CHAPTER V.

Name of Christ-Its Compass and Power-Scriptural Language, how to be construed-Name includes both his Natures-Any Exceptions are created and explained by the Bible-No such Exception intimated in Case of his Sufferings-Christ's own Declarations, Luke, xxiv., 26, 46-His Name denotes Totality of his united Being, not one of its Parts--Union of his two Natures constituted holy Partnership, to which his Name was given-Name not applicable to the exclusive Suffering of the human Partner.

THE abounding scriptural declarations of the sufferings of Christ, just presented to the reader, are general and unqualified, without limit or exception. They cover all the consecrated ground covered by the name of the Christ. The reader has already learned that the name, the Christ, was imparted by the Holy Ghost to the infant Jesus, to designate his mysterious union of humanity with the Godhead. The name was commensurate with the infinitude of his united being. The limits and power of that redeeming, yet awful name, will be the theme of the present chapter. We shall attempt to show that, when applied by Scripture to the mediatorial sacrifice, the name itself, in its distinctive and wide-reaching signification, necessarily imports, ex vi termini, or from its own intrinsic compass and potency, the participation of both Christ's natures in his expiatory sufferings.

It must constantly be borne in mind, that what distinguished Christ from all other beings in the universe was his union of the divine and human natures. Earth teems with men, and the celestial throne sustains two other persons of the Godhead; but the unique phenomenon of a being, at once God and man, was first exhibited in the manger of Bethlehem, where it received, from the Holy Ghost, its distinctive appellation. It cannot be denied that the name, the Christ, and each of its equivalents, ordinarily includes both his natures. It must be admitted that, as a general rule, the term can only be satisfied by its application to his two natures unitedly; that the two natures are its natural aliment; that the name is crippled by confining it to his humanity alone; that his two natures are the divine and human pedestals on which this glorious name reposes in all the infinitude of its meaning.

The science of construing words, written and spoken, has been matured by the united wisdom of centuries. It is the use of words which elevates man above the brute, and on their just and uniform construction depend the stability and safety of all the transactions of social life. Of this useful science, the most simple, universal, and controlling axiom is its elemental rule, that words are to be construed according to their plain, obvious,

and ordinary import. No metaphysical subtilties are to make fluctuating the standard of speech. On this rule depends the security of deeds, the most important documents known in the private intercourse of living men; on this rule rests the sanctity of those hallowed bequests which come to us as voices from the dead; even legislative enactments lose all their value, and become dangerous snares when the inviolability of this cardinal rule is wantonly invaded.

This elemental axiom is, as it were, the human palladium of the oracles of revealed truth. That document, written by the hand of God to enlighten the common mind, should be ever meekly received by the children of men, according to the plain, obvious, and ordinary meaning of its sacred words. Its danguage is brief, simple, clear; well suited, if left unobscured by construction, to the level of ordinary understandings. Its phraseology was selected by the Holy Ghost, as best calculated to bring home even to the closets of uneducated piety the precepts and consolations of inspired wisdom in all their purity and force. It is the call of their heavenly Father to the lost and wandering sons and daughters of humanity. It has all the tenderness, and simplicity, and plainness of the parental voice. Unless clouded by human interpretation,

it well knows how to wind its way into the inmost recesses of the filial heart.

The words of scripture should be understood by us in the same manner as they were calculated to be understood by those to whom they were originally addressed. We are to receive them according to their apparent signification, not to hunt after some occult meaning. If they startle us by their loftiness of import, we must remember that they are the words of the unsearchable God. If they are" as high as heaven," we have no right to drag them rudely down to earth. To pursue the imagined spirit of a passage, in opposition to its plain letter, is an experiment that man should make with fear and trembling. He may, unwittingly, "add unto," or "take away from" that holy book which came down from above. Let him beware of the penalties denounced at the close of the last chapter of the New Testament-Revelation, xxii., 18, 19.

If the scriptural passages declarative of the sufferings of Christ are taken in their plain, obvious, and ordinary sense, they include, beyond peradventure, his divine nature as well as his humanity. The name of Christ is used by the inspired writers to indicate the length, and breadth, and height, and depth of his sufferings; and that name,

in its ordinary import, has no limits narrower than the whole compass of his united natures. Let a man of ordinary understanding, candid and intelligent, untinged by the unfounded hypothesis of God's impassibility, open his Bible; let him read there the oft-repeated, general, and unqualified declarations that Christ suffered; let him call to mind the peculiarity of Christ's being, uniting in himself the God and the man, and that this union, in all the elements of both its natures, is pervaded and represented by his distinctive appellation, and the inference seems to be inevitable, that he would come to the conclusion that the sufferings of Christ were as extensive as the import of his holy name. It doubtless would not occur to this plain and unbiased reader of the Bible that he was at liberty to narrow down, by his own fiat, to a particular and contracted meaning, declarations and words which the Holy Ghost left general and unlimited.

It is true that a few insulated cases are to be found in scripture where words expressive of Christ are applied peculiarly to his human nature. It is on this ground, as it would seem, that the advocates of the prevalent theory seek to bring under the same category the general and abounding scriptural declarations of his sufferings. We might reply that, in these few insulated cases, the distinctive name of Christ is almost never used; but