{viously direct us to the distinction of the man that wrestled with Jacob. 6 Such a divine person was Melchisedec, king of Salem, whose history is recorded in the book of Genesis, and fully illustrated by St Paul'. I am aware that this person has, by some commentators, been identified with Shem, the son of Noah; but with how little reason, will be evident to any who will but read what the best of commentators, St Paul, says upon the subject. And the learned Mr Holloway, author of the Hebrew Originals,' has proved him, in my opinion beyond contradiction, to be no other than the second person in the divine Essence, the Jehovah, who was so often seen by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who was seen by Hagar at the well, who spoke to Moses out of the bush,' &c. the man, who was seen by Joshua at Jericho, and called himself, the captain of the host of Jehovah; and, not to instance more, that angel of Jehovah, who was seen by Manoah and his wife and who manifested himself to be a divine person, by his ascending up to heaven in the flame of the altar! This wondrous action, as it is said to be convinced Manoah that he was God; and that therefore, according to the general belief, they should surely die, because they had seen God; till his wife, by reasoning in faith observed, that his accepting Heb. v. 6, 7, 8, 9. and ch. vii. throughout. ? Joshua v. 13. 4 ver. 19. accepting a burnt-offering at their hands, was sufficient to give them good hopes, and to remove their fears. We may observe, by the bye, that this exhibition, in common with all such solemn exhibitions of Jehovah, was made to Manoah and his wife with a particular view to institute a type of the Messiah or Christ, which Sampson, the son promised at this time, evidently was; as both his extraordinary strength, and the very meaning of his name served to imply. For Samson, or rather Shamson, comes from the Hebrew wow, shemosh, the sun. Now, that Christ, in scripture, is frequently called the Sun, is a well-known truth; and in one place the psalmist would seem to have had this type of Samson particularly in his view-In them hath hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant, or strong man, which Samson remarkably was, to run his race:' and he concludes with a prayer to Christ under this figure— 'Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation ⚫ of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, (or, literally, St Jerome's book of Hebrew names, and Eucherius Instruct. Book II. ch. 1. and Epiphanius of Heresies, Heres. 53. agree in this observation, in consequence of which Archbishop Usher, De Primord. ch. v. conjectures that Sampson, Bishop of Dole, in Bretagne, was called Heliaus, from aos, the Greek word for the sun. 2 Psal. xix. 4, 5, compared with Judges xiv. and xv. rally to thy faces-Hebrew ), Jehovah my * strength, (alluding to Samson), and my Redeemer,' which is always a proper name of Christ. Here it may also be proper to observe, from this brief account of the several exhibitions of Jehovah to the people of the old world, that none of these appearances, or what is said of them, can be considered as any rule or warrant to christians, for paying worship or adoration of any kind, to created angels: for, when under the gospel revelation, St John, overpowered by a sense of gratitude, would have been worshipping the angel who communicated the heavenly visions to him, he was twice prohibited by the angel himself', and directed to perform his worship to God; and, if this was so strictly prohibited on that occasion, we cannot well suppose that such a practice would have been at all allowable to the people of God in former times. Their worshipping and offering sacrifices to the person who appeared to them, is a positive proof that the person so appearing was a divine person. And since, according to his own express declaration, God could not be seen in his own nature, it must follow, that he exhibited himself by some manifestation, or by some likeness that was visible, and to be seen by human eyes. But from a comparison of the few places of scripture already 1 Revel. xix. 19. xxii. 9. already noticed', we find that this likeness was the appearance of a man; and consequently, that the cherubim at first had this appearance too above it, designed at its first institution, and subsequent renewals, to display to mankind the redemption of the world by one of their own likeness. That the cherubim had such a view, and were looked upon in this light by our first parents, as the symbol of that gracious promise made to them immediately after their fall, and to keep man in mind of it until the period of its accomplishment, seems perfectly clear from Eve's joyful exclamation on the I have gotten a ,קניתי איש את-יהוה, birth of Cain man, the very Jehovah,' (not from Jehovah, as it is translated, the preposition from not being in the original), thereby declaring her hope, that that son was to be the seed promised, the man deliverer, typified and exhibited by the cherubim. I have already hinted some reasons why beasts were pitched upon for the cherubic exhibition. I may here add, that perhaps upon this account, and with a view to this it is, that idolaters, who, in process of time, mistook the use and design of the cherubim, and fell off into devices of their own brain, are so often in scripture called beasts metonymically, and that God Almighty, for a signal punish Ezek. i. Rev. iv. Ps. 1xxx. 1. xcix. Exod. xxv. 18. 23. &c. punishment of idolatrous pride, turned Nebuchadnezzar, one of the kings of these imaginers, into a real beast for a certain time. It may also be remarked, that from a perverted application of the cherubic exhibition proceeded the system of the Egyptian idolatry, in worshipping before one of these cherubic creatures, separated from the rest of the exhibition, before the bull or or. This sacred bull of theirs they called Apis, and the god whom they thought that he represented, Osiris; and from this bull in the Egyptian temples, did Aaron and the Israelites learn the fashion of their idol in the wilderness', which they made in the shape of a calf, and said, 'These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of E'gypt.' The Egyptians, by their early communication and converse with the patriarchs, and by the continuance no doubt of the antediluvian tradition, might have had an obscure idea of the sacred place which the bull held among the other cherubic figures; and with a view to this it certainly was, that Aaron so far humoured the ridiculous desire of the people; since we can hardly suppose either them or him to have been so very ignorant, as to have attributed to a real calf or bull, the honour of their deliverance. Their sin consisted in foolishly mistaking the Egyptian hieroglyphick for the cherubic exhibition of Jehovah; and it was to guard against this sinful mistake, that the cherubim, by divine appointment, was set up, first in the tabernacle, and VOL. II. H 1 Exod. xxxii. 4. after |