head, one with that of the Father. These had been often cognizable by Philip'; he therefore in having known the Son, who had faid and done such things in testimony of what he was, might well be faid to have known the Father, with whom our Lord and Saviour was, in that respect which was pointed out, one and the fame God. XXIV. " I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall afk in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it," John xiv. 12, 13, 14. I believe no man will deny that a petition is to be made to him t who is to grant it. Jesus Chrift here declares to his difciples, that he will fulfil their prayers, and do that which they shall ask in his name; who then can hesitate to pronounce this doctrine of our Saviour a command to afk of him, a declaration that he is the God of our falvation, from whom cometh help? " With Melancthon, (as quoted by Mr. Lindsey, but for what purpose I cannot comprehend) I take refuge in those plain declarations of scripture, which injoin prayer to Christ, which is to ascribe the proper honour of divinity to him, and is full of confolation." And with Mr. Lindsey himself I observe, ist, that this eminent person thought, and justly as it should feem, that prayer is the highest act of worship, the proper honour of God, and peculiar to him alone. And, 2dly, that the principal argument for Christ's divinity was to be fetched from religious worship, and prayer being addressed to him." Apology, p. 135. Mr. Lindsey's candour is fuch that I rely upon his not starting from this conclufion, which he admits as necessarily following from Chrift's being proved the object of prayer and religious worship. I shall therefore, if the above texts afford a proof, proof, or many others, which I shall call up in evidence of this fact, testify that Christ is properly to be adored, demand and peremptorily insist upon Mr. Lindsey's acquiefcence in this position, that Jesus Christ is one with the Father, God. It is a certain fact, even upon a supposition that our Saviour was no more than man, that he was " without fin," and, consequently, that he did not in any instance contradict himself, whereby he must have once spoken that which was not true; but he says to his disciples, " And in that day ye shall ask me nothing: verily verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you;" John xvi. 23. As our blessed Redeemer cannot mean here to say that he had before spoken an untruth, these words must have exactly the same meaning as those before us; for, if not, they flatly contradict them. That I will grant your prayers, and that the Father will grant your prayers, must therefore signify that the one Godhead of the Father and the Son will grant them; and therefore it follows, that the Father and the Son are one God. "If ye shall ask any thing, in my name, I will do it," says our Saviour; whence I have inferred, that he it is of whom the demand is to be made: But I foresee a possible objection to be made to this inference, which I shall endeavour to obviate. It is, that in this case Jesus Christ has commanded prayer to be preferred to himself in his own name; to which I answer, that so to have done is exactly correspondent to the conduct of God, so long as he had a felected nation his worshippers, and dealt by them as a peculiar people to call upon his name; and that there fore, when they were to cease to be peculiar, and that a whole world was to be adopted, there is no force in the objection, which only shews God governing his additional adorers, as he had governed their predecessors, Before Before God was to be adored through Chrift, he was to be adored through those benefits which he had conferred upon the children of Ifrael; before the name of Christ was given, through which he was to be invoked, his innumerable mercies were commanded to be held in remembrance, and in the name of them he was to be called upon; and accordingly we find the Hebrews adored him as the God of Abraham, the God of Ifaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of their fathers, to whom he had promised, and frequently renewed the promise of a bleffing to proceed from them to all nations of the earth. They adored him as the God of their fathers, who had led them out of the house of bondage into a land flowing with milk and honey; and, as the God who had dealt thus gracioufly by them, he prescribed to them, and prefaced the decalogue with a claim to their obedience, and to their worshipping him only, grounded upon that debt of gratitude, which they owed for the protection and deliverance that he had vouchsafed them; and he has expressly commanded them to call upon him as the God of their fathers, and made this "his name for ever, and his memorial unto all generations," Exod. iii. 15. But he has fince been pleased to hold out a light to lighten the Gentiles, and, remembering his mercies, hath holpen his servant Ifrael, according to his promises; wherefore then shall we refrain from offering up the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God, in the name of his mercies vouchsafed to us by his having taken our nature upon him? in the name of that marn in whose flesh he was manifefted *, and in which our eyes have seen, and our hands have handled the word of † life, even that word which is † God? Wherefore, in remembrance of so great benefits, should we not fay, Fay, " by thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and paffion, by thy precious death and burial, by thy glorious refurrection and ascension, good Lord deliver us?" The sense, in which I understand the words calling upon God in the name of Chrift, is calling uporn God to assist us, whom he had already thought worthy of so great benefits, in memory of those benefits which he suffered in the flesh, in order to confer. And furely in this sense, it is perfectly conformable to the course of God's government, that our Saviour should defire us to call upon his Godhead in memory of what he has done for us as man, having already declared that he had, in remembrance of his former mercies, holpen us. xxv. : "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you," John xvi. 7. "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance; whatsoever I have said unto you," John xiv. 26. Here Jesus Christ sends the Holy Ghost, and the Father at the fame time sends the Holy Ghost; therefore the Father and the Son are one God, from whom the spirit is to proceed. He says in another passage, " but when the Comforter is come, whom I will fend unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me," John xv. 26. The Holy Ghost here proceedeth from the Father only; we find that the fame witness of Christ preceded his coming, and teftified of him beforehand, as well as after his ascent; "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man : but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 2 Peter i. 21. Bứt we find the prophets themselves, who spake as they were were moved by the Holy Ghost, "searching what, or what manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did fignify, when it teftified beforehand the suffer ings of Christ, and the glory that should follow," I Pet. i. II; so that the apostles, filled with the Holy Ghost, have here expressly declared what glory that is which should be teftified after the sufferings of Christ, even that the spirit which proceedeth from the Father is the spirit of Christ, therefore one with the Father, God. But our Saviour himself, as if determined to put the matter out of doubt, by preparing the ears of his audience to hear the testimony of the Holy Ghofst concerning him, declares that "he shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath, are mine: therefore faid I, that he shall take of mine, and shew it unto you," John xvi. 14, 15. XXVI. Our blessed Lord and Saviour, having taken our nature upon him, and having been in all points tempted like as we are, on the approach of that hour in which he was to be made perfect by suffering death for all men, and in which he was to finish the great end of his having come in the flesh, consoles himself by looking beyond his grave, and contemplating the glory that should follow; and as a man about to endure great afflictions, and, furmounting them, to take our nature " into heaven itself, now to appear in the prefence of God for us," Heb. ix. 24. addresses himself to that Being to which, as Man, he was inferior, saying, "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee," John xvii. 1. "And now, Ο Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was," John xvii. 5. "For thou lovedst me before the foundations of the world," John xvii. 24. The pre-existence 1 |