church of old; and because he was essentially divine, notwithstanding the temporarily assumed form of a messenger or servant, he is styled the Angel-Jehovah, the Almighty, the Lord, the God of Abraham. Passages of this description would as soon prove that the body, as that the human soul of Christ, existed before he was born of a woman.

The reasoning, (if it may be called reasoning) of Dr. W. upon the fact that the Angel of the Covenant assumed a body for the purpose of making a divine revelation to Adam in the garden, to Abraham, to Lot, to Jacob, to Moses, to Gideon, Amos and Zechariah, is puerile. He remarks,

"That text, Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. very naturally leads us to this sense; God said to Moses, Behold I send an angel before thee to keep thee in the way, &c. obey his voice, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him.' Here is an angel or messenger sent by God the Father; that is certainly an inferior character, yet he is to be obeyed with reverence, for he can punish or pardon sins, this is a divine prerogative; and how does this angel come by it? It is not as he is an angel, or in his angelic nature, but it is because God's name is in him; this is given as the reason of this high prerogative. God is united to this glorious spirit or this human soul of Christ: now it is plain that Christ is called an angel in other places. He is the messenger or angel of the covenant, he is the angel of God's presence, so he is called Matt. iii. 1. and Is. lxiii. 9."

This might be called any thing but argument. Not the least evidence is offered to prove, that there was any human soul in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, that led Israel through the wilderness; and yet the Angel Jehovah, the Son of God, was the guide of his people.

The name of God is that which distinguishes him from all other beings, and is sometimes used to denote the thing intended by it: so that when it is said by Jehovah, my name is in him, we are to understand, that the Angel of the covenant is declared to possess the divine attributes and nature.

The only argument offered by Dr. W. under the first consideration, is an interrogation or two, to this ef

fect: "Does it not seem more congruous that a human soul should animate that body which eat and drank with Abraham under the tree, and should actuate those human limbs, when a man wrestled with Jacob," than that a divine person having only a divine nature should do it? "Is it not beneath the grandeur, decency and dignity of the supreme Majesty of heaven, to supply the place of such a human soul for the purposes or actions of animal nature? And that the great and eternal God himself in an immediate manner should converse in so humane and familiar a way as this angel did with several of the patriarchs? That the glorious and Almighty Godhead should itself animate a human body to visit Abraham, and tarry with him some hours under a tree, while his wife made cakes, and dressed the flesh of a calf for God to eat? That the eternal God animating a body should eat of the calf which was dressed with milk and butter; Gen. xvii. 1, 2, &c?" p. 586.

Good, little Watts, hadst thou a body now in thy state of celestial bliss, wouldst thou not blush to remember that such questions were penned by thy hand; and styled arguments for the pre-existence of the human soul of thy Divine Redeemer?

Can we think any instance of humiliation incredible in him, who became the babe of Bethlehem and the man of sorrows? Can we deem it beneath the dignity of the Godhead to have animated a perfectly pure frame, prepared by infinite wisdom and skill for the purpose, that he might evince his love to the father of the faithful, and his grandson, the Prince in prayer, while in that same God every insect, worm, and sinful man, lives, moves, and has his being?

Yet these almost impious questions are the first argument of Dr. Watts, and we suppose of Dr. Allison, to prove, that the human soul of Jesus Christ existed in the days of Abraham and Jacob.

"Consideration II. Christ, when he came into the world, is said to empty and divest himself of some glory which he had before his incarnation, in several places of scripture. Now if nothing but his divine nature existed before this time, this divine nature could not properly empty or divest itself of

any glory: therefore it must be his inferior nature, or his human soul, which did then exist and divest itself of its ancient glory for a season."

It should be remembered that Christ is one person for ever; and that he became a Mediator before the foundations of the world were laid. As Mediator he made all the worlds, for all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made which was made." John i. 3. When he did this he was the Word, but had not become flesh; i. e. had not taken human nature into union with the divine. As creator of the worlds Christ was glorious with his Father, and before his angels. He was governor of the nations, moreover, in his mediatorial office; and as such was served and glorified by the angels, from the time that the Father first introduced him to his ministering spirits in this capacity. When he brought in his Son to the morning stars, and revealed him to them as the Mediatorial Creator, Preserver and Governor of the future earth and race of man, he said, Let all the angels of God worship him, and they sang together, in joy. Indeed, before any creature of any order existed, the Mediator was anointed to the office which he subsequently fulfilled, and was glorious in the esteem of the Father, of himself, and of the Holy Spirit, both in his divine nature and covenant relation, as the appointed person by whom the world should be created, and the election of grace saved. Before this world was, and subsequently, until he became flesh, the Son of God was surrounded by such circumstances of glory and majesty as became his dignity. But he, (not his human nature, but this divine person of a divine nature,) was divested of these circumstances of glory and majesty, by shrouding his divinity in humanity, by becoming man, by being made under the law, and suffering here, in a state of temporary alienation from his own angelic subjects. In this sense he emptied himself; he laid aside his robes of light, and appeared rather as a man of sorrows, than as the mighty God. In relation to this glory, he as Mediator prayed, "O Father, glorify thou me with thy own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." John xvii. 5. It is true that "the divine naVOL. I.

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ture of Christ could not lose nor part with any essential glories;" and it is also true that the Divine Redeemer had many circumstantial glories with which he parted, when he left the more immediate residence of his Father, made earth his place of abode, and instead of the likeness of God, appeared in the form of a servant. Dr. Watts says, "we cannot suppose that the human nature in this place prays for a glory which it never had;" whence he infers, that the human nature of Christ had glory with the Father, before the world was; because it cannot be the divine nature that parted with this glory, nor can the divine nature pray for the restoration of it;" so that "it follows that the human nature had such an early existence and glory." p. 588.

The Doctor should first have proved that each nature of Christ either did, or could pray, as a distinct nature. As God he could no more pray to the Father, than the Father could pray to him. If he prayed merely as man, his prayers had in them but the merit of a holy human being, and could not have availed for any besides himself. We deny, however, that either nature of Christ distinctly prayed. It is a person, and not a nature that offers suppli cation. It was Christ, the God-Man-Mediator, that prayed: it was the one person, consisting of two natures, that said, "glorify thou me with thy own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was:" it was the same person, by whom God made the worlds, whose personality was not changed by the assumption of hu manity. He asked, that he who appeared a suffering per son on earth, might as God Man Mediator, be restored to the immediate presence of his Father; and to those circumstances of glory, honour and dignity, which surrounded him as the anointed Son of God, when he made the earth, gave the law from Sinai, and shone in all the unveiled brightness of the Godhead.

Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world, Dr. W. considers to be a passage of Scripture in confirmation of his doctrine; because "this would be a very small thing for Christ to say, as to his divine nature, or Godhead, that the Father loved him before the creation; but it is great and glorious, and every way suitable to

his purpose, to be spoken of him as a man, referring to his pre existent state and nature, for it gives a grand idea of him as the early and ancient object of his Father's love." p. 589. This is mere assertion, without a show of reasoning, or intimation of Scripture, to support it; and we might content ourselves with denying it. It would not be a small thing for Christ to say, that God loved him, as an object perfectly lovely in his divine nature; for it would be an intimation of his essential deity, for if there is none good but God, there is none else perfectly lovely; and surely, it is not a small thing to say of any one, that he is God! Besides, Christ may have intended, that the Father loved him in his mediatorial character, and for voluntarily accepting the office of the Redeemer of God's elect, before the foundation of the world.

Dr. W. next adduces the declaration, that Christ Jesus, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. Phill. ii. 5, 6, 7 But how does this prove the pre-existence of Christ's human Soul? Why, Dr. W. says, that it was his human Soul, which "was vested with a God-like form and glory in all former ages." We say, it was not, and now we are even: one affirmation is as much an argument in point as the other. It is a pity Dr. W. had not known what use to make of a general principle which he quotes from Dr. Owen, that "it is not the direct and immediate design of the apostle in this place (Heb. i. 3. and in similar passages, we add,) to treat absolutely of either nature of Christ, either divine or human, but only of his person: and though some things here expressed belong to his divine nature, some to his human; yet none of them are spoken as such, but are all considered as belonging to his person." It was one and the same person who was in the form of God, and who took upon himself the form of a servant. Different names are given to him, which are descriptive of different parts of his complex being, or of his offices; but they are all names of one person; so that when he is called the son of man, or the man Christ Jesus, his human