ed and restored all things. Christ's throne, whereof we are promised the fellowship, is a throne which all created things shall observe and obey: but itself also is a created thing; whereas the Father's is increate and incommensurate with any created thing. For Christ, to sit down with his Father in his throne, proveth him to be commensurate with God. For us to sit down with Christ in his throne, doth prove us to be commensurate with Christ as a creature. The Father's throne is the Creator's absolute power, Christ's throne is the creature's summit of power; the one essentially Divine, the other essentially not Divine; the one that cannot be shaken, the other that hath been shaken, but coming into the condition of never being shaken again. And why never again shaken? Because it is confirmed with the Godhead's firmness, being united to Godhead in the person of the Christ, who is therefore the nail fastened in a sure place, whereon is hanged all the glory of his Father's house, and the issue. In describing the throne of Christ, I have been thus insensibly led to the similitude of the nail; which, when I refer to the Prophet Isaiah, I find used in like manner to illustrate the throne of Christ. "I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place, and he shall be as a glorious throne to his Father."

At this present time then, Christ is seated with his Father on the Father's throne; and not idly seated there, but for the purposes of rule and government: and being seated there, he exerciseth all the Father's rule; that is, he fulfils Godhead's Divine function: and after the manner of Godhead fulfilleth he it; that is, by the Spirit. His sceptre, since his ascension into glory, hath been a spiritual sceptre. He hath ruled for God, in God's stead, in being God. Unseen, yet every where present; unfelt, yet every where acting. And what then, it may be said, is the Father's function? The answer is, To glorify the Son, to put forth the plenitude of Godhead through the Christ. Christ having made an image for Godhead out of the substance of the creature, it hath been the Father's part to inform that image with Godhead life and power. The Father's works since Christ's ascension into glory, hath been to manifest Christ as very God. He is a man, said the devil, and but a man; he is a man, said the Jew, and but a man; he is a man, saith the unbeliever, and but a man: and God saith, Yea, he is a man, a very man, but

behold also he is God; and in proof of it, see I seat him in my throne; see, I put into his hand my sceptre, and behold he hath strength to wield it. See that ye worship him, all ye angels: see that ye worship him, all ye gods. Ask of me, O mankind, any prayer in his name, and see whether I will not grant it; ask me any prayer in any other name, and see if I will grant it. By him shall every one swear that sweareth upon the earth; and he that blesseth himself, shall bless himself in the name of Christ. Verily,. with what care, frequency, and urgency, Christ, in the days of his flesh, did not his own will, nor spake his own words, nor came at all in his own name, nor sought his own glory, but the Father's; with that same care doth the Father, since the Son hath finished his work of glorifying him, never cease to glorify the Son, to hold him up in that place and prerogative proper to himself, and to insist for the same honour to him as to himself. This is the meaning of Christ sitting with the Father in his throne. Christ at present is the end of rule, the Father may be said to be ministering to the glory of Christ, as Christ heretofore ininistered to the glory of the Father. Jehovah said unto David's Lord, "Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool." Christ is the enthroned majesty, and the Father is become the active subduer of all who will not bow the knee and confess to him. The Father is acting for him, and Christ is receiving the fruit of the Father's action. This is the honour which Christ hath now manifestly in spiritual places; that is, in the region of the pure and disembodied, and likewise the embodied spirit,-by the Holy Ghost: and forasmuch as all visible creation, even in its present rebellious state, is subject to the Spirit, either as a leader or restrainer, Christ hath now the Godhead dominion over even the rebelliousness of nature itself. That keeping of every thing to its. law, that binding of every thing within its limits, that blessing of every thing according to its goodness, that punishing and restraining of every thing according to its evil, revealing God's hand in the raging and tumult of a wicked world, belongeth now unto Christ, and is by Christ. exercised, into whose hand all power and judgment both in heaven and on earth are committed.

Such is the Divine dignity of the man Christ Jesus, such the glory which he now enjoys, the same as that

which he had with the Father, before the world was; but with this difference, that now he hath it, as a man in flesh, in his creature subsistence, whereas then he had it in the pure Godhead. How, it may be asked, can a being in manhood subsisting, put forth the power of the eternal Godhead? The answer is, By the ministry of the Holy Ghost, who is very God. Christ's Godhead exerciseth itself through the Holy Ghost, as well as Christ's manhood. Even in the church there is at once a witness to Christ's manhood, and a witness to his Godhead. The witness to his manhood is, in our regeneration, wherein he begetteth in us a new man, after his own image, and likewise after the image and likeness of God. The witness to his Godhead is by the Holy Ghost working in us all mighty works above and against nature, certifying God to be in us of a very truth. There is in the church the Spirit of Christ, the author of holy humanity. There is also in the church, the Holy Ghost, the indwelling God. The former prepareth us to be the temple of the living God; the latter is the living God, who dwelleth in the temple. Both do testify to a life of Christ; the one the glory of his man. hood, the other the glory of his Godhead; both testimonies to one person, and together proving that he is Christ, very God, and very man, two distinct natures, in one person subsisting. And this twofold witness in the church is the Father's doing: he it is who subdueth us unto his Son, and maketh us his willing people. He it is who giveth to Christ such a succession of martyrs and prophets, such a glorious inheritance in the saints; and this he doth, because of what Christ did for him, and thus the honourable relation of the Father and the Son, that parent of all relations, is gloriously revealed by the Holy Ghost, in the church.

Christ then at present possesseth both his Father's glory and his own glory. But this is, so to speak, an inversion of the eternal order, seeing the Father is the first in origin, and the end of worship; self-originated, self-subsisting, and sustaining in his person, the immeasurable and unchangeable Godhead: whereas, of Christ considered as the second person, it is the property to be eternally originated from the Father, yet having a necessary selfexistence in the Godhead; out of which self-existence, in

order to become the Christ, he continually dieth, in order to receive Christhood, or an anointed life; and therefore to him it is proper as the Christ to derive continually his life from the Father; to have life in himself indeed, inasmuch as he is a fountain of life, yet to derive the same from the Father, "as the Father hath given the Son to have life in himself." This present exaltation of Christ to be the end of rule, the object of worship, and the Lord of all obedience, is therefore, as we said, an inversion of the eternal order, a manifestation in time of certain great and glorious ends, but not the eternal order and subordination which will be seen for ever and ever. The eternal order and subordination is, The Father, origin and fountain of all, invisible and incomprehensible, cause of all; unto whom all worship, and praise, and service, from all creation, ascendeth in a continual stream losing itself for ever in his unseen glory. Next, a Christ the Head, and King, and Priest, of all the visible world, who comprehendeth all being, and ordereth all motion, and concentereth in himself all honour and glory, yet acknowledgeth it not, nor retaineth it to himself, but carrieth it within the veil of the invisible and incomprehensible Godhead. Next, a Holy Ghost from Christ, the head and heart proceeding in streams of life through the body, which is the church in them, and by them testifying at once of the Father and the Son, of God and of Christ, as hath been said above; testifying of Christ as the Head of all, even as we now testify of Adam, by perfect conformity to his image, and testifying of him, the Mediator, who lays hold also of the Godhead, by those mighty works, those miracles of power, which the church shall for ever exercise for Christ, and, exercising for him, shall ever prove him to be God as well as man, I say the eternal order is God, Christ, and the Church, standing in the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and together working in perfect unity, yet preserving distinctness of subordination. Since, then, this is the necessary and eternal order which for the present is kept out of sight, to give place for the manifestation of Christ's Divinity, the question ariseth, When shall this manifestation cease, and the eternal order become the manifested order? When shall Christ cease from the throne

of the Father, and come to occupy his own throne? This is the event known in Scripture by the giving up of the kingdom to the Father; and it ought to be well cleared up in this place, in order to our understanding the distinct difference between the throne of the Father and the throne of Christ.

God is known, as God, by the creation of all things, and men among the rest. Man created nothing, but was himself created; and though he was created for governing all, he is himself not the less a creature on that account. To create therefore, is the glorious distinction of God; to rule creation, is the glorious end of man. Now Christ appeared first as a man, although he was also the Creator. He was first seen, handled, and heard in the world, as a sorrowful and suffering man; promised indeed before, and in all worthy ways presented unto the world's desire, yet first manifested in the world as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; as a creature, and of the creatures the most lowly and despised. And though, as we have shewn under his title, " Beginning of the creation of God," that this also was true of him from the beginning, from the time he came under the decree of creature existence, still it was not the whole truth; for he was Creator as well as creature, and Creator he never ceased, nor can cease to be. In order therefore that God may rightly and truly manifest Christ, it is necessary that the manifestation should not stop here, with his Incarnation, but proceed forward in some way which shall manifest his Godhead, his Creator-power, his Creator-action. This began to be done from the time he was baptized with the Holy Ghost; whereupon he did works proper to the Creator, imparting life to withered limbs and dead bodies, giving commandment to the elements of nature, creating bread, ordering the chaos of the heavens and of the deep, and doing other things which pertain not to man as man, but to man as the witness, the life, the hand of the invisible and omnipotent God. Yet withal, this was but the manifestation of his being the temple of God, just as the church possessing her supernatural gifts is the manifestation of the same. In virtue of what he said and did by the Holy Ghost, after his baptism, he was proved to be the faithful and true Witness of the Father: but this is not enough;