to the first pair in Eden; as is seen from his audibly blessing them, and giving them a law, their hearing his footsteps as he approached them after their fall, and his discourse with them on sentencing them for their transgression. He appeared in that shape also to Abraham, to Moses, to Joshua, to Manoah, to David, to Isaiah, to Ezekiel, to Daniel, and to John, and probably to the other prophets; and it is because of his revealing himself in that form, doubtless, that he is exhibited as exerting those and other similar acts. It is suitable, therefore, to regard them as proper to Jehovah, the Logos and Revealer, who is the person to whom those and other acts exerted towards the Hebrews are ascribed; and who at length assumed our nature, and having ascended the throne of the universe, is in fact now exerting, and is hereafter to exert in it, many of the identical agencies that are ascribed to him in the prophets by the figure.

It is employed again (Is. v. 26), in the expressions, "And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth; and they shall come with speed swiftly." Lifting an ensign or standard, and hissing, are put for providential acts, by which the nations were to be induced to invade Palestine. Means of a different kind were to be as efficacious for the

purpose, as a call by his voice, and were to make the place where they were to assemble as well known as though it were indicated by a standard that could be seen from their several stations. Stretching out the hand, and setting up a signal, are used in a similar manner (Is. xi. 11, 12). Hissing is employed by the figure (Is. vii. 18, 19) to represent the means by which the fly and bee were to be prompted to repair from Egypt and Assyria to Palestine.

Using the hand in meting, measuring, and other acts, is employed in one of the sublimest passages of Isaiah, to indicate God's omnipotence, the absoluteness of his dominion, and the nothingness, compared to him, of his works: "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord; or, being his counsellor, hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and

Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering" (Is. xl. 12– 16). These great acts-measuring the waters in the hand, spanning the heavens, weighing the mountains, comprising the dust of the earth in a measure, and lifting the isles as a very little thing-are thus taken as appropriate to, and natural criteria of Deity; and the question is on that ground asked, Who has exerted them, that he should be likened to Jehovah, and be made an object of homage instead of him?"All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto him?" (v. 17, 18). These acts are all thus in effect ascribed to him, and are employed to represent acts that bespeak his infinite power and dominion, and demonstrate his deity. And with what beauty the figure accomplishes its object? By what other expedient could so sublime an illustration be made, in so few words, of the grandeur of his perfections, and the subordination to him of all other existences?

There is a grand example of the figure (Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8), in which acts of the Almighty towards the heavenly orbs are employed to represent the judgments he was to inflict on the monarch and princes of Egypt. After announcing that Pharaoh

should be taken and slain, the prediction proceeds:

"And when I quench thee I will cover the heavens,

And I will cause the stars thereof to be black;

I will cover the sun with a cloud,

And the moon shall not give her light

All the shining lights of the heavens

I will clothe with black over thee,
And I will set darkness upon thy land,

Saith the Lord Jehovah."

As in announcing that he would put out or quench Pharaoh, he treats him as though he were a light, or luminary-the sun, moon, and stars, which he threatens to cover and intercept from giving light, represent the heir of the throne, and other princes of his family. And this is in accordance with the method of representation employed by the Egyptians themselves, who used the sun as a hieroglyph of the monarch; its course through the heavens to represent his reign; and its descent below the horizon to denote his departure to the other world. The total interception of light from the other luminaries would thence naturally denote the deprivation of the royal line of its kingly and princely power, and exclusion from official functions. The Egyptians would accordingly have regarded the prediction as indicating, that on the fall of

Pharaoh, his heir was to be excluded from the throne, and his family divested of all authority. As the representative acts were acts of God, those which they represent were to be exerted by him; and were the acts or measures of his providence, by which, on the death of Pharaoh, his heir was to be stripped of his royalty, and his princes of their nobility, and reduced to the condition of captives or subjects.

The growths of the earth-shrubs, trees, thickets, and forests are used by the figure to represent men, armies, and nations; and the felling and burning of the one employed to denote the slaughter and extermination of the other. Thus (Is. x. 17-19) the briers, thorns, fruitful fields, and forests of Assyria, are used as representatives of the Assyrian monarch's subjects of different ranks; and the burning of the one is put for the destruction of the other :

"And the Light of Israel shall become a fire, And his Holy One a flame;

And he shall burn and consume his thorn

And his brier in one day,

Even the glory of his forest and his fruitful field;
From the soul even to the flesh shall he consume,
And it shall be like the wasting away of a sick man
And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few,
That a child may write them."