If

New Testament writers, therefore, used an expression occurring frequently in their sacred writers, and one in common use amongst the Jews. they used it in the Old Testament sense, then they understood that Christ was very God: if in the Jewish sense, then they believed him to be the Shechinah, that is, the Divine Person who appeared to Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, and whom they worshipped as God.

Another figure of common occurrence is that of Shepherd. In St. Luke's Gospel, chap. xv., our Lord compares himself to a man who left his ninetynine sheep to seek the one that he had lost. In St. John's Gospel, he calls himself the Good Shepherd, and by St. Peter he is called the Chief Shepherd. Now, in the Old Testament the word shepherd is applied to men as by Isaiah to Cyrus, and by Jeremiah and Ezekiel to the teachers of Israel. But there is a peculiarity in its application to our Lord in the New Testament, which is found with respect to God in the Old Testament, and which shows that evangelists and apostles thought of our Lord as very God. He is spoken of as the owner and possessor of the flock, and not simply as a shepherd, who may only be another's servant. Thus, in St. John's Gospel, Christ distinguishes between himself and others who did not own the sheep, "I am the Good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But

he that is an hireling and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. I am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring that they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." St. Paul says to the elders of Ephesus, "Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." Here the flock is represented as the property of Christ, which he had purchased. In the New Testament the flock is never said to belong to any other than God or Christ, and this is the usage of the Old Testament also. There the flock is represented exclusively as God's. Thus, the Psalmist says, "We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” (Ps. c.) Isaiah says, "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd." In Jeremiah xxiii. 1, God says, "Woe unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, against the pastors that feed my people, Ye have scattered my flock," &c. And so in all the Old Testament writings, God is spoken of as the owner and proprietor of the flock. Never are they said to belong to either king, or priest, or prophet, whom

he had sent to feed them. The doctrine of the Old Testament is, that the flock is God's; that of the New, that the flock is Christ's. It follows necessarily that the New Testament writers thought of Christ as God, and when they spoke of him as the Shepherd, acknowledged him as such. In close connexion with the preceding figure is the New Testament doctrine that "we are all to stand at the judgment seat of Christ." I have already noticed the general fact, that the Old Testament speaks of God and Messiah as judge. But I wish to direct your attention to one account given in the Gospel of St. Matthew, which in itself abundantly shows that that Gospel teaches the proper Deity of Messiah. "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them as a shepherd divideth sheep from goats." Now this representation is composed of passages taken from the prophets, each of which speaks of the true God. The words, "the Son of man shall come, and all his holy angels with him," exactly agree with what Zechariah (xiv. 5) says of the day of the Lord. "The Lord my God shall come, and all the holy with thee," where the Jewish commentators interpret holy ones of angels. The Son of man sitting upon a throne, agrees with the vision of God vouchsafed to Ezekiel, who saw the likeness of a man sitting upon the throne. The expression,

"throne of glory," occurs only once in the Old Testament, where it signifies the throne of God. "Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory." (Jer. xiv. 21.) But it is in the Jewish writers, and amongst the Jews themselves, a very common expression to this day, and always means the throne of God. The words, "Before him shall be gathered all nations," agree with the Prophet Joel's account of God's judgment of the world. "I will also gather all nations." "Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord," where the Jewish commentators also interpret mighty ones to mean the angels. The representation that he shall "separate them as a shepherd divideth sheep from goats," is taken from the 34th of Ezekiel, where God says, "As for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord God, Behold I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he-goats." Thus, we see, that the New Testament ascribes to Christ, not only the act of judgment, which in the Old is attributed to God, but describes every circumstance of that judgment in language which the prophets had employed of the true God. How can this be accounted for, except on the supposition that the New Testament writers so habitually thought of Christ as of God, that they interpreted most of the Old Testament passages where God is spoken of as referring to Christ? But if we

take Christian ground, and grant that these writers were inspired, and have faithfully recorded the words of Christ, then it is impossible to deny that Christ laid claim to proper Deity, and that it is the will of the Father that we should believe in him, and worship him as the true God.

Enough has been said to show that Christ was acknowledged as the true God by the evangelists and apostles. Several writers of our Church have shown that he was acknowledged as such by the Christian Church before the Nicene Council, and ever since all Christian Churches, Latin, Greek, Oriental, and Reformed have worshipped him as the Second Person of the ever-blessed Trinity. The prophets declared that a descendant of the tribe of Judah, a man, should be acknowledged as the mighty God, the everlasting Father. Jesus has been, and is acknowledged as such by the greatest, the wisest, the most civilized, and the most powerful nations upon earth. There is no parallel case in the history of mankind. The deified mortals of the ancient mythology cannot here be brought into comparison; they were never acknowledged as very God from eternity, and even the dim light of heathen philosophy overthrew their claims to Deity altogether. It cannot be said that the prophecies which we have considered have wrought their own fulfilment, nor that the state of the world, as it