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whole previous course of Scripture. When we now find that at "the end" Christ shall deliver kingdom of God the Father," we discover a confirmation of the truth displayed in every part of the Bible, in colors of an exceeding brightness, that Christ has received and exercised a great dominion from the first ages of the world. When we read, that he "must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet," we admit the fact with readiness into the mind, that this empire over the earth will exist, not only to a future period, - but that it will, in accordance with the past history, be exercised in an especial and peculiar manner by him. When we are expressly told, that though all things are put under the Son, yet that the Father "is excepted" from that rule; that he is separate, distinct, and superior to that delegated authority, we imbibe a still stronger idea of the absolute supremacy of Christ over the world. And when it is stated as the great end to which all these propositions tend, that eventually, when all the enemies of Christ shall have become subject to him, He shall also himself be subject unto the Father, that " God may be all in all," seem to have an authority in the interpretation affixed to the rule of Christ of the surest character; and to regard the scheme of Christianity with the mind and eye of the Apostle Paul.

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The context of the passage, independent of the line of proof which has been drawn from the Old Testament, is in perfect favor of this exposition. St. Paul has just declared the certainty of the Resurrection from the dead in that Christ has risen, and become "the first fruits of them that slept." He

states, (in the spirit of another passage of his writings, that "the dead in Christ shall rise first,") that Jesus having risen, they shall afterwards rise "that are Christ's, at his coming." "Then," he adds, "cometh the end," when the judgment of souls having passed, which he designates by the end, — the empire which Christ has held hitherto over the world shall cease. But what is this empire which shall cease? Surely not his Spiritual kingdom. In that sense the testimony of Scripture is invariable that “Christ remaineth a king for ever.” It is the doctrine of every Christian Church that his spiritual kingdom shall never terminate; and it is in the full power of such a doctrine that our creed speaks, in asserting, that his kingdom shall have no end." Of what dominion and rule then does the Apostle testify, in writing to the Church at Corinth, that he shall deliver up his kingdom to the Father? The answer is plain. It is his Mediatorial kingdom, which as we have seen he has long exercised upon the earth; and not his natural and essential kingdom of which, as God, he has been possessed from all eternity. The Mediatorial kingdom was a temporary authority; received for a specific purpose; taken on himself by a voluntary act; taken for a limited period; a divine means and an expedient "for us men, and for our Salvation," - and the ends of that dispensation having been accomplished; human nature having been brought again into a state of reconciliation with the Father; -opposition to His authority having ceased; and the world having yielded freely to his laws in the hope of being partakers of his glory, then, and not till then, shall

he divest himself of his earthly diadem, and return into the Essence of Divinity. When all shall have been finished, then shall the Son be subject to Him that put all things under him ; — then shall that emanation from the Father, which became incarnate, again be resolved into the unity of the Godhead; and in the language of the Apostle, "God be all in all."

The great point then for consideration seems to resolve itself into the mode and principle by which this cession of authority was effected; lest, on the one hand, our thought should make so absolute a separation of the Son from the Father, that the Unity of God would be destroyed; or on the other, our mind should rest so entirely on that Unity, that the Mediatorial supremacy of Christ should virtually be set aside. A subject of such fearful solemnity should be approached with the extreme both of awe and caution; lest by a familiarity of illustration we might derogate from its sublimity, and seem to endeavour to make that evident to the sight, which is and must ever remain an object of man's deepest faith. Still, it never was intended, that his belief should be of that blind and superstitious nature, that he should receive the mysteries of religion as truths on which his judgment was forbidden to dwell; as if the strivings of his soul to reconcile them to his reason constituted, in the act, a sin. A law of that arbitrary character sounds rather of human than of Scriptural origin. It was not the law of Christ, who propounded the deepest and most intricate truths freely to the multitudes who heard him, and referred them to the Scriptures, that they

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might reconcile them to their own minds. * tainly was not the law of St. Paul, the greater part of whose writings commends itself to the reason, as well as the faith of men; and whose sublimest topics are invariably seconded, if not substantiated, by powers of argument and reasoning. And we cannot believe that mind to be wrong, which endeavours, under just limits, to render the principle of those Holy Truths plain to the comprehension, of which the precise mode and essence is yet wholly insuperable. I believe devotedly in the existence of the Trinity. I believe, with the same fervency, in the Unity of God. The Being, Nature, and Subsistence of the Deity fixed thus by Faith in my mind under a triple, yet single character, is wholly indefinable. I can neither comprehend; nor place it palpably before my mind's eye. It surpasses the human faculties, in that they draw every idea and image from combinations of things seen on earth. God has not been "seen at any time," and the Divine Glory, which the justified soul will hereafter behold, has never by any defined ideas been revealed to man on earth.

But the impracticability of this mental view does not prohibit me from endeavouring to make the known existence of this Triune Essence plain, by principle, to my understanding. I may imagine and reason on the fact, although I cannot tell the precise mode in which the fact exists; and by a combination of qualities, I may reconcile the great Truth to my

* For example, the unity of Christ with the Father. The conjunction of his divine and human nature; and the greater part of the great doctrines recorded in St. John's Gospel.

mind although it would utterly fail, should I, in an unguarded moment, be rash enough to attempt to embody them. Without some such process in the secret thoughts of the individual, the very enquiry, in which we have been engaged, however true, is of a nature calculated to create confusion in the mind; and the assertion of St. Paul, that Christ shall give up the kingdom again to his Father, a point of mystery, utterly incomprehensible. I would reason on his statement after this, or some similar manner. God, in the language of our Saviour, is a Spirit. He pervadeth all space. Space is without end or limits; and where space is, there also is God. Not a particle of matter exists, but God is present in it. His Spirit breathes through all creation. In the strictest sense of the term, He is Omnipresent; He fills the universe. In this idea we gain an abstract, but most certain notion of the Unity of God. He is One; for filling, as He does, every conceivable portion of space, there is manifestly no capability-no place,- no room, if the term may be used, for the existence of any second Spiritual Essence, independent, or disunited from the First Great Cause. other Beings of the Trinity must of necessity be evolved from the One Eternal Spirit who pervades the Universe.

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The attribute then, under which we first behold the Deity, is that of Omnipotence. Existent through all Eternity; without beginning, and without end; Second to none; and having all Creative energy in Himself; the Maker of all things visible and invisible; and acting by the fiat of his Will; the mind receives its first idea of God, under the aspect of Might and Power.