please him, on their second Exodus, to bring them into the bonds of the new and better covenant, where the certain frailty of human nature is obviated according to the "better promises," by the gift of eternal grace and all powerful moral influence upon their hearts. Such a covenant with the house of Jacob is to be made, as we have seen, in the latter days, and then the antitype will shew in the condition of this favoured people, all the declared designs of God respecting them, carried into full accomplishment. Then will it plainly appear, that "God's gifts and callings," though they seem in the eyes of men to be long frustrated," are without repentance." Thus Isaiah foretels the holy and priestly character of the restored Israelites, when the " acceptance is come." (lxi. 3, &c.)

year of

"And they shall call them the trees of righteousness,
The plantation of Jehovah for his glory.

And they shall restore the ancient desolations,
They shall repair the ruins of former times.

And they shall rebuild the cities that have been destroyed
Which have lain waste, from generation to generation.

And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,

And the sons of the alien shall be your husbandmen and
vine dressers.

But ye shall be called the priests of Jehovah,
Ministers of our Elohim' shall they call you.

Ye shall feed on the wealth of nations,
And shall find your provision in their plenty."
"Their seed shall be known among the nations,
And their offspring among the peoples.

All that see them shall acknowledge them,
That these are a seed blessed of Jehovah."

Yet though all the people are holy, "separated from the rest of mankind in order to their being consecrated to the service of God, which is the primary sense of Holy," yet, as formerly, from the midst of this holy people, the tribe of Levi is to be separated or consecrated to a more immediate service; and from these again the sons of Zadoc are to be consecrated to the still nearer attendance upon the manifestation of that Divine Presence, which is to be made on the holy hill of Zion, where God will "put his name," and where "he will dwell for ever."

The manner of that manifestation and dwelling, and the relation in which Israel will stand to the PRESENT DEITY, as well as to the rest of mankind, we may, as I have suggested, contemplate in the types afforded by the institutions ordained in the desert, under the first covenant, and the regulations of the theocracy which God appointed by the hand of Moses.

On Mount Sinai, Jehovah the God of Israel is asserted, most unequivocally, to have personally descended.

Jehovah said he would "come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai." "And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that were in the camp trembled." And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because Jehovah descended on it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice: and Jehovah came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mount."

And not only did all the people, on this most solemn occasion, hear "the voice of the living God," and not only was "the sight of the glory of Jehovah like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel,” but

Exodus xxvi. 9, &c.-" Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel" "went up," "and they saw the Elohim of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire-stone; and as it were the body of heaven in its clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand also they saw Elohim, and did eat and drink.”

When locality and motion are ascribed to the omnipresent Deity, and especially when a similitude of the invisible Godhead is presented to the eye,

that the scripture be not broken," we must have recourse for its explanation to the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. "They saw the God of Israel;" this is positively asserted. Now "no man has seen the Father at any time. The only-begotten Son that is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him." 66 Only-begotten God," the ancient Syriac translates in this place: it pertains, I doubt not, to the eternal sonship within the Deity; and means no less than "God of God," "Light of light," "Very God of very God," "Being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” It was God therefore in the person of the Son, that on this, and all other occasions where the Deity is visible, appears to the gaze of his adoring creatures.

But then, the eternal Son, as to his Deity, is equally invisible as the Father and the Spirit, alike

"without body, parts, or passions," (impassabilis) we must therefore advert to the doctrine of the Incarnation, where we are instructed that Deity, in its second person, takes a form. "The WORD," who is "God," and "with God," assumes to his person a created substance; and that substance, by his pleasure, the human nature; "he was made flesh." So that" of God and man is made one Christ;" one only person, but of a twofold substance. Now, in this his created nature, even in its highest exaltation, though he be very God, yet locality and motion must be ascribed to him, he may become an object of sight. Such is the "God-man" Jesus Christ. "The image of the invisible God," "the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person," or "substance." This then was the appearing person, who on the top of Sinai shewed himself as Jehovah, the Elohim of Israel.

It is true, God the Son had not as yet actually united to himself the created, human nature; as to his substance, he was as yet, simply Deity, but by his almighty power, he takes the appearance of his predestinated form, and of the future glory which he was to assume in his creation, and had indeed, "with the Father, before the world began," as the first-begotten of the Father, "the anointed King and Lord of all;" "the first-born of every creature ;" "the Son over his own house." These appearances of the Divine Being under the old dispensation, we consider, therefore, as prophetic types of the manner of the future manifestation of God in his name Jehovah, "the Everlasting One, coming into and being born

into his own creation, God incarnate in the person of the Son."

The setting up of this great Lord and Christ, to be a manifestation of the otherwise invisible Deity, is contemplated in scripture as the oldest of all things, since here the glory of God is chiefly shown—as the first in design, and as the final cause in the everlasting counsels of Deity respecting creation.

It has been very generally believed in all ages of the Church, that this transaction, the going forth of the Son as the predestinated Christ before all time began, is shadowed forth in that personification of Wisdom in the eighth chapter of Proverbs.

"Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way,
Before his works of old.

I was set up from everlasting,

From the beginning, or ever the earth was :

When there were' no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no fountains abounding with water.

Before the mountains were settled,

Before the hills, was I brought forth.

While as yet he had not made the earth,

Nor the surface, nor the upper soil of the habitable world.

When he prepared the heavens I was there,

When he set a compass on the face of the deep;

When he established the clouds above;

When he strengthened the foundations of the deep;

When he gave the sea his decree,

That the waters should not pass his commandment;

*Or "anointed."