1. The ordinance of the ark and mercy-seat, 2. The ordinance of the golden table, 3. The ordinance of the golden candlestick, 4. The ordinance of the golden altar. 5. The ordinance of the brazen altar, PAGE. GRACE AND TRUTH. BOOK FIRST. TYPICAL PERSONS, 1. Chrift and Adam compared. THE THE Almighty Creator had now finished the univerfal frame of nature. He faw the heavens fhining in all their glory; he beheld the earth fmiling in all her beauty: the fea was flocked with fish, the air with fowls; the fields with beafts. But still the mafter-piece of this inferior world was wanting, a creature endued with reafon; of upright ftature; and qualified at once to rule over the rest of the creation, and correfpond with his Creator. "And the Lord God formed man of the duft of the ground, and breathed into his noftrils the breath of life, and he became a living foul*." Thus far we are told by the Hebrew lawgiver. And we are further informed by the great apoftle of the Gentiles, that this first man, whofe name was Adam, was the type or figure of "him that was to comet." For ought we know, it might not fo much as enter into the heart of Adam to conceive of this divine mystery; and Mofes himfelf, the infpired penman of that truly ancient and authentic history, might not perhaps advert to it. But fince God hath revealed it to us by his Spirit, let us attend where the refemblance lies, of the first to the fecond Adam; which we shall obviously find, whether we view him as the firft man, the first father, the first lord, the first husband, or the first covenanthead. And let us learn to contemplate the glory of that illuftrious perfon, who was fo early typified, while we admire the depth of God's foreknowledge, † Rom: y 14. * Gen. ii. 7. B in ordering matters fo, that the history of the first man, who was of the earth, and earthly, was a prophecy of the fecond man, who is the Lord from heaven. To begin with the creation of our general anceftor. Adam was the first man in the world of nature, who being formed out of the duft of the ground, by the immediate hand of his Creator, was without father, and without mother, and, in a sense peculiar to himself, is called the Son of God. He was also a creature perfectly new, to whom there was nothing like, and nothing equal, among all the visible works of God; for his perfon, confifting of a visible body, and an invisible foul, was made after the image, and in the likeness of God, which chiefly confifts in knowledge, righteoufnefs, and holinefs. Now, fure it is not difficult to perceive, that all these characters exactly agree to the fecond man, who is the first-born among many brethren in the world of grace,—without father as man,-without mother as God. His body was formed (not indeed of the duft of the ground, but in a manner equally unexampled and miraculous,) of the virgin's fubftance, by the immediate power of God; and fo foon as a reasonable foul was united to it, in the womb of the virgin, both were, that very moment, affumed into the divine person of the Son, wherefore, in all propriety, that holy thing which was born of her, was called the Son of God†; or, to use the expreffion of an Old-Teftament pro» In phet, was a new thing created in the earth‡.' the man Chrift Jefus is found more of the divine likenefs than all the faints, than all the holy angels can dare to boast. "For which of them have been called at any time, the brightnefs of the Father's glory and the exprefs image of his perfon? or to which of them has he faid, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten theef ?" Adam, indeed, might resemble his Creator, as the image on the coin refembles the king upon the throne; but Jefus Chrift resembles God, as the prince and heir to the crown resembles his royal father, being not only like him, but of the fame na ture and fubftance with him. And though in fhadowing forth the conftitution of Immanuel's perfon all fimilitudes must be infinitely defective—yet the union of Adam's foul and body is perhaps the beft natural em blem of it we can expect to find. Nor does it feem unlawful for us to affift our conception of this high mystery by this natural union, inafmuch as the Holy Ghoft himself, in the fcriptures of the New-Teftament, feems to allude unto it, when he calls his humanity the fiefh, and his divinity the fpirit. In the former he was manifested, in the latter he was juftified*. In the one he was put to death, and in the other he was quickenedt. If the conftitution of the firft Adam's perfon was an incomprehenfible myftery in nature, the conftitution of the fecond Adam's perfon is no less an incomprehenfible mystery of grace. As Adam was the first man that God created, fo he was the first father and progenitor of all other men, who are every one born in his image as they come into the world of nature, and breathe the vital air. Juft fo, from Jefus Chrift, the everlasting Father, all who come into the world of grace derive their fpiritual being; his image they bear‡, and from him "the whole family in heaven and in earth is named." Though here alfo there is a confiderable difparity betwixt the earthly man and the heavenly Adam. The first man is not the immediate, but the remote father of our flesh;-for "one generation goes, and another comes :" but Jefus Chrift is the immediate Father of all his faints, who in every age receive from him the light of life, as the filver moon, and all the fparkling ftars, receive their light immediately from the fun, the glorious fountain of the day. The first Adam, as Mofes relates, was made a living foul, that he might convey a natural life to them who had not received it: but the fecond Adam, as the apoftle declares, was made a quickening fpirit, to impart a fpiritual life to them who having now loft it, were dead in trefpaffes and in fins; and at the refurrection of the just to quickI Cor. xv. 49, * 1 Tim. iii. 16. +1 Pet. iii. 18. I Cor. xv. 34. |