But he says, while God makes us fit for this, he has also delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his own dear Son. He goes on to state the privileges we have and hold fast, namely, redemption; thereby showing we were slaves -bond slaves-under the tyranny of Satan, and suffering from the scathing curse of sin; but we are raised from this wretched state-we have redemption, or deliverance, in the sublimest sense, through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

Here I ask you to notice how frequently these and kindred great results are attributed to the blood of Christ; and therefore to see that it must have a peculiar and intransferable virtue; it cannot be the blood of a martyr, but of God in our nature. We read, for instance, that "we are redeemed through his blood;" "we are washed in his blood;" we are pardoned through his blood;" "we are cleansed through his blood." Could such language be used of the death of Paul, or Peter, or the most sainted men that ever lived? Unquestionably not. The very idea is blasphemy. Paul and Peter died as martyrs; but the blood they shed could not wash away their own individual sins, much less ours. Jesus died a sacrifice,-Deity satisfying and humanity suffering, and his blood, in its infinite and exclusive efficacy, therefore cleanseth from all sin.

In the fifteenth verse, our Lord is called "the firstborn of every creature." This is a favourite text with the Socinian; from it he infers, that Christ had a beginning, and was a created being, for he is the first-born of every creature, i. e. the first and chiefest of a created succession. The Greek word translated "first-born," no doubt, strictly and literally means priority in birth—

such, no doubt, is its original and literal meaning. But many words bear a conventional as distinct from a literal meaning; and it is here, and in similar instances, that very acute and microscopic Greek scholars often err; they look too intensely at the exact and severe meaning of a word, and shut out too much its conventional usage and relationship. This Greek word, if translated literally from the original, is "first-born." But in the usage of the Jews the first-born became entitled to privileges; and therefore the first-born was not only the first but the most excellent; and the phrase "first-born" came to be conventionally, and by the usage of speech, applied to anything that was most excellent. The firstfruits were the best fruits; the first-born was regarded as the choicest, the chiefest, or the most excellent. Therefore this word, applied to our blessed Lord, evidently denotes that he was the most excellent of all, the most excellent of all creation; the chief of ten thousand, altogether lovely; the first, the greatest, the best, the holiest. That we may fall into no mistake, we must read the verses that follow; because, if the Socinian put his peculiar interpretation upon the fifteenth verse, we must ask him, what interpretation he is pleased to put upon the sixteenth verse? "For by him"-that is, this "first-born," this most excellent, this greatest, chiefest, best" by him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him, and for him." Is not this Deity? He that created all, and is the author and end of all; for whom all things exist, and who is the coronal, and object, and aim, and culmi

nating glory of all-what can he be but God over all, blessed for evermore?

Speaking of his relationship to the Church, he says, "He is the head of the body, the Church." What does the head supply to the body? Nervous energy, vitality, power, intelligence, understanding: the brain is the organ, and the medium, and the instrument of all this. Our blessed Lord is to his believing, elect, and regenerate people all this, and more than this; for the Church of which he is thus the head is not the Church national, nor the Church congregational, nor the Church visible, but the whole company of Christians, living and regenerated souls-some in heaven, some in earth, some in every sect and communion under the sun; but all knit to him spiritually and really, as the branches are to the vine, as the living limbs are to the human body; and deriving vitality, and strength, and peace, and joy, and everlasting salvation in, from, and through him.

"Whereas the head of the Church is God, we infer that the Church will abide for ever, neither 'shall the gates of hell prevail against it ;' for 'if God be with us, who shall be against us?' A less than God would indeed have been incompetent to the protection of the Church for the devil, and almost the whole world, wage constant war against it. Herein, then, is the consolation of the Church, that 'Christ, the head of the Church, is greater to protect it than the devil, the enemy of the Church, is to oppose it.'-Cyprian, De Exhort. Martyr. cap. 10.

"If the head of the Church be God, the members of the Church ought, with all fear and reverence, to obey its head in all things. For there is an infinite obligation which binds every creature to obey its God; but

that obligation, if possible, surpasses infinite, whereby the Church, redeemed and sanctified, is bound to be subject to its God, its mystical and life-giving head.

"If the head of the Church be God, then the ascension of Christ into heaven has not deprived the Church of its head nay, he is present, and will be always present, with his whole Church, by the presence and power of his Divinity, although he may not appear to our eyes by his bodily presence. This he himself promised (Matt. xxviii. ult.): 'I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.'

"The head and the members have a conformity in their destination to the same end, viz. the preservation and safety of the whole person: thus Christ, and the members of Christ, which are one person, are ordained to the attainment of one end, viz. eternal glory and happiness."

"It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." What an expression! What glory is here given! Could a creature comprehend or receive the fulness of the Creator; or could the finite contain the infinite? "And having made peace through the blood of his cross, he reconciled all things to himself in heaven and in earth. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled." That is to say, angels are in some way benefited by Christ's death; men are saved and glorified by it. Angels probably approximate nearer to God in happiness because Christ died; sinners, we know, are justified, and pardoned, and sanctified, because Christ died. It is literally true that there is not a spot on the earth, nor a star in the sky; not an orphan in its loneliness, nor an angel by the throne; not an insect in the sunbeam, nor an archangel high

above it, that is not in some way affected or benefited by this grand fact, that Jesus died and suffered a sacrifice for our sins.

There is one expression in this chapter which has been very often misconstrued; it is in the twenty-fourth verse, where Paul says, "I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the Church." This is a favourite text with Roman Catholic controversialists, who say that sufferings endured by Christians are supplemental to the sacrifice made and sufferings endured by Christ. For proof of this they quote the text, that "I, the apostle Paul, fill up in my flesh that which is behind, or wanting, of the afflictions of Christ." But then they forget one thing; "for his body's sake, that is, the Church," is not the Greek preposition meaning "in the stead of." If it had been "I fill up sufferings that are wanting in the stead of the Church," then that would have been something like the idea they wish to ground upon it. But the preposition employed here means "for the comfort, for the progress, for the happiness, for the growth in grace of the church;" that is to say, "what I suffer is a ministry of goodness, of usefulness, of encouragement and instruction, not of atonement, to all the rest of the members of the body of Christ.” The sufferings that remain are clearly those sufferings appointed in the providence, and meted out by the wisdom of God; which are not penal, but paternal, and contributive so far in their action as medicines to the good of those that are the subjects of them, and so far as exemplary to the encouragement of others who see such sufferings so patiently borne, and ending in such great and precious results.