Paul;-founded on the word of Christ, and possessed consequently of his authority. He is urging Timothy to fight a good fight of faith; to guide his whole conduct by the rules of righteousness and godliness; and he adjures him in the name of the eternal and unapproachable Godhead to keep the law which had been entrusted to him. He speaks of Christ in the unity of the Father-the perfect God-the JEHOVAH of the Jews, and says; "I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and Jesus Christ, that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; which in his times he shall shew, the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can

These proofs are drawn from the New Testament. We revert to the Jewish Covenant with the greater readiness, in that one may be taken from the lips of Moses, which, while it is in perfect unison with the passages quoted, at the same time draws the precise distinction for which we are contending. His object is to shew that the God of Israel was never seen, and that therefore there could be no justification for them, if they should, in compliance with the idolatrous notions which prevailed in those times, attempt to represent him under any visible form. He recals to their memory the day in which they stood before Mount Sinai at the delivery of their law. "Ye came near, and stood under the moun* 1 Tim. vi. 13.

tain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds and thick darkness. And the Lord (JEHOVAH) spake unto you out of the midst of the fire ;-ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice." *

It is impossible to set aside passages of so distinct and precise an import in regard to the visible appearance of the Father, without destroying the authority of the volume, by which alone the judgment can in such points be directed. "The voice" which was heard by the transgressors in Paradise was that of Christ. The judgment pronounced severally on the guilty, was in virtue of the dominion which had been committed to Christ. The first faint hope of mercy, which was infused into the mind of Adam, was the mercy of Christ. And in very truth it adds an inexpressible depth of feeling and love and gratitude to the fact, that the announcement of the curse of the Father upon our race should not only be accompanied with the promise of the Son;--but that that promise should be first uttered by the very lips of Him, who in an after age so wondrously fulfilled it. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ;-it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," † How vividly and how beautifully does it declare to us the essential and true spirit of his ministry; and bring to the mind the emphatic declaration of the apostle; " Herein is love; not that we loved God;-but that he loved us."

But the establishment of this point forcibly in† Gen. iii. 15.

duces us to carry the thought back to the original delivery of the Divine Covenant with Adam. We know not, to a certainty, by what means the will of God was manifested to him; and that knowledge imparted, which was necessary to his comprehension of the full force of the command given to him. God is introduced as speaking to him. "The Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying; of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, &c."* Now the argument we have just pursued leads in this, as in subsequent parts of the history, to the conclusion, that God the Father could not have been the medium of communication. The fact of his voice not having been heard, nor his shape seen, has no reference whatever in the passages adduced, to man in his fallen or his unfallen state. They are general statements in regard to God's universal dealings with the human race, and apply no less to Paradise, than to the streets and highways of Jerusalem and Judea. We conclude then that the first command was given through the intervention of an angel, equally with the last. The mind is led naturally to Christ as the instrument. There is great probability in the idea, from its harmony with the rest of Scripture; and it will receive still greater strength in the recollection, that Adam, after his transgression, shrank from "the voice," as from one that was both well known, and to which he had been accustomed. The very form of the question is indicative of this, and assumes a surprise in the absence of the transgres

sors.

"The Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid."* But to return to the argument.

Christ having pronounced judgment on the guilty, and expelled man from Paradise, a pause takes place in the history, until the contention between Cain and Abel in regard to their sacrifice. Cain is wroth; his mind, torn with conflicting passions, is at once offended with the Deity for the rejection of his offering, and fiercely jealous of his brother for the favour which had been exhibited to him. The same Divine Person who had instructed Adam after his fall on the true nature of the rites of sacrifice, and who continued to manifest himself to men in the manner and at the times which their exigences seemed to require, expostulates with him. "The Lord (JEHOVAH) said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen."↑ The continuity of the history, and this especially, -joined, as it is with the declarations against the open manifestations of the Father, - demands that Christ should be the expostulator with Cain, as he had been with Adam. He had communicated to man the true means of propitiation, and it gives a most forcible reason, both why He should not have respect to an offering, which had no reference to himself, and his own destined sacrifice of Atonement; and also, why he should remonstrate with the offender on a system, which, in the process of time, would cast out the very knowledge of redemption from the greater portion

of the human race. The judgment then pronounced on Cain, was the judgment of Christ.

The next recorded intervention, was in the mercy displayed to Noah at the period of the flood. God is introduced by Moses in a bold and not unusual figure of Scripture illustration, as meditating in Heaven on the sins and wickedness of the earth. He is represented as repenting that he had made man, and as " grieved in his heart" at his obduracy in transgression. It is quite clear, that this state of contemplation could not have existed in reality, but was written to give awe and majesty to the subject; a fit prelude to the fearful work which was about to be consummated. A similar instance occurs with precisely a similar motive a few pages subsequent, in the confusion of tongues at Babel; where the Deity-Christ -is not only introduced as meditating on man's audacity; but as descending upon the earth "to see the city and the tower" which they builded, previous to his scattering them over the earth. The attention then having been thus gained, the real intervention takes place in the denouncement to Noah in the words, "The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth."* The delegated power is announced plainly and simply in the words, "I will destroy them." Men have broken the covenant which I renewed with Adam. They have not been deterred by the judgment which I passed upon Cain. They have become wholly corrupt and evil in defiance of my continued presence among them, and I will destroy