I shall from thence shortly state, what was the consequence of reviling and blaspheming it; or what I consider to be the sin against the Holy Ghost: and address a few words to the Deists (who desire to be thought the only freethinkers of the age), and those who professedly write against them. (Chapter 4.) CHAPTER 1. ON THE NATURE OF THE TEACHING, AND SECTION I.-On the manner of our Lord's teaching; and the extent, to which He was understood, while He was still on Earth. OUR Saviour, by the Spirit, taught in the days of His flesh. The duties which He inculcated, were, indeed, very plain; but many of the truths which He taught, He taught in parables; and "without a parable spake He not unto them as they were able to hear (or to bear) it." These are what related to His kingdom; His administering it from the right hand of God, by the Spirit; its speedy success, and great extent; the reasonableness and freedom of its precepts; the great apostacy and the final consummation. And though He went farther with the disciples, expounding some of His parables privately unto them, as Mark also informs us; and as he and the other evangelists inform us, in several other places: yet our Sa Matt. xiii. 34. 2 Mark iv. 33. 3 Ibid. iv. 34. 20 Christ's Divinity to be always kept in view. viour told His disciples, just as He was going to leave them, that "He had many things to say unto them; but you cannot bear them now." Such were their prejudices, that by their influence they could as little bear them, as old bottles (old skins) could new wine; as our Saviour says of them on another occasion. So that just as He was going to them, He declares, concerning the mysteries of the kingdom of 'John xvi. 12. On the manner of our Lord's teaching see more particularly Bishop Law's Life of Christ, and Archbishop Newcome on the same subject. These eminent writers, however, have not sufficiently kept in view our Lord's divinity. They too much consider His wisdom, as that, only of a good and great man. In all our inquiries into our Lord's conduct, we must ever bear in mind, that He partook of the divine as well as of the human nature. As the doctrine of the divinity of Christ was one of the important truths which He came to establish, we find that many of His actions were directed apparently to this object. In the very lowest depths of His humiliation as a man, He gave a proof of His Godhead, by opening the kingdom of heaven to the penitent thief: and in his highest elevation upon earth, when the spirits from the invisible world had obeyed his summons, and the voice from Heaven proclaimed that He was a divine Being-in that hour, says the inspired narrative, He first revealed the astonishing fact, that He was to go up to Jerusalem, to be buffeted, and to be spit upon, as the lowest and the most degraded of criminals. Lord Barrington never loses sight of the divinity of Christ, to whatever part of His character or ministry, he may be directing the attention of his reader. 2 Matt. xix. 17. Misapprehensions of the people concerning Xt. 21 which He had been speaking: "These things have I spoken to you in proverbs: the time cometh when I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father." Nay, so strong were the prepossessions of His disciples, that they did not understand some of those things which our Saviour told them in the plainest terms; they being, by the means of their preconceptions, hid from them.2 The people thought, that Jesus of Nazareth was not Christ, because Elias was not come. They thought He could not be the Messias, because they imagined they knew His parents, that He was born at Nazareth, the meanest city in Galilee, the most despicable part of Palestine. They thought His appearance too mean and contemptible for the King of Israel, who, as they imagined, was to take temporal power, and deliver them from the yoke of the Romans; and who was to set up an universal monarchy, subduing the nations under them, and becoming their King and Governor, to continue such for ever. Jesus set the disciples right as to one of those things, namely, about Elias; yet He never attempted to set them right as to some of them; nor was He understood as to what He said to set them right about others. John xvi. 25. 2 Luke ix. 45. xviii. 34. SECTION II.—The Holy Spirit after the Ascension imparted to the Apostles, the knowledge of the great truths of redemption, and the majesty, and dignity of Jesus, the Messiah. When the Spirit of Truth was to come He was to guide His apostles into all truth;' to teach them all things; and to bring all things to their remembrance. He was to give them such a clear knowledge of the truth, as to remove all objections which might arise from the false traditions of the elders; or from mistaking the design and meaning of the law and the prophets. And therefore the Spirit then taught them, that Jesus was not only of the seed of David, according to the flesh, but that He was declared to be "the Son of God with power, when He was raised from the dead;"3 that He was raised to sit on David's throne, being exalted by the right hand of God, and made Lord (or the way of access to the Father, and of all communications from Him) and Christ; the anointed Prophet, High-priest, and King of His church; and a Prince and a Saviour, to grant repentance and remission of sins, together with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and eternal life, which God gives by Him, to all that obey Him :" or, as John xvi. 13. * Ibid. xv. 26. 3 Rom. i. 3, 4. Ibid. v. 31. |