things, and be ignorant of many,-or foresee one part of futurity and not another: and many fond believers who "have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge" (Rom. x. 2); may be apt to consider this also as a paradox that ought not to be supported. This paradox is real however, notwithstanding: and no more than all who have any sort of perception may prove in themselves, being by the will of God alive to some perceptions, and dead to others. And as the Subject knew, so he foreknew likewise some things that others cannot even know,-without knowing some perhaps that others do know even concerning him; as for example, that the day of judgment in which he takes so prominent a part was postponed.

Therefore the assertion of the Subject's knowing all things must be understood with limitations; and that in a very important respect besides those above intimated, v. g. that his light, wisdom, or knowledge is not original in him*; any more than natural light in the sun, but derived. His light is not direct but reflected, or to speak more technically, REFRACTED in him, and reflected in his. For as the pure light of the sun shining through infinite space is the divine Word proceeding directly from the Father of lights or intelligences: but apprehended, felt, and incarnate in Christ, it is like the same light refracted first in the azure sky, and next in the denser elements with which the earth is surrounded; stooping or bent to his human mind, his soul and his body: while all the excellence displayed by others upon earth is reflected from the depth of his fulness through the medium of the Gospel and its ministers, as light from the bottom of a crystal stream. For (as one of them says) "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (Cor. II. iv. 6).

Through his union with the Father who certainly knoweth * According to the Mosaic account lightning, or the element of light, existed before any regular creation. (Gen. i. 2, 3; Job xxxviii. 24, 25.)

all things, and "sheweth him all things that himself doeth" (John v. 20), the Son's information must be like that of one possessing the streams of omniscience; but not like his from whom these streams are derived, as appears from his own repeated acknowledgments: for example, to the Jews, 66 When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know, that I am he; and that I do nothing of myself, but as MY FATHER HATH TAUGHT ME I speak these things. And He that sent me is with me: the FATHER HATH NOT LEFT ME ALONE; for I do always those things that please Him" (Ib. viii. 28, 29). When he entered on his ministry, he did not come forth like one duly prepared either at school or at the college of the prophets; he had no instructor perhaps from his cradle for any thing beyond the rudiments of a popular education, if he had so much (Ib. vii. 15). "My doctrine is not mine, (said he) but his that sent me" (Ib. 16): but all that passes under the idea of wisdom and knowledge he was taught by an innate Preceptor, the Father to all his modes of thinking and doing, with the horn-book of experience and his counterpart in the writings of the Old Testament. For whereas other men go to other men for their wisdom, and they generally to the father of lies (Ib. viii. 38); this man went to no other man, nor to any angel either for his. But as the presence of his human nature gave him an advantage for knowing all men, which is an eminent branch of wisdom; so farther than that, he had to seek directly within himself for all that might be wanted-to the God of truth, to his inborn Divinity, or to the Divinity of which he was born; and which always continued to teach, direct and strengthen him through life, for the purpose of always doing, as he says, those things that please Him. Hence that observation of the Word, "I have more understanding than my teachers; for thy testimonies are my study. I am wiser than the aged; because I keep thy commandments" (Ps. cxix. 99, 100). "Thou shalt shew me the path of life in thy presence is the fulness of joy, and at

thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore" (Ib. xvi. 12).

The author of the epistle to the Hebrews, speaking of "Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man," observes how "it became Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Heb. ii. 9, 10). And if among other sufferings in order to such perfection in the present state, it was necessary that our Captain or High Priest (Ib. v. 8) should endure that of uncertainty or inscience, and sometimes even in the path of duty (which to such a probationer must have been one of the greatest trials in life) there was still that in his way that made him infallible as to practice: "that was, THE TRUE LIGHT, WHICH LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT COMETH INTO THE WORLD." While, if he then knew all that has been supposed in that his narrow and limited state, he must know infinitely more in his exaltation to the divine Presence; seeing the Father, his ancient invisible Preceptor, face to face, and knowing Him as he is known (Cor. I. xiii. 12).

-This last mentioned divine property of the Subject closing the account of his two, and only two natures, is the last that it will be necessary to mention: though judging carelessly, or without good caution indeed, from what is read in some parts of St. John, one might be apt to ascribe to him three natures instead of two, the divine, human and angelic; the last mentioned being rather a characteristic, and belonging to him only, as to other good men, officially. This therefore is one error to be avoided: and another is that of considering the divine and human natures, which meet in the Subject as elements. These are two combinations that ought not to be confounded, the distinction between them, namely, between nature and element being as distinct as the character and substance, or the quality

and materials of any object. In Christ the divine nature is to the human like foreign perfection; like a zenith to the terrestrial sphere, more than a portion, admixture or augmentation, an element of the same, or any essential addition it is like a general character or qualification, more than a particular gift or endowment; like the perfection of one subject, more than the addition of another to it.

Indeed, to speak correctly of this complex, or more properly speaking, heterogeneous Subject, we should rather talk of his human and divine relations perhaps, than of his human and divine natures; though both expressions will lead to the same conception at last on the principle before intimated. For either of these relations being admitted, the corresponding nature will follow of course with such relation, from the agreement between nature and descent; as "of thorns men do not gather figs" (Luke vi. 44). Admitting Jesus Christ to be the Son of man, this relation will entitle him to the human nature; and admitting him to be the Son of God will entitle him to the divine in our estimation, and indeed according to his own meaning perhaps where he says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John iii. 6). So we find nothing in his divinity different from the pure divinity that we worship in the Father; nor in his humanity from the humanity of Adam; except, that in him the latter, as before signified, is the same beautiful nature which God created in Adam perfect and undefiled: and in both his divinity and humanity united he is himself whole and entire, being as distinct a person from God the Father as any other son of God. At the same time however, as describing God in himself, the Subject is chiefly to be considered as God. The Word in him is as much one with God, and the Subject by that Word; as any man's mode, form, presence or description can be one with himself. Every one to whom the Word of God comes will be more or less divine according to the measure of his inspiration, and so far deserve a

title which many divines do not: but he with whom the divine Word comes into the world, or who comes into the world with it; he to whom the divine Word is natural, he who could not be without it in short; why, he must needs be God as well as man; and of the more eminent nature more eminently. The man "whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world" (Ib. x. 36); not whom He hath sent into the world and sanctified; but sanctified in conception, THE SAINTED SEED, Seed sainted by its natural character of divinity—he, dating from the head of his existence, which is the Godhead, might well consider himself divine, notwithstanding his humanity; as any individual of the species might consider himself a man, notwithstanding his affinity to the earth and participation with some of its inferior productions in a multitude of properties, or any multitude of supposed migrations either as before observed. Without assuming to be exclusively divine, the Subject might well assign this higher nature for his genus or nativity; in the same manner as with us subjects are considered intellectual, dating from their highest side, notwithstanding an equal mixture at least of spirit and a preponderating share of matter for the most part. RATIONAL BEINGS we are called; such being our highest derivation: or else there could be no reason why such a splenetic, and also more gravitating race, should claim the name of Reason or the Word particularly rather than that of Spirit, although it be said of the sort, "Thou madest him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and worship" (Ps. viii. 5); or than that of Matter, either as God said to it, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Gen. iii. 19).

For if the Subject was perfect God as well as perfect man, he was not so exclusively. The Godhead, or more properly speaking, Divinity, was the nature of Christ in the same way as his manhood, or more properly speaking, Humanity and one not more exclusively than the other; but what divinity was in Christ it also was in Adam, and what humanity is in any of the race of Adam, bating im