Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/28

 the garden; out of the ground made "the Lord God" to grow every tree which is pleasant to the sight; "the Lord God" commanded the man; "the Lord God" said it is not good that man should be alone; and so on. This fact is peculiarly marked; for in the first chapter of Genesis the term Elohim—God—only is used, and in the fourth chapter we find that Jehovah—Lord—only is employed. The titles Jehovah Elohim—that is, Lord God—were those under which the Supreme Being was first made known to man; and these express those two essentials of the Divine nature, namely, love and wisdom, which were engaged in man's creation, and for the recognition and reception of which he was gifted with the two faculties which we call will and understanding. This is what is referred to when it is said of man that he was to be created in the image and likeness of God.

But when we speak of essentials in the Divine nature, it is requisite to remember that they must have their ultimates; that is to say, they must have some embodiment in which to inhere. Essentials are something, and they pertain to something. An essence without a form is nothing. Neither love nor wisdom can be thought of as abstractions. As they exist in the Divine, they must have some entity in which to exist; and what other entity is conceivable but that of a Divine Person? And is not this idea respecting the Supreme plainly indicated in the declaration, "God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him"? Some may say that this refers to man's mental and moral image—we say so too; but imasmuch as this mental and moral image does not exist out of a human personality, so its prototype cannot exist out of a Divine personality. This, moreover, is the appearance un-