which it closes: "Whoso findeth me, findeth LIFE, and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me, love DEATH:" v, 36; comp. John iii, 36. viii, 24. xi, 25, 26. xiv, 6; Col. iii, 4. &c.

Finally, the "goings forth" of Christ have been "from of old, from everlasting." Such is the declaration of the Lord, through his prophet Micah, in a passage which Jews as well as Christians have long been accustomed without hesitation to interpret, as relating to the Messiah of Israel. "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall HE come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting, (or more literally) from ever, from the days of eternity:"" Mic. v, 2, comp. Matt. ii, 6, John iii, 42.

Such are some of the principal passages in Scripture on which Christians ground their belief, that their Redeemer preexisted in some higher condition than that which appertains to mortals; and which enable them to trace his preexistence backward, even to the days of eternity." What then was the nature in which Christ thus preexisted? I venture to reply, on what I deem to be the clear authority of the sacred records, Not the nature of men-not that of angels -not that of any order of creatures, however eminent in the scale of being, but the nature of GOD HIMSELF. The scriptural evidences on which this assertion is grounded, are as follows:

7

עולם and קדס) Both the words here employed מקדם מימי עולם

frequently denote a real eternity: vide Deut. xxxiii, 27; Ps. lv, 20; Hab. i, 12; Ps. xc, 2. xciii, 2. ciii, 17, &c. And, in this passage, the addition of the one term to the other, goes far to strengthen the notion of eternity, as in the very common

לעולם ועד expression

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HE IS THE ALPHA AND OMEGA,

I. In the first place, it may be observed, that the doctrine of the godhead or deity of Christ, is a necessary deduction from that of his eternal preexistence: for, while the being of every creature of God has necessarily commenced at some particular point of time, God alone has existed from eternity. Now, this latter doctrine I conceive to be true: first, because the Scriptures, while they make clear mention of the preexistence of Christ before the creation of all things, (John i, 1. xvii, 5) afford no hint whatever of the commencement of that preexistence at any definite time: secondly, because such is obviously the most natural interpretation of the passage now cited from the prophecies of Micah: thirdly, because the Lord Jesus, in the Revelation, expressly says of himself, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last;" (i, 11;) "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending; the first and the last:" Rev. xxii, 13. Let it be observed, that in close connection with these declarations, there are two other passages of the Revelation, in which the Supreme Being (styled in one of them, "the Almighty," and in the other, God,") describes himself in the very same terms: i, 8. xxi, 6, 7. If then, in the passages last alluded to, it is the Son who speaks, the deity of the Son is at once established. If, on the other hand, it is the Father who speaks in them, it is undeniable that these sublime expressions are descriptive of some divine attribute; and, in that case, how can they be reasonably explained otherwise than as signifying the original, independent, eternal, existence of the Great First Cause 28 "Thus saith Jehovah,

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8 See Rosenmüller on Rev. i, 8. "Ego sum ab æterno in æternum. Omnium primus sum, nec unquam finem sum habiturus....Tò A xai rò N. i. e. Ante me non

IN THE FORM OF GOD,

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the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts, I am the FIRST, and I am the LAST; and beside me there is no God:" Isa. xliv, 6; comp. xli, 4. xlviii, 12.

II. In the second place, Jesus Christ preexistent was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God. "Let this mind be in you," says the apostle Paul to the Philippians, "which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore God also hath highly exalted him," &c.: ii, 5-9.9 In this luminous passage, the apostle has evidently adverted to four successive stages in the history of Jesus Christ, viz.-his original glory; his reduction from that glory; his farther humiliation unto the death of the cross; and his final exaltation. Now it is indisputable, that his condition of original glory was enjoyed before he made himself of no reputation, or (as the Greek more properly imports) emptied himself, or made himself void of that glory; and from the construction of the original, (more especially) it is equally clear, that this emptying of himself was accompanied by his taking upon him the form of a servant, and by his being made in

fuit alius Deus, et post me non erit ullus. Est locutio a Rabbinis desumpta, qui dicunt (ab Aleph usque ad Tau). Johannes eam locutionem aptavit ad alphabeticam Græcam, quia ipse Græcè scribebat.

9 The Greek Text is as follows: Τοῦτο γὰρ φρονείσθω ἐν ὑμῖν ὃ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ ̓Ιησοῦ· ὃς ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἶσα Θεῷ· ἀλλ ̓ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσε, μορφὴν δούλου λαβὼν, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος, εταπείνωσεν ἑαυτὸν, γενόμενος ὑπήκοος μέχρι θανάτου, θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ· διὸ καὶ ὁ Θεὸς αὐτὸν ὑπερύψωσε, κ.τ.λ.

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AND EQUAL WITH GOD.

.

the likeness of men.1 Since then Jesus Christ assumed the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men when he became incarnate (for these expressions are wholly inapplicable to any other period of his history), it follows, that before his incarnation he was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Hence we again derive the doctrine of the real divinity of Christ preexistent; for whether we understand the declaration that he was in the form of God, as conveying the notion that he displayed the characteristic attributes of deity; or more simply as importing, that he subsisted in the divine nature, (for the word rendered "form," sometimes denotes the nature of a thing) — it is in either case a necessary inference, that he was truly God. So also it appears to be impossible that he should not think it robbery to be equal with God, or (as the Greek may rather be rendered) to be on an equality with God, on any other principle than that of his actually participating in the Father's godhead. For between God and the most exalted of his creatures there is surely no equality, no evenness of claim

1 The original might here be more literally rendered-" He emptied himselftaking the form of a servant and being made in the likeness of men.'

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2 I apprehend that the word ogon would be best rendered in this passage "" nature. Schleusner (in voc.) explains it as here signifying ipsa natura et essentia; a sense which he considers this substantive sometimes to adopt in classical Greek. Thus Plato says of the gods, ἕκαστος αὐτῶν μένει ἀεὶ ἁπλῶς ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ μορφῇ, unusquisque eorum simpliciter semper manet in propria ipsius natura: De Rep. The ancient Greek philosophers taught that the quais or ovora—the nature or being of a thing-consisted first of its λŋ (substance), and secondly of its dog or μόρφη (form), and that the latter was its end or perfection-réλos, EvTEXÉxea: see Aristotel. Natural. Auscult. lib. iii, sect. 8, ed. Paris, 1629, vol. i, p. 337. De Animâ, lib. ii, cap. 1, vol. i, p. 630. So again, we read that the Son of God "took the form of a servant"—an expression which appears to denote nothing less than that when he was made flesh, he actually became a servant; for his whole human life was devoted to the service of God: and in a less proper sense, he was also the servant of man, to whose wants he ministered. tators, Theodoret and Theophylact, both interpret otora, nature: in loc.

Those ancient Greek commenógon in this passage as signifying

on the worship of men and angels; but rather a determined, unalterable, infinite, disparity.3

III. Thirdly, Christ in his preexistence was the Son of God. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested," says the apostle John, " that he might destroy the works of the devil:" I John iii, 8. 66 In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him :" iv, 9. "We have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world:" 14. And in his Gospel, the same inspired writer testifies, that when the Word was made flesh, his disciples beheld his glory "as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father:" i, 14. From these and other similar passages, it plainly appears, that the Person whom the Father sent into the world, who was then manifested in the flesh, and who (as we have already ascertained) dwelt, before his incarnation, in glory with the Father-was the Son of

3 In rendering the words oux ȧgrayμov nysaro, "thought it not robbery," the translators of our version have adhered literally to the original Greek; for substantives ending in σμος or γμος are active in their signification. As ἀσπασμὸς means the action of saluting, and ἀκοντισμός the action of darting, so άρπαγμὸς properly denotes the action of seizing, and is explained by Scapula as equivalent with ἁρπαγή, (In voc. ). So Plutarch, de lib. educ. (as quoted by Wetstein)—Tòv έx Κρήτης καλούμενον ἁρπαγμὸν, "That which is called the seizure out of Crete." Many critics however, both ancient and modern, appear to understand agaɣNÒS as of the same force, in this passage, with grayμa-res rapta, a booty seized; in which case the words of the apostle would convey the notion that "Although Christ was in the form of God, yet he did not regard his equality with the Father, (or his being equally honoured with the Father) in the light of a booty-of a possession violently obtained, and therefore eagerly to be insisted on--but made himself of no reputation, &c." So Theodoret and Theophylact in loc. Chrysostom De Christi precibus x, ed. Ben. tom. i, 538, Schleusner, and others. Now although I conceive that ȧgrayuòs is incapable of a passive meaning, and therefore that the common English version of this passage is clearly the preferable one, yet I would request the reader to observe, that either of these interpretations secures the doctrine of the equality of Christ (as it relates to the divine nature) with the Father. That the passage conveys that doctrine, appears to have been the general and unhesitating opinion of the early fathers, and Greek commentators on the New Testament: see, for example, Isidorus Pel. lib. iv, 22. Cyril. Alex. in Esai, lib. iv, Orat. 4. Ed. Lutet. ii, 661. Theodoret, Theophylact, Ecumenius, and Damascenus, in loc.