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dignity, has written in the beginning of his "laws, And GOD faid· What? --- Let there be

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light, and there was light: Let the earth be, " and the earth was *."

To the fame purpose I might mention another pafsage: "And I faw a great white throne, and ss him that fat upon it, from whose face the $5 earth and the heaven fled away, and there was

found no place for them." As a word created nature, fo a look, a frown dissolve it, What uncontrolable and fovereign power is here? How can Deity be possibly reprefented in greater majesty, in superior glory? "Set Ho"MER'S Sublime, fays Mr BLACKWALL, adorned " with all the pomp of good words, heightened "with all the loftinefs of grand and ravishing « numbers, and place St JOHN's defcription of "the appearance of the Judge of the world near "to it, only exprefsed in a few plain and com

mon words, and adorned with its own native simplicity, and all the brightness of the Poet "will vanish, and be quite abforbed by the dazzling and rapturous glory of the Apostle. "What is bending of fable brows, baking of ambrofial curls, and Olympus trembling to the cen"ter,-- to the heaven and the earth flying away be

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* Ταύτη και ο των Ιεδαίων θεσμοθετης, οχ ο τυχων ανης, επει δη την τε θεια δύναμιν κατα την αξίαν εχώρησε, καξέφηνεν εν θες εν τη εισβολη γραψας των νομών, "EITE • DEO; Onow. Thi A VEDENN PWS, NαE EYEVETO XEDEN yn, xas syvelo." LONGIN. de Sublimitate, § 9.

+ Rev. xx. 11.

"fore the face of the Son of GOD? I fay no "more. To enlarge upon, and pretend to il "luftrate this passage, would be prefumption as "well as loft labour: from whofe face the earth "and the beaven fled away, is fo plain that it does " not need, fo majestic and grand, that it dif "dains commentary and paraphrase *."

To return to our fubject. To the Comparisons which we have already quoted from the facred Writings, we shall add the following: " How

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goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy taber

nacles, O Ifrael? As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the " trees of lign-aloes which the LORD hath plantsed, and as cedar-trees besides the waters t.

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My doctrine shall drop as the rain; my speech s fhall diftil as the dew, as the small rain upon "the tender herb, and as the fhowers upon the

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grafs t. For the LORD's portion is his people;

Jacob is the lot of his inheritance: He found ss him in a defert land, and in the waste howling Ss wilderness. He led him about, he inftructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As s an eagle stirreth up her neft, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, ss bears them on her wings; fo the LORD alone ss did lead him, and there was no strange God " with him. Behold how good and how pleass fant

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• BLACKWALL'S Sacred Claffics, vol. i. p. 251. Octavo edit.

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+ Numb. xxiv. | Deut. xxxii.

5,
6.
9-11.

Deut. xxxii. 2.

"fant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon "the head, that ran down upon the beard, even

AARON's beard, that went down to the fkirts " of his garments. As the dew of Hermon * " and as the dew that defcended upon the moun❝tains of Zion; for there the LORD commanded

the blessing, even life for evermore +. Who Ss hath wo? who hath forrow? who hath con"tentions? who hath babbling? who hath ss wounds without caufe? who hath redness of

eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they "that go to feek mixed wine. Look not thou " upon the wine when it is red, when it gives its "colour in the cup, when it moves itself aright: s at the laft it biteth like a ferpent, and stingeth

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like an adder. Thine eyes fhall behold strange " women, and thine heart fhall utter perverse things; yea, thou fhalt be as he that lies down in the midft of the fea, or as he that lies upon ss the top of a mast 1. And it was told the house of DAVID, faying, Syria is confederate with

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Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the sheart of his people, as the trees of the wood

SS are

"At about fix or seven hours diftance eaftward, says Mr "MAUNDRELL, stood within view Nazareth, and the two mounts Tabor and Hermon. We were fufficiently instructed

by experience what the holy Pfalmift means by the dew of "Hermon, oùr tents being as wet with it as if it had rained "all night." MAUNDRELL's Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, page 57.

+ Pfalm cxxxiii.

Prov. xxiii. 29-34.

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#are moved with the wind *. Wo to the mul#titude of many people, which make a noise like "the noise of the feas, and to the rushing of nastions; that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters. The nations fhall rufh like the rushing of many waters; but GOD fhall rebuke them, and they fhall flee far off, and fhall be "chafed as the chaff of the mountains before s the wind, and like a rolling thing before the ss whirlwind t. And the multitude of all the " nations that fight against Ariel, even all that

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fight against her and her munition, and that s diftrefs her, fhall be as a dream of a night-visssion. It shall be as when an hungry man "dreams, and behold he eats; but he awakes,

and his foul is empty: or as when a thirsty "man dreams, and behold he drinketh, but he awakes, and behold he is faint, and his foul "has appetite: fo fhall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against mount Zion t For as the rain comes down, and the fnow from heaven, and returns not thither, but wa"ters the earth, and makes it bring forth and

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bud, that it may give feed to the sower, and "bread to the eater; fo fhall my word be that "goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return sunto me void, but it fhall accomplish that s which I please, and it fhall profper in the thing ss whereunto I fent it |."

Ifaiah vii. 2.
Ifa. xxix. 7,-8.

+ Ifaiah xvii. 12, 13.
|| Ifa. Iv. 10, 11.

I might

- I might go on to multiply inftances of the Pa rabole from the infpired Writings; but I fhall only add two more, and I own I felect them for the fake not merely of example, but that I may evince their juftice and propriety. SS Behold he "fhall come up," fays the Prophet (hereby intending a furious invader) " like a lion from the fwelling of Jordan against the habitation of the " strong *." "After having defcended," fays Mr MAUNDRELL, "the outermoft bank of Jor"dan, you go about a furlong upon a level "strand, before you come to the immediate

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bank of the river. This fecond bank is fo " befet with bushes and trees, fuch as tamarisks, "willows, oleanders, &c. that you can fee no "water till you have made your way through

them. In this thicket anciently, and the fame

is reported of it at this day, feveral forts of "wild beafts were wont to harbour themselves, "whose being washed out of the covert by the

overflowings of the river, gave occasion to that allusion, he shall come up like a lion from the "fwelling of Jordan +," &c. Correfpondent to which account, AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS tells us, that "lions without number range through "the reeds and fhrubs of the rivers of Mefopo«tamia 1."

*Jeremiah xlix. 19.

Let

+MAUNDRELL'S Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 82.

Inter arundineta Mefopotamiæ fluminum & frutecta leones vagantur innumeri. Lib. xviii. cap. 17.

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