JEHOVAH dat lætum nuncium ? The greatest and nobleft sense of this pfalm, and others, depends on David and his victories over the enemies of Ifrael, ftanding as figures and pledges of greater conquefts over more terrible enemies by the Meffiah, fuftaining all the names and characters of the law, in a manner fuitable to the Saviour of the nations. Victories paft in the old letter will be illuftrious in the new fpirit. The conquefts of Abraham's fword, of Mofes, Joshua, David and others, ftand for earnefts and preludes of greater enemies within us, and without us, to be brought down and flain at the feet of Jefus Chrift, and by the two-edged fword proceeding out of his mouth, which executes the judgments of the Lord according to that name: I kill, and I make alive: I wound, and I heal. Deut. xxxii. 39. which has another witness to it in that beautiful hymn of Hannah 1 Sam: ii. 6. The Lord killeth, and mak, eth alive; he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. It is the fame truth in the gospel, as the altar of fire under the law, the throne of judg ment daily, which devoured the offerings for fins and trefpaffes: and at which fire, the rams, bulls, calves and goats were killed, reduced to afhes by that victorious element, teaching the abolition of fin in the different orders of fallen beings, figured by thofe beafts, whofe forms of animal blood were quite destroyed, testifying, that a fire from heaven should cut away by the concifion of the spirit the coat of fkins, myftically our flesh and blood of the fall, as it came at Pentecofte, a pattern of the Lord's true judgment against our flesh, the house of bondage, more forely laden and afflicted than any beast of the field, by many more evils, phyfical and moral, the lot of man under fin. The double office of the lamb on his throne, killing and quickening, has been fully explained in the temple fervice with all the rites performed at the altars continually, published by me 1766. Where a clear teftimony is given from the blood of sprinkling to the falvation of all fallen children of God, in different order of times as that difpenfation figured in the moons and fabbaths. Ifa. Ixvi. 23. Commentators have been perplexed to affign a reason for preachers in this place, having a feminine termination; and fuppofe that it alludes to the custom of virgins finging for victories over enemies. Exod. xv, 20. 1 Sam. xviii. 7. Bishop Lowth, Michaelis, Ainfworth and Calmet The reviewers of that day called that interpretation, a piece of Hutchinfonianifm. For which falfe judgment they ought to blush. That writer, (though he has many excellent things fcattered in his works) would, from his calvinistic fyftem, have condemned a work proving the falvation of all men; and from his intemperate zeal, would have thought the author worthy of death, or excommunication. fpeak fpeak thus, adding dancing to that cuftom. Whatever the later Jews thought of God and his victories, blinded by false prophefying, David faw the gospel in all his views of the enemy, and preaches it through all the kingdoms and nations put under wrath by the letter, to Moab, Ammon, Edom, Egypt, Ethiopia, and other devoted people. We fhall find these female evangelizers, Hamebafferoth, in the women who firft brought the good news of the refurrection of Jefus Chrift to the brethren; in whom, as the fecond Adam, and new head of the whole creation, all men were raised in the council of God, according to his own teftimony, in the law, the prophets, and the gospel, Exod. xxiv. 6, 8. Ifa. xxii. 52, 15. John i. 29—12, 32. 1 Cor. xv. 20-23. 1 John ii. 2. 2dly, we must meet these preachers again, virgins and chaste brides, married at Pentecofte, in the cloud overshadowing, and in the red ftones of fire; when they were so inebriated with their bridegroom in that fecret union of two made one; when, as the wife Jews spoke of old time, the Spirit of the creature found the higher Spirit of the creator, and mingled in one joyful, and never ceafing fire of life and happiness; as all commixtures, marriages, and inofculations in fpiritual powers, with their attractions, adhesions and unions, are formed, as light rushes into light, air into air, vapor with vapor, so that the inferior is raised into, and absorbed into the life, joy and and bolom of the fuperior. 3dly. David fees this company multiplied to 144000 virgins finging the Jong of Mofes and the lamb on mount Zion. Rev. xiv. 1-4. according to a fundamental axiom in facred phyfics, understood by the ancient Jews, every inferior spirit in every power, outward and inward, light and veffel, is Nekubbeh, totally penetrated by the fuperior as his house or dwelling place: just as to affift our heavy and dim conceptions by an earthly image, the rays of a lighted torch are im bibed by the ftronger rays of the fun. These again in their turn, according to the greater spirituality of their natures, may pervade another, as light pierces air, water and glass: and by the defire, called will by fome, hunger and thirft by our Lord, is the bond of marriage, or firm adhesion and union formed through all fyftems, as these principles of love, defire, will, or appetite, are feen in every form of life, according to the gradations afcending, and defcending. Light is the hufband and head, the warm coverer in every world, and has his bed and marriage, with all creatures, the fubjects of his empire: Vifible light is the garment and clothing of the invifible living light. On this ground, fathers in the peculiar language of the holy Spirit, affume a fœminine ending, Aboth; because as lights or funs from the father of lights, they are his great veffels or temples; and on this ground, we must explain the character of the Lord God to Ifrael. Thy maker is thy thy hufhand, the Lord of hofts is his name. Ifa. liv. 5. Hof. ii. 7. * So Nafhim, women, in Hebrew, adopt a masculine termination, because what receives the active power of a fuperior, as its paffive fubject, may be in turn, an agent to an inferior. This order of physical caufes and combinations of agents and patients is visible in all systems; and in our world, it is fhewn by the light penetrating and clothing the great fea of air, which enters the water, as that does the earth; and all concur in a wonderful operation, and incubation in and over all animal and vegetable bodies, without ceffation. Nor can one be divorced, or separated from the marriage band, without destroying the whole fyftem. Guffet is miftaken in deriving the name from forgetfulness, because women have not fo tenacious a memory; or because the father's name and family are 'ex * In Hebrew, maker and husband are plural; and we must grant, that God knows best in what manner to speak to his creatures; and whether man understands or not, he ought to treat fuch things with more reverence, than Grotius, Le Clerk, Socinus and bis difciples, who make God fpeak after the manner of eaftern kings, we for greater majefty, instead of I. These princes are more likely, in the style of eastern pride, (bold enough in the west,) to assume the language of God, (as Lucifer wanted to ufurp his throne,) through a heart lifted up by grandeur, and intoxicated with vanity, as the Afiatic princes are to this day, the weakest and haughtiest among the rulers of unfortunate mankind. |