apoftles are evangelifts and speak good tidings from the shadows of the law realized in the Meffiah; and Paul in this place fees the feven fabbaths of years Sprinkled with the blood of the lamb in the figure, which must have the truth fulfilled under our Lord, as Ifaiah declares in ch. Ixvi. 23, 24. " It "fhall be from moon to its movon, and from fabbath to fabbath, all flefh fhall come to worship before my faces, faith JEHOVAH." What measure of time the moons and fabbaths prefigure, has been explained in the feaft of trumpets celebrated on the first day of the feventh month, and in the fabbatical year publifhed by me. The fentiments of the ancient Hebrew church, and of the Christian church coincide in these points; and were well underftood, before the gofpel became fecular, worldly and political, and funk into darkness and false prophecying under every establishment, when men became mafters, not fervants to the faith, and to one mafter, even Chrift. In refpect to the expreffion, our God, it is a fine remark of the great and pious Newton, mentioned by Voltaire in his metaphyfics of this philofopher, at p. 4. "We do not fay, my eternal, my infinite, because those attributes belong not to human nature; but that "we do, and ought to fay my God, thereby im plying that we understand him to be the master "and preferver of our lives, and the object of which endears the name of God to his creatures, as the name of father does to children; the Jews have faid the fame thing, when they fpeak of the Enfoph, or the one infinite, who is a name without a relative character, or any attributes in himself. And that to become intelligible, he goes forth in generation with a centre and a circumference in every fyftem: the whole of which is called his fon, Zachar, both in the powers of heaven, and of earth. That through the firft and eldeft vifible God, all fubfequent creations muft derive their knowledge of the one invifible, who, in his proper infinity and abfolute felf, is a total darkness, and incomprehenfible effence. On this ground, they make a just distinction between the cause of causes, and the cause of all causes: for by the firft, they understand the eldest born of pure deity who becomes the cause and author of all other fubfequent fyftems, while he himself is fubject to the author of his filiation. They hold, that every fyftem has its triad, and the feven emanations flowing from them: of which Abraham, Ifaac and Jacob are the three, making one father to Ifrael; and the feven Spirits emaning from the three primary numbers from the decad, the fulness of a king and priest after the order of Melchizedek. The ten numbers the learned may fee in Vitringe obf. f. L. 1 cap. ་ to. v. 21. "To * JEHOVIH the Lord (Adondj) "are the goings forth of death." This paffage does not fignify the ways, by which death goeth forth upon men to destroy them, as Hammond fuppofes, who is fupported in that fenfe by bishop Lowth, in the annotations on Merrick's Pfalms p. 142. The ancient tranflation and the feptuagint are both right. The reafon is, becaufe the word has reference to falvations preceding it: and, as death and deaths are to be deftroyed by their oppofites, as darkness by light, and fickness by health; fo this great deliverance from the prisons and "graves of corrupt flesh and blood will come from JEHOVAH, that name furpaffing knowledge in the heighth and depth of compaffions, and not forbidden to be pronounced, as the blind Jews of this day pretend, for it is the glorious name, by which the priest bleffed the people with his ten fingers held up and extended, fhewing the right and left hand of the high priest above, according to the order of Melchizedek, whofe tenth appeared firft in * I fhall pay little regard to the unusual punctuation of the word Jehovah, read here with the points of Elohim. Leusden may reverence the Masorites as prophets, as well as other defenders of the antiquity of the points. There is no doubt with me, but that they have practised upon the points with a defign, as well as the later Cabbalifts have upon their ancient interpretations, to darken the prophets, as a defence to their cause. Abraham's Abraham's oblation. Numb. vi. 23-26. Gen. xiv. 20. Heb. vii. 6, 9. Thefe tithes have been explained in the mysteries of the first born and first fruits in many paffages of that large treatise published by me. As the prophets speak of death to be swallowed up in victory, the goings forth of death are here to be interpreted, not by a curse, but a bleffing; not by the keys of death to shut, but to open, as Chrift is a deliverer from fin and death. The first and fecond death are familiar expreffions with the Hebrew writers long before the apoftle John was favoured with his revelation, fo totally conformable to the purer part of the ancient * *Of the second death, they fay, Cain finned in a twofold manner; therefore he was punished with a twofold death; so that the latter death fhould be of longer duration then the former. The Targum says on Isaiah ch. xxii. 14. It is decreed by the Lord, that this fin fhall not be forgiven, till ye fhall die the second death. In Bava Bathra fol. 10. 1, cited by Schoetgenius, we find a trace of ancient gospel on Prov. xi. 4. What is the mercy that delivereth from the judgment of hell? answer, that wrath which is called gnebrab, paffing over, as they interpret Zephaniah, ch. i. 15. that day is a day of wrath. What is that mercy which fhall detiver from the second death? anfwer, when one gives, and knows not so whom he gives. By this, we may explain the difficult paffage, 1 John ch. v. 16, 17. There is a fin unto death; all unrighteousness is fin, and there is a fin not unto death. And no doubt the apostle means the diftinction between finning with a high band, and the prefumptious fin David prays against, which demands the feverity of the fecond death, at the end of the 1000 years. Rev. XX. 14. M 3 interpre interpretations of the law and the prophets. The new teftament is even in phrafeology as well as in fenfe, the truth to the letter of Mofes, where the face of Jefus Christ is unvailed, that the ends of the earth may look unto him, and be faved. Ifa. xly. 22. As this Pfalm is pregnant with the bleffings of the most perfect kind, Bythner interprets iffues of death in confonance to the name of Jehovah: it is the Lord's work to bring forth from death. Now Jehovah fpeaketh thus, I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; and none can deliver out of my hand, Deut. xxxii. 39. Bleffed be the Lord: he can bring life out of death, and good out of evil. The manner of his killing in flesh, and quickening in fpirit, was taught daily by the altars of brafs and of gold, where death and life were figured, and judgment and mercy kiffed each other, as I have fhewed in the daily fervice of the temple, that gofpel in the figure, which Mofes preached continually, till the defcent in fire, blood and vapor of the odorous incenfe, or white cloud, the truths to thofe altars, proclaimed the judgments of the Lord to the ends of the earth. But the priests of Baal, Moloch and the dragon foon destroyed the name and power of Chrift from the fight of men, fo that the church has been a wilderness without rain for 1260 years. Nor are the feven fhepherds, and eight princes of men yet manifefted to deliver the gofpel from the Affyrian that is come into the land, and treadeth the |