nothing else than the Saviour and the sinner; and the previous question of the Person sending and his end in sending the Saviour, and the Saviour's subordination inasmuch as he is sent, and the Father's exaltation of him unto the glory which he had before the world was, and the Father's bringing of him into the kingdom to rule with all his enemies under his feet, and whatever else manifesteth a Sovereign God in and through all the departments of the purpose, is forgotten, or prevented from its overruling influence, in the preaching and in the believing of the Gospel. The Gospel borne by Jesus of Nazareth is cut out, like a niche of the temple of God's wisdom, and held up as the whole. Whereof the evil consequence is, that men are not over-awed out of their own self-will, or brought into the condition of obedience; but abide in a liberty to accept or not to accept the grace; and, having accepted it, to go that length in the observance of it which they deem most expedient. What would be the effect of your going to a selfwilled man with continual acts of grace and entreaty? what, but to feed his self-willedness? But if you went to him with the authority and right of a stronger will, both resolved and able to bend and break his stubbornness; which having accomplished, you did then treat him. graciously; this were likely to be productive of good. Yet, lest the evil propensity might rise again, it would be necessary at all times so to

mingle authority with grace as might repress the evil and foster the good. Now, exactly in like manner I do perceive that God, in sending grace by Jesus Christ, hath not the less defended it from the abuse of selfish man, by exhibiting it as the grace of a Sovereign unto those who were under the ban of law and the sentence of death. The very name Grace, which is not merely gift, but gift to the undeserving; the very name Salvation, which is deliverance from perdition; the very name Election, which is choice out of many that are not chosen; every thing doth bear upon the face of it the stamp of sovereignty in the grace. Now, forasmuch as the same person cannot at one and the same time be both a servant and a sovereign; and Christ, the Second Person, hath taken upon himself the character of the servant-a servant though a Son--the sovereignty passeth over to, and properly standeth in, the person of the Father who becomes the sender, by reason of the Son's being willing to be sent; who becomes the giver, by reason of the Son's being willing to be given. And the Son doth not testify of himself, but of the Father which sent him; giving the honour of applying the benefits of redemption unto the same Father to whom he giveth the honour of devising the purpose and furnishing the means and Mediator. This is Christ's own method of presenting his own work unto sinful men, and in doing likewise we shall do well. The infinite God, the Almighty Creator,

will thus ever be kept before the creature--as to the creature is most needful-with a Mediator between us laying his hand upon both; receiving from the infinite and invisible God, life, and the means of life, unto the creature; and handing up from the creature acknowledgment and service unto the invisible and incomprehensible Godhead. If this origin in the invisible and incomprehensible Godhead be not given to every thing we receive, and if this ending in the invisible and incomprehensible Godhead be not given to every thing we render, then, I say, without a hesitation, that the Father is so far forth avoided, and the visible and comprehensible in the Son absorbeth the Godhead; and we are found worshipping the Man-God as the ultimate, instead of worshipping the invisible Godhead of the Father, Son, and Spirit; standing under the person of the Father as the ultimate, and the bodily fulness of the same Godhead standing under the person of the Son as the Mediator. This, now, is the state to which the church generally is brought, of looking unto the manifest and comprehensible Godhead as the ultimate and so cometh it to pass, that all prostration of the creature before the Creator, all dependence of the finite upon the Infinite, and reverence of the non-absolute for the Absolute, and subjection of the visible to the Invisible, which constitute religion and law, and, I may say, every other noble occupation of the creature's faculty-all this is de

stroyed; and, in its stead, a set of expedients to compass a visible good, a set of instruments whose working can be calculated, a set of schemes resting upon time, placé, and circumstance, have gotten the favour and the zeal, and will be the ruin and destruction of the religious world. I know how these remarks will be treated, as mysticism, or madness; but, being patient of this controversy, as one who sees that all is to be saved, or all to be lost, I will point out, in a more plain and detailed way, how this omission of the sovereignty of God as the ultimate end and first origin of every thing, hath wrought evil in the church.

And, first, it hath marred the beauty of the Divine purpose; which is this, That the Son, having thus consented to humble himself into a servant for the declaration of the Father's grace and the Father's glory, the Father doth straightway shew forth his love unto and honour of his Son, by governing all the creatures in such a way as to bring honour to his Son: and this he doth by the Holy Spirit; calling out of the Gentiles a people for the testimony of his name, during those long ages in which Jacob was not gathered; and blessing or cursing the nations and kingdoms of the world, according as they did well entreat or evil entreat these the faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ: all downfalls and uprisings of kingdoms, all revolutions of states, overruling for the glory of Jesus Christ; all martyrdoms, persecutions, and sufferings in

the church permitting, for the end of making his name glorious over the cruelties of power and the pains of death: blessing also with riches and power, and inward peace and outward victory, every state which giveth good welcome, and still more every state which yieldeth obedience, unto the name of his holy child Jesus and still more wonderfully, though less remarkably, proving the Divine honour of that name, by enabling every one who believeth in it to triumph over Satan in his flesh, and to produce the holy fruits of the Spirit. All providence, whether particular or general, whether over the church or over the world, whether over the individual members or over the body of Christ, hath this, and this only, for its object, to give glory unto the Son. The Father is bringing all creatures under his feet; his friends gathering into a noble company of the redeemed; his enemies casting down into the pit; restraining the rage of those who live, and making their wrath to praise him; until the time shall come for gathering unto him the tribes of Jacob, who shall come with willing might, at the ensign of God lifted up upon the mountains, to maintain the cause of Him whom they crucified, against the antichristian confederacy of the nations: whom then God shall break in pieces like a potsherd-or rather the Son himself; for now the government shall begin to be upon his shoulders, and then he shall rule the earth in righteousness, and the