444 QUESTIONS CONC4RNING JESUS. days of Pentecost, the apostles by degrees had more divine light let into their .souls by the Holy Spirit, whereby they arrived at a fuller knowledge of the glory of his person and his godhead; yet it is very probable that the ideawhich I have before described, is the highest.they attained in his life-time; and that not only op the account of the arguments I have used already, but because this notion was.so fixed and rooted in,their minds, (hat they ge- lierally described our Lord Jesus Christ in this manner, in all their first ministrations of the gospel, andthey thought it proper to teach others in the same manner .as they had learned. SoSt. Peter, Acts ii. 22. tells the men of Israel, Jesus of Nazareth was a man approved of God among you by miracles, andwon¿- ,ders, and signs which God did by km in the, midst of you, as ye yourselves know; :ver. 24. whom God 'has raised up, having loosed the pains. of.death: Again; Actsiii.'13. The God of our fathers kath gloried his Sin Jesus whom ye delivered up, 8(c. And he cites Moses to skew what he was; vet. 22. A prophet shall the Lord your God taise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me: So when he preached to Cornelius a Roman; Acts x. 38. God hatis anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and Withpolder, :who went about doing góod, and healing all that were oppressesi withkhedevil, for God was with him, 4c. And St. Paul himself preached Christ under this inferior' cbaräeter 'atfirst, though he came not a whit behind the chiefest of the apostles in knowledge ; 2 Corr xii. 11.. andGal. ii. 6. In his sermon atAthens, he says, God bathappointed a day in which he will'judge the world in righteousness, by that man Whom he kath ö'rdained; whereof-he bath given assuranceunto all men, in .that he lath raised himfrom the dead Acts, xvii. 31. Thus they begun with the human nature and the 'officesof Christ; and the 'peculiar assisting presence of God with him, before they taught any thingof the mysteryOf his own godheador personal union with the divine nature. And indeed there is a good deàl of reason, why they should not at first reveal and display the glorious doctrine of the Trinity end° the godhead of .Jesus, though they had known it ever to well. It was not fit they should break in all at once upon the blind Jewish nation, nor nponthe blinder Gentiles, with the blaze . of Christ's divinity. For, to speak humanly, it would have fillèd the minds of strangers with surprising doubts and scruples, and raised in them an utter prejudice against all further attention to the gospel, if they had been told at first of tbreè'personawhowere each of them the true God, and yet ill three but one God *. ,t There is a remarkable instance to this purpose in the Conferences of the Halvah missionaries 'with thebeáthent of Malabar." The missionary speaking of the Son of God, the Malabarian replied, Who is bis Son ?'and is he ate. God Missiunary. He is God blessed for ever. Malabarian. But pray Sir, recollect
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