he " laughs them to scorn, and has them in derision." He suffers them to accomplish their own will, as far as it may subserve his purposes ; and " the remainder of their wrath he restrains." Full of pride and blasphemy, they boast what great things they will do : but " he puts his hook in their nose, and his bridle in their jaws," and in a moment brings all their boasted projects to an endd. Whatever they may effect, they are his instruments, to " do what his hand, and his counsel, had determined before to be done." In all things " his counsel stands, and he does all his pleasure."]
By means of this supremacy, he is enabled to carry on,
II. His government of his Church —
In investing his Son with " all power in heaven and in earth," God had especial respect to the welfare of his Church. He constituted his Son,
1. The Head of the Church—
[The Church is called " his body," and " his fulness." The body, we know, consists of many members : and it is the whole aggregate of members that constitutes the body : and the body, joined to the head, forms the complete man. This is the precise idea in the text. Every believer is a member of Christ: the whole collective number of believers form his entire body : and, by their union with him, Christ himself is represented as complete. The body would not be complete, if any member were wanting ; nor is the Head complete with- out the body : but the body united to the Head is " the ful- ness," the completion of Christ himselfe.
The head however exercises a controul over the whole body. As being the residence of the soul, it may be said to actuate all the members : it moves in the limbs, sees in the eyes, hears in the ears, speaks in the tongue, and imparts a vital energy to the whole. Thus does Christ " fill all in all." There is not a member of his mystical body which does not derive all his strength from him. From him the understanding receives its comprehension ; the will, its activity ; the affections, their power. It is by him that we live ; or rather, as the Apostle speaks, " he is our life." In all persons, there is the same absolute dependence on him: "in all" circumstances, his agency is wanted : (it is as much wanted to produce a good thought, as to carry it into execution.) " In all" ages, he is equally the true and only source of good to man. None in any place or period of the world have any thing which they
d Isai. xxxvii. 29. Job v. 12, 13. e 7r\//pw/ia.