not the creating only, but the sustaining of the universe. "By Him" (or rather, in Him*) "all things consist." And so we have in the Epistle to the Hebrews—“ upholding all things by the word of His power." The Creator is not to His creation as a past event- —a Being Who once originated it, but to Whom it now bears no living relation. It is rather to Him as a body to its soul: in Him it lives, and moves, and has its being; its "laws are the expressions of His working, the manner of His going, and are changeless because He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. It consists in Him; it is upheld by Him. Without His sustaining it would have no coherence or progression; it would fall to pieces like a house of cards. All this, which is obviously true of God, is predicated by the Apostle of God's Son. In this also "All things that the Father hath are Mine "t is the canon of truth.

But the "in Him" has another aspect; that which is indicated by St. Paul in the phrase "first-born of every creature." He justifies this title of the Son of God by saying, "for in Him" (this is again the truer rendering) "were all things created." This is a mystery; and we can but look at it as it is suggested by the Apostle. The Son, he seems to say, is the Archetype of the universe, the Beginning of the creation of God. In Him all things began, as in Him all stand. He is before all things; but that He is God of God-is, in some manner, a earnest and a pledge that all things shall be, that the creature shall follow upon the prior generation of its Head.

3. We pass into a clearer region when we come to

the "for Him." "All things were created by Him, and for Him." This is the truth expressed by the writer to the Hebrews in the words: "Whom He appointed" (or, constituted) "Heir of all things." The Son is the End of creation as its Beginning, its Object as its Author. Man was made its ruler because the Son of God was to become man; and man himself was made in the image of God that the Son of God might become man with all congruity. When the history of the world is over, and the eternal age has set in, the point in which the creature shall culminate will be the Son of God, inheriting all things and all things put under Him, though that Son Himself shall be seen as subject to Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

III. These are high themes, and beyond our present grasp. We had to touch them, as forming part of our text; and it may be well to have suggested them, as filling in the outline of our Saviour's glory. But we pass from them now, to consider the third division of the Apostle's description, that in which he states the relation of the Son of God to the new creation, to the spiritual universe :—

"And He is the Head of the body, the Church, Who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace by the Blood of His Cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven."

When Jesus Christ our Lord had finished the work which was given Him to do, He prayed, "Now, O Father, glorify Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” Here we

"

see somewhat of the answer to His prayer. He Who was "First-born of every creature is now "First-born from the dead; "He Who made, sustains, inherits the natural universe, is in like respects "Head of the body, the Church; He by Whom "all things" in heaven and earth were created is now He by Whom "all things" in heaven and earth are reconciled. So in the New, as in the Old, He is the Beginning of the Creation of God. A race risen from death, an election knit in communion and fellowship, a world reconciled to its God, look to Him as their Head, and hold of Him as their Fountain of Life. Here, also, all things are created by Him, and in Him, and for Him; all things consist in Him; all things are inherited by Him.

(Consider also Phil. ii. 5-11; Eph. i. 20-23; Rev. v.)

These pictures have passed before us to-day, that, as we linger around the cradle at Bethlehem, we may think what it is we have found there. Behold, gathered up and sleeping (as it were) in that human babe, the Image and Brightness of God's glory, the Agent of creation, the Upholder and Inheritor of the universe. Behold, also, the germ of that which shall be—the First-born of resurrection, the Head of the body the Church, the Reconciler of the world. There is that of which He has emptied Himself, the riches of which He has become poor: here is the glory which awaits Him, when He has by Himself purged our sins. Between the two He sleeps, lying on His mother's breast. What a spectacle for angels then! what a vision for us now! Fitly have we come with adoration, and worshipped the Lord. This is the Seed of the woman, who shall bruise the serpent's head this is Emmanuel, born of a virgin, God with us. This is He

:

whose name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of the Age to come, the Prince of Peace. He has made good His claim to these lofty titles; or, if there be anything in them which we have not yet seen, we have but to wait for it till His coming again. O Babe of Bethlehem, praised be God for thee!

"Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it :

Break forth into singing, O forest, and every tree therein."

For ourselves, His Church and people, it remains, that as we stand around this cradle, we be converted and become as little children. That, as new-born babes, we desire the sincere milk of the Word, that, as He grew, so we may grow thereby. That, as He lived, so we may live-one with Him in obedience, one with Him in sacrifice and so at length increase to the measure of the stature of His fulness, and with Him fill creation with God's praise.

:

CIRCUMCISION.

The Circumcision made without hands.

Col. ii. 8-17.

He who would rightly apprehend the Circumcision of Christ must come to it with a mind instructed in the ordinance as it was known to the Fathers, of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came.

However circumcision may otherwise have been known, it first became a religious rite in the instance of Abraham. He "received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised."* It was a token of the covenant which God had made with him and with his seed after him. And when, four hundred and thirty years after, the Law was given from Sinai, circumcision became the pledge of obedience to its precepts of the privilege of its blessings and of the liability to its cursings.†

But was the sign a mere arbitrary thing, or had it a significance of its own? Moses perceived the latter to be the truth when he said to the people—" Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your hearts, and be no more stiffnecked;" and again, speaking of the final conversion of Israel "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou Deut. x. 16. Comp. Jerem. iv. 4.

*Rom. iv. II.

+ Gal. v. 3.