Of idolatry a discourse, in which is endeavoured a declaration of, its distinction from superstition, its notion, cause, commencement, and progress, its practice charged on Gentiles, Jews, Mahometans, Gnosticks, Manichees Arians, Socinians, Romanists : as also, of the means which God hath vouchsafed towards the cure of it by the Shechinah of His Son / by Tho. Tenison ...

CHAP. XIV. Of the means which God hath vouchsafed the World towards the cure of Idolatry; and more particularly, of his favour in exhibiting, to that purpose, the Shechinah of his Son. (Book 14)

PART 1. Of the Cure of Idolatry.

THE Notion of Idolatry being stated, and also il∣lustrated by the practice of it amongst Gen∣tiles, Jews, Mahometans, and Professors of Christianity; I proceed to shew the means which God, in pity of our weakness, hath given us towards the Cure of this Evil.

Against all manner of false Gods, and ruling-Dae∣mons, he gave to all the world a Principle of Reason, which teacheth that there is one Supreme Being, abso∣lute in Perfection; and by consequence, that he, be∣ing every-where, by Almighty Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, is every-where to be adored and trusted in as the only God.

The same Principle of Reason teacheth them, that God can neither be represented by an Image, nor con∣fined to it; neither knoweth it much more of the in∣feriour Powers of the invisible World, save that they are; and consequently it hath no ground for addresses to them.

For the Jews, they had an express command for the worship of one God without Image; and many de∣clarations of God, as governing the world by his im∣mediate Providence.

Also Christian Religion sheweth plainly, that the gods of the Heathens were Doemons, or evil spirits; and that there is but one God, and one Mediator, to be by Christians adored. It establisheth a Church or Corporation of Christians who agree in the worship of one God in Trinity. In Baptism, or the Sacrament of admittance into that Society, it prescribeth a solemn Renuntiation of the Devil and his works, of which a part were the Pomps, or Processions, in honour of I∣dols. In the Sacrament which is a memorial of the Passion of Christ, the Head and Founder of this Soci∣ety, it offereth to us the Cup of the Lord, in opposi∣tion to the cup of Devils. On the First-day of the Week set a-part for publick worship, it maketh a Re∣membrance of the Creation of the world, by the Son, by whom the Father made all things, and not by any Doemons; as also of the Resurection of Christ from the dead, by which he conquered the powers of dark∣ness. In the Form of Prayer which our Lord taught the Church, it prayeth for deliverance 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a 1.1 from that evil one (from Satan the destroyer, as Rabbi Judah was wont to petition); and, in the Doxology, it ascribeth not (with the Heathen world which then lay in maligno illo, under the Power of the God of this world in general Idolatry;) the King∣dom, Power, and Glory, to the Devil; but to that one true God, who was the Father of Jesus Christ.

But upon most of these Subjects, I have already in∣larged: It remaineth, therefore, that I speak of the means which God hath specially vouchsafed in the case of Images; a Subject not commonly discoursed of, and hinted only in the former Papers.

This Disquisition I will begin with the notion of the Invisibility of God; proceeding thence, to the condescension he vouchsafes, towards the very eye

and fancy of man, in the Shechinah of his Son.

There is, in the very Creation, a great part of in∣visible matter and motion. Many things, besides God Almighty, are not immediately subject to mans sense, though his Reason can reach them, after a Philosophi∣cal consideration of their palpable effects. God, indeed, could have made that matter, which is now invisible, to have been seen by man, in all the minute and curi∣ous Textures of it. For what should hinder that om∣nipotence which formed the light, and created the soul, from framing the Fibers of the Nerves in such de∣licate manner in this life, [what possibly he may do in the coelestial body] as to give to man a kind of na∣tural Microscope. But, for his own Divine substance, which hath neither limits, nor parts, nor Physical mo∣tion [which is the division of Parts,] nor figure [which is inconsistent with immensity]; nor colour [which is an effect of figure, and motion upon the brain]; it is certain, that in this body, we cannot see it; and there is great reason to doubt whether we can do so in any other, which, though it be coelestial, is still but body. For this sight, then, we are not to hope, unless we mean it of the fuller knowledg of Gods will; and interpret the antecedent by the con∣sequent in that place of Scripture a 1.2, which saith, No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath reveal'd him. St. John in that place denieth expresly actual sight, as also he doth again in his first Epistle b 1.3: Tertullian c 1.4 in his refutation of Praxeas, discourseth of the invisibility of God, and the visibility of the Son of God [illustrating his sense by the appearance of the Sun, which is not seen in its very body, but by its rays]. And he further noteth of St. Paul, that he had to this purpose denied d 1.5 both the actual and poten∣tial

sight of God. No man (said that Apostle) hath seen God, nor can see him. No man whilest alive can see God as he is, as he dwells in Heaven, the Palace and Throne of his most eminent Glory. He cannot behold that now (unless in such a glymps as St. Stephen enjoy'd) which he shall see after the Resurrection, when the vail of this gross body shall be removed; for to the meek in heart, it is promised that they shall see God. To them shall be revealed that secret of faces, which the Jews so often speak of, and adjourn to the future life a 1.6. But for the substance of the Godhead, it is for ever invisible, the infinity of it [which Ter∣tullian b 1.7 seemeth to call the fulness of the Deity, and denieth to have been seen by Moses] can no more be taken in by mans eye, than a whole circle of the Universe can be taken in at the same moment by the glass of a Telescope. And for the Essence of it, it seems indiseernible, even to the very Angels. For al∣though Angels be spirits, yet they possessing a space, are of a far differing nature from the divine substance, which filleth and pierceth all things. The Ranters, c 1.8 indeed, professed to see in this life, the very Essence of God; but the true God was not every thing which they dream'd of.

Now man, in this earthly state, receiving knowledg chiefly from the senses, he is exceeding covetous of sen∣sible helps in his research after the most abstracted no∣tions, which inclination being vehement in the vulgar, who are generally of very gross apprehension; they pur∣sue not the object of their minds [be it the most Divine and Spiritual God himself] with pure and unmixed reason; but they at best, blend it with some bodily phantasm, and often dwell wholly upon such an Image, and the external object of it; insomuch that their imagination worshippeth that which should be enter∣tained

only as the help and instrument of their mind. So that although the natural desire of a visible object be not the necessary cause, yet it is the occasional root of all that proper Idolatry, or Image-worship, which divided it self into more kinds, than there are Na∣tions in the world.

PART 2. Of the Cure of Idolatry by the Shechinah of God.

GOD knowing well the frame a 1.9 and infirmity of man [though himself did not erect it so as now it stands, with much decay, and many breaches], was pleased to condescend to the weak condition of his nature, and to vouchsafe him a kind of visible presence, lest in the entire absence of it, his fancy should have bow'd him down, even to such creatures, to which man himself being compared, is a kind of subcaelestial Deity. It pleased then the wise and merciful God, to shew to the very eyes of man, though not his spiritual and im∣mense substance, or any statue or picture of it, properly so called; yet his Shechinah, or visible glory, the symbol of his especial Presence.

This divine appearance, I suppose to have been ge∣nerally exhibited in a mighty lustre of flame or light, set off with thick, and, as I may call them, solemn Clouds. Nothing is in nature so pure and pleasant, and venerable as light, especially in some reflexions, or refractions of it, which are highly agreeable to the temper of the brain. By light God discovereth his other works, and by it he hath pleased to shadow out himself; and both secular and sacred Writers have thence taken plenty of metaphors, dipping as it were their pens in light when they write of him, who made Heaven and Earth. “Jamblichus in his book of the

“Egyptian Mysteries, setteth out by light, the Power, the Simplicity, the Penetration, the Ubiquity of God. R. Abin Levita supposeth it to be the garment of God, it having been said by David, that he cloatheth him∣self with it. Maimonides supposeth the matter of the Heavens to have a risen from the extension of this vest∣ment of Divine Light. Eugubinus supposeth the Di∣vine Light to be the Empyrean Heaven, or habitation of God. And this he thinketh to be the true Olym∣pus of the Poets, so called, quasi 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, because it shineth throughout with admirable glory.

S. Basil calleth the Light of God not sensible, but intelligible; and conceiteth that, after that first un∣created, the Angels are a second and created light. Such sayings, though they have in them a mixture of extra∣vagance, yet in the main, they teach the same with the Scripture, that God is light; or that there is no∣thing in the Creation so fit an Emblem of him, and so fit to be used in his appearance to the world. Thus therefore is the Shechinah of God described in the Prophecy of Habakkuk a 1.10: God came from Teman, and the holy One from Mount Paran, Selah: His glory covered the Heavens, and the Earth was full of his praise: And his brightness was as the light, he had horns [or beams] coming [or streaming] out of his hand [or side].

Whether the Shechinah of God ever appeared (out of a vision) in light organiz'd in mans shape, I am not certain; though such a Representation be apt to ex∣cite the veneration of mankind. For even when He∣rod spake from his Throne of Majesty, and the light was with singular advantage, reflected from his Robe of silver, the amused people were the more readily induced to celebrate him as a God on Earth. But of the figure of the Shechinah, I profess my self uncertain;

and often ruminate upon the Chaldee Oracle, which ad∣viseth us, when we see the most holy Fire shining with∣out a form or determinate shape, then to hear the voice of it a 1.11: that is, to esteem it then the true O∣racle of God, and not the imposture of a Daemon. And such a fire Psellus the Scholiast on this Oracle, affirmeth to have been seen by many men. And I might shew somewhat like it in the Instances of Abraham and Mo∣ses. But there has been seen a false Fire also: and the Massalians, whom Epiphanius calleth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, ben∣ding down their head to their navel, professed they saw a divine fire, and received the ardor of a divine spirit, being either deluded by the Devil, or deceived into this conceit, by some odd fantasms which arose from the nerves extended in an uncommon posture.

Now for the Shechinah or visible glory of God in this world [for whether it appeared to any as in the other, till the day-break of the Gospel will bear a dis∣pute]; it was in all likelihood effected, not by the Fa∣ther whom no man hath seen b 1.12, but by the second Person in the Trinity, the King and Light of the World, who was afterwards Incarnate. Both the Or∣thodox and the Haeretical have maintained the visibili∣ty of the Son, and the invisibility of the Father, though upon different reasons. This did Origen c 1.13, this did the Arians. Thus Bisterfeldius (in that very Treatise d 1.14 in which he defendeth against Crellius the natural Divinity of the Son of God) doth maintain that the Father is invisible to the very Angels; and that Christ even in the Ages long before the Gospel was the visible Image of the Father. Now the reason why true Catho∣licks affirm the Father to be invisible, and the Son to be visible, are exceedingly different from those of the Arians.

For the Arians degrading the Son to the condition of a Creature [another, a lesser, a second God, as Eu∣sebius a 1.15 of Caesarea is bold to call him.] They suppose him to consist of a visible substance. So Maximinus the Arian, remembred by St. Austin, makes the Son invi∣sible only as the Angels, by non-appearance; and the Father invisible by reason of his superior and immuta∣ble essence. In the mean time this was the Creed of the Catholicks, that the whole Trinity was invisible in one Divine substance b 1.16. It was also their belief that the Son appeared, and not the Father, not from any difference of nature, but of order only; the Father being as it were the root or head of the Trinity, and therefore not so fitly appearing as his Substitute the se∣cond Person. And they could perceive no more muta∣bility in the Logos when he appeared, than in the Fa∣ther, when he not in shape, but by voice, did own him as his only begotten Son. And by this reason Saint Austin c 1.17 might have answered the Arians without asserting as he does, that in the Old Testament the whole Trinity appeared. For the manner in which this Appearance of the Son of God was effected, I conceive it to have been done by the Assumption of some prin∣cipal Angel upon the greatest and most solemn occasi∣ons [without any vital or personal union]; and by the ministry of some other holy spirits; together with an extraordinary motion, sometimes in the air, and thence in the brain; and sometimes in the brain only. And in this opinion I have been the more confirmed, since I found the concurrence of the very learned and judici∣ous Mr. Thorndike in great measure d 1.18. If I were now to guess what Angel was assumed, I would fasten my conjecture on Michael the Arch-angel, whom the He∣brews call the Prince of Faces, or the Prince of the Presence. By the Son the Father made the World e 1.19,

and what if I say he governed it also, as by his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Word? For in God we do not distinctly apprehend his way of working, but conceive of it under the more general notion of his will and command. If I declare that the Son always acted in the Father's name, I make but the same Profession which Tertullian did many ages ago a 1.20, and avoid the Anathema which Marcus Are∣thusius b 1.21, (or rather which others in the Council of Sirmium c 1.22) denounced against all who confess not that the Son ministred to the Father in the Creation of all things, and who maintain that when God said, Let us make man, the Father said it not to the Son but to himself.

Accordingly, where God is said in the Old Testa∣ment to have appeared, they seem to mistake who ascribe it to an Angel Personating God, and not to the second Person, as the Shechinah (or as Tertullian d 1.23 calleth him) the Representator of the Father. To this purpose it hath been often noted by others, and ought by me in this argument to be again brought to remem∣brance, how often there is mention in the ancient Pa∣raphrases of the Jews of the Word of God. Neither doth it enervate the force of this observation, that what we translate the Word, does often signifie, I, Thou, or He. Both because several of the places will not admit of that other sense; and because the Jews themselves so commonly own this; and so often men∣tion the Logos or Word of the Father. Philo is very frequent in speaking of the Divine Logos as the Sub∣stitute and Image of the invisible God, both in his Book of Dreams, and of the Confusion of Tongues.

It is (said Philo in that latter Book) a thing well be∣coming those who so join together fellowship and science to desire to see God. If that cannot be, they must content themselves with his sacred Image, his

Word.

A saying which Eusebius esteemed worthy of an Asterick, and accordingly transcribed it into his Book of Evangelical Preparation a 1.24. The same Jew giveth to the Logos the title of the shadow or Por∣traict of God; adding that God Almighty used him as his instrument in framing the World. It is true that by the Logos Philo doth often b 1.25 understand the World, which by the greatness, order and beauty of it, decla∣reth naturally the Power, Wisdom, and goodness of God; and pleadeth with him in the quality of the Workmanship laid before the feet of the Workman. But it is as true and manifest that he speaketh also of the Logos of this inferior Logos, as the maker and go∣vernour of it. In his Book de Mundi Opificio c 1.26, he calleth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the Divine Word, or the Word of God, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the Image of God. And he says further of it, that it is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a super-coelestial Star; the fountain of all the sensible [or visible] Luminaries. And he had said in the former Page d 1.27, That the World was the Image of the Image, or Archetypal Exemplar, of the Logos of God.

PART. 3. Of the Shechinah of God from Adam to Noah.

THis Substitute and Shechinah of God made Adam, and he that gave him his Being gave him most probably the Law of it. For so the Fathers interpret that in St. John, The Word was God. That [or He] was the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world e 1.28. And in this sense we are to expound St. Justin the Martyr, where he speaketh of the Knowledg of God in Socrates by the Word f 1.29. He meaneth not that he was naturally a Christian; but that so far as

he was indued with such principles of Religious reason as Christianity owneth; he had derived it from the Logos or Word of God, who made the World, and in it man, a reasonable Creature. To him he appeared as well as to others, who sprang from him, helping the mind as soon as it was seated in this thicker region of bodily fantasms. And to Adam the Logos appeared, I know not whether I should say in the shape of man or in the way of a bright cloud moving in Paradise when the wind began to rise a 1.30, and asking with a voice of Majesty, after his rebellious subject. And that this was the Son of God is insinuated by the Targum of Onkelos in the eighth verse of the third of Genesis. The Text of Moses is thus translated, And when they [our first Parents] heard the voice of the Lord God. But this is the sense of the words of Onkelos, And they heard the voice of the Word of the Lord God.

And amongst Christian Writers I may alledg Tertulli∣an b 1.31, and St. Hilary of Poictiers c 1.32, who aboundeth in this Argument; as also Theophilus Antiochenus d 1.33, whose words are so pertinent that I cannot for∣bear the enlarging of my discourse with the translation of them:

You will object (said Theophilus) that I teach, that God cannot be circumscribed; and yet that I say too, that God walked in Paradise. Hear the answer I make to this Objection. God indeed and the Father of all things is neither shut up in a place, nor found in it. For no place is there in which God can [in such manner] dwell. In the mean time his Word by which he made all things, being the Power and Wisdom of the Father himself, persona∣ting the Father who is Lord of all, came into Para∣dise in his Person, and spake unto Adam, who in the Scripture is said to have heard the voice of God. Now Gods voice, what is it else but the very Logos

(or Word) of God, which is likewise his Son.

After Adam was driven out of Paradise, the Logos appointed a kind of Shechinah in the appearance of Angels to guard the way of the Tree of Life. These I conceive were a Cherub and a Saraph, and that the latter (an Angel in the opinion of Maimonides himself * 1.34) was meant by the flaming-sword turning every way; the ver∣satile tayl of a Saraph or flame-like winged Serpent, not being unaptly so called. And this conceit when I come to explain my self about Urim, and the brazen Serpent, will seem less extravagant than now it may do in this naked Proposal. And yet as 'tis thus proposed, 'tis not so idle as that of Pseudo-Anselm a 1.35, who will have this guard to be a Wall of Fire incompassing Paradise. In process of time, when Cain and Abel offered to God their Eucharistical Sacrifices, the Son of God again ap∣peared as Gods Shechinah; and testified it may be his gracious acceptance of the Sacrifice of Abel by some ray of flame streaming from that glorious visible Pre∣sence, and re-acting to it; whilst he shewed himself not pleased with the offering of Cain by forbearing (as I conjecture) to shine on his sheaves, or to cause them to ascend, so much as in smoke towards Heaven. And with this conjecture agreeth the Translarion of Theo∣dotion in these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and [the Lord] had respect to the oblations of Abel, and set them on fire. That seemeth to be the most anci∣ent way of answering by Fire, some obscure characters of which we may discern in that lamp of fire which passed betwixt the pieces of Abrahams Sacrifice b 1.36. And much plainer footsteps of it are to be seen in the contest of Elijah with the Prophets of Baal, whom that true Prophet of the God of Israel vanquished by that sign, triumphing also thereby over that false Deity which they so vainly and with Battologie invoked c 1.37.

I doubt not but God vouchsafed to men many other appearances of his glorious Shechinah, besides those granted to Adam and Abel, before he expressed his high resentment of the immorality of the world in the Flood of Noah. But we have no large Registers of the Transactions of those times.

PART 4. Of the Shechinah of God from Noah to Moses.

THis eminent declaration of God as a God of judg∣ment, by sending such a deluge, not having its due effect on Cham: God with great justice withdrew (as I conceive) this glorious Shechinah from him and his Line, which continued his wickedness as well as his name. From them he withdrew it especially; though to the rest it appeareth not to have been a common favour. Cham and his race being thus left to the vanity of their own brutish minds, that race in the first place worshipped the Sun as the Tabernacle of the Deity; that being the object which next to Gods She∣chinah, did paint in the brain an Image of the most ve∣nerable luster, and perhaps likest to that glorious flame of Gods Shechinah which had formerly appeared; for so glorious was that Planet in the eyes of the very Ma∣nichees in after-times, that they esteemed it the seat of Christ after his Ascension and Installment in Heaven.

I have guessed already, that this kind of Idolatry was exercised and with design promoted at the building of the Tower of Babel. Now towards the prevention of that impious design the Shechinah of God appeared on the place. For so Novatianus argueth from those words in the Eleventh of Genesis a 1.38, Let us go down.

It could not (said he b 1.39) be God the Father, for his Essence is not circumscribed; nor yet an Angel,

for it is said in Deuteronomy * 1.40, That the most high di∣vided the Nations. It was therefore he that came down, of whom St. Paul saith, He who descended is he who ascended above all Heavens.

So that the Ara∣bick Version [the Angels came down * 1.41] must be inter∣preted of that part of the Shechinah which is made up by their attendance on the Son of God.

Whilst God was thus angry with the race of Cham, it pleased him to vouchsafe (though not in the quality of a daily favour) the appearance of his Shechinah to that separate or holy seed from whence his Son, not yet incarnate, was to take the substance of his flesh. A great Instance of it we have in the appearance which he vouchsafed to Abraham, who often saw the Shechi∣nah of God, and in that manner communed with him: so great was the ignorance of the Jews, and causless their malice when they raged against the Son of God, because he professed himself to have existed before that ancient Patriarch. Such fall under the heavy sentence of the Council called at Sirmium, a City of the lower Pannonia, where the Eastern Bishops concluded on a Creed against Photinus, who Haeretically maintained, That Christ appeared not before he was born of the Virgin. Of that Creed this is one of the Decretory clauses a 1.42, Whosoever saith that the unbegotten Father only was seen to Abraham, and not the Son, let him be accursed. The second Chapter of the Ecclesiastical Hi∣story of Eusebius is wholly spent in the proof of the Pre-existence of Christ. And in that place, as also in his Book of Evangelical Demonstration b 1.43, he insist∣eth, amongst many other Examples, on that of Abraham, to whom Almighty God did once by his Son shew him∣self a while in the common similitude of a man at the Oak of Mamre; the Shechinah in its especial luster be∣ing for a short season intercepted.

That Place, from this occasion, was for many ages esteemed sacred; so high a respect there is in man for the visible presence of a Divine Power. But such things being apt to degenerate into abuse, the same place by degrees became sacred in the sense of the Hea∣thens; that is, polluted with many idolatrous supersti∣tions a 1.44. At length the Piety of Constantine b 1.45 the Great, did there erect a Church for the worship of Christ, who had appeared in that place in a like form (they say) to that which he afterwards assumed with personal union. Another appearance was vouchsaf'd to Abraham, when the Judgment of Fire was immi∣nent over Sodom. Moses witnesseth, That he who re∣vealed this overthrow to the Patriarch, was truly God, whilst he introduceth Abraham using towards him the Divine style of the Judg of all the earth; and that this Lord and Judg was the Son of God (whom the Father hath appointed to judg the world), Eusebius c 1.46 thinketh he hath warrant to say from the words of the same Mo∣ses. For so the Father interprets the Prophet when he speaks d 1.47 of this Lord [the Word, the sensible de∣scending Shechinah] raining from the Lord (or invi∣sible Father) fire and brimstone out of Heaven [or the Region of the Clouds]. And in this particular the Council of Sirmium e 1.48 is so peremptory and so severe, that it anathematizeth all who affirm those words [The Lord rained from the Lord] to have been spoken, not of the Father and the Son, but of the Father raining from himself that dreadful fire and brimstone.

This Lord then, is the same with him of whose ap∣pearance we read in the Chap. 17. of Genesis. It is said in the 22 verse of that Chapter, That God went up from Abraham; so runs the Hebrew Text. But the Chaldee Paraphrast calleth him who ascended, Fulgur Dei; that is, the luster of the Divine Shechinah drawn up, as it

were, towards the firmament of Heaven.

Of the appearance of Three in human shape to A∣braham, St. Hilary of Poictiers discourseth at large f 1.49. And in that Discourse he contendeth, That the person to whom Abraham did particularly address himself, cal∣ling him his Lord, was the Son of God, attended then only but with two visible Angels. And this interpreta∣tion seemeth more probable than that of S. Cyril of A∣lexandria g 1.50, who because three appeared, and Abra∣ham spake as unto one, concludeth thence an Appari∣tion of the Trinity in Unity. The same S. Hilary h 1.51 conceiveth the same Lord to have formerly appear'd to Hagar, whom he observeth to give to him the like titles of Lord and God i 1.52; and to have receiv'd from him k 1.53 the promise of a numberless off-spring. Moses himself, before he mentions these titles given by Hagar, had indeed call'd him who appear'd to her l 1.54 by the name of an Angel, or the Messenger or Officer of the Lord. But even that name, if spoken with em∣phafis, is not improperly ascribed to the second Person or Logos, who was the Shilo (that is, as Grotius doth interpret it) the sent of God m 1.55. Of the name Angel there given to the Shechinah, S. Hilary delivers his opi∣nion after this manner n 1.56:

To Agar (saith he) spake the Angel of God. And he was both God and Angel, God of God; and called Angel, as being the Angel of the Great Council o 1.57.

So he is called (saith Tertullian p 1.58 and styled a Messenger, not as a name designing his Nature, but his Office. And they are su∣perficially skill'd in Philo the Jew, who know not that he calls the Logos both Gods Image and his Angel q 1.59. Jusiin Martyr also sheweth to Trypho the Jew, that the God who appeared to Abraham r 1.60, was the Minister of the Universal Creator; and he afterwards s 1.61 gives this as the reason why the Word is call'd an Angel; to wit, that he may be known to be the Minister or Sub∣stitute

of the Father of all things. Justin Martyr might here have respect to the words of St. Paul s 1.62, who teacheth that all things are of the Father, and by the Son.

The Son was that Angel of God who strove with, and blessed the Patriarch Jacob. Hence Jacob in grate∣ful memory of that blessing, call'd the place Peniel, having there seen the Face, that is, the Shechinah or I∣mage of God, personated by the Logos his Son. That Shechinah, though it appeared without human figure, might not unfitly be called the Face, because it was that Divine Presence, to the Majesty of which (as to the Face of a Prince) the religious subjects of the true God, made their application. This, again, is the opinion of Eusebius a 1.63, and St. Hilary b 1.64, and Justin Martyr c 1.65; our three former witnesses. This last-na∣med Father telleth Trypho the Jew,

That it was the Son of God who appear'd both to Abraham and Ja∣cob; and that it was absurd to think the Immensity of the Godhead, leaving the Heavens, should it self appear in a narrow and limited space on earth.

And the forementioned Fathers of the Council of Sirmi∣um d 1.66, denounced in their Creed a solemn Curse a∣gainst those who should maintain that it was the un∣begotten Father, and not the Son, who strove with Jacob.

Whilst God by such appearances as these, encoura∣ged true Religion in the holy Line, the ungodly Race, especially of Cham, did further blot out the Image of God, by receiving the impressions of numberless Idols, of which some excelled others; but none were wor∣thy the veneration they paid to them. The Idols which admitted of much better apology than many of their fellows, and which approached nighest the Shechinah of God on earth when figured, were mighty Poten∣tates

and Benefactors. And so the Author of that Book de Mundo, which hath been commonly ascribed to Ari∣stotle, representeth God a 1.67 as some Puissant King of Persia, sitting in his Royal Palace at Susa or Ecbatane, and giving Laws to all Asia, and receiving intelligence of all its affairs. Besides this more generous Idolatry, there were many other kinds, and those so apparently ridiculous, that barely to repeat them were in effect to deride the Nations guilty of them.

Amongst other places Egypt was the nursery of these Follies. There every thing which could help or hurt, or represent, and be assumed by a Daemon, or acted by one of his Impostures, was conceived to have in it a Divine power, and received Religious worship. The Rains of AEthiopia swell their River, and break over into fruitfulness; and the Nile is straitway a God. Some natural or political cause preventeth or removeth some annoyance, and the effect is ascribed with Divine Prai∣ses, to the vain and insufficient b 1.68 Talisman [for as Jamblicus speaking professedly of their Mysteries, doth inform us, They conceived a Divine Power, able to procure or prevent good and evil, did straightway ad∣join it self to that piece of matter, which was congru∣ously chosen and figured according to some Coelestial aspect]. The Constellations are by fancy (and such as is sometimes injudicious enough) formed into the shapes of certain Creatures on earth; and those Crea∣tures are worshipped after having been supposed either eminently to contain the virtues, or with singular perception, to be sensible of the operations of such knots of Stars.

The seed of Abraham sojourning in this Land, which abounded with Idols, and with a great number of ex∣ternal rites, and being by custom very prone to them, and as it were moulded into a ritual temper; it pleas∣ed

that God who condescendeth sometimes as an in∣dulgent Father to lisp with Infants, to consider their infirmity when he led them out of bondage by the hand of Moses. He therefore by the same Moses gave to that people such an Oeconomy [a dispensation con∣taining a visible Shechinah, and a great many Ceremo∣nies] as might innocently gratifie their busie tempers, and sensitive inclinations, and divert them from the worship of false gods, and from those abominable for∣malities with which in Egypt those Idols were observed. This if it needeth to be avouched by authority, after a serious view of the state of Egypt and Israel, in their parallel and disparity; I may cite to my purpose that excellent Interpreter of the Scriptures St. Chrysostome. a 1.69

At what time (said he) God delivered the He∣brew people from the Egyptian troubles, and barba∣rous tyranny of Pharaoh; seeing them still to retain the Relicks of Impiety, and to be addicted even to madness, to all things which fall under the senses; and to be struck with the admiration of beautiful Temples; he himself commanded that a Temple should be made for them, excelling and obscuring all others, not only in the magnificence of the matter, and variety of art; but also in the form of its stru∣cture. And as a good Father who has at length re∣ceived a Son returning to him after much time spent in dissolute company, does with honour and safety, put him into circumstances of greater abundance, lest being reduced to any straits, he calls to mind his former pleasures of debauchery, and be afresh affe∣cted with a desire of them: So God perceiving the Jews infected most sottishly with propenseness to sen∣sible things, does in these very things make some∣thing for them highly excellent, that they might ne∣ver for the future linger after the Egyptians, or after

the things of which they had experience, whilst they sojourned amongst them.

PART 5. Of the Shechinah of God from Moses to the Captivity.

BEfore this Temple was built or shewn, so much as in the model of it to Moses, the Word of God a 1.70 assuming an Angel, appeared to him in the luster of flame in a bush on Mount Horeb. Moses calleth him in the second verse of the third of Exodus, the Angel of God; and God in verse the fourth; and in the sixth verse he stileth himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and in the eighth verse he is said to have de∣scended. “Now he (saith Justin Martyr b 1.71) that call∣ed himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was not the Universal Creator, but the minister of his will. With him agree Eusebius c 1.72, St. Hilary d 1.73, and St. Ambrose e 1.74. The words of St. Ambrose are to this sense:

The God himself who was seen by Moses, saith, my name is God. This is the Son of God who is therefore called both Angel and God, that he might not be thought to be he of whom are all things; but he by whom are all things.

Philo the Jew himself * 1.75 calleth the Voice to Adam, to Abraham, to Jacob, to Moses from the Bush, the effect of the Lo∣gos of God.

This Lord afterwards when the people of Israel had under the Conduct of Moses, begun their Journey from Egypt, did miraculously direct them by the con∣tinued Shechinah of a Pillar f 1.76 of cloud by day, and of fire by night. This we read in the 13th of Exodus. He who in that Chapter is called the Lord, is in the following Chapter g 1.77 called the Angel of God, who as formerly he had gone before the Camp for their

Guidance, so now the Egyptians pursuing, he stood behind it as their defence. With allusion to this ap∣pearance Eusebius having first proposed it as the Title of his Chapter a 1.78,

That the Logos of old appeared, and then began the Chapter with some places of Scripture relating to the cloudy Pillar:

he procee∣deth in making this demand,

Who was he that spake, but the Pillar of Cloud which had formerly appeared to the Fathers in the figure of Man?

And indeed whilst Moses is not contented with the promise of an assistant-Angel b 1.79, but expresly petitioneth for the continuance of Gods Presence; he leaveth not us in want of a Commentator to tell us what kind of An∣gel was present with him. That Angel no doubt it was who is called by that name in the Hebrew of the 6th Verse of the 5th of Ecclesiastes, but by the Seventy In∣terpreters, the Face of God c 1.80. Lactantius will have this Angel to have gone before the Israelites, and divi∣ded the Waters d 1.81. His Power might do it, but that his Shechinah did so, is contrary to the Sacred Text e 1.82.

The people being arrived nigh Mount Sina in Arabia, Moses especially beheld the Shechinah of God, whilst the Word assuming, it may be a principal Angel, and being attended (as Jupiter by his Satellites, if I may compare small things with great) by a numerous reti∣nue of other blessed Spirits, did with solemnity f 1.83 and terror deliver the Law.

Where the Psalmist alludeth to that Solemnity in which God appeared with many Chariots of the Hea∣venly Host; he in the very next verse useth the words which the New Testament interpret of Christ, Thou art gone up on high, thou hast led captivity captive. As if both at Sinah and Sion, and the Mount of the Messi∣ahs Ascension, God had triumphed in the Shechinah of

his Son.

He (saith Tertullian a 1.84) who spake to Mo∣ses, was the Son of God, who was always seen.

That is, whenever the Divinity vouchsafed a visible appear∣ance, it was not by the Father but by the Son. This Pamelius reckoneth as one of the Errors of Tertullian; but by doing so, he perhaps ran into one himself. Ter∣tullian doth not only affirm this, but secondeth his Au∣thority with a reason. For Jesus, said he, not Moses, was to introduce the people into Canaan. Theodoret in his Commentary on the second to the Colossians, men∣tioneth certain defenders of the Law, who induced o∣thers to worship Angels, saying that the Law was gi∣ven by them. They had been much more in the right if they had urged the worship of Christ the Angel of that Covenant. The Law was given by Angels in the hand of a Mediator b 1.85, which whether it be meant of Moses or of Christ, is a dispute amongst many; though the margent of some of our English Bibles c 1.86 inter∣preteth it of the former. That Title might have been as well applied to Christ, not yet God-man, yet the Minister of the Father. And so St. Chrysostome and Theophylact do apply it. And St. Chrysostome teacheth that therefore Christ gave the Law, that he might have Authority, when it was convenient, to put an end to it. And they who stiffly oppose such Ministra∣tion of the Logos, give suspicion to jealous heads, as if they look'd towards Racovia. For if there were a second Person, he surely must be fit for that great Of∣fice. But I forbear to urge a place of uncertain sense, and chuse rather to consider what the same Apostle saith in his first Epistle d 1.87 to the Corinthians. He there saith, concerning the Israelites, that they tempt∣ed Christ in the Wilderness. And this Christ whom they tempted, is in the Old Testament called Jehovah. Hence therefore it followeth, that he who appear'd to

the people in the Wilderness was the Logos of God.

This opinion which ascribeth to the Logos the deli∣very of the Law, is by the learned Hugo Grotius in his Notes on the Decalogue, branded with the name of a grievous error. And it is not the manner of that great Wit to rail at Opinions without offering reasons for his contrary judgment: and here he offereth two.

The First he taketh from those first words of the Epistle to the Hebrews: God who at divers times, and in divers manners spake to our forefathers by the Prophets, hath in these last times spoken to us by his Son.

The Second he taketh from the second and third verses of the second Chapter, in which the Holy Au∣thor preferreth the Gospel before the Law, because

the Law was given by Angels; (that is, saith he, by the Angel sustaining the person of God, and for that reason mentioned by St. Steven a 1.88 in the singular number, and by many more such spirits making up that glorious train:) but the Gospel by the Lord Jesus the Son of God.

Upon the seeming force of such Reasons, I find Curcellaeus b 1.89 and others c 1.90 a∣greeing in the sentence of Grotius.

Now for the first Objection, I may remove it out of the way by saying no more than that God spake for∣merly by his Son as his Logos or Minister, and in the latter times by him, as his Son Incarnate, or as begot∣ten by the Holy Ghost of the substance of the Blessed Virgin. The same Author of the Epistle to the He∣brews saith of the Throne of Christ, as Gods Logos, that it was from everlasting; and yet we well know that his Kingdom as Messiah, Mediator Incarnate, or the Word made flesh, was but then at hand when his Harbinger John took upon him the Office of Baptist: And Justin Martyr thought not himself in an error,

when he said a 1.91,

That the Logos both spake by the Prophets things to come, and also by himself, being made subject to like infirmities with us.

The Word was Gods Minister b 1.92 before and under the Law, but not in the same quality as under the Gospel. In those times he spake not himself immediately; for how can a Divine Subsistence be, meerly of it self, corporally vocal? But he spake (I conceive) by some principal Angel, assumed (as hath been said) without personal union, assisted by him in a miraculous motion of the air or brain. Under the Gospel he spake with his own mouth, as having assumed human nature into u∣nity of Person [This word Person (if I may make a digression of two or three lines) deserveth not the clamour with which Socinians hoot at it; especially when we consider it, as now we do, with relation to Christ as the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Face, or personating Shechinah of God]. They then that rightly distinguish betwixt Christ as Gods Word and Shechinah under the former Covenants, and as Mediator and Gods Son incarnate, under the Gospel, will not much be perplexed with such places of Scripture as speak sometimes of Christs Praeexistence, and oftner of his coming into the world in the fulness of time. And thus much Monsieur le Blanc himself taketh notice of c 1.93 in his Theological Theses:

He there favoureth the opinion of Christs praeexistence. He owneth him as the Minister of God of old, but not properly as Mediator; which (he saith) including Christs Priestly Office, did of neces∣sity require not only a mission of one Divine Person by another, but a Divine Person incarnate.

Now from that which I have suggested in this an∣swer to the first Objection of Grotius, it will be a mat∣ter of small difficulty to infer a Reply unto his second. For an assumed Angel being us'd by the Divine Logos

as the immediate Minister of himself to the people, and Christ speaking with his own mouth under the Gospel as God-man; and the great mystery of the Gospel consisting in the manifestation of God in the flesh; the Apostle had sufficient reason to prefer the Gospel be∣fore the Law. We have before us a matter of lesser astonishment, when we think of Divinity speaking by an Angel to which it is not vitally united, than when we contemplate it as manifesting it self in the quality of God-man, in unity of Person with human nature. Such were the thoughts of St. Hilary of Poictiers a 1.94, who in our present Argument thus discourseth:

Then God only was seen in [the shew of] man: He was not born.

Now he who was seen, is also born. For Athanasius b 1.95, he contendeth that Christ was call'd the Son long before he was incarnate; and that Mo∣ses himself knew of the future Incarnation, as well as he saw the present Appearance of the unincarnate Logos.

I conclude then, notwithstanding these Objections, That there is almost as good warrant for reading the Preface to the Decalogue in this manner [Christ spake all these words, and said] as the ancient Saxon Prefa∣cer c 1.96 had thus to read, as he does, that part of the fourth Commandment [For in six days Christ made the Heaven and the Earth]. God, who by his Logos gave all Physical Laws to Nature, did also by the same Word give the Moral Law to Israel.

In the beginning of that Law (saith St. Austin d 1.97 God prohibited the wor∣ship of any Image, besides one, the same with him∣self;

that is to say, the Logos his Son, whom Moses saw; it being promised to him e 1.98, that God should apparently converse with him, and that he should be∣hold the similitude or Image, or, as the Seventy ren∣der it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the Glory, or glorious Shechinah of God.

Whether, at the giving of the Law, Moses saw the Shechinah in human figure, his Text does not inform us; yet it doth not necessarily follow, that Moses or Aaron saw no figure, because the people did not. For there was much more danger in them who had had the education of slaves, and who labour'd under gross and sensitive apprehensions, than there was in Moses a Learn∣ed and Prudent person, of abusing such similitude in the framing of Idols: and one would think that at the receiving of the Tables a 1.99 he saw something in human figure; for he is said to have seen the back∣parts of God, or his Shechinah, or the shew of a man inverted, or rather a less degree of luster in the She∣chinah; neither he nor any man living being able to behold the face or full luster of it, which perhaps might then appear to the attending-Angels. So that the de∣sire of Moses was, in effect, like that of Eudoxus, who desir'd to see the Sun just by him. If it should have been granted, he must have pay'd down his life as the expence of his curiosity. And indeed the seeing of the Face of God in that sense, was, at that season, the less necessary, because God had, just then, made a pro∣mise of his Shechinah, or presence, in the Tabernacle b 1.100 to go along with him, and to support him against the incredulity of the people, to whose eyes, such a She∣chinah as they could bear, was in wisdom to be accom∣modated.

Whilst Moses was beholding this Pattern in the Moant, and receiving Laws from the Presence of God, the people seeing neither, as at his departure they had done c 1.101; the Glory of God in Clouds and Flame; nor, as in the Wilderness, the Pillar of Fire and Cloud; nor himself whom they judg'd a cause of the Shechinah of God with them; and remaining forty days and forty nights in this forsaken estate, as they were apt to think

it, importun'd Aaron for some symbol of Gods Pre∣sence, with which he might conduct them, as Moses had done in former times. Aaron wearied with their Cries, made them a Golden Image after the manner of some part of Gods Shechinah which he had seen with Nadab and Abihu, and the Seventy Elders, in a certain ascent of the Mount a 1.102. He saw thenthe God of Israel, that is, as the Seventy expound the Hebrew sense, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the place, or the Throne; or as the Targum of Onkelos renders it, the Glory, or Shechinah of God; not, as Oleaster affirmeth, the Pavement only, which is mentioned afterward. And in the Shechinah there was an appearance of Angels; the Author to the Hebrews, where he opposeth the Gospel to the Law in divers particulars b 1.103, mentioning an innumerable company of Angels, in opposition to a smaller company on Mount Sinah. The attending-Angels were usually Cherubim c 1.104, and the Cherubim appear'd with heads like those of Oxen; and because the head only was of that like∣ness d 1.105, therefore (if I conjecture aright) Lactanti∣us e 1.106 and St. Jerome f 1.107 call'd this Golden Image the Golden head of a Calf. This I conceive to have been the figure of a Cherub, though it pleaseth not the Painter, who describeth it by the Face of a young round-visag'd man. Thus much I collect from the Pro∣phet Ezekiel. That Prophet, in the vision of the wheels g 1.108, saith of them, That every one had four Faces. The first Face was the Face of a Cherub; and the second Face was the Face of a man; and the third the Face of a Lyon; and the fourth, the Face of an Eagle. If then the Face of a Cherub was the Face of a man, then each wheel had not four differing Faces, but one had two Faces of human Figure, the second being said to be the Face of a man, as the first was said to be the Face of a Cherub. But if these two had

been alike, the Prophet would then have alter'd his style, and said, The first two Faces were the Faces of a man. But it is evident, by comparing this place in Ezekiel, with the tenth verse of the first Chapter, that * 1.109 the Face of a Cherub is the Face of an Ox. For there he mentions the three latter Faces, as he doth here, cal∣ling them the Faces of a Man, a Lyon, an Eagle: but for the other Face, called here the Face of a Cherub, he calleth it there the Face of an Ox. And the com∣paring of these places, induced the Learned Critick Ludovicus de dieu a 1.110 to be of this opinion, that Che∣rub signifi'd an Ox, and was derived from the Chaldee word Cherub, He, or It, hath plowed. Now by the worshipping of this Figure of the Face of a Cherub or Ox, the sottish people chang'd their Glory (b), the glorious Image or Shechinah of God (call'd, as was even now said, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, by the Seventy, in the 12th of Num∣bers) into the similitude of a man, though useful crea∣ture; whose likeness could, at best, be but the symbol of an Angel, which was no more to the Shechinah of God (nor so much by a great deal), as one spoke of a wheel is to an Eastern Emperor in a triumphant Cha∣riot. They turn'd their Glory (saith Jeremiah c 1.111) into a thing which did not profit them, in Idolum, into an Idol (as is the version of the Vulgar Latine); a helpless statue. They turned the Truth of God (as it is in St. Paul d 1.112 into a Lye: The true Shechinah of God, into an Idol, which is vanity, nothing of that which it pretendeth to be; having no Divinity at∣tending on it. Aaron made it as Gods symbol, which in truth it was not; and the people worship'd it beyond his intention, and after the Egyptian manner; and in their hearts wishing they were again in that Land of Ceremonious Idolatry. This folly kindled the wrath of God and Moses; yet it did not quite remove his fa∣vour:

for Moses was a second time call'd up into the Mount, and thence he brought the renewed Tables and the Statutes of Israel, and the pattern of the Taber∣nacle; and at his descent, Rays of glorious Light did stream from his face, as if he had been a second She∣chinah, reflecting the borrow'd beams of the first.

The Tabernacle which God had now discover'd, and which Moses was ready to frame, was but a model of the Temple built many years after by the Magnificent Solomon. And in it God gave the people, instead of the more aenigmatical and idle Hieroglyphicks of the World in Egypt, a more excellent Scheme of it in this great and typical Fabrick, representing, in the three spaces of it, the three Heavens, which the Jews so of∣ten speak of, the Elementary, and Starry, and Supercoe∣lestial Regions. St. Chrysostom a 1.113 speaking of this workmanship of God, calleth it the Image of the whole World both sensible and intellectual. And he attempteth the justification of his Notion, by the 9th to the Hebrews, and particularly by the 24th verse, in which the holy places made with hands, are call'd the figures of the true or heavenly places.

In this manner, then, God pleas'd to help the ima∣ginations of the Jews, by a visible scheme of his throne and footstool. It were endless here to take particular notice of all things relating to the Tabernacle or Tem∣ple: but if I take not the Ark into my especial con∣sideration, I shall be guilty of greater negligence than any foolish Astronomer, who in his description of the Heavens should leave out the Sun.

This Ark of the Covenant consider'd in all the ap∣pendages of it, God vouchsafed to the Jews in place of all the Statues, or Creatures, or appearances of Daemons, which their fancy was apt to adore, and in which Daemons did already, or might afterwards coun∣terfeit

some shews of the glorious Shechinah of God.

Men (saith Maimonides * 1.114) built Temples to the Stars, and placed in them some Image dedicated to this or the other Idol in the Heavens, and gave it unanimous worship. Hence God commanded that a Temple should be built to himself, and that the Ark should be put into it, and that in the Ark should be depo∣sited the Two Tables of stone, in which it was writ∣ten, I am the Lord thy God; and thou shalt have no other Gods besides me.

The whole of it was in singu∣lar manner typical of God-man, who came to destroy the works of the Devil. This virtue of Christ appear∣ing on the Ark was manifested in the miraculous con∣quest of it over Dagon a 1.115, a Sea-god worshipped in Palestine in the City of Ashdod. He fell before the Ark, and laid on the ground a handless and headless Idol, without more shew of Majesty, Power or Wisdom than the Trunk of a Tree.

This Ark was not in it self properly an Image, but a Chest over-laid with Gold as a Conservatory of the precious 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the Two Tables. Yet thereby God by way of Hieroglyphick, though not of Image or Picture of representation, did offer himself to the eye as a supreme Governour ruling the Commonwealth of Israel by a written Law. This Moncaeus b 1.116 would have to be taken from the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the Chest or Coffin of Apis, mentioned by Plutarch c 1.117. But that was a thing of later date, and not known to the ancient Egyptians. It belonged to the Greek Serapis, who is said thence to take his name.

The whole of the Ark seems to some the Trium∣phant Chariot * 1.118 of God moved by Angels, set forth by the form of Beasts, who drew the Chariots of the Eastern Kings: whose Pomp the Poets exalted into Heaven in the Chariots of their gods. This of the true

God is represented as moving by Angels in the Clouds, not as any fixed Throne in it self: the Power and Pro∣vidence of God, whose Chariot hath Wheels with Eyes, making all the World its circle; though often it took its way to the Tabernacle and Temple. Why Cherubims were added, the cause hath been often in∣timated already; to wit, by reason that the Logos ap∣pearing as Gods Shechinah, was attended with Angels, and especially with Cherubim. Though Maimonides d 1.119 reckoneth the Cherubim to be of the lowest order excepting those which he calls Ischim; such in his con∣ceit as spake to inspired men, and were by them seen in Prophetical Visions. For the entire Figure of the Cherubim, I am not desirous to inquire with nice and accurate diligence, whether it were such as the Angels usually appeared in, or whether it were a mere Em∣blem of their Properties. The Scripture shews that they move swiftly, as flame and wind, and all under∣stand that wings are the instruments of a quick motion. The Scripture also representeth them as dazled at the Glory of God, and therefore needeth no further Com∣ment on the Faces of the Cherubim as covered with their wings. But curiously to interpret each particu∣lar spoken of them, and of the Ark in which they were placed, is the ready way to create such significations by our fancy, as the wisdom of God did never intend. Of this kind sure is that conceit of S. Greg. Nyssen a 1.120, who will have the Rings of the Ark to signifie the An∣gels sent as Rings or pledges of favour to the Heirs of Salvation. It is enough if we look upon the Ark as an holy vessel representing Gods Majesty with his Coele∣stial Retinue, and the Rule of his Law, and as a Type of Christ, without forcing every staff, and ring, and pin, into unnatural Allegory. And for some such rea∣son Mr. Calvin b 1.121 did on purpose forbear to pry too critically into the Ark.

Betwixt the Cherubims, and upon the Cover of the Ark appeared as in a Chariot of Majesty, the Divine Logos in admirable lustre, yet tempered with Clouds. So he appeared to the people when Moses was taken up into the Mount. So Ezekiel in his Vision c 1.122 saw him in a cloud with brightness about it; and this he calls the Glory upon the Cherubims. And doubtless that Vision was in part a Vision of the Temple, though not wholly after the pattern of the Tabernacle, but as furnished by the voluntary devotion of Solomon, who added Oxen and Lions to the Brazen-Laver. These some think to have been steps to his future Idolatry: as if he began to allude to the Lions under the Chariot of the Sun d 1.123, mentioned by Horus Apollo. But these Images being of servile use there was the less danger in them. Touching the appearance of the Logos in a cloud of brightness, we may further observe, that the Glory of God was said to have appeared in or at the Tabernacle: That in the Psalms e 1.124 the Ark is called Gods Glory, or his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, (the word of the Seventy) his beautiful luster; that the same David speaks of ha∣ving seen f 1.125 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, (the word of the Seventy for Gods Shechinah) the Glory or radiant Presence of God in the Sanctuary. And lastly, that the Cherubims on the Ark are in the ninth Chapter to the Hebrews call∣ed Cherubims of Glory. Now it further appeareth, that it was the Logos whose Glory shone on the Ark, by the many places of Scripture which speak no other∣wise of the Ark than as of the Type of God Incarnate. Christ before his Incarnation sitting on the Propitia∣tory as his Throne, with the Ark and Law at his feet, (for that holy Vessel is in Scripture called his foot-stool g 1.126), seemeth to shew himself before-hand in the Offices of King, and Prophet, and Priest. As King, whilst he sits on his Golden Throne, and exhibiteth

the Law; as Prophet, whilst he answereth when con∣sulted from between the Cherubims; with relation to which Oracle the Hebrews called the Sanctuary the house of Counsel h 1.127; and as a Priest establishing his seat as a Propitiatory or Mercy-seat. When I come in due place to speak of the Word made flesh, it will be pro∣per to insist on those citations of Scripture which point him out to us as the true Ark of God. In the mean time I will content my self with that one of the Apostle, who speaking of the Mysteries of the Divine Wisdom and Love in the Incarnation of Christ, allu∣deth manifestly to the Ark, and to the Faces of the Cherubim turned towards the Shechinah: Which things (saith he a 1.128 the Angels [called as before was noted, the Cherubims of glory, or of the glorious Presence of God] with flexure of curiosity look into. This Ark of the Mosaick Covenant is in the Psalms b 1.129 called the Face, that is, the Shechinah of God. Nay the Scripture elsewhere c 1.130 giveth to it, taken entirely and together with the Presence of the Logos, the very name of God.

God having condescended to his so eminent Shechi∣nah, it was thenceforth certainly the more unlawful for the People to frame, without Divine permission, any Statues of a true or a false God. And thereby the second Command newly given, was much enforced: for how could they be confident in setting up any new Shechinah, when one was provided them by God him∣self. A Shechinah which did not lessen Gods Majesty as Images would have done in the opinion of Clemens of Alexandria d 1.131, and in the judgment of truth it self. For this was not any Representation of the Godhead, but only a very glorious visible sign of Gods invisible presence and ready assistance.

The Ark then being neither God nor his Image, was

never to be worshipped, though it had no doubt a ve∣ry high respect payed towards it, and was separated from the uses of common vessels. It was a sacred Chest, yet not to be adored, like that of the Mammonist, for a God. It is true (what Volkelius e 1.132 observeth rightly against Bellarmine, who alledgeth the instance of the Ark in favour of Images) there is great difference be∣twixt such an Image or Embleme as was constituted by the express command of God, and to which he was by his Word eminently present; and those which he nei∣ther commands, nor consecrates with his Presence. But here it ought not to be imagined, that the Ark or Che∣rubims were by Gods appointment objects of worship. The Heart was only to worship the Immense God, ap∣pearing in the Shechinah; though in that act the Re∣verence of the Body could not but pass towards the Ark; and the Mind it may be did not always use nice abstraction, any more than we now do, when with ci∣vil reverence we bow to the King, not considering just then his clothes and chair of state apart from him; yet then it is to the Prince, and not to his Robes or seat that we bow. It is therefore absurd to say with Bellar∣mine f 1.133, that the Cherubims over the Ark were of necessity worshipped with the Ark it self; for neither were ador'd, no not the luster of the Shechinah it self; it not being immediately assumed by the Logos, but only used as a sign of his gracious Presence; but God only, who was the object of the worship, whilst they were but circumstances and appendages of his Glory, towards, and not to which the external sign of adora∣tion used by the High-Priest was directed. For we must not here conceive of the Typical Ark, as of the real Ark, the Lord Incarnate; in whom the Humane and Divine Nature are so united, that the Christians have worshipped him always as God-man, though as

St. Cyril professeth in his first Book of Answers to Juli∣an, they had all 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Man-worship, in ab∣horrence. I know that very often a 1.134 the words of Da∣vid are alledged for the worship of the Ark; but with as little ground, as other Scriptures are often produced by men who first take up opinions, and then seek co∣lour for them in the Bible. We read the words b 1.135 af∣ter this manner: Fall down before his Footstool, for it, or he, is holy; and we have amended the Translation with Reason; it being read of old, Worship the foot∣stool of his feet: a Reading indiscreet as that of lifting up the hands unto thy holy Ark most high, in the singing Psalms c 1.136 which are rather permitted than allowed. The Divine Poet intended no more in that place to urge the Israelites to a precise adoration of the Ark it self, than any other Poet d 1.137 designs to worship the very knees or feet of the King, or Pantofle of the Pope, when in his raptures of humility he speaks of falling prostrate before them. Genebrard himself thinks David to make allusion to such Rites. And the Hebrew rea∣ding La-hadhom is surely to be interpreted at his foot∣stool, unless the Lamed signifieth nothing; which Dr. Vane either did not, or would not observe when he * 1.138 so magisterially accus'd the Protestants of translating falsly. A greater Doctor by far hath reckoned together the Brazen Serpent and the Cherubims f 1.139, as other things than Images of worship: so far he is from that, that he calls the Cherubim on the Ark a simple orna∣ment accommodated to that Throne or Chair, whence Oracles were dispensed. But St. Hierom it seems estab∣lisheth the worship of the Ark in these words:

The Jews in time past did worship or reverence the Holy of Holies, because there were the Cherubims, the Propitiatory, the Ark.

So T. G. g 1.140 translateth him ci∣ting his 17th. Epistle ad Marcellam. But if he had plea∣fed,

he might have left out the word Worship, and used that of Reverence only. The holy Father indeed in that Epistle a 1.141 penned by him for Paula and Eustochium, owneth a reverence due to them. So do we very rea∣dily an high honorary respect, but not a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, (the word of the Seventy) a giving them the homage of the external sign of bowing in a Temple, and in our time of devotion; for that so circumstantiated belongeth to God. So did putting off the shoos; it was a giving as 'twere to God by that sign possession of that place; although a forbearing to trample rudely there might be also a relative respect to the consecrated place. Nei∣ther did St. Hierom in that place, design such reverence or worship; for in the following part of the Epistle which T. G. did forbear to cite, the Manna, the rod of Aaron, the Golden Altar which the High-Priest did not worship, although he reverenced them, and separated them from vile use, are reckoned in the same Classis of things to be rever'd with the Ark and Cherubims; as also the Sepulchre of Christ, which the Primitive Christians no more ador'd than they in Socrates b 1.142 worshipped the body of Babylas the Martyr, who dan∣ced about his Coffin singing Psalms, and deriding the worship of Idols, whilst they removed it into the City of Antioch from Daphne c 1.143. But in this Argument I need not abound. Others have said a great deal in it, and I will not transcribe them, but rather refer to them d 1.144. I will note only here an odd assertion of Grotius e 1.145, which I wonder how it dropped from the Pen of that great man:

Whilst (said he) the Catho∣licks (meaning the Papists) profess that they exhibit the signs of honour to Christ, whom many Prote∣stants acknowledg to be present in the Sacrament, they are no more 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Bread-worshippers, then the Jews were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, worshippers of the Ark

when they exhibited the honour of God at it.

But the Jews did not worship the Ark at all, much less as the body of the Logos, whilst such Catholicks worship not only Christ as present, but that very substance which is under the shew of bread as the natural body of Christ; and therefore if it prove bread, they wor∣ship bread, whatever they think it; for the false opi∣nions of men change not the nature of things; and bread is bread, and the worship of that which is bread is certainly Bread-worship; though it be judged of, and honoured as another thing. And Barnabas and Paul were no other persons, though the Lycaonians thought one to be Jupiter and the other Mercury, be∣ing induced to that misbelief, and an inclination to offer sacrifice to them, by perceiving a miracle wrought by a word of their mouth a 1.146.

This Ark which I am speaking of as the instrument of the Shechinah, but not as an object of worship in it self, was a while placed in Shiloh; but it was not till Davids, or rather Solomons time properly, fixed in one certain place of the Holy Land: God causing his favour to be valued by the suspence of it, and shewing thereby that he was not confined to any particular place.

Besides the Shechinah in the Tabernacle, and after∣wards in the Temple, God vouchsafed the Jews ano∣ther especial Presence of his Logos by the High Priest, and the Sacerdotal Appendages of the Ephod and Breastplate. Of the appointment of these we read in the eight and twentieth Chapter of Exodus. And in that Chapter it is said concerning the Breast-plate of the High-Priest b 1.147 [called also the Breast-plate of Judgment] that the Urim and the Thummim, should be put into it. Our English Bible hath retained these words in their Original; and where they are transla∣ted,

in other Versions, the Reader is still left uncer∣tain of their meaning, and sometimes led into a mi∣stake. Such is like to be the fate of those who are gui∣ded meerly by the vulgar-Latine Version [Doctrine and Truth]; or that of the Seventy [Demonstration and Truth]; or that in the Syriack[the Lucid and the Per∣fect]; or that in one Reading of the Samaritan Tran∣slation [Elucidations and Perfections]; or lastly, that of the Arabick[Dilucidations and Certainties]. Our Eng∣lish Translators, and Arias Montanus, and Onkelos, spake e'n as intelligibly, when they only transcrib'd the very Hebrew words of Urim and Thummim. I beg leave of the Reader, in this dark and disputable subject, to in∣terpose my conjecture; and it is at his pleasure whether he will favour or reject it. If he shall do the latter, he will not be offensive to me; for I pretend not, in this Argument, to Demonstration.

Thus, then, I conceive of this Levitical appoint∣ment. I suppose the High-Priest, consider'd especially as a Type of Christ, to be the walking-Temple of God. His Garments and Breast-plate, together with the Urim and Thummim, I take to be the apparatus of this Shechinah, in imitation of that other whose In∣struments were the Ark and the Cherubims. Of the High-Priest Philo confesseth a 1.148, that they esteemed not of him as of a meer man; but they look'd on him as [a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or] the Divine Word. And for that reason (saith b 1.149 Dr. Jackson) the Breast-plate was call'd 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. For his Ornaments, Grotius c 1.150 doth parallel them with those of the Temple.

The Four colours (said he) are the same. The Seven Garments d 1.151, if you reckon in the Plate of Gold, an∣swer to the seven Lamps; the Twelve Jewels to the Twelve Loaves; the inner-linings of the Ephod, to the vail and six Curtains.

And it is observable, that

in Hosea e 1.152 the more fixed, and this walking Shechi∣nah, are joined together. The place to which I refer, is that in which God threatneth,

That the children of Israel shall abide many days without a King, and without a Prince, and without a Sacrifice, and with∣out an Image [or a Standing or Statue, as the Mar∣gent readeth it; without a fixed Shechinah, such as that of the Ark] and without an Ephod; and with∣out f 1.153 Teraphim [or Urim].

Christopher Castrus judg'd these to be the same: and a very learn'd and ex∣cellent person of our own Nation g 1.154, with whose leave I publish this Discourse, hath given us Argu∣ments to persuade to the belief of that which Castrus just hinted without proof or illustration. To him I send the doubtful Reader, taking it my self for a most probable opinion, That Urim were Teraphim; and al∣so, that Teraphim were Seraphim; of which the Sin might be first mispronounced as Zain, and after∣terwards as Tzade, and at last as Thau. And both U∣rim and Seraphim have the same signification of Burn∣ings h 1.155. By Thummim I mean something of a very different nature; and, in due place, I shall shew my opinion concerning it, and offer to the Curious a new, and I hope an inoffensive and probable notion. But order requireth that I first speak of Urim, Seraphim, or Teraphim. Where I would build something new also, though upon an old foundation.

I cannot here assent to the opinion of Grotius, who i 1.156 is inclin'd to think the Teraphim of the same form with the Cherubim. He citeth, for this, the Authority of St. Hierom ad Marcellam; and there I find that Fa∣ther k 1.157 so expounding the Theraphim in the third of Hosea, as if they were [not the Statues, but] the Pi∣ctures of Cherubims upon the Ephod, in allusion to those on the vail of the Tabernacle l 1.158, And he fur∣ther

observeth, that where the word Cherubim, in Ex∣odus, is written without the Letter Vau, it signifieth Pictures; but where it is written with it, it generally signifieth living Creatures. The Text, sure, in his time was written otherwise than now it is; for now the Cherubim on the Ark and on the Vail are written a∣like. Whether those on the Vail were intire Pictures or Figures of Cherubim, as Onkelos calls them, or [O∣pus Plumarium] a kind of Feather-work, according to the Vulgar and Samaritan Versions, or representati∣on of the Wings of the Cherubs, may deserve the fur∣ther consideration of Philologers. But whatsoever the opinion was which St. Hierom had of Teraphim, it is certain that he supposed the Seraphim to be distinct from the Cherubim. The Cherubim he representeth, as the more immediate Attendants on the Throne of God; the Seraphim, as Angels dispatched on lower Ministrations a 1.159. And he sheweth it to be the custom of some in his days, to use in their prayers this compel∣lation, Thou who sittest upon the Cherubim and Sera∣phim. And though in his Comment on the sixth of Isaiah, he disliketh that form; yet that displeasure was not conceiv'd against the distinction of Cherubim and Seraphim; but at the insinuation, by those words, of this Doctrine, which he esteemed false, that the Sera∣phim were the Angels appertaining immediately to the highest Shechinah, or Heavenly Throne. If Cherubim had been the same with Urim and Seraphim, Moses would scarce have changed their name in the pursuit of the same discourse; first calling them Cherubim no less than seven times in the space of five verses b 1.160, whilst he speaketh of the Mercy-feat; and then giving them a new title of Urim, whilst he describeth the Breast-plate, which was but the lesser and more expo∣sed Ark. Teraphim he might well lay aside, because of

their private use, or rather their abuse; for which rea∣son the name of Baal was never appli'd to the God of Israel, though in it self proper enough. But let us come nearer to the point, from which we have, as yet, kept at some distance.

Urim and Thummim, whatsoever was their myste∣rious importance, were, in themselves, material things, and things distinct from the Gems; for they were to be put into the Pectoral c 1.161. Who the Maker of them was, it is not distinctly reported. They are not found in the Inventory of Bezaliel's Workmanship, un∣less they are included in the general name of the Pe∣ctoral, used for it self and its Contents.

In enquiring into their nature, we must consider them with some relation to Gods Shechinah on the Ark. For the High-Priest was, here, a Type of the Logos; and the Pectoral, a Quadrangular hollow Instrument with Rings, and wrought without like the Veil of the Holiest, was a little model of the Ark of the Cove∣nant.

Wherefore, for Urim, Teraphim, or Seraphim, I con∣ceive that they answer, in part, to the Cherubim, which were Images of Angels. In part, I say; for it is my conjecture concerning these Seraphim, that they were Images or Symbols of Ministring-Angels in the form of fiery flying Serpents; as Cherubim were such Sym∣bols with the Faces of Oxen. And towards the pro∣bability of this new and odd conceit, I offer the fol∣lowing Conclusions, which I desire the Reader jointly to consider ere he derides it.

First, The word Saraph it self, is used in signifying a fiery flying Serpent. This is its signification in the Book of Numbers a 1.162, where it is said, That the Lord sent Seraphim, or fiery serpents among them. And again, it is there remembred, how God said to Moses, Make

thee a Saraph, and set it upon a Pole. To which I add that in the Book of Deuteronomy b 1.163, a Burning Ser∣pent is called Nachash Saraph.

Secondly, There were in Egypt, Arabia, Lybia c 1.164, and other places, flying fiery Serpents. The Prophet I∣saiah mentioneth such creatures d 1.165; and Kimchi, on the place, saith they are found in Ethiopia; meaning, it may be, the Arabian Ethiopia. They were called Fie∣ry, not only because of the heat of their venom, cau∣sing extraordinary inflammations and thirsts in the body bitten by them; but also because they appeared such when they flew in the Air, being a kind of animated Meteors. Hence Abarbanel saith of such flying Ser∣pents, that they were reddish, after the colour of brass e 1.166: If that was their natural colour, great addition might be made to it by the swift motion of their wings, and the vibration of their tayls, in the bright Atmo-spheres of Arabia and Egypt.

Thirdly, In the earliest Ages and inhabited Coun∣tries of the world, the creatures on earth principally reverenc'd, were Oxen and Serpents. That Oxen were so, has been already shew'd; as likewise that the Che∣rubim, Appendages to the S•…•…echinah in the most holy Place, had the faces of such Beasts. Serpents were lately worship'd in America, as appeareth from Acosta, and the Discoverers in Hackluit. And we read in Mr. Gage f 1.167, of the great Golden Snakes adjoin'd to the Idols Tezcatlipuca and Vitzilopuchtli. And, of old, Serpents were sacred in Egypt. Herodotus mentioneth the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 g 1.168 or sacred Serpents about Thebes, which when they were dead, were buried by the su∣perstitious in the Temple of Jupiter. We see no Ta∣ble of Isis, or Osiris, or Bac•…•…hus, without a Serpent h 1.169. The sacredness of that Beast is said, by Pignorius, to have prevail'd among the Arabians, Ba•…•…ylonians, Cartha∣thaginians,

Baeotians, Epirots, Sicyonians, Epidaurians, Romans. He might have added the Indians, with Maximus Tyrius a 1.170; and with Erasmus Stella b 1.171 the Borussians and Samogetes. And the Hereticks, call'd Ophitae or Ophiani, have not escaped the notice of any who have looked into the History of the Christian Church c 1.172.

For the worship both of Serpents and Oxen toge∣ther, it is represented in the Egyptian Hieroglyphick d 1.173 of a winged Ox with humane face, vomiting flames, having a Globe on its head, and under its feet, an undulated Serpent.

Serpents were thus honoured for many reasons. Be∣cause they could twine themselves into all figures e 1.174. Because there was a mighty Energy in their venom f 1.175. Because of their mighty Bulk, by which some of them were able (saith Diodorus g 1.176) to conquer Ele∣phants. Because (saith Vossius h 1.177) they live to great Age; are of quick and piercing sight; renew their youth by putting off their skin. Last of all, by reason (saith Pignorius i 1.178) that the Heathen were overpowered with the craft, malice and pride of the Devil who deluded man in that shape, and would, as it were, redeem the loss he sustained in the curse of that creature, by turning it into a venerable Idol.

Fourthly, Serpents, thus sacred, were not the ulti∣mate objects of worship, but the symbols or shrines of some Angels or Daemons. Thus the Serpents of Thebes, spoken of by Herodotus k 1.179, are said, by him, to be sacred to Jupiter. And the Symbol of Cneph, was the Symbol of an Agatho-demon l 1.180.

Fifthly, There were, not only such living Symbols and shrines, but also Images made by mens hands. Such we see in the Tables of Isis, and in the Images of Car∣tari. Such we read of in the Scripture, under the

name of Teraphim, which were much in use in the world a while after the flood. In the Ramessean Obe∣lisk a 1.181, a good Daemon is represented by an Asp sitting next Osiris. And a Dragon, a creature of the Serpent-kind, is usually annexed to the statue of AE∣sculapius b 1.182.

Sixthly, Such good Angels as made up a part of the Shechinah of the Logos, and also ministred in the world, seem to have given some occasion to such Sym∣bols and Images by their appearance, as in the form of winged Oxen or Cherubim; so by their appearance as of the most eminent sort of winged Serpents, with beautiful faces, it may be, of men as had the Harpies, though they had the tail of a Serpent c 1.183, or rather of Eagles, if they appeared not with Serpentine heads. The sacred One in the Sphinx of Kircher d 1.184 had the head of an Hawk or Eagle: so had the famous 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Egypt, as Eusebius relateth from Zoroaster e 1.185. The Egyptians call'd him Cneph, the Phenicians, a good Dae∣mon.

Now, if the Seraphim had not appeared in some such form, it would be very difficult to give any to∣lerable account of the temptation of Adam and Eve by a Daemon in the shape of a Serpent. That Serpent is ridiculously painted in the form of a creeping one be∣fore the fall: and it is impossible to conceive our first Parents so stupid, as to have entered into Dialogue with such a creature without any astonishment. But being used to the Shechinah of the Logos, and to the appearance of ministring Angels, shewing themselves in some such winged form (for that they abode not f 1.186 one night in Paradise, is by many judicious persons e∣steemed a groundless fancy); it is easie to conceive, upon that supposition, how they might entertain some familiar discourse with a creature assuming that Image

in very splendid and glorious manner. The Text assu∣reth us that the form is now changed by Gods curse; and sure the change was more considerable than the al∣teration spoken of by Mr. Mede a 1.187, who thinketh that the Serpent went formerly on the ground, though with his head and breast reared up and advanced. It seemeth a more probable opinion by far, that the change was made from the form of a splendid flying Saraph, to that of a mean creeping Serpent, not moving aloft in the air, but licking the dust. And much more probable, doubtless, it is than that dream which Kir∣cher b 1.188 chargeth on Maimonides; as if that Rabbi had affirmed, that the Devil deceived Eve in the shape of a Camel. But Maimonides c 1.189 saith only from the Rabbies in Medrasch, that the Serpent was rode on, and was as big as a Camel; and that he who rode on him was Samael, or Satan.

Methinks a part of the punishment of Adam and Eve declares the shape of the Serpent or Daemon, by whom they were tempted. For it is said that God guarded Paradise against them by a Cherub and a Flaming-sword, which (as hath been noted already) was estee∣med by the Jews a second Angel; and may be aptly imagined a Saraph, or flaming-Angel, in the form of a a flying fiery Serpent, whose body vibrated in the air with luster, and may be fitly described by the Image of such a sword. And whereas Maimonides d 1.190 interpre∣teth this Sword of the property of an Angel, of which the Scripture speaketh as of a flame of fire; he saith nothing distinctly applicable to the second Angel, but what was common also to the Cherub; whilst some∣thing is pointed at in the Text as peculiar to the se∣cond Angel called a flaming-sword.

It may be further noted to our present purpose, that the word Saraph or Seraphim is used in Scripture both

to denote (as was said) a fiery flying Serpent, and also an Angel of a certain order whom Isaiah representeth e 1.191 as having wings, and flying to him with a coal from the Altar. Accordingly Buxtorf in his little Lexicon in the word Saraph, thus discourseth:

Saraph signifies a fiery and most venemous Serpent. Seraphim is likewise a name of Angels, who from the clearness and brightness of their Aspect are seen as it were fla∣ming and fiery.

But there is an authority in this Ar∣gument to me more valuable, not for the notation of the word, but for the sense so accommodate to my no∣tion. It is that of Tertullian in two places. The first place is in his Book de Praescriptione Haereticorum; There he suggesteth from others,

That a 1.192 Eve gave attention to the Serpent as to the Son of God.

The se∣cond place is in his Book against the Valentinians. There he saith b 1.193,

That the Serpent from the beginning was one that sacrilegiously usurped the Divine Image.

This soundeth as if the Devil in Serpentine form, had re∣presented part of the Shechinab of the Logos, and that Eve conceived him to be an Angel appertaining to his glorious presence, and a minister of his pleasure; and now come forth from him.

Now I here suppose the Seraphim or Urim to be two Golden winged Images, not from the number of the word Urim (for the Jews use that number fre∣quently of a single thing or person) but from that of the Images called Cherubim, which were two Symbols placed on the Ark which is typed in the Pectoral. And I do not think so much (as doth Maimonides c 1.194 that the Cherubim were therefore two, lest the form of a single one should have been mistaken for the Figure of the one God; as that these two (like the Model of the Temple) had reference to Earth as well as Heaven, and, besides Angels, represented Moses and Aaron as the

Ministers of the Logos under the Law; as the four Creatures in the Vision of Ezekiel typed out the four Evangelists as Christs servants under the Gospel. Nei∣ther did the number of the Cherubim prevent miscon∣struction. For St. Hierom reporteth of some, that by the two Seraphim [Cherubim he meaneth] they under∣stood the Son and the Holy Ghost d 1.195.

In the Pectoral I suppose Seraphim, and not Cheru∣bim; this being an Oracle for Civil affairs e 1.196, and not properly the Oracle of the Temple; and the Cheru∣bim being according to St. Hierom before cited, the seven Spirits about Gods Throne, and according to David the Chariots on which he rides; and the Sera∣phim of inferior attendance (though Appendages of the Shechinah) and of more frequent ministration a∣broad in Temporal matters; such as that of the Cap∣tivity of Judah, in the declaration of which to Isaiah, a Saraph assisted.

For the Answer of God by Urim, I suppose it not to have been conveyed through the mouths of these Images, which were to be put into the Ark f 1.197, whilst nothing is mentioned of the taking them out. But it seemeth most probable that as the Logos spake with a voice out of the Glory above the Cherubim, and not by them, their mouths being turned from the High-Priest; so the High-Priest, who here was the Logos of the Logos, the Substitute and Type of Christ, spake by Inspiration over the Pectoral and Saraphs. Neither is it fully proved from the Book of Samuel a 1.198, that God spake Vivâ voce; as the Annotations published out of the Library of the Archbishop of York, would have it to be: for it may well be said, that God spake when through miraculous inspiration he spake by the mouth of his Prophets or Priests * 1.199.

The Urim or Seraphim were put into the Pectoral,

and not set upon it, as the Cherubim were on the grea∣ter Ark; not so much for the concealment of them from the eyes of the people prone to Idolatry, as; for some other cause; for the Ark was often carried in Procession with the Cherubims on it: unless we shall say that the upper cover of the Ark, or Mercy-seat, which is mentioned in Scripture as a distinct piece of Artifice from it b 1.200, was not taken along with it.

But to me this seemeth one reason: the High-Priest was here the Type of Christ-Incarnate, who in the days of his flesh, though he had Angels ministring to him, did not often please to occasion their appear∣ance.

It may be here objected, That this Notion of the Seraphim in the Ark, ascribeth to God the setting up as part of his Shechinah, the Image proper to the De∣vil, for such is that of the Serpent.

I answer, that the contrary is here true; for the groveling Serpent doomed by God is such a Symbol; and such a one the Heathens worshipped. Neither was any other distinctly used in Egypt, or (so far as I have read) in any other Country of the world. For though the Egyptian Cneph had wings, yet he was not a wing∣ed Serpent, but a compounded Symbol, of which the tayl of the Serpent was but a small part adjoined to the breast, wings and head of an Hawk or Eagle. And Eusebius relateth from Philo Byblius, that the Egyptian Hieroglyphick of the World was a Circle, of which the Serpent (the Symbol of a good Daemon as they conceived) was but the Diameter; the whole figure being almost like to the great Θ of the Greeks. And by that it appears that the sacred Egyptian Serpent was the creeping one, and not the winged one of Arabia, whose company they so detested, that they deified the Bird Ibis for destroying it.

But now the glorious winged Serpent was the Sym∣bol of a good ministring Angel. And accordingly God used such a one in the Wilderness; and it is known by the name of the Brazen-serpent, or Saraph c 1.201.

Of that inferior kind of Shechinah it is proper to speak here; it being to be understood from the Con∣tents of the foregoing Discourse.

This then seemeth no other than a winged Saraph, put on a Pole a 1.202, or standard like a Roman Eagle; and constituted as a Symbol of the presence of the Lo∣gos, so far as concerned his Divine Power and Good∣ness in healing them by miracle, who were bitten with fiery Serpents. That this was some sort of the Presence of the Logos appeareth from himself in the New Testa∣ment, where he opposeth to it as Antitype to Type, the natural body of himself crucified. As Moses (said he b 1.203 lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up. 'Tis the Son of Man here plainly made the Antitype, and not the old Ser∣pent, (as a learned man c 1.204 would have it) destroyed indeed on the Cross, but not said by the Scripture to be lifted up upon it.

And though the Saraph was not Christ, yet it was the Symbol * 1.205 by which he appeared; and by its stret∣ched-out wings it may seem to the Fancy at least, very aptly to express Christs Crucifixion with arms ex∣tended.

If it be here said that to make this Serpent a Saraph, and a part of Christs Shechinah, is to overthrow that which was suggested before of the concealment of the Seraphim in the Ark, and of the Cherubim behind the Veil, from the eyes of the people prone to Idolatry, this being exposed to their daily sight: I answer in two Particulars.

First, It was agreeable to the Wisdom of God to

give some Type of Christ as crucified, that being one great part of that substance of the Gospel of which the Law was a shadow; though he pleased not to do it too plainly in the shape of an humane body on a Cross. And no other Type (I think) occurreth under Ju∣daism, but this of the brazen Saraph.

Secondly, Here was not such occasion of Idolatry, as might have been taken from the Ark; for that was an Oracle, and a Divine Light shone forth, and a Divine Voice was heard, and signs of Adoration to God were there commanded. But this was no Oracle: It doth not appear that at this symbol any extraordinary cloud or glory shone; that hence any Coelestial thun∣der was heard. Only men were helped in thinking on God by the symbol of an Angel, which executeth Gods will on Earth, whilst a secret virtue from the unseen God made them whole.

He that turned him∣self towards it (saith d 1.206 the Book of Wisdom) was not saved by any thing that he saw, but by Thee that art the Saviour of all.

And if the people had been then prone to Idolize that Symbol, it had not remained undefaced till the days of Hezekiah.

This then is my conjecture (and I offer it no other∣wise) about the Urim; and likewise about the Brazen Serpent.

For Thummim, I imagin it to be a thing of a very differing nature.

So do they who take it to be deriv'd from the Jewel in the Brest-plate of the High-Priest of Egypt, called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. It is true, such a Brest-plate there was in Egypt, and it is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus a 1.207, and AElian b 1.208. And Diodorus supposeth it to have consisted of many Gems; but AElian calleth it an Image made of a Saphire. It is also confessed that the Seventy Interpre∣ters

c 1.209 do render Thummim by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

But here two things are to be observed:

First, This Egyptian Pectoral (deserving the name of truth, it being put on as an ornament for the Bench in the execution of justice and maintenance of truth, as we learn from Diodorus and AElian; and not in or∣der to the delivery of Oracles) may as well have been taken from the Brest-plate of the High-Priest of the Jews. There is no mention of it in Herodotus, and be∣fore the Graecian times. And Diodorus when he speak∣eth of it, he referreth to those days when Heliopolis, Thebés and Memphis were the three head-Cities in Egypt, out of each of which ten Judges were chosen; and for On, or Heliopolis, it had a publick Temple built in it for the Jews, with the consent of Ptolomy Philadelphus, by Onias the High-Priest, who was then by the power of Antiochus deprived of his Authority and Office in Judaea. And concerning the Egyptian Pectoral, its name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is plainly modern.

It may in the second place be observed that upon supposition that this Pectoral was originally Egyptian, it doth not follow that the Seventy meant the same thing by their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that the Egyptians did by theirs. It may be rather guessed, that those Interpreters transla∣ting divers words and phrases, which grated on Egypti∣an matters, in such prudential manner that Ptolomy might not be offended (as is manifest that they did in several places of their Version); they made use of this name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as of a name which would at once re∣commend them to his favour, and well express the sense of Scripture, or the meaning of Thummim.

Now if Urim be Images in the lesser Ark of the Pectoral, answering in some sort to the Cherubim on the greater Ark; what possibly can Thummim be but a copy of the Moral Law put into the Pectoral? a

copy written in some Roll * 1.210, or engraven in some stone according to the pattern of the Tables brought down from the Mount? for what else was there in the other Ark? nothing sure; though some Rabbins, and after them the learned Hugo Grotius believed otherwise a 1.211.

Josephus b 1.212 thought nothing else to be there; and he had ground for his opinion from the holy Scriptures. For it is said in the first of the Kings c 1.213, That there was nothing in the Ark save the two Tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb. And this is repeated in the se∣cond d 1.214 of Chronicles. And to say as some adventure to do, that the Manna and the Rod of Aaron were there in the time of Moses, and taken out in process of time, lest the Manna should putrifie, and the Rod be worm-eaten, (as if they could any-where have been so long preserved without miracle) soundeth very like to a Rabbinical whimsey.

For the places of Scripture alledged by Grotius in favour of his opinion, they answer themselves. For in Exodus e 1.215 it is not said that Moses commanded Aaron to take a pot of Manna and to put it into the Ark, but that he required him to lay it up before the Lord, or before the Ark where the Lord by his Shechinah then dwelt. Also in Numbers f 1.216, it is not said that God commanded Moses to put the Rod of Aaron into the Ark, but that he required him to bring it before the Testimony, that is, the Ark of the Covenant. Where∣fore that of the Author to the Hebrews g 1.217, [In the Ho∣liest of all was the Ark of the Covenant, wherein was the Golden pot that had Manna, and Aarons Rod that bud∣ded, and the Tables of the Covenant], must be inter∣preted as if in signified both in and by. So (saith Ca∣pellus upon the place) it is usual for them who live by Rome, to say they live in it. So in Cariathjarim in the

Book of Judges h 1.218 signifieth, nigh it. They pitched (saith the Text) in Kiriath-jearim in Judah: where∣fore they called that place Mahaneh-Dan unto this day: behold it is behind Kiriath-jearim. Neither doth Gorio∣nides say (as Grotius maketh him) that the Manna and Rod were in the Ark; for he speaketh of the Holiest, and saith they were there, not determining in what part of it they were placed.

Thummim was not an Image as the Urim were; nei∣ther doth the Scripture ever say that God answered by Thummim. It saith not i 1.219 that God did forbear to answer Saul by Urim and Thummim, but only that he did not answer him by Urim. For the Moral Law was a standing Rule, and not an Extemporary Oracle. And we may observe from Diodorus Siculus, that the Egyp∣tian Judg whom he speaketh of, when he put on his glorious 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, sign or image, called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, had also the Law in Eight Books laying before him, [AElian and Diodorus tell this story in differing man∣ner; and it may be the thirty Judges were so many of the seventy Elders, and the Eight Books of Law were the Ten Commandments; and the Saphire or Gems in the Pectoral were the twelve precious stones according to the number of the Tribes; all used by the High-Priest of the Jews at Heliopolis, where was Schismati∣cally aped the worship and judgment of Jerusalem. For in such matters the blunders of Historians are often more shameful than these. Nay, what if the Book con∣taining the worship of the gods, and bound about with scarlet-threads, mentioned by the same Diodorus a 1.220, should be the Copy of the Moral Law in the Ark, whose outside was wrought with gold, with blue, with purple, with scarlet, and fine-twined linnen? This is none of my Faith; yet many such imperfect Narrati∣ons are to be found in him and other Historians, who

write of things in such ancient and dark times. For the name 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (though that was given to the Pecto∣ral, or to the illustrious Gem or Gems on it, and not particularly to the Law) yet to the Law of God it well agreeth; David saying concerning it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Thy Law is Truth * 1.221. As congruous is the name of Thummim, or Perfections, the same Royal Prophet saying * 1.222, Thy Law is perfect. 'Tis perfect and without blemish in it, though the Laws of men are stained with divers spots and imperfections. It is perfect as a straight Rule, it bendeth not to mens corrupt wills. It is a com∣pleat Rule extending to all our needful cases. It is ex∣ceeding broad, whilst there is an end of all other pre∣tended Perfections * 1.223. Of the perfection of this Law the Son of Sirach speaketh, saying b 1.224, A man of under∣standing trusteth in the Law, and the Law is faithful un∣to him as an Oracle; or [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, in the reading of the Alexandrian Copy of the Seventy], as the asking of [or the answer to the Interrogatory at] Urim. In which words let the Reader well consider whether the Author does not oppose the Law to the Oracle as the Thummim to the Urim, saying in effect,

The Law laid up in the Ark is as certain a Rule to go by in the Moral course of a mans life; as the Oracle from above the Ark where the Urim was an appendage of Gods Shechinah, was a direction in extraordinary ca∣ses.

And whereas Urim is only mentioned, why Scali∣ger should say c 1.225, the meaning is, The Law is faith∣ful to him as Urim and Thummim, he himself best knows. But it may be thought from the force of the Premisses, that he has in effect rendred the saying such a kind of Tautology as this, The Law is faithful as the Law.

Another place there is worthy our observation in this Argument, and the rather, because it is a more

Canonical portion of Scripture. It is that of S. John c 1.226 who saith, that the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. These words, if I will serve my Hypothesis, I must thus Paraphrase.

The Thummim or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the Law was received from Gods substitute the Logos, by Moses, who de∣livered it to the people; but the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the Chri∣stian Law, of the Gospel of Grace, came, not only from, but by, Jesus Christ, the Logos made flesh, as was said, a verse or two before; and he, even God-incarnate, did publish it with his own mouth.

If this notion hath any truth in it, then that Prayer of Moses, or blessing of Levi d 1.227 [Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy One] may be thus expounded; let thy Law [the ordinary Rule prefe∣rable before any extemporary Oracle] and also thy extraordinary inspiration, together with thy blessing, be present with the linage of Aaron consecrated to the Priest-hood, though thou wert angry with him for his carriage at the waters of Meribah or Massah; and, for that reason, deniedst him an entrance into the land of Canaan.

But I will plainly acknowledge, that notwithstand∣ing all here said by me, that may be true which Mun∣ster said e 1.228, That no mortal man can now tell what the Urim and Thummim were. But, in aiming, with our conjectural Bolts, at Truth, as in shooting, if the white be not hit, it is some kind of felicity to come nigh the Mark.

Now though the Logos appeared on the Ark, both in the Tabernacle and the Temple, and though he was, also, present, with this lesser Ark the Pectoral; yet he did not limit himself to these holy Instruments, and the places of them. He appeared, elsewhere, sometimes, when the emergent occasion was remote

from these Arks, and when the privacy of the Reve∣lation to those who were not High-Priests, was expe∣dient, or necessary; unless we should say, that the less solemn, and less majestick Apparitions were made by Angels.

That it was the Logos who shew'd himself to Joshu∣ah a 1.229, giving to him a promise of defence, is the joynt opinion of Justin Martyr, Eusebius, and Theo∣doret b 1.230, and likewise of one more modern, yet not unworthy to be named amongst them, the most learned Archbishop of Armagh d 1.231. But a fragment of an antient and venerable Greek Scholion, produced by Valesius, will have it to be Michael, and not the very Son of God. Be it the one, or the other, I hold •…•…ot my self much obliged to concern my self, as a par∣ty, in the dispute. Only I am inclined to think it the Logos, because the place of the appearance, was sa∣cred; Joshuah pulling of his Shoes, in token of a Di∣vine, rather than of an Angelical presence.

Little is recorded of Gods Shechinah from the time of Joshua to David. But David in his Psalms, is ve∣ry frequent in celebrating Gods presence in the Sanctu∣ary on Mount Sion. And of his being there where God was present by his Image or Shechinah (in the Temple, though not in the holiest place of it), after deliverance from his enemies, who stood in his way both to the holy City and holy Temple, some a 1.232 interpret these words of his in the 17th Psalm b 1.233; As for me, I will behold thy face (or Shechinah) in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. Or (as I find it expounded in the Septua∣gint c 1.234) when I shall see thy glory, or glorious presence: Thy Temunah (the word in the Hebrew) thy Image, of the Logos. In Solomon's time the Ark was placed in a most magnificent Temple, which when

it had received the holy Vessel, a Cloud, and the Glo∣ry of the Lord d 1.235, a most venerable mixture of light and darkness filled the holy House. It is called in the Book of Kings e 1.236 thick darkness, i. e. such whose solemnity hindred the sight of any other object but the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or glory of the Shechinah, which dazled the eye, rather than enlightned the medium. In the first Book of Kings this is omitted by the Lxx, but in the 2d of Chronicles f 1.237 it is mentioned. And by those Interpreters 'tis called barely 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or darkness. But they had before g 1.238 called it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the cloud of the Glory of the Lord; a cloud like that which, in S. Matthew h 1.239, is called a bright one, and said to overshadow the Apostles, when Christ was transfigured and owned as Gods Son, by a voice out of the Cloud. After the dedication of this House, God appeared in a dream, a second time, to Solomon i 1.240, having done so once before at Gibeon k 1.241, and made a promise to him that his eyes and heart, that is, his especial presence, should be in that consecrated House.

In the time of Ahab, Elijah being in Israel, and not in Judah, though he worshipped not God in the San∣ctuary; yet the Logos of God, when he was fled as far as Horeb, Gods Mountain l 1.242, instructed him in a still small voice, after his spirit was made solemn, by wind, earthquake, and fire; for it was the Lord (saith the Text) that spake then to him, not a created An∣gel. But that God ever spake at Dan or Bethel, or ap∣peared in any Glory, we neither read nor believe. So that the setting up the Symbol there was presumption, and the trusting that God was present there, Idolatry: for that was an act due to Gods true presence, mispla∣ced on his false one, and such as was not only false, but, in terms, forbidden. In the times of Isaiah S.

Hierom m 1.243 observeth that the Idolatries of the people were exceedingly encreased; yet himself saw the Shechinah n 1.244 in a vision: And St. John o 1.245 sheweth that it was a vision of the Logos, saying that Isaiah saw Christs glory.

The Israelites rather increasing, than repenting of, their provocations, it pleased God to withdraw his presence, and, as he is represented in the visions of E∣zekiel p 1.246, to go up from the earth; and to permit the powers of Babylon to destroy the holy Temple, and to suffer the glory of it, the Ark, to depart, and ne∣ver to appear again in its former condition; for the 2d Temple did, in this particular especially, come short of the first. And I know not what to make of a pas∣sage in the Jew q 1.247, whose Cippi Hebraici are tran∣slated by Hottinger; and who there mentions a part of the Ark extant in Sion in his time; unless I esteem it (for sure 'tis no other) a Jewish fable. That it may not go alone, I will add a story of equal credit out of the Elucidarium ascribed to S. Anselm. There r 1.248 the Disciple asking what became of the Ark of the Covenant, the wise Master answers thus:

It was hid, at Gods command, by Jeremiah, in the Sepulcre of Moyses, when Hierusalem was ready to be destroy∣ed by the Babylonian forces. And, in the last times, it will be brought out by Enoch and Elias; God re∣vealing it to them.

PART. 6. Of the Shechinah of God, from the Captivity to the Messiah.

Such Jews as had true apprehensions of the God of Israel, and sincere devotion to his service, did in such sort honour his Shechinah, that when the Holy

Chest and the Temple were no more to be seen, they worshipped God towards the plaoe where they former∣ly stood. Thus in Chaldaea, did the Prophet Daniel. Both the Jews in banishment, and the Jews in the land were, that way, to direct their faces in Prayer. And the Rabbins say a 1.249 that a devout Jew had, on purpose, a Chamber with a window that way, and that the Babylonian Jews prayed with such direction in the Chamber of Daniel, an antient House of stone. To Daniel (as to one highly favour'd of God, and to a Prophet living in the dawning of the Gospel) God discovered his presence in a more ample and distinct manner than (so far as we read) he had formerly done; more eminently than to Isaiah or Ezekiel. Da∣miel in a vision b 1.250 beheld the Shechinah of God, as it were in Heaven. The Father and the Son were per∣sonated in this Scene, or, rather, the Godhead and the word Incarnate. This I find to be the opinion of St. Hierom c 1.251, who expoundeth Daniel by St. Paul where he speaketh of the Logos, as equal with God, yet taking upon him the form of a Servant.

In those days God vouchsafed such plain visions to the Prophets, and such plain Prophecies of the Messiah, that the two Tribes, the issue of the true worshippers in Judah where Gods Shechinah dwelt, though they returned from Chaldea, a soyl as fertile in producing Idols, as Egypt it self, yet they had them in greater ab∣horrence than before. They looked back, many of them, on their punishment of exile and bondage for former Idolatries: They looked on their present mira∣culous restitution by the Power and Mercy of the God of Israel; and they look'd forward towards the Mes∣siah, the Image of God, whose Kingdom was at hand; and these thoughts preserved them, in great measure, from pollution with Idols; though the Ark was perish∣ed,

and Prophecy ceased a 1.252, and the Holy Pecto∣ral (said to be worn, even out of the City, by the High-Priest in his meeting of Alexander) was rather an Ornament than an Oracle.

At length, after the ceslation of Prophets for more than 400 years; after the apparition of an Angel to Zachariah in the Temple (a sign that the Oracles, of the Ark, and Urim, had ceased); it pleased him to * 1.253 come in the flesh, whom Daniel saw as in Glory, and to be, for a season, on earth, as it were the eclipsed Shechinah of God. Such an appearance, for a time, our infirmity, and the Oeconomy of the Gospel re∣quired b 1.254.

To this Messiah, as God-man, the things in the ri∣tual Law of Moses had especial respect, though a vail was upon them. And, indeed, it would seem to de∣rogate from the Wisdom of God, and the nature of his worship which is chiefly spiritual, to conceit that all the Apparatus of the Temple reached no further than the amusement of the eye. They, therefore, that will reach the sense of the Law, must suppose a mystery in it. Thus did St. Stephen c 1.255 and St. Paul d 1.256 those excellent Interpreters of Moses. These the Christian Fathers have followed as their patterns. Cle∣mens Alexandrinus e 1.257 alluding to those words in the seventh of Isaiah,

Nisi credideritis non intellige∣tis, addeth words to this purpose; Unless ye believe in Christ, ye will not understand the Old Testament, which he by his own presence expounded.

And S. Gregory Nyssen f 1.258 concludeth from the material Che∣rubims covering with their wings the mysteries of the Ark (how strongly from thence, I will not say;) that there is a more deep sense of the Text of Moses.

PART. 6. Of the cure of Idolatry by the Image of God in Christ God-man.

AMongst the Mosaic Symbols, the Ark certa•…•…nly was none of the meanest. This Holy vessel, without peradventure, had most singular reference to Christ as God-man, who, at least from his Baptism, hath been in that quality of God-incarnate, exhibited to the World as the Divine Shechinah.

At Bethlehem the Son of God was Born, the Town where the settled place for the Ark of God was disco∣vered to David. So much we learn from the words of Solomon a 1.259 in the sixth verse of the Hundred and second Psalm. He, there, repeateth a saying of Da∣vid his Father, concerning the Ark; Lo we heard of it at Ephrata. Castalio plainly confesseth b 1.260 that he un∣derstood not what that expression meant. For my part, whilst I am in pursuit of the present Argument, I cannot think the Text to be tortur'd by St. Hilary, c 1.261 who will have it to confess Christ as the true Ark of God, discovered, typically, at Bethlehem, to Da∣vid, and afterwards manifested in the flesh, to the World, in the same City of David.

It is heard of in Ephrata, Ephrata (saith he) is the same with Bethlehem, where our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary. There, therefore, the rest of God is heard of, where, first of all, the only begotten God inha∣bited a body of humane flesh.

This is the Ark which rested in the Tribe of Ju∣dah d 1.262; for out of that Tribe our Lord sprang e 1.263.

To this Ark, as soon as he came into the World, the very Princes or Wisemen of the Gentiles bowed down in the Cave at Bethlehem, the star, or miracu∣lous

meteor, as an appendage of the Shechinah, stand∣ing above it.

This Ark tabernacled among men a 1.264 and they saw his Glory, when Baptized; when transfigured.

This Ark giveth, through Jordan, or the Baptismal Laver b 1.265 a passage into the mystical Canaan. On this Ark, or Holy vessel of Christs body, when he was Baptized by John in Jordan, the glory of the Shechi∣nah appeared: a mighty lustre (as Grotius hinteth) hovering, after the fashion of a Dove, upon these wa∣ters of the second Creation.

On him the Holy Ghost dwelt, or rested c 1.266 as God was said to do in the Tabernacle. In him, as the Law of God in the Ark, and the Will of God known from the Oracle of the Shechinah, were depo∣sited all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg d 1.267. He is the great Oracle of God, whom, by a voice from Heaven out of a bright Cloud, or Gods excel∣lent Glory e 1.268, we are commanded to hear. In him was the sum of the Law and the Prophets: and he was the light of Israel, of the Gentiles, of the whole world. To this Logos, Clemens Alexandrinus f 1.269 ascribeth the mysteries of the Jews and Gentiles, as to the great Teacher of them, before his Incarnation. So that, he, as a Divine subsistence, and substitute of the Father, giving the Law of Reason to Adam; the Jewish Law, to that people, by Moses; and to all the world the Christian Law, or Will of God; no Ti∣tle could be more proper for him, than that of the Divine Word. And this Logos was not only the Wis∣dom but the Power of God, and meriteth the name of the Ark of Gods strength g 1.270. In him dwelt the ful∣ness of the Godhead bodily. The Deity sojourn'd in an Ark of flesh, or within the vail of it * 1.271. And in this sense I think some of the Ancients are to be interpre∣ted,

who called Christ so often 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a 1.272 a God-car∣rying-man, as our Language may truly, though harsh∣ly, render the Greek word; though Nestorius abus'd the signification of it so far as to make it intimate a duality of persons in Christ.

This Ark was the face or visible presence of God, and he that had seen him as Messiah, had in that sense seen the Father b 1.273. This body was not the very God∣head as Muggleton blasphemeth, but the Godhead did in it shew forth it self to men in signs of mighty Pow∣er, Holiness, and Wisdom.

This Evangelical Ark was the Image of the invisible God; not indeed the very picture or statue, but (as St. Hilary stileth him c 1.274) the Personator of his Es∣sence. It is true he saith of some of the Jews d 1.275, That they had never seen the shape of the Father, his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Appearance. And this he saith truly in two respects, though him they saw when he thus spake to them. For first there were none of them who saw him baptized or transfigured; for in the same place he denies that they ever heard the voice of God. And then these were unbelieving Jews, and therefore saw him as meer man, as one of the worst of men in their conceit, an Impostor and Magician, and not as the Messiah, the Son, the Incarnate Shechinah of God. To such therefore as under those misapprehensions of him, he saith elsewhere, Why call you me good, there is none good save one, that is God.

However Christ in truth, though not to the eyes of Infidels, was the Image of the invisible Father; and one whose design was to put all the Idols and Images of the Superstitious world a 1.276 under his feet. Of this the Prophets foretold b 1.277, and this the world hath seen fulfilled; Oracles by degrees ceasing, and now scarce any footsteps remaining of that Triumvirate of

gods, (for their gods had been men, and those some of them no Heroes in virtue), Jupiter c 1.278 the god of the Heavens, Neptune of the Sea, Pluto of the Earth. It is said by the Arabick Author of the Prodigies of Egypt d 1.279, that when Noah named one God, Idols fell prostrate. It is more true of him who began the new world of the Gospel, that when he appeared as the Image of the one true God, Idolatry vanished before him e 1.280. And the Fathers will have it, that when in his Childhood he went into Egypt, and was brought to Memphis, the Egyptian Idols fell at his feet f 1.281. And St. Hierom (whose manner is as much to cite in his Commentaries, the opinions which he had collected, as to set down his own) does tell of some g 1.282 who appli∣ed to Christ and the Virgin those words of Isaiah h 1.283, Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt, and the Idols of Egypt shall be moved at his Presence.

From this Image of God in his Son Incarnate, this Ark of flesh, Divinity often shone on earth before his Instalment at Gods right hand. The mighty power of God in his Life, Miracles i 1.284, Preaching; and some∣times in his Attendants the Angels; and in his very bodily appearance. Thus at his Transfiguration his rai∣ment shone as the light, he being 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 k 1.285, the brightness of the Glory or Shechinah of God. And afterwards such Heavenly Majesty shewed it self in him, that those who came to apprehend him as a Malefactor, fell at his feet as before a God.

This Jesus was the Ark of the new Covenant and of the Testimony of God; the witness of God faithful and true, as he is stiled in the Revelation l 1.286 of Saint John. Jesus was in effect the whole house of Gods especial presence; the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, (the name which Philo gives the Tabernacle) or the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, (or, it may

be, if it were rightly printed, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (as Jose∣phus calleth the Zodiack or the Sun moving in it) the portable, the walking Temple, who (like the rolling Sun which dispenseth his influence far and near) went about doing good; having no resting-place for his Head, till he was fixed on Mount Sion above.

This is the Ark of God, exalted first on the Cross, and then to Heaven. Whence God commandeth his blessing, sending him by his Spirit and Gospel to bless m 1.287, and to turn all of us from our iniquity.

This Ark is the true Mercy-seat a 1.288; the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Propitiatory, as he is called in the Epistle to the Ro∣mans b 1.289, and the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as St. John calleth him c 1.290, that is, the Propitiation for our sins. St. Hierom Com∣menting on those words in the Version of Ezekiel d 1.291, in the 43d. Chapter and 14th. verse, [from the lesser settle to the greater settle], and observing them to be rendred on this wise by the Seventy Interpreters, [From the lesser to the greater Propitiatory e 1.292]: He applys the lesser Propitiatory to Christ in the form of a ser∣vant, and the greater to Christ glorified in the Heavens. Here is then both the Aaron and Aharon, the true Ark and Priest of the most high God.

This Ark, or rather this entire Temple of God * 1.293 like the Tabernacle in Shiloh f 1.294, seemed for a time forsa∣ken, possessed by the great Philistin, [for what is stron∣ger than death?] and laid in the dust; but God rai∣sed it up after three days in greater glory, and so as that it is never to fall again. This Ark was after a few days taken up into the true Sanctuary of God, where it remaineth till the restitution of all things; and whither our eyes and hearts are to direct themselves in all Religious worship.

From that Sanctuary he appear'd in a glorious light to his first Martyr St. Steven when well awake, and

whilst he directed his countenance towards Heaven, whither his spirit was ready to take its way. He being full of the Holy Ghost (or divine energy g 1.295 looked up stedfastly into Heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. Thence also he appeared to Saul in a light so vehement, that for a time it took away the use of his eyes. Thence he sent the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, become now as it were the Substitute and Shechinah of the Glorified Jesus. This hovered as a glorious flame over the heads of the Apostles, declaring them thereby the Representatives of Christ on earth. Under this notion Christ is wor∣shipped by true and intelligent Christians. This was the meaning of the Fathers in the Council of Constan∣tinople h 1.296, who denounced Anathema against those who professed not that

Christ ascended was Intelle∣ctual flesh, neither properly flesh, nor yet Incorpo∣real, but visible to them who have pierc'd him with∣out grossness of flesh.

They believ'd it a great point of Christianity that Jesus God-man sate in the Heavens in illustrious visible glory. And this St. John saw in a Vision, in which the Logos i 1.297, the God Omnipotent k 1.298, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords l 1.299, or Lamb, God-man m 1.300 appeared on his Throne, Crowned, and with eyes like flames of fire. To this effect is a saying of Eusebius cited by Bishop Andrews on the se∣cond Command. I suppose he meaneth Eusebius Dory∣laeus, for he referreth to the second Ephesine Synod, though I have not met with it in the Acts of that Council. Eusebius it seems, telleth Constantia,

That she must not any longer desire an Image of Christ as he is infirm man. For now (said he) his Glory is much greater than it appeared on the Mount, which if his Apostles were then dazled with, how can it now be expressed?

This visible Glory of Christ the Ancients

supposed situate in the Eastern part of the Heavens: and it occasion'd (as I think) their directing of their worship towards the East. The Gentiles who wor∣shipped the Sun differed much from this external dire∣ction of their Faces. For they respected especially the East-point by reason of the Sun-rising thence a 1.301. And often at other parts of the day they altered their po∣sture. They sometimes vall'd themselves, saith Plutarch, and turned themselves about with respect to the Hea∣venly motions. And Trismegistus (in Asclepio) relates, that it was a custom of some of the Gentile-Devoti∣onists at mid-day to look towards the South, and at Sun-set to look towards the West. It was at the rising of the Sun when Lucian was turned towards it by Mi∣throbarzanes * 1.302 the Chaldaean Priest, who mumbled his Prayers in a low and indistinct tone at the rising of that false God. They respected not always the Eastern Angle, though they had especial regard to it, when the Sun appeared in it. They respected also the South and West-points in their worship. Hence Harpocrates a child represented amongst them the Sun in its rising * 1.303; Orus a young man, the Sun in its Meridian; Osiris an old man, the Sun-setting. This was also the way of the Manichees who supposed the Sun to be the Tabernacle of Christ. Of them St. Austin saith * 1.304, that their Pray∣ers rolled about with the Sun.

But the Ancients thought the Shechinah of Christ more fixed, and therefore did not in such manner al∣ter their Quarter. And that Quarter they esteemed pro∣per to the Shechinah, having read of the Messiah in the Old Testament under the name of the East; and follow∣ing the Translation of the Seventy b 1.305, which thus read∣eth, Psalm 68. 33. [Sing unto God who ascendeth above the Heaven of Heavens on the East.] They also esteemed Jerusalem the middle of the Earth, and the

parts which lay Easterly from thence they called the East, and amongst them Eden about Mesopotamia. And they had a Tradition that Christ was Crucified with his face towards the West, but that he ascended with his face towards the East, and went up to a place in the Heavenly Paradise, standing as it were over that of the Earthly c 1.306. But whatsoever men may conceive of the space possessed by Christs meer body, they ought not to think of his Shechinah as of a confined light in some one Quarter of the Heavens; but as a glorious luster filling all Heavens, and shining towards this Earth as a Circumference of Glory on a single point. They ought to lose their imaginations in an Abyss of Light. One saith (and not amiss) upon this subject * 1.307,

That as Earth heightned unto a flame, changeth not its place only, but form and figure; so the person of our Saviour was raised to a greatness, a glory vastly differing from, and surmounting any Image, all Images of things visible or invisible in in this Creation. So 'tis fitly expressed (saith he) in Heb. 7. 29. He was made higher than the Heavens. He was heightned to a splendour, enlarged to a capacity and a compass above the brightest, beyond the wi∣dest Heavens.

From this Heavenly Throne Christ will come at the day of Judgment in a Shechinah of Clouds and flaming-fire: the mention of which fire sometimes in the Scrip∣ture, and in the Commentaries of the ancient Fathers, without express addition of that great day, has (as I conjecture) accidentally led part of the Christian World into its mistakes about Purgatory; in relation to which place I must yet confess my self to be one of the Nullibists.

This Shechinah in milder, but most inexpressible lu∣ster, I suppose to be that which the Schools call the

Beatifick Vision; and which the Scripture intendeth in the promise of seeing God face to face.

PART 7. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah.

THis Argument of Gods Shechinah may be many ways useful, if Intelligent persons draw such inferences from it as it offereth to their judgment. I will hint at some of them; for to insist on any unless it be those which concern the worship of Angels or Ima∣ges, is beyond my scope.

And first of all by due attention to the premisses, an Anthropomorphite may blush at his rude conceit about the humane figure of the Divine substance, whose spi∣ritual and immense amplitude is incapable of any natu∣ral figure or colour; though God by his Logos using the ministry of inferiour creatures, hath condescended to a visible Shechinah.

Hence, secondly, those people who run into the o∣ther extream, the Spiritualists and abstractive Fami∣lists, may be induced to own the distinct substance of God, and the visible person of Christ; and not to subtilize the Deity and its Persons, and all its appear∣ances into a meer notion, or into some quality, act, or habit of mans spirit; or to bow down to God no otherwise then as he is the pretended light or love in their own breasts.

Thirdly, If this consideration had entered with so∣briety into the minds of those German Anabaptists a 1.308, who with zeal contended that the very essence or sub∣stance of the Father was seen in the Son; and the very substance of the Spirit in the Dove; their disputati∣ons would have been brought to a speedy issue, or rather, they would never have been begun. They

would have known how to have distinguished betwixt the invisible God, and the visible face or Shechinah, not as the very shape, but as the emblem and significative Presence of the Divinity.

Fourthly, For want of some such notion as this, many other men of fanatick heads (such as were most of the Hereticks who introduced novelty and tumult into the Church about the Persons of the Trinity and nature of Christ) have plunged themselves into unin∣telligible conceits. Of this number were the Basilidians, who call'd the body of the Dove the Deacon; and the Valentinians, who stil'd it the spirit of cogitation, which descended on the flesh of the Logos; thereby darkning the understanding with phrases. If they had apprehended the Logos in his Praeexistence or Incarna∣tion, as the Shechinah of God, and would have ex∣pressed that notion without phantastical or amusing terms, they might have instructed others, and seen the truth also better themselves when they had clothed it in fit and becoming words.

Fifthly, This notion may not be unuseful for the unfolding the Scriptures, which speak of the Praeexist∣ence of Christ before he was God-man; and explain them naturally, and not with such force and torture as they are exposed to in the So•…•…inian Comments. He that saith Abraham saw the Shechinah of the Praeexisting Lo∣gos, and thence inferreth that Christ was before that Patriarck, speaketh plain sense. But he that says Christ was not till more than 2000 years after Abrahams death, yet that he was before him, because he was before Abraham was Abraham, or before all Nations were bles∣sed in his seed, the Gentiles not being yet called; such a one speaks like a Sophist, not an honest Interpreter; and forgets that Christs answer (before Abraham was, I am) follows upon this Interrogatory of the Jews,

Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

Sixthly, This notion may further shew the error of those Semi-Socinians, such as Vorstius and his Disciples, who confound the Immensity of the God-head, and the visible Glory of the Shechinah, which God hath pleased as it were to circumscribe. They will allow this King of the world no further room for his Immense substance than that which his especial Presence irradi∣ates in his particular Palace a 1.309. Which conceit though in part it be accommodable to the Shechinah; yet is it a presumptuous limitation of the great God, when it is applied to his substance which Heaven and Earth toge∣ther cannot contain.

Furthermore, it is from hence in part, that we see and pity the blindness of some of the modern Jews b 1.310, who notwithstanding they are the professed enemies of Divine Statues and Images, and have reason enough to believe that the Ark of God hath dwelt among us in a body of flesh, and now shineth in the Heavens; do yet hope (some say) for an especial presence of God by furnishing with a Chest and Roll of their Law, the places of their Religious Assemblies.

Again, by considering with St. Chrysostome the Tem∣ple of Solomon as a Type, not only of the sensible but also of the invisible world; and by considering further the Shechinah and Ark of God more especially in the Holiest of all than in the Sanctuary and more exterior Courts and spaces; we may illustrate that very useful and most probable notion of the degrees of Glory, and of the several Mansions prepared for several Estates in the Kingdom of Glory; where notwithstanding every part will be so far, though inequally, filled with lu∣ster, that all may be said with open face to behold the Glory of God, and not those only next the Coelestial

Ark or Throne in the most holy place.

But these things (as I said) are beyond my scope; though appertinencies to my Argument; and there∣fore I will no further pursue them, but proceed to those uses of the notion which lye more directly in the way of my design. The first of them concerneth the worship of Angels, the second of Images.

PART 8. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah, with relation to the Worship of Angels and Images.

FIrst, The Worshippers of Angels plead for their practice, from those places in the Old Testament, which seem to speak of high Veneration used towards them. T. G. a 1.311 argueth from the Prayer [which in∣deed is rather the wish] of Jacob, where he saith, The Angel who delivered me from all evils bless these Chil∣dren b 1.312. The Manual called the Abridgment of Chri∣stian Doctrine c 1.313 would prove the Worship of Dulia to belong to Angels, from the falling of Joshua flat to the ground when the Prince of the Host of God ap∣peared to him. The like proof is produced by the Ca∣techism of Trent d 1.314 from the blessing which Jacob ob∣tained of the Angel with whom he strugled. If Christ were considered as the Angel of the great Council ap∣pearing in cases of moment under the Old Testament, and receiving the veneration most due to him; the Worshippers of Angels would either change their wea∣pons, or quite lay them down.

Then touching the Worship of Images, this notion is very serviceable in that controverted point; as like∣wise in the point of making either Religious S•…•…atues or Pictures. If any thing of the Divinity be to be por∣traied, we learn from hence what it may be, not the

Godhead but the Shechinah: That is visible, and the expressing of it with the best lights and shadows of Art may therefore be not unlawful, though I know not whether I ought to plead for the expediency of it in common use. There was it seems in a Frontispiece of our Common-Prayer Books a 1.315 some such Embleme. The word Jehovah and a three corner'd radiant light and clouds, and Angels. He that took notice of this in Print, and might have observed the like before some of the great Church-Bibles, and somewhat worse, the picture of a Dove with rays of glory before the Biblia Polyglotta, did not well to call it a representing of God b 1.316, and to charge that upon the Church which was the fancy of the Engraver and Printer. I have al∣ready noted a much worse Frontispiece in each of the three parts of the Pontifical, where God is pictured as man. And in those days in which the Bishop of Rome ruled in England, there were Emblemes apt to suggest a very dangerous fancy to common brains; Pictures of the Trinity in three conjoined heads of human Figure. And so ordinary they were that they served as Signs to the Shops of Stationers, as now do the Heads of a King or a Bishop. And he that printed the Pupilla Oculi of de Burgo, was pleased to stamp his Sign in that manner on the Title-page of the Book. Nay, in the late Missal reprinted at Paris c 1.317 there is none of the best faces of an Old man pictured amongst Clouds and Angels over the Crucifix before the Canon of the Mass. And though I know not how to commend these things, yet I will not blame them as acts of their whole Church.

It does not any-where appear to me that the Jews of old pictured the Ark or the Temple, though now they make models of the whole. How near they come to the Original I cannot tell; but it is certain, that in picturing the Sanctuary above, we create a Phantasm,

which needs much to be helped by our Reason and Faith; it being in it self not equal in glory to those of the Sun and the Rainbow.

It is true that Pictures are but signs, and that words are so too; but it is not expedient to describe all things by the pencil which come from the voice. Words are Signs without Imagery in them, and they are tran∣sient a 1.318. Ye heard a voice only, but ye saw no similitude, saith God Almighty to the people, to whom he for∣bade Images b 1.319. Words are properly the symbols of the conceptions of the mind, and not of the external object. They are notes of memory, and helps of dis∣course. They are in themselves a kind of spiritual and immaterial marks. And though sometimes, especially in Poetick characters, they bring to the fancy some pre∣sent representation, yet they thereby fix a notion ra∣ther than a proper constant phantasm (unless where fancy is indulged); and they do not so grosly impress upon the brain the Image they convey, as a material Picture, which having also some tangible substance to sustain it, is apt to be transform'd into an object of worship, distinct from the Prototype, in dull and sen∣sitive minds. Besides, when by words we convey to the mind a representation of Heaven, or the Shechinah of God, we rest not there, but following the pattern of the Holy writers, we offer to the mind what the Pain∣ter cannot to the eye, this further document, that we have not by far reached the original, and that it is in∣deed beyond all expressions but those of admiration. When any such Pictures hang before us, we should in this manner exalt the phantasm into mental astonish∣ment, and not dwell on the mean portraict, but refine and exalt it by the assistance of the words of Scrip∣ture

which call the Shechinah, the excellent Glory, the Throne before which the Cherubims fall down

with vailed face, the light inaccessible in which God dwells, The Throne of the Lamb who is brighter than the Sun: words by which the Pen assisteth us beyond any Pencil of Angelo or Titian;

yet neither are their devotional pieces (where they mix not, as Angelo doth in his portraict of the Judgment, Hea∣ven and Christian Images; Charon and Christ) to be despis'd either as ornaments, or hints of memory.

In the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Parish-Priest is required to take care a 1.320 that Images be made, Ad utrius{que} Testamenti cognoscendam Historiam, for procuring the knowledg of the History of the Bi∣ble. And well it had been if it had stayed there: but it proceeds in requiring the Priest to teach the people that Images of Saints are placed in Churches, ut Co∣lantur, that they may be worship'd: either the Images or the Saints by them. Better sure, it were, to re∣move Images quite out of the Church, than to leave them as such stumbling-blocks for the commonalty who are Children in understanding. When they see them only at a distance with their eye, they may sometimes instruct them, and afford them hints of very good meditations: but when they are directed to bow down before them, and to them also, though with di∣stinctions which the vulgar understand not, they, then, are, if Laymens Books, Books of Magick, rather than of Christian Piety.

God, you see, hath provided a better remedy for mankind. His Son hath taken our nature into unity of person, and he offers himself to us as an object shining with glory and power in the Heavens, though not there, in his Godhead, confined: and therefore to use any Image of him otherwise then to be a hint to us of his more glorious one at Gods right hand, is to direct our devotion to the light of rotten Wood, or

Gold, or Pearl, when we have the Sun in the Firma∣ment. If we worship Christs Image as apart from him, we do, in effect, divide Christ. If we worship it together with him, we, in effect, multiply Christ, joyning a second lifeless body to his glorious one; and by that means adoring it, as if it were in personal uni∣on with him. They are safe who say with S. Jerome, b 1.321 “We venerate only one Image [to wit Jesus Christ] the Image of the Invisible and Omnipotent God. When the Father brought this brightness of his glory a 1.322 and the express Image of his Person into the World, he said, let all the Angels of God worship him. And now he hath installed him as God-man and King of the world at his right hand, let us and all the world adore him. Let them worship him as God-man, and neither worship an undue Image on earth as joyned to his person, nor yet his heavenly body as a∣part by it self. That, as join'd in unity of person, and now in glory, is our object; and a Crucifix ought not to be looked upon in prayer, as the present Image of Christ: for he is in Heaven glorious, and not on the Cross. And though the Revelation of S. John speaks of him as in Garments roll'd in blood; it men∣tions them not as miserable apparel, but as the Purple of the King of Kings. The Capitular of Charles the Great b 1.323 would have the Picture of Christs Resur∣rection as frequent as that of his Cross: but by both of them we look back; and if any be proper, in helping us, not meerly in our preparation, as the Crucifix may be; but in our immediate Religious ad∣dresses, it is, surely, a picture of him in Glory, if that could be well made: but neither is this to be wor∣shipped, but made only an help to excite our mind; nor is the humanity or body of Christ to be adored by it self; yet in the manuals of the Roman Church I

find addresses to the very body; and I fear that upon the Festival of Corpus Christi, and in the object under the shews of bread (shews united in their act of de∣votion to Christs body), our Lord is divided. We have a form of Prayer to his body in the little French Manual c 1.324 called Petite Catechisme, and in the Lita∣nies of the Sacrament d 1.325. And the Learned Bishop Usher, in his Sermon before the Commons e 1.326, men∣tions the Epistle Dedicatory of the Book of Sanders concerning the Lords Supper, thus superscribed.

To the body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, under the forms of bread and wine, all honour, praise, and thanks, be given for ever.

A Judicious Christian would rather ascribe all praise and honour to Christ God-man. Whole Christ let us supplicate and honour, helping our Imagination by his Shechinah in Glory, and remembring the words of St. Austin, no∣ted as remarkable by Agobardus f 1.327 Arch-Bishop of Lyons, a man zealous in his Age against the corruptions of Image-worship, and ill requited in his memory by them, who, (as Baluzius noteth g 1.328) esteem him the less Catholick for it.

In the first Command∣ment (saith S. Austine) [that is in the whole of that, which himself, elsewhere, in his Questions of the Old and New-Testament, divides into first and second] each similitude of God is forbidden to be made by men; not because God hath no Image, but because no Image of his ought to be worshipped but that which is the same with himself, nor that, for him, but with him.

God assisting us with this Image, why should any religious Acts have any lower object total or partial? Images set up as any sort of objects of our inward or external devotion, are a sort of Anti-Arks. And we ought not to touch them; not because they are sa∣cred,

but because they are unhallowed objects. And worse still they are rendred, too often, by impious Art, which maketh the lifeless Image (as in the Rood of Bockley) by help of Wiers, and other instruments of Puppetry, to bend, to frown, to roll the eyes; to weep, to bleed; to exhibit signs of favour or displea∣sure. This indeed, is not the constitution, but 'tis the frequent practice of some in that Church: and hereby are framed so many snares for the people who turn such Images into Christs Shechinah. For if certain Monks (who were also shepheards, and people of low conception) became, through their rusticity, absurd An∣thropomorphites, by reading the bare words of Scrip∣ture, where it saith, that God created man in his own Image; how much more will mean people have cor∣rupt fancies begotten in them by false Images, which their eyes may see, and their hands may handle. Such will turn a common Chest into an Ark; and a wooden Engine into the Divine Shechinah.

Of the Sindon at Besanson, Chiffletius a Papist reporteth, That great numbers met twice a year on a Mountain nigh the City, to adore that cloth with Christs Image on it. Of it, he further saith, that it always shineth with a Divine presence [that is, in effect, that it is a She∣chinah of God], and that in great emergencies it is carried in procession like the Ark, being yet more holy than that Mosaic Vessel.

How shall the people not fall into Idolatry, when such false Shechinahs or Idols are layd in their way? How much more would it tend to edification to direct them to the Image of God, who sitteth in Glory at Gods right hand, and whom our minds the less behold in our devotions, the more our eye is fixed upon an Image of wood or stone. In the City or Church of God, described in the 21st chapter of S. Johns Revelation, There was no Temple

no material fixed place of Gods visible Shechinah [though there must be Synagogues or Places for pub∣lick Assemblies]; but Christ himself was the Light or Shechinah: and therefore to him, as to the only true Image of the invisible God, it is proper to direct our Cogitations and Prayers. And let not any man think that because the Shechinah is in Heaven, and not visi∣bly in a Church, as the Shechinah was in the Temple of the Jews; that therefore Christians have less assist∣ance than Gods ancient People: for they have that which is much more excellent. The Glory on the Ark was only a mixture of shapeless lights and shadows: and in the Temple, the people seldom saw it, but be∣ing assured of it, did view it in their imagination. And few of them had other apprehensions of it, than as of the presence of God the deliverer and Protector of that Commonwealth.

But Christians (a people under a more spiritual dis∣pensation than the Jews) though they see not the Shechinah with their eyes on earth, yet, from the words of Scripture, they can excite their minds to be∣hold it, even in the Sanctuary of Heaven. And they behold it in the figure of God-incarnate; an Image, not confused, but of a distinct person: an Image which brings to their mind the greatest and most com∣fortable mystery of the means of Salvation; aptest to encourage our Prayers, and to enflame our Zeal, and to raise our Admiration.

Some objects indeed, are, on earth, exposed to the eyes of Christians, by the Institution of our Lord; the elements of Bread and Wine. And the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or place on which they are consecrated is, at this day, called, in the Greek Church, a 1.329 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the Propi∣tiatory or mercy-Seat. And a late Author b 1.330 re∣porteth of the Abassine Priests, upon the Authority of

Codignus, (though in Codignus I could never find it a 1.331) That they blessed a certain Shrine or Coffer of the Sacrament, understanding by it the Ark of the Covenant. But Christ hath ordained no Cherubims on this Ark: He hath not used any Images, but pledges of his dying love. These pledges, with safety, call his passion to remembrance without any Image on the Table, which the Gallican Church, of old, forbad, in the Council of Rhemes, even after some corruptions had crept in b 1.332. Neither should we detain our Fancy amongst those Pledges; but obey the sursum Corda of the Ancient Church. It seemeth incongru∣ous to rest on the Symbols, or to bow down to them; they being, as it were, the dishes in our sacred Com∣memoration, or Festival of Christ crucified; but it more becometh us to lift up our heart, and eyes, and hands, and faith, with humble reverence towards the Heavens, and to worship God-man in Glory: To a∣dore our great Master and Benefactour Jesus, not as suffering on Calvary, but as triumphing in the Sanctu∣ary not made with hands.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Nicol. Dra∣bitius in Epit. Revelat. Divi∣nar. p. 535.—ab isto ma∣ligno malorum omnlum Autho∣re Satanâ.
• a 1.2

  S. Joh. 1. 18.
• b 1.3

  1 Joh. 4. 12.
• c 1.4

  Tertull. Ad∣vers. Prax. Sect. 14. pag. 507, 508.
• d 1.5

  1 Tim. 6. 16.
• a 1.6

  See Maimo. de fund. Leg. c. 1. sect. 9, 10. p. 5, 6, 7, &c.
• b 1.7

  Tertull. cont. Prax, p. 507.
• c 1.8

  Ranters E∣pistles, p. 24, 25, 28.
• a 1.9

  Let this difficult Argu∣ment, about the Shechinah, be read with caution; even where I have not intersper∣sed words of Caution.
• a 1.10

  Hab. 3. 3, 4.
• a 1.11

  Orac. Chald. ap. Psellum, p. 81. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• b 1.12

  Just. Martyr in Dial. cum Tryph. p. 357.
• c 1.13

  Orig. in St. Hieron. Ep. ad Avitum. Arr∣ap. S. Chrys. in 1 Joh. 18. & Athanas. vol. 2. p. 575, 576. See Novat. de Trin. c. 25. & 31.
• d 1.14

  Eisterf. contr. Crell. l. 1. Sect. 2. c. 30. p. 298, &c.
• a 1.15

  See Euseb. in Dem. & Petav. de Trin. p. 792.
• b 1.16

  S. Aug. Epist. 112. c. 8. In∣visibilis est e∣nim natura Dei, non tantum Pa∣ter, sed & ipsa Trinitas, •…•…nus Deus.
• c 1.17

  S. Aust. l. 2. de Trin. c. 9, 10, 11, 17. See G. Nyss. lib. 1. advers. Eunom. & Cat. conc. Trident. p. 394.
• d 1.18

  Mr. Thornd. Epilog. l. 2. c. 13. p. 90, 91.
• e 1.19

  Ign. Ep. Inter∣pol. ad Philad. p. 186. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, in∣stead of, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Hebr. 1. 2.
• a 1.20

  Tertull. l. 2. contr. Marc. Profitemur Christum semper egisse in Dei Pa∣tris nomine. & advers. Prax. Sect. 16. p. 509. Filius-visios est semper, & fili∣us conversatus est semper, & filius operatus est semper, ex auctoritate Pa∣tris & volun∣tate.
• b 1.21

  Socr. Hist. Eccl. l. 2. c. 30. p. 122, 123.
• c 1.22

  See the mi∣stake of Socr. and Soz. conc. the Symb. of Marc. Areth. in notis H. Va∣lesii. p. 29.
• d 1.23

  Tert. advers. Prax. Sect. 24. p. 515.
• a 1.24

  Euseb. de Praep. Evang. l. 11. c. 15. p. 533. de se∣cundo Principio ex Philone.
• b 1.25

  Philo (in lib. de Profugis. p. 466. B. C.) says the High-Priest is not a man, but Gods Logos clothed with the four Elements, &c.
• c 1.26

  Philo de Mundi Opificio, p. 6. C.
• d 1.27

  Id. p. 5. C.
• e 1.28

  See Origen in Com. in S. Johan. p. 25.
• f 1.29

  J. Mart. Apol. 1. p. 48. Apol. 2. p. 56.
• a 1.30

  Gen. 3. 8, 9,
• b 1.31

  Tert. adv. Prax. Sect. 16. p. 509.
• c 1.32

  Hil. Pict. de Trin. l. 12. p. 315.
• d 1.33

  Theoph. Anti∣och. ad Autol. p. 99, 100.
• * 1.34

  Maimon. Mo∣re Neb. Part. 1. c. 49. p. 73. per Lahat ibi intelligitur An∣gelus qui est in∣star flammae.
• a 1.35

  Anselmi Elu∣cidar. c. 15. p. 461. Gladi∣us fuit igneus murus, &c.
• b 1.36

  Gen. 15. 17.
• c 1.37

  See Hom. 1l. 2. V. 353. of. Jove lightning on the right∣hand in token of his favour. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• a 1.38

  Gen. 11. 7.
• b 1.39

  Novat. de Trin. cap. 25. p. 723.
• * 1.40

  Deut. 32. 8.
• * 1.41

  Gen. 11. 5, &c.
• a 1.42

  Socrat. l. 2. c. 30. p. 123. & Hilar. Pict. de Syn. p. 373. & Athan. de Syn. p. 693.
• b 1.43

  Euseb. de Dem. Evang. l. 5. c. 9. p. 233, 234.
• a 1.44

  Id. ibid. p. 234.
• b 1.45

  Sozom. Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 4. p. 447, 448.
• c 1.46

  Euseb. in Ec∣cles. Hist. l. 1. c. 2. p. 7. And Just. Mart. in Dial. cum Tryph. p. 375: C.
• d 1.47

  Gen. 19. 24.
• e 1.48

  Socrat. l. 2. c. 30. p. 132.
• f 1.49

  Hil. de Tr. l. 4. p. 66, 67, 68, 85, And Euseb. in l. 5. c. 9. Dem. Evang p. 234.
• g 1.50

  Cyr. Alex. contra Julian. l. 1. p. 20.
• h 1.51

  De Trin. p 66
• i 1.52

  Gen. 16. 13.
• k 1.53

  k Gen. 16. 10.
• l 1.54

  l Ver. 7.
• m 1.55

  See Grot. on Gen. 49. 10. Silob 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• n 1.56

  H•…•…l. l. 4. de Trin. p 66. & Novat. c. 26. p. 724.
• o 1.57

  See J. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 301. and Isa. 9. 6. for this, there, is the reading of the LXX. fol∣low'd by the Fathers. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. See Cy•…•…. Alex. The∣saur. Tom 5. p 116.
• p 1.58

  Tert. de Car∣ne Christi. sect. 14. p. 319. di∣ctus est quidem magni co•…•…silii Angeius, idest nuncius; officii, non naturae vo∣cabulo.
• q 1.59

  See Philo de Somn. &c. and J. Mart. dial. cum Tryph. p. 357. and his Apol. 2. p. 95.
• r 1.60

  J. Mart. dial. p. 356.
• s 1.61

  Id. ib. p. 357.
• s 1.62

  1 Cor. 8. 6.
• a 1.63

  Euseb in Ec∣cles. Hist. l. 1. c. 2. p. 7. and in Demonstr. Evang. l. 5. c. 10. p. 235. &c.
• b 1.64

  Hil. de Trin. l. 4. p. 69, 70.
• c 1.65

  J. Mart. dial. cum Trypb. p. 355, 356, 358.
• d 1.66

  Symb. Syrm. ap. Hil. de Syn. p. 373 & Socr. Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 30. p. 123.

  See Novat. de Trin. c. 27. p. 725. And Gen. 31. 11, 13. the Angel said, I am the God of Bethel, &c.
• a 1.67

  Auth. lib. de Mundo inter op. Aristot. p. 860.
• b 1.68

  See Reyn. de Idol. Eccl. Rom. l. 2. c. 3. p. 476, 477, &c.
• a 1.69

  S. Chrys. Tom. 5. Op. in diem nat. Christi. p. 422.
• a 1.70

  See Just. Martyr in Apol, 2. p. 95.
• b 1.71

  Id. ibid. p. 96. and in his Dial. cumTryph. p. 356. B.
• c 1.72

  Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 1. c. 2. p. 7, 8.
• d 1.73

  S. Hil. de Trin. p. 70, 71.
• e 1.74

  S. Ambros. Tom. 4. Op. p. 222. See Athan. contra Arianos. Orat. 4. p. 467. A. B.
• * 1.75

  Philo de vit â Mosis, p. 594, 595.
• f 1.76

  Exod. 13. 21, 23.
• g 1.77

  Exod. 14. 19.
• a 1.78

  Euseb. de de∣monstr. Evang. l. 5. c. 14. p. 241.
• b 1.79

  See Exod. 33. 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. compar'd with Chap. 23. v. 21, 22, 23.
• c 1.80

  Eccl. 5. 6.—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.—
• d 1.81

  Lactant. de verâ Sap. l. 4. p. 374.
• e 1.82

  Exod. 14. 19, 20, 21, 22.
• f 1.83

  Psal. 68. 17.
• a 1.84

  Tertull. Ad∣v•…•…rs. Judaeos, p. 194. B
• b 1.85

  Gal. 3. 19.
• c 1.86

  In Quarto, Lond. 1610.
• d 1.87

  1 Cro. 10. 9.
• a 1.88

  Act. 7. 38.
• b 1.89

  Curcell. Insti∣tut. p. 40, 41.
• c 1.90

  Tentam. Theol. p. 289.
• a 1.91

  Just. Mart. in Apol. 1. p. 48, 49.
• b 1.92

  Tertul. de Resurrect. Carn. Sect. 51. p. 357. J•…•…sus—Adam novissimus, etsi sermo primarius. And advers. Prax. p. 509.—Constat eum semper visum ab Initio, Qui vi∣sus fuerat in fine, &c.
• c 1.93

  Le Blanc in Thesi an Chri∣stus sit med. sec. nat. hum. & div. sect. 23. p. 812.
• a 1.94

  Hil. Pict. de Trin. l. 4. p. 856
• b 1.95

  S. Athan. op. Vol. 1. p. 86. and p. 537. B.
• c 1.96

  Praef. ante Leges Aler. di ad calcem Eccl. Hist. Haymonis.
• d 1.97

  Aug. Epist. 119.
• e 1.98

  Numb. 12, 8.
• a 1.99

  Exod. 33. 23.
• b 1.100

  Exod. 33. 14
• c 1.101

  Exod. 24. 16, 17.
• a 1.102

  Exod. 24. 1, 9, 10, 11. comp. with Ex∣od. 19. 21, 23.
• b 1.103

  Heb. 12, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.
• c 1.104

  Ezek. 9. 3.
• d 1.105

  See Ezek. c. 1. &. 10.
• e 1.106

  Lactant. de vera sap. l. 4. p. 376. Aureum caput bovis figuratum.
• f 1.107

  S. Hieron. Commen. in 4. Hos.
• g 1.108

  Ezek. 10. 14. See R. Sal. Franco's Truth springing out of the earth, p. 15.
• * 1.109

  Ez•…•…k. 1. 10.
• a 1.110

  Lud. de dieu. in Epist. ad D. Guil. Eos. well, inter Op. doctis. Medi, p. 704.
• c 1.111

  Pfal. 106. 19.

  Rom. 1. 23.
• d 1.112

  Jer. 2. 11.
• a 1.113

  S. Chrys. in Hom. de Nativ. vol. 5. op. p. 422. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.114

  Maim. in More Nev. par. 3. c 45. p. 475.
• a 1.115

  I Sam. 5. 4.
• b 1.116

  Moncaeus in Aar. purg. ap. Crit. maj. p. 4428.
• c 1.117

  Plutarc. de Iside, p. 362. C.
• * 1.118

  Philo de Pro∣fugis. p. 465. B. C—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [i. e. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• d 1.119

  Maimon. de Fund Leg Sect. 8. p. 18. & Sect. 9. p. 20.
• a 1.120

  Greg. Nyssen. de vitâ Moysis, •…•…om. 1. Op. p. 225.
• b 1.121

  In 2. Praec•…•…pt, p. 209. minimè—sequitar, &c.
• c 1.122

  Ezek. 1. 4, 5. &c. 9. 3. &c. 10. 3, 4.
• d 1.123

  See Cuperi Harpocr. p. 15, 16, 17. And Porphyry, who calls the Sun, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• e 1.124

  Psal. 78. 60, 61.
• f 1.125

  Psal. 63. 2.
• g 1.126

  Psal. 99. 5. & 132. 7. Isa. 60. 13.
• h 1.127

  Author ex∣cerpt. de Trad. Hebr. in. Para∣li•…•…. inter op. S. Hieron. Tom. 3. p. 261.
• a 1.128

  1 Pet. 1. 12.
• b 1.129

  Psal. 24. 6. & 42. 2.
• c 1.130

  Numb. 10. 35, 36. 1 Sam. 4. 7. & 6. 20. 2 Sam. 7. 6. Psal. 24. 7, 8. Psal. 68. 8, 25.
• d 1.131

  Clem. Alex: Strom. l. 5. p. 559.
• e 1.132

  Volkel. de verâ Relig. l. 5. c. 24. de Idol. p. 582.
• f 1.133

  Bell. d•…•… Imag. l. 2. c. 12.
• a 1.134

  See T. G. Cath. no Idol. p. 205, 206.
• b 1.135

  Psal. 99. 5.
• c 1.136

  Psal. 28. 2.
• d 1.137

  Kircher in Carm. ded. Ars magna lu∣cis & umbrae—cadit ad Genua orientis solis.
• * 1.138

  Dr. Vane in his lost sheep return'd home c. 21. p. 304.
• f 1.139

  Tertul. contr. Marc. l. 2. c. 22. p. 392. Sic & Cher. & Ser. aurea in Arcâ figuratum exem∣plum, certè sim∣plex ornamen∣tum, accommo∣data suggestui, longè diversas habendo causas ab Idoiolatriae conditione, ob quam similitudo prohibetur, &c.
• g 1.140

  T. G. Cath. 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Idol. p. 20•…•….
• a 1.141

  In Tom. 1. Op. S. Hieron. p. 123, 124.
• b 1.142

  Socr. Eccl. Hift. p. 191. l. 3. c. 18.
• c 1.143

  See Epist. S. Hieron. ad Ri∣par. Presbyt. op. Tom. 2. p. 118.
• d 1.144

  See Bishop Whites Orthod. Faith. p. 111. Capit. Caroli Magni. c. 26. p. 271. Dr. Still. a∣gainst T. G. p. 710, 711, &c.
• e 1.145

  In Vot•…•… pro Pace, p. 41.
• a 1.146

  Act. 14. 8, t•…•… 13.
• b 1.147

  Exod. 28. 30.
• a 1.148

  Philo Jud. de Prosugis, p. 466 B.
• b 1.149

  Dr. Jack∣son in vol. 3. p. 803.
• c 1.150

  H. Grotius in Exod. 28. 4. And Munster in v. 5. p. 653. Crit. Maj.
• d 1.151

  Exod. 28. 5, 8. a Breast-plate, an Ephod, a Robe, a broi∣der'd Coat, a Miter—a Girdle, v. 36. a Plate of gold.
• e 1.152

  Hosea 3. 4.
• f 1.153

  LXX. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, i. e. sine urim.
• g 1.154

  Doctiss. D. Spenc. in Dis∣sert. de Urim & Thummim, c. 5. sect. 2. p. 251, 252, 253.
• h 1.155

  S. Hier. Tom. 3. ad Dam. p. 117. Seraphim. sic•…•…t in inter∣pret. nom. Hebr. invenimus, Ar∣dor aut Incen∣dium—in∣terpretantur. Tom. 5. p. 29. Seraphim in∣terpretantur 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [not the LXX, who in Isa. 6. 2. use 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] quod nos •…•…e pos∣s•…•…, Incen∣dentes seu com∣burent•…•…s.
• i 1.156

  In Judic. c. 17. v. 4. p. 2123. ap. C. M.
• k 1.157

  S. Hi•…•…ron. ad Marcell. Tom. 3. op. p. 72, 73.
• l 1.158

  Exod. 26. 31. With Cheru∣bims shall it be made. Vers. Arab. With Pi∣ctures.
• a 1.159

  S. Hieron in Isa. 6. p. 29. Tom. 5. op. In Cherubim osten∣dit•…•…r Dominus; ex Seraphim ex parte ostenditur, ex parte cela∣tur. Idem. Tom. 3. op. ad Dama∣sum Papam. p. 121. Super Cheru∣bim sedere De∣um, scriptum est—super Se∣raphim verò sedere Deum, nul∣la script. com∣memorat, & ne ipsa quidem Se∣raphim circa Deum stantia, excepto present. loco (viz. Isa. 6.) in SS.—invenimus.
• b 1.160

  Exod. 25. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.
• c 1.161

  Levit. 8. 8.
• a 1.162

  Numb. 2•…•… 6, 8.
• b 1.163

  Deut. 8. 15.
• c 1.164

  Herod. l. 2. p. 132. •…•…ic. de Nat. Deor. l. 1.
• d 1.165

  Isa. 14. 29.
• e 1.166

  Abarb. Com. in Leg. fol. 305. ap. G. Moebi∣um de AEneo Serpente. Exerc. 2. c. 2. sect. 11.
• f 1.167

  Gages Survey of the West-Indics, p. 117.
• g 1.168

  Herodot. in E•…•…ter. p. 132.
• h 1.169

  See Pignor. de M•…•…â Isia∣câ. p. 23.
• a 1.170

  Max. Tyr. dis∣sert. 38. p. 373.
• b 1.171

  Eras. Stel. ad Init. l. 1. de Antiq. Boruss. & samog.
• c 1.172

  See Tertull∣de paescrip. Her. c. 47. p. 220.
• d 1.173

  Kircher in Oe∣dip. synt. 18. p. 508, 509. c. 1.
• e 1.174

  Wisd. 16. 5▪ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• f 1.175

  See Porphyr. de Abstin. l. 4. p. 155. giving the like reason for the wor∣ship of the E∣g•…•…ptian Hawk.—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• g 1.176

  Diod. Sic. l. 3. c. 10. p. 143. See Max. Tyr. diss. 38. p. 373.
• h 1.177

  Voss. de Idol. l. 9. c. 11. p. 234.
• i 1.178

  Pignor. de mensâ Isiaca. p. 24.
• k 1.179

  Herod. l. 2. p. 132. A.
• l 1.180

  Euseb. de praep: l. 1. c. 10. p. 41.
• a 1.181

  Kirch. Oed. Tom. 3 p. 160, 199.
• b 1.182

  Macrob. l. 1. Sat. c. 20. p. 295.
• c 1.183

  See Cartari's Imag. p. 156.
• d 1.184

  Kirch. Sphinx. mystagoga. p. 57.
• e 1.185

  Eus. de praep. Evang. l. 1. c. 10. de Phaen. Theol. p. 41, 42. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• f 1.186

  Elucid. Pseu∣do- Anselmi. l. 1. c. 15. p, 461. Disc. Quamdiu sue∣r•…•…nt in Para∣diso? Mag. Septem[al. Sex] horas.
• a 1.187

  Mr. Mede's Works, p. 292.
• b 1.188

  Oëdip. Egypt. Synt. 3. c. 4.
• c 1.189

  Maimon. More Nevochim. par. 2. c. 30. p. 280.
• d 1.190

  Id. ibid. par. 1. c. 49. p. 73.
• e 1.191

  Isa, 6. 2, 6.
• a 1.192

  Tertull. de Praescr. Haer. p. 220. C.—Iftum suisse ser∣pentem cui Eva, ut filio Dei, cre∣diderat.
• b 1.193

  Id. adv. Val. c. 2. p. 251. Illa [i. e. Columba] a primordio, Divinae Pacis Praeco. Ille [i. e. Serpens] a pri∣mordio, divine Imaginis Prae∣do.
• c 1.194

  Maim. More Nev. par. 3. c. 45. p. 476.
• d 1.195

  S. Hier. in Isa. c. 6. Tom. 4. p. 29.
• e 1.196

  See Doctiss. D. Spenceri Diss. de ur. & Thum. p. 16, 17, 18.
• f 1.197

  Levit. 8. 8.
• a 1.198

  I Sam. 23. 11, 12. The Lord said, [by the Ephod] he will descend,—they will deliver ye up.
• * 1.199

  See, notwith∣standing Dr. Spencer. Dissert. de ur. & Thum. p. 34, &c.
• b 1.200

  Exod. 28. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
• c 1.201

  Numb 21. 8. Ar. Mont. vers. Fac Tibi Sa∣raph.
• a 1.202

  Numb. 21. 8. Lxx. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Ar. Mont. super vexillum.
• b 1.203

  Joh. 3. 14.
• c 1.204

  D. Jackson, vol. 2 p. 916, 917, &c.
• * 1.205

  Marius ap. Moëb. de AEn. Serp. Ex. 2, e. 2. Sect. 15.—At{que} ità lig∣num •…•…oc Crucis gessisset figuram, sicuti Christi 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Typum gessit hic S•…•…r∣pens.
• d 1.206

  Wisd. 16. 7. See Chald. Par. in Num. 21. 8. He shall recover if he direct his heart to the Word of the Lord. Targ. Hieros.—If he lift his face to his Fa∣ther in the Hea∣vens.
• a 1.207

  Diod. Sic. l. 1. Bibl. c. 75. p. 66.
• b 1.208

  AEl. var. Hist. l. 14. c. 34.
• c 1.209

  See LXX, & Scalig. de E∣mend. Temp. l. 7. p. 654.
• * 1.210

  Consider Exod. 24. 7.
• a 1.211

  Grot. in Heb. 9. 4. p. 4268. in M. C.
• b 1.212

  Joseph. 8. 2.
• c 1.213

  King. 8. 9.
• d 1.214

  2 Chron. 5. 10.
• e 1.215

  Exod. 16. 33.
• f 1.216

  Numb. 17. 10.
• g 1.217

  Heb. 9. 3, 4.
• h 1.218

  Judg. 18. 12.
• i 1.219

  1 Sam. 28. 6.
• a 1.220

  Diod. Sic. l. 1. c. 87. p. 76.
• * 1.221

  Psal. 119. 142, 151.
• * 1.222

  Psal. 19. 7.
• * 1.223

  Psal. 119. 96.
• b 1.224

  Ecclus. 33. 3. Sec. Vers. LXX. c. 36. 3.—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• c 1.225

  Scal. de E∣mend. Temp. p. 654.—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. h. e. tanquam urim & Thum∣mim.
• c 1.226

  Joh. 1. 17.
• d 1.227

  Deut. 33. 8.
• e 1.228

  Munster in Exod. 28. de urim & Thum∣mim Quales fu∣erint Res, nemi∣ni mortalium constat.
• a 1.229

  Josh. 5. 13, 14, 15.
• b 1.230

  See Hen. Va∣lesii not. in Eu∣seb. Eccl. Hist. l. 1. c. 2. p. 7.
• d 1.231

  Usher in An∣nal. vet. Testam. p. 21. Ed. Pa∣ris.
• a 1.232

  See Bisterfeld. contr. Crell. l. 1. Sect. 2. c. 30. p. 298.
• b 1.233

  Psal. 17. 15.
• c 1.234

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• d 1.235

  1 Kings 8. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
• e 1.236

  1 King. 8. 12, 13.
• f 1.237

  2 Chron. 6. 1.
• g 1.238

  2 Chron. 5. 13.
• h 1.239

  Matt. 17. 5.
• i 1.240

  1 King. 9. 2.
• k 1.241

  1 King. 3. 5.
• l 1.242

  1 King. 19. 8, 10, 14, 15.
• m 1.243

  S. Hieron. Tom. 5. oper. fol. 211. D.
• n 1.244

  Isai. 6. 1, 2, 3, 4.
• o 1.245

  John 12. 41.
• p 1.246

  See Ezek. 10. 18. c. 11. 23.
• q 1.247

  Cippi Hibrai∣ci. p. 24.
• r 1.248

  Pseudo. Ansel∣mi Elucidar. c. 24. p. 476.
• a 1.249

  See Othon. Lex. Rabbin. p. 476, 477.
• b 1.250

  Dan. 7. 9, to 15.
• c 1.251

  S. Hier. in Dan. p. 587. Also Euseb. in l. 1. c. 2. Eccl. Hist. p. 10.
• a 1.252

  See Jos. Scal. de Emend. Temp. l. 7. p. 654. and 1. Mach. 9. 27.
• * 1.253

  * See Light. Harm. 1. 35.
• b 1.254

  See Greg. Nyss. contra A. pollin. op. Tom. 3. p. 287. & Procl. ad Armen. p. 17, 18. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 &c. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• c 1.255

  Act. 7. 44.
• d 1.256

  Hebr. 8. 5.
• e 1.257

  Clom. Alex. strom. 4. p. 528.
• f 1.258

  G•…•…g. Nyssen. Tom. 1. d•…•… vitâ Moysis, p. 225.
• a 1.259

  Comp. Psal. 132. 8. with 2 Chron, 6. 41:
• b 1.260

  Castal. in Psal. 132. 6. hujus loci sen∣tentiam non In∣telligo.
• c 1.261

  Hilar. Picta. in Psal. 131. 1. e. 132. p. 1051.
• d 1.262

  2 Sam: 6.
• e 1.263

  Heb. 7. 14.
• a 1.264

  Joh. 1. 14. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is the same in sense and almost in sound with Shachan he dwelt, whence She∣chinah.
• b 1.265

  Comp. Josh. 4. 7. and Matt. 3. 13.
• c 1.266

  Joh. 1. 32, 33.
• d 1.267

  See Daill. de Dion. Ar. p. 165.
• e 1.268

  Matt. 17. 5. Mark. 9. 7. 2 Pet. 1. 16, 17. 18.
• f 1.269

  Clem. Alex. strom. 7. p. 702. C.
• g 1.270

  Psal. 132. 8. and Psal. 105. 4. seek the Lord and his strength. al. his Ark, or Face.
• * 1.271

  Heb. 10. 20.
• a 1.272

  See Cyr. Alex. Sc•…•…l. de Incarn. ap. Concil. Ephes. prim. c. 17. p. 960.
• b 1.273

  See Hil. Pi∣ctav. de Trin. l. 4. p. 152, 153, 154.
• c 1.274

  Hil. Pi•…•…. p. 154. See Concil. Max. Tom. 5. p. 349. c. d. Tom. 1•…•… p. 361. e.
• d 1.275

  Joh. 5. 3•…•….
• a 1.276

  Vide Concil. Max. Tom. 7. p. 310. e. p. 875. a. Tom. 1. 619. b. 622. a. S. Athan. v. 1. p. 53. d. p. 90. d. p 94. c. p. 72. d. p. 619. b. p. 622. a.
• b 1.277

  Isa. c. 2. v. 18, 20. Zeph. 2. 11. Zach. 13. 2.
• c 1.278

  See Athan. vol. 1. p. 102. e.
• d 1.279

  Prod. of Eg. p. 65, 66.
• e 1.280

  S. Hieron. Tom. 5. fol. 158. a.
• f 1.281

  Athan. vol. 1. p. 89. c. and p. 165. a.
• g 1.282

  S. Hieron. in Isa. p. 6.
• h 1.283

  Isa. 19. 1.
• i 1.284

  See Hilar. Pict. l. 1. de Trin. p. 154. a. b. c.
• k 1.285

  Hebr. 1. 3.
• l 1.286

  Revel. 1. 5. c. 3. 14.
• m 1.287

  Act. 3. 26. compared with 2 Sam. 6. 11, 12. and Psal. 133. 3.
• a 1.288

  See Greg. Nyssen. de vitâ Moysis. Tom. 1. p. 225.
• b 1.289

  Rom. 3. 25.
• c 1.290

  1 Joh. 2. 2.
• d 1.291

  S Hier. in Ezek. Op. Tom. 5. p. 540.
• e 1.292

  Seventy in Ezek. 43. 14.—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.—
• * 1.293

  S. Joh. 2. 19, 21.
• f 1.294

  1 Sam. 4. 10, 11.
• g 1.295

  Acts 7. 55.
• h 1.296

  Conc. Const: 7. Oec. ap. Cap. Caroli Magni. p. 47.
• i 1.297

  Rev. 19. 13.
• k 1.298

  Ver. 6.
• l 1.299

  Ver. 16.
• m 1.300

  V. 11, 12. See c. 22.
• a 1.301

  Virg. AEn. 12. Illi ad surgentem con∣versi lumina Solem.—
• * 1.302

  Lucian in Necyom. p. 159.
• * 1.303

  See Cuperi Harpocrat. p. 101.
• * 1.304

  S. Aug. cont. Faustum. l. 20. c. 5. Ad Solis gyrum vestra oratio circum∣volvitur.
• b 1.305

  LXX. in Psal. 68. 33. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.—
• c 1.306

  See Damase. de Fide Orth. l. 3. c. 13. p. 311, 312.
• * 1.307

  P. Sterry in Serm. on Rev. 1. 7. p. 11.
• a 1.308

  Ap. Cloppen∣burg. Gangren. Anab. p. 281, 282.
• a 1.309

  See Vorst. de De•…•…. Disp. 3. p. 22. & Not. ad Disp. 3. p. 215, &c. & Elucid. Pseudo-Ans. c. 3. p 458. D. ubi habitat Deus? M. quam∣vis ubique po∣tentialiter, ta∣men in Intelle∣ctuaii Coelo substantialiter:
• b 1.310

  See Mr. Mede's Works, p. 438.
• a 1.311

  Cath. no Idol. p. 367.
• b 1.312

  Gen. 48. 16.
• c 1.313

  Pag 123. in Expos. of 1. Command.
• d 1.314

  Catech. ad Parochos, in 1. Praec. p. 390.
• a 1.315

  Lond. 1642.
• b 1.316

  T. G. Cath. no Idol. p. 59.
• c 1.317

  Miss. Rom. Par. 1660. p. 222.
• a 1.318

  Crell. Eth. p. 329. de Idol. minor est rerum auditarum aut lectarum, quam visarum vis.
• b 1.319

  Deut. 4. 12.
• a 1.320

  Cat. cont. Trid. in 1. al. 2. praec. p. 396.
• b 1.321

  S. Hieron. in Ezek. c. 16. p. 425. Nos au∣tem—unam v•…•…neramur Ima∣ginem. Quae est Imago invisibi∣lis & omnipo∣tentis Dei.
• a 1.322

  Heb. 1. 3, 6.
• b 1.323

  Cap. c. Mag∣ni. p. 767.
• c 1.324

  Pet. Cat. p. 119. Orais. de∣vote en Oyant la Messe.—ô Corps sacre de Jesus,—je∣vous adore avec tant de re∣verence qu'il est possible—&c.
• d 1.325

  Les. Litan. de S. Sacr. p. 295. Panis Omnipo∣tentis verbi verbo caro fa∣ctus miserere nobis.
• e 1.326

  Bp. ush. Ser. p. 38, 39.
• f 1.327

  Agobar. in libr. contra Eor. superstit. Qui Pict. & I∣magin. Sancto∣rum adorationis obsequium defe∣rendum puta∣runt. p. 221.
• g 1.328

  Baluz. not. ad Agobard. p. 88, 89.
• a 1.329

  See de statu Eccl. Grae. hod. p. 41, 44, 45.
• b 1.330

  Ogilby in Af∣frica. p. 654
• a 1.331

  See Codign. de Rebus Abas∣sin. l. 1. c. 35. de Sacram. A∣bass. p. 212, &c.
• b 1.332

  Regin. l. 1. de Eccl. Disc. Const. 60. p. 53. observan∣dum est ut men∣sa Christi, id est, altare ubi cor∣pus domini cum consecratur, &c. cum omni vene∣ratione [not cultu] honore∣tur, &c. nibil∣{que} saper eo po∣natur nisi capsae cum sanctorum Reliquiis, & Quatuor Evan∣gelia. Baluz. not. ad L•…•…c. Re∣gin. p. 549. videtur ergo prohibere ne I∣magines super altare ponantur in quo Corpus dominicum con∣secratur.