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against our fundamental article of faith, that Jesus Christ is God alone. It is the declaration of his inferiority to the father. He is assigning a reason why his disciples, instead of being grieved in the prospect of his leaving them, should rather rejoice in that prospect, because, in leaving them, he went to his father and, in giving this reason, he says expressly, "for, my father is greater than I." Now the opponents of our faith instantly say, if the father is greater than Jesus, how can he and the father be one and the same person; and therefore, how can Jesus Christ be, as you say he is, the one and the only God? This is a specious objection, which ought to be answered; and we design to discuss this topic also, in the present discourse— although we must necessarily touch on it rather incidently and briefly.

In the last discourse we showed, at considerable length, the true nature of the spirit that testifies of Jesus. And that discourse was introductory to this, because, in a true idea of the spirit, and of its proceeding from the father and the son, there is involved a correct idea of the relation of Jesus to the father, which, when it is clearly comprehended, enables the mind to discern, very satisfactorily, not only why it was expedient for Jesus to leave his disciples and go to the father, or why he must needs go to the father before he could send the holy spirit unto them as a comforter and a leader into all truth, or why it was necessary for him to come unto them himself a second time; but also in what sense it is that he is inferior to the father. And when the mind once gets an accurate, clear, and distinct idea of what the father is, and of what Jesus Christ is, and thus of the true relation of Jesus Christ to the father, then there will be no difficulty whatever in seeing that Jesus Christ's saying, in our text, that his father is greater than he, does not at all militate against the truth that he and the father are one, and that he himself is God alone.

We will now proceed to throw the light of our last text, as it has been unfolded, upon the distinct subject of our present consideration.

The first point to be illustrated is, why it was expedient for

the Lord to go away and come again. This involves the consideration of the nature and necessity of the Lord's second advent. And the clear understanding of this, requires a disquisition upon the internal and the external revelation of truth.

As man was originally created, he received truth by only an inner way. The Lord flowed into his soul with the love of good; and from this there was the intuitive perception of all truth. There was then no written revelation; for the Word was then written on the heart. But then, as now, life flowing from the Lord into man appeared to be in him as his own. Hence the good by which man was actuated, and the truth which he perceived, were both apparently his. This was the external appearance. While, however, man remained in his integrity, he had an inward perception that the good and the truth, which were his apparently, really flowed into him from the Lord. He inwardly perceived that he was but the recipient of life from the Lord, who alone has in himself life underived. And while he remained in the interior acknowledgment of this truth, his seeming to have, and his acting as if he had, life in himself, was not injurious to his spiritual state. The intelligence of this state is represented in the Word by the garden of Eden, and his appearing to live-that is, to will good and understand truth-from himself, while he inwardly acknowledged that he lived from the Lord, is signified by his eating of the tree of life which grew in the midst of the garden. This acknowledgment of the Lord kept the internal of his mind constantly open up to the Lord, so that life from the Lord could perpetually flow into his inmost with a perennial stream of divine revelation, that flowed, like a river, out of his Eden, or his celestial mind, to water its garden, or his spiritual mind, and parted into fountain heads of heavenly intelligence to all his mind's inferior regions.

But from this state of integrity, man ultimately fell. And his fall consisted in his resting in the appearance that life flowing into him from the Lord was in him as his own. For thus he supposed himself to be a god knowing good and evil. That is, he imagined that his will of good and his understand

ing of truth were really his own-which led him at length to love himself supremely, and hence to take pride in his own righteousness and his own intelligence. This was eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And thus ceasing to acknowledge the Lord in the internal of his mind, that internal was closed, so that revelation from the Lord could no longer flow in by the way of his love; for his love being now self-love, truth flowing from the Lord through it, would not be divine or real truth, but only such appearances of truth as would favor man's loving and honoring of himself: and, consequently, he by degrees lost all intelligence of heavenly and divine things-which was represented by his being driven out of the garden of Eden; and was at last filled with the most direful evils of life and falsities of doctrine, so as to have all spiritual life extinguished-which was represented by the world's being destroyed with a deluge.

Then a radical change took place in the genius of man, and the economy of divine order in respect to him was entirely altered. The Lord could no longer reveal truth to him by an inner way, but had to make a verbal and written revelation to his senses. And this necessity has been entailed on human nature ever since. Thus, originally, truth was revealed from the Lord within, through the will, into the understanding. But now that man has acquired to himself a contrariety to divine goodness and truth-has become sunk in selfish, worldly, sensual and corporeal loves-it is manifest that truth can be no longer revealed to him in this inner way. For, when the divine love, which would lead man to prefer others to himself, for it would lead him to love God above all things and his fellow-men for God's sake,-flows down by divine goodness into man's perverted form, it becomes self-love, which manifests itself in a will to self-gratification, and this in an understanding of all those false maxims which justify self-indulgence; and thus man, from the impulses of this love, prefers himself to others, and makes others subservient to himself. In this state, man thinks the gratification of self-love good, and the maxims which favor self-love truth. He thus calls evil good, and good

evil, puts darkness for light, and light for darkness; and puts bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." (Isa. v. 20.) And divine goodness and truth being thus altered in their nature as they flow into him, are not seen in their true light, and, of course, are not revealed to him. Hence, as man has now become evil and false in his nature, there is no possibility of revealing goodness and truth to him by an inner way. For the truth flowing into him, and appearing in him as his own, does not produce real good in him, but is perverted into a nature similar to his, and thus is changed into what is false and evil. The truth thus coming into man appears, indeed, to him to be true, because it favours his love; but it is really false, because his love is evil.

We say the divine goodness and truth, flowing into man as a perverted form, are altered in their nature. But this is speaking according to appearance. What is divine is unchangeable, and hence cannot be altered in its essential qualities. But it may be altered in its effects, according as the forms into which it flows become less and less correspondent.

Now that man's form or nature had, in process of time, become so perverted as not to receive and manifest the divine goodness and truth correspondently, is clearly proved, both by the Word and by daily experience. Thus the Word declares, (Ps. xiv. 2, 3,) "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no not one." And the daily experience of all proves that men are now born into the loves of self and the world, thus with a character which is contrary to the divine goodness. And hence, now, and ever since this became the condition of man, the divine truth, not finding in man a correspondent form, cannot be revealed to him by an inner way, so as to form the divine goodness in him, and present to his apprehension an idea of what the divine goodness is.

Truth is the form and light of goodness. And while man is in a fallen state, the divine truth cannot pass into him without

human nature, and consequent form, which the divine essence assumed and glorified upon earth.

But, as this divine human nature and form makes one with the divine principle which is in it, as a soul and essence, hence the Lord Jesus says, " All things that the father hath are mine: therefore, said I, that he [the spirit of truth] shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." (John, xvi. 8-15.) And as this divine human nature and form of Jehovah, acts of itself from the Divinity, as our bodies act from our souls, hence the Lord Jesus says, also, "As the father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the son to have life in himself."- "I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my father." And thus, as Jesus had life in himself as the father or divine essence had life in himself, thus infinitely, eternally, and omnipotently, therefore he himself was, and is, as the apostle John expressly and very emphatically calls him, eternal life;" this is the true God, and eternal life,”— and as Paul expressly says that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," therefore, consequently, Jesus Christ had, and has, and ever will have, "all power, in heaven and on earth," to impart life to all who will "come unto him that they may have life." Hence he can impart to all, who will so come unto him in faith and practice as to open their hearts for its reception, the life of truth, that is, the spirit of truth; which, when it comes unto men, delivers them from their evil-hence, brings them off conquerors in the spiritual combats which they have to undergo in consequence of their evils-thus sustains them in temptation, and comforts them in those salutary afflictions which the outbreakings of their inbred corruptions bring upon them for their eternal glory. And thus it is that Jesus sends unto his disciples the spirit of truth, as a comforter, from a principle of love in him, which imparts a corresponding principle of love to them, that, in its pervading controlling, cleansing, and rectifying activities, develops in them the redeeming and saving spiritual and celestial properties