many:' verse 28. where his ministry and his death are not represented as the consequences of a slavish condition, but of a generous condescension; and the force of the example here is expressly founded on this, that the Son of man was chief among them; he ministered to them therefore not as one bought in the market for servitude, but as chief among them, and doing the work, not of necessity, but of love.

From these two instances (and there are more such) it appears that the example of our Saviour's humility is not urged in Scripture on the representation of his condition to that of a slave, but on account of his being lord, and master, and chief, though he ministered unto others. But to go on.

St. Paul was, in his lordship's opinion, a perfect freeman, and a great contender for civil rights; and yet he says of himself that he had a great desire to know τὴν κοινωνίαν τῶν παθημárwv avrov, 'the fellowship of Christ's sufferings:' Phil. iii. 10. But if it was (as his lordship represents the case) part of Christ's sufferings to personate a slave, how could St. Paul pretend to desire the (kovwvíar) fellowship of his sufferings, who always behaved himself like so free a subject?

But if St. Paul, a freeborn subject, did partake in the sufferings' (as it is elsewhere expressed) of Christ, then the sufferings of Christ can yield his lordship no argument to say that Christ was represented as a slave in Scripture. And pray which of Christ's sufferings prove any thing like slavery to be his condition? He was accused and condemned by false evidence; so was Naboth, yet he was no slave, for he had an estate in land. He was scourged of the Jews; so was St. Paul three times, and yet he was free-born. Nay, the very form and process of our Saviour's trial proves that he neither was nor was taken to be a slave; he was tried before the Roman governor, and so little was it suspected that he was a slave, or that his business here was to represent a slave, that the great accusation against him was that he pretended to be a king; and the Jews told Pilate that he was no friend to Cæsar if he let so dangerous a man to the government escape. All this is doubtless very like the trial of a slave! Let us then look back to his birth : he was of the house and lineage of David, as free a family at least as any in the country; and that the Jews were no slaves, you

We be Abraham's

have their own testimony, John viii. 33. seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, ye shall be made free?" His reputed father was of a trade that probably kept him and his family above necessity; for though our Lord was on his birth laid in a manger, yet that happened not through the extreme poverty of his parents, but through the crowd of people at Bethlehem, which was so great that there was no room in the inn. But suppose the family to have been never so poor, (and rich it certainly was not,) yet many freeborn families are exceeding poor in every nation. During his childhood he lived with his parents as other children do; when he appeared in the world, and did things to the astonishment of the Jews, many said, is not this the carpenter's son?' But we do not find that any one suspected him to be a slave, or inquired who his master was? And yet, had there been room for such a suggestion, the Jews, who were disposed to upbraid him and lessen him in the eyes of the people, would rather have said, is not this a mere slave,' than is not this the carpenter's son.' Our Saviour himself, speaking of his lowest state, says, 'the Son of man hath not where to lay his head:' but poverty and slavery are two things, and there is a great difference between having no money, and being sold for money in the market. Besides, slaves were not to seek where to lay their heads; they were fixed to the houses of their masters, and it was part of their duty to know and to keep their home. On the whole, I cannot imagine on what passages his lordship builds, when he says in his book that our Lord is pleased frequently to describe his own low estate by the condition of slaves;" or when he says "here (in his Answer) that the New Testament itself represents the low estate of Christ --by the condition of slaves." His lordship has not thought fit either in his book or in his Answer to produce one single passage where our Saviour does so describe himself; and but one passage (which shall be considered presently) from the whole Testament, where it is pretended that he is so described, and that too nothing to the purpose. And yet he makes no scruple to say, "if it be a crime to represent the condition and example of our blessed Lord as I have done, the imputation of the accuser (that is, rov diaßóλov) falls on the New Testament, and not on me :" Answer p. 14. But as great an accuser or

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Siúßodos as I am, I wish his lordship had in this and in other instances shown no greater disrespect to the holy Scriptures than I have done. The reader sees here how frankly he throws the imputation from himself to the New Testament, though the New Testament has said nothing to give him a pretence for so doing. This is his lordship's common practice; I will give one famous instance, and will venture another charge of calumny for quoting his own words; "I thought it my greatest defence," says his lordship, "to shelter what I had said under the name of our common Lord and Master; and rather than express my reason (mind, reader,) in my own words, I chose rather to make use of his authority, and to say that, to apply worldly motives in the cases mentioned is to act contrary to the interests of true religion, as it is plainly opposite to the maxims on which Christ founded his kingdom.""* Whose are these words, I beseech you? His lordship seems to me to say that the words are not his, and I assure the reader they are not the words of Scripture; and as they are not the words of Scripture, so neither have they the authority of Scripture, but stand merely on his lordship's consequential reasonings. I leave his lordship now to account for this passage, and the reader to consider in what manner his lordship uses the name of our Lord and Master for a shelter.

I go on to the bishop's fourth and last reason: "that our Lord voluntarily put himself into that low, oppressed, helpless condition of a servant, and never accounted it his infamy, but his great glory, to be so spoken of. St. Paul particularly makes it his great reward.”

men.

His lordship here truly observes that our Saviour voluntarily suffered all that befel him. This indeed was the glory of his sufferings, that they were not, that they could not be imposed on him; but he chose them out of pure love and compassion to And this one consideration, if duly weighed, might have shown his lordship that our Saviour's sufferings were not like to the sufferings of a slave. Slaves suffer not voluntarily, but out of necessity: not out of love to those from whom they suffer, but because they can no way avoid it. This is the very circumstance on which St. Paul lays the stress in that passage

* Answer to Rep. p. 155.

referred to by the bishop; and therefore in that passage St. Paul considers him not suffering as a slave by the necessity of his condition, but as the freest among men, and suffering nothing but what he chose to suffer. This was his great glory, this was the ground of his great reward and exaltation; and when Christians find him thus represented to them in Scripture, as suffering every thing for their sakes out of his own free choice, how can they possibly conceive of him as a slave, as one sold into servitude, who has no will of his own, but must indure what the imperious will of another thinks fit to lay on him? Yes, his lordship will say; our Saviour, did suffer out of choice; and it was out of choice that he appeared as a slave. And for this he will quote (his only authority) the passage of St. Paul to the Philippians, chap. ii. that he (Christ) took on him the form of a servant,' &c.

To quote Scripture by the mere sound of words is to judge of Scripture by the ear, and not by the understanding. In our English translation of this passage we have the word servant, for which his lordship in his book puts the word slave as equivalent to it; and leads his reader to think that St. Paul represents our Saviour as taking on him the form of a slave, that is, of one who is not sui juris, but is bought and sold in the market for the service of a private master; and yet certain it is that nothing can be more disagreeable to St. Paul's sense than this interpretation of his words. The Apostle was not speaking to slaves peculiarly, and therefore had no occasion (supposing that he could truly have done it) to represent Christ under the form of a slave properly so called: he writes to all the 'servants (not slaves) of Jesus Christ at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons ;' and at chapter ii. he exhorts them not to bear the hardships of their servile condition patiently, but to be likeminded, to have the same love, to be of one accord, of one mind.' And lest pride (as it is naturally apt) should prevent their compliance with these duties, he adds, ver. 3. 'let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.' At ver. 5. he says, 'let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.' And in the following verses he sets forth his example, and shows that he did not rà avtoũ okotet̃v, ‘look on his own things,' but was

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content to lay aside his glory that he might do good to others. This is the Apostle's view; and now let us consider what he says of Christ. Thus he speaks, who being év μоpon Оεou, in the form of God'-eavròv ékévwoe, emptied himself, or voluntarily laid aside that divine form of glory, power, and majesty, and took on himself (willingly) μoppǹv doúλov, the form of a servant.' The form of a servant is here opposed, not to the form of a subject or of a freeman, but to the form of God. And I desire his lordship to consider whether the form of God be so little, so inconsiderable a thing, that the form of a servant, when opposed to it, must needs signify the form of a slave properly so called. With respect to God, the very highest beings are servants; servant is the impressed character of every creature, as supreme is the essential attribute of the Creator. When therefore the form of a servant is opposed to the form of God, it signifies a servant to God, and not a slave to men. And thus our Saviour himself describes his own service, that he came to do the will of God; nor is there a single instance to be found (that, I know of) where our Saviour appears to be subject to the will of man like a slave, but his whole subjection lay in submitting to the will of God his heavenly Father; for this reason he (who in the beginning was with God and was God) came down to men, and was made man. The author to the Hebrews, to show the great excellency of Christ above the angels of God, puts this question, to which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?' And again, 'I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son:' i. 5. This was the excellency of Christ, that he was the Son of God, and heir of all things, the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power:' ver. 3. But angels were not the sons of God in the same sense; they had not the μoppǹ Oeoũ, the brightness of his glory, but were all servants. 'Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?' ver. 14. Here you see that angels are distinguished from Christ, because he was the brightness of his Father's glory, the express image of his person, (ev poppy Oenu ;) but they were all ministering spirits (ev μopon douλwr) sent forth (by God) to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.' And thus

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