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tending through ages of very different character; from the tranquillity of Paradise, to the turbulent growth of society; and from the peaceful shades of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to the stormy fate of their posterity;-the other beginning with the word of redemption "which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee" (Acts x. 37), from the house of David, and from the person of Jesus, the habitation of the Word; descending from him to his cotemporaries, from the incarnate Word to his living witnesses, and to the primitive records in which they have transmitted to posterity "that which was from the beginning (says One of them), which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life. For the Life was MANIFESTED; and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us" (John I. i. 1, 2).

The first of these periods is a part of the preexistent of which we are considering, the mundane latent, impersonal or disembodied period; when the same Word which before was with God alone being in the world unknown (John i. 10), was company for man in all circumstances; with Adam first as the Tree of life in Paradise (Gen. ii. 9), and with the same also but on very different terms in his wretched exile (Ib. iii. 24, iv. 1); with Noah in the flood (Ib. viii. 1); with Abram in Haran (Ib. xii. 1), in Canaan (Ib. 7), in Hebron (Ib. xv. 1), in Gerar (Ib. xxi. 12), in his grove that he made at Beer-sheba (Ib. 22); if He was not with him every where. He was by an angel with Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness (Ib. xvi. 7) and with the same again by voice and by his compassionate Spirit and kind Providence (Ib. xxi. 17, &c.); with three angels and Abraham (Ib. xviii. 1); with Lot and two of them (Ib. xix. 1); with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by one (Ib. xxii. &c.) ; with the patriarchs generally by signs, by visions, by voices, by convictions. For the divine Word or Presence is not restricted to any medium, but necessarily indefinite.

VOL. III.

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An angel, a man, a whirlwind, a bush may be it, or a cloud no bigger than a man's hand (Kings I. xviii. 44); as either of these may be also presented in another shapean angel in the shape of a man, a man in any disguise, a whirlwind in a cloud, or a cloud in the wind, and a bush in flaming fire. It was by fire on mount Horeb (Exod. iii. 2), by thunderings and lightnings on the same or mount Sinai (Ib. xx. 18); and on Horeb or Sinai again in a still, small voice (Kings I. xix. 12);—in judgment with Samuel (Sam. I. iii. 19); in melody with David (Ib. xvi. 23); after him with different prophets in different guises (Heb. i. 1); until it finally abode in person with Christ (John i. 14; iv. 9, &c.).

The nearest similitude for the Son or Word before this period, namely before the present or personal state-that is, in the impersonal preexisting, whether as Son or Word or any other presence, for his relation to God the Father, and for his progression from him through the world, is given in the prophecy of Isaiah, God speaking as follows, namely,

"As the rain cometh down and the snow from Heaven, and returneth not thither; but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth" (Isai. lv. 10, 11).

Where we are to understand by "Heaven" an Elysium created by the divine Presence, and answering to the circumambient air; from which the rain and the snow, answering to the fruitful "Word," are generated or condensed; while by " My Mouth" the Divinity or Godhead, which is to the Son or Word what heaven so understood is to the snow and rain, may be denoted; being the same Subject in another type, one with the Father of whom, and one with the Spirit by whom the Son is generated: let us add, one also by communion, if not by mode or prescription with every letter or living drop of a minister that he has been pleased to shed among the nations of the earth

for their refreshment or edification, and also with those too who shall be edified and established in the faith by their means (John xvii. 18, &c.). For

=1, As every new drop that issues from the fountain of heaven is in the course of nature behind those which precede it, but without any essential inferiority to them, so will the mode of every intellectual being, whether corporeal or incorporeal, be; that is, at once both equal and subordinate to the fountain from which it proceeds, and to all the intervening progeny; subordinate, as coming after them in the line of causes, which is their progression, amounting to the same point with hereditary succession; and equal, as being all of the production of one Spirit in different modes or prescriptions; as St. Paul observes, writing on spiritual gifts, v. g. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit . . . . But the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word (λoyos) of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge by the same Spirit... dividing to every man severally as He will" (Cor. I. xii. 4, &c.).

=2, As no fountain doth "send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter" (Jam. iii. 11), we are to regard every intellectual of what mode soever and however generated, as not only of one quality, but also of one nature or constitution in some respect with all above it, and with the fountainous spirit likewise, whether it be good or evil, from which it proceeds. Therefore it is idle, as St. Paul observes, for the people to glory in ministers who are rather their property, as they are Christ's, and Christ is God's (Cor. I. iii. 21, &c.). "For as the body is one, and hath many members; and all the members of that one body, being many are one body, so also is Christ" (Ib. xii. 12): says he. But

=3, It should still be remembered, that while we are all (that is, both men and ministers who believe) of God by Christ, included as it were in one word, namely of children or sons, there will be a difference, as before ex

plained, between one and the rest; not excepting among these the Father of the faithful himself by whom we believe, as by Christ (Gal. iii. 7, 29); and so far are Christ and Abraham from being equal in their divine preexistence. For as much as Christ drew his carnal life from Abraham, so much did Abraham and all the forementioned draw their spiritual life from Christ, having been born again in him to a second, a better and more enduring state. So that the generations between the first man and the second, or between Adam and Jesus Christ, are to be reckoned two ways, forward and backward, as they appear in the calendar and in the Gospel, from Adam to Jesus and from Jesus to Adam; in whose person being regenerated, the whole human race is born again of God conditionally (Ib.) through Christ. Christ having been made in the original order or purpose of God "heir of all things" (Heb. i. 2) and "first born of every creature" (Col. i. 15), at whatever period he came forth must have entailed or drawn after him all in succession from that period indifferently, or to the same effect. For, as on reversing the position of an army in line, the movement will be the same whether it file from the centre to front or rear; so we who follow and they who preceded the Subject shall mingle indiscriminately in his hallowed train; some drinking of “the Rock that came after," and some of the Rock that stood before-" the Rock of ages" (Isai. xxvi. 4); and all one, whether stricken by Moses (Num. xx. 11), or by an humble minister of Messias (Matt. xxviii. 19). "For (as St. Paul aptly remarks) if the First fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the Root be holy, so are the branches" (Rom. xi. 16).

It was therefore to this spiritual paternity that the Subject commonly imputed his priority: and with this understanding we may also conceive the person implied in Jesus Christ to have pre-existed, long before not only his own but any birth; mature in purpose though yet unborn, being fatherless and motherless like the king of Salem

"without father, without mother, without descent; having neither beginning of days, nor end of life" (Heb. vii. 3); always in being, and yet being a long while for to come. "Wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not; but a body hast thou prepared me" (Ib. x. 5). And this body may be regarded, not merely as an outward form, but as the complex person; as HIS PRIVATE LOGOS or description including and included by the divine, which was to be incarnate or made man, and partaking of others almost divine; as "the word of truth, meekness and righteousness" (Ps. xlv. 5). By which means the private, or peculiar Logos of the Subject, may be held to include that by which both he and all other subjects are included; or, as St. Paul desired, to apprehend that for which he is also apprehended of One above (Phil. iii. 12).

It was, no doubt, from a clear and distinct apprehension of that remote existence in which he was so specially included, and is by other children of God also succeeded, that the Subject ventured to tell the Jews as he did in the period to which we are approaching, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John viii. 58). For it can be no secret, that Abraham himself, not being a new creature, must have existed somehow before he was born, and in a personal mode too, if not in person, for the reason before assigned, whatever else may have befallen him in that stage of his existence. He was then less than a rose-bud, or at most but the mode of a person to be subsequently revealed, substantiated, or incarnate in the son of Terah, grandson of the first Nahor and brother of the second; being Abram first by name, but afterwards Abraham from the time that he received the promise of being made an universal blessing; but descending from God by Christ, the Eternal Word, he could not be otherwise than after him in a preexisting state, and consequently in his general life or being. Indeed our Saviour's saying would look like a quibble almost without some understanding of this sort. For if

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