wrought, that the Father is deprived of the working. But to the Father and the Son, all things are common. “For all Mine are Thine,” saith He, “and Thine are Mine.” (John xvii. 10.) The fullness of the times,189 however, was His coming. After, then, He had done everything, by the ministry both of Angels, and of Prophets, and of the Law, and nothing came of it, and it was well nigh come to this, that man had been made in vain, brought into the world in vain, nay, rather to his ruin; when all were absolutely perishing, more fearfully than in the deluge, He devised this dispensation, that is by grace; that it might not be in vain, might not be to no purpose that man was created. This he calls “the fulness of the times,” and “wisdom.” And why so? Because at that time when they were on the very point of perishing, then they were rescued. That “He might sum up” he saith. What is the meaning of this word, “sum up?” It is “to knit together.” Let us, however, endeavor to get near the exact import. With ourselves then, in common conversation, the word means the summing into a brief compass things spoken at length, the concise account of matters described in detail. And it has this meaning. For Christ hath gathered up in Himself the dispensations carried on through a lengthened period, that is to say, He hath cut them short. For “by finishing His word and cutting it short in righteousness,” (Rom. ix. 28.) He both comprehended former dispensations, and added others beside. This is the meaning of “summing up.” It has also another signification; and of what nature is this? He hath set over all one and the same Head, i.e., Christ according to the flesh, alike over Angels and men. That is to say, He hath given to Angels and men one and the same government; to the one the Incarnate, to the other God the Word.190 Just as one might say of a house which has some part decayed and the other sound, He hath rebuilt the house, that is to say, He has made it stronger, and laid a firmer foundation. So also here He hath brought all under one and the same Head.191 189 [‘Which he purposed in him’ (i.e. ‘Christ’ according to Rev. Ver. and W. and H.; but ‘God’ according to Meyer and Ellicott, who have αὑτῷ) “with a design to the dispensation of the fullness of the times, i.e., the dis- pensation to be established at the setting in of the fulness of the times. Gal. iv. 4; Mark i. 15.”—Meyer.—G.A.] 190 [“A distinction at variance with Scripture.”—Meyer.—G.A.] 191 [“This illustration has been again employed by Harless whose view of this passage is that the apostle speaks thus: ‘The Lord and Creator of the whole body of which heaven and earth are members, has in the restor- ation of one member restored the whole body; and in this consists the greatest significance of the reconciliation that it is not merely a restoration of the life of earth but a bringing back of the harmony of the universe. This concedes to the τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς merely an indirect participation in the ανακεφαλαίωσις and the de facto operation of the Messianic οἰκονομία on the heavenly world is set aside,—which appears the less admissible inasmuch as the τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς has the precedence (in position).”—Meyer. “Heaven and earth have become places of sin (vi. 12;) indeed heaven was the first theatre of sin when a part of the angels fell into sin and away from God (1 Tim. iii. 6; 1 John iii. 8; James ii. 19; 2 Peter ii. 4;) thence it came to earth (2 Cor. xi. 3; 1 Cor. x. 20, 105 Ephesians 1:1--2