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Lord revealing. If it does, it shews how those souls are exalted, whom the Lord condescendeth to teach, to whom he reveals his mind and will, though it be attended with bitterness, which may be included in the word Moriah. Mount Calvary, you see, is almost opposite, where our Lord was crucified; and he whom God teacheth on Mount Moriah, is sure to have some views of what was done on Mount Calvary. "The mountains shall bring peace to the people and the little hills by righteousness," Psalm lxxii. 3. The grand design of divine teaching is, first, that we may know God in his law to be an holy, just God; and secondly, that we may know him reconciled in his Son; as a God reconciled to sinners. The gospel reveals him, and this is life eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, John xvii. 3. Hence the gospel is called the word of

reconciliation.'

Ahimaaz. If this is Mount Moriah, it is the very spot where God gave testimony to Abraham's faith, even from heaven; and to be sure 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 speaketh the Lord by Moses, that he will appear when he seeth that his people's power is gone, that there is none shut up or left, Deut. xxxii. 36. And such conspicuous 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

case with Abraham. The thoughts of slaying his beloved son must go near his heart, and the simple expressions of Isaac, when he said, "Where is the lamb for a burnt offering," must touch Abraham's feelings very sensibly. But when he received his little one back to his arms, and obtained an articulate testimony of the love and approbation of his Maker, it must lift him as high in joy and heavenlymindedness, as the thoughts of slaying him had sunk him in sorrow.

Cushi. I am glad to find thee, my brother, such an observer of the gracious dealing of God. If believers were to observe the various frames, changes, and deliverances that pass on their souls, and bring them to the word of God, they would be more comfortably established in the truth than they are.

Many gracious souls are strict observers 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 souls. "Let every man prove his own work," saith Paul, "then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another;" that is, he shall rejoice in the power of God, not in the wisdom of men.

I believe Abraham had the sweetest views and sensations on this mount, that ever he had in all his pilgrimage. His son Isaac was a sweet type of Christ, the promised seed in whom all nations were to be blessed. The wood that Abraham laid

in such particular order, prefigured the cross. The intended victim laid on the wood, represented the blessed Jesus, the meek and passive lamb, submitting to be nailed to the accursed tree. Abraham's knife shadowed forth the flaming sword of justice, once seen by our first parents at the east gate of Eden. By Abraham's parental love and affection for his son, the immutable love of God was exhibited, who so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten son, John iii. 16; freely offering him up for us all. Abraham's joyful reception of his son, as it were from the dead, typified the cordial reception of Christ into the bosom of God the father. As Isaac prefigured Christ as a lamb, and as the promised seed that should come, so the ram prefigured Christ as the everlasting father of all his sheep.

The horns of the ram represented Christ's kingly power; his being hung by the horns in the thicket of bushes, shewed the submission 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 curse, shewed his being made a curse 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 saw the Saviour, both in his beloved son, and in the bleeding and burning ram; and to this agrees the Lord himself: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it and was glad," John viii. 56.

Ahimaaz. It is a pretty light, my brother, that you have cast on that text; and the proof that you brought from the Saviour's mouth, is a confirmation of what you have said. But some of the learned tell us, that we should be very careful how we allegorize and spiritualize the scriptures, lest we get into the regions of fancy. Though I do believe there are many in our days who are stigmatized enthusiasts and fanatics, who are blessed with divine tuition, and wonderfully supported by the Holy Ghost; there is no limiting God, nor drawing lines for him to work by; and I believe the heart that feels the keenest pierce from justice, is the most sensible of the balm of mercy. Where conviction draws the deepest furrow, the incorruptible seed will take the deepest root.

Such souls as experience the greatest change, have generally the brightest views of divine revelation. The darkest clouds are often succeeded

by the brightest manifestations. "He [God] discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death," Job xii. 22. And such souls will ever be found to be the most spiritually minded, and the most heavenly in their conversation.

Cushi. I have heard of men giving such cautions, and of warning people against 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 Christ, than of the infinite satisfaction made to law and justice by him.

This is a kind of remedial law, as some term it; such being ignorant of the killing power of the covenant of works; and strangers to the constraining power of the covenant of grace, have set 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 sinners, from a law of human invention, set up in the place of the Mediator, is hard to tell. Israel would have been consumed by the fire of God's jealousy, more than once, if Moses, 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 gospel law of human manufactory is to fill a breach of infinite dimensions, and bring about a spiritual union and likeness, where there is an infinite disproportion, is a mystery that I despair of ever finding out; and a mystery that all the divines in the world can never explain to me.

But this conclusion we may warrantably draw, that if Noah, Daniel, and Job, could not stand before God, to make up the breach, we are sure no contrivance of man can do it. Besides, this law of human wisdom lays no weight upon him that is mighty to save; but the whole burden of conditions is laid on them that are dead to God,

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