NOTE IV.

The ecclesiastical year was reckoned from the month Abib, or March; for when the passover was instituted, and "the Church of the firstborn" founded by all the first-born of the house of Israel, who were delivered from the sword of the destroying Angel by the blood of the paschal Lamb, being devoted to the service of God, they were commanded to reckon the month when this event took place as the beginning of months.-Page 30, line 15.

"Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the Lord thy God: for in the month of Abib the Lord thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the Lord thy God of the flock and the herd."-"This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you." Deut. xvi. 1, 2. Exod. xii. 2.

"Thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix : and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast, the males shall be the Lord's,—and every first-born of man amongst thy children shalt thou redeem, and it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of bondage; and it came to pass when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man, and the first-born of beast: therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix, being males, but all the first-born of my children I redeem." Exod. xiii. 12-15.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 'And I, behold I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel, instead of all the first-born that openeth the matrice among the children of Israel: therefore the Levites shall be mine'." Num. iii. 11, 12.

"The general assembly and Church of the First-born." Heb. xii. 23.

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LETTER VI.

The fall of the idolatrous city of Jericho, compared with the apocalypse of St. John, being respectively a type and prophecy of the destruction of the kingdoms of this world.

1

ONE of the most remarkable of the several ceremonial, or historical types of the Old Testament, which are evidently referred to, and have their meaning illustrated in the apocalypse of St. John, is the destruction of the city of Jericho by Joshua; which city being the first of the land of Canaan that fell before the children of Israel, and the first-fruits of victory, is to be considered as a representative of the whole land of the Canaanites; and as being therefore, equally with it, a type of those kingdoms of the world which shall eventually be delivered from the power of Satan, and over which Christ shall reign with his saints "for ever and ever;" agreeably to the prediction of the Apocalypse (chap. xi. 15), “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever;" and to the similar prophecy of Daniel (chap. vii. 18), " The Saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever." Thus a late eminent divine observes, "The city of Jericho is understood by the best expositors of the Christian Church to be emblematical of the world in several respects. It was accursed to the Lord for the wickedness of its inhabitants, as the world is now subjected to a curse for the disobedience of man. Jericho was formally devoted to ruin and destruction: the world itself is under a like sen

tence; being kept in store against the day of judgment. And the circumstances attending the destruction of the world are selected and worded in such a manner, as to shew a plain allusion to the fall of Jericho." And again he observes, "The city of Jericho presents itself to us as a figure of this world, in which we now live, as being wicked, as being in opposition to God, as being blind to impending judgments; the people of Jericho are distinguished by the title of "those that believed not" (Heb. xi. 30, 31).-The Israelites, as the chosen people of God, are always representatives of the true Church; and Joshua, or Jesus (as the word is otherwise rendered, Heb. iv. 8), whose name signifies "The Lord, the Saviour," is universally acknowledged to have been a type of Christ, the captain of our salvation. Nor has the apparent agreement between the peculiar means which were directed to be employed in the taking of the city of Jericho by the children of Israel, and the general plan and structure of the Apocalypse, altogether escaped the notice of commentators; though they universally destroy the parallel, and render the allusion to the type obscure, by erroneously arranging the seals, trumpets, &c., of which the Apocalypse consists, into three successive septenaries, instead of only two, which is its true form, and in accordance with the type.

In proceeding now to compare more minutely these two portions of the Old and New Testament, by which they will be made mutually to illustrate each other, we shall find (as is also remarkably the case in the history of Joseph, considered as a type of Christ in his humiliation, and subsequent exaltation to be the Saviour of his brethren), that the parallel holds good not only in the grand outlines of the histories, as has indeed been already Works of the late Rev. W. Jones of Nayland, vol vii. p. 210.

recognized by commentators, but extends also to many of the minute particulars.

Thus we are told at the commencement of the historical narrative, that when Joshua was by the city of Jericho, which was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel, he looked, " and behold, there stood a man over against him with a sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us or for our adversaries; and he said, Nay, but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come; and Joshua fell upon his face and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? and the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy, and Joshua did so;" And the Lord then said unto Joshua, "See I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour."-So in the corresponding history of the Apocalypse, at its first opening, our Lord Jesus Christ manifests himself to St. John in a glorious vision, as the head of his Church, or as holding its ministers in his right hand; and as "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" while out of his mouth, in reference to his character as "The WORD of GOD," proceeded as the likeness of a two-edged sword, that fiery law with which he will in the last days destroy his enemies; when he, whose name is there said to be "The Word of God" shall rule them with a rod of iron and tread the winepress of the fierceness of his wrath. After which St. John was commanded by our Lord to write "the things which should be hereafter," (Rev. i. 19,) or to record those prophecies which declare the kingdoms of the world to be devoted to destruction, and given into the hands

of the martyred saints in heaven, who pour out the vials of wrath upon them.

The next particular stated in the history of the destruction of Jericho is, that the armed men of Israel were directed to precede the ark, where Christ ever manifested his glorious presence on the mercy-seat, as the head of his Church and people, reigning between the Cherubim; the armed men fitly representing the Church, in the latter ages of the world, and in its glorified state, in possession of the attribute of power; arms being in symbolical or figurative language commonly used as a natural emblem of power; as in the following words of an hymn, "The Church armed with power:" and in like manner the horn, as being the weapon of offence with which a large portion of the animal creation is armed, is employed in the poetical language of the Scriptures as another symbol for power. The priests, representing the same Church as possessing the attribute of holiness, were also to precede and accompany the ark; and the unarmed multitude, representing the Church in a state of humiliation, were to follow in the rereward.-So, in correspondence with this appointed order, we find in the Apocalypse, that subsequently to the introductory vision of Christ in chap. i., in the vision of the mediatorial throne of chap. iv. v., the church of the martyrs in heaven, complete there in power and holiness, are represented as "kings," exercising their attribute of power, by the twenty-four Elders seated on thrones and having crowns on their heads, who cast their crowns before the mercyseat or mediatorial throne upon which Christ is seated, ascribing to him that "glory, honour, and power" (Rev. iv. 4, 10, 11,) which they derive from him, while the same Church are next represented in their office as priests, in possession of the attribute of holiness, by the four