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with an incredible number of villages, were either destroyed or greatly damaged. The city of Catanea, in particular, was utterly overthrown. A traveller, who was on his way thither, at the diftance of fome miles, perceived a black cloud, like night, hanging over the place. The fea, all of a fudden began to roar, Mount Etna to fend forth great fpires of flame, and foon after a fhock enfued, with a noife as if all the artillery in the world had been at once difcharged. Our traveller, being obliged to alight inftantly, felt himself raised a foot from the ground; and, turning his eyes to the city, he with amazement faw nothing but a thick cloud of duft in the air. The birds flew about astonished; the fun was darkened; the beasts ran howling from the hills; and though the shock did not continue above three minutes, yet near 19,000 of the inhabitants of Sicily perished in the ruins. Catanea, to which cit, the defcriber was travelling, feemed the principal fcene of ruin; its place only was to be found; and not a footstep of its former magnificence was to be seen remaining.

The earthquake which happened in Jamaica, in 1692, was very terrible, and its defcription fufficiently minute.--." In two minutes time it deftroyed the town of Port-Royal, and funk the houses in a gulph forty fathoms deep. It was attended with a hollow rumbling noife, like that of thunder; and in less than a minute three parts of the houses, and their inhabitants were all funk quite under water. While they were swallowed up on one fide of the ftreet, on the other the houses were thrown into heaps; the fand of the ftreet rifing like the waves of the fea, lifting up those that stood upon it, and immediately overwhelming them in pits. All the wells discharged their waters with the most vehement agitation. The fea felt an equal share of turbulence, and, bursting over its mounds, deluged all that came in its way. The fiffures of the earth were, in fome places, fo great, that one of the ftreets appeared twice as broad as formerly. In many places, however, it opened and clofed again, and continued this agitation for fome time. Of these openings two or three hundred might be seen at a time--in fome of which the people were fwallowed up; in others the earth, clofing, caught them in the middle, and thus crushed them inftantly to death. Other openings, ftill more dreadful than the reft, fwallowed up whole ftreets; and others, more formidable ftill, fpouted up whole cataracts of water, drowning fuch as the earth had spared. The whole was attended with the most noisome french; while the thundering of the diftant falling mountains, the whole fky overcaft with a duíky gloom,

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and the crash of falling habitations, gave unspeakable horror to the scene. After this dreadful calamity was over, the whole ifland feemed converted into a scene of defolation; fcarce a planter's houfe was left ftanding; almoft all were fwallowed up ---houses, people, trees, fhared one univerfal ruin; and in their places appeared great pools of water, which, when dried up by the fun, left only a plain of barren fand, without any veitige of former inhabitants. Moft of the rivers, during the earthquake, were ftopped up by the falling in of the mountains; and it was not till after fome time that they made themselves new channels. The mountains feemed particularly attacked by the force of the shock; and it was fuppofed that the principal feat of the concuffion was among them. Those who were faved got on board fhips in the harbour, where many remained above two months, the fhocks continuing during that interval with more or less violence every day."

As this description feems to exhibit all the appearances that ufually make up the catalogue of terrors belonging to an earthquake, I will fupprefs the detail of that which happened at Lisbon in our own times, and which is too recent to require a defcription. In fact, there are few particulars in the accounts of those who were prefent at that defolation, that we have not more minutely and accurately transmitted to us by former writers, whofe narratives I have for that reafon preferred. I will therefore close this defcription of human calamities with the account of the dreadful earthquake at Calabria, in 1638. It is related by the celebrated Father Kircher, as it happened while he was on his journey to vifit Mount Etna, and the rest of the wonders that lie towards the fouth of Italy. I need scarce inform the reader, that Kircher is confidered, by fcholars, as one of the greateft prodigies of learning.

(To be continued.)

ON ATONEMENT,

IN ANSWER TO QUERIES, Vol. II. P. 312.

HEN

(Concluded from vol. ii. p. 352.)

ENCE the apoftle, quoting the Old Teftament, (Pfalm xl. 6. in the Septuagint, "A body haft thou prepared nie," Heb. x. 5.) points us thereto, in the fame manner as Solomon does, 2 Chron. vi. 18.--

בי

כי האמנם ישב אלהים את האדם על הארץ:

But will God in truth (i. e. in antitype) inhabit the human nature upon the earth? Yes, fays the prophet Ifaiah, (chap. vii. 14) Behold, a virgin fhall conceive, and bear a fon, and fhall call his name Immanuel. This is alfo declared by Matthew (chap. i. 33) to be a fact which had taken place at Bethlehem. The church alfo, commemorating the great anxiety of David, refpecting the habitation of Jehovah, cries out in extafy, Behold, we have heard of it (i. e. this habitation) at Ephratah (Bethlehem). Comp. Mich. v. 2. This dwelling-place, no doubt alfo, the prophet turns our attention to, Ifaiah, lxvi. 1. Thus faith the Lord: The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest, &c.---But to this (man) will

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I caufe expectation, or hope, (namely, he who is the feed of the woman) unto the afflicted one, &c. John also bears the fame record, chap. i. 14. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt, (or tabernacled) among us; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full grace and truth. Having fufficiently proved from divine authority, that He is the fcope, meaning, and truth of the temple, (as the dwelling-place of the Deity, or God manifeft in the flesh, 1 Tim. iii. 15.) with all its apparatus, nothing can be more clear, than that he is alfo the fpirit of all the facrifices, whether we confider them as my burnt-offerings,

-peace שלמים trefpafs-offerings, or אשמים,fin-offerings חטאות

offerings. In him likewise we must look for the meaning of
all the things which were in the worldly fanctuary, viz.
the candlestick, the mystery of which was "the light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world," filling the
temple of God, the body of Chrift, both natural and myftical,
with fulness of light. Solomon made ten fuch candlesticks,
1 Kings, vii. 49.) which was faying in figures what Paul does
in words, that all the fulness of the Godhead, or light, dwelt in
Chrift, and was by him communicated to the church;
" of
his fulness have we all received," John, i. 16. Col. i. 19; for
raw is fulness, and wr ten (all). The table, the fhew.bread

the golden pot that had manna, as holding out to us the Father's gift of the true bread, even the true bread which came down from heaven, the bread of life---Aaron's rod that budded, and bloomed bloffoms, and yielded almonds; denoting" him who was raised from the dead, and thus declared to be the fon of God with power; fee Numb. xvii. 8---1o. comp. with Heb. ix. 3, 4.---The tables of the covenant, the divine law

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being kept and obeyed by him who was the truth of that ark where they were kept from being broken; Deut. x. 5.---The cherubim of glory, fo called from, that vifible glory or irradi ation of light, which flowed from them upon the high-priest, when he appeared before them, upon the great day of atonement, with the blood of fprinkling; thereby manifefting the divine approbation, in a prophetic way, upon him who fhould, in the fulness of time, enter into heaven itself with his own blood.

From all these confiderations nothing can be more evident, than that he is the end (T, fcope, or defign) of the whole law, and the fum and fubftance of the teftimony of all the prophets, fo the author, as well as the finifher of faith; Heb. xii.

2.

But for a further investigation of the expiatory facrifice of the death of Christ, so as not to diminish the fulness and freeness of divine pardon, and the Scripture account of pardon, fo as not to take away or injure the intention, efficacy, and value of that facrifice made by Christ in his death, we must particularly attend to the information given by our school-mafter, to whose inftructions I have formerly recommended your worthy correfpondent, that the finner was to lay his hand upon the head of the offering or fubftitute, and, by fo doing, the fin was tranfferred (typically) or removed from the finner, with all its confequences, upon the head of the fin-offering: hence in Leviticus, &c. after this ceremony was performed, it is written, "Thou fhalt kill sun the fin;" which the apostle alludes to 2 Cor. v. 21. "He hath made him to be fin for us, who knew no fin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." If it be asked why the hand should be laid upon the head of the fubftitute? The answer is obvious---Without this ceremony the antitype Chrift could not have been clearly pointed out as the head of the church, as the head of every man, as the head of all principalities, &c.; fo that when iniquity was laid upon him, it was the iniquity of every lapsed intelligence; by which means, Col. i. 20. he is fet forth as making peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself; by him, fays the apoftle, whether things in earth, or things in heaven; thus fhewing his ultimate defign, viz. not only of creating, but that of having made all things for himself, by reconciling them by the blood of his cross, yea even the wicked after the day of evil." Prov. xvi. 4.

For a confirmation of this rendering, fee Mifcellany, vol. ii. p. 299, &c.

From

From this union betwixt the head and members, we may obferve the equity of the head being stricken for the iniquity of the heels; hence, Pfalm xlix. 5. Chrift, applying the words to himfelf, Mat. xiii. 35. fays, "Wherefore fhould I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels fhall compass me about?" Therefore, as Jehovah has caufed or made the iniquities of us all to meet on him, according to Ifaiah's prophecy, chap. liii. 6. even fo, by the declaration of the apostle Paul, who afferts, Eph. i. 9, 10. " Having made known unto us the myftery of his will, according to the good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that, in the difpenfation of the fulness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ,\ both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him," &c. Sin has fevered and scattered a great part of the creation from the fon of God; but by virtue of his primary and original headship, he came to feek and to fave (reftore) that part which was loft. Hence the apoftle ufes the Greek word Man, answering to the Hebrew ws to fhew that Chrift is the Beginning, the Head of all the works and ways of God; (Gen i. I. Prov. viii. 22. &c.) for all things could not be reheaded in Chrift, unless he had been the original head of them prior to their defection by fin. Eph. iv. 15, 16.

"He

From these confiderations it is plain and manifeft, that the whole of the gospel confifts in the good pleasure of God, refting upon his beloved fon. Hence, John, viii. 29. that fent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." Ifaiah, xlii. 21. "The Lord is well pleafed for his righteousness fake." Mat. iii. 17. "This is my beloved fon in whom I am well pleased." Ifaiah, xlii. 1. "Behold my fervant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my foul delighteth; I will put my fpirit upon him; he fhall bring forth judgment upon the gentiles." Comp. with Mat. xii. 18. fee alfo chap. xvii. 5. Mark, i. 11. Luke, iii. 21. 2 Pet. i. 17. Now, in order that we may have an adequate idea of what the prophet means (Isaiah, xlii. 21. of the Lord's being well pleafed for his righteoufnels fake, he will magnify the law, and make it honourable) it will be neneceflary to attend to the facred Oracles refpecting the word PTY which is generally rendered juftice and righteousness, as fignifying what has no defect, is full weight or meature, what will stand the teft, having no deficiency, weakness, or infirmity, what fails in no refpect you can try it in. Lev xix. 36. ps juft balances (equal fcales), P juft weights; a Deut. xxv. 15. ephah, and a juft hin, ihall ye have." VOL. III.

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