and enthroned one, we have already referred both in our first and in our third Lecture. (See Lecture I. pp.72–74 ; Lecture III. pp. 251-255.) Now the vision of Ezekiel is after this sort: A firmament with an appearance of a throne and a man above it, supported by the living creatures and the wheels beneath it. The living creatures supported upon their heads and wings a firmament: "And above the firmament that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire-stone, and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord: and when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake” (Ezek. i. 26—28). This enthroned one, there can be no doubt, is the same with the enthroned one of the text; and indeed the whole of these two visions have so many points of resemblance as ever to have been regarded as representing the same things and mutually illustrative of one another. And in the exposition which follows, we shall have much use to make of the vision which Ezekiel saw by the river of Chebar. Now, in the verses quoted above, the man who sat upon the throne is called the Likeness of the Glory of Jehovah, and in chap. x. 19, 20, it is written; "And the Glory of the God of Israel was over the cherubim above. This is the living creature that I saw under Elohim of Israel, by the river of Chebar, and I knew that they were the cherubim." Doubt therefore there can be none that the person seen by Ezekiel is he who dwelt between the cherubim, whose glory first appeared to Moses in the bush, when also he took his name of Jehovah, the God of Israel. In his humility, in the appearance of his fleshly tabernacle, he ate, and walked, and talked with Abraham on the plains of Mamre; and in the same appearance wrestled he with Jacob, at the brook Jabbok. But when he appeared

unto Moses, with a high hand to deliver his people out of Egypt, he appeared in his glory, and in that glory marched he in the heavens by his name Jah; in which pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, though a man appeared not, yet that a man was there is declared in the covenant itself, Ex. xxiii. 20-23: "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice; provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off." This Angel of the Covenant is the same with him of whom Jacob speaks in his blessing of Joseph's sons, Gen. xlviii. 16: “The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth." And this is the same with the man with whom he wrestled, and with whom he had various intercourse in all his wanderings. The same also is it who appeared unto Joshua, as the Captain or Leader of the Lord's host, who in the same place is called Jehovah, and stood as a man over against Joshua, as a man with a sword drawn in his hand (Josh. vi. 13). Of this the Angel of the Covenant, who dwelt in the cloud that rested upon the wings of the cherubim of the most holy place, Ezekiel had the appearance presented to him. It was not the very glory, because the Son had not yet assumed the form of man. It was not the likeness of the glory, which did not come into existence until the resurrection of Christ from the dead, who then became the brightness of the glory of God (Heb. i. 3), but it was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah; that is to say, it was an exhibition or shewing before hand of that form in which God's glory should in the fulness of time appear. Now the Apostle John sees the reality of that, of which Ezekiel saw the appearance. It was not the appearance of a man which John saw, but a man.

Ezekiel saw only the appearance of a man, teaching ust this great truth, which we have so often asserted, that though the Son acted from the beginning in the character of the incarnate God, he had not taken to him any creature substance, but only appearances thereof, to accomplish the ends of God. But from the Incarnation it was no more appearance, but very truth; wherefore it is written, Truth came by Jesus Christ;" and again, "I am the Truth;" that is, the Verity of all types, ordinances, and appearances. Now the appearance which Ezekiel saw he describes as the colour of amber outward, and as the appearance of fire inward; that is, as I understand, the ground-colour was red, and the brightness emanating from the ground was as amber, which together form the best resemblance that can be had from the material of fire, to that flesh which John saw, in colour as a sardine stone blood red, with an effulgence like that of jasper, which is clear as crystal, and as the glory of God. For Ezekiel's representation is made altogether with the element of fire, which in the Old Testament is the standing symbol of the glory of Jehovah, which in the New Testament is expressed, without a symbol, by glorified flesh.—And so much have we to say with respect to the appearance of Him that sat upon the throne; and methinks it ought to teach us a lesson of the dignity and glory to which this our mortal tabernacle shall yet be advanced; for though, as hath been said, no one shall or can sit upon that throne of heaven, save he alone who is God as well as man, yet shall we, who are raised from the dead, surely be like him "We in that glorified body in which he now subsisteth. shall be fashioned after his glorious body, we shall see him as he is." This now is what flesh shall come to, when mortality and corruption, and weakness and dishonour, are expelled out of it. We are now wearing the image of the earthy; we shall then wear the image of the heavenly.

Verse 3: "And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." So also in the corresponding vision of Ezekiel (i. 28), “As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about." This is no more an accidental or ornamental accompaniment of the throne given, as it were for beau

tiful effect; but as we shall see of every thing else in this book, a Divine appropriation for the risen God-man of another great department of the goodness and providence of God whereof the rainbow is in Scripture the standing sign and symbol. Nor is it difficult to discover of what it is the sign and symbol. We have only to refer to the ixth chapter of Genesis, and read with faith the words which are written from the 12th to the 17th verses, " And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth." We may not doubt, after reading these verses, that the rainbow is as sacredly and certainly the sign and seal of the covenant made with Noah, as circumcision is of that made with Abraham; and baptism of that made with Abraham's seed, which is Christ. The rainbow from this time forth, is not common, but a holy thing in the works of God, being unto mankind the seal of a covenant which still endures. What that covenant was given to secure, is now the question. This also is written in plain, simple, and intelligible language (verses 8-11), "And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth." These verses give

us to understand that the covenant whereof the rainbow is the standing memorial, concerneth the preservation of the earth, and nothing else. It is an everlasting covenant (verses 12 and 16), for the security of animal life, and of the earth whereon it is sustained. Against the destruction of the earth with a flood, it is a security for ever and for ever; and I think also it is a security for the earth's perpetual endurance, and for the perpetual endurance of animal life, in all those varieties in the which they were originally created and made. Of this I am sure, that throughout all Scripture, there is not a hint of destruction to the kinds of animal life, but contrariwise assurances, Psalms viii, xcvi, and xcviii, that in the world over which Christ reigns, there shall be sheep and oxen, fowls of the air and fish of the sea, as well as living men. And why the ungenerous, and I will say, unholy humours of selfsufficient man should be permitted with supercilious contempt to exclude from the redeemed earth, those creatures which existed in the completeness and blessedness of the created state, is what I cannot understand, and will never pander to. It is not for nothing that my fathers, and my nation and my church, anathematized the infallibility of the pope, general councils, and every creature, that Christ only may be true one and the truth. And I, their son, am blessed with a portion of their spirit, sufficient to set at nought the scoffs and names and silly argumentations of any class of men, who will ask me to believe in a heaven and a future state of their imagining, and of their peopling. And perceiving that the covenant made with Noah, is not only a covenant for the continuance and preservation of the life of every creature which came forth of the ark, but that it is also their salvation from the deluge itself (Gen. vi. 18); and perceiving also, that the Apostle declareth (Rom. viii. 20, 21), that the creature itself, also, shall be delivered from that bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God; which corruption is mortality; what am I, or what is any son of man, or what even is the church, if the church should be so left to herself, which she never yet hath been, that we should take upon us to gainsay the Holy Ghost and limit the power or the faithfulness of the Holy One of Israel? In what state they shall be, when