name no other being is ever called, but the one eternal God. He says also, Rev. i. I am the first and the last;' and the Lord God saith, Isa. xliv. 6, I am the first and the last, and beside me there is no God.' This was that God of the Old Testament who gave the law by Moses, and said in his first commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods, but me.' This was Christ, whose Reproach Moses esteemed greater riches, than the treasures of Egypt;' Heb. xi. 26. This was that Christ, whom some of the blaspheming 'Israelites tempted, and were destroyed of serpents,' 1 Cor. x. 9; and of these Israelites was Christ the great sacrifice and Redeemer, and of them were his first apostles. Of them also were the slayers of this sacrifice, and those men, who put the truth of his resurrection and religion to the test of death, for the satisfaction of distant countries, and following ages. Caiaphas, with the Scribes and Pharisees, and Pontius Pilate, as priests, offered up this sacrifice, and the apostles preached it to the world, and died to prove the truth of what they preached. Long before, Moses also preached up Christ in these words, speaking to the Israelites, 'The Lord thy God shall raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me,' that is, ‘a prophet, a lawgiver, and a mediator; him ye shall hear.' For their astonishing blindness, infidelity, ingratitude, idolatry, and disobedience in the Wilderness, after seeing so many miracles, wrought by God in their behalf; see the confession of the Jews in the seventy-eighth and one hundred and sixth Psalms, and Neh. ix.

As soon as Moses had conducted the Israelites into a part of the promised land, he died, and Joshua was appointed to lead them forward to a conquest of the rest. This Joshua and Caleb were the only men who had seen the passage through the Red Sea, all the rest having died for their sins in the forty years' journey through the Wilderness. The name Joshua, is the same with Jesus, and signifies a Saviour, for this good man was appointed to save the Israelites from their enemies, and to subdue those enemies. Here is a very expressive allegory, wherein the Wilderness represents this world; Jordan, death; and the delightful land of promise, heaven. Joshua took the command of the people under the direction of God, at that season of the year, when there was always

such a flood in the river Jordan, as laid its banks, and a considerable part of the country on each side, under water. Yet here, in this very season, the whole multitude passed to the other side, without a bridge or boats, for God was pleased to keep up the waters on the right hand, while they ran off on the left, until his people had gone over on the dry bottom of the channel. This, if any thing, must have encouraged the faith and trust of the Hebrews, and so terrified the Canaanites, whose wickedness was then ripe for judgment, as to make the conquest of them a much easier task, than otherwise it might have been to a people, who had but lately began to learn the art of war.

arms.

To encourage to the uttermost the faith and reliance of Joshua and the Hebrews, the great Redeemer, of whom this leader was a remarkable type, appeared to him, Josh. v. This leader of the Hebrews had, ere this, received several revelations and directions from the Lord. But now was the time when he and his army most wanted encouragement and assistance. He had a people to command of little faith and little courage, ever ready to murmur and rebel, a stubborn and stiff-necked generation, like their fathers, more apt to insult their governor, than face their enemy, and but raw in With these he was to invade a most numerous and warlike people, among whom were many giants, inhabiting a mountainous country, full of strong towns, and narrow passes, with which they were perfectly acquainted, and he almost wholly ignorant. He had little or no provisions to hope for from the country he had left behind him, so that about six hundred thousand mouths were to be fed by their swords alone, the manna having just before ceased to fall. Humanly speaking, an attempt so rash as his, was never heard of from the creation to this day. As he was musing on these difficulties, and as it were balancing his faith and fears, he saw, at a little distance, a man with a sword drawn in his hand, to whom he went, and said, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?' and was answered, As captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.' On which immediately Joshua fell on his face, and did worship him, saying, What saith my Lord unto his servant?' And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place where on thou standest is holy :

and Joshua did so. And the Lord said unto Joshua, See I have given into thine hands Jericho, its king, and its mighty men of valour.' The Lord then gave him directions how to subdue that city by miracle, and without striking a stroke. In the mean time, the five most powerful kings of Canaan were assembling all their forces, and soon after gave him battle in the open field, reasonably enough hoping to crush him, and his half-disciplined army at one blow. Here it is evident, that he who fought for Joshua had deprived them of their understanding; for had they not emptied their strong towns, to reinforce their overgrown army, and only drawn together two or three flying parties to harass the Israelites in the sieges of those towns, they must have (speaking after the manner of men) in a little time undone their adversaries. But they fought, were overthrown, and by two extraordinary miracles were cut off almost to a man. This amazing defeat was quickly followed by a surrender of their strong cities, which had been left destitute of their garrisons. Thus the whole country, with all its provisions and wealth, lay open to Joshua and his army, and such a fear fell upon the other states and kingdoms of Canaan, that for a considerable time, they scarcely thought of making any resistance. Who now was this captain of the Lord's host? this Lord, whom Joshua worshipped without reproof? this being, who made holy ground of the place whereon he stood? It was, no doubt, the I AM, the same who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. It was the 'Captain of our salvation.' It was the Word of God,' who bears the two-edged sword,' as his peculiar sign or symbol.

A short time before the Jews were carried captives to Babylon, Ezekiel the prophet, as you may read in his eighth and ninth chapters, was favoured with an extraordinary vision of God, and heard six men or angels, to whom the Lord, or I AM, had given Jerusalem in charge, called forth. One of these was clothed in linen, the priestly garment, and had writing instruments in his hand. The other five carried destroying weapons in theirs. In the hearing of the prophet, the Lord, or Christ, commanded the man in linen to go through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark, namely, the letter Thau, which answers to T in our alphabet, upon the foreheads of all that sighed and bewailed the abomina

tions done in that city; and then commanded the other five to follow him, and kill all the rest, but not to come near those that were marked. Thus stands the passage in the Hebrew. But why the particular letter, or mark, is not set down in our translation, I do not know, unless because the Jews and Samaritans have changed the shape of the letter, which we know they did since the days of Ezekiel. Certain it is, however, that St. Jerome, at once the most learned and judicious of the ancient fathers, hath observed, that the letter, in the true ancient Hebrew alphabet, was a cross +. It is to me equally certain, that the mark which the servants of God were ordered to receive in their foreheads, Rev. vii. was a, so early given to every Christian at admittance into the church, pursuant to our Saviour's command, that all his disciples should take up the cross, and follow him.' How it came to pass, that the Egyptians, Arabians, Indians, before Christ came among us, and the inhabitants of the extreme northern parts of the world, ere they had so much as heard of him, paid a remarkable veneration to the sign of the cross, is to me unknown, but the fact itself is known. In some places this sign was given to men accused of a crime, but acquitted; and in Egypt it stood for the sign or signification of eternal life.. The former is the case and character of all true Christians, accused by the enemy of their salvation, but cleared and justified by faith in the blood of Christ; and the latter will as surely be the case, in which their justification is to end. Whether the custom above named, owed its original to the passage I have quoted from Ezekiel, which together with many other particulars, drawn from revelation, might have been spread about through the neighbouring nations by the Jews on their flight from the Babylonians; or had a yet earlier rise, but was misunderstood through length of time, as religion itself was, is now hard to say. But, to reason and common sense, it is as natural to suppose, that the cross and crucifixion of our Redeemer might have been predicted many ages before the event, as well as several other circumstances, not more material, of his birth, life, actions, and particularly his death, unquestionably were.

In the time of the Babylonian captivity, Nebuchadnezzar, his princes, and his subjects, had an opportunity of know

ing the true God, when he threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the fiery furnace, for not worshipping the idol he had set up. The tyrant then saw these men walking unhurt in the midst of the fire, and with them a fourth person, of an appearance, so divine and majestic, that he took him to be the Son of God, of whom he probably had heard among the Jewish captives. Such, we at least cannot help thinking him, not only because no case, ever heard of, could more strongly invite his presence and assistance, than that of men embracing the fire rather than idolatry; but also because in this most populous and extensive kingdom, nothing was so likely, as this astonishing fact, to spread the knowledge of the true God, and the expectation of a Redeemer in the Son of God. Not long after, in the reign of Darius, and in the same place, Daniel was thrown into a den of hungry lions, for no other offence, but openly praying to the true God, and came out alive and untouched from thence. This second miracle, if any thing, must have awakened the minds of the Babylonians and Persians to some sense of the infinite difference between the God of the Jews, and their own impotent idols. It was this very Daniel who, after this deliverance, foretelling the return of the Jews to their own country, dated the coming of Christ from the decree for their return, to follow in four hundred and ninety years. His prophecy of that decree, at least when fulfilled, and the coming of Christ, to be reckoned from it, were probably known to many of their masters, as well as to the Jews, as written in the language of the Babylonians, especially since there was no reason why the Jews should keep it a secret. On the contrary, Nebuchadnezzar published a decree throughout his whole kingdom, that whosoever should speak any thing amiss concerning the true God, should be cut in pieces, and his house made a dunghill.' Darius, in the same kingdom, afterward published another decree to the like effect, upon the deliverance of Daniel out of the lion's den.

It is easy now for you to see, how widely the knowledge of God and of the true religion, together with the expectation of a Redeemer, was spread by Adam among his posterity; by Noah among his; by Melchisedek and Abraham among the Canaanites, Philistines, &c.; by Ishmael among the Arabians; by Lot among the Moabites and Ammonites; by