Page images
PDF
EPUB

must be seen in the truth, in the Cherub of Ezek. 28. Ainfworth on the canticles, writes like a child, for no difciple of Calvin ever appears to poffefs the fpirit of true interpretation. On this verfe, he fays, Chrift appeared as an Ancient of Days, with his hairs white as wool, in Rev. i. 4but here as a goodly young man, with curled locks, black as a raven. This prophefying may please. women and children, particularly at the tabernacles and foundery, or the Monks and Nuns; few of which laft were ever averfe to a goodly young man, let his locks be of any colour. This. commentator, and Calmet too, about the fruit, or foliage of the palm-tree, wander from the sublime fense of every part of this nuptial fong. He appear ed in Rev. i. 4. to fhew, that he was the fame fon. of man taken up to the Ancient of Days many ages paft, as this wonder, Semeion was revealed to Dan. vii. 13. and to John, in Rev. xii. 5. and he appears in white, his father's garments, as he did on mount Thabor, in rayments whiter than fnow or wool. How mean is the fenfe, which he as well as many more have given of white, (which is the complexion of all colours in unity,) that it reprefents the Ancient of Days, Dan, vii. 9. as full of gravity, wisdom and justice. But black, and curled locks, as figns of heat and ftrength in nature, denote ftrength and vigour fpiritual, and the unfearchable myftery of his councils. In malice be children,

children, but in understanding be men, fays the apostle: but the fcholars of Calvin have reverfed this golden leffon *. The truth in the mystical fenfe is this, that it is the fame God that dwelleth in light, and in darkness: in the white clouds, his garments, and in thick clouds and darkness round about his throne. The word gnaraphel, expreffing thick darkness, tenebræ denfa, is ufed fifteen times in facred writ, and applied to God, as Bythner observes on Pfalm xviii. 10. Pfalm xcvii. 2. The Meffiah hath all powers given unto him; the evenings and mornings of the new heavens, and new earth, where every light is doubled with the preceding, and to the next in fucceffion gives its own ftrength, till the whole fyftem be perfected in the Urim and Thummim, that is the lights, even the reduplication of thefe glories, as they exift in the most high God. It is rather flrange, that the dark ather, or invisible spirit † of cold, fhould be deemed a mere privation,

* The painters in the Romish church took, in all probability, the first notion, as well as the manner of representing God the father, and his fon, from this vifion, in the loweft form of the ancient Anthropomorphites: it is horrible to relate the degrading nature of such stupid idol-makers.

5.

Let any one confult Sir Kehelm Digby's nature of bodies, ch. on heat and cold, and their active powers. Bacon fays, darkness has little activity. A mere privation is a non-entity: and what agency can nothing have? In the mysteries of the first born, &c. I

privation, or absence of light by modern philosophy; when it is the firft root or ground of all creations, and is the refhith of Mofes, comprehending male and female effence in one principle, or head, as to time, order, number, and dignity. The mixture, (and one thing cannot admit of the term) or the evening precedes the morning or light; and is the fecret bed and chamber, whence the glorious light is generated, and caft out with amazing projection, to a circumference, or globular extent; where the ray's must be equi-distant from the fountain, or folar womb, when the medium through which they pass, is perfectly homogenial, as in the feas like cryftal, they exceed not one another: and therefore these are vafte * global oceans, figured by the roundness of the fea, and lavers of Solomon. * Kings vii. 23, 35..

God

have fhewn in p. 87. darkness to be the gravitating ather, called the northern born by the prophets, binding all things, till light opens the chains. Mr. Hutchinson has faid many theofophical truths about darkness in his works.

Mr. Parkhurst feems to derive the word orb, in Latin orbis, from this root: and it is probable, as the fyftem of the planets moves in elliptical orbits, and the fun on its own centre, in a perfect orb, is the great mingler, or spouse to the whole One of Origen's great errors and herefies, mentioned (unless my memory deceives me) by the learned Huet, was, that the bodies of the faints in the refurrection would be round, or perfect globes. This opi

God fetteth his tabernacle in the fun: from the hidden wheels, preffing against each other, cometh forth the fire or light, as the Cherubim came forth out of the north, the darknefs; and the fire concealeth the wrestling centre under the emanation of the lights. This in nature is but a fhadow of the true God, and of the living light, most ravishing, fweet, penetrating, and inebriating to folly and madness in the eyes of the natural man; as it appeared at Pentecofte in thofe brides of the Lord; and as David feemed to Michal, who in this place, (as Bacon fpeaks of Sarah, laughing at faith imputed to Abraham for righteoufnefs vol. i. 262.) is an image of natural reafon; fo did thefe devout children of a true phyfical regeneration, begot by the breath of the holy fpirit, and his loins of fire, appear drunk with new wine to the natural man, the Jew under the law of figures, and not in poffeffion of the Spirit and truth to them. And fo God has rebuked the wife and prudent, and made his wif dom feem foolishness unto men, and revealed its greatness and excellency to babes; minds no more idolizing the light of nature, or the dictates of reason, than children who refign themselves to the wisdom, love and experience of their parents, as

nion, quite harmlefs, and perhaps not falfe, as being the neareft likeness to light, was then dangerous; but councils, and priests, thank heaven, rule no more.'

man,

man, in his highest intellectual powers, ought implicitly to believe any divine mystery; for as Bacon, in the whole chapter of infpired theology, replete with proper leffons to philofophical minds, fpeaks; for the more abfurd and incredible it is, the greater honour we do to God in believing it; and fo much the more noble is the victory of faith: as finners, the more they are oppreffed in confcience, yet relying upon the mercy of God for falvation, honour him the more; for all defpair is a kind of reproaching the deity. To return: it is rather ftrange, that excellent chriftian philofopher Cheyné, when acknowledging the wonders of the fluid of light as discovered by the celebrated Newton, fhould call black the fuffocation of colours; for it is the total abforption or imbibition into its own womb and bowels, as the true fource in this lower world. And here we find Saturn, the first God and parent of the others, corrupted by mythologifts, poets and philofophers, the cold, aftringent darkness, fwallowing up his own children, and cafting them up again, which is true in colours as well as in feeds, bound as it were, in death, in the winter, where his ftrength was moft perceived in these months: who is faid to fleep in this feason, and to awake in the fummer. This is a mixture of truth and error, concerning the fall of Satan, and his angels, and the fall of their heavenly materiality, or veffels; and as to the doctrine

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »