than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies; their polishing was of sapphire." Here also is the flesh-red colour of the ruby, the pure white of the jasper, with the relucent polish of the sapphire. Now the law of the Nazarite, as it is contained in the vith chapter of Numbers, had reference to the body, and to that only; prohibiting the use of strong drink, by which it is enervated and shrivelled up, and likewise prohibiting the use of the razor, as the representative of those arts decorative of the outward person which shew themselves, age after age, in such fantastical varieties. The arts of man, by which he seeks to give inward vigour and outward beauty, being thus cut off, and the Nazarite separated to God, God shewed what he could make of him, how fair and comely, and pure and mighty; "purer than snow, whiter than milk; more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing of sapphire." And by this ordinance God did give in flesh a lively presentation of that beauty, and glory, and might, to which the human body should come, when it was wholly taken out of the hands of others, separated from the dead, and devoted to himself, which it will be in the resurrection. The ordinance of the Nazarite, blessed as it was of God, with such surpassing beauty of body, I consider as a standing type of the resurrection body, which shall be fashioned after the likeness of Christ's glorious body (Phil. iii. 21); and this is the reason, as I take it, why the person seated on the heavenly throne is described in his appearance by language so similar to that in which the Nazarite is described by the Prophet Jeremiah. That it is the resurrection body of Christ which is seated in the throne of heaven, I know for certain from what is written, Eph. i. 20–23; which is not written of his Divinity, nor yet of his reasonable soul, but of his body in particular, for that only was raised from the dead: "Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places; far above all principality, and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." And accordingly, when

the heavens, with its principalities are revealed to us, the first thing we see is one upon the throne, who to look upon is like a jasper and sardine stone. Now that this identification of Christ with the Nazarite is correct, I have other good reasons for believing. First, because in the days of his flesh, he was not a Nazarite, but was reproached for his indiscriminate use of the kindly fruits of the earth: "He is a wine bibber, and a friend of publicans and sinners." Moreover we know, that when hẹ shall come again, he will drink of the juice of the grape with his disciples (Matt. xxvi. 29). If therefore at any time he do gather up into himself this ordinance of the Nazarite, as he doth every other, it must be during the period of his session at the right hand of God, even that period which is represented in the vision before us. The Nazarite surely, like every other ordinance, must testify of Jesus: he is the end of it. But the Nazarite he was not during the days of his flesh, nor is to be when he comes again: therefore the Nazarite he must be in his present exaltation. Secondly, It answers well to the word referred to above, Matt. xxv. 29: "I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, till that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom;" for, to abstain from wine, was the chief part of the Nazarite's vow. To this perhaps also referreth what he saith, John xvii, 19: "And for their sakes I sanctify myself;" that is, set myself apart, "that they also might be sanctified through thy truth;" wherein I think is declared that the one end for which his body was sanctified, and separated from all sinful, mortal, and corruptible properties by the resurrection, and the one occupation which it should during its separateness be taken up with, was to sanctify those who believe, to make them perfect in one, and to advance them to the fellowship of his glory, even as he speaks in the passage referred to. Moreover, it answers well with the office of the Nazarite to see Christ as the only body, separate from death, through which the Father deigneth to execute his purpose, in which the Father dwells, and which is altogether devoted to the Father. On these accounts I incline to believe, that the embodied Christ upon the throne of God, like a sardine and a jasper, is the antitype of the Nazarite; and that the appearance which is

given to him in the text is for the purpose of teaching us this, along with other truths.

Believing, as I do, that this is the true interpretation of the appearance of Him who sat upon the throne, it furnishes us with the key to the history of Sampson, the mighty Nazarite of God, who was given to Manoah and his wife, with such glorious circumstances as attend not upon the birth of any other of the Old-Testament saints, excepting only Isaac. (Judges xiii.) If, as we have shewn, Christ became the Nazarite upon his ascension into glory, and continues so, until his return unto the earth, we must find the beginning and the ending, and all the particulars of Samson's history, realized within that period of our Lord's being. Now the first action of Samson's life is, the extraordinary and even unlawful desire which he had for a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines, which answereth to our Lord upon his ascension into glory, seeking his spouse, his bride, from the uncircumcised Gentiles. But before this is accomplished, a lion roars against Samson, which he rent as he would have rent a kid; signifying the resistance made by the Pagan empire of Rome, which Christ had to subvert before he did attain his purpose amongst the Gentile nations. Out of the carcase of this lion came forth sweetness and nourishment, signifying, as I take it, the delight and strength which flowed to Christ from the Gentiles, after that the wild beast of Paganism was overthrown. Now the second act of Samson's life is his wrath and revenge upon the Philistines, for depriving him of his wife, which I conceive to be the act of Christ's vengeance upon the nations, for corrupting his church, and marrying her to the kings of the earth. And behold how this act of vengeance proceedeth, by burning up their standing corn in the time of the wheat harvest, making it to them a harvest of wrath, instead of a harvest of joy, which answereth to all the Scriptures; as, for example, Joel iii. 13: "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe." Zech. xii. 6: "In that day will I make the governors of Judah like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand, and on the left." Matt. xiii. 40—42: "As therefore the tares are gathered, and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of

Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." This battle with burning and fuel of fire being accomplished, the Philistines make war upon the people of Judah; and Samson smites them with the jaw bone of an ass, out of which in his thirst flowed to him abundance of refreshing water; which, if I err not, signifies the destruction of the Gentile apostate lords, by the word of the testimony of a few despised preachers of Christ, who are in his hand as the jaw-bone of the ass in the hand of Samson: and from the same word of testimony which destroys the nations proceeds the living water which refresheth the heart of the Lord, when his work of judgment is past and over. Psalm cx. Psalm cx. 7: "He shall drink of the brook in the way therefore shall he lift up the head." This now is the first act of the Nazarite's life, in which, as I think, is contained under a type the act and history of our great Nazarite, in respect to his wife whom he takes to himself from amongst the uncircumcised.

And now we come to the other act of Samson's life separated from the former by a period of twenty years; and under which we believe the same great action of the mighty Nazarite, from his ascension to his coming again, is set forth with somewhat different emblems. It consisteth of two scenes, being both scenes of love, the loves of the Nazarite;-the one for a woman in Gaza, which was an harlot; to whom having gone in, the people of Gaza thought to have destroyed him in the morning, but in the midnight he arose and carried the gates of the city upon his shoulder to the top of an hill before Hebron. If I err not, this is Christ in his love coming to the harlot city of Jerusalem. Isaiah i. 21: "How is the faithful city become an harlot ?" and, when they would have destroyed him, carrying off the gates of hell and of the grave, and ascending unto the place of David's government before he reigned in Jerusalem. Thereafter, and apparently without any great interval, he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah, which if the former signify the Jewish church, in whose service he carried off the gates of death and hell, then this must signify the Gentile church, to whom the Lord betook himself after Judah would

not be his. And behold Delilah lendeth her ear to the lords of the Philistines; as the Gentile church hath forsaken her Nazarite, her sanctified and separated one, of whom she hath been beloved, and given herself to the kings of the earth: the end of which treachery is, that the seven locks, where was the hiding of Samson's strength, being cut off, he becometh to them a miserable drudge; which being interpreted is, that our mighty Nazarite having by the treacherous dealing of the church been stripped of his seven-horned or royal power, as King of kings and Lord of lords, the kings of the earth do use his name and his religion for bringing to pass all their vile machinations against truth, equity, mercy, and peace; but at length in the close of the Nazarite's day, their iniquity riseth to such a pitch of daring, that they will use the Lord's Christ for the entertainment of their idol pageantry,whereupon, at length wearied out, the mighty Nazarite cometh down upon them with hideous ruin, and so cometh to an end the action of his Nazarite condition: teaching us, that when Christ comes forth from his state of separation at the right hand of God and concludes his Nazarite life, it shall be with the destruction and ruin of those apostate kings and judges of the earth who have appropriated his names and attributes, and used them for the service of their idol.-Such is a brief view of the mystery of the Nazarite, which some may think more ingenious than judicious, and which I give rather as the materials for an exposition than an exposition itself; and to the students of the Old Testament, who have some insight into its method, these remarks will not seem unprofitable, though by others they be regarded as foolishness.

The other passage in the Old Testament, with a view to which the appearance of him who sat upon the throne, as well as the whole of these two chapters, is manifestly written, is that glorions vision which occurs ever and anon in the Prophet Ezekiel, and which is written at large in the first chapter thereof. As the prophetic part of the Apocalypse acknowledgeth the vision of the fourth and fifth chapters, so the Book of Ezekiel acknowledgeth the vision of the first chapter thereof, as the master key of the events described, the secret moving cause of them all. To this vision of Ezekiel, the wheels and living creatures,