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Zacharias respecting his promised son: "And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the LORD THEIR GOD; and he shall go before HIM in the spirit and power of Elias.....to make ready a people prepared for the LORD;" (Luke i, 16, 17); and also, that the same doctrine flowed from the lips of Zacharias himself, when he thus addressed his new-born infant: "And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the HIGHEST; for thou shalt go before the face of THE LORD, to prepare his ways:" ver. 76.

In connection with the period when our Lord was dwelling among the Israelites, his divinity appears to be again recognized in one of the prophecies of Zechariah. After describing his interview, in a wonderful vision, with that mysterious angel of Jehovah, who was Jehovah, (vide ch. i, 12. 20) the prophet, commissioned by his heavenly visiter, breaks forth in the following evangelical strain: " Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for, lo! I come, (comp. Ps. xl, 7) and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith JEHOVAH. And many nations shall be joined to Jehovah in that day, and shall be мY people, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that JEHOVAH OF HOSTS hath sent me unto thee. And Jehovah shall inherit Judah, his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before JEHOVAH; for he is raised up out of his holy habitation:" ii, 10-13. We can scarcely fail to trace in this divine effusion a delineation of the Messiahthat anointed Person, who was to inherit Judah as the governor of the Lord's people, and whose coming in the flesh was the appointed signal for the conversion of many nations to God and his truth. Who, then, was this Messiah? Jehovah raised up out of his

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JEHOVAH DWELLING AMONG THE JEWS;

holy habitation-Jehovah sent by Jehovah, to dwell among his people Israel: comp. John i, 14.*

Before we close the page of prophecy, we may advert to Zech. xii, 10-a passage which appears to declare the deity of Christ in connection with his sufferings and death. "And I (saith Jehovah) will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication, and they shall look upon ME whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." This prophecy is applied to Jesus Christ, by his apostle John, indirectly in Rev. i, 7, and positively in John xix, 34—37. may, therefore, receive it as affording an evidence that when the inhabitants of Jerusalem persecuted their Messiah, and when, in yet more literal accomplishment of the prophecy, they pierced his hands, his feet, and his side, they persecuted and pierced him who, although the subject of their cruelty only in his human nature, was nevertheless their divine Lord and Governor-Jehovah himself. Thus it was that they "crucified the LORD OF GLORY:" I Cor. ii, 8.

4 Vide Calvin and Gill, in loc.

והביטו אלי את אשר דקרו .Zech. xii 5

י

We

"And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced." For me, in this passage, about fifty MSS. (a very small proportion of those which have been collated, and not of the better sort) read him. This reading has been adopted by some commentators, under the notion of its being supported by the apostle John, who quotes it as follows: Povrai eiç öv Ženevτnoav, "they shall look on whom they have pierced:" but, as the apostle has expressed no antecedent to his relative pronoun, he may be considered as merely neutral in the present question. Not so the ancient versions, that is, the Septuagint, Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate, with the Chaldee Targum, all of which, as well as Theodotion, and probably Aquila and Symmachus, read the pronoun in the first person, ME: vide de Rossi, Var. Lect. Vet. Test. tom. iii, p. 217.

The rapid change in this passage, from the first to the third person, is not inconsistent with the genius of Hebrew poetry. It is, however, well avoided in the excellent version of the passage proposed by the learned Dathe: "Intuebuntur me quem transfixerunt, atque ea de re lugebunt, quemadmodum de filio unico lugetur : plangent de ea re amarissime, quemadmodum de filio primogenito.

GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH;

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Here I can scarcely refrain from reminding the reader of the words of the apostle Paul, according to the commonly-received reading of I Tim. iii, 16— "Great is the mystery of godliness; GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH," &c. Although, in substituting for the word here rendered God the pronoun signifying who or he who, Griesbach (whose useful labours have so largely contributed to the settlement of the sacred text) has always appeared to me to have formed an erroneous decision, yet I would not press into the evidence of divine truth a passage which is certainly. the subject of reasonable dispute. I must, however, be allowed to remark that, on the highly probable supposition of the genuineness of its commonly-received reading, this passage does no more than promulgate, in a concentrated form, a doctrine which is with equal clearness revealed in these several ancient prophecies.

And now, in conclusion, we may turn to a passage in the Gospel of John, which narrates one of the most interesting circumstances in the history of Jesus, and which fixes the doctrine of his deity in connection with his resurrection. That this last and most wonderful of the miracles of the Son of God afforded a

6 The various readings of this passage, which have been so largely the subject of discussion and controversy, are C (eds) God—OC (ös) who—0 (ö) which. O is the reading adopted, with little exception, by the whole Latin church, and this reading is supported by most of the ancient versions. "Os is a reading which recommends itself, chiefly as the most probable foundation of the more common reading ; but, the direct and ascertained authority by which it is supported is extremely slender indeed; that is, two or three manuscripts, a very few, if any, fathers, and no versions.* The reading so is supported by two versions, (not of the most ancient date) by many fathers, and with scarcely any exception, by the whole mass of manuscripts of every date and class.

* The Coptic, Sahidic, and margin of the Philoxenian Syriac versions, are quoted by Griesbach, as authorities for OS; but Lawrence has proved it to be entirely doubtful whether their reading was ös or ö. He has also shewn, that the Erp. Arabic, the Ethiopic, and the two Syriac versions, are clear authorities, not for os, but for ö: see his Remarks on the Systematic Classification of Griesbach's MSS.

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THE LORD AND GOD

sure indication of his divine power, I have already found occasion to remark; and we plainly learn from the Gospels that the apostles were exceedingly slow to believe that their Lord and Master, whose death appeared for a time to have suspended their faith and hope, had really burst the bonds of death asunder, and had raised again "the temple of his body," according to his promise. When Jesus, by submitting himself to the personal examination of his disciples, condescended to demonstrate to them the reality of this event, (John xx, 20) the apostle Thomas, " called Didymus," was not of their company; and we find that he refused to be convinced on the subject, even by the united testimony of all his brethren. "Except," said he, "I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." "And after eight days, again, his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then said he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing:" 25. 27. In the fresh proof which was thus afforded him of that knowledge of the secrets of men, which ever distinguished his divine Master, as well as in the stupendous and now ascertained miracle of the resurrection, Thomas was furnished with an ample practical evidence of the real divinity of his Lord. No wonder therefore that, under the powerful influence of his renewed convictions, he "answered and said unto him, my lord and MY GOD..... Then Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed

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OF THE APOSTLE THOMAS.

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are they that have not seen, and yet have believed:" 28, 29.

How plain and striking is this narration! How clearly sufficient, in itself, to prove that the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ is a doctrine of Scripture! Let it be observed, in the first place, that the apostle's words were not merely an exclamation, but were addressed to Jesus: "Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God:" secondly, that these words contained the apostle's confession of faith, for they were prompted by the exhortation of Jesus: "Be not faithless, but believing ;" and were evidently adverted to by our Lord, when he afterwards said, "Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed:" and lastly, that on the faith which Thomas had thus confessed, the Saviour of mankind did not hesitate to pronounce his blessing: "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Truly it is the eternal Son of God, one in the divine nature with the Father, and therefore an Almighty and Omnipresent Saviour, in whom his followers, though now they see him not, yet believing rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory!" I Pet. i, 8.

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Such are the evidences which the Scriptures afford us of the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in connection with his abode on earth.

We may now briefly review the several points of the whole argument.

The circumstances and qualities attributed to Jesus Christ, by the prophets who foretold, and by the evangelists who related, the events of his life and death, are many of them such as plainly prove that, after his incarnation, he was man-a creature of God, endued with a human soul and a human body.

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