A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

Therefore, when Christ reveals the future great events of providence relating to his church and people, and this affair of redemption, to the end of the world, to his discipl• John, he often reveals himself under this character. So Rev. i.8. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord which, is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." So again, verse 10.11. "I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." Alpha and Omega are the names of the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, as A and Z are of ours; and therefore it signifies the same as his being the first and the last, and the beginning and the ending.

Thus God is called in the beginning of this book of Revelation, before the course of the prophecy begins; and so again he is called at the end of it, after the course of events is gone through, and the final issue of things is seen: as Rev. xxi.6▪ "And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." And so chap. xxii.12 13. "And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."

We have seen how this is true in the course of what I have laid before you upon this subject. We have seen how things were from God in the beginning; on what design God began the course of his providence in the beginning of the generations of upon the earth; and we have seen how it is God that has all along carried things on agreeable to the same designs without ever failing; and how at last the conclusion and final issue of things are to God; and so we have seen how all things are of him, and through him, and to him; and therefore may well now cry out with the apostle,