and of our own form and shape which of all others is most familiar to and most beloved and reverenced by us and consequently of all others is most familiar to and most beloved and reverenced by us and consequently of all others is most apt to encourage our prayers and inflame our zeal and raise our admiration For in what sensible appearance could God have more powerfully affected our sense than in that which we are most inclined to love most prone to trust to and most accustomed to reverence and obey and than that in which alone we discern the Image of God and the reflections of those divine Attributes of Wisdom and Goodness and Truth and Justice for which we reverence and adore him There being therefore no visible substance in which God could more advantageously exhibit himself to us in order to the exciting our worship to him and determining it upon him than that of a humane form he thought meet to assume our natures into a personal union with his Divinity and therein to rule and govern us So that now the Humanity of our Saviour is the Tabernacle and Shechinah of God wherein the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily and these two natures united in Person and Glory are the immediate object of our worship wherefore as the ancient Iews fell upon their faces and worshipped when they beheld the Shechinah or glory of the Lord their imagination being thereby assisted and their affections excited Levit. 9.24 So when we by our internal sense or imagination look up to the Glorified Humanity of our Saviour in Heaven it is our duty to raise up our affections to Heaven by that sensible Shechinah of God and thereupon to fall down and worship But as the Iews when they fell down before their Shechinah did not worship the visible light or glory separately from God but as it was united to and assumed into conjunction with him so neither ought we to worship our Shechinah viz. the humanity of our Saviour separately from his Divinity but in Union and Conjunction with it and in short as it was utterly unlawful for the Iews to worship God in any other Shechinah or sensible appearance either unshapen or shaped than in that Glorious one which he himself vouchsafed to them that being sufficient to affect their sense and thereby to raise up their minds and affections to him so is it utterly unlawful for us Christians to worship God in any other Shechinah Image similitude or visible appearance than that of the glorified humanity of our Saviour that being sufficient to assist our imaginations and elevate our hearts and devotions to him For though we cannot behold his glorified Humanity with our bodily Eyes now he is removed into Heaven yet so neither did the Iews the Glory of the Lord at least but very rarely after the Ark whereupon it sat was removed into the Holy of Holies which was a figure of Heaven yet as they being assured it was there could easily view it in their imaginations and thereby assist their devotion so we being assured from Scripture that Christs humanity is in Heaven can look up thither in our imagination and by beholding its glory there lift up our heavy minds and affections to the eternal Divinity that inhabits it so that if we Christians make any other Shechinah or Image to worship God in besides his own humanity which he himself made and wherein he now dwells above in the Heavens we are of all false worshippers the most inexcusable because by assuming our humanity God hath vouchsafed to us such an Image and Shechinah of himself as is of all others the most proper and effectual to excite and determine our Devotions III. God hath chosen to Govern us by his own eternal Son in our natures that he might thereby the more powerfully incourage us to obedience for now we have all the assurance in the World that the great design of his Government is to do us good and to advance our happiness and that under his blessed Empire we shall be sure to enjoy all the graces and favours that can be wisely indulged on his part or modestly expected on ours Had he Governed us immediately by himself we could not have been so secure of our interest in him as we have reason to be of our interest in his Son hypostatically united to our nature because the divine Nature considered purely as such is infinitly distant from ours and has no other relation to it than as it is the common cause of all things and being so distant in nature from us it would have been hard for us to imagine how he could be touched with the same tender and compassionate regard for us as he would be if he were nearer allied to us especially when we reflected upon our own demerit and considered that by our sins we had set our selves at a wider distance from him than we were by our natures this together with that anxiety which naturally arises in guilty minds could not but have rendered us very suspicious of Gods intentions towards us had he governed us immediately by himself but now that he governs us by his own Son cloathed in our own nature at his hands we may with full confidence expect a most gracious and merciful treatment For now we are assured we have a close and most intimate interest in him by reason of his kindred and Alliance to us in the same common nature which makes him every mans another self under different accidents and circumstances and his nature being perfectly happy and perfectly pure from all irregular passions and appetites cannot but be affected with a most tender regard to all the individuals of its own kind because being compleatly happy himself he can have nothing farther to desire for himself but that his kindred by nature who are all his own substance dilated and multiplied may be happy too and being intirely good he can have nothing of that sordid selfishness in him which doth too often contract and narrow our benevolence and cause us like Serpents to infold our selves within our selves and to turn out our stings to all the World besides Upon both these accounts therefore as he is a perfectly happy and perfectly good man he cannot but bear a hearty and universal good will to mankind and that he doth so he hath given us too many dear experiments to make the least doubt of it for while he was among us he all along prefer'd our interest before his own he made himself poor to inrich us exposed himself to contempt to raise us to glory took upon him our guilt to release us from punishment and willingly underwent a most miserable death that we might live happily for ever In all which he gave us the most Glorious demonstrations how infinitely dear the humane nature of which he participated was to him in all those numberless individuals into which it hath been multiplied The consideration of which is exceedingly pregnant with
Person for Ezek. 1.24 the Septuagint hath changed shaddai the undoubted name of the Omnipotent God into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which to be sure they would not have done had they not thought this Word a divine Person and then as for Philo the Jew who lived in the Age when this Gospel was written he expresly calls this Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 next to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a second God next to the Father of all things Quaest. Solut. And elsewhere he tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word is superiour to the whole World and more ancient and general than any thing that is made Leg. Allegor lib. 2. And again speaking of the Worlds being the Temple of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. in which Temple the High Priest is the first-born divine Word of God de Somn. And in his Book de Profug he thus discourses of this Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. this diviâ—e Word is superiour to all things it hath no visible species by which it may be likened to any sensible thing but is it self the Image of God the most ancient of all intelligibles and next to the most High between whom and him there is no medium A great many other instances I could give out of this ancient Writer but these are sufficient to prove what I intend viz. that by the Word he meant a divine Person And then for the Chaldee Paraphrase which is one of the most ancient Monuments we have of Jewish Learning there is nothing more frequent in it than to signifie by this Phrase the Word a divine Person for instead of Iehovah or God in the Hebrew Text they commonly insert the word of Iehovah to which word they attribute personal actions by which it is evident that they looked upon it as a divine Person thus for instance they attribute speech to him Gen. 3.22 where instead of God said they render it the word of God said Exod. 20.1 instead of the Lord said they render it the Word of the Lord said Again they attribute hearing to him Deut. 33.7 where instead of the Lord heard they insert the word of the Lord heard And Gen. 3.22 instead of the Lord said behold the man is become as one of us the Ierusalem Targum runs thus the word of the Lord said behold Adam whom I created is the only begotten in the World even as I am the only begotten in the highest heavens And Exod. 19.3 instead of Moses went up unto God in the Edit Compluten it is Moses went up into the presence of the Word of God. So also in Exod 17.7 instead of I will establish my Covenant between me and thee it is I will establish my Covenant between my word and thee Again Gen. 19.24 the Paraphrase is And the word of Jehovah sent benign showers upon Sodom and Gomorrha to try them if they would yet repent of their evil works which when they saw they concluded doubtless our evil works are not yet revealed before the Lord wherefore there was sent down upon them a shower of fire and brimstone from the word of Iehovah in Heaven So also on Gen. 28.20 21. Onkelos thus Paraphraseth If the word of the Lord will be my helper and lead me in the way which I go the word of the Lord shall be my God And on Gen. 5.24 the Ierusalem Targum expresly asserts that Enoch was drawn up to heaven by the word of the Lord. And also on Gen. 22.14 the same Paraphrase affirms thus that Abraham worshiped and called upon the name of the word of Iehovah and said thou art Iehovah c. And on Deut. 18.19 thus both Onkelos and Ionathan Paraphrase He that refuses to hearken to my words my Word shall take vengeance upon him And to name no more on those words of the Hebrew Text Hos. 14.5 I will be as the dew of Israel Ionathan thus descants I by my word will receive their prayers and have mercy on them A great many other instances I could give but these I think are sufficient to expose the great Immodesty of Crellius who in a set Discourse will needs persuade the World that by the Word in the Chaldee Paraphrase is no where meant a Person but meerly the speech or vocal Word of God For how is it imaginable that by this Word they should mean no more than that when they so commonly attribute to it personal actions such as speaking hearing seeing and desiring drawing up men to Heaven raining down fire and Brimstone from heaven and taking vengeance upon men With what tolerable propriety can these things be attributed to a vocal Word How can a Covenant be made between men and the outward speech or declaration of God What non-sense would it be to worship and invocate the name of Gods vocal Word and to say of it thou art Iehovah With what tolerable sense can Gods declaration be called God or Gods only begotten in Heaven Lastly How can God be said to receive our Prayers and to have mercy upon us by any such outward declaration Since therefore it is evident that by this Word they meant a Person and since to this Person they ascribe not only the Name but the Worship of God it is plain they believed him to be a divine Person and that which is the sense of this ancient Paraphrase in this matter was without doubt the sense of the Jews in the Age wherein it was written And accordingly Chalcidius ad Timaeum in that book where he professes to explain the Doctrines of the holy Sect. i. e. the Jews deliver this as their sense of this divine word Et ratio Dei Deus est humanis rebus consulens quae causa est hominibus bene beateque vivendi si non concessum sibi munus à summo Deo negligant i. e. this Logos or Word of God is God taking care of human Affairs and is the cause or principle by which men may live well and happily if they do not neglect this gift which the supreme God hath granted to them And to the same purpose Celsus speaking the sense of the Jews expresly tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. we agree with you that the Word is the Son of God. Page 35. Line 20. b Nay and that by this Word the Jews mean not only a real and divine Person but even that very Messias himself of whom S. Iohn here speaks is evident considering that they not only give him the very same Characters that the New Testament gives to our Saviour such as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Character of God Phil. de Agricul lib. 2. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of God Leg All. lib 2. suitable to Heb. 1.3 such as the Manna the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bread and food which God
used this Technological Phrase in any different sence from its common acceptation he would have told us of it and not have given us such an unavoidable occasion to mistake in so great a Doctrine by clothing its sence in such Phrases as in the Language of the Age he wrote in signified so differently from what he meant and intended by them And as in the above-named Texts he is expresly stiled God so other Texts to convince us that he is not a meer titular Deity attribute sundry things to him which are peculiar to God Essential For so the making of the World is in sundry places expresly attributed to him which as the Apostle tells us Heb. 3.4 is peculiar to God For he saith he that made all things is God for so in the above-named Text we are told That by him were all things made and that without him was not any thing made which was made where by all things we must necessarily understand the whole World unless we will suppose the Apostle to equivocate because it was then a common and received Doctrine that the Word was the maker of the World. For so besides the above-cited Authorities the Chaldee Paraphrase upon Isa. 45.12 instead of I made the Earth and created man upon it saith the Lord renders it I by my word made the Earth and created man upon it and on Gen. 1.27 instead of God created man the Ierusalem Targum renders it The Word of the Lord created man and so in several other places This therefore being the Doctrine of the Age S. Iohn could not but apprehend that they would certainly understand these words of his in their own sence because in all appearance they are so to be understood if therefore he meant them in any other sence he ought immediately to have explained himself which since he hath not it is plain either that he meant according to the common sence or that he intended to equivocate but that he meant according to the common Doctrine of the Age is sufficiently evident from other Texts of Scripture For Heb. 11.3 the Apostle expresses this Article to the Jews in their own Language through Faith we understand that the Worlds were made by the Word of God now that by this Word he meant Christ is plain from Heb. 1.1 2. In these last days God spake unto us by his own Son by whom also he made the Worlds and that by these Worlds he means the whole Creation is evident from the 8 9 and 10. verses of this Chapter But unto the Son he said thy Throne O God is for ever and ever c. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity c. speaking still of the Son and then it follows And thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thine hands for the conjunction And here plainly connects these words to the foregoing viz. But unto the Son he said c. so that still it is the same Son of whom it is said Thy Throne O God c. and thou Lord in the beginning c. the same Person whose Throne in verse 8. is said to be for ever and ever that is said in verse 10. to have laid the foundations of the earth So also Col. 1.15 16 17. Who is the Image of the invisible God the first-born of every Creature for by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are on earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things do consist where to shew that he means a proper and literal creation the Apostle describes it in those very words wherein Moses describes the creation of the World For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are on Earth and to shew that he doth not mean by creating renewing or regenerating as the Socinians will needs understand him he tells us that not only Men were created by him who are the only Subjects of this new Metaphorical creation but all things in general that are on Earth and not only all things that are on Earth but all things that are in Heaven too where there never was any thing new-created or regenerated for the Thrones and Dominions the Principalities and Powers i. e. Orders of Angels that are here said to be created by him have never been renewed or regenerated but those of them that fell fell for all eternity and they which stand have always stood and shall stand for ever and therefore by his creating them must be meant his giving them their being and existence And as the creation of the World is in Scripture attributed to Christ which speaks him a divine Being so there are other things ascribed to him which are peculiar to the Divinity as particularly his being Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end the first and the last in Rev. 22.13 and several other places which is a stile that God hath appropriated to himself Isa. 44.6 Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of Hosts I am the first and I am the last and besides me there is no God. If then Christ be the first and last as he himself declares he is Rev. 1.17 he must be that Lord the King and Redeemer of Israel Hitherto we have been proving that he is God but then there are other Texts that do as plainly prove him to be God-man For so in 1 Tim. 3.16 Without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh which is the same with that of S. Iohn John 1.18 And the Word which in the first verse he saith was God was made flesh so also Phil. 2.6 7. For being in the form of God he thought it not Robbery to be equal with God but emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant being made in the likeness of men from which words it is plain that Christ was in the form of God before ever he was in the form of a servant for it was by taking on him the form of a Servant that he emptied himself and his being in the form of a servant consisted in being made in the likeness of men so that his being in the form of God doth as much imply that he was God as his being in the form of a servant doth that he was Man and since in becoming man he emptied himself it necessarily follows that before he became so he was full and also that that fulness of his consisted in being in the form of God if then he was full by being in the form of God before he emptied himself into the form of a servant by being made in the likeness of men it is certain that he was in the form of God before he was in the form of man and that his being in the form of God
for our sakes or that God the Son will be unfaithful to the Father for our sakes both which suppositions are equally absurd and blasphemous Whilst therefore God proceeds with us in this established method of granting his mercy to us only through his Son and confining his Son to dispence it to us only upon the conditions of the New Covenant to flatter our selves with hopes of mercy while we continue impenitent is to presume both against reason and possibility IV. This way of God's communicating his Favours to us through the mediation of Christ is also most apt in it self to encourage us to approach him with Chearfulness and freedom For it is a natural effect of guilt to suggest to mens minds dreadful and anxious thoughts of God and whilst we are under such thoughts of him how is it possible for us to approach him immediately and without any Friend or Advocate to introduce and speak for us with any chearfulness or freedom For with what confidence can I address to an incensed and offended God purely upon my own fund or interest when I am conscious of a thousand times more evil in me to provoke him against me than of good to recommend me to his favour Unless therefore I am secured of some powerful friend in Heaven that is infinitely more acceptable to God than I can modestly hope to be and that will agitate for me and solicite my cause with all his power and interest my sense of the innumerable provocations I have given him to turn his back upon me must either render me quite desperate of success at the Throne of his grace or cause me to approach it with unspeakable horrour and confusion So that my intercourse with God must either be wholly interrupted or rendred very difficult and uneasie to me because my slavish dread of him must either chase me from his Altars or drag we to them with violence and reluctancy And hence it is that under the sense of our guilt we naturally fly to the Intercessions of others whom we believe to have more interest with God than our selves because we cannot modestly promise our selves a free admittance and access to him upon our own account Which probably was the Reason of the first institution of demon-Demon-worship among the Heathens whose minds being stung with the sense of their own guilts they were not able to approach God without fearful despondence and anxiety whereupon they began to cast about as it is natural for guilty minds to do how they might procure some other Beings that were in great favour with God to interpose with him in their behalf and having learned by an universal Tradition that there was a sort of middle Beings called Angels or Demons between the Sovereign God and Men they began to address to these and to bribe them with Sacrifices and sacred honours to intercede with God in their behalf And hence Apuleius de Daemon Soc. calls these Demons Mediae potestates per quas desideria nostra merita ad Deos commeant inter terricolas coelicolasque vectores hinc precum inde donorum qui ultro citroque portant hinc petitiones inde suppetias seu quidam utrumque interpretes salutigeri i. e. They are middle powers by whom our desires and merits are presented to the Gods they go between Heaven and Earth and carry from hence the Prayers of men and from thence the Gifts of God from Earth they go with Petitions and from Heaven they return with Supplies or they are the Interpreters of both Worlds that do continually carry and report the mutual salutations of both to each other By which it is evident that they thought it very necessary in order to God's accepting their addresses that they should be presented and recommended to him by some better Beings than themselves their guilty minds it seems suggesting to them that it would be high presumption for such great offenders as themselves to approach the divine Majesty without being introduced and Patronized by some more pure and holy Beings And I am very apt to think that the great cause of that Spirit of bondage which possessed the ancient Iews and rendred them so diffident and tremulous in all their approaches to God was their want of an explicite knowledge of the Mediator For what dismal and melancholy expostulations do we frequently meet with in their addresses to God such as Wilt thou be angry for ever Hast thou forgotten to be gracious Wilt thou remember thy loving kindness no more Which plainly shews that their guilt suggested to them such frightful apprehensions of God as did very much cramp their hope and confidence in him And hence the Apostle opposes this Spirit of bondage in them to that Christian Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father i. e. by which we approach God with great freedom and assurance and go to him as Children to a kind and merciful Father Rom. 8.15 Now if you would know from whence this Christian freedom and assurance proceeds the Author to the Hebrews will inform you Heb. 10.21 22. Having therefore an High-Priest over the houshold of God i. e. to mediate and intercede for us let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith and Heb. 4.14 15 16 the Apostle urges our having a compassionate High-Priest in Heaven to intercede for us as an argument to encourage us to come boldly to the Throne of grace And indeed what greater encouragement can we have to draw nigh unto God with an humble confidence than this consideration that the highest Favourite he hath in Heaven or Earth is our Advocate and that he is not only infinitely concerned for us as being akin to us by nature and having a compassionate sense of our infirmities that he doth not only imploy in our behalf all the favour and interest he hath with God as he is the Son of his Essence and the Object of his delight but that he ever intercedes for us in the right and vertue of that Meritorious Sacrifice with which he bought and purchased all those heavenly blessings he intercedes for So that now all we have to do is to return to God by an unfeigned repentance which if we do he stands engaged to undertake our cause and what may we not expect from the Patronage of so great and powerful a Mediator For how great soever our past sins are his interest in Heaven is far greater how loud and clamorous soever our past Provocations are his Bloud and Wounds are far louder and how importunately soever our past guilts may imprecate the divine Vengeance upon us his Intercessions do far more importunately and prevalently deprecate it So that now we cannot reasonably doubt of a free admission to God in any case whatsoever wherein our Saviour will make use of his interest for us with God and therefore since in all cases he doth continually imploy his interest for us but only in that of our impenitence every Penitent
Spirit we could have no imagination of him because imaginations are nothing but the Images of sensible things we can now by the strength of our Imagination fetch him down from the Heavens when we please and set him before our minds in all that venerable Majesty wherein he sits at the right hand of his Father So that tho he be never present to our outward sense yet which is almost equivalent when ever we have occasion to converse with him we can make him present to our inward viz. our fancy and imagination into this spacious Gallery of the Pictures of sensible things our mind can walk when it pleases and there behold him in Effigie tho it cannot see him face to face and considering how much we are governed in this degenerate state of our nature by fancy and imagination as well as by sight and feeling it is doubtless a most advantageous circumstance of Gods Government of the World that he governs us by one whom we can fancy and imagine when we cannot see or feel him There are a great many men that never saw the King who yet are overawed by the imagination they have of his Majesty and greatness whereas were not the King a man but a pure invisible Spirit they could form no imagination of him the want of which would very much abate if not utterly extinguish their aw and reverence of his Person Considering therefore how much we are governed by our sense in this state of our Apostacy it was doubtless a wonderful wise contrivance of God who is a pure Spirit to assume to himself some sensible matter that therein by presenting himself to our outward or inward sense he might strike the deeper aw on us and thereby the more effectually rule and govern us But of all sensible matter none could be so proper to this purpose as a human form in which we are inured and accustomed to be governed and of which as was hinted before we have of all sensible things the greatest love and veneration during this our Degeneracy therefore by which we are so unqualified to be governed by God immediately God the Father hath most wisely contrived to govern us by God-man i. e. by his own eternal Son Hypostatically united to our natures But when once mankind is recovered out of this lapsed condition when our sense is perfectly subdued to our reason and all our faculties are reduced into their Primitive Order then we shall return under Gods immediate Dominion for then God-man shall deliver up the Kingdom and God shall be all in all II. God now governs us by his own eternal Son in our natures to cure and prevent the spreading contagion of Idolatry There is no one Vice to which our corrupt nature is more propense and of which it hath been more universally tardy than that of Idolatry for as for other Vices they have their peculiar Provinces and such a Vice is more predominant in such a Clime and Temperament of Air In one Nation Pride reigns in another Intemperance in another Treachery and in a fourth Malice and Revenge as for Idolatry it 's an universal Monarch to whose Empire all the World hath been enslaved and subjected and notwithstanding all the care which God hath taken to prevent it it hath spread like the Plague till it became the Epidemical Disease of human Nature Now to be sure such an universal effect must necessarily be owing to some universal cause and what other can that be than the universal degeneracy of human Nature from its primitive life of Reason into a life of Sense For while Man was under the Government of his Reason he was as much influenced by dry arguments as he is now by his Sense and the full reason he had to believe that there is an invisible divine Being presiding over all things did as vigorously excite him to adore and worship him as the sight of him could have done had he appeared to his bodily eyes in a Glory proportionable to the immense perfections of his Nature But when once his sense had usurped the Throne of his reason and enslaved him to its Empire the case was quite altered now Reason and Argument have very little influence on him unless it be back'd with some impressions on his sense and his predominant affections are those that are raised by the strokes of sensible objects upon the sensories of his Sight and Taste and Feeling which the divine substance and perfections can never touch they being purely spiritual by which means that communication and intercourse which was between God and man whilst man was governed by reason is mightily disturbed and interrupted tho it be not altogether stopt and intercepted for still our reason which was not extinguished by the degeneracy of our natures suggests to us that there is a God and inspires us with an awful sense of his divine perfections which still maintains in us Religious Inclinations and Affections whereby we are importuned and solicited to adore and worship but we being under the Government of Sense are thereby naturally inclined either to look upon God who is in himself a pure invisible Spirit under the notion of a sensible Being and as such to worship him for so anciently some adored the Sun for God others the universal material Nature others such particular parts of it and in this consists that gross Idolatry of worshiping false Gods or at least to blend our conceptions of him with corporeal Phantasms and then to express those Phantasms in outward visible Images by them to excite and direct our Worship to him for so in most Nations the supreme Numen was heretofore adored in Statues and Images of several shapes and figures copied from the several Images by which they represented him to themselves in their own vain and roving imaginations and herein consists that more refined Idolatry of worshiping the true God in a false manner Thus the general cause of all Idolatry is nothing but the general Apostacy of human nature from the life of reason to the life of sense by which we are naturally inclined either to transform God into a gross and sensible nature or at least to assist our selves in conceiving of and adoring and worshiping him by sensible and visible Objects To prevent which God hath been graciously pleased to assume some material substance and therein from time to time to exhibit to mens eyes a visible presence of himself which in Scripture is frequently called the Glory of the Lord and by the ancient Jews the Shechinah or habitation of God and consisted of a shining luminous matter which exhibited a glorious lustre of flame or light set off with thick and solemn clouds whence it is probable he is said to cover himself with light as with a garment Psal. 104.2 and in this glorious appearance he conducted Israel through the Red Sea and Wilderness came down upon Mount Sinai and was seen by Moses and the Elders of Israel and from thence removed into