of the divine persons between themselves, (says an eminent writer on the subject) are the covenant of grace, wherein the method of our salvation was fixed, and that gracious design effectually secured.'

Thus we acknowledge that the constitution of the person of Christ, and the designation to his marvellous work, was the great act of "the Three that bear record in heaven." The scriptures, the only guide to a right understanding of the mighty subject, supply no further information than is comprized in this succinct statement: but we would evermore praise the almighty author and revealer of the word, that he hath given innumerable plain and indisputable testimonies to establish the faith of believers in the all-important truth. Yet the vain imaginations of some, even professors of the faith of God's elect, has induced them in various ways to repudiate divine declarations, and raise a dark veil between the orb of truth and the eye of faith. With the pretensions of casting a shade before the false lights which divert the mind from the great luminary, they have aided in obscuring his beams, and have left the lone and anxious enquirer to "meet with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noon day as in the night." Many persons have held the views we are about to condemn, who believed that therein they had done greater honour to the word of inspiration, and, consequently, to the person of our adorable Lord. But, while we presume not to question the honest persuasion of their own mind, we are living witnesses of the dolorous effects of the same, when inculcated before those "whom the Lord hath not made sad."

It is insisted on by some, that the human soul of Christ was a contracting party in the covenant of grace. This, which in the estimation of many may appear very harmless, and quite consistent with pre-conceived opinions, completely destroys the eternity of the covenant. Hence, to speak after the manner of men, the origination of the will and purpose of God concerning the church must have been delayed, until an act of creating power was put forth, for the production of part of the complex person of the church's head and representative. So that we are instructed to believe, that once there was no covenant! An acute reasoner, but one who, as a divine, has sadly marred the subject before us, asserts: I freely confess, that the platform of salvation was laid in the eternal mind; and that the whole scheme of our happiness was drawn in eternity, infinitely beyond all date; but yet the contract between the Father and Christ was not so. What trifling is this! Can it be possible to exalt the glories of Christ by thus libelling the wisdom and will of the triune Jehovah ? But if the covenant of grace be not eternal, there must have been a period when Christ was not the covenant head of the church; and we at once rescind from the canon of scripture such a gracious declaration as this: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."

We are in no fear of dishonouring the person of Christ in saying, also, that the presence of his human soul was not needful in the high

council of eternity; neither for the purpose of guaranteeing the fulfilment of covenant stipulations, nor for representing the persons of his mystical body. It is adopting a very inadequate mode of expression to remark, that the second person in Jehovah, alone, was competent to undertake both the representation of the church, and the accomplishment of divine decrees; but the united wisdom of earth and hell may be challenged to deny its correctness. "Mine own arm brought salvation, and "of the people there was none with me," are glorious truths not only referrible to the great Surety when actively engaged in the redemption of the church, but may be strictly applied to the will and determination of his divine person, considered as covenanting on his own and his people's behalf. And it is not an incredible thing,' that the triune Jehovah should view and account him, the glorious God-man, before calling forth any one created intelligence into being. Yea, it was a glory peculiar to Christ, in his divine nature exclusively, to contract with the persons of the Father and the Holy Spirit. And, since the presence of his human soul could add neither glory to his divine nature, nor reality to his covenant engagements, we may with safety conclude that it was not brought into existence until the fulness of the time was come."

So far as the light of faith directs us, we glory in the mysterious actings of the persons in Jehovah severally, and desire never to lose sight of their oneness in will and operation. Yet we are liable greatly to err by not at all times keeping in view, that they distinctly as well as mutually concur and act in the purposes of the covenant. The nature which the second Person decreed to take into union with himself, was his own in a peculiar sense, and was absolutely at the disposal of his divine will. He had full and proper right to veil his glories therein, and to agree that it should obey and become a sacrifice for the sins of his people. We have repeated expressions, from the lips of Christ, which clearly prove the right of the divine person to dispose of the human nature. Hence we learn, that not only the preexistence of the human soul was unnecessary, but that the advocates of the idea, however unintentionally, greatly disparage the glories of the eternal Three, in their several subsistences. That the human soul of Christ was a party in the covenant, we boldly deny ;--that it was a witness in an eternal contract, we utterly disavow.

It is seldom, we believe, that the pre-existent scheme,' as it is called, has been agitated dispassionately: the effects of its bigotted advocacy having often appeared in futile reasonings and rude reproach. Surely a subject involving such weighty considerations, as those at which we have glanced, deserves and demands a solemnity of feeling and conduct somewhat proportioned to its importance. One part of the apostle's charge to Titus is frequently acted upon, where an equally momentous part is held in fearful neglect: even uncorruptness,' "sincerity," and "sound speech," may be used" in doctrine,”—but we shall see the exhortation to "gravity" entirely forgotten.

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These observations we lay before our readers as introductory to others which, if requisite, will be advanced; and they may be considered as the basis of our arguments, against the profitless reasonings of those who maintain the sentiment of the pre-existence of the human soul of Christ. "Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus."

"For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”—Heb. xiii. 14.

THE writer of this epistle most ably opens the spiritual meaning of the law of ceremonies as delivered to Moses, and to the Hebrews through him. The superiority of the priesthood of Christ to that of Aaron is here set forth, and the infinite value of his sacrifice above the sacrifices offered under the law. In them, there was but a remembrance of sin; in Christ's sacrifice, there was a removing of sin for ever away for," by his one offering he hath for ever perfected them who are sanctified." Having thus opened the Mosaic ritual, he proceeds to encourage the believing Hebrews, while in the path of tribulation, by setting before them a great cloud of witnesses, who endured as seeing him who is invisible, confessing themselves to be but strangers and pilgrims on earth; who all died in faith; and who believed in, and were everlastingly saved by the promised Messiah. He also sets before them their great example Jesus, who freely suffered without the gate, and draws this inference therefrom, " let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach ;" and the more so, because the path of tribulation is the way sovereignly ordained to the kingdom of glory.

The words referred to, in their primary and literal signification, were particularly addressed to the believing Hebrews. The storm of God's vengeance was now beginning to gather over Jerusalem; the once splendid and honourable seat of the kings of David's line was now soon to be pillaged by the Roman army; and the foundation of the temple, which Zerubbabel laid in the presence of Israel's rejoicing tribes, was soon to be razed to the ground. This the Hebrews could not be altogether ignorant of, the apostle therefore reminds them of the Jerusalem above, their peaceful happy home to which they were moving, where no enemy would ever dare to approach, nor thieves break through and steal. But the words will be very properly applied, if we consider them as addressed to all the spiritual seed of Abraham; for every believer in Jesus is a stranger and pilgrim on earth, and is seeking a city above, whose builder is God; agreeably to the text first quoted, "here have we no continuing city, but we

seek one to come."

We have here a fact stated, "we have no continuing city;" and we have also an exercise described, 66 we seek one to come."

But, why have we no continuing city, or permanent place of rest? First, because we have forfeited our earthly paradise by sin. Our first parents, as the head and representative of all their unborn race, once lived and enjoyed all the felicity of an earthly Eden, as their right, according to the tenour of the covenant under which they enjoyed it. Their obedience to their Creator's law entitled them to all their pristine state could give; and their benevolent Creator would not (could not in justice) have ejected them while they continued to yield that obedience; for this was the condition of all their blessings, and so of life the chief blessing. But now, (sad to tell) our very existence on earth is forfeited, for on this footing we have no claim upon God for the next moment. We live by sufferance, not by right. The flood of vengeance that deluged the old world, or which consumed the guilty inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah in liquid fire, might justly overwhelm the whole world, were it not that sovereign grace is designed to be displayed through the Redeemer's cross; and, therefore, the sparing mercy of God is over all his works, and his chosen are preserved in Christ Jesus and called. This rolling world wheels round, and Adam's race arise to inhabit it a short season, as months and years successive move;' but, from the crowned monarch to the humble cottager, all are tenants at will of the great Supreme, who has fixed their firm impassable bound. (Job xiv. 5.) Thus the terms upon which man first held all his earthly possession being violated, his title to hold them is for ever lost, and, therefore," here we have no continuing city."

Secondly. Because the natural constitution of man is such, that it is impossible it can remain long in its present condition. The body of man though so wonderfully formed, that it strikingly displays the wisdom of its Maker, yet it is not framed for a long standing. "Our fathers, where are they; and the prophets, do they live for ever?" Some of Adam's race have indeed counted centuries before the lamp of life was extinct, yet he who lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years had not a continuing city. The age of man is more generally bounded by the odd sixty-nine; and thousands go hence before they have attained to the odd nine. Man at his best estate his altogether vanity; transient as the flower of the field, in infancy it buds, in youth the bud opens, in manhood it blows; and for a little while sheds a faint perfume of wisdom and knowledge, in dívinity or some other science; in the decline of life it fades, beauty and usefulness then soon terminate. Hoary hair, like the flourishing almond tree, and feebleness extreme, are presages that the wheel of animal life is near being broken at the fountain or cistern of the heart, which now refuses its operation; animation ceaseth, and the wonderfnl structure of the body becomes corruptible dust. (Eccles. xii.) Sin having entered into the world, and death by sin, the body is subject to numberless infirmities and frailties, diseases and pains, all of which are harbingers of approaching dissolution, daily reminding us, that "here we have no continuing city."

Thirdly. Another reason (and that not the least) is this.-It is sovereignly ordained, in the covenant of grace, that the church of Christ should not only pass out of a state of created innocence into a state of sin, and further into a state of grace, in which they are favoured to enjoy pardon, justification, sanctification, and communion with their Lord who redeemed them; but also that they should be taken home where their ever-living and ever-loving Lord is gone. They are not only predestinated to the adoption of children, but also to bear the image and shine in the likeness of their Lord, in the heavenly world. This was almost the last request our dear Lord made before he left the earth: "Father, I will, that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." This is according to the promise of the Father to Christ, as a reward of his sufferings; it is according to the grace-union of Christ and the church: he is now enthroned in glory, his church espoused to him must therefore possess the same kingdom with him. It is according to the nature and design of redemption; they are redeemed unto God. It is according to the nature and design of the work of the Holy Ghost upon their hearts; they are thereby fitted for heaven, and therefore cannot, must not, shall not live always here; for after they have suffered awhile he will make them perfect in the highest sense, A few more conflicts, and they shall be crowned more than conquerors, through him who hath loved them. A few more weary stages, and they shall bid adieu to the thorny maze, and leave all their cares and crosses, pains, and weaknesses, darkness and unbelief for ever behind; shall end their exile state, and Jesus shall come and receive them to himself. He will thus people the world above from this world below, till every mansion in our Father's house is filled, and the whole church shall have passed from grace to glory. It is a most encouraging and animating truth for our faith to receive, therefore, that in the constitution of grace it stands for ever established, that "here we have no continuing city."

Fourthly. Because our glorious Lord has taken possession of the heavenly kingdom in their name, where they are ever represented in his person. "The breaker is gone up before them," (Micah ii. 13.) "and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (Eph. ii. 6.) The new Jerusalem above, where Jesus reigns, is their permanent home; their title to it is unalienable, being founded relatively in their adoption union with him," if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ," (Romans viii. 17.) And meritoriously, in the ransom he hath paid for them, "Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again." (Verse 34.) Their redemption and justification by him, entitles them to live and reign with him; which title can never be lost nor invalidated while Jesus lives. But if they go not to him, his entering heaven in their name, and representing them there, stands for nothing, and his intercession proves unavailable. They must therefore leave