LECT." right hand which raised up thy dif X. 66 In ciple finking in the mighty waters. "all things let our faith be toward thee, " and then shall thy power and mercy be "" toward us for deliverance and falvaAMEN, tion." LECTURE XI, THE USES AND EFFECTS OF THE SYMBOLICAL STYLE OF THE SCRIPTURE, Now WOW it hath been fhewn what the LECT, figurative language of the holy scrip ture is, by an induction of particulars; we may proceed to fpeak with more confidence concerning the ufes and good effects of it. We now ftand as it were upon an hill, up to which our enquiry hath conducted us, thence to furvey the fruitfulness of the holy land. We have seen that the law, in its facrifices and fervices, had a shadow of good things to come; that its history is an allegory; that God used fimilitudes by his prophets; that Chrift fpake in parables; that the apoftles preached the wisdom of God in a mistery; in a word, that the whole difpenfation of God towards XI. XI. LECT. towards man, is by figns, fhadows and figures of vifible things. The law of Mofes, the Pfalms, the Prophets, the Gofpels and Epiftles, and moft of all the Revelation of St. John, use and teach this figurative language: and therefore, in the ufe and interpretation of it must consist the wisdom of those who are taught of God. Here is the mind that bath wisdom, faith St. John, the feven heads are feven mountains, on which the woman fitteth: Where the word wisdom is applied to this fcience of decyphering the figurative expreffions in the language of the Revelation. So at the end of the 107th Pfalm, wherein the falvation of man's foul is fet forth under all the forms of deliverance from bodily dangers, it is added, whofo is wife and will obferve thefe things, even they shall underftand the loving kindness of the Lord. Whatever the form and manner may be after which the divine wifdom is communicated, it must be the beft: and fuch we shall find it when we enquire how the improvement of man's mind is promoted, and all the purposes of God's revelation answer XI. ed by the use of this fymbolical or figu- LECT. rative style of speaking from the images of things. 1. This method is neceffary to affift the mind in its conceptions, and fupply the natural defect in our understandings. Being men, invefted with an earthly body, which hath a sense of nothing but material things, we cannot fee truth and reason, in themselves, as fpirits do: these things are of a different nature from our fight; and therefore we are obliged to conceive them as they are reflected to us in the glafs of the visible forms, and fenfible qualities, of outward things. It is the excellence of this mode of speaking, that it is not confined to the people of any particular nation or language; but applies itself equally to all the nations of the earth, and is univerfal. It was not intended for the Hebrew or the Egyptian, the Jew or the Greek, but for man; for that being who is compofed of a reasonable foul and a fleshly body; and therefore XI. LECT. therefore it obtains equally under the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian Dispensation; and is of common benefit to all ages and all places. Words are changeable; language has been confounded: and men in different parts of the world are unintelligible to one another as barbarians; but the vifible works of nature are not subject to any such confufion; they speak to us now the fame sense as they spoke to Adam in paradife; when he was the pupil of heaven, and their language will last as long as the world. fhall remain, without being corrupted. Thus, for example, if we take the word God, we have a found which gives us no idea; and if we trace it through all the lauguages of the world, we find nothing but arbitrary founds, with great variety *of dialect and accent, all of which still leave us where we began, and reach no farther than the ear. But when it is faid, God is a fun and a fhield, then things are added to words, and we understand that the being fignified by the word God, is bright and |