of the gospel, men were enabled by the divine power residing in them to perform miracles, i. e. such works as man cannot do, to cure the most inveterate diseases by a word, without any application of human art, and to raise the dead. Although none of these acts imply a power equal to creation, yet as all of them imply a power more than human, they destroy the general principle of that argument, upon which creation is made an unequivocal proof of deity in him who creates. And it becomes a very uncertain conjecture, whether reasons perfectly unknown to us might not induce the Almighty to exert, by the ministry of a creature, powers exceeding in any given degree those by which the apostles of Jesus raised the dead.

But although I do not adopt the language of those who presume to say that the Almighty cannot employ a creature in creating other creatures, there appears to me, from the nature of the thing, a strong probability that this work was not accomplished by the ministry of a creature; and when to this probability is joined the manner in which the Scriptures uniformly speak of creation, and the style of those passages in which creation is ascribed to Jesus, there seems to arise from this simple proposition, that Christ is the Creator of the world, a conclusive argument that he is God.

I. A strong probability, from the nature of the thing, that the work of creation was not accomplished by the ministry of a creature. By creation we attain the knowledge of God. In a course of fair reasoning, proceeding upon the natural sentiments of the human mind, we infer from the existence of a world which was made the existence of a Being who is without beginning. But this reasoning is interrupted, in a manner of which the light of nature gives no warning, if that work which to us is the natural proof of a Being who exists necessarily, was accomplished by a creature, i. e. by one who owes his being, the manner of his being, and the degree of his power entirely to the will of another. By this intervention of a creature between the true God and the creation, we are brought back to the principles of Gnosticism, which separated the Creator of the world. from the Supreme God; and the necessary consequence of considering the Creator of the world as a creature is, that, instead of the security and comfort which arise from the fundamental principle of sound theism, we are left in uncertainty with regard to the wisdom and power of the Creator, to entertain a suspicion that he may not have executed in the best manner that which was committed to him, that he may be unable to preserve his work from destruction or alteration, and that some future arrangements may substitute in place of all that he has made, another world more fair, or other inhabitants more perfect. It is not probable that the uncertainty and suspicion, which necessarily adhere to all the modifications of the Gnostic system, would be adopted in a Divine Revelation; that a doctrine which combats many particular errors of Gnosticism would interweave into its constitution this radical defect, and would pollute the source of virtue and consolation which natural religion opens, by teaching us that the heavens and the earth are the work, not of the God and Father of all, but of an inferior minister of his power, removed, as every creature must be, at an infinite distance from his glory.

II. This presumption, which, however strong it appears, would not of itself warrant us to form any conclusion, is very much confirmed, when we attend to the manner in which the Scriptures uniformly speak of creation. You will recollect, that in the Old Testament, Maker of heaven and earth is the characteristic of the true God, by which he is distinguished from idols. "The Lord," says Jeremiah, "is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting King. The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion." Jer. x. 10, 11, 12. Jer. x. 10, 11, 12. Creation is uniformly spoken of as the work of God alone.* And it is stated as the proof of his being, and the ground of our trust in him.t "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy-work. The sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. O Lord, how manifold are thy works: in wisdom hast thou made them all." I have selected only a few striking passages. But they accord with the whole strain of the poetical books of the Old Testament and the apostle Paul states the argument contained in them, when he says to the Romans, i. 20. "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." The things made by God are to us the exhibition of his eternal power; and a few verses after, when he is speaking of the worship of the heathen, the form of his expression intimates that no being intervenes between the creature and the Creator. "They served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever;" τον κτίσαντα, ὡς εστιν ευλογητος ως τους αιώνας. I have only to add, that the book of Revelation states creation as the ground of that praise which is offered by the angels in heaven. "The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."§

III. The style of the three passages of the New Testament, in which creation is ascribed to Jesus Christ, does not admit of our considering him as a creature. In the first of the three passages, Jesus is called God. It is admitted that the word God is used in Scripture in an inferior sense, to denote an idol, which exists only in the imagination of him by whom it is worshipped as a god, and to denote a man raised by office far above others. But it has been justly observed, that the arrangement of John's words renders it impossible to affix any other than the highest sense to Oros in this place. In the first verse of John, the last word of the preceding clause is made the first of that which follows. Εν αρχή ην ὁ λόγος, και ὁ λογος ην προς τον Θεον, και Θεος .

* Job. xxxviii. Isaiah xl. 12; xliv. 24.
Psalm, xix. xcv. civ.

Isaiah xl. 26. Jer. xiv. 22.
Rev. iv. 10, 11.

ὴν ὁ λόγος,

There must be a purpose to mislead, in a writer who with this arrangement has a different meaning to os at the end of the second, and at the beginning of the third clause. The want of the article is of no importance. For in the sixth verse of that chapter, and in numberless other places, os without the article is applied to God the Father. In the second passage, Jesus is called x TOU EQU του αοράτου. And in the third απαυγασμα της δόξης, και χαρακτης της υποστάσεως αυτού, phrases which must be understood in a sense very far removed from the full import of the figure, unless they imply a sameness of nature. In the second passage, it is said that all things were made di avrov, a phrase which might apply to a creature whom the Almighty chose to employ as his minister. But it is said in the same passage, that they were made es autov, which signifies that he was much more than an instrument, and that his glory was an end for which things were made. It is said also, navra v aute ovverηxe, which implies that his power is not occasional and precarious, but that he is able to preserve what he has made, and so may be an object of trust to his creatures. the third passage, it is said that God made the worlds by the Son. But the quotation from the Psalms adduced in proof of this position, represents the Son as the Creator; and as in no degree susceptible of the changes to which his works are subject. "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail."

In

When you take, in conjunction with the strong probability that the Creator of the world is not a creature, the language of the Old Testament, which makes creation the work of the true God, and the language of the New Testament, where creation is ascribed to Jesus, you discover the traces of a system which reconciles the apparent discordance. Jesus Christ is essentially God, always with the Father, united with him in nature, in perfections, in counsel, and in operations." Whatsoever things the Father doth, these also doeth the Son likewise." The Father acts by the Son, and the Son, in creating the world, displayed that power and Godhead which from eternity resided in him. If this system be true, then creation, the characteristical mark of the Almighty, may, in perfect consistency with the passages quoted from the Old Testament, be ascribed to Jesus, because, although the Father is said to have created the world by him, upon account of the union in all their operations, yet he is not a creature subservient to the will of another, but himself "the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth." This system is delivered in the earliest Christian writers. "The Father had no need," they say, "of the assistance of angels to make the things which he had determined to be made; for the Son and the Spirit are always with him, by whom and in whom he freely made all things, to whom he speaks when he says, Let us make man after our image; and who are one with him, because it is added, So God created man in his own image."t

* John v. 19.

† Irenæus, lib. iv. cap. 20, edit. Massuet.

We require more evidence than we have yet attained, before we can pronounce that this system is true. You will only bear in mind, that it is suggested in all the passages of the New Testament, which give an account of the creation of the world by Jesus Christ; and that if it shall appear to be supported by sufficient evidence, it reconciles that account with the natural impressions of the human mind, and the declarations of Scripture concerning the extent of power and the supremacy of character implied in the act of creation.

CHAPTER V.

ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE.

Administration of Providence.

THOSE passages, from which we learnt that Jesus is the Creator of the world, taught us also to consider him as the Preserver of all the things which he made. This last character implies a continued agency, and resolves all that care of Providence by which the creatures have been supported from the beginning, into actions performed by Jesus in a state of pre-existence. There is nothing in the ordinary course of nature which indicates the agency of this person; there is no part of the principles of natural religion which requires that we should distinguish his agency from the power of the Almighty Father of all; and therefore, the Scriptures, in speaking of those interpositions of Providence which respect the material world, and the life of the different animals, are not accustomed to direct our attention particularly to that Person, by whom the divine power is exerted. But they do intimate, that the particular economy of Providence, which respects the restoration of the human race, was administered in all ages by that Person, by whose manifestation it was accomplished: and upon these intimations is founded an opinion which, since the days of the apostles, has been held by almost every Christian writer who admits the pre-existence of Jesus, that he who in the fulness of time was made flesh, appeared to the patriarchs, gave the law from Mount Sinai, spake by the prophets, and maintained the whole of that intercourse with mankind, which is recorded in the Old Testament as preparatory to the coming of the Messiah.

The early date of this opinion, and the general consent with which it has been received, the frequent mention made of it in theological books, the uniformity which it gives to the conduct of the great plan of redemption, and the extent of that information which it promises to open, all conspire to draw our attention to it, and induce me to lay before you the grounds upon which it rests. They consist not of explicit declarations of Scripture, sufficient by themselves to establish the opinion, but of an induction of particulars, which, although they may escape careless readers, seem intended to unfold to those who search the Scriptures, a view both of that active love towards the human race which characterizes the Saviour of the world, and of the original dignity of his person.

The general principles of this opinion are these. God, the Father, is represented in Scripture as "invisible, whom no man hath seen at