vil good, and good evil; o, the fubftitutors of darkness for light, and light for darkness ; Dow, the fubftitutors of bitter for fweet, and fweet for bitter. And the heavens are the

placers and disposers of every thing in this material system, as well as the viceroys and fubftitutes of the Aleim.-And let me observe here, that the apoftates have ferved this word, as they have done, made it a separate root, as if it had no relation to the verb D, which they write , though it occurs oftener without the 1. Let us then leave the forgeries of these apoftate commentators, and follow the natural construction of the Hebrew language, which makes y, the plural masculine of the fingular noun ; fo the names, types, emblems, substitutes, or representatives. And of what they are representatives, Pfalm xix. 1. informs us. I. The names, hemim,

, are the means of exhibiting, or are the emblems of the glory of God; and though there is no language, and their voice is not heard, yet they more plainly, than any created intelligent being can by voice, declare the effence and perfonality

of

of those who framed it, to all men in all languages. This type is fo expreffive of the original, that it is impoffible to evade it; and conveys the great mystery of the Trinity to our understandings by ideas of fense. The unity of the effence is exhibited by its unity of substance; the trinity of persons, by its trinity of conditions, fire, light, and fpirit. Thus, its one fubftance in three conditions, fhews the Unity in Trinity; and its three conditions in or of one fubftance, the Trinity in Unity. And in this material created trinity, as in the exemplar, none is afore or after other; but the three conditions, as the three perfons, are co-eternal together and co-equal: for let philofophers and reafoners confider air in the action of fire, and let them tell me which of its three conditions, fire, light, and spirit, exists before or after the other, or which can exift without the other two. And as God has created and framed this type, the heavens, into a machine capable of fupporting themfelves mechanically by perpetual motion and circulation, in imitation of perpetual life, and of communicating motion, and so life,

to animal bodies; this is a type of the life they, the effence, have in themselves, and also an emblem and type of that life they, the exemplars, have given to the foul; and an emblematical earnest and pledge, that they will give it to the immortal bodies of men hereafter.

If we confult the writings of the. Old and New Testament, we shall find the perfons of the Deity reprefented under the names and characters of the three material agents, fire, light, and spirit; and their actions expressed by the actions of these, their emblems. As the part of the first perfon, according to the covenant of grace, was to take vengeance for fin, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, faith the Lord; fo his emblem or type is the non, chame, the folar fire and his wrath is described as fire, and its effects are taken from, and defcribed by the effects of fire; Nah. i. 2. God [b] is jealous, [7] and Jehovah revengeful, and full of wrath; [nan bya] Jehovah revengeful to his enemies, and watchful [0] against those that hate him. Where P,

and

חמתו

and, (as observed to me by my worthy friend Mr Bate), are particularly expreffive of the effects of on, or the manner of the acting of fire. It first heats inwardly ;--increases gradually;-watches or fearches where to break out, and fo takes vengeance upon what confined or raised it. So verfe 6. non, His anger [or wrath] is poured out as fire. Num, xxv. 4. That the fierce anger [Heb., another word for the folar fire] may be turned away from Ifrael. Pfal. Xcv. 11. I have fworn in my wrath, [Heb. 8, the fiery visage at the orb of the fun, the place where the spirit comes in, and the halitus goeth forth]. If. lxvi. 15. For bebold, Jehovah will come with fire, to render his anger with fury, and his revenge with flames of fire. Deut. iv. 24. Jehovah is a confuming fire. Chap. ix. 3. Jehovah go over before thee as a confuming fire. Heb. xii. 29. Our God is a confuming fire; and in many other places. The Heathens called the folar fire, Father; and made all things to be produced and begotten by fire alone. The facrifices, which were typical of Christ, the real facrifice for fin, were confumed, S f 2

and

the

and so accepted by fire; and, upon particu lar occafions, fire from heaven fell upon facrifices, as marks of God's acceptance of the victim, and of his wrath being fatisfied.

So, when Jehovah confirmed the cove→ nant with Abraham, a fire, like that of a furnace, paffed through the divided pieces of the facrifice, and confumed them.Fire fell upon the facrifices which Mofes offered at the dedication of the tabernacle, and upon the facrifice of Manoah, Samfon's father; and doubtless, though it is not exprefsly mentioned, upon the first facrifice, namely, that of Abel.So at the dedication of Solomon's temple, fire came down from heaven, and confumed the burnt-offering, and the glory of Jehovah filled the house and accordingly, upon the fight of these his emblems, (the fire from heaven, and the glory), all the children of Ifrael fell down and worshipped Jehovah; which fhews, that they knew them to be his fymbols.- So in the conteft between Jehovah and Baal, the decifion was by fire: He fhall be of the Aleim who anfwereth by fire. And the fire of Jehovah fell, and con

fumed