use a human phrase, undesigned by Him, who filled that Book with harmonies and coincidences far beyond the power of man to number or to penetrate, we may recognise in this passage an expression of the truth that the Almighty Father created both the world and the Church through Him, the true Beginning, the Eternal Son.

And even to take the word "beginning" in its more ordinary sense, as merely denoting the first of a series of events, the opening or foundation of a system or order of things, it can be correctly said that heaven, that is, the Church, and the world were both created "in the beginning;" for as "the Lamb" of the great sacrifice was, in a real and solemn sense, slain, so was the Church, in that same sense, created "before the foundation of the world." The Church was that appointed instrument for displaying

"unto the principalities and powers that are in heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God," for which the world was framed. The world was, from the first, the Church's subordinate, called into being for her, preserved by her, and living through the vitality which animates her, as the body of Him, who is emphatically "the Life." And therefore, though, when she is spoken of as revealed and developed to our senses, the Church is spoken of as "the dispensation of the fulness of times;" yet when we contemplate her and the world in those positions, relative to each other, which are indeed their true ones-when we come to see that the world's creation took place on account of the place already assigned to the Church in the Divine counsels-we begin in a measure to understand how, even in this common sense of the word "beginning," a Ephes. iii. 10.

it may be said "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

2. AND THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM AND VOID; AND DARKNESS WAS UPON THE FACE OF THE DEEP. AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD MOVED UPON THE FACE OF THE WATERS.

Though the creation was called into existence by what may be called the simple operation of Almighty power, something distinct from this was requisite to give it its intended form and life. It was needed that the light—that is, He who is "the true Light," and "lighteth every man that cometh into the world"— should shine upon it, giving form to the shapeless mass, and dispelling the darkness of the deep; and that the Spirit of God should fill that form with life, "moving upon the face of the waters." In this, as in all things, the world external was to be the shadow of the Church, who is fashioned by her great Head into His own

likeness, and quickened by His Spirit in the laver of regeneration.

3. AND GOD SAID

This expression occurs several times in the history of the creation; and from words in a subsequent verse which will shortly come under our notice, it may be inferred that God spake—if we may so say-to God: a mysterious representation of things Divine, which seems naturally to point to the great doctrine of the Plurality of Persons in the One Godhead, and to their joint agency in the work of creation-the Almighty Father working by His Son and Spirit-as it is said, "by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the Breath of His mouth."

LET THERE BE LIGHT: AND THERE WAS LIGHT.

From eternity had it been true that God

e Psalm xxxiii. 6.

is light, and in Him is no darkness at all; from eternity had He covered Himself "with light as with a garment," and dwelt "in the light which no man can approach unto;" nor was there ever a time when light was not, around His unchangeable throne. This must be borne in mind when we contemplate in its mystical meaning the text before us; or we may be led into fearful error. For, in its highest sense, the passage unquestionably points to the calling forth into connection with things created, of that true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, in whom "was life, and the life was the light of men," the Light given "to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of His people Israel." But woe to him who should blasphemously imagine-because that Light was thus, at a certain