His wonderful and Divine acts would have plainly proclaimed to them a present God:—as He Himself said to them, "or else believe me for the very works' sake."
That Jesus Christ was truly God appearing to men, that He was "God manifest in the flesh,"—is evident both from the language of the prophecies concerning Him, and from His own explicit declarations, as well as from His acts. In the prophet Isaiah, we have this striking declaration, "I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Saviour."[1] Here it is declared that there is no Saviour but God: was not Jesus Christ the Saviour? then He must have been God.—And who else, indeed, can be man's Saviour but God? Who else, if we reflect, could be a fit deliverer of all mankind from suffering and wretchedness, but a Being infinitely above mankind, that is. Divine? And who so fit to save, as He that created them,—salvation being, as it were, a re-creation? It matters not, that, in accomplishing that work, He put on a garb like man's, and appeared in the flesh on earth: this was necessary in order to accommodate Himself to those with whom He had to deal. But it is not the appearance, surely, that is the test of the character,—it is not the dress that makes the man: it is not the size or look of the outward form, that is any measure of the spirit within. The greatest human minds have dwelt in forms no larger than the meanest: Shakspeare had a body no greater than that of the simplest and most
- ↑ Isaiah xliii. 3, 10, 11.
