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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 doeth, 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."+

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.

* John v. 19.

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

CHAP. V.

ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT
STATE.

Administration of Providence.

THOSE passages, from which we learn 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 record

ed 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 any time." But it is often said in the Old Testament that the patriarchs, the prophets, and the people saw God; and there is an ease, a familiarity of intercourse in many of the scenes which are recorded, inconsistent with the awful majesty of him who covereth himself with thick clouds. The God of Israel, whom the people saw, is often called an angel, i. e. a person sent; therefore he cannot be God the Father, for it is impossible that the Father should be sent by any one. But he is also called Jehovah. The highest titles, the most exalted actions, and the most entire reverence are appropriated to him. Therefore he cannot be a being of an inferior order. And the only method in which we can reconcile the seeming discordance is, by supposing that he is the Son of God, who, as we learn from John, "was in the beginning with God, and was God," who being at a particular time "made flesh," and so manifested in the human nature, may be conceived, without irreverence, to have manifested himself at former times in different ways. This supposition, suggested by the language of the Old Testament, seems to be confirmed by the words of our Lord, John vi. 46, “ Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father;" and of his apostle, John i. 18, "No man hath seen God at any time: the only be

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gotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." The meaning of this passage extends to the former declarations of God under the Old Testament. For it is remarkable that it is not the preterperfect tense which is used in the original, but the aorist, which intimates that he, "who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared him" also in times past. He who alone was qualified to declare God, who certainly did declare him by the Gospel, and who is styled by the apostle," the image of the invisible God," as the person in whom the glory of the Godhead appeared to man, seems to be pointed out as the angel who was called by the name of God in ancient times.

These general principles receive a striking illustration when we attend to the detail of the appearances recorded in the Old Testament, because we find upon examination that all the divine appearances, made in a succession of ages, are referred to one person, who is often called in the same passage both Angel and Jehovah, and that several incidental expressions in the New Testament mark out Christ to be this person.

SECTION I.

ALL APPEARANCES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT REFERRED TO ONE PERSON, CALLED ANGEL AND GOD.

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IN the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, it is said that "the Lord," which, when written in capital letters, is always the translation of Jehovah, that "Jehovah appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre ;" and the manner of the appearance is very particularly related. "Abraham lifted his eyes, and three men stood by him." He received them hospitably, according to the manner of the times. In the course of the interview one of the three speaks with the authority of God, promises such blessings as God only can bestow, and is called by the historian Jehovah. Two of the men departed and "went toward Sodom, but Abraham," it is said, "stood yet before the Lord." He inquires

of him respectfully about the fate of Sodom; he reasons with him as the Judge of all the earth, who has it in his power to save and to destroy; and we may judge of the impressions which he now has of the nature of the man, whom a little before he had received in his tent, when he says to him, "Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, who am but dust and ashes." It is the same Lord, whom Abraham saw in this manner, that appeared to him at other times, and, after his death, to his son Isaac; for a reference is made in the future appearances to the promise that had been made at this time. To Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, the Lord appeared upon different occasions, under the name of the God of Abraham and Isaac, i. e. the God who had blessed them; he repeats to Jacob what he had said to them, that his posterity should possess the land of Canaan, and become a great nation, and that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed, xxviii. 13, 14. Jacob, after one appearance, said, "I have seen God face to face," xxxii. 30; after another, " Surely the Lord is in this place, and he called the name of the place Bethel," i. e. the house of God, xxviii. 16-19. He raised a pillar; he vowed a vow to the God whom he had seen, and at his return he paid the vow. Yet this God, to whom he gave these divine honours, and of whom he spoke at some times as Jehovah the God of Abraham and Isaac, at other times he calls an angel. "The angel of God,” he says, spake unto me in a dream, saying, I am the God of Bethel," xxxi. 11–13; and upon his death-bed he gives in the same sentence the name of God and angel to this person, xlviii. 15. “He blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." The prophet Hosea refers in one place to the earnestness with which Jacob begged a blessing from the Lord who appeared to him, which is called in Genesis his wrestling with a man and prevailing. So says Hosea, xii. 2—5. "By his strength he had power with God, yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed; he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us, even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial."

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