In proportion as he discerns in the Three Divine Persons the same infinite attributes of omnipresence and inspiration, he will be disposed to believe, that they all equally partake of the same Divine and infinite nature.

From these first lessons of the Christian faith, contained in the first three books of the New Testament, a reader of the humblest understanding may become so far acquainted with the evidences of the Divinity of Christ, -the distinct Personality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,-and their infinite attributes of omnipresence and inspiration, as to have acquired some apprehension of their equality and unity in one Divine nature. The fourth Gospel will supply a further and fuller illustration of the same doctrine.

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EVIDENCES FROM THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.

II. If the Son of God were not equally God with the Father, he could not be one with Him in the same Divine nature; nor could the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be Three Persons in one God. But we know from Scripture, that the Son of God is truly God-was from eternity with the Father, -and united with him by the same infinite attributes.

The fourth Gospel commences with two important evidences of the eternal Deity of Christ, his pre-existence before the creation of the world, and a declaration that he was not only with God" in the beginning," but was God. We are here informed, that "all

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things were made by him, and without him "was not any thing made, that was made." He was, therefore, himself not made nor created; and being uncreated must have existed from eternity;" that everlasting life "which was with the Father," as the same Evangelist expresses himself at the beginning of his First General Epistle;-" the true

"God and eternal life," as he writes in the conclusion of the same Epistle.

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Our unlearned reader must here be informed, that the WORD here mentioned by St. John was not an attribute, but a Person, -that Divine Person, who, in the creation of the world, SAID, "Let there be light, and "there was light;" and SAID, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water," as recorded by Moses in the first chapter of Genesis. The Son of God, in his preexistent state, created the world by the same power as, in his incarnation, he healed diseases: “SPEAK the word only, and my ser"vant shall be healed" (Matt. viii. 8).

Our humble Inquirer should also be here reminded, that Christ's pre-existence, before his incarnation, is frequently alluded to in the Gospels. Thus, by the Baptist: "This was he of whom I spoke; he that cometh "after me is preferred before me; for he was before me" (John i. 15). And by Christ him

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self: "What, and if ye

shall see the Son of

"Man ascend up where he was before?" (John vi. 62). Again: "And no man hath

"ascended up to heaven, but he that came "down from heaven, even the Son of Man, "who was in heaven" (John iii. 13). " No

"man hath seen God at any time: the only.

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begotten Son, which was† in the bosom of "his Father, he hath declared him" (John i. 18). And thus: "Before Abraham was, "I am" (John viii. 58). And again, in that most interesting passage, which, in its sublime sense, comprehends all the preceding: “O, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee

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before the world was (John xvii. 7.) In his discourses with the Jews, he spoke of himself and his Father in such terms as, in their opinion, to "make him God," and "equal with God." The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee "not, but for blasphemy; and because thou "being a man makest thyself God" (John x. 33). These living witnesses of Christ's declaration of himself were competent judges

* So it should be translated. In the common Version it is "who is in heaven." The original is i wr, which has a past sense as well as present, having no past participle.

+ In the common Translation, "who is."

of his words; and their sense of them is perfectly consistent with the testimony of St. John to declarations made in the presence of his disciples. On an occasion before the one last quoted, "the Jews sought the more to "kill him, because he not only had broken "the sabbath, but said also that God was “his own Father,* making himself equal with "God" (John v. 18).

When, therefore, the Jews charged him with blasphemy, and making himself God, because he said, "I and my Father are one (x. 30), they must have understood him to mean, of one and the same Divine nature and power. And though their malice or prejudice might have led them to misconceive his words, yet their sense of their agreeing perfectly with what he said of himself on another occasion (xvii. 7, &c.) with the Evangelist's report of a preceding part of the same discourse, where he says of his believing disciples, "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall any "man pluck them out of my hand" (x. 28). In the unity of the Son of God with the * So the original: Taτiga ιδιον:

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