figures of God exhibited there, in the feven burning fpirits, before the throne of the holy of holies, from which the glorious lights emane, which are the spirit and truth to the letter, or fhadows. The gofpel is the manifeftation of thefe powers of heaven; and the Pentecofte revealed the whole kingdom of the Meffiah, and the new heavens, and new earth, with the bleffings brought down to make man a new house and temple for God to dwell in. But this feems to be quite forgot among most philofophers and divines, who have funk the gospel into a fyftem of morals, which they can no more perform than they can raise themselves into fpiritual bodies, by any power but that of the holy Spirit, the builder of the true tabernacle in blood and fire, and vapor of fmoke. The Pfalmift faw the time, when all nations, tongues, and peoples fhould ftand before the throne, clothed in white linen, the bodies of glory, where John fees them in Rev. 7. and therefore as all the prophets do, speak of the bleffings as determined, though the time be not arrived for the full poffeffion of the purchafed inheritance and glory.

Verfe 6. A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God (Elohim) in the habitation of his holiness.

The Pfalms containing the perpetual bleffings of the Meffiah's kingdom, demand the most ex

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alted sense for their completion. The Lord God in his legislation by Mofes, took especial care of thefe too often neglected and friendless conditions of human life under the prefent degradation of our nature. The repeated injunctions (not only to abstain from oppreffing these weak and defencelefs ftates, but to shew them kindness and friendly offices,) throw a splendor round the head of that illuftrious fervant of God, which no other lawgiver ever fo ftrongly, fo frequently expreffed in a national institute or fyftem of civil and facred ordinances and statutes. But we must not stop here for the full end of this promife. The orphan in the prophetical ftyle and intention comprehends all Adam's race, who have loft the glory, and became deprived of a father and mother according to the firft image and likeness of God; and therefore muft they find both these tender characters in the fecond Adam, the Lord from heaven, who is our father and our mother, and has bound himself by a thousand promifes, (which are not yea and nay, but yea in Paul's words) to clothe, feed, and tranfplant all the nations into his own kingdom, in their order of having his blood fprinkled upon their afhes. 1 Cor. xv. 20, 25. In the mean time, he commanded the Jews, and Christians yet more, to take the fatherlefs of their flesh to their regard and bosom, while God in Chrift will fulfill the character of their eternal friend, guardian and

bleffer.

bleffer.-Let us caft our view on the children born flesh of flesh, prifoners of forrow, labour and death: behold them often withering fooner than the grafs fadeth. Afk the womb, where it was formed, whether all flesh is not like the flower that quickly wither eth, and its place knows it no more on earth? See ten thousand parents every day within the fun's journey, looking down into the chambers of death, where their beloved children are early defcended, watering their afhes with tears, and with eyes caft up to heaven with facred violence of agonizing love and forrow, entreating power to awaken them to life. Are not thefe orphans fit for the mercy of the Father on high? Come then, ye tender mourners: hear the name of Jefus who will plant Spirit on your work of flesh, and fow the feed of light and immortality on the early victims of a seeming death. You fhall, in its appointed time, hear that bleffed voice, crying again in the agonies, of Rachel's love for her infants: it will cry louder than the forgiving voice on the cross; awake, ye that fleep in the duft; awake to life never to perish; awake to glory that shall never fade away: I will fprinkle my blood, the dew of my heavens, and your bones fhall bud, and flourish in unchangeable strength, verdure and beauty. And you, parents, (whofe hearts are the cleareft mirror of divine love left in our degraded ftate,) go, cover the orphans of this generation of flesh that want

the wings and feathers of compaffion in this world, and God will cover you with spirit and glory under the wings of the fun of righteoufnefs, fpread wide over the nations, while falvation fhall spring forth at his touch, who tafted death by the grace of God for every man, that every man, even his enemies fhould tafte his life, the glorious reward for his fuffering obedience unto death, even the death of the crofs. Heb. ii. 9. Phil. ii. 8.

The judge of the widow, according to most interpreters is, to avenge her wrongs and afflictions. But fuch vengeance cannot destroy the evil suffered. Mofes in what Hulfius from the Jews, calls Dabar Katan, the little word, and Dabar Gadol, the great word, or the spirit to the letter, took that neglected state into his more immediate protection, when he threatened a fevere retaliation upon all that should oppress the fatherless and widow: and this part of justice will doubtlefs be executed according to the extent and measure of evil for evil, which is the only part that God has taken upon himself, as an avenger under his own Theocracy. And here again, as in all civil and focial relations and duties, this eminent legiflator challenges the approbation of all real philanthropists; not the infults of infidels; not the envenomed arrows of a Bolingbroke, a Voltaire, a D'Argens, a Rouffeau, and a Hume. Yet divine wisdom veils a more tranfcendent sense under the figures of natural ties and connections. The true widow in the emphatic

flyle

ftyle of the prophets means our flesh and blood, deprived of the glory, and from that lofs, called our nakedness and our fhame: thefe expreffions would be vain and false, but in reference to fuch a forfeiture: for this glory or the Schechinah (as it is named by all Hebrew writers) returned in a vifible, and most public manner at Pentecofle, to fhew mankind what was loft by fin, and freely given by Chrift, it being his own righteousness, redemption, falvation, regeneration, and new creation, openly proclaimed in the fight of all nations, and proclaimed in all tongues. Then the hearts of widows fang for joy: the woman that once bore feven, and died in that birth, revived again, and became a joyful mother of children. The widow, as the more fpiritual Jews fpeak, is the kingdom, when it is united with Tiphereth, the beautiful bridegroom, or as Paul writes after the true and pure

tradition:

It is a juft remark of Rhenferd, a great mafter of Hebrew antiquities, in his tract concerning the Cabbalistic style of the Revelation. "The Cabbala was appointed by God in the establishment of the primitive church under the Jews; prefcribed to the heads of families, and the teachers of that church; obferved by them from the beginning, and continued to the time of Chrift: but by the envy and pride of the Rabbies, who thought the people, (poor and unlearned) unworthy to have the faith delivered to the faints committed to their ears, obfcured and fhamefully corrupted it." The confequence was, that the wife and prudent as they conceited themselves, became more blind and ftupid than the Plebeian or people of the earth, as in their arrogance they called all their

poo