of fin will experience the avenging JUDGE in HIM, whom the faithful will find their SAVIOR; and have an everlasting deftruction from His prefence, while He will be glorified in His faints, 2 Theff. i. 8. Thanksgiving then, not the cavilling of an arrogant unbelief, is the tribute due to HIM, and our confeffion that all HIS works are righteous and highly becoming the GOD and His lovely office.

Is it objected that this will equally prove HIM united with the prophets, because MOSES, &c. wrought miracles? It must be replied that it does prove He was in fome measure associate with them (as fhewn, p. 86.) to keep up their hopes of the promised incarnation, Gen. iii. 15, and kings and people hence concluded this GOD was with them. But it does not equally evince it. 1. Because the works of JESUS were exceedingly more numerous, fince were all things that JESUS did recorded, the world would not contain the things that might be written, Joh. xviii. Pf. xl. 6, 7. 2. Because fome were fuch as none other man did, c. xv. 24. 3. Because they were wrought in a manner different from that in which all in the O. T. were, except one, (fee p. 85.) For HE, as when He created, P. cxlviii. 5, fpake and it was done, all paid HIм homage, all fhewed HIM their RULER; info. much that we may challenge any to say how GOD could in man's prefent ftate have more ftrongly

ftrongly proved HIMSELF the creature's LORD, or them His fubjects? Whence the people might well fay, when CHRIST cometh will be da more miracles? Jab. vii. 31. 4. Because they were defigned to complete (for we include His wondrous incarnation and birth as Man, His death with a bud voice, refurrection and afcenfion,) actually fulfil the whole law and the prephets. Which no works of any one preceding prophet did or could do, not excepting MOSES to whom Hɛ, as moft nearly united, pake face to face, Deut. xxiv. 10. And this confideration that miracles proved, though not equally, this GOD was with the prophets, fhews that His were an evidence particularly adapted to the JEWS, whose fathers had been all along accuftomed to it.

On this account no miracles were permitted to be brought by any but His types. For miracles being the certain effects of an over-ruling power, and it being man's duty thankfully to acknowledge aud humbly to adore the LORD as the creature's fovereign and as the ruler of all events, they were in their very nature accommodated by giving proofs of this sovereignty to reclaim man to his duty. Because it required no great fkill in logic to infer that He who made the creatures obey HIM, contrary to their natural course, muft be their Lord. It was the demonstration to the fenfe, which fome have

called

called for who will not believe the word; more fo when attended with declarations that He gave them for evidences of any perfon's miffion; and because it is fuch throws those who most treasonably ascribe them to an unclean Spirit beyond all poffibility of conviction, and fo makes them incapable of forgiveness in the church here or in the world to come, Mat. xii. 32. Accordingly this WORD (or MeMRA as the paraphrafts call HIM) who made the world, Pf. xxxiii. 4, referved it as His fole prerogative thus to over-rule nature or predia events, whenever it was needful to evince His fouereignty to rebellious idolizers of the creatures, or to convince His fervants it was HE, who fpake to them, or would bring a thing to pafs, I. xxi. 22, xlvi. 10, xlviii. 5. For had it been permitted to others to work them, they could not have been urged as proofs of His fovereignty as it would then have been doubtful who wrought them, and confequently no certain argument could have been drawn from them, when He did appear, that He was the WORD JeHovaн, [JE] the ESSENCE, [EMmaNU-EL] WITH US, THE INTERPOSING GOD, or, as His types were called, [UMMI-EL] WITH ME (is) THE INTERPOSING GOD, 1 C. iii. 5, [Ammiнud] WITH ME (is) THE GLORY' [AMmI-SHaDdai] WITH ME (is) THE ALMIGHTY. Whereas, viewing them in this light, they were not only Cc argu

arguments of the DIVINITY, but what is more, of what our LORD urges them for, Joh. xiv. 11, appropriate and fatisfactory proofs in their faving effects of the presence of this GOD THE SAVIOR, as they were afterwards figns of His apofle, with whom as his member He also was, 2 Cor. xii. 12. Nor is it any objection to their being fuch, that fome works feemingly of this kind were done in EGYPT by the (a) magicians, Ex. viii. 7, or by the false prophet, or that the devils poffeffed and difordered men. Because what the two former did was, like the lying wonders, 2 Thef. xii. 9, the effect of artifice, by [ LeTHIM] fecret practices; and the latter had the power to infeft men, and were permitted only to prove the people, as declared Deut. xiii. 3. or to deter others, and then only, when this LORD had before fhewed, or would evince His fovereignty not only over all vifible nature, but over things invifible, over diviners and the craft and wisdom of the world, If. xliv, 25, 1 Cor. i. 20, 27, over the prince of the power of the air and his agents, by detecting every invader of His prerogative, and afferting

and

(a) So truly has Le Moine thus defcribed them. Indeed it is clear from the conteft that the magicians thought those of MoSES fuch, or were willing they should be fo efteemed, 'till convinced, Ex. viii. 19, they could not bring lice upon man and beaft, &c.; which extorted this confeffion from them, This is the finger of GOD. But we find nothing will foften fome perfons' hearts into that humble faith, which worketh by love, and fo produceth true repentance.

and demonftrating HIS claim to be the fole LORD of all. So that when JESUS came, as HE of old did, with thofe evidences of HIS Supremacy and wrought these faving works HE clearly proved HE was the predicted [JE] ESSENCE and NAME. We therefore find it have this weight with many; it made NICODEMUS confefs the GOD with HIM, Joh. iii. 2, and five thousand men conclude, This is of a truth that prophet which should come into the world, (in whom they knew the WORD Jeнovaн was,) and fo defirous to make HIM a king, c. vi. 14, 15. We hear fome, 'tis true, faying, What fign fheweft THOU then, &c.? But when CHRIST offered HIMSELF on the evidence of the fupporting miracle HE wrought as the great fuftainer of fallen man, as the true bread from heaven, ver. 32. many of the people believed on HIM, C. vii. 31, as the CHRIST, with whom we fee, p. 123-4, this [JE] ESSENCE was, and with an appeal to this evidence faid Is not this that prophet? Is not this the CHRIST? though fome were kept back with a Have any of the rulers believed on HIM? Nay, that He was this GOD, THE ESSENCE THE SAVIOR as well as the great prophet in one person was a common (a) notion. For upon His raifing the widow's Cc 2 Son

(a) That this was fo of old appears not only from the king of ISRAEL's anfwer 2 K. v. 7, importing God only killed and made alive, and that he was not fuch; from the typic [ELI

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