious errors spring, nam hoc existimavit."-Syriac. has, in later ages, taken a different character,

(2) Discourses on the Creed.

(4) See PEARSON on the Creed, Art. 2, note; SCHLEUSNER, ERASMUS, and SCHMIDT.

(5) Bishop PEARSON,