Lord Jesus Christ. Such passages are not here cited. While it may be right to treat them as furnishing corroborative testimony, they could not be considered as proof of his divinity, if more positive evidence were wanting.

We find the supreme deity of the Lord Jesus Christ positively taught in the Old Testament and in the New.

OLD TESTAMENT PROOF.

IN the second Psalm we find this statement, in regard to the Messiah: "Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." This could not be said of a mere creature, however exalted: such a being could not be the proper object of supreme and universal trust; for, however pure in intention, he must be limited in knowledge and power.

In the forty-fifth Psalm the Messiah is addressed as follows: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." 2

In the prophecy of Isaiah we read, "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 Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of peace."3

In the prophecy of Jeremiah we find the following: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper... and this is his name

1 Ps. ii. 12.

2 Ps. xlv. 6.

3 Isa. ix. 6.

The prophet Micah writes thus: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlast- · ing."

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NEW TESTAMENT PROOF.*

1. Jesus asserted and claimed his own divinity, and the possession of divine prerogatives.

Omnipresence. "For where two
"For where two or three are

gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."3 "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 4

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Divine power. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No one taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them,

*It is but right that the author should acknowledge his obligations to Rev. Henry P. Liddon, whose "Lectures on the Divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" have aided in the preparation of the following argument from the New Testament, and whose language has in some instances been adopted.

Not "no man," as in the common version; but "no one," no other being,-God or man, angel or devil,—but " I lay it down of myself.

1 Jer. xxiii. 5, 6.

4 Matt. xxviii. 20.

2 Micah, v. 2.

3 Matt. xviii. 20.

5 Jn. ii. 19.

6 Jn. x. 17, 18.

even so the Son quickeneth whom he will."

This could not be true of the Son as a created being: it could be true of Christ, only as God dwelt in him, and acted through him. "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." " "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." "All things are delivered unto me of my Father." "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it."

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Omniscience. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels." He here claims to know the hearts of all men a degree of knowledge possible to God alone. He said to the Samaritan woman, "Thou hast well said, I have no husband; for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband." And to the Jews, "But I know you,

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4 Matt. xi. 27.

Matt. x. 32, 33.

that ye have not the love of God in you.' His direction to Peter, in regard to finding money in the mouth of the fish,' and his instructions to the messengers he sent for the ass and colt, show that he possessed divine knowledge.

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Equality with God. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." 4 "That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." "As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father." 6 "I and my Father are one."' "The Father is in me, and I in him.” 8 "He that seeth me, seeth him that sent me. "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 10 "I am in the Father, and the Father in me.' In some of these assertions, the Jews understood him to claim equality with God. He did not deny the charge, but admitted its truth, and re-asserted the claim. "Before Abraham was, I am.' He here asserted, not merely pre-existence, but divinity; for he appropriated to himself the term by which Jehovah designated himself to Moses,

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" 11

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"I am," the self-existent one.' Had Jesus

intended merely to claim pre-existence as a created being, he would have said, "I was," not "I am." Judgeship. "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. And hath given him authority to execute

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judgment also, because he is the Son of man.' "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; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 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. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."

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Jesus here claims to be the supreme and final Judge of all. It may be pleaded, that this authority is merely delegated authority, "because he is the Son of man." There is a reason in the nature of the case why the Judge should be a man, why he should have such a nature that those to be judged may realize his sympathy with them. But he must. also be omniscient, to judge correctly, and omnipotent, to execute the sentences when pronounced.

2. Jesus assumed and exercised divine attributes and prerogatives in cases where he did not directly assert them.

He wrought miracles in his own name, and by 2 Matt. xxv. 31-46.

1 Jn. v. 22, 27.