ready, there will only remain a few Other qualities or endowments of a divine nature and heavenly origin to be particularly regarded; namely

-6, The Subject's divine Omnipotence, here properly to be considered in the power, or gift, as it is oftener called, of Miracles: whereby we are to understand such acts or operations as must exceed the greatest single ability of the subject or sphere in which they are displayed. For the limits of single abilities, and consequently of miracles, are very different in different spheres; and what would be a miracle in one subject or sphere might be none in another. Were a man for example to walk on the sea, without foreign help, or any artificial contrivance, it might very well pass as a miracle for him: while an angel of the lowest order might do as much without any unusual talent or effort. And again, should an angel like that which used to shed his balmy influence on the waters of Bethesda (John v. 4), or one of an higher quality, pretend to forgive sins, as well as to heal the sick, or to reverse a divine sentence by direct authority, adding a miraculous cure in confirmation of his pretensions, like our Saviour in the case of the paralytic (Matt. ix.), the inference would be greater than the miracle; it would be such a wonder as might astonish beings even to whom our miracles, as walking on the water or flying in the air would be ordinary motions; it would be such a fact as the angels might desire to look into before they gave it a ready credence; while with the Supreme Being, such an act might seem no more than an ordinary exercise of his discretion. For the substance of a miracle is new creation, its effect and evidence, a new creature or thing; as Moses told the congregation, " If the Lord make a new thing" (Num. xvi. 30); and that the Lord alone is equal to,—in point of innocence, especially.

With respect to the possibility of a miracle, therefore, it may very correctly be either denied or asserted in relation to the subject or operator. For looking no farther than to

the sensible operation, we should say that a miracle was not possible: but looking through the subject or operator to his principal or employer, we should say, that what was miraculous as to the subject or exceeding his natural ability might still be performed by him mediately; it being nothing more than some unusual performance of a superior being by an inferior. So by the hands of the apostles (assembled at Jerusalem) were many signs and wonders done (Acts ii. 43): so God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul (Ib. xix. 11); that is, miracles for Paul, but no miracles for God: so the miracles of wisdom and might which Jesus the Son of God displayed upon earth were generally miracles for Jesus, the man, or for Jesus the Son of David, but no miracles for Jesus the Son of God; it being no more than one should expect, for a son to be as his father in the trust or sphere confided to him, or for any new creature to be made by him "by whom also he made the worlds" (Heb. i. 2). For if he makes God his Father, making himself so far equal with God, he still confesses, that he "can do nothing of himself, but only what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise" (John v. 18, 19).

Even the greatest of all miracles, or of what we call Miracles, absolutely considered, the Subject's raising himself from the dead, was performed mediately in the manner aforesaid, as are also the miracles of salvation, justification, and other inestimable benefits that we derive from him. It was always his miracle, the Father's natural deed: or so the apostles speak of it. "Jesus of Nazareth, (say they) a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, WHICH GOD DID BY HIM in the midst of you, &c. WHOM GOD HATH RAISED UP, having loosed the pains of death, &c." (Acts ii. 22, 24). And many more instances might here be cited if necessary of the best authorities, speaking in this way of the miracles of the Subject and of his apostles: namely, as the work of God by

them or their means,-if their proper relation or bearing upon evidence, did not mark them for another place. They are now only mentioned as another word for omnipotence displayed by the Subject. And in the same manner;

-7, There can hardly be a plainer example of omnipotence than the Subject affords in his Omnipresence, or omnipresent, though not universally acknowledged, influence both in the world that was created by him and also with the Father before any creation, who made all things by him and for him," the Image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature" (Col. i. 15, 16, 17). Even with those men, a growing class, who will not own his sway or receive him he is always present, and that many ways; in the voice of nature, in human reason, in the voice of conscience, in the face of nature, as well as her voice, and even in the secondary productions of art. "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they who deny him are without excuse" (Rom. i. 20). But after a more especial manner is he present in the world with those who own and receive him, and delight to receive him above all things; counting all things but loss, but dung in comparison, that they may win Christ, and be found in him, the omnipresent Word, "not having their own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. iii. 8, 9). For "to them gave hẹ power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name" (John i. 12).

-8, Another of his properties or attributes may be considered on the principle of identity before assumed, as nearly the same with the last mentioned omnipresence, consisting in his universal Life, Grace, or Spirit; that is, life in detail, grace in virtue, spirit in substance; and all one in effect. More especially may the life of Christ be considered as of two degrees in reference to its subject or

medium, namely primitive and derivative; the first in him, being his life with the Father; the second of or from him being one life with both by grace: and either being also of a divine quality, it is the latter or derivative sort that we are particularly concerned to know; as life in the way is more to our purpose than life at home, notwithstanding its fulness there. And this particular importance of the subject may be thought to have intitled it to the attention it has already received as well as to that which follows; the same being now proposed as a divine property, privilege, or peculiarity of the Son of man; not because he is the only man who has been raised by the glory of God to an heavenly conversation during his abode on earth (Phil. iii. 20), and to a participation in the divine nature by virtue and knowledge, as lately shewn (Pet. II. i. 4, &c.), but because he is the only one of all mankind whose life has been so far identified with those two divine principles, virtue and knowledge, as to be one with them, and through them with God the Father and Fountain of life. "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts xvii. 28) if we have any: but this was the life itself; which was in the Subject what he is in us. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John i. 4), the very germ or principle of righteous thinking and doing. His life is the same from the beginning, even from the principle or first act, ere life became a property; being especially the root and ratio of the chosen few who believe, and believing live; as he said, "Yet a little while and the world seeth BECAUSE I LIVE YE SHALL LIVE ALSO" (John xiv. 19). His life is like the abyss of waters: and as in this every little current finds an asylum by the gathering of streams; so there by the ministry of his apostles and others, every particular life is laid up and sealed as it were unto the day of redemption. "For ye are dead (says St. Paul to some) and your life is hid with Christ. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Col. iii. 3, 4).

me no more.

For we are not to conclude, that the particular life which the Subject presented on earth was the whole even of his earthly existence. "I am the vine" (said he to his disciples, as a thing rooted in the earth)-"I am the vine : ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit" (John xv. 5). And what St. Paul says of himself, or his life in particular, may be said by every one who is a partaker in the life of Christ; "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God; who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Gal. ii. 20). So he talks elsewhere of forgiving somewhat " in the person of Christ" (Cor. II. ii. 10) as if the person of Christ was equivalent with the church; which is his body of flesh and blood, "the fulness of him that filleth all in all" (Eph. i. 23), in the same manner that his life is the sum, power, or abstract. And it must be thought a wonderful combination of life under one head, or as we may say, in one person; figuratively, in one vine. We may form some idea by this figure of the possible expansion of life in one subject, if we consider what every joint of a vine may become, and what a mass of life it may possibly supply without a new sowing: so that in millions of millions the same life may be spread and perpetuated, as prefigured of the Subject by David in his beautiful hymn to " the Shepherd of Israel." "THOU

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HAST BROUGHT A VINE OUT OF EGYPT; Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it; Thou madest room for it; and when it had taken root, it filled the land; the hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedar trees: she stretched out her branches unto the sea, and her boughs unto the river (Ps. lxxx. 8, &c.) Which is to the same purport as what St. Paul observes in a more familiar strain, when he talks of "the edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come, in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, . and, speaking the truth

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