meaner chambers. Words these, purposes these, all unintelligible to thee, thou defamer of honest men, and to those who follow after thee in thy defamatory courses. But, to return from this defence of our method, to the fulfilment of it.

It is a thing worthy of remark, that the Lord should take to himself this title, which containeth the most absolute style of expressing the absolute Godhead. And seeing this title occurs no where but in the Revelations, and that, of those two verses included in the subject of our lecture, the one before us is spoken by the Lord himself, and the other by the Apostle; and seeing, moreover, that the Apostle's language in his introduction is entirely derived, as we have seen, from the style of his visions, we naturally infer that the disciple learned from his master, and that he used the style" which is, and which was, and which is to come," and applied it to the Father, because Christ had used it of, and applied it to, himself. John took the style of the seven Spirits from the Apocalypse (iv. 5); he took the style of the faithful Witness from the Apocalypse (iii. 14); he took the style of First-begotten from the dead from the Apocalypse (i. 18, and ii. 8); and he took the style, the Prince of the kings of the earth from the Apocalypse (xi. 15, xvii. 14); and doubtless the only other part of the style of Godhead which he useth, he took also from the Apocalypse (iv. 8), and from the passage before us, where, and where alone, it is found written, in all the Scriptures. This is an important remark, shewing us, that hereby is Christ known to be very God; not because the names of very God are taken and applied to him, but, which is far stronger, that the names applied to him are the names taken and given to God. That the name of a greater, should be taken and used, of a lesser, is the use and wont of language, because the greater includeth the lesser, but that the names and attributes of a lesser should be taken for the definition of a greater, is a contradiction in terms, and hath no place in the forms of logic. Moreover, this practice, of which we have an instance before us, of transferring the name of Christ to the Father, is and must be the universal rule: A name which man can comprehend, must be the name of a comprehensible being; but God, in the person of the Father,

is essentially incomprehensible, and therefore no such name can, in the first instance, be applicable to him, but must be applicable to the Godhead in its manifestation, that is, to Christ. The Old-Testament names of Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai, &c. are names of him who was to come, of him who was to be manifested in the flesh; which names being likewise appropriated to him who is the object of all worship, the invisible and incomprehensible God, whom Christ worshippeth as God; it cometh to pass, that we clearly discern, that Christ, though a creature as to one part of his subsistence, is very God as to another part of his subsistence; nay more, is the intelligible form of God, without whom God is unknown, inscrutable, without comfort, without application, without advantage to the creature. O my soul, rejoice to know that there is a God, by knowing that Jesus Christ is God. Rejoice, O my soul, to know, what God is for thee, for all that is dear to thee, by knowing how Jesus Christ carried himself to thee, to all that is dear to thee.

This name of Christ, "Which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty," we have already explained as it applies to the absolute and incomprehensible Godhead of the Father; but as it applies to the Son, subsisting in the Christ, it admits of a still further and more distinct explanation. Nearly the same form of expression occurs in Heb. xiii. 8: "Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever." And in Psalm cii. 25-27, concluding with these words: "Thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." These expressions are commonly applied to the person of the Son, as a co-eternal, coessential Person of the Godhead; but this is nothing more than to assert his absolute Divinity, whereas these, and other texts, are given not for this purpose alone, but for opening and unfolding the intelligible form of the Godhead which subsisteth in the Christ. If, as I have argued above, Godhead is unintelligible, save as it is seen and understood in the subsistence of Christ, the great object which an interpreter should have in view is not to find the absolute and unintelligible in Christ, but to explain the limited and intelligible subsistence which he hath taken. This fond propensity to identify Christ with the absolute Godhead, instead of shewing the absolute God

head revealed in Christ hath brought over the church an impatience of all exposition concerning the mysteries of Godhead revealed in Christ; so that upon whatever point of Christ's person you discourse, you are continually stopped with the alarm of meddling with things too high for human comprehension, and there is raised a loud murmur against entering into the only questions which can inform us with the knowledge or the love of God.-Oft as I have said it in this lecture, I say it again, that if the subsist ence of Christ is not studied, God is not known, and not being known, can neither be loved, nor yet obeyed. My chief, I had almost said exclusive, object, therefore, in this exposition is, to study Christ that I may know God; and what I know, believe and love; and what I know not, worship and adore. Now, in applying this title to the Father, I shewed that it was the best fitted to express that absolute being who calleth himself Jehovah, I am that I am; and whom the Apostle James designates "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning." In applying it to the person of the Son, considered not merely as God, but as subsisting in the Christ, I see many things contained in it :-" Which is," or literally, The Existing One. This is the same form of expression which is used John i. 18, which, literally rendered, is as follows: "God no one any how (or at any time) hath seen. The only begotten Son, he existing within (or inside) the bosom of the Father, that one hath (led him out) educed him." I think it is also the same attribute of being which is expressed in these words (John viii. 58): "Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." These expressions I consider to be used of him as the Christ, and to be parallel with those other expressions, First-born of every creature, Beginning of the creation of God; telling out to us this vast and mighty truth, that before the worlds the Godhead had a purpose filling his bosom, so to speak, that is to say including all actions, creations, and generations whatsoever, which ever out of God shall come, and that this all-continent purpose is itself contained in the Christ, or really is the Christ, of whom are all things, and in whom are all things, before they are produced into being. He is the unity of things

existent, which are but the pieces that compose the Mosaic of his one subsistence. In the bosom of the Father, he subsisted as the Christ, long before he was produced as such. Creation brought into being the rude substances of his visible person; the word of God, in the mouth of the prophets, brought the rude and imperfect forms of his invisible person. All word and work of God anterior to his birth of the Virgin, and his better birth from the dead, were but the germinations and buddings of that perfect Christ, who shall yet head up into himself all things which be in the heavens and on the earth. The utterance various of God's mouth, the creation diversified of God's hand, do tell nothing of God directly, but first they tell of Christ, who is the basis of their being; and he it is, who tells of God. He hath from the beginning a predestinated form, in the purpose of God. He is always the same, he is always the pleroma, the fulness of the Godhead in the body. The name, therefore, or rather the first letter of the name before us-to wit, which Is, or the Existing One,-seems to me to deny that there is any thing or being existent in itself, or of itself, but all existent in him, and for him. And that the devil, and his angels, and wicked men, however they go about to deny and to oppose it, have still their being from him, and the support of their being, in him. In grand demonstration of which, he will raise the bodies of the wicked from their graves, and by an act of his judgment and power, fix for ever the condition of wicked angels and wicked men in the unchangeable state of the second death. And unto all creatures whatsoever he will give their deathless standing; and so doing, will establish the great truth of our text, that he, and he only, is; that all other beings have from him their being, and by him in being are preserved. And herein lieth the importance of death, as an ordinance of God; in that the being of every creature is thereby arrested, negatived, held in suspension, proved impotent, its subsistence broken: its future subsistence made to rest only in a word of Christ's, that, when he comes, he will restore, re-constitute, and for ever confirm, in what manner it pleaseth him, the being of every creature. God saith of Christ, He only is; the creature saith of itself, I also am, death ariseth on the instant of the utterance of

this lie, and saith thou art not; and thus by death every creature is proved a liar, and by resurrection Christ only is proved true.

Next, by the expression "Which Was," or literally "The Was," this seems to me to be revealed concerning Christ; that not only is he the present being, but likewise the past being of every creature. If the former letter or syllable of his name, the Existing One, be understood of the instant now present, then, the next syllable "the Was," is to be understood of all time past; and "the Coming One," of all time to come, through the endless ages of eternity and then it will be exactly parallel with the expression, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." If, again, the expression, the existing One, be understood, as I rather incline to take it, of all time since existence out of God began, that is, since creation, then the expression "the was must refer to an existence anterior to creation, which existence he had within the bosom of the Father, as containing the whole purpose of the Godhead. And the Coming One will refer to that complete and perfect manifestation of himself, when he shall come again. I care not which of these interpretations be adopted, so that the one truth contained in the word be admitted: which truth is this, that Christ is not only the container of Godhead, but likewise the container of all creation. Yet so containing both, as not to mingle or confuse them with one another; and this through the distinctness of the two natures, human and divine, in the one person of the Son. This idea, which hath been so often brought before us in this lecture, is the very key of all the mysteries of God; and it is, moreover, the highest consolation of every creature, exhibiting God so very tender and careful, so very loving and kind, as to have cast away no creature, as it were, into the void and empty waste, but to have formed every thing according to a plan and purpose, yea, and to have knit and bound all creatures with one another;-yea, moreover, to have given them a place in the unity of the constitution of his own Son; yea, to have united them in one person, with the substance of his own Godhead ;-this, I say, exhibits the Creator as he is, most merciful and gracious to the meanest of his creatures. It shews him all love, all tenderness, all