makes them partakers of its varied hues and brightnesses, so does God's revelation of Himself to His fallen creature restore in it His likeness. We become like Him just in proportion as we see Him as He is.

1

But how has God revealed Himself to man? Even as man yet reveals himself; for man was made in God's image. Man shews himself by his words and works. God in like manner has done this. His Word is the express image of His person and the brightness of His glory; and by that Word, which is perfect truth, He has answered, and still answers, the false word of the serpent, which has been our ruin. By His Word in nature, "for the heavens declare His glory," though to fallen man there seems" no voice or language" in them ;-by His Word spoken through His servants, "at sundry times and in divers manners," 2 coming to us from without and in the letter, because we could not bear His Spirit ;-above all by His "Word made flesh," in Christ our Lord; 3 -God has shewn us what He is, and thus by word and deed answered the lie that He is grudging and untrue, and that man can be as God in independence of Him. Does not God love? Is He not true? Christ is the answer. God is so loving, that, though His creature has fallen, He will come into his likeness for him, and will lift up man again to bear His own image. God is so true, that, if man sins, he must surely die. But God through death.

1 Psalm xix. 1.

2 Heb. i. 1.

3

St. John i. 14.

can destroy him that has the power of death, and say to death, "I will be thy plagues, and to hell, I will be thy destruction." Nay, He has already done

it for us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Christ shews us

God has dwelt

man condemned, and yet justified. in man, born of a woman, in all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; 2 and man, who has suffered and died, now dwells in God, with all power in heaven and earth, to destroy the works of the devil, and to reconcile and bring back all to God for ever.3 This is God's answer to the serpent's lie. The Word has been made flesh. God has taken on Him the curse, that man should be blessed, and bear His image

evermore.

The perfect revelation then of God is in Jesus Christ our Lord. But the very fulness of the revelation, like the dazzling brightness of the sun, may keep us for a while from seeing all its wonders; and we may learn, even from the revelation in the letter, that is from Holy Scripture, specially from the varied names under which it has pleased God to reveal Himself to man from the beginning, things concerning His nature and fulness, which, though they are all more perfectly revealed in Christ, would perhaps be beyond our vision but for the help which even the shadows of the letter give us. What have men not learnt from the shadow of the earth upon the moon. So the old revelation which God has given us of Him

1 Hos. xiii. 14.

• Col. i. 20.

2 Col. ii. 9.

St. John i. 14.

66

1

self in Holy Scripture, as "God," or "LORD," or Almighty," or the "Most High," though it is "piecemeal," as the Apostle says, may assist us, to see His fulness; just as the many figures which the same Scriptures give us, in the carnal offerings of the ceremonial law, help us to see the varied and apparently contradictory aspects of the one great perfect Sacrifice. We cannot yet see the things of heaven. God therefore reveals them as we can bear it, with the accuracy of One who sees them as they are, and in a way in which they may be seen and understood by us. And we need all His teaching, even the partial revelations, which represent Him under varied names, by which He prepares us in due time to see Him as He is,2 and to know as we are known.3

I purpose therefore, if God permit, to call attention to the names under which God has revealed Himself to man in Holy Scripture. The first four we find in the earlier chapters of Genesis. They are, first, "God," (in Hebrew, Elohim ;) then, "LORD," (or Jehovah ;) then, "Almighty," (El Shaddai;) and then, "Most High," (El Elyon.) These all reveal some distinct attribute or characteristic of the same one blessed God. Beside these we have three other names, which describe God's relation to certain things or persons rather than His nature; namely "Lord," (in Hebrew Adonai;) then "The Everlasting God," (El Olam;) and lastly,

1 Heb. i. 1.

1 Cor. xiii. 12.

21 St. John iii. 2.

"Lord of Hosts," (Jehovah Sabaoth.) But the first four names tell us what God is. In every age these first four names have been the rest and refuge and comfort of His people. In the book of Psalms we find them all constantly repeated: in one place we have all four within the compass of a single sentence:-"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the MOST HIGH, shall abide under the shadow of the ALMIGHTY. I will say of the LORD, (that is Jehovah,) He is my refuge and my fortress; my GOD, (that is my Elohim,) in Him will I trust." All these varying names are but the result of His being what He is, so wonderful and manifold, that no one name can adequately express what an apostle calls His "fulness."2 Just as in the Gospels four distinct and varying presentations of the same One Lord, as the Lion, the Ox, the Man, the Eagle, are required to shew the Christ in all His varied aspects or relations, some of which, as we here apprehend them, under the limitations of our fallen nature, seem at times to clash with other no less true views of Him who is both Son of God and Son of Man; while it is no less true that in each distinct presentation of Him we may detect hidden intimations that He contains within Himself all the apparently varying characteristics, which the other Gospels or Cherubic Faces reveal more particularly; 3 so is it in the older revela

1 Psalm xci. 1, 2; so too in Psalm lxxvii. 7-11, we have four 2 Eph. iii. 19; Col. i. 19; ii. 9.

names.

3 See Characteristic Differences of the Four Gospels, pp. 2–14.

tion, which God gave of Himself. He cannot fully speak of Himself under a single name or under one title. And yet each differing name contains, hidden in itself, (for God's perfections are inseparable,) something of the special virtues which the other names bring out more separately. We may see this even n a man of varied gifts. To know David we must De told that he was Shepherd, Warrior, King, Prophet, Poet, and Musician. All these are outcomes of a deep and rich nature. Shall we then wonder that God, the Maker, Judge, and Saviour of all, who in Himself is Love, and Power, and Wisdom, if He is to reveal His nature and relationships to those who know Him not, must be known by many names, each of which can only tell out something of His glory. At all events, God has thus revealed Himself to man, here a little, and there a little; and His children, as they grow up into His likeness, can only bless and praise Him for such a revelation.

My desire, then, in considering the names under which God has revealed Himself, is by them to lead some of His children and His creatures, if it may be so, to learn to know Him better. But indirectly and incidentally our study of this subject may also answer the objections of certain critics, who, from the varied names of God in Genesis, have argued that the book is a merely human composition, based on and compiled from several earlier and conflicting records, the differences and divergences of which