of the great plan of Providence, any part of that plan be violated by man; and if, owing to no original defect in man, but owing to an abuse of his necessary free-agency, that violation take place; and if, therefore, without any claim on the interposition of the Mediator, He yet determined to remedy the evil, to take advantage of it in a way which shall accrue to the infinite good of the very beings who had introduced the evil, and to the furtherance of the great end of Divine manifestation surely He has a right to the happiness arising from a view of the effects of His own interposition. Accordingly, there is a class of Scriptures which represents Him as rejoicing in the prospect of this interposition. And the satisfaction which He derives from the contemplation of that prospect, is heightened by the vivid contrast in which it ever stands before his view with what must have been the dreadful alternative if He had not interposed. And when He anticipates the day in which " He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and admired in all them that believe," He "sees of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied."

4. Then He is entitled to the grateful homage of all who share the effects of His gracious interposition. Hence His own language, "that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father."

5. The happiness flowing from the fact that on account of His mediatorial work, He is the object of the Father's infinite delight, is greater still. For He estimates that complacency at its proper worth, which is infinite, absolutely infinite; and therefore greater than the intelligent creation, though its capacity be always enlarging, will ever be able to experience.

6. And then there is the happiness derivable from knowing that He is attaining the greatest of all ends - the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency. Now, if this end be so great, that every other stands to it only in the relation of means; if this is infinitely greater than all other ends combined, the happiness arising from the attainment of it must be infinitely greater also. The happiness flowing from the spectacle of a redeemed and happy creation must be great; for He knew not only what would be the exact measure of its happiness at this moment, but how happy it will be ten thousand ages hence, when its capacity for happiness will be increased ten thousandfold - with all the happiness it will have enjoyed in the interval, and so on for ever. But inconceivably high as He values that complacency, more highly still does He value that glory

on account of the manifestation of which that complacency is accorded to Him. He estimates everything as the eternal Father does; so that if the manifestation of the Divine glory be so dear to the Father that He pours His complacency on the Son for undertaking it, the Mediator Himself regarding it in the same light, must derive from the contemplation of its attainment His highest delight. The prospect of beholding a universe of dependent beings hanging on independent all-sufficience; every heart a channel through which a fulness of delight is constantly streaming from the great central source, and every moment enlarging to receive more; every sin forgiven, every evil remedied, every want supplied; the whole reflecting, and replenished with, the Divine glory - this is the consummation of that glory which is set before Him. Much as He may delight in the favor of Deity, He rates the glory of the Deity higher still: for it is that which gives even to His favor all its value; so that to be the means of manifesting it to the universe is the crown of His mediatorial happiness, as it is the end of creation.

set out

And thus by a circularity in the nature of the mediatorial constitution we are brought back to the point from which we that the glory of God is the chief end of creation. It must necessarily have been so independently of all appointment; and even had there been (supposing an impossibility,) an appointment to the contrary. For even if a decree had appointed that the ultimate end of all things should be the well-being of the creature, the infinite capacity for enjoyment of the Divine Being would not have allowed it to be the greatest end; since God in beholding, that well-being and the manifestation of the Divine glory which it carried along with it, would by right and necessity of nature, enjoy more than all the creatures together - infinitely more. And if God, and not the creature, would thus have been, by necessity of nature, the great end of all things, we are to suppose that He is so by choice; or that He approves of, and proposes to himself, as an end, that which the infinite excellence of His nature conditionally necessitates. The great reason, then, accounts for the primary purpose; the purpose originates the medial relation; the relation imposes the great obligation; and the obligation is followed by the right of the being discharging it; that is, the last ensues on the attainment, or, in proportion to the attainment of the first: and thus the Mediator, as such, finds His own end in attaining the great end.

SECOND PART.

Principles deducible from the preceding Lectures; or, Laws of the Manifestation.

FROM the preceding scriptural views of that which is predicable of the Deity, considered as prior to the manifestation of the divine all-sufficiency, and in order to it, the following general deductions seem logically to result. Certain other intermediate principles, indeed, might with equal clearness, be inferred; but, for the present, it is proposed to deal only with general truths.

I.

That every divinely originated object and event is a result, of which the supreme and ultimate reason is in the Divine Nature. By which we mean that, not only is a reason for it to be found there, this would only acquit the Maker from a charge of folly-but, that the ultimate and adequate reason why it is, and what it is, is to be found there. For, if the origin of everything which may exist must be traced to him as the great first cause, everything will, in some sense, be like him; i. e., it will be, and will be what it is, when it proceeds from him, because he is what he is; for before it was produced, it was potentially included in him. Additional reasons may be found in itself, and in other parts of creation, to account for its existence. And of vast significance may many of these reasons be to the creature. Yet all these will be found subordinate and traceable to that infinite reason which includes, but is independent of them all, as belonging to the infinite nature of God. These subordinate reasons may be only coëxistent with the respective natures in which they are found, beginning and ending, therefore, in some cases, within the space of a few short

hours soon, and perhaps forever, to be forgotten by all the rest of creation: but the infinite reason of their being at all existed from eternity in the nature of God, and can never cease to exist. However insignificant, comparatively, any given creature may be, not only is the reason of its existence to be sought in God, as prior to, in the order of time, and causative of, that existence; but as a reason which approved itself to, and, in some sense, expressed a property of the divine nature. So that even if there were no purpose of manifesting Divine all-sufficiency, but the creation were to be limited to the production of a single creature-still, as every effect must be in some sense like its cause, that single effect would be, (not formally but virtually,) a manifestation, pro tanto, of the Divine Nature: in other words, its ultimate reason would be found in God.

And on the same ground, every expression of His will, however it may be made, whether by word or act, will be a manifestation of something anterior, viz. of the Divine Nature.

II.

That everything sustains a relation to the great purpose, and is made subservient to it.

If our view of the Divine purpose be correct, it will follow, that besides the former law of the creature's existence, by which it is what it is, because God is what he is, and which law can never be superseded; there is another law, arising from the Divine purpose, which makes it a primary condition of the creature's existence that it should contribute in some measure to the Great Manifestation. We can conceive, then, of a twofold reason for everything, ad extra:—the one, arising from what God is, the other from what he purposes the former a natural reason, the latter a moral necessity or reason of Divine appointment - the former looking back to its origin, the latter looking onward to its end. For if the design of the whole be to manifest the Divine All-sufficiency, every part of the whole must of course combine to the same end. And as nothing which may exist, can have a separate, exclusive, and independent end of its own, everything will find its own end, in answering His.

III.

That the Manifestation will be carried on by a system of means, or medial relations.

If our view of the great relation be correct, we may expect, that that relation, as constituting the medium of the Divine Manifestation, will itself be manifested; or that, in harmony with that primary relation, the whole manifestation will consist of, or be carried on by, a system of corresponding medial relations, (relations rising with the rising nature of the being sustaining them;) otherwise, that great relation itself will be but partially disclosed, if it be not even entirely, and for ever unknown.

Another reason for the medial constitution of the Creation, is, that the Great Relation is not merely the medium of the manifestation, but an important part of it; just as the sun, besides being the medium of vision, is also the most glorious object of creation. Now as everything exists for the Divine Manifestation, of which that relation itself is a vital part, everything may be expected to manifest that Relation by itself sustaining a medial relation.

And, as everything is to express something of the Divine nature, and the Great Relation involves an infinite disclosure of that nature, everything may be reasonably expected to bear, in some respects, the stamp of that Relation.

And further, if, as we have shown in a previous chapter, the Great Purpose requires that the Manifestation should be progressive, it follows that it must consist of a succession of events, in which each part will necessarily hold a relation to all the parts preceding, and following; just as the Primary relation is medial between the purpose and the end. For we can neither conceive of an event which must not be conceived of, as being, in some sense, an effect; nor of a succession of events which must not be conceived of as medially dependent and related. So that viewed in connection with the second law, which determines that everything shall subserve the great end, this determines the mode or form in which that subserviency shall be rendered-by everything sustaining a relation, not merely to that end, but to everything else contributing to that end a relation of mutual dependence and influence.