If any man replies that those sayings of Christ may be interpreted differently, then I ask, What impression did Christ intend to give?  If He was a mere creature, how could He have used language to which it was possible to give such an interpretation as would imply Divinity?  Only imagine any other man on earth daring so to speak that his language could, with difficulty be interpreted as not necessarily implying his assumption of Divine attributes!  But Jesus certainly did so speak, and did give this impression to friend and foe; and He has left the same impression, in the form of a living faith, more indelibly on the mind of the Church than if it were engraven with a pen of iron on the rock for ever.  If this impression is blasphemy.  He himself, and none else, is to blame for having given it to the world.

3.  Consider Christ’s Person as it was seen by the apostles.  What did they believe regarding Him?  Yea or nay, did they recognise Him as Divine?

While quoting from their writings, I beg my readers to keep in mind the previous education of these remarkable men, in what may be termed the grand fundamental principle of the Mosaic legislation,—­viz., the worship of the one living and true God.

But, remembering this, let us hear some of the things said by the apostles about Jesus of Nazareth.

We shall begin with Paul.  His education was, if I may so speak, intensely Jewish.  He was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews.”  “After the strictest sect of his religion, he lived a Pharisee.”  So devoted was he to “the religion of his fathers,” so entirely one in his views of Christianity with the priesthood and men of authority, both civil and ecclesiastical, in Judea, that he thus describes his feelings with reference to Jesus:—­

“I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.  Which thing I also did in Jerusalem:  and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.  And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and, being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities,” (Acts xxvi. 9-11.)

Paul had never seen Jesus while He lived on earth; yet suddenly, and to the utter astonishment of friends and foes, he becomes a believer in His name, and ever after, for thirty years, until his death, preaches that name as the only one given whereby men can be saved.  Now, what did Paul say of the dignity of this Person?  A full reply to this question can be given only by reading his epistles, and there seeing how saturated they are with the Divine Presence of Jesus in every thought, every doctrine, every command, and every hope; and how His name occupies a place which that of no mere creature could occupy without manifest blasphemy; and how his own past, present, and future were seen by him in the light of Christ, without whom he would have been most miserable.  But a very few passages, out of many, may be selected from two or three of his shortest letters, to illustrate his teaching.  In writing to the Philippians, he says:—­