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strongest and most endearing expression, both of his wisdom and of his love; so that they who refuse to comply with this command, counteract the soundest principles of reason, resist the clearest and most satisfying evidence, and shall be found, in the final issue of things, to have been equally chargeable with cruelty to themselves; with ingratitude, the vilest ingratitude, to their benefactor; and the most obstinate rebellion against their Sovereign Lord.

A few remarks upon the verses I have been reading, will serve to illustrate what I have just now said. And I have chosen this passage for the subject of my present discourse, in hope that God may bless it for the conviction of some who have hitherto rejected his gracious counsel; but chiefly with a view to confirm the faith, and to heighten the joy, of believers in Christ, by showing them, that he in whom they trust, is in all respects worthy to be depended upon, and will assuredly carry forvard the work he hath begun, till it shall be perfected at length in their complete salvation.

The information that is bere given us concerning our Redeemer, may be comprehended under the following heads.

First. What he is in himself; or, his original dignity.

Secondly. What he is to us; or, the station he holds in his church. And,

Thirdly. His qualifications for the discharge of what belongs to that station.

What the Apostle saith upon the first of these particulars, amounts to something more than a simple assertion of our Lord's divinity. It is such an enlarged and accurate description of proper and essential Godhead, as cannot possibly be applied to any inferior being. The only expression that hath an appearance of difficulty is

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in the close of verse 15th, where Christ is styled the first-born of every creature. But the difficulty evanishes, when we attend to the explanation of that title wbich the Apostle subjoins, or rather indeed to the reason he assigns for giving him that designation. No sooner has he called him the first-born of every creature, than he immediately adds, “For by bim were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him, and for him.” And that no room might be left for the remotest suspicion that he himself might have been created, eternity, in the most absolute sense of that word, is directly ascribed to him in the 17th verse; “ And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” For surely he who existed before all things, must himself be without beginning, or from everlasting. Hence it appears, that this designation, the first-born of every cren's ture, is of the same import with that other form of ex. pression which the Apostle useth, (Heb. i. 2.) where, having styled him the Son of God, he adds, “whom he hath appointed heir of all things." And both serve to denote that universal dominion which our Lord hath by inheritance, as the only begotten of the Father, of the same essence with himself, “ the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person;" an image so express, that when Philip said to our Lord, “Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” he gave no answer but this, “ Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me bath seen the Father: believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” Which is farther explained by what he said on another occasion, “I and the Father are one."

It would be highly improper, when we have such agreeable work before us, to enter into the thorny field of controversy; nevertheless, as so much of our comfort depends upon the persuasion we have, that he who came to save us is truly God, I cannot close this head without requesting you to compare what is written in the first verse of the bible, “ in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” with the introduction to Joho's gospel, “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." And if to these you add that obvious conclusion of enlightened Reason, (Heb. iii. 4.) “ Every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is Gon,"—you will discover at once the true dignity of him in whom we are commanded to trust, and see with what strict propriety of language he is styled “the Son of the living God," " the great God and our Saviour,” and “ God over all, blessed for ever."

Having thus briefly illustrated his essential dignity, or what he is in himself, let us now consider,

Secondly, What he is to us. This we learu from the 18th verse, where the Apostle calls him the head of the body, the church; which leads us to view him as “ the seed of the woman;" “ the Word made flesh;" the Son of God, by whom all things were created, uniting himself to human nature in the person of Jesus Christ; that as our kinsman and brother, he might redeem the for. feited inheritance; and by suffering in our room, the just for the unjust, might bring us to God. It is plain that the station here assigned to Christ belongs to him in the character of Emanuel, “ which is, being interpreted, God with us,” or, “ God manifested in the tesh."

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Accordingly, he is styled, in immediate connexion with his head-ship, the first-born from the dead ; which necessarily supposes his previous incarnation and sufferings. And the church, wbich is here called his body, is ex, pressly said by Paul, in the charge which he gave to the elders of Epbesus, to have been "purchased by him with his own blood." Here, my brethren, he is repre. sented to os in such an endearing relation, as cannot fail, if we understand it aright, to fill our hearts at once with the highest admiration, the warmest gratitude, and most triumphant joy. Cbrist is said to be the head of all principality and power,” at the 10th verse of the following chapter; but it is not added, these are his body. In like manner, we are told, (Epb. i. at the close) that “ God, who raised him from the dead, hath set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and given him to be head over all things to the church.” That is, he hath placed him at the bead of all things, and given him supreme dominion over them; so that the highest angels are only ministers, or servants, in his kingdom, whom he sends forth to minister to the heirs of salvation. But his relation to bis church, though it includes dominion, yet it carries in it a more close and intimate connexion. He is not only head over his church, in respect of supreme authority, as a king is the political head over his subjects; but he is the head of his church in respect of vital influence; for so the Apostle bimself explains it in the following chapter, verse 19th; he is that head, “from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God."

But your time will not permit me to enlarge upon this subject; let it suffice at present to observe, that what Adam was in the first creation, that is Christ in the new creation. Hence he gets the name of the second Adam; and it is expressly said of the first Adam, (Rom. v. 14.) " that he was the figure of him that was to come." I shall not pretend to trace out the resemblance between these two different heads in all its extent; and yet it is obvious, that a great part of the Scripture language, which is employed to describe the nature of that station which Christ holds in the church, not only alludes to this resemblance, but is so much founded upon it, that without some just conception of the figure or type, our views of the antitype must be very dark and imperfect.

If we look at the state of things in the first creation, we shall find Adam placed in a station of the highest importance. Besides the dominion that was given him over the inferior creatures, he was constituted, in the most proper sense of the word, the head of mankind, in as much as “ of that one blood were to be made all the nations of men that should dwell upon the face of the whole earth.". The life of all his posterity was deposited in him. He was the root; and bis descendants, in all their successive generations, are the branches which grow out of it. This is the plain account which the Scriptures give us; and the closeness of our connexion with the first Adam is fatally illustrated by its effects, which capnot escape our observation. It is too apparent that life is conveyed to us under the same awful for. feiture which Adam incurred; for in consequence of the sentence pronounced against him on account of his transgression, “ Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,” we find, in fact, that “it is appointed unto all men once to die," and that “there is no discharge in that warfare."

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