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well for us a little further to pursue its ramifications, and open the paths which lie around it. The Apostle says, "Whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God;" and a short consideration. of the meaning of glory, as applied to the infinite Jehovah, will lead us to much confirmation of the great truth we have followed, and shew the connection which, throughout the New Testament, is marked between the several acts recorded, and the Lord Jesus as the great end. It is said of him, he is "the Brightness of his Father's glory:" he says of himself, have glorified thee on the earth." Now, to glorify, in an earthly sense, is to add to the subject glorified something that is honourable and glorious. But to the all-perfect God nothing honourable or glorious can be added: he has in himself all perfection. Glory, as applied to him, cannot mean the adding any thing, but must intend the shewing forth the essential excellency of His Being. This consideration is of very momentous importance; as the misunderstanding of it leads to degrading and erroneous views of the all-perfect Jehovah, whilst the true reading leads to a recognition of the great purpose of "selfmanifestation:" and as the Lord Jesus is the Brightness of the Father's glory, he is thus seen to be the excellency and perfection of God-manifestation. The same testimony is borne by the Apostle, saying, " In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Every thing which is done to the glory of God, is done to the manifestation of Immanuel, as "the Brightness of the Father's glory, the express Image of his person."

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19. The commandment which is given to us is, "to believe on him whom the Father hath sent;" and, "He who believeth shall be saved; he who believeth not, shall be damned." Our Lord says, "This is eternal life, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." The judgment is more fully set forth "when he shall be revealed in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel." Thus God calls on all to believe, and denounces judgment on them who believe not. He will manifest himself to them who believe, in blessing; and he will manifest himself through those that believe not, in visiting his terrible judgments upon them. This is exactly parallel to his dealings with his people Israel and to Pharaoh. It is a direct revelation of one purpose in blessing and in cursing; blessing those who perform his law, and cursing those who despise it; but both unto the manifestation of his own excellency. This is the shewing forth of his power and wrath through the wicked, and the riches of his glory through his saints. To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, is to know him as God manifest in the flesh to our salvation. Christ says, "He who receiveth me, receiveth

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Him that sent me :" "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also." So that belief implies necessarily a recognition of the purpose of God-manifestation, and of Christ as its perfected accomplishment.

Many other are the texts and expositions which might be brought forward to establish this truth; but as it is a truth which only needs opening in order to lead to its own strengthening and improvement, and will be found to apply constantly in theological meditations, one text will be sufficient authority for its reception.

By those who are unused to the deeper parts of Revelation, I doubt not this subject will be assailed with a host of questions and deplorable difficulties; but to meet these neither space nor opportunity can be afforded in a preliminary treatise. I would simply suggest, that humble and earnest meditation on God's word, and prayer for the light and guidance of the Spirit of truth, will do more, for every sincere inquirer, than any lengthened explanation; and to inquirers not sincerely desirous of the truth from the love of it, we profess no regard.

20. I cannot, however, refrain from a short allusion to the mystery of the Trinity, in reference to God's purpose of selfmanifestation. The manifestation which is effected by means of the God-Man Christ Jesus, who is the Second Person in the adorable Trinity, is of the Trinity in Unity,-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. To those not accustomed to dwell upon the inestimable truth contained in the revelation of Trinity in Unity, it may never have been made matter of consideration how the Eternal Trinity, as One God, is unitedly, and yet separately as to persons, acting and concurring in every of those acts which are ascribed to God. A little reflection will convince us that there can be no act of any of the Divine Persons in which the other Divine Persons do not concur. This would be inconsistent with the Unity of God: there would be three Gods, not one God. In every of God's acts, the Trinity of Persons act an act which was not the act of the three God-Persons could not be an act of God. This is abundantly obvious, flowing necessarily from the idea of Trinity in Unity. When, therefore, in Scripture we find certain things specified as done by the Father, certain others by the Son, and others again by the Holy Ghost, we must remember the Trinity in the Unity, and that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in their due order, concur equally in all. That three Persons can and do always concur in the same act, arises from the Unity of the Godhead; and the Godhead is a whole made up of three Persons, who have each a personal distinctness, and yet are Unity of Godhead. As the personal distinctness is expressed by the distinct names" Father," Son," and "Holy Ghost," and the Unity by the one name

"God;" so we find from Scripture the distinct operation of each God-Person unto one act is, as to the Father" the willing," as to the Son "the subject or object," and as to the Holy Ghost "the means or proceeding." Defining this, then, as the order or method of Trinity acting in Unity, we may with propriety say, the order of all God's acts is, According to the will of the Father, in the person of the Son, through the operation of the Holy Ghost. So that in every distinct act the Trinity in Unity thus proceeds: Nothing is done by the Father but in the person of the Son, and through the Holy Ghost; nothing by the Son but according to the will of the Father, through the Holy Ghost; nothing by the Holy Ghost, but according to the Father's will, and in the person of the Son. Every act of each Person is in the Son as the subject. He (the Son) is properly the subject of all God's acts: "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." He is properly the subject, as well of gathering, as into which all shall be gathered. He is properly the subject of the manifestation of God.

20. a. As his works are not necessarily a part of his being, the essential being of God is wholly distinct from created things. God was when he alone was: he was before he conceived the purpose of creation. It is, then, the essential Being of God which was before and which is distinct from creation, which by creation is to be manifested.

As all God's works are perfect, the form of creation, the subsistence, and end of it, are such as will best manifest God: any other form, manner of subsistence, or end, would not so perfectly have manifested him. Every variety of creation is therefore to be traced to the immeasurable and incomprehensible Being of God, which requires such a variety to manifest it.

21. The Second Person in the Eternal Trinity having become flesh, and thus joined himself to the works of creation; having gone under death, and been raised again in the glory of the Father; certain relations have been assumed by the Second Person towards the works of creation; and certain relations to the Second Person, thus related, have been assumed by the other God-Persons in the Eternal Trinity. These assumed relations springing out of the purpose of creation, which was no part of the essential Being of God, are distinct from the essential relations which are in the essential Being of God. These assumed relations manifest the essential relations of the Eternal Trinity, but the essential relations are alone the subject of the ultimate purpose of self-manifestation. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are terms primarily applicable to the assumed relations, although accurately defining the essential relations, so far as a finite mind can conceive.

22. The precise nature and the form and relations which will

subsist in the Lord Jesus Christ as Head over his mystical body the church, and in the mystical body itself in all its different members, and in these members towards Christ, is a subject of inquiry which naturally arises out of the understanding that such is the fulness and end of all things. It is, too, an inquiry which, if successfully pursued, will open the glory of God in creation and providence, and cast over the scenes of this transient state a brilliant and enlivening ray. The knowledge of the relation which all things now bear to Christ, and which will be perfected in his fulness, is adapted to lead the mind from "nature up to nature's God," and impress upon all things a language of praise and thanksgiving. This it is which will lead to the practical application of the great truth we have been eliciting, and will abundantly answer all cavillers, who question to what end serveth it, by shewing that it bears a continual testimony to God, through every variety of being and of circumstance; and gives to the humble-minded Christian an insight into the reason why those things which appear dark and grievous are so, and will lead him to discern the glory which God has in them. This part of the inquiry must, however, necessarily be deferred, until the language of Scripture, literal and figurative, has been considered.

23. Thus far we may, however, without further inquiry, assure ourselves? That the end of all things in this fulness will be the perfected form of all created things. We have seen that the purpose to be answered by this fulness is God-manifestation. It is clear, then, that this perfected form of all created things will be the perfect manifestation of the assumed relations of the Eternal Trinity; and that this manifestation of the assumed relations will necessarily manifest the essential relations before spoken of.

24. Whatsoever difficulties, therefore, may exist, and whatsoever errors appear, in the attempt to open the relations and proportions of this headship and mystical body, we have no difficulty, and are in no danger of mistake, in holding fast the purpose which they are ordained to answer. We cannot in any way affect the glorious truth, which will constantly break in upon our meditation, That all creation leadeth to new creation new creation, to the manifestation of the Son as Head over all things, dwelt in of the Father, through the Holy Ghost; and this manifestation, to the shewing forth the glorious and ineffable Being of God, Trinity in Unity, Self-existing, and All in all; the eternal and only Substance and Reality, of which even new creation itself is but the shadow.

1;

ON THE TRUE HUMANITY OF CHRIST.

To the Editor of the Morning Watch.

Ir grieves me every day to find how unsound is the faith of many, how insecure and unsteady the faith of almost all, in the true humanity of Christ: for true humanity I must call it, because, though we know that humanity both hath existed and shall exist under a different condition than that in which it now is, and in all persons whatever hath hitherto been found, such states and conditions of it are true only as objects of faith and hope; not at all as objects of knowledge or experience. If it be said, that our Lord's human nature differed in any of its properties from ours-that it was as Adam's before it fell; or as ours shall be in the resurrection, immortal and incorruptible; or in any condition intermediate between these two, different from this fallen condition in which flesh ever hath been found, from the first man down to this present generation of men-then that may be called a supposititious or hypothetical, an imaginary humanity; but the humanity which I understand and know, it is not. It is something different from any thing which now existeth. It is a thing of whose existence I have not the knowledge or the experience. It is something new, strange, and unknown. A good enough subject, haply, for speculation and fancy; a subject also for faith, if it be the resurrection-humanity; but even in that case no subject for knowledge, because it is distinctly said, "We know not what we shall be."

Now, believing beyond a doubt that the eternal Son of God, in taking human nature, did as truly and literally take it of the Virgin's substance as he took his Divine nature before all worlds of the Father's substance; and that the properties of his mother's substance, body and soul, were as much the properties of Christ's human nature, considered in itself, without reference to the work wrought in it by the Holy Ghost, as the properties of his Divine nature were the same with the properties of the Eternal Father; I am, in the first place, grieved and cut to the heart to see the foundation of the orthodox faith overthrown; and I would rather die many times, than not testify against such a subversion. If, indeed, we made Christ a sinner, then all creeds were at an end, and all churches; and we were worthy to die the death of blasphemers, to be stoned by the multitude in the open face of day. But that is out of the question: only railers can utter it, only fools can take it in.-In the next place, I believe that my Lord did come down, and toil and sweat, and travail, in exceeding great sorrow, in this mass of iniquity with which I and every sinful man are oppressed; that this was his great work of humiliation and suffering: and, believing this, I were found a most unworthy and unfaithful witness to what hê did for me, and for all the world, did I not repudiate and resist

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