and self-forgetful love, which disregards his own rights to pity others’ privations; and which gave a resistless force to the exhortation, “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”[220] (h.) In direct contrast with this past humiliation of Christ, is the present glory and future dominion with which, in the verses immediately following, the Apostle describes him as invested by the rewarding complacency of God. And here the passage enters the same class with three others,[221] of which the introduction of the Epistle to the Hebrews is one, but the most remarkable is the following: “Christ, ... who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature; for 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 through him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 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 pre-eminence; for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.”[222] Calvin himself warns us that “the circumstances of this place require us to understand it as spoken,” not of the original formation of the universe, but “of the renovation which is included in the benefit of Redemption.”[223] Indeed a very superficial acquaintance with the phraseology of the Apostle, is sufficient to convince us that the language which we have here is _very unlike_ that in which he speaks of the construction of the material system of things and _very like_ that in which he describes the regeneration of the world by the faith of Christ. Describing the natural creation, he makes no such strange selection of objects as thrones, principalities, dominions, powers, with unintelligible avoidance of everything palpable: but says plainly, “The living God, who made Heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them.”[224] And characterizing, on the other hand, the effects of the Gospel, he says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works;”[225] and “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.”[226] Nor does the language of this passage appear so violently figurative as commentators have usually supposed. Apply to it the Apostle’s conception respecting the return of his Lord from Heaven, to reign visibly upon earth, over a community holy and immortal, and the obscurity will no longer be felt. That advent, introducing the future age or world to come, would be attended by a revolution which could be called no less than a “new creation.” No term less emphatic would adequately describe the superseding of all existing arrangements, the extinction of earthly rule, authority, and power;[227] the recal to