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be an holy, just God; and fecondly, that we may know him reconciled in his Son; as a God reconciled to finners. The gospel reveals him, And this is life eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he bath fent. Hence the gofpel is called the word of reconciliation.

Abimaaz. If this is Mount Moriah, it is the very spot where God gave teftimony to Abraham's faith, even from heaven; and to be fure he must ascend this mount with as heavy an heart as a mortal could carry. But God often lays the greatest burden on the faith of his favourites, just before he intends a deliverance. As fpeaketh the Lord by Mofes, that he will appear when he feeth that his people's power is gone, that there is none fhut up or left. Deut. xxxii. 36. And fuch confpicuous deliverances have a blessed tendency to endear God to his people, and excite their love and gratitude; and I doubt not but this was the cafe with Abraham. The thoughts of flaying his beloved fon must go near his heart, and the fimple expreffions of Ifaac, when he faid, Where is the lamb for the burnt offering, muft touch Abraham's feelings very fenfibly. But when he received his little one back to his arms, and obtained an articulate teftimony of the love and approbation of his Maker, it must lift him as high in joy and heavenly-mindedness, as the thoughts of flaying him had funk him in forrow.

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Cufbi. I am glad to find thee, my brother, fuch an observer of the gracious dealing of God.

If believers were to obferve the various frames, changes, and deliverances that pafs on their fouls, and bring them to the word of God, they would be more comfortably established in the truth than they are.

Many gracious fouls are ftrict obfervers of external forms, and modes of worship, to which they are led by the wisdom of men, and prejudiced in favour of, by the bigotry of men, instead of adhering to an experience on their own fouls. Let every man prove his own work, faith Paul, then hall be bave rejoicing in himself, and not in another; that is, he fhall rejoice in the power of God, not in the wisdom of men.

I believe Abraham had the sweetest views and fenfations on this mount, that ever he had in all his pilgrimage. His fon Ifaac was a sweet type of Chrift, the promised feed in whom all nations were to be bleffed. The wood that Abraham laid in fuch particular order, prefigured the crofs. The intended victim laid on the wood, reprefented the bleffed Jefus, the meek and paffive lamb, fubmitting to be nailed to the accurfed tree. Abraham's knife fhadowed forth the flaming fword of juftice, once feen by our firft parents at the eaft gate of Eden. By Abraham's parental love and affection for his fon, the immutable love of God was exhibited, who fo loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten fon, John iii. 16. freely offering him up for us all. Abraham's joyful reception of his fon (as it were from the dead) typified the cordial

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reception of Chrift into the bofom of God the father. As Ifaac prefigured Chrift as a lamb, and as the promised feed that should come, fo the ram prefigured Chrift as the everlasting father of all his fheep.

The horns of the ram reprefented Chrift's kingly power; his being hung by the horns in the thicket of bushes, fhewed the fubmiffion of the Omnipotent Saviour to the wicked hands of men, who are compared to briers and thorns. Cant. ii. 2. Thorns being badges of God's curfe, fhewed his being made a curfe for us; and that he was to be crowned with thorns, was typified by the ram's being hung in the thorns by his head.Thus Abraham's faith faw the Saviour, both in his beloved fon, and in the bleeding and burning ram; and to this agrees the Lord himself: Your father Abraham rejoiced to fee my day; and he faw it and was glad. John viii. 56.

Abimaaz. It is a pretty light, my brother, that you have caft on that text; and the proof that you brought from the Saviour's mouth, is a confirmation of what you have faid. But fome of the learned tell us, that we should be very careful how we allegorize and spiritualize the fcriptures, left we get into the regions of fancy. Though I do believe there are many in our days who are ftigmatized enthufiafts and fanatics, who are bleffed with divine tuition, and wonderfully fupported by the Holy Ghoft; there is no limiting God, nor drawing lines for him to work by; and I believe

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the heart that feels the keeneft pierce from justice, is the most fenfible of the balm of mercy. Where conviction draws the deepest furrow, the incorruptible feed will take the deepest root.

Such fouls as experience the greatest change, have generally the brightest views of divine revelation. The darkest clouds are often fucceeded by the brightest manifestations. God discoveretb deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the fhadow of death. Job xii. 22. And fuch fouls will ever be found to be the most spiritually minded, and the most heavenly in their conversation.

Cufbi. I have heard of men giving fuch cautions, and of warning people againft allegorizing the word of God, or giving it a spiritual meaning; when I have thought that too many legalize the gospel, and make it more like a law than a covenant of grace; and make the Saviour more a law-giver, than a law-fulfiller, by talking more of the commands of Chrift, than of the infinite fatisfaction made to law and juftice by him.

This is a kind of remedial law, as fome term it; fuch being ignorant of the killing power of the covenant of works; and ftrangers to the conftraining power of the covenant of grace, have fet up one of their own, in the very throne of the great Mediator, as a rival to him, who is the end of the law, and the author of faith.

What good can accrue to finners, from a law of human invention, fet up in the place of the Mediator, is hard to tell. Ifrael would have been

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confumed by the fire of God's jealoufy, more than once, if Mofes, the typical mediator, and Phineas, the typical high-priest, had not stood in the gap, or breach, that their rebellion had made between God and them. But how a gofpel law of human manufactory is to fill a breach of infinite dimenfions, and bring about a spiritual union and likenefs, where there is an infinite difproportion, is a mystery that I defpair of ever finding out; and a mystery that all the divines in the world can' never explain to me.

But this conclufion we may warrantably draw, that if Noah, Daniel, and Job, could not ftand before God, to make up the breach, we are fure no contrivance of man can do it. Befides, this law of human wifdom lays no weight upon him that is mighty to fave; but the whole burden of conditions is laid on them that are dead to God, and without ftrength; and how the dead in fin are to perform fuch conditions, is another riddle which can never be explained.

The fpoufe, under the old economy, received many confolations from the types and fhadows, while fhe eyed her beloved Saviour as the object of her future hopes; fhe called the two covenants her two breafts, and eyed the Mediator as the end of the law and the author of faith, and had light enough, under that dark difpenfation, to fee that' no day's man was fit to make up the breach, but him. Feeling his love, fhe fays, A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night

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