So when it is said to the Israelites, God has received the odour of your incense, and will give you in recompense a fertile and plentiful land, the meaning is, that the same intention which a man delighted with your incense, would have in rewarding you with a fruitful land, God will express towards you ; because you have had the same intention with respect to him, that a man would express toward another, by offering him incense.

The sole aim of the Scripture is charity. All that does not directly tend to that single point is the figure of it. For as there is but one end in view, whatever does not lead to it in express terms, is figurative.

God, in compassion to our weakness, which makes us seek for variety, has so diversified this one precept of charity, that he leads by this very variety to the "one thing needful" for us. For one thing only is needful, and we love variety. Now God provides for both these facts, by a variety which always leads to the one thing needful.

The Rabbins take the "breasts of the spouse" for figure; as they do every thing which does not express the only end they have in view, namely, temporal blessings.

Some of them see clearly enough, that the only enemy of man is concupiscence, which turns him away from God; and that God alone, and not a fruitful land, is his real good.

Those who fancy the good of man to consist in gratifying the flesh, and his evil in what draws him off from the pleasures of sense, let them wallow and die in their pleasures. But as for those who seek God with their whole heart, whom nothing can grieve but being deprived of the light of his countenance, whose only desire is to enjoy him, and whose only enemies are those which withhold them from him;

whose affliction it is to see themselves surrounded

and overruled by such enemies, let them be com

forted; for them there is a deliverer, for them there is a God! The Messiah was promised to deliver men from their enemies; and he came to deliver them from their sins, and not from their external foes.

When David predicts that the Messiah shall deliver his people from their enemies, a carnal expositor may apply this to the Egyptians; and then I could not shew him that the prophecy has been fulfilled. But it may be well applied to men's iniquities, since the Egyptians are not men's real enemies, but their iniquities are. So that the word enemy is

ambiguous.

But as he also declares, together with Isaiah and others, that the Messiah shall deliver his people from their sins, the ambiguity is taken off, and the double meaning of enemies is reduced to the single interpretation of iniquities. For if he had sins in view, he might well denote them by the term enemies; but if he had only temporal enemies in view, it was impossible he should distinguish them by the appellation of sins.

Now Moses, David, and Isaiah, all employ the same terms. Who then can say that these terms have not the same sense; and that the intention of David, who evidently means sins when he speaks of men's enemies, is not the same as that of Moses when he is speaking of their enemies.

Daniel, in his ninth chapter, prays that the people may be delivered from the captivity of their enemies; but he thought of their transgressions: and to make it clear, he relates the coming of Gabriel to him, to assure him he was heard; and that he had only to wait seventy weeks, after which the people should obtain deliverance from their iniquity, that transgression should be brought to an end, and the Redeemer, the Holy of holies, should bring in not legal, but everlasting righteousness.

When we are once let into this mystery, it is im

possible not to discern it. Let us read the old testament with this view; let us see whether the sacrifices were real sacrifices, whether Abraham's lineage was the true cause of the friendship of God to him? Whether the promised land was the true place of rest? Neither of these can be affirmed; therefore they were only symbolical. In a word, let us examine all the legal ceremonies, and all the precepts which are not of charity, and we shall find they are nothing but representations.

CHAPTER XIV.

JESUS CHRIST.

THE infinite distance between body and spirit is a figure of the infinitely more infinite distance between our spirit and charity, which is absolutely super

natural.

All the splendour of outward grandeur has no lustre in the eyes of those who are engaged in mental researches.

The greatness of men of talents is invisible to the rich, to kings, and conquerors, and to all these earthly great ones.

The greatness of that wisdom which cometh from God, is invisible to the worldly, and to men of talents. Here are three orders of quite different kinds.

Great geniuses have their empire, their splendour, their greatness, their victories, and do not stand in need of carnal greatness, which has no relation to that which they seek. They are to be seen with the mind, and not with the eye; but that is enough for them.

Saints likewise have their empire, their splendour, their greatness, and their victories; and have no need either of carnal or mental greatness, which are not of their order, and neither increase nor diminish the greatness to which they aspire. They are seen of God and of angels, and not with the eye of the

body, nor by curious minds, and God is sufficient for them.

Archimedes would have been held in the same estimation, without any splendour of birth. He fought no battles; but he has left to all the world his admirable inventions. Oh! how great and illustrious does he appear to the eyes of the mind!

Jesus Christ, without riches, without any external display of science, stands in his own order, that of holiness. He neither published inventions, nor reigned over kingdoms; but he was humble, patient, pure before God, terrible to devils, and altogether without sin. Oh! with what illustrious pomp, with what transcendant magnificence did he come to such as see with the eyes of the heart, and are the discerners of true wisdom!

It would have been useless for Archimedes to have acted the prince, in his book of geometry, although he really was one.

It would have been useless for our Lord Jesus Christ to have come as an earthly king, in order that he might shine in his kingdom of holiness. But how consistently did he come with the character of his own order!

It is ridiculous to be scandalized at the mean condition of Jesus Christ, as if that meanness stood in the same order with the greatness which he came to display. Let us contemplate this greatness in his life, in his sufferings, in his obscurity, in his death, in the choice of his attendants, in their forsaking him, in his secret resurrection, and in all the other parts of his history; and we shall see it to be so great, as to leave no ground for being offended at his meanness, for there was no meanness in him.

But there are some who can admire no greatness but that of this world, as if there was none in understanding; and others admire only that of the understanding, as if there was not a greatness infinitely more sublime in heavenly wisdom.