Heb. iii. 1-3. [Here Mofes's houfe, and Chriff's houfe, or difpenfation, are clearly diftinguifhed.]

But fuppofing our Lord was the Angel, who appeared and fpake under the Old Teftament, yet it must be remembered, that he appeared and spake only as an Angel, or Nuncius, from God. Which character he exprefsly fuftains, Mal. iii. 1.—and the Lord, whom ye feck, fhall fuddenly come to his temple; even an 8 the messenger, Angel, of the covenant, [not the Sinai, but the Gofpel covenant,] whom ye delight in.

СНА Р. XVI.

Of the GLORY OF THE LORD, as it hath relation to the SHECHINAH, or Divine APPEARANCES.

I

Tis deferving of our further obfervation, that the Shechinah, or divine appearances, as a token of God's prefence, and of his guidance, encouragement, and protection of his people, is often mentioned in the Old Teftament under the character of THE GLORY OF JEHOVAH. As in Exodus xvi. 7, 10. xxiv. 16. Lev. ix. 6, 23. Num. xiv. 10, 21, 22. xvi. 19. xx. 6. Hebrews ix. 5.- the Cherubim of the gy, i.e. the glory of Jehovah, dweiling between the Cherubim, over the Mercy-feat. St. Peter alludes to this, 2 Epift. i. 17.- there came a l'oice from the excellent Glory. This token of God's prefence is otherwife called his Prefence, Exodus xxxiii. 14. and his Name, as that fignifieth a mark of diftinétion or eminence. Deut. xii. 5. 2 Chron. vii. 16.

Certainly it was the peculiar honour and advantage of the Ifraelites, that they had fuch a public vifible manifeftation of the prefence and favour of God; [Rom. ix. 4 Who are Ifraelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the Glory, or the glorious manifeftations of God.] And was well adapted to that difpenfation of the church; efpecially in the early times of its inftitution under Mofes, when they could not, by abftract reafoning, be fo well acquainted with the nature and perfections of God; and therefore ftood in need of fome extraordinary vifible token, to ftrike and affect their minds with a fenfe of his prefence, power, authority, favour, and protection.

And as the glory of the Lord appeared publicly in favour of the Ifraelites, to guard and guide them, when they left the land of Egypt; fo the glory of the Lord is ufed figuratively to denote, in general, his fpecial bleffing, favour, prefence, and protection, upon any occafion. Ifaiah lviii. 8. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, &c. Then fhall thy light, profperity, break forth as the morning, and thy health fhall spring forth Speedily: and thy righteoufnefs [falvation, Saviour] Shall go before thee, THE GLORY

OF JEHOVAH fhall be thy rereward, fhall advance in thy rear, or behind thee, to guard thee; alluding to the Shechinah, as it guarded and guided the children of Ifrael. Ifaiah Ix. 1. Arife, Shine; for thy light, happinefs, is come, and THE GLORY OF JEHOVAH is rifen upon thee. Thus it is figuratively to denote the divine favour and guardianship.

And in the fame manner it is applied to the Chriftian church, as denoting all the light and bleffings, grace, and glory of the Gospel. Num. xiv. 21. But as truly as I live, all the earth fhall be filled with MY GLORY; speaking of the Gospel, in contradiction to the Jewish peculiarity. Ifa. XXXV. I, 2. The wilderness of the folitary place fhall be glad for them; and the defert fhall rejoice and bloffom as the rofe, &c. They fhall fee THE GLORY OF JEHOVAH, and the excellency of our God. Ifai. xl. 3, 4, 5 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make ftraight in the defert a high way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, &c. And THE GLORY OF JEHOVAH fhall be revealed, and all flesh shall fee it together, [177 completely, or in its perfection] for the mouth of the Lord hath Spoken it. Hab. ii. 14. For the earth fhall be filled with the knowledge of the GLORY OF GOD, as the waters cover the fea.

All thefe paffages are to be understood of the Gospel manifestations of God's grace, which is his glory. Exodus xxxiii. 18, 19. And Mofes faid, I beseech thee, fhew me thy Glory. And he faid, I will make all my "Goodnels pals before thee, and I will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee; namely, as in Chap. xxxiv. 6, 7. The Lord-proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God merciful, and gracious, &c. The good nefs and mercy of the Lord is the glory of the Lord.

And obferve, how the Apoftle, 2 Cor. iii. 13-18. alludes to the glory of the Shechinah, with which Mofes converted in the mount; and which impreffed fuch a fplendour upon his countenance, as obliged him to cover it with a veil, when he returned to the people; who otherwife could not bear to look upon the exceffive brightness of the glory of God, reflected from his, Mofes's, face. In allufion to this veil, obfcuring the brightnefs of Mofes his countenance, the Apoftle informs us, ver. 14, 15, that there was an obfcurity, a veil over his writings; which veil, after Chrift was come, and had taken it away from the Old Teftament, the Jews, through unbelief, transferred to their own hearts, and fo remained ignorant of the true meaning of Mofes and the prophets. But, ver. 18. we all [all we Chriftians, in oppolition to the blinded Jews, ver. 13, 14.] we all with open, unveiled, face, having the GLORY of the LORD reflected upon us [from the face of Jefus, Chap. iv. 6.] as from a mirror, are, in the difpofitions of our minds, changed into the fame image of moral excellency, from glory to glory, or in order to the moit complete glory, even as by the fpirit of the Lord. John i. 14. The word was made flesh, and sonnywor dwelt, tabernacled, among us; and we, as well as his firft difciples, beheld the glory of Jefus Chrift, as of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth. The Son of God became a man subject to like frailties with us, and lived and converfed freely amongst men; teaching them fully and plainly the great truths relating to God's gracious purposes concerning the redemption and eternal falvation of mankind. And thus God, and his merciful regards to men, his prefence in his church, and his power, engaged to keep his fervants, and to bring

them

them to the poffeffion of eternal life, is more clearly and illuftrioufly manifefted in the Gospel, than his favourable prefence and protection were by the Shechinah in the temple, or in any other place, among the Ifraelites.

We who, under the Gospel difpenfation, are fo well acquainted with. the nature and perfections of God, do not ftand in need of any extraordinary visible token of the divine prefence. The glorious truths of the Gofpel, revealed by Jefus Chrift, are our Shechinab, fhining from him upon our minds, and filling them with comfort and joy, in the affured hope of his present care and bleffing, and of the poffeffion of glory, honour, and immortality in the future world. And this is to us as a Shechinah, infinitely preferable to the vifible appearances in the church of old.

CHA P. XVII.

The SCRIPTURE-CHRONOLOGY from the CREATION to the DELUGE.

Gen. 5th Chapter.

E are now got as far as the Deluge. And here, according to Mofes, who here begins his genealogies, is the proper place for confidering how far we are advanced in the age, or chronology, of the world. For in this chapter he gives the names and ages of the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, together with the age of every father, at the time when every fon was born. And if we add together the ages of the fathers, when their feveral fons were born, and the years of Noah's life at the time of the Deluge, we fhall form chronological tables of the best authority, from the Creation to the Deluge, after this manner.

According to Table I. if you add together the years from the creation of Adam to the birth of Methuselah, you will find that Adam was 687years old when Methuselah was born. And, as Adam lived in all 930 years, as in Table III. if you fubtract 687 from 930, there will remain 243, which is the year of Methuselah's life when Adam died. Therefore Methuselah

E 4

Methuselah lived 243 years with Adam. In the fame way of computation you may find how long any of the junior Patriarchs lived with Adam, as in Table IV..

If to the year of Enos's life, when Cainan was born, and to the year of Lamech's life, when Noah was born, you add all the intermediate years, you will find they are 821, which is the age of Enos when Noah was born: but Enos lived 905 years; from which subtract 821, and the remainder is 84, the number of years in which old Enos and young Noah were cotemporaries. And in the fame way you may find how long any of the fenior preceding Patriarchs lived with Noah, as in Table V.

So likewife, if you add together the years from the birth of Methuselah to the flood, you will find them to be 969; which is juft the time that Methuselah lived, as in Table III. Hence we may conclude, thit Methufelah died juft before the flood came; and Noah being then 6c0 years old, he had lived juft fo long with Methuselah.

So again, if you add the years from the birth of Lamech to the flood, you will find them to be 782 years; and whereas Lamech lived but 777 years, it follows, that Lamech died five vears before the flood came. Therefore, all the Patriarchs, except Noah, were dead, when Neab entered into the ark.

From the above account it appears, that Methuselah lived with Adam 243 years, and doubtless converfed with him the greatest part of that time; and fo had opportunity abundantly fufficient to receive from Adam an account of what he knew concerning th creation, and all the tranfactions and events contained in the first four chapters of Genefis. And as Noah lived 600 years with Methuselah, he had time fufficient to learn the fame account from him, and may well be fuppofed to have carried it with him entire into the ark. And this may be one reafon of the longevity of the antediluvians; which must be refolved into the fole will of God, and can be accounted for no other way. They lived fo long, in order to preserve, and hand down to pofterity, religious knowledge, in that period of time when it could not be committed to writing; and when it would have been either totally loft, or miferably depraved, had men lived no longer than 70 or 80 years. Befides, their longevity contributed to the more fpeedy peopling of the world, and to the bringing of neceflary arts, in tillage, building and clothing, to a greater perfection.

Ver. 1. This is the book of the generations of Adam; that is to fay, this is the pedigree, or the genealogy of the defcendants of Adam. So Mat. i. 1. The book of the generation, is the genealogy of Jefus Chrift.

Ver. 3. As we know that Adam had both Cain and Abel before Seth was born, fo both he, and the other Patriarchs, might have feveral other children before those that are named in this lift; it being, probably, the defign of Mofes to fet down only thofe perfons by whom the line of Noah was drawn from Seth, by their true ancestors, whether they were the eldest of the family, or not.

Ver, 21-and begat Methuselah. It is the ingenious conjecture of

Ainfwn the

Ainsworth, that hun is a word compounded of he dieth, and men for nhưpi and an emission; as much as to fay, when he dieth, there fhall be an emiffion, or inundation, of waters. Thus Enoch may be fuppofed to have predicted the deluge in the name which he gave his fon Methuselah, with this particular circumftance, that the deluge fhould happen in the year in which his fon fhould die; as it certainly did. However we have the authority of an Apostle, that Enoch was a Prophet, and did forefee, and foretell the deluge to that generation of men. Jude, ver 14, 15. And Enoch also, the feventh from Adam, prophesied of these, or of fuch men as these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints, or with myriads of his holy Angels, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard, unreafonable, contumacious, blafphemous Speeches, which ungodly finners have Spoken against him. This, I apprehend, in its primary intention, is a prediction of the deluge, by which God would punish that impious race which then inhabited the earth. But as their deftruction by the deluge is made an example of the vengeance which God will execute upon all impenitently wicked at the last day, (2 Pet. ii. 5.) fo Enoch's Prophecy will fuit the wicked of all ages, who fhall certainly meet with a like reward of their deeds.

And Enoch walked diligently ויתהלך חנוך אתר האלהים .22 .Ver

with, or unto, God, and in a manner agreeable and pleafing to God. And fo did Noah, chap. vi. 9. In this conftruction (with n)

is used but once more, I Sam. xxv. 15; and there it implies friendship ana benevolence on the part of those they converfed with. Therefore the Apostle rightly inferts the idea of pleafing God in the account he gives of Enoch's tranflation, Heb. xi. 5, 6; and argues well, that Enoch's pafing God, was the effect of his faith in God, and in a future re-, ward. For without faith it is impoffible to please God, or to walk with, or to come unto him, as Enoch did. For he that cometh unto God, must, in the very nature of the thing, believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that ailigently feek him. [Obferve-pleafing God, coming unto God, and diligently feeking him, are fynonymous, and all included in the fenfe of walking with God.] By faith Enoch led a very religious and heavenly life. His thoughts and affections were removed from things below, and fixed upon things above. He had a deep fenfe of God and his perfections, delighted in his ways, behaved as always in his fight, and conftantly ftudied to please him, and promote his glory. Being of a character fo excellent, and withal a perfon of eminent note, and great induftry in oppofing the growing wickednefs of the world, God was pleafed to reward his piety, and give the reft of mankind a demonftration of a future ftate of glory, the inheritance of the holy and virtuous, by tranflating him alive, without feeing death, into heaven. It is not improbable, that he was tranflated in fome visible manner as Elijah was afterwards, by a glorious appearance of the Shechinah, from whence fome heavenly minifters might be detached to convey him to a better. world. This happened 57 years after Adam's death, in the year of the world 987, and 669 years before the deluge.