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with just as much propriety as "concerning the Son he "saith."

Mr. Yates adopts the ordinary Unitarian method of setting aside that most plain and convincing proof of JESUS being JEHOVAH, derived from comparing Isa. vi. 1-5. with John xii. 37-41. He may, if he please, call it a "remote de"duction" by which this proof is obtained. I still deny, as before, that it is a deduction at all. It is as plain and pointed a declaration as the Evangelist could have made, that the GLORY OF JEHOVAH, seen by the prophet, on the occasion referred to, was the GLORY OF CHRIST. "He saw "his glory," says the Evangelist, "and spake of him." Let the reader look at Isa. vi. and he will find in it a description of the GLORY which, on the occasion referred to, the prophet saw. But, according to Mr. Yates and his brethren, the glory which the Evangelist says Isaiah saw, was not at all the glory which Isaiah describes as having been seen by him, but something entirely different ;—and something too, it is remarkable, of which there is no mention whatever made in the whole of the vision there recorded. "He contemplated," says Mr. Yates, "the future glory of “Christ displayed in the performance of miracles." This, it seems, was the glory which he “saw,”—i. e. which he “fore"saw." Yet of this glory no notice is taken by the prophet in the passage:-not a word is said about it.

Can any thing, then, be more arbitrary than this? Isaiah tells us of the glory which he saw,-viz. the glory of JEHOVAH; and the Evangelist says, "These things said Esaias "when he saw his glory." Yet we must not suppose the glory mentioned in the two passages to be the same; but the glory mentioned by John to be something entirely different; and glory too which the prophet does not in

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the passage represent himself as having seen at all!-Yet these are the interpreters of Scripture, who reprimand us for our "remote deductions;" who represent us as "contriving "to deduce an argument" for the divinity of Jesus from "a "mysterious and far-fetched interpretation" of the Evangelist's words.-1 pity the man who, on weighing the comparative claims of the two interpretations, can satisfy himself with pronouncing ours a "patched-up argument," and giving it the go-by with a constrained admission that "cer"tainly the coincidences are a little remarkable, but that "they afford not the shadow of a proof that JESUS is JE"HOVAH.”—I repeat, with increased confidence, that "there "is no evading the inference which the comparison of "these passages forces upon our minds."

Mr. Yates's translation of Jer. xxiii. 6, "This is the "name whereby he shall be called, JEHOVAH IS OUR PROS"PERITY," seems a very unaccountable one. That "right❝eousness" is the usual, and the proper, rendering of the word which he translates "prosperity," is beyond question. Indeed, I know not of any instance in which it has the signification he annexes to it.-Blayney translates the verse

“And this is the name by which JEHOVAH shall call him, “OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS ;”—and he apologizes, on the ground of his obligation to faithfulness as a critic, for the offence which might be taken by some, at being deprived of this proof of the divinity of Christ. There is more plausibility in this version. Yet there does not appear to be any sufficient ground for departing from the ordinary translation." JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS," is an appellation which precisely corresponds with the phraseology of other passages such as, for example, Isa. xlv. 24, 25, "Surely "shall one say, IN JEHOVAH have I RIGHTEOUSNESS :—In

*

B b

"JEHOVAH shall all the seed of Israel BE JUSTIFIED, and "shall glory:"And the established version of the text seems to be quite as consistent as the other with the syntax and idiom of the Hebrew language.

With respect to the parallel passage in chap. xxxiii. 16. "This is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord "our Righteousness," the mere English reader will observe that the words "is the name" are supplementary. The verse is translated by Blayney, in consistency with his view of chap. xxiii. 6. "And this is he whom JEHOVAH shall "call OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." He says, the pronominal affix, (rendered she in our version) is not the feminine affix, but the masculine in the Chaldee form. Assuming this as correct, the words might be rendered, (and, as the same person is spoken of in both passages, under the same titles, it seems reasonable to harmonize them, when it can be done so simply)" This is he whom they shall call (or who "shall be called) Jehovah our Righteousness."-Others, however, considering the pronominal affix as feminine, would render the words-" This person who shall call her, is "Jehovah our Righteousness." "It is generally agreed," says Dr. Guyse, "that this" (viz. the ordinary version) “is "a very odd translation of that text, which ought to be "rendered, ' He who shall call her, is Jehovah our Right"eousness.' And so the Lord, or Jehovah, our Right❝eousness, is descriptive of Christ by that name, which it "was said in the xxiiid chapter he should be called by."* If, however, after all, the common version shall by any be retained, the meaning will be, on comparing it with chap. xxiii. 6,-that the grand characteristic distinction of

• Sermons on the Divinity of Christ; Sermon III. near the end,

the church of God is, that all its constituent members trust and glory in HIM who is there named "JEHOVAH THEIR “RIGHTEOUSNESS ;"-that the doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Jehovah in the human nature, is a fundamental article in its constitution, in the charter of its privileges and hopes;-that " JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUS"NESS" is the song and the boast of all the followers of the Captain of Salvation, the motto on the banners of the church militant;-banners which shall at length be suspended in the temple above, retaining their appropriate inscription, when the warfare of the church shall terminate in everlasting peace.

66

With regard to Zech. xiii. 7. "Awake, O sword, against

my Shepherd, and against THE MAN THAT IS MY FELLOW, "saith JEHOVAH OF HOSTS:" I am fully convinced myself, notwithstanding the authorities produced by Newcome to the contrary, that the passage refers to the sufferings of Christ, and to their consequences as to the nation of the Jews, and the true Israel:-and that the proper sense of the appellation "MY FELLOW" is, "the companion, equal, "compeer, of the Lord of hosts; the Son of the Father; "the Word that was with God, and was God;' -the same

"SHEPHERD" who is called "THE LORD GOD," in Isa. xl. 9-11.-But as the word translated "Fellow," is one which does not of itself necessarily imply equality, it might be difficult, on grounds merely critical, derived from the phraseology of the text itself, to establish the justice of this interpretation to the satisfaction of those who are not previously convinced of the great and blessed truth for which I am contending. Mr. Yates says, that, "to produce this passage as one in which the

* Scott's Commentary on the text.

198

❝ther, exclusive of the Son, who said, 'I sware by myself,?
“or ́ as I live,'' every knee shall bow to me,' &c. this
"would have been so far from proving, as the apostle in-
“tends and argues, that we shall all stand before the judg-
"ment-seat of Christ,' that it would have proved just the con-

trary; because Christ is not that God that there sware by
"himself, and consequently not that God, whom by that oath
"we are obliged to stand before, and bow the knee, and con-
❝fess to. But if Christ is that God who there'sware that every
"knee should bow, and every tongue confess to him,' then
"the proof is cogent and unanswerable, that we all shall stand
“before his judgment-seat.”

On 1 Cor. i. 30, 31. compared with Isa. xlv. 25. Mr. Yates
simply says, "That the title LORD is here equivalent to JEHO-
“VAH, is evident from the passage of Isaiah alluded to by the

apostie, Isa. xlv. 25. The meaning evidently is, that
** men should glory in God, by whom Christ has been made unto
↔ them wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and re-
← demption." Page 201. But this is not by any means so very
clear. Christ is, in the 30th verse, designated as our "righte-
** eusness,” (which, as distinguished from sanctification, means
** our justi toation."-The passage in Isaiah says, "IN THE
LORD JEHOVAH) shall all the seed of Israel BE JUSTIFIED."
CHRIST, then, is "JEHOVAH, in whom all the seed of Israel
* ARE JUSTIFIED, and in whom they glory.”

The application of the title "MY LORD," in Psal. cx. 1.
to CHRIST, made by Christ himself, and particularly no-
ticed by me, în closing this branch of the subject, Mr. Yates
passes over så sina He must either have felt it too much
fr him, or thought it too little,—The Pharisees of old were in
the former predicament.

Sermons on the Deity of Christ, Sermon III

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