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satisfy him, and cause him to look on his salvation ;" i. e. I will place him in Paradise, and I will give him a distant view of that salvation which is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Love rises superior to the two former, faith and hope, because its exercise is in its nature ultimate, and never to undergo any change. At the last day, faith and hope shall cease (every thing

not be true, that all things we can desire could not be compared to her, for length of days, is what every one naturally desires, whatever be his character, whether righteous or wicked. But the sentiment rises when we take it in its genuine import, as denoting that her first gift, as being in the right hand, is Paradise, or that intermediate state which, under the term length of days, it is intimated, is at some time to terminate, and in her left hand, the second (as an object of more remote bestowal) glory, honour, and immortality.

There is, which may be termed a tenth instance, a passage in Isaiah, liii. 10, which in our version runs thus; "he shall prolong his days," which sounds very awkward when applied to Messiah. It is evidently of affinity with those instances which have been already adduced of the Orech-Jamin. His is a supplement. The Chaldee, better, refers it to the redeemed, "their days shall be prolonged." Now we may consider Jaarich Jamim to signify he shall give length of days; i. e. bestow Pa radise; the verb containing its own accusative, a thing frequent in the Hebrew, such as " and his arm (vatosha) brought salvation to him." When it is said of Messiah that at the very time when his soul was made an offering for sin, Jaarick Jamim," he shall confer Paradise," we see it beautifully exemplified in what he said to the thief," this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise."

which was hoped for and trusted in, having now taken place) but love will remain for ever the same, and know no change but that of being heightened by the re-union of soul and body; whereas its two former associates will be gone for ever, and in their room will have now succeeded their more charming offspring, sight and enjoyment.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER XIV.

A Dissertation on Zion.

IN the religion of the Hebrews, things, places,

times, offices, sustain a double character, the proper and the allegorical; and these may be so handled, as that regard should be had either separately to each, or to both taken together. David, Solomon, Jerusalem, may be spoke of in such a way, as that the city itself and its kings, may be simply understood, or, exclusively, these things which in sacred allegory are denoted by the city and the kings. Lastly, the mind of the writer, or rather the spirit of God, may so combine the literal and allegorical senses, as that the adjuncts which set forth the literal image in a proper and historical view, will in a sense recondite and prophetical adumbrate the allegorical. Thus of David and Zion there is a two-fold personage, the proper and the allegorical. Of these personages the first is termed the nearer image, as being in point of time closer to the eye. The latter, the more remote, as being future, and as it were, thrown into the back ground of distant ages. "Sometimes the nearer image is so prominent and conspicuous, and reigns so much in the language

and

and stile, that the more remote is with difficulty observed. On the other hand, and that more frequently, the more remote is so bright, that the nearer image is almost lost, and absorbed in the splendor of its rays."

We have frequently very plain marks given in order to distinguish when the literal, and when the allegorical personage is before us. Thus when we are told that in the latter days "David his servant was to feed his people, and that the name by which he was to be called, is the Lord our righteousness :" we unavoidably see that this cannot mean the literal, but the allegorical David, who is “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

In taking a view of that Zion, of which the Zion at Jerusalem was merely a figure, it will be necessary, 1st. To attend to those passages of scripture in which it is apprehended both images appear the first a shadow of, and a prelusion to the second; intimation being given of this by the strong colouring of the language, and the employing such lofty ascriptions, as if purposely to give a subindication that something greater and more sublime lay hid under its veil, which was in due time to obtain its accomplishment,

2dly. To select such passages where the first image appears to be excluded.

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3dly. Attend to those places where the spiritual Zion is evidently set forth.

The epithet often given to Zion is holy mountain, and this with reference, not to the sanctity conferred on the place by the Shechinah, or divine presence, which resided there, but to the act of separating the people of Israel to that mountain, exclusively from the rest of the nations, by the worship in which they were there engaged. It will afterwards be seen how aptly this agrees to that separation out of the world, to the invisible state, of the souls of all the pious.

It is not be denied but that in many passages where the literal and the allegorical senses are conceived to be combined, it will be by some contended, that the first image or literal sense only is presented, and that the other owes its existence to the imagination. Undoubtedly scripture has in this way been much abused, and meanings attempted to be affixed to passages which may have been very remote from the mind of the writer; but at the same time it ought to be admitted, that there are to the first image, actions assigned, and of it things predicated, which are far too exalted for its condition. It could not be the literal David to whom God said, "sit thou at my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool." When was it that he said to him, ❝ thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee?" When was it that David

was

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