The Lord faid unto my Lord, fit thou on my right hand, to that fon of man in Dan. vii. 13. Where he is brought in the clouds of heaven, the chariots of the Lord God to his throne; and John has this wonder, to Semeion, revealed to him, of the woman clothed with the fun, from whose womb this folitary male, this Abram of ancient time, was separated, and taken up to the throne, and the fame power given him to rule all nations, as the other prophet had fhewn before. Hence in Matthew's gofpel, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the fon of David, the fon of Abraham, according to the flesh, but not in the fpirit: for they are only figures of greater things, in forty-two myftic generations, before this Nazarite affumed the flesh of fin into a personal union, though believers in the law and its mysteries received the fpirit, as Paul, a good divine, proves in 1 Cor. x. 1. 4. Which .paffage has been explained in a fhort comment at the end of figns of times publifhed by me, regard to this feparation of one from the fallen powers, and the knowledge of it among the Hebrew church, the learned may read Raym• Martini pug. fid: p. 399, 422, 520, 554, 559,603. and the large treatife of Buddeus concerning the Valentinian herefy; when the knowledge of this truth, the fecret opened by the gofpel, was loft and buried in the condemnation of Valentinus, and his disciples, who had indeed mixed fome errors

With

with the original truth. How then can Schoetgenius advance this position, that a proper eternity belongs to Chrift, because he is called Rifhon, the firft? For the whole character of a mediator and a redeemer muft depend upon an antecedent breach and lofs. Was the fall then from an abfolute eternity, which calls for this interpofition? but whenever truths have once been funk by the teachers or mafters in Ifrael, they are the last to fuffer the recovery of them. When the Hebrew writers with one voice fay, that the name and foul of the Meffiah was created before the world, among the feven things, the law, repentance, the garden of Eden, hell, the throne of glory, and the name of the Meffiah: they fpeak only what the

The law and the gofpel have equally been abused by men : only God has not fent prophets to rebuke the pretended minifters of the laft, as he did under the firft; for then the complaint of lying and deceiving the people would have begun as early, and concluded as late. False prophets, in a deceivableness of unrighteousness, dug a grave foon for the judgment and mercy of God; and Antichrist, and Antichrifts who are many, began their work in the days of the apostles. 1 John ii. 18. z Thess. ii. 7. Jerome and Auftin were two principal builders in the temple of Mount Gerizim: the first by preaching up calibacy as the fum and perfection of the gofpel: and the laft, by an exclusive predeftination, by which he adjudged all unbaptized infants to everlafting torments, fetting up the abomination of defolation in the midst of the Lord's great name revealed in Jefus Chrift, at the distance of about a century from Conftantine's Nicene council.

law and the prophets had taught, that a temple of God had fallen in Lucifer; that he had been caft out of Eden, and his cherubical throne was broken to pieces, and the fea of cryftalline purity as to its materiality, was become dark, cold, hard, and bound in chains and bonds of compaction by the absence of the glorious light no more clothing this spiritual world. They knew by the lamb, the male of the first year; by the feparation of Abram from all the tongues after Babel; by the election of David in the houfe of Jeffe, that one feed had been referved, and was then above, who fhould rebuild the fallen tabernacle in the wilderness; of which Mofes and David under the law, were only figures and pledges in the tabernacle, and temple of Solomon at Jerufalem, the city of the letter. Yet they all interpret Michah, v. 1. ab initio, from the beginning; and in Midrash Tehillim, an old comment on the Pfalms, they compare Pfalm, ii. 7. with Exod. iv. 22. with Ifa. lii. 13. and Pfal. cx. 1. referring every thing to the Meffiah as exifting above, not from an abfolute eternity, but from ancient time lying concealed, which mystery was brought to light by our Lord taking on him the form of a fave in a body of flesh and blood, the garment of our flavery to labour and death, at the end of the ages, fore-ordained to manifeft this council of the moft high God, as Paul fhews this happy truth in Rom. xvi. 25. where the revelation of the mystery

fealed

fealed up from the aeonial times, which ought to have had a term proper to exprefs certain periods, called ages, as the new teftament is written after the Hebrew idiom as nearly as the facred authors could preserve it, which Vorftius and Leufden have fhewn against Phochenius's vain attempt to establish the claffical purity of the Greek of the new teftament V. Leufdeni Phil. Heb. mixt diff. 12, p. 92-132.

*

I have no doubt but the name Jah may be confidered as containing Abraham to Benjamin, fifteen generations, in our God, the full image of the invifible God: and this might be proved from the order of the camp of Ifrael: 2dly, from the garments of the high priest, and laftly from the twelve builders of the new Jerufalem, with the glory in the centre. But this fhall be left for a future

Michaelis fuppofes in his notes de Sac. Poefi Heb. that Be-jab fhould fignify to comfort, from a verb in the Syriack. But the Hebrew language is a language by itself, containing fully all the perfections of the fupreme God, and the Mefiah, and all the invaluable relations both bear to fallen beings. Nor does this philological critic improve the fenfe of Ifa. xxvi. 2. where he tranflates in Fab is Jehovah, the rock of the ages, Jehovah the eternal rock, comforts us. Cappellus and Houbigant omit beth, and most of the ancients; but it was more from their ignorance of the glory of that name, fo frequently used; and with which the last Pfalm finishes its loud call to all creatures: every being that breathes, fhall praise the Lord, praise ye the Lord (Jab.) The jubile will fhout forth this name.

confideration. To praife him who rideth over the heavens, or the mixtures of darkneffes and lights, making a cloud and darkness about him. Pfal. xcvii. 2. Darkness his fecret place: his dwelling place encompaffing, darkness of waters, and thick clouds of the heavens. Pfal. xviii. 11. Where Shekakim, the heavens, mean the highest degree of matter, for his garment or clothing; fhewed in the white wool of the Ancient of Days, and the white rayment on the mount of transfiguration: for all spirits are married to bodies, their brides; and the fpirit ruleth over his wife, his fifter, or as the Cabbalifts fpeak, the veffel proper for the light, the warm bridegroom, ever rejoycing in the wife of his youth, and piercing every point with living rays, as all life, motion, sensation and joy is in light. The Jews never were taught that fpirits were material, but that they were clothed with refined fubstance, or emanations, like the purity of light, air water, and earth in vapor or cloud: and that fpirit was the head, the coverer, or the husband; to all of whom the Creator was their head, as they were to their own brides. For all glory in fcripture confifts in the degree of light, as the father of lights diftributes this wonderful living effence from the angels of the prefence, called Cherubim from their majefty, and Seraphim from their tranfcendent light, or forms as of funs. To rejoyce before his faces, has refpect to the two holy places, and the

figures