tions on the behalf of the elect, the ancient pa triarchs: and also to review the peculiar displays: of their grace and mercy, in the renewal and various repetitions of the revelation and promise, of the most holy or Anointed One, the Messiah. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were declared by the Lord to be the progenitors of him, the blessed One, the Purifier. Jacob, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, expressly confined the promise of him to Judah, of whose tribe Shiloh was to proceed. From hence, that tribe was considered as the kingly one, from which their kings were to be chosen, and king Messiah was to be of it.

I will go over the former revelations of Christ, to this before us, to Moses. They began with these words, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Gen. iii. 15. This sentence was pronounced by the Lord God Jehovah, which is the incommunicable name, expressive of the incommunicable nature, belongs to our Jesus. He was Jehovah in an especial manner, for in him were united Jah, the essence, and Hovah, the powers and faculties of the human soul in perfection. In a peculiar manner the work of salvation belonged to him, he having engaged in the everlasting covenant, which obtained before all worlds between the Three in the

self-existing essence, to become incarnate, and to make his soul an offering for sin. His death was set forth in the institution of, and killing and offering sacrifices, immediately upon the revelation of him, as the seed of the woman, and the serpent bruiser. And to all this was added, that grand hieroglyphic, the similitude of the great ones, in the cherubim placed at the east of the garden of Eden. These figures seem to have been placed at the entrance of paradise, so that Adam could have no access thither but by them, for the space of one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years. This was the whole revelation made of the covenant of the eternal Three, of the incarnation and one sacrifice of Christ Jesus to the antediluvian patriarchs, and the sole foundation of all their faith and hope.

Noah entered into the ark at God's command, having his mind truly and divinely possessed with the knowledge of these important and divine truths and mysteries; and when he came out of the ark, after the deluge, he fully proved it by offering a burnt-offering unto the Lord, which Jehovah testified his acceptance of. Gen. viii. 21. Thus the world, renewed by the same agency by which it was formed, viz. the created spirit, air in motion, in union with the light and fire, Gen. i. 2. in which we may contemplate the new creation of the soul, which is by the uncreated spirit, the Holy Ghost, in union with the Father and the

Son, see Titus iii. 4 to 6. was begun and entered upon with a solemn memorial of the death of Christ, and Jehovah testified his own acceptance and delight in the savor thereof. He appointed

the rainbow as a symbol of the Purifier; renewed the promise concerning the woman's seed, who was to destroy satan, who had shed the blood of man; and prohibited the eating blood, to point out the atonement which was to be made for sin, by the most precious blood-shedding of Immanuel. Thus the same knowledge of the Three in Jehovah, of their covenant offices, of the everlasting efficacious oblation of the Lord Jesus Christ was as truly professed by Noah after the flood as it was before. He expressly pronounces Shem to be the progenitor of the Messiah; saying, "Blessed be Shem of the Lord his God," or "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem," Gen. ix. 26. And the line of election ran from him down to Abraham, unto whom the Lord expressly said, "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Gen. xiii. 3. As the cherubim was known to Noah, it is probable he might have a sacred copy of figure of it in the ark, and make use of it after he came out of it. A learned man says, the form of the cherubim was the same with that set up by the Lord God downwards, even in private families; and that at the dispersion at Babel, the heathens who carried them off, supposed the essence of their

Alehim dwelt in these figures, and therefore sought responses from them: they thought their gods ought to dwell in a body, which shews they had received an account of the incarnation of the Son of God, though they had corrupted it. Of this the tabernacle and temple was a shadow to true believers; but in Christ dwelleth the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily. It is conceived by Romaine, Parkhurst, and others, that the figures of the cherubim were preserved in the families of the faithful, that they sought the Lord by them, and that they presented themselves, and expected to receive an intimation of Jehovah's mind and will, by an audible voice pronounced by him from these figures; and certain it is, that from those set up in the most holy place in the tabernacle, and afterwards in the temple, in the holy of holies, Jehovah was pleased to admit Moses and the high priest of the jewish church to consult him.

As Jehovah singled out Abram in the line of Shem, and limited the promise of the Messiah to him and his seed, so this promise was variously expressed. It ran thus at first, "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." The next expression of it was, that "all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him." And when Isaac was born, and in him the Lord had given Abraham a typical view and representation of his wellbeloved Son Jesus Christ, the very Lamb of God,

he again renewed the promise thus, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Isaac, Abraham's son, has the same promise of Messiah renewed to him; he entailed the same on Jacob, and at Bethel the eternal Three met him, gave him a visible symbol of their presence with him, and confirmed his faith in the full assurance that the Purifier would proceed from him in his descendants. A learned man says, Jacob set up the figure of the cherubim at Luz, and lay down to consult the Most High by dream, and the visionary ladder may well be conceived as bearing some likeness to the light and glory which shone forth in the primary cherub set up at Eden. Jacob, under the prophetic influence of the Holy Ghost, confined the promise of the Messiah to the tribe of Judah. cording to what the Lord had declared to Abraham concerning the affliction of his posterity, so it came to pass. Jacob, in consequence of a famine in Canaan, goes down into Egypt, where his son Joseph was viceroy. It was now a period of two hundred and fifteen years since Abraham had been called, and received the promise of a numerous seed; yet so slow was the fulfilment of the promise, and the increase of the church during this term, that Abraham's seed were but seventy souls; but such was the faithfulness of God to his promise, that in two hundred and fifteen years more they were multiplied to six hun

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