42G QUESTIONS CONCERNING JESUS. church ; I conceive that more honour is done him by searching- out that true and exact meaning of his own words whichthis. heavenly Teacher designed to convey to us, thanby persuading the world to read his eternal godhead in those places where he did net design to reveal and express it to men. QUEST. ILDid the Disciples of Christ fully 'believe that he was the True Godduring his. Life-time, or not till after his Death and Resurrection? IN order to solve this question, let us make these following enquiries, viz. I. What notion the Jews had of their Messiah in general. H. What ideas or notions Christ taught hisdisci- ples concerning himself. III. What apprehensions or notions the disciples received and embraced. concerning Christ. IV. What indications they may be supposed to give tending toward the belief of his godhead. V. What indications they give of their ignorance or doubt of it, or at least what evidences there are of the fluctuation and uncertaintyof their faith in that mat- ter. Now by balancing these things one with another, we may at last come to form some true judgment about the present question. SECT. I.--The Jews' old Opinion concerning the Messiah. I. What notion had the Jews in general concerning their Messiah ? Answer. Though the Old Testament furnished them with sufficient propheciesconcerning his divine and human nature, his spiritual kingdom, his sufferings, his death and resurrection from the dead, yet so wretchedly blinded were they with thecorrupt glosses of their teachers, and with their own foolish prejudices, that they did agree in no notion concerning the Messiah more universally than in these false and mistaken ones, viz. that he was to be a glorious temporal Prince, that he was never to suffer, nor to (lie, and consequentlynot to rise again, and that he was to ex- alt their nation equal to or beyond its ancient grandeur , and to raise them to a temporal sovereignty over all the nations of the -earth. And the disciples themselves were so rooted in these mista- -ken notions, that nothing could quite cure them but the actual death and resurrection of Christ, his ascent to heaven, and his pouring down the enlightening,Spirit at the days of Pentecost. For we find it evident enough, that the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, hoped to be made great ministers of state, and sit at his right-hand and at his left, in a temporal kingdom ; Slat. xx. 21. We read that when our Lord spoke of his own
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