prophets as the following: 'Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tabernacle of rest to dwell in.' 'Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night.'

Turning from the prophets, which abound with such passages, to Job, who is so often instructed out of the book of the firmament; how dark to us are such lessons as the following, yet how expressive and clear must they have been to him, or to any one who understood the interpretation of the metaphors: Canst thou lead Mazzeroth (the twelve signs); canst thou guide Arcturus and his sons?' That there were testimonies, figures, or parables in these signs, who can doubt that reads this appeal to him? Who commandeth the sun and it shineth not, and by THE TESTIMONY OF THE STARS teacheth them: who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea: who maketh Arcturus, Pleiades, and the chambers of the south who doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.'

The wonderful works of God, in the heavens above as well as in the earth beneath, were employed, then, as figurative instructors by the Spirit of God, under the Old Testament. They were so

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used, not only under the Mosaic economy, but that use was evidently a continuation, a following up, or application of, the symbols prepared for that purpose from the foundation of the earth.' It was one of the divers manners in which God of old spake unto the fathers,' and bore testimony to the words of his servants the prophets. It was a figurative mode of instruction, often adopted by the Spirit of God speaking by the prophets; followed by the Apostles; and sanctioned and explained by the Great Apostle and High Priest of the Christian profession, in the revelation of the Old Testament figures and hieroglyphics, which he made to his servant John; who bare record of the Word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.' Had that metaphorical use of the signs of heaven been confined merely to illustrations, drawn from their beauty or number, we might have been content with the current opinion, that they were alluded to in the Scriptures because they happened to offer very pretty allegories and a popular mode of instruction. But unless we yield to the impious idea, that the metaphors used by the Lord himself and his servants were borrowed from the superstitions of the world, we must seek a much higher source for the introduction into the church of God of old, and into the Scriptures of truth, of such amazing figurative coincidences and references, connected with the signs of heaven, as we have found there. We have seen the hieroglyphic figures pertaining to them, introduced into the earthly sanctuary, and shining in the visions of the hea

venly holy place. Not only are the four living creatures' there, but 'the Lion of the tribe of Judah' is introduced. The seven stars are beheld in the right hand of Him 'whose countenance was as the sun shining in his strength.' The same glorious person gives the promise of the Morning Star.' A woman appears, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.' These can be no fortuitous, no borrowed, no accidental allusions. The Wonderful Councillor who reveals these mysteries or figures, is He who at the first 'made great lights: the sun to rule (instruct) by day; the moon and stars to rule (instruct) by night; for his mercy endureth for ever.' Did the Maker and Former of these things so array them, so constitute, so order, and so divide them, without any regard to the use he himself was to make of them, to teach man the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven?' Nay, their adaptation to HIS TRUTHS is the proof that 'OUR GOD made the heavens.' 'Thus saith the Lord, who giveth the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and stars for a light by night; who divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar: the Lord of hosts is his name: if THOSE ORDINANCES depart from me,' saith the Lord, The seed of IsraAEL also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever'

CHAPTER XIX.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF WITTY

INVENTIONS.

We have now glanced at the most prominent lessons in the Divine Economy, taught by means of figures, implanted in and around the creation when it was first called into existence: lessons begun to Adam; continued in the patriarchal line; interwoven into the veil of the law; and constituting an important part of prophetic metaphor. Ere proceeding to enquire into the use made of the same symbols and symbolical mode of teaching, by the nations which were left to choose their own ways; there is a branch of ancient teaching, a room in the schools of the prophets, to which we would wish to pay a short visit, ere turning from that chosen people, to whom God revealed himself as he did to no other nation under heaven. The lessons to which we allude, are intimately connected with the subject we have been considering; although rather a branch from them, than constituting an integral part of the same mode of teaching.

The parables or figures we have hitherto been

considering, are those borrowed immediately from natural phenomena: the branch to which we now turn for a little, sprung out of them; and took the form of dark sayings, enigmas, riddles, or, in the words of the proverb from which the title to this chapter is quoted-witty inventions. For this kind of knowledge Solomon was greatly celebrated, for 'he spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five.

The Queen of the South came from the uttermost parts of the earth, to hear this wisdom of Solomon, and to put hard questions' to him. To suppose that she came to put unmeaning riddles or mysticisms to him, and that she went away, on receiving an answer to them, like a child pleased with a new toy, is really to reduce the Bible itself to a level with the profane prints, with which it is so often trammelled, and by which the ideas of youth, respecting the grandest subjects which were ever discussed amongst men, are in many cases irrecoverably debased. There were hard questions then in the heart (for the Queen of Sheba communed with Solomon of all that was in her heart); there were riddles then, as there are now, which many, overlooking the answers which THE BOOK they have in their hands gives, often, in secret, wish one would rise from the dead to expound to them! The philosopher, to whom the admiring eyes of the world are turned, while he has been tracing the operations of millions of years in the bowels of the earth, or has been dilating on the countless myriads of worlds which filled the universe, ere yet this little speck in