by him and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”*

In the 9th of Romans, He is spoken of as "God our all.”

In the Hebrews, is a quotation from the Psalms, in which the Father is represented as addressing the Son, and saying, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."+ In these words, one person of the Trinityevidently the Father-addresses another, evidently the Son-addresses Him with the appellation God, and ascribes to Him an everlasting throne.

In the first epistle of John, it is written, "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true: and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life."+

John, in a great variety of passages, beside this, applies the appellation "life" to Christ. Several of these we have already noticed."In him was life, and the life was the light of men:§-He giveth life unto the world.

* Col. i. 16, 17. † Heb. i. 8, 9. John v. 20.

I am

that bread of life," says Christ Himself. Again, "the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." This life-Christ"was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us."+ Christ is eminently life to us, because He is the Author of our eternal redemption. "We are dead," and if we arise to life at all, it is through Jesus Christ our Lord. Though the Father is life, and the Spirit is life, Christ is peculiarly life to our souls.

You remember, when the doubting disciple declared, unless he could put his finger into the print of the nails, and thrust his hand into the side, he would not believe: and you recollect also, how, when the Apostles were afterward gathered together, and Thomas with them, our Lord appeared, and offered to him, so slow of heart to believe, the evidence he desired. At that time, you know, conviction filled the soul of Thomas; and what were the expressions which he immediately addressed to his Master? "My Lord and my God!"§Now this was in the college of the Apostles, and, surely, he who uttered these words of adoration, would not there have been guilty of

*John vi. 48. † John viii. 63. 1 John i. 2.

idolatry. Jesus rebuked him not. He received the homage, as in every other instance He had done: He received it as His own and encouraged the continuance of it. And this was by no means an expression of surprise that Thomas made use of. The evangelist does not say, he exclaimed, he cried out; but, he said:-in the calm collectedness of his adoring soul, he said, what all the Apostles, at some time or other, said, by actions, if not by words.

Christ is set forth in Scripture as Him who shall judge the world.* Now, to this work of judgment, Omniscience and Omnipresence are essentially requisite: and, we may add, Omnipotence too. That He possesses all these, we are reiteratedly assured. "All the churches shall know," is His own language, "all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works."† We are told in Jeremiah it is a peculiar attribute of the Almighty to search the heart: "I, the Lord," it is declared, "I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." Nor are the assurances of Divine Power being in the hand of Christ less various. It is written in Philippians

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* The proofs of this are so numerous they need not be quoted. Rev. ii. 23. Jer. xvii. 10.

concerning Christ-He "shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."* Surely this that subdueth all things to Himself is He, "who, being the brightness of the Father's-glory, and the express image of his person,-when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."+

Paul and Barnabas, when the Greeks offered them adoration, rent their clothes, and cried out, saying, "Sirs, why do ye these things? we also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made Heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein." Here they asserted the Divinity of Christ in two ways: first, by declaring that He who made all things is God; and, second, by refusing Divine honours as belonging only to God. I say in these two, for Paul elsewhere states, under the guidance of inspiration, that Christ made all things; and they showed, by refusing to be worshipped, that Christ, by receiving adoration, declared Himself to be God.

And, doubtless, ye shall all acknowledge the Divinity of Jesus. "Behold, he cometh

* Phil. iii. 21. † Heb. i. 3. Acts. xiv. 15. § Col. i. 16.

with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.* The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:-Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you fromt he foundation of the world.-Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."+

I say, ye shall all acknowledge the Divinity of Jesus, for will you not be there? Will not the trump of the Archangel break the cerements that may enwrap you, and rouse your slumbering dust?

Beloved, since these things are so, it certainly becomes you to "kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way." He comes now in the form of intreaty, and He

* Rev. i. 7. †2 Thess. i. 7, 8. Matt. xxv. 31-41. § Ps. ii. 12.