If this conclufion would be just upon the fuppofition that Chrift had created all things, and worked miracles by a power properly his own, though derived ultimately from God, much more force has it on the fuppofition of his working miracles by a power not derived from any being whatever, but as much originally in himself, as the power of the Father.

It would also be a fhocking abuse of language, and would warrant any kind of deception and impofition, if Christ could be fuppofed to fay, that his Father was greater than he, and yet fecretly mean his human nature only, while his divine nature was at the fame time, fully equal to that of the Father. On the fame principle a man might say, that Christ never fuffered, that he never died, or rose again from the dead, meaning his divine nature only, and not his human. Indeed, there is no use in language, nor any guard against deception, if fuch liberties as these are to be allowed.

There is fomething inexplicable, and not to be accounted for in the conduct of feve

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ral of the evangelifts, indeed that of all of them, on the fuppofition of their haying held any fuch doctrines as thofe of the divinity or pre-existence of Christ. Each of the gofpels was certainly intended to be a fufficient inftruction in the fundamental principles of chriftianity.

But there is

nothing that can be called an account of the divine, or even the fuper-angelic nature of Christ in the gofpels of Matthew, Mark, or Luke; and allowing that there may be fome colour for it in the introduction to the gospel of John, it is remarkable .. that there are many paffages in his gofpel which are decifively in favour of his fimple humanity.

Now thefe evangelifts could not imagine that either the Jews or the Gentiles, for whofe ufe their gofpels were written, would not ftand in need of information on a fub-, ject of fo much importance, which was so very remote from the apprehenfions of them both, and which would at the fame time have so effectually covered the reproach of the crofs, which was continually objected to the chriftians of that age. If

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the doctrines of the divinity, or pre-existence of Christ be true, they are no doubt in the highest degree important and interefting. Since, therefore, these evangelifts give no certain and diftinct account of them, and fay nothing at all of their importance, it may be safely inferred that they were un known to them.

I would farther recommend it to the confideration of my readers, how the apostles could continue to call Chrift a man, as they always do, both in the book of Acts, and in their epiftles, after they had discovered him to be either God, or a fuper-angelic being, the maker of the world under God. After this, it must have been highly degrading, unnatural, and improper, notwithstanding his appearance in human form. Custom will reconcile us to ftrange conceptions of things, and very uncouth modes of speech; but let us take up the matter ab initio, and put ourselves in the place of the apostles and first disciples of Christ.

They certainly faw and converfed with him at first on the fuppofition of his being a man as much as themselves. Of this there

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can be no doubt. Their furprize, therefore, upon being informed that he was not a man, but really God, or even the maker of the world under God, would be just as great as ours would now be on discovering that any of our acquaintance, or at least a very good man and a prophet, was in reality God, or the maker of the world. Let us confider then, how we fhould feel, how we should behave towards fuch a person, and how we should fpeak of him afterwards. No one, I am confident, would ever call any perfon a man, after he was convinced he was either God, or an angel. He would always fpeak of him in a manner fuitable to his proper rank.

Suppose that any two men of our acquaintance, should appear, on examination, to be the angels Michael and Gabriel; fhould we ever after this call them men? Certainly not. We should naturally say to our friends" thofe two perfons whom we "took to be men, are not men, but angels "in difguife." This language would be natural. Had Chrift, therefore, been any thing more than man before he came into

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the world, and especially had he been either God, or the maker of the world, he never could have been, or have been confidered as being, a man, while he was in it; for he could not diveft himself of his fuperior and proper nature. However difguifed, he would always in fact have been whatever he had been before, and would have been fo filed by all who truly knew him.

Least of all would Chrift have been considered as a man in reasoning, and argumentation, though his external appearance should have so far put men off their guard, as to have led them to give him that appellation. Had the apostle Paul confidered Chrift as being any thing more than a man, with refpect to his nature, he could never have urged with the least propriety or effect, that, as by man came death, fo by man came alfo the refurrection of the dead. For it might have been unanswerably replied, This is not the cafe; for indeed, by man comes death, but not by man, but by God, or the creator of man, under God, comes the refurrection of the dead.