"The Psalm," he observes, (lxviii.) " commences with an address to God in the third person. At verse 7th he is addressed in the second person: the second person is retained till verse 11th, and is resumed again in this, the 18th verse. If one person be not addressed from the beginning, therefore, it is certain that he who ascended on high, identified by Paul as Christ, is God, who went forth before the people through the wilderness." How is it possible that the Editor, a diligent student of the Bible for thirty or forty years, should not know that, in addressing God, the third person and also the second are constantly used in immediate sequence, and that this variation is considered a rhetorical trope in Hebrew and Arabic, as well as in almost all the Asiatic languages, from being supposed to convey notions of the omnipresence and pervading influence of the Deity? To prove this assertion, I could quote a great many instances, even from the single book of Psalms, such as Psalm iii. 3-5, &c. and in a single ch. 2 Sam. xxii. 3, 49, in which God is addressed both in the second and third persons; but as the Editor might, perhaps, allege in those cases, though in defiance both of the idiom of the Hebrew and of common sense, that in all these instances, David in spirit meant the first and the second persons of the Godhead by the variety of persons, I shall quote the translation of some lines of the Qoran, by Sale, and of a Jewish prayer, in which the same variety of persons is used, and where it cannot be imagined that different persons of the Godhead are meant to be therein addressed. Alqoran, ch. 1.: "Praise be to God the Lord of all creatures,

the most merciful, the King of the day of judgment. Thee do we worship, and of thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom thou art incensed, not of those who go astray." Can Mohummud here be supposed to have alluded in spirit to the first and second persons of God, or has he not rather used those phrases according to the common practice of the language? The following lines are from a Jewish book of prayers, written in Hebrew, and translated into English.* "Sabbath morning service. Therefore, all whom God hath formed, shall glorify and bless him; they shall ascribe praise, honor, and glory, unto the King who hath formed all things, and who, through his holiness, causeth his people Israel to inherit rest on the holy sabbath. Thy name, O Lord our God! shall be sanctified." " "Morning service. His words also are living, permanent, faithful, and desirable forever, even unto all ages; as well those which he hath spoken concerning our ancestors, as those concerning us, our children, our generations, and the generations of the seed of Israel, thy servants, both the first and the last. " A thousand similar instances might be adduced.

In the Qoran, it is further remarkable that the same change of person is adopted when God is represented as speaking of himself. Alqoran, II. 5: "Set not up, therefore, any equals unto God against your own knowledge. If ye be in doubt concerning that revelation which we have sent down unto our servant, produce a chapter like unto it, and call upon your witnesses besides God, if ye say truth."Moreover, we find in the Jewish Scriptures, that in speaking of a third party, both the second and the third personal pronouns are sometimes used. Hosea ii. 15-17: " And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call * me no more Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name." Ver. 19: " And I will betroth thee unto me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies." The public may now judge what weight the argument of the Editor ought to carry with it, and whether I adduced only a "Jewish dream" in applying verse 18 originally to Moses, or whether the Editor rather has not founded his position on the ground of mere imagination. To me, as an Asiatic, nothing can appear more strange than an attempt to deduce the deity of Jesus from an address by David to the omnipresent God, couched in both the second and third persons. I will, moreover, confidently appeal to the context, to satisfy any unprejudiced person that the Psalmist, in verse 18th, had Moses alone in view.The Psalm, it will be recollected, was written on the specific occasion of the removal of the ark, which was done according to the instructions delivered to Moses by God on mount Sinai. David accordingly recapitulates, in the preceding verses of the Psalm, the wonderful mercies of God in delivering Israel from the Egyptians, and leading them towards the promised land. In verses 15-17, Sinai is thus mentioned: "The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill, as the hill of Bashan. Why leap ye, ye high hills? This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place." In verse 18, immediately after mention of the word Sinai, the holy place, he goes on, Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them;" -the very reason to which, in the Book of Exodus, the construction of the ark, whose removal was taking place, is assigned. From this it appears evident, that the gifts alluded to were those granted on mount Sinai; and the only question that remains is, Who was it that received those gifts for men? I leave this to be answered by the candid reader. There are, besides, many other passages in the writings of the Psalmist, where David, after addressing the Supreme Father of the universe, abruptly addresses himself to creatures, such as in Psalm lxviii. 28; iv. 1, 2; ix. 5, 6, 10, 11; lxvi. 15, 16; xci. 13, 14. There is nothing, therefore, unusual or strange in applying the verse in question, though originally relating to Moses, in an accommodated sense to Jesus.

To prove the figurative application of the term God to Jesus, and to other superior creatures, from the authority of the Saviour himself, I quoted (Second Appeal, page 169) John x. 34, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are Gods?" With a view to invalidate this argument, the Editor puts three questions (page 564). The first is, "What creatures of a superior nature are here termed Gods? Those that die like men." To this I answer, Yes; the term "God" is here applied to those chiefs of Israel who were men, and who consequently died like men; and from the very circumstance of their having had the appearance of man, and having been endowed with human feelings, as well as their having been, like men, liable to death, we are under the necessity of inferring that the application of the term "God" to them is figurative, and that it is by no means real, though we find them exalted by the terms, "the sons of the Most High" (Psalm lxxxii. 6*); " the first-born of God" (Exodus iv. 22); the "peculiar people of God, above all nations" (xix. 5); the "kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (ver, 6); and even by the most glorifying title of "Gods" (Psalm lxxxii. 6). Upon the same ground and the same principle, we must consider (if not biassed by prejudice) the use of the word "God," and "the Son of God," for Jesus, to be figurative, as he himself explained (John x. 34); for although Jesus was honored with abundantly high titles, yet he was in the appearance of man, and possessed of human feelings,