Adam; that he was a man in the same sense of the word in which it was applied by St. Paul to Adam, and in which it is commonly applied to all the sons of Adam. We may reasonably presume that the apostle, in speaking of Adam and Christ, with respect to their natures, if he had known of any material distinction between them, would have been no less attentive to the circumstances of opposition than to those of resemblance. That instead of saying, ' As by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead,' he would have said, 'Although by man came death, the resurrection of the dead came by a person of a nature far superior to that of man 15,'

.

5. Philipp. iii. 20, 21. "-the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like to his own glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”

6. 1 Thess. iv. 16. "For the Lord himself shall descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."

7. 2 Cor. iv. 14. "Knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you." See also John v. 21. 1 Cor. xv. 14-26. Rev. i. 17, 18. Rom. xiv. 9.

Dr. Price observes, Serm. p. 147, that the power which the Scriptures teach us that Christ possesses, of raising to life all who have died, and all who will die, is equivalent to the power of creating a world. How inconsistent is it to allow to him one of those powers, and at the same time to question whether he could have possessed the other!

Dr. Priestley replies, Letters, p. 142, that Dr. Price acknowledges that the power by which Christ raised the

15 See Mr. Tyrwhitt's admirable Dissertation on this text, in Commentaries and Essays, vol. ii. p. 15.

dead

dead when he was on earth" was not properly his own, but that of his Father, who was in him, or acted by him." It may also be added, that the Scriptures teach that Christ is to raise the dead, but not that he made the world.

IV. Jesus Christ is appointed to the Office of universal Judge, and to dispense the Rewards and Punishments of a future Life: an Office to which, as many think, it is incredible that a mere human Being should be advanced.

The passages which are usually understood to assert this doctrine are very numerous, and many of them are perhaps principally applicable to the destruction of Jerusalem. I shall produce some which appear to be most decisive, and refer to the rest. The fact itself is not disputed, that the Scriptures, taken in a literal sense, teach that Christ is to judge the world. The difficulty to be considered is, whether his elevation to this office can be reconciled to the doctrine of his simple and proper humanity.

1. Matt. xxv. 31, to the end. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats," &c.

This passage, in connexion with the preceding discourse, is interpreted by some as a scenical representation of the calamities which were shortly to overtake the Jewish nation, and of the escape of the Christians from the general desolation 16. But it is commonly understood as a figurative description of the final appearance of Christ to judge the world. Other texts to the same purpose in this

16 See Bishop Pearce's Comm. in loc. and Nisbett on the Coming of the Messiah, p. 140.

evangelist

evangelist are, Chap. vii. 22; xiii. 40, 41; xvi. 27; xxvi. 64. See also Mark xiii. 26; xiv. 62. Luke xxii. 70.

2. Lukeix. 26. "For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels." Matt. x. 33. Luke xii. 8; xxi. 36. Also Luke iii. 16, 17.

3. John v. 26, 27. "For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgement also, because he is the Son of Man. Marvel not at this:"&c.

"Because," says Archbishop Newcome," he hath assumed human nature." But the text gives no countenance to this gloss. The words are because he is,' not 'because he chose to be, the Son of Man.'

A few manuscripts of no great account, the Syriac and Armenian versions, and some of the Fathers, join the last clause of the 27th verse to the beginning of the 28th. q.d. "Marvel not at this, that he is the Son of Man." And Theophylact accuses Paul of Samosata of introducing this punctuation in order to countenance his Unitarian opini

ons.

But the charge is unproved, and the motive improbable. The best authorities favour the received punctuation: and the text implies that there is a peculiar propriety in delegating this office to a human being. Compare John

V. 22.

Grotius supposes an allusion to Daniel vii. 13, 14, and interprets the text of the advent of Christ for the destruction of Jerusalem.

4.

Acts i. 11. "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

This declaration is thought to assert in the most explicit

language

language the visible personal return of Christ. See Dr. Priestley's Not. in loc.

5. Acts xvii. 31. "Because he hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that MAN whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead."

'

6. Acts x. 40, 42. " Peter said to Cornelius, Him God raised up, and showed him openly ;-and he commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is he who was ordained by God to be the judge of the living and the dead."

7. Rom. ii. 16. "-in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." Compare chap. xiv. 10.

8. 1 Cor. i. 8. "that ye may be blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus." See chap. v. 5. 2 Cor. i. 14.

9. 2 Cor. v. 10. "For we must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."

10. 1 Thess. ii. 19. "For what is our hope, our joy, our crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?" Comp. chap. iv. 16.

11. 2 Thess. i. 6-10. "when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them who know not God,-who shall be punished with everlasting destruction,-when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe."

12. 2 Tim. iv. 1. "I charge thee before God and

the

the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearance, and his kingdom."

13. 1 Pet.i.7."--that the trial of your faith may be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ." See chap. v. 4.

14. Rev. i. 7. "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him," &c.

15. Rev. ii. 7. " To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life.”—See ver. 10. 17; chap. iii. 5. 12. 21; chap. xxii. 12, 13.

From these declarations it is concluded that Jesus is appointed to appear in person to raise the dead, to judge the world, and to award to every individual of the human race his final sentence of reward or punishment. This is an office of such transcendant dignity and importance, and requires powers so far superior to any thing which we can conceive to belong to a mere human being, however meritorious and exalted, that to many it appears utterly incredible that such an office should be assigned to one who was himself at one time a peccable and fallible man, and, as such, liable to appear at the tribunal of eternal justice. The righteous judge of the whole earth, the unerring arbiter of the destinies of all the innumerable generations of mankind, must surely be himself a personage of rank far superior to any who shall then be summoned to his tribunal. This argument has appeared so forcible to some persons of much learning and reflection, that this consideration alone has prevented them from acceding to the Unitarian hypothesis, though they have acknowledged that particular texts might admit of a satisfactory explication upon Unitarian principles. That this is a great difficulty cannot be denied: but possibly it may be alleviated by attention to the following considerations:

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