in Philip. ii. 9-11; Acts ii, 36: xiii. 32, 33, God having fulfilled the promise unto us, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee; having MADE that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ; and GIVEN him a name which is above every name, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, i. e. son and heir, (not LORD,) to the glory of God the FATHER, where it is evident that the Scripture terms, Christ the Son of God, and Lord and Christ are synonymous. And what is further implied of the Son, when St. Paul asks, But unto which of the angels said he at any time, Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool? Does it not imply that the Son never sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high before his exaltation from humiliation? Else would he not have had to descend for his humiliation before his victory over his enemies? And is not even the address to the Son as the LORD, (not Lord,) who laid the foundation of the earth, in the past tense, as though the creation had been finished prior to the Sonship?

Let us therefore "render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things which are God's:" and the eternal Sonship is Cæsar's own, who established it at the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, while the true nature of the Word of God no man knoweth but that Word of God which reveals it, so that it is useless to look for it in any human creeds or systems. He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son: and what Father and Son can there be in two Persons which are "neither afore nor after each other?" They who hold out for the genuineness of 1 John, v.9, will find a new enemy to the identity of the Word and Son. For the Word could not bear witness to the Son, unless it were distinct from him.

We thus see, that the Word is originally an ideal abstract Combination of God's natural attributes of Power and Wisdom (to which Holiness, as a necessary quality of these attributes in Deity, must be added,) existing in the Supreme Subsistence, the Universal Father, till it becomes realised in flesh in the Person of the Son of God, when according to the third class of texts it is derived from the preceding Subsistence, who then possesses its elements in the new relation of Particular Father. The constitutive holiness of the Son of God is plainly indicated at Mark, i. 24; Luke, iv. 34; Acts, ii. 27; iii. 14; iv. 27.

IV.

The SON OF GOD identical with the Supreme Subsistence, not CONSTITUTIVELY, but by ORIGIN.

1. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who being in the form of God, thought it no boot to be as God; but emptied himself, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. Philip. ii. 4-7. Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Heb. ii. 9, 16. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. 2 Cor. viii. 9. Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; where is the house that ye build unto me? Is. lxvi. 1. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD. Jerem. xxiii. 24. Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it upBut he spake of the temple of his body. John, ii. 19, 21.--II. And now O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory, which I had with thee before the world was. John, xvii. 5. A little while and ye shall not see me; and a little while and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. John, xvi. 16. I came forth from the Father and am come into the world; again I leave the world and go to the Father. John xvi. 28. Now is the Son of

Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. John, xiii. 31, 32.--1II. No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. John, iii. 13. I and my Father are one. John, x. 30. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Heb. xiii. 8. Before Abraham was, I am. John, viii. 58. All things that the Father hath are mine. John, xvi. 15. He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. John, xiv. 9, 11. Christ is all, and in all. Coloss. in. 11. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. John, xvii. 23. In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. John, xiv. 20. And of his fulness have all we received. John, i. 16. And ye are replete by him. Col. ii. 10. And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin. Rom. viii. 10. Christ liveth in me. Gal. ii. 20. Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye shall also continue in the Son and in the Father. 1 John, ii. 24. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ; This is the true God and eternal life. ì John, v. 20. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. 2 John, 9.

If the WORD had been from eternity any more than an ideal abstract combination of the natural attributes of God, with their necessary quality of holiness, that is to say, if it had possessed the attributes of eternity, infinity, and immutability as constituents, and not as accidents, it is absolutely impossible, that it could ever have resided in all its Pleroma or fulness in the temple of Christ's originate, finite, and mutable body, because it is a manifest absurdity to suppose, that a finite, derived, and mutable body could contain a constitutively infinite, eternal, and immutable being. On the other hand, as the natural attributes of God in their real, elemental state are necessarily eternal, infinite, and immutable, they could never give up their eternity, infinity, and immutability absolutely, but only relatively. Hence arises the paradoxical nature of the Son of God exhibited in the above texts: in the first and second class of which, he is said to have emptied himself of the form of God, on the assumption of humanity, and returned into it on his death, into God's self; and in the third of which he is represented as never having emptied himself of the form of God at all.

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But it is necessary to prove that the first and second class of texts have the signification which I have given them. The first passage, according to the authorized version, with its connexion is, Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross. But granting this to be the true rendering, it is plain that the form of a servant and the fashion as a man, are opposed to a preceding state which constituted the form of God, and that the making himself of no reputation, and humbling himself are contrasted with his thinking highly of himself, and putting himself on a footing with God. It is plain, that some change of state Christ had undergone from greatness to humility, in which his disinterestedness is made manifest, and which St. Paul exhibits as worthy of imitation to the Philippians. No one will affirm, that the form of God will relate to any state of Christ when he was in the form of a servant, else the inference designed to be drawn by the Philippians, and the con

trast will be destroyed. But then did Christ think less highly of himself when he humbled himself in the form of a servant? Did he no longer put himself on an equality with God? This is by no means the case; as it appears, that he even then made himself equal with God, saying that God was his Father, John, v. 18, that he and the Father were one, the Jews objecting to him, that he being a man, made himself God, John, x. 30, 33. Equal with God, cannot therefore be the true rendering in this case, as even the mere comparison of Scripture texts evinces. But the original proves that it is not. "I is not the usual method of expressing equality but similitude with, in the Greek of the Holy Scriptures in which latter sense it occurs, Job, x. 10; xiii. 28; xv. 16; xxix. 14; xi. 12; xiii. 12; xxviii. 2. John also expresses equal with God, John, v. 18, by "GOVT not by Ta as in Philip. Let it then be rendered he thought it not robbery to be as God; where the as has the proper relation to form which the equal with has not. But again, if in a state preceding that, in which he was found in fashion as a man, he was in the form of God, how could it have entered either his mind or Paul's, that it might have been a robbery to be equal with God, or to be as God, when he had never as yet been in any other form? Or how does this thought of presumption, I should rather call it, serve to introduce the account of his lowliness of mind, with the existence of which, Paul desired to impress the Philippians ? Is it not altogether out of place? Or how does it effect the designed contrast with the succeeding member of the sentence: He thought it not robbery to be as God, BUT took upon him the form of a servant? One would have thought, He thought it not robbery to be as God, but took upon him the form of God, would have been the run of the sentence. Some ancient interpreters of Scripture, however, as Gregory Naziazen, Theophylus, and Theodoret, have given the passage its true meaning, Who being in the form of God, thought it no BOOT to be as God, but emptied himself, (as is the literal translation,) and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, &c. thus exhibiting himself as an inimitable pattern of disinterestedness to all mankind.

But however we take the sentence, it is plain, that Christ, by assuming the form of MEN gave up the form of GOD. That the resignation of the form of God did not consist in the surrender of his equality with God, i. e. his equality as to all those attributes which constitute his divine Essence, viz. his holy knowledge, his holy power, and his holy authority, has been already shewn, since he has possessed all these with the form of a servant or of men. What then could be this form of God, of which Christ emptied himself? Why does not even the mere contrast of the form of a SERVANT or likeness of MEN with the form of GOD, or the bare expression form shew? Does it not allude entirely to the mode of God's subsistence every where personally at once? And was it not this form, of which Christ emptied himself, when all the fulness of the divine Essence dwelt in him bodily? when God, or the Word became manifest in finite flesh? Assuredly. And this explains our Lord's meaning, when he says, that he goes to the Father, because the Father is greater than he, i. e. because the Father is the grand source from whom all proceed, and into whom all return, and the Son a locomotive being. This also explains the para

dox of St. Paul in Heb. i. ii. who makes the Son so much better than the angels, and yet a little lower than they, the former regarding the Essence and the latter the Person. This also explains the glo. rification of Christ with God or in God's self on his decease,with the glory which he had with him before the world was.

For what could that glorifying in God's self, and with God's self, which Christ was at his betrayal about to resume, allude to? Surely, it could have nothing to do with his bodily form. For the Son of Man, or his human nature was already glorified, and God was glorified in him, by his participation of the attributes of the divine Essence in flesh; and his bodily form is not an original but an assumed form. And Christ even in his human form was always in the Father, in as much as the Father is all-comprehensive, Christ's corporeal ascent therefore, mentioned John, xx. 17, could not come up to the terms of Christ's glorification in God's self; for any ascent of Christ's body could not bring him closer to God than before. Besides, upon his ascent from the earth, he is not represented as in God's self (iv lavr); but upon (s Tov) the bosom of the Father. I hope no one will have such a poor opinion of Deity, as to imagine that Christ's original glory consisted in the diffusion of intense light around him, or any the like material and created effulgence, which is represented to us in Scripture only as an emblem of Christ's mental and eternal attributes. Even such would not come up to the terms of Christ's glorification in God's self. It remains therefore, that Christ's glorification in God's self alludes to the resolution of his individual Essence during his three days and a half demise into its original immensity, and identity with the Supreme Subsistence, of which he emptied himself when he assumed the human form, and of which he emptied himself again, when he resumed it on his resurrection. I do not deny, that Christ's corporeal ascent was a part of his act of departure from his disciples, to his Father and their Father, to his God and their God,' else his coming again to receive his disciples to himself, John, xiv. 3, would have happened on his resurrection, which Mary probably expecting it would, wished to embrace him as for ever again united to her, John xx, 17. But he had not yet ascended to his Father, as he had before predicted; in other words, he had not completed his departure, which was to be effected before he came again to receive us to himself. So also when he did come again by the Holy Spirit to establish that kingdom or place, which he had prepared for us by his death in the many mansions or regions of the God of the earth, his Father's house, John, xiv, 2, 3, 18, 16; Matt. xxviii, 20, he did not complete it corporeally, as he will do, when he raises us up at the last day to enjoy that kingdom for ever, and when we also shall reign corporeally, Rev. v. 10, as we have done spiritually, Rev. ii. 26, 27, upon the earth, turning the waters of nations into blood by our doctrines, and smiting the earth, Rome, with all plagues, as often as we will, Rev. xi. 6, setting up our thrones of judgment upon the Papacy by the Reformation, Dan. vii. 9, and still holding the winds of political convulsions in our fists.See CANDLESTICK 2.-Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? No-not even among the Evangelicals, the very spirituals, who cry day and night to him to avenge them, saying, Thy kingdom come," Luke, xviii. 7, 8.

For there is one grand error which runs through their system, both with regard to the nature of the Son of God, and the nature of the Son of God's kingdom, making the Son of God pure Deity, and the kingdom of God purely spiritual, when in reality, in both cases, it is the taking of the manhood into God;" the deification and spiritualization of the flesh, the taking of the kingdom of this world into the kingdom of heaven. It is an error similar to that of Hymeneus and Philetus, who made shipwreck of their faith, by making the resurrection already past, 2 Tim. ii. 17, a spiritual one no doubt.-See BRIDE. p. 108, &c.

Christ therefore emptied himself of the omnipresent subsistence of God, when he took the human form. But as that exceedingly philosophical and rational Book indited by the Spirit of Truth, the New Testament, shews in my third class of texts, he did it only relatively as the Son of God, but not absolutely as the Word or Essence of God, for in this he and the Father are still identical, and could not be otherwise from the very nature of the case, as I have already shewn.

To deny that the Son of God is God, because he is not constitutively omnipresent, is to deny that this table on which I write, occupies space, for a similar reason, as both God and space are commensurate. To deny also that the Son of God is God, because he is not constitutively eternal, is to deny, that God can exist in successive portions of time. To deny also that the Son of God is God, because he is not constitutively immutable, is to deny, that God can change his relations. If it be meant by these denials, that the Son of God is not the Father, we are agreed. Otherwise it is altogether an argument of Socinians, who are as bad philosophers as they are bad divines. Neither eternity, nor infinity, nor immutability are constituents of the Divine Essence, though Omnipotence, Omniscience and Holiness are. One thing

is distinguished from another by having properties which the other has not, else all things would be one and the same. God is not eternity, infinity, and immutability, for these are accidents common to space. The absurdity then of denying to the Son of God, his claim to divinity, when he has all the constituents of Deity, because he wants the accidents of a quality which has no substantial reality! But it is an old saying, and time has proved it true, that whom God wishes to destroy be makes mad. The truth is, the Son of God is only a relative state of the Supreme Being after all, though something more than an economical term; and Christ is an economical term, when applied to the Supreme Being before the Incarnation or Sonship, with reference to that state. The man Jesus also is nothing less than God humanised or man deified according to the different point of view in which we regard him, it being the same thing for God to assume the form of a man, as it is for a man to be endowed with divine attributes: and though men will make nonsense of the Bible, the Bible still speaks sense for itself after all, the Apostles thinking it no degradation on the one hand to the blessed Jesus, to say, that God hath made him both Lord and Christ, exalted him to be a Prince, nor blasphemy on the other, to say of the Word, that God was manifest in the flesh. And in such sort, if any human being were of a sudden endowed with the Infinite Mind, he would from that very moment feel conscious of having been coeval and identical with