equal with the Father, and altogether one with him. In his Mediatorial capacity he is doubtless indebted to the Father's agency : for who knows not, who acknowledges not, that, as Mediator, he is the Father's "servant," sent to do his will™? But if we are so blind as not to be able to distinguish be- tween his essential nature as God, and his assumed office as Mediator, it is in vain to hope that we shall ever solve the difficulty in the text ourselves, or understand the solution of it which the Scriptures have afforded us.]
I now come to,
II. Shew the importance of the truth which is thus elicited —
This truth is at the very root of all our hopes, both in this world and the world to come : it is that on which depends,
1. The virtue of his atonement —
[If the Lord Jesus Christ be a mere creature, what virtue can there be in his blood to atone for the sins of men ? The Apostle tells us, that " it is not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sin." But, if the efficacy of the sa- crifice depended merely on the arbitrary appointment of God, he might as well have appointed one creature to make atone- ment as another : nor was there any such difference between one creature and another, that, whilst it was not possible for the blood of one to expiate even so much as one sin, the other should be sufficient to take away the sins of the whole world. On tliis supposition, there could be no force whatever in that argument which the Apostle, with so much confidence, ad- dresses to us : " If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh ; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God " ? " that is, if the blood of one creature availeth for the smallest thing, how much more shall the blood of another creature avail for the greatest ? In the argument so stated, there is not only no force, but not even common sense; and the appeal will recoil on the Apostle, to his own confusion. But, admitting the Divinity of Christ, the argument is incon- trovertible: for if the blood of any creature can effect the smallest thing, much more will the blood of the Creator, who is God as well as man, effect the greatest. Here the argu- ment is clear, and the appeal absolutely irresistible.
"' Isai. xlii. 1. " Heb. ix. 13, 14.