wise name, powerful name, or true name, good name, or merciful name, faithful name, or righteous name; yet all these qualities, wisdom, power, truth, goodness, mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness, are, in numberless instances, ascribed to God, as the eternal and immutable perfections of his nature: but there is mention of his fearful name, his glorious name, his great name, his reverend name, and his excellent name, sometimes even of his dreadful name, but oftenest of his holy name; for all these terms are comparative, and bear an immediate reference to the sentiments of the humble worshipper. Nay, as the epithet holy is often found in conjunction with some of the others above mentioned, which admit this application, they serve to explain it. Thus the Psalmist 172, Let them praise thy great and terrible name, for it is holy. Again 173, Holy and reverend is his name.

What was the display which Jehovah made to the Philistines, when his ark was in their possession, a display which extorted from them the acknowledgment that the God of Israel is a holy God, before whom they could not stand? It was solely of sovereignty and uncontroullable power in the destruction of their idol god Dagon, and great numbers of the people. This filled them with such terror at the bare sight of the ark, the symbol of God's presence, as was too much for them to bear. And indeed 173 Psal. cxi, 9.

172 Psal. xcix. 3.

both the Greek άytos, and the Latin sanctus, admit the same meaning, and are often equivalent to augustus, venerandus. The former term augustus, Castalio has frequently, and not improperly, adopted in his version, when the Hebrew word kadosh is applied to God. The change of the epithet sanctus is not necessary; but if perspicuity be thought in a particular-case to require it, I should prefer the latter term venerandus, as more expressive of religious awe. Further, when the term holy is ascribed by angels to God, we find it accompanied with such words or gestures as are expressive of the profoundest awe and veneration.

The description, action, and exclamation of the seraphim in Isaiah 174, lead our thoughts more to the ideas of majesty and transcendent glory than to those of a moral nature. I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lofty, and his train filled the temple: above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings: with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah the God of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And the pillars of the porch were shaken by the voice of him that cried; and the house was filled with smoke. Every thing in this description is awful and majestic. That he is the Lord of hosts who dwelleth on high, in whose august presence even the seraphim must veil their faces, and that the whole

earth is full of his glory, are introduced as the ground of ascribing to him thrice, in the most solemn manner, the epithet holy.

There is a passage pretty similar to this in the Apocalypse 175 The four beasts (or, as the word ought to be rendered, living creatures), had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within; and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, who was, and is, and is to come. And when those creatures give glory, and honour, and thanks, to him that sitteth on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever; the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sitteth on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, say. ing, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are, and they were created. Here every circumstance points to the majesty, power, and dominion, not to the moral perfections of God; the action and doxology of the elders make the best comment on the exclamation of the four living creatures, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, &c.

It is universally admitted, that to hallow or sanctify the name of God, is to venerate, to honour it. According to analogy, therefore, to affirm that the name of God is holy, is to affirm that it is honourable, that it is venerable. Nay, in the same sense,

175 Rev. iv. 8, &c.

H

we are said to sanctify God himself; that is, to make him the object of our veneration and awe. In this way, to sanctify God, is nearly the same as to fear him, differing chiefly in degree, and may be opposed to an undue fear of man. Thus it is employed by the Prophet 176, Say not, A confederacy to all them to whom this people shall say, a confederacy, neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. But nothing can give a more apposite example of this use than the words of Moses to Aaron 177, on on occasion of the terrible fate of Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu. This is that the Lord spake, 1 will be sanctified in them that come nigh me; and before all the people I will be glorified. Their transgression was, that they offered before the Lord strange fire, or what was, not the peculiar fire of the altar, lighted originally from heaven, but ordinary fire kindled from their own hearths, an action which, in the eye of that dispensation, must be deemed the grossest indignity. Spencer 178 has well expressed the sense of the passage in these words: "Deum. "sanctum esse, id est, a quavis persona vel emi"nentia, incomparabili naturæ suæ excellentia, se"paratum, ideoque postulare, ut sanctificetur, id est, auguste, decore, et ritu naturæ suæ separatæ, "imaginem quandam ferente, colatur."

176 Isaiah, viii. 12, 13.

178 Lib. I. cap. vii.

177 Lev. x. 1,

&c.

very

15. THE sixth and last sense mentioned, was moral purity and innocence, a sense which, by a natural turn of thinking, arises out of the two first meanings assigned, namely, clean in the common import of the word, and clean in the eye of the ceremonial law. This meaning might, in respect of its connection with these, have been ranked in the third place. But, because I consider this as originally a metaphorical use of the word, and requiring a greater degree of refinement than the other meanings, I have reserved it for the last. This acceptation is accordingly much more frequent in the New Testament than in the Old. In the latter, it oftner occurs in the prophetical and devotional writings, than in the Pentateuch, and the other historical books, where we never find holy mention. ed in the description of a good character. This, in my judgment, merits a more particular attention than seems to have been given it. In what is affirmed expressly in commendation of Noah, Abraham, or any of the Patriarchs, of Moses, Joshua, Job, David, Hezekiah, or any of the good kings of Israel or Judah, or any of the Prophets or ancient worthies, except where there is an allusion to a sacred office, the term kadosh, holy, is not once employed. Now there is hardly another general term, as just, good, perfect, upright, whereof, in such cases, we do not find examples. Yet there is no epithet which occurs oftner, on other occasions, than that whereof I am speaking. But, in the time of the Evangelists, this moral application of the corresponding