He who for our deliverance condescended to assume our nature. For thus it seems the matter stood in the counsels of Eternal Wisdom: It behooved Him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining unto God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." (Horsley's Sermon on the 97th Psalm.) That is: It behooved Him, the Christ, Jehovah in the preexisting official Person, to assume our nature.

CHAPTER XII.

Local and visible Manifestations, Intercourse and Instructions, as characterizing the primeval and Mosaic Dispensations-Local Presence of the Messenger Jehovah in the Tabernacle.

Ir being evident that the Messiah appeared to the patriarchs in a visible form, that they recognized him under various designations, saw him face to face, conversed with him, offered to him burnt offerings and prayers, believed in him with that faith which is unto righteousness, received from him revelations, promises, and covenants, and in all the aspects and relations in which he appeared, regarded him as their God and the God of providence and grace, their Creator, Preserver, Lawgiver, and Ruler, it is safe to conclude that this method of personal and visible manifestation and intercourse was a primary and essential characteristic of that dispensation. If the instances of such personal appearance and intercourse in which minute details are recorded, as in that to Abraham in the plain of Mamre,

and that to Jacob at Peni-El, are not greatly multiplied, they are yet sufficiently numerous, considered in connection with the occasions, circumstances and expres sions by which other instances are distinguished, to warrant us in supposing the frequent occurrence of like manifestations to the same individuals, and to many others of whose personal history no extended details are recorded, and many others of whom nothing, or nothing except their names, is mentioned. Moreover, when Moses wrote, such visible manifestations were familiar to the Israelites, and in his retrospective history no more required to be specially mentioned, except as incidents interwoven with, and inseparable from, the personal narratives of the past, than full details respecting sacrificial offerings, their typical references, the law of the Sabbath, and other matters, which were in like manner familiar, and constituted the essential elements of their religious system.

There is ground to conclude that this mode of manifestation was coëval with the creation; and that, if there had been no apostasy of man, He "for whom are all things, and by whom are all things," would have continued visibly and constantly present with the race on earth, as he will be after he shall have destroyed the last enemy, and obviated the consequences of the fall. At that predicted restitution, a condition of things like that which preceded the defection is to be realized; when he is to dwell with men-their God.

The New Testament clearly ascertains to us that he was personally the Creator. The style and manner in which he spoke and acted, as recorded by Moses in his account of the creation, and in his primeval intercourse with Adam, coincides in familiarity, and may be described as homogeneous, with that employed on occasions

of his visible manifestations to Abraham, Jacob, and others. When he said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," it may well be presumed that, among other things, he had reference to that visible form in which he was thenceforth frequently recognized, and in which he at length became incarnate, and will hereafter be seen by every eye.

As instances of the appropriateness of what he said to a person locally present, and speaking and acting as a man would naturally do, the following are referred to: "He saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. And on the seventh day, having ended his work, he rested, and blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which Elohim created and made." Such references to time and place imply an actor having coincident relations. Again, "He planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed, and commanded him, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." After the transgression, the same local references, and the like familiarity, and implication of his personal presence, are continued: "And they heard the voice”—according to Owen and others, the WORD" of Jehovah Elohim, walking in the garden; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence"—literally, the face-" of Jehovah Elohim, amongst the trees of the garden. And Jehovah Elohim called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice, and I was afraid, and I hid myself." These passages seem to be demonstrative of the local personal presence of the Divine speaker, as clearly as of that of the guilty couple. They heard him

in the garden, and to avoid meeting or being met by him, they hid themselves among the trees. This would have been to no purpose, had he not been locally, but only spiritually present. They heard him walking, and having retreated to a covert for concealment, he called to Adam; acts which, in a plain, literal narrative, imply a local personal presence.

If on this occasion, when the delinquent parties were successively arraigned and questioned, and the sentence of condemnation was pronounced in words addressed personally to each, he was locally present, the otherwise seeming paradox, that the same style and manner of address to the subtle adversary should be employed as to Adam, disappears. So the words addressed to Cain can hardly be thought to have been literally spoken, but upon the supposition that the Divine speaker was locally present, and that his presence was matter of previous and familiar recognition to Cain. A like inference may be made from the statement that Elohim came to Abimelech, and spake to him in a dream, and from his address to Jehovah, Gen. xx.; and also from the statement that Elohim came to Laban in a dream, and his mention of the fact, and of the caution he renewed to Jacob, Gen. xxxi.

Nor is there in any respect any thing improbable in the supposition that he was locally and visibly present in the likeness of man at that period, any more than at subsequent periods. On the contrary, the statement (John i. 1) that the WORD-the delegated Person who in due time assumed our nature and was visibly on earth-was in the beginning, and created all things, implies that he was then recognized in his official character, which implies relations and acts of which place and visibility were indispensable conditions. Such must

undoubtedly have been the case when he was seen, if not uniformly when his voice was heard. He may have been often locally present when, though heard, he was not seen. Such, with respect to Daniel's companions, was the case in his vision, chap. x. He saw one in the form of man, whose face was as the appearance of lightning, and heard his words; but the men that were with him saw not the vision. And when Paul saw his person so unequivocally as to constitute him a witness of his resurrection, the men accompanying him heard his voice, but saw him not. When it is simply said that he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or others, and the narrative proceeds to relate what he said, and what answers were made, the language plainly implies his local personal presence, though no mention is made of his being seen. The occasions and objects of his appearance in such instances were, so far as we can judge, as important and as appropriate to such local and visible manifestations, as those in relation to which it is expressly recorded that he was seen in the likeness of

man.

The primeval and Levitical dispensations were specially characterized by visible manifestations, acts, rites and events, embodying, enforcing, and illustrating the great truths which were revealed. Thus, on the part of man, the first prohibition enjoined upon Adam, besides its reference to his will, had relation to an external and visible act, and an external and visible object, the fruit of a particular tree. The ritual of worship prescribing, among other offerings, that of slaughtered animals on an altar, the observance of the Sabbath, the long list of fasts, feasts, convocations, ordinances, rites and ceremonies, and most of the injunctions and prohibitions of the moral law, had respect to outward and visible acts.