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thing upon earth, without Christ, and besides Christ, shall fail. He only is the rock; and his work only is perfect.

Come then, thou broken in heart, let us go into his tabernacle, let us worship at his footstool. Let us plead the sacrifice of our paschal Lamb, who was appointed to be slain for the worst sinners in the world, even for those who feel themselves to be worse than the worst; let us confess our sins, and transfer them to his sacred and devoted head; let us approach his holy laver, and ask for the purification and grace of his Holy Spirit; let us advance in faith to his more immediate presence, and consider ourselves as redeemed priests, who have now a right to enter into his holy place and be members of his mystic tabernacle; let us feed upon Christ in secret, and thus be enlightened by him and understand wisdom; let us also offer upon him, the golden altar which shall sanctify the gift, the largest tributes of the incense of praise and thanksgiving, for the unspeakable mercies of our God; and then let us not wrong the truth of JEHOVAH for a moment by a doubt, but that they shall come up with acceptance before him, and that he finally will glorify us, as the parts or members, with the whole house of his glory.

TEMPLE.

TEMPLE.

AFTER many years, and in God's appointed time,

the tabernacle of Moses and its economy were accomplished in the temple of Solomon But both of these were shadows or figures of Christ and his people. The one denoted them as passing through the wilderness of this world; the other represented them as fixed for ever in heaven.

The Hebrew name, n, for which we have no correspondent word but temple, is usually derived from a root which signifies power; and possibly there is an allusion to this, among other circumstances, in the name of the two pillars in the porch, called Jachin and Boaz; the literal translation of which is, he will establish it in strength. The whole fabric in itself, and especially in what it was intended to describe, was ordered and settled by infinite might and wisdom, beyond the craft of enemies to impeach, or their power to impair. For,

As the tabernacle was constructed according to the pattern or representation, which was shewn to Moses in the holy mount; so the temple was arranged and framed, in every part of it, according to the pattern. which David had by the Spirit, and gave to Solomon his son.* And so far was all this above human schemes.

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or invention, that even David himself, wise and prophetic as he was, could not so much as understand the things communicated to him, without divine and immediate instruction. ALL this (said he) concerning the writing, or draught, JEHOVAH made me to understand by his hand [or Spirit] upon me, even ALL THE WORKS of this pattern. And then, like a true king-shepherd, he prays for the flock committed to his charge; that Jehovah in covenant would preserve this [the temple and its appurtenances] continually for the framing of thoughts, or exciting spiritual ideas, for the heart of his people, and settle their heart towards him. In this view of its use and designation, well might he call it great and wonderful, or mysterious (as the word also means;) for no other building ever had such honour put upon it, as to be the representative of God in Christ, and of Christ in his people. Nor could any have contrived such a sensible demonstration of divine truth, or taught the purpose of it, but God himself: and in this knowledge, the highest and most important in the world, consisted all the learning of the ancient and faithful Jews. In divine things, man never yet knew any thing rightly, but by divine teaching: his own reason, fallen and benighted as it is, can only lead him wider and wider astray, in all attempts to search out God, or to study the Almighty to perfection; and it may lead him to the pitch of the wildest delirium and error in matters of this kind. For, if madness be, in

* Ubi supra, v. 19.

+ 1 Chron. xxix. 18.

‡ 2 Chron. ii. 9.

its true definition, nothing more or less than the wandering of the mind from reality, or the triumph of the imagination over truth; then, the innumerable excursions which have been made by men, upon subjects of divinity, without the rule and beyond the rule of God's own revelation, and the forgetfulness that this revelation contains no questions to be ventilated, but determinations to be followed; serve to show, how few sane and sober people, in God's eye, are to be found in the world, and how, of all others, the philosophers (as they are wrongly called) of the day, spoiled and spoiling others through vain deceit, have the least real claim of all men to the firm and just condition of a sound mind. They, uniformly following the rudiments of the world, can ascend or wish to ascend no higher, and will, together with all their thoughts, if grace interpose not, perish with it. But to return.

Besides the inward and spiritual glory of the temple, which certainly was infinitely above all other considerations; the skill and proportions of the architecture itself were so perfect and extraordinary, that Villalpandus, whom our Selden calls a most excellent divine and mathematician, does not scruple to assert, that the Greeks (and from them the Romans, and particularly Vitruvius, the ingenious architect to Julius and Augustus Casar) derived their knowledge of the art from it, and from other edifices built by Solomon.* The present ruins of Tadmor or Palmyra, founded by that prince, though chiefly remains of structures raised perhaps long

'SELD. de jure nat. 1. i. c. 2. WITS. Ægypt. p. 464.

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since his time, may have been framed from his original designs; if even none of those durable marbles (which is not wholly improbable) are fragments of the originals themselves. Concerning the temple, this appears to be certain, that, whether the riches and vast expence* of raising it, or the quantity of materials and number of workmen, or the exquisite beauty of the edifice itself, be considered; the world never saw a building of such outward splendor and magnificence, or of such inward holiness and majesty. It was the visible palace of the King of heaven upon earth; and a sensible picture of his sublime and invisible glory.

But its inward and spiritual glory, even in the estimation of the Jews, constituted its chief and true graudeur. The Shecinah, or divine presence, typified by a luminous cloud upon the ark of the covenant, and manifested by answers of Urim and Thummim, or of the Holy Spirit in prophetic inspirations, was the peculiar eminence of that sacred and sumptuous pile. Yet these supreme advantages remained but for a time, partly through the apostasy of the Jews, and partly because they were prefigurative only of more wonderful declara tions and displays of divine mercy, which concentered in the appearance of the Son of God in the world, under the name IMMANUEL, GOD with us, or, GOD manifest

The overlaying of the most holy place only with gold, a cubical room of 30 feet in the side, has been calculated to come to £4,320,000 of our sterling money. PRIDEAUX's Conn, P. I. B. 3.

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