must seek the spirit of these transactions as the prophets did, by looking to God and Chrift under the gospel. Mount Sinai which gendreth unto bondage, is Hagar: and this mount Sinai in Arabia answereth to Jerufalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerufalem which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. Gal. iv. 21-28. The flesh of Hagar is the flesh of compaction or ftraitnefs, as mifrajim, Egypt fignifies: and the new Jerufalem is the lamb's wife, the Sarah, or mother of fpiritual bodies, and free sons whom death can never touch, because there are not two bloods but one, which forms the tabernacles of God. Flefh is ftill bound over to death, and trembles at the fire of Sinai, though the difpenfation be changed to mount Zion, where God will fwallow up death in victory, or for ever; even the vail spread over all nations. Ifa. xxv. 7, 8. Heb. xii. 18. Chrift is the HE, yesterday, to day, * and for the ages. The prophets fung his victories as begun, and knew the dark fayings and mystic veil in types, and all the fimilitudes by which he was re * Spinoza, by nation and education a Jew, had forgot the two principles, on which all creations are built, which the Hebrews call spirit and matter, male and female, bridegroom and bride, the brother and fifter; expreffions extant in the gospel. He was perhaps driven to materialifm, to avoid the horrid doctrines of Calvin, which he heard trumpeted in Holland. And the fame tenets force many liberal minds into deifm. presented. Berith, the whether de prefented. Sinai in one branch of the mount was alfo called HOREB, dry barren earth; where Amalek dwelt before; and in that part of Sinai in Arabia, the mixture of good and evil, Moab and Edom, the pofterity of Efau, had their habitations. Let us caft our eyes to mount Zion revealed at the Pentecofte, (to which the prophets looked under the figure,) for all tongues and peoples, and for Moab, Ammon, Egypt, Edom, and all the ancient nations put under the curfe for deftruction. Here was the gofpel preached to all the tongues of Babylon, the old world: here God the Meffiah defcended in his mighty breath, and in his chariot, and pillars of fire, and in the blood of the ever+lafting covenant, or purification. covenant, fignifies the effect of it, rived from Barah to eat, or from Barar to purify; both these actions were done in the fire of the altar, the table of the Lord. To which our Lord, the best interpreter of his own fhadows and their fpirit, refers, when he fays, I ftand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open unto me, I will come in to him, and will fup with him, and he with me. Rev. iii. 20. The heavens were opened, and diftilled the dew of his head, the water of life, for no cloud of his forming can rife but from the river of God, the chebar, before the throne. At this festival, the spirit was poured on the wilderness, the dry ground of the earthen vessel and tabernacle of death, as the prophets faw by the types, types, their leffons to fpiritualize. Here Jefus Chrift was fhewn as the fon of Abraham, the son of David: the Ifaac of the firft, and heir of all his father's goods; the Solomon of the fecond, by BathSheba, the daughter of an oath or feven, the wife of Urijah, the fire of Jah in the spirit, but in the letter, a woman who bore the figure of the fevenfold spirit of God: by whom he was brought forth in this world, by the virgin of the fallen houfe of David who gave him the body prepared to die in for the falvation of the whole world. Sinai now lofes the darkness, tempests, blacknefs and fire, the found of a trumpet, and the voice of words fo terrible, that Mofes, the man of flesh, and the wrath of God in his miniftration against flesh, said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Heb. xii. 18. The lamb reigns now on mount Zion, from whose throne proceed thunderings, lightenings and voices; and before it seven lamps of fire, which are the seven spirits of God. Rev. 4. and before the throne a sea of glafs like unto crystal. This is the fame throne as that of the ANCIENT of DAYS in Dan. vii. 13. to which the Son of man was brought from his mother's womb. Rev. xii. 5. To whom the angels, (Elohim) thousand thousands miniftered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; which throne we find again in Rev. v. 11. where John heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beafts * beafts and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thou, fands of thousands; faying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was flain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and ftrength, and honour, and glory, and bleffing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and fuch as are in the fea, and all that are in them, heard I, faying, bleffing and honour and glory and power be unto him that fitteth upon the throne, and unto the lamb for ages of ages. Before this throne is the fea of glass like unto chrystal penetrated with fire in every heighth and depth; and from this throne, come forth, (expreffing con tinuance) lightenings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake and hail. All which in the spiritual sense are bleffings from that mount; on fome of these words Braunius on the feventh feal has In this place, we find the feven Spirits, fo celebrated among the Jews under the name of Sephiroth, or numbers. These were taken from the feven lights of the holy place, and are represented under different images, such as seven eyes, seven horns, seven stars, feven pillars of Wisdom's houfe, and seven steps or ascents to the eaft-gate of Ezekiel's temple. This variety of fimilitudes and emblems enrich the facred writings, and give room for the Midrash, or ftudious investigation, as Vitringa and Chryfoftom obferve on our Lord's expreffion, fearch the feriptures, as miners dig and examine carefully, for precious metals hid under the rough coats of coarfer foffils. happily happily prophefied, by bringing good tidings to man's temple, and new house in the Lord. Dan zius too, in his differtation on the promulgation of the gospel no lefs illustrious than that of the law, on Acts 2. where he opens the feast of Pentecofte in evangelical antitypes to the mount Sinai's dreadful figns of the prefence of divine majefty. But how imperfectly muft men write who know not that flesh is fin, (as Matthias Flaccius fupported well against all opponents) and is the fon of perdition in every man, and the enmity against God to be flain, and the beaft called for under the gospel, to the horns of the fpiritual altar, to be burned away in the everlasting fire of holy vengeance manifested at this evangelical feaft, when the wrath of the lamb was seen against the flesh and blood that cannot in herit the kingdom, and when he crucified and killed it by the fword of the fpirit, the breath of his mouth and the brightness of his prefence. 2 Theff. ii. 8. 2dly, when they forget that Jefus Chrift is the propitiation for the fins of the whole world, and the lamb that taketh away the fin of it, the blood of Jerufalem in bondage with all her children, by the fpirit of judgment, even the fpirit of burning. Ifa. iv. 4. John i. 29. 1 John ii. 1-2. These pillars of the temple of grace and love in Jefus Chrift were foon pulled down by councils, and a pretence of a particular priesthood, and an exclufive right of interpreting the oracles of God; by which bold ufur pations, |