missioned his disciples to go and teach all nations. This was after his resurrection. "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." These words have, it must be confessed, the appearance of asserting that the whole control of the physical universe is committed to Christ. But this appearance entirely vanishes when we examine the original. The word there used is authority, not power. "All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth." More light is thrown upon this passage, when we consider that the phrase, “in heaven and in earth," was then, just as it is now, a phrase for universality; and means nothing more or less in this case than full authority for the purpose in hand, that of commissioning his disciples. It is equivalent, as I conceive, to what he said on another occasion, after his resurrection, as reported by John: "As my Father hath sent me, so send I you;" that is, with full authority.

Another text, which is thought to teach Christ's government of the physical universe, is found in the introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews. "Who, being the brightness of his (God's) glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power." But as it happens, the word here rendered upholding, has no such meaning, but means controlling, and it is said of Christ before his exaltation, when he was here on earth, and of course refers, not to his government of the universe, but to his miraculous powers, not of continuing the course of nature, but of interrupting it; and that he never professed to do by his own power, but by a power given him by God for

the occasion, as he expressly declared at the grave of Lazarus: "I thank thee that thou hast heard me." "All things," then, must be received, as it must in all similar cases, not as an absolute universal, but with those limitations which belong to the subject. Christians are said "to have an unction from the Holy One, and to know all things;" not to be absolutely omniscient, but to know all things that as Christians they ought to know. So Christ had an extensive control of physical nature, as extensive as was necessary for the purpose of substantiating his mission.

There is another sentence in Matthew, which, taken without limitation, would seem to assert that God had delivered up the universe to Christ. "All things are delivered unto me of my Father." But the connection teaches us with what restrictions this term of universal

ity is to be received in this case. In the first place, it must be restricted to knowledge; in the second place, to religious knowledge, that knowledge which is communicated by revelation ; and, in the third place, to that knowledge which is contained in Christianity, which respects God and Christ, and Christ's relations to God and to mankind. It occurs immediately after Christ's prayer, in which he thanks God for having revealed to the simple and the ignorant things which had been concealed from the wise. "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither

knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." All things then, here, does not refer to the material world at all, but is first to be restrained to subjects of knowledge, in the second place, to subjects of revelation, and in the third place, to those things which relate to God and Christ, and their relations to each other and to mankind.

Another instance of this restricted universality, is found in his prayer with his disciples. "As thou hast given him power over all flesh." Here, too, the superficial reader would suppose that Jesus meant to say that God had given him the physical government of the human race. But here, likewise, the word is not power, but authority. Authority to do what? A commission to teach and to save all mankind who are willing to be saved. "That he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." And how was he to give them eternal life? By teaching them. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." By communicating this knowledge, he was to bestow eternal life on all flesh, that is, all who would receive it. This explanation gives peculiar beauty to this prayer of Christ with his disciples the night before his crucifixion. "Father, the hour is come," not the hour of his suffering, but of his triumph, of his glorification. He forgets his own approaching suffering, and glances beyond to the glory that was to succeed, the spread and success of his religion." Glorify thy Son." Carry out thy great purpose of sanctifying and saving the world through me. "As thou hast given him authority over all flesh." As

thou hast made my commission coextensive with mankind, so let it be effectual to confer eternal blessedness on all who will receive it. There lay under this the thought of the extension of his kingdom to the Gentiles. This was to make a part of his glorification, as just before this he had said, when certain Greeks wished to be introduced to him, "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." By death, I shall cease to belong to the Jews, and become the common property of all mankind.

The language here furnishes a key to what was said of him on another occasion. Many times during his ministry, but especially during his last journey to Jerusalem, his disciples disputed which should be the greatest. To teach them humility, and what true greatness was to be in his kingdom, he first set a little child in the midst of them, and made him symbolic of the greatness of a Christian. He then, to teach the lesson of humility more effectually, took the place of a servant, and washed his disciples' feet. John, in relating this transaction, throws in the circumstances, which heightened his condescension, that notwithstanding the consciousness he felt of being so near the time of his glorification, and of his reception into heaven, and his knowledge of the fact that God had made him superior to all mankind, "had given all things into his hand," or, as it is elsewhere. expressed, given him authority o er all flesh, to be their teacher and guide to heaven, still he assumed a menial office. "Now, before the feast of the Passover, when

Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of the world unto the Father, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God, he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel and girded himself. After that, he poured water into a basin, and began to wash his disciples' feet.”

Such, then, was the power given to Christ, not over the material universe, but over man, and not over man in any other way than as their teacher and spiritual guide. The honor, then, that we owe him, is not worship as our God, the Former of our bodies, and the Father of our spirits, but as the Sent of God, the Revealer of his will, and the Promulgator of his law, the Representative of his authority; and the honor we pay him is ultimately given to the Father who sent him."

There is an expression in the fifteenth chapter of Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, which, to some minds, as they read it, or hear it read, may have the appearance of teaching the Deity of Christ, the explanation of which may properly belong to this lecture. "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." Is not here a positive declaration, it is asked, that Jesus was man on the one hand, and on the other, Jehovah himself, come down out of heaven? This apparent assertion of the Deity of Christ arises from the ambiguity of a word,