ing, are rather represented as declining-whom the Jewish church, in her latter period, termed the Mimra, or word of Jehovah.

During the time he was on earth, he appeared as that prophet whom Moses promised to their fathers, that the Lord their God was to raise up unto them. He then peculiarly devoted himself to the service of the Jewish nation " for the truth of the promises made unto the fathers, and on this account was called the servant of the circumcised nation." Rom. xv. 8 After he as

cended, and was vested with all power, both in heaven and in earth, it is then that he appears in the character of the Rising; or, as St. Peter expresses it, the day-star. The propriety and extent of which appellation, we now proceed to consider. This will be a key to several parts of that remarkable portion of Scripture, the 60th chap. of Isaiah. The last character in which he will appear, will be that of Sun of Righteousness, with healing under his wings, in order to expel from every one of his people, the disease of mortality, and to deliver them from the last enemy. To this last and solemn appearance, his whole work, as the Oriens, or day-star, is preparatory.

In the opinion of St. Peter, our great object ought to be that bright day which is to follow. when time shall be no more; but this, like the natural day, must be waited for, while it advances through

through its different degrees. During the period of mortality, our station is the dark place. The light with which we are favoured is the candle of the prophets, now, indeed, increased greatly in brightness by the additional rays of Messiah, which is fully sufficient to guide us to where the pleasant dawn will meet the view. Gleaning up what scattered information we can of this invisible state, is here applauded as a happy prelude to entering upon the dawn. In taking heed to it we are said to be well employed.

This apostle appears to have had in his eye some particular passages of prophecy, which were not only auxiliary to, but which, when viewed in themselves, surpassed in certainty and fulness of information what he had heard in the Mount; not, indeed, as to himself, for no testimony can be stronger than the evidence of one's own senses, but only as it passed through his hands in form of a testimony to them to whom he addressed his epistle.

"This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased," was the voice which this apostle heard in the Mount: but the declaration of the same Father, with respect to the future rising of Messiah, on that world, as the day-star, was primarily made in prophetic vision to the inhabitants of that happy region; and secondarily to that portion of his church which is on earth, to be to them

"a light shining in a dark place." I must here interpose a caution to prevent being misunderstood, as if what the prophet had wrote and declared, was formally made known to the departed spirits of the pious. The enunciations, by the prophets, of future and distant events, are expressed as if the events were present, and passing under the eye; and they certainly were so in the light of vision, although not in reality. The visional personages are addressed by the prophet, as if before him, not as if in reality they were to hear such things from his mouth, but it is merely a prophetical declaration that such things would take 14-12 place. So Isaiah in vision accosts Nebuchadnezzar, long before the event took place. "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning; how art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations." In the like scheme he, under the influence of the spirit, addresses the inhabitants of that world some hundred years before the morning star actually arose on it, when every particular exhibited in the glass of prophecy would then take place in all its life and truth.*

We now turn to take heed to the light reflected from that passage in Isaiah, already mentioned.

* Qua anticipatione nihil potest esse efficacius, ad res clare & evidenter demonstrandas & pene sub aspectum subjiciendas: adeoquc in poesi prophetica sæpissime locum habet. De sacra Poesi.

22. 5

It is a description diversified, rich and glorious. Its parallel in the book of Rev. makes it evident that the whole delineation must be understood of the Jerusalem which is above: and even although this confirmation were wanting, its very circumstances and adjuncts would shew that it is totally inapplicable to any state of the church on earth. Such as, that it is not the Zion at Jerusalem, but Rev.21.23 "the Zion of the Holy One of Israel; that they have no need of the light of the sun or of the moon, but that Jehovah himself was to be the light (Olam) of that world—that the people were to be all righteous, and that the days of their mourning were to be ended." The particular features, colours, and drapery are taken from the intercourse of Jerusalem with the neighbouring nations; from the gifts which they brought to the temple, and from the wood of various kinds which Lebanon supplied as materials for the building of that structure.

An inspection of the original will shew that this address is made to a personage of a feminine character, which character is sustained throughout to the conclusion of the chapter. The Seventy, after the words," arise shine," have the word Jerusalem, whether as a supplement of their own, or as what they had read in their original copy, cannot now be ascertained. The general character of that version, in keeping close to the track of the Hebrew, even to the arrangement of the words

the suffrage of the Chaldee paraphrase, and the Latin Vulgate, which, in like manner, have Jerusalem, may warrant the opinion that Jerusalem was in the copy from which they made their translation. Indeed, the whole of this chapter bears upon the face of it, particularly when we take into view its parallel in the Revelation, that it is Jerusalem.

It would seem that the death and ascension of Messiah had introduced a remarkable addition of light and happiness into the region of souls. What this chapter prophetically describes, so many centuries before, then, when he ascended up on high, actually took place. The bright and morning star for the first time arose and diffused its pleasing rays over that peaceful world. Two passages give a particular confirmation to this: "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good thing to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time will I cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David." Jer. xxxiii. 14.. "God having provided some better thing for us, that they, without us, should not be made perfect." Heb.

xi. 40.

Under the image of the small intercourse which the Jerusalem on earth had with the rest of the nations, and the contempt and hatred breathed out against her by enemies, is set forth that

general