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Christ." 1 "Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Language similar to this is used in the epistles, again and again.*

In the first three chapters of the Revelation, Christ is repeatedly represented as asserting divine attributes and prerogatives. "I am alive forevermore, Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death." "I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience." "I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." " "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." * †

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Other passages might be quoted as corroborating the position here maintained; but the foregoing are believed to be sufficient to convince the candid inquirer, that the doctrine of the Bible is, that the Lord Jesus Christ is God. These things could not be said of a mere creature, however exalted.‡

The earliest records of the history of the Christian church, that have come down to us, warrant the belief that the divinity of Christ has always been a doctrine of the church, that Christians from the earliest times have worshiped him as God. But

* See 1 Cor. i. 3; 2 Cor. i. 2; Gal. i., 3; etc., etc. † See ch. ii. vs. 9, 13, 17, 19, 23, 26; ch. iii. vs. 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 21.

† See Appendix B.

§ See Liddon's Bampton Lectures on "the Divinity of our Lord these records do not show that the Christians of the early centuries believed that his divinity was a different divine personality from God the Father.

The most absolute proof of Christ's supreme deity, does not prove a different divine personality or "subsistence" or "hypostasis" from God the Father.

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VI.

JESUS CHRIST not "GOD THE SON."

HE Lord Jesus Christ, in his divine nature, is not "God the Son," but the one only indivisible and undivided God, in all his fullness.

If the term above had been the proper expression to describe Christ's divinity, it would certainly have been used; but it is not found in the Bible. There is no reasonable explanation of this omission, except this, that he is not "God the Son," which is an epithet of man's device.

The very strongest expressions indicative of supreme deity are used in the Scriptures in regard to Christ. These cannot be applicable if his divinity proceeded from, or was begotten of, another; if he were in any sense "God the Son," if he were in any manner or degree subordinate or inferior in his divine nature. An inferior or secondary God is no God at all.

In the passage in Isaiah already referred to, we read, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and his name shall be called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father." This certainly is a prophecy of Christ, as being both God

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and man. And it is here plainly taught, that in his divine nature he is no secondary divinity, - that he is not God the Son, but God the Father. God evidently designed, in inspiring the prophet to use this language, to anticipate and to preclude the error that the Lord Jesus Christ is not the one infinite God in all his fullness. If we read the expression, "Everlasting Father," as some have done, "the Father of the everlasting age," it will not affect its teaching in regard to the divine nature of Christ; for "the Father of the everlasting age" can be none other than the Supreme God, who is over all, the Father of all things.

Jesus repeatedly recognized his relations to the Father in a manner that precludes the idea of any divinity in him in any sense distinct from God the Father.

When he taught his disciples to pray, he instructed them to address the "Father,"1 to "ask of the Father"? in his name, not to ask him. Again he says, "In that day ye shall ask me [that is, the man Jesus] nothing. Ye shall ask the Father in my name." If he was God the Son, “equal with the Father," why not ask him as such? Christ nowhere directed his followers to pray to himself, nor to the Holy Spirit. Why not? Was it not because he wished them to understand that God the Father was God the Savior, and God the Sanctifier and Comforter also ? in short, that the Father alone was God?

Again he says, "The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father." Why did he not say, that he should come in the glory of God the Son? Manifestly, because the divine glory, the divine nature, of Christ, is that of God the Father, and none other.

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In speaking to his disciples of his second coming, Jesus told them that "Of that day and hour knoweth no one; no, not the angels which are in heaven; neither the Son, but the Father." If "God the Son" is "very God of very God," † if " in this Trinity there is not first nor last, nor greater nor less," + if "God the Son" is "very and eternal God equal with the Father," § he must know all things, he must know the hour spoken of. If "the Father" is the only being who possesses this knowledge, then the Father must be the only divine person; and the Lord Jesus Christ, if God at all, is not God the Son, but God the Father, the one only infinite God, in all his fullness.

"I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." 3 If he was God, he must have sought his own will; it was therefore as a created being that he did not seek it. If God the Son, "very God," and " equal with the Father," he must have sought and did seek his own will; and there was no occasion for referring his acts to the