dové,

as Jefus Chrift, our great mystagogue has taught us: fo muft we explain every thing under the difpensation of mount Zion of a bleffed vengeance, and hunting for blood, as a jealous husband feeking to destroy, or by the law of Mofes to burn the adultrefs; so God, under this image, has threatened to burn flesh of fin, which divides us from our first husband, Baal, and ishharishon, in Ifa. liv. 5. and Hof. ii. 7, 16. and till that be destroyed by the judgment of fire as at Pentecofte, we cannot come back to our Lord and bridegroom, and be made oneflesh and one fpirit with him forever. Laftly, we muft examine thofe hunters fpoken of by Jeremiah, chap. xvi. 16. and Michah. All prophefy was given out with the harp, as the good news from heaven. After this, I will fend maný hunters, and they fhall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks: The moft literal commentators have feen the return of Ifrael from death and the grave in this pafsage: and the elders, or firft born are the hunters who have good fcent for their work; and who will, in a sense of mercy, hunt every man his brother with a net. Mich. vii. 2. When the Lord shall give paflors according to his heart, to feed the nations with knowledge and understanding, as he promises by Jeremiah chap. iii. 15: when the Lord shall raise against the Affyrian, and the land of Nimrod, the first king and mighty hunter of Babel,

Babel, Jeven fhepherds, and eight principal men, the paftors who are bruitifh, will be ashamed of their ignorance and deceptions as much out of the church of Rome, as thofe in it: for Conftantine in fecular power is ftill the founder and defender of all chriftianity hitherto permitted to exift, which is now rifing out of bondage and darkness.

Verse 24. They have feen thy goings, the goings of MY GOD, MY KING in the SANCTUARY.

In the foregoing verfe, the execution of the righteous judgment and holy vengeance of the Lord God was fhewn over his enemies; and it was every day prefented to the eyes of Ifrael at the altar of everlafting fire, where the Meffiah fat as the lamb and lion, with his feet shining as polished brass, treading down to duft and afhes at the foles of his feet all thofe hoftile powers, figured by the various fin and trefpafs-offerings brought to his judgment of burning through the whole feven fabbaths of years in that economy. The goings,* fteps or journeys of JEHOVAH in his chariot, the cloud of glory, alluded

*The Chaldee understands this verfe thus. The houfe of Ifrael have feen the goings of thy majesty, upon the fea, O God; and others refer it to David's conducting the ark into the Tent. i Chron. xiii 6,8. Calmet fuppofes the triumph over the two great kings, Og king of Baban, and Sehon king of the Amorites, who were the Sirst subjected to Ifrael by the power of the Lord. Be it fo: if they were fons of Adam, they must be blessed in the feed of the woman

and

alluded to in this place, represent his flation in the centre of the camp, or hofts of Ifrael, covering and clothing them with the pillar of fire, fpread as a garment in Pfalm cv. 39. These are called the feathers and fhadow of his wings, the eternal light of life and joy unfpeakable. This beautiful image is used by our Lord, O Jerufalem, Jerufalem, how often would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gattereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not? The Meffiah, king of Ifrael doubtless refers to the paffage in Deut. xxxii. 10, 11. and to the signal protections and deliverances of that people under the wings of the cloud, from Egypt, and in the fea; and in the wilderness, and in the conquefts over the Canaanites, the pofterity of Ham, devoted to deftruction: and by mercy to be restored, and rebuilt, as the prophets declare to every nation cut off by the fword of Ifrael, the figurative wrath against the carnal mind, and the blood of tranfgreffion which brought forth flesh, and by that means death, its wages. The dignity and permanency of all victories must be looked forunder the gospel, which is the law revealed in the Lord

and in Abraham's feed, must make a part of the nations that shal be restored by the mercy of God in that seed; for here that wonderful work of the Lord is fhewn, I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I beal; I am JEHOVAH. Deut. xxxii. 39, On this ground, the prophets speak to all nations and peoples that fuffered the vengeance of the fword in their flesh, that they shall return and praise him for his mercies in the Mefiah.

Jesus

Jefus Chrift. Now our David, and his fon, Solomon, the beloved by Bathsheba, a wife taken from Urijah, the fire or light of JAH, carried his body, the true ark and Schechinah of glory into heaven, and established the reft forever on mount Zion on high. The afcenfion of our high-priest, after he had by one oblation of the body, (the form of finful man, taken from the woman under the law of death,) purged away our fins, fat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. Heb. i. 3. his af cending in the cloud, where he was before his humiliation, is the ultimate sense and foundation of all true joy and confolation to mankind. We may here comprehend what our Lord fays, verily, verily, I fay unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God afcending and defcending on the fon of man. John i. 51. This diction was fulfilled at the baptifm, by which he was to be known to John, his fore-runner. Now when all the people were baptized, Jefus being baptized, and praying, the heaven, and heavens were opened, and the holy fpirit defcended in a bodily form as a dove, and abode upon him, and a voice came from the heavens, faying, this is my loved fon, in whom I am well pleafed. Matt. iii. 16. Luke iii. 22. John i. 32-34. And in this part was anfwered the ladder of the gospel-Jacob, when angels, and cœleftial powers, afcended and defcended on it, and Jehovah was above it, speaking

O 2

pre

be

this

this remarkable bleffing: I JEHOVAH, the God of Abraham thy father, and of Ifaac: the land, on which thou lieft, to thee will I give it, and to thy feed. And thy feed fhall be as the duft of the earth; and thou shalt fpread abroad to the sea, and to the eaft, and to the north, and to the fouth: and bleffed fhall be in thee, all families of the earth, and in thy feed. Gen. xxviii. 12-15. Ifrael is only called in Jacob, the third head, or number; and his name is changed thus, Ifrael is my first born, who is to build all the fallen houfe by glories flowing on him from Abraham and Ifaac; over whom was JEHO→ VAH, called in Hebrew, his own tongue, Gods of Gods, and Lords of Lords. Deut. x. 17.--Now the Meffiah anointed his twelve, and the 120 brethren with the holy fpirit at Pentecofte; and his unction flow down to the hem of his garment, on which Aaron, his figure, carried the feventy nations with the pomegranates and golden bells on the border of his robes of holinefs. Pfal. cxxxiii. 2. Lev. vi. 22. Thefe are the goings of the Lord under the gospel,. to take away fins and trefpaffes in our flesh and blood, which cannot inherit the kingdom, till it be fanctified by fire and blood from on high. And as the clouds of the altars of brafs and gold, were growing by victory over fins and trefpaffes, they teftified the gradual increafe of his kingdom, whofe ftrength is in his white clouds; and which muft increase, till the children of Egypt, of Hagar, and of Babylon too pafs into the fea of chrystal, the pillar of fire and the

blood