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what view is not before me at present. So likewisę in that other prayer, O Lord God of hosts-look upon the face of thine anointed, T, thy Messi'ah, 78 X158 08, LXX. thy Christ',' as St Peter tells us, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power. To this Lord of hosts is directed that fervent exclamation in the end of this psalm, O Lord of hosts, blessed is Adam, (not the, or a man, but man in general, mankind), trusting, when he trusts in thee.' The object of this blessed trust is, in the same terms 3, said to be that one, who, by a begetting of some sort or other, was to be cloathed with the character of Son; or, in Zechariah's language, to take the man to be his fellow.' I shall just mention another psalm*, distinguishingly calling the Lord of hosts the King of glory.' Isaiah says he once saw the glory of this King, Lord of hosts; and the evange list; St John applies this vision to Christ".

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From these passages, and more could have been adduced, it sufficiently appears, both that the Christ of the New Testament was the Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts of the Old; and for what particular

which, by the bye, were the three clauses before this one left out, as they break the connexion, and seem to be of later insertion, might be shewn to be a direct hymn, in all the parts of it, to Christ.

1

J

reasons this so solemn and peculiar title belonged to him: And I cannot help thinking that the received notion of this title's belonging to Deity in general, as expressive of dominion and sovereignty, and not particularly, I had almost said exclusively, to the Shepherd King of Israel, from some special kind of connexion with, and residence among, that people, does much eclipse and keep out of sight the shining beauty of many of that primitive church's prayers, and ardent longings for the incarnation of her Messiah. As little can I discover what it is, that could at first have connected, with this word-' hosts,' the idea of military array. Our translation indeed has in some mea-' sure homologated this notion, by rendering the word tzeba, war, in the first chapter of the Book of Numbers all that were able to go forth to war'; whereas it does not appear that the design of that numeration and subsequent disposition was for a warlike purpose, as it is scarce to be supposed, that they either did or could march in that order to fight against their enemies. The design was with a typical view, to draw them up in a regular order (natayμevoi, ordinati) around, and keep them in (καταγμένοι, a decent attendance upon, the presence of Him who dwelt among them. Hence so many literal descriptions of him under this idea, which no

stretch

1 Following Jerom and the Vulgate, who have it so, where the LXX. have it εν τη δυναμει

2 1 Cor. x. 6-II.

stretch of metaphor will justify: As', 'Vow and pay unto the Lord your God, all ye that are round about him, ", sabibiu, his circulators, "encompassers,' &c. of uw aut8, LXX. And, God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of his saints, and to be had in reverence of all (sabibiu, • TES TERINUNλW AUre, LXX.) them that are round a'bout him, and consequently, He in the midst of *them 3. This was the business of their encampment, and directs to the true meaning of the word sabaoth, hosts, and what the purpose was, for which they thus assembled and met together, even for ministration, worship and praise to, and dependance on, their God. In a word, we have edence enough in scripture to ascertain the particular import of the word at present under consideration,

3 St Matth. xviii. 20.

1 Psalm 1xxvi. 12. 2 Psalm lxxxix. 7. 4 It would seem, if etymology could be trusted to, that the heathens had this sense of Hebrew xx, saba or seba, in their eye, from the Greek verb cßw or reßouai, veneror, colo, to reverence, worship, &c.; whence ceßaoua, a Deity, object of worship, reßas, a title given to the Emperors, ivesßns, religious, an observer of worship, arsßns, irreligious, a neglecter, &c. Yea, as far down as the famed æra of Philosophy, we find a deity under the appellation of Zeus Sabazios, which by the very sound bears affinity with Jehovah Sabaoth. For the Athenian comic poet Aristophanes, who was contemporary with Socrates, takes notice of him as a strange and foreign god, who had lately crept in among them, and therefore ought to be banished out of Greece.Quere, Whether this Zeus Sabazios might not have been that strange deity, who about this time, by the advice of Epimenides of Crete, was' brought into the Grecian kalendar, and to whom, four hundred years after this, St Paul found an altar inscribed, to the unknown god,'-Acts xvii. 23. ?

tion, sabaoth, that, both by derivation and usage, it pertains to, and is predicated of the old church of Israel, with their God in the midst of them. And I hope I shall be pardoned for this seeming digréssion in illustration of a title, 'The Lord of Hosts,' which was so comfortable, and at the same time so peculiar to the people of God under the then œcônomy, while they were obliged to assemble at one stated place for the more solemn acts and exercises of their religion and worship: But which, if what I have offered be valid, cannot with the same literal propriety, on many accounts, be made use of by the church now, under the christian extension, unless it could be made appear, what some people would fain wish to be believed, that the privileges and specialities of the tabernacle and temple of Jerusalem are transferred to, and centered in, St Peter's at Rome.

To return, therefore, to my subject. I have been endeavouring to shew, that the word in the Song here, which we read roes,' cannot be made to bear this sense, either from the nature of the word itself, or from the general application of it in every other place where it occurs. Nor will our common acceptation of it, as taking in the hosts of heaven and earth, be applicable to the present passage. The charge here is made to the daughters, so to women. Accordingly we read' of women assembling (18287, hatzebath, without thevau) at the door of

the

Exod. xxxviii. 8.

Or, if for

the tabernacle of the congregation. want of the feminine vau, (which our translation has supplied, and marked by italics), this text shall be thought not precise enough, we have another that is direct to the point, where it is said of Eli's wicked sons, that they debauched the women (ANSA, hatzebauth, our very word), that assem'bled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.' How came these women to be thus assembled? It will not be said, they were there by chance. The verb ** signifies meeting by appointment; and the particular circumstance of the door of the tabernacle,' mentioned, as it were, by design in both places, would seem to indicate that they were stationed' there by appointment; consequently were sacred women, like the deaconesses among the early christians, attendants upon, and assistants, some way or other, to the orderly performance of the religious offices: And it would appear, from the terms of Eli's remonstrance to his sons, that he thought their crime was aggravated, by the consideration of the womens' being in a sacred station. Accordingly Jerom renders it quæ observabant,' who observed, consequently had some particular business to be observant about 3. It may therefore be justly supposed, that

3 The LXX. (the Vatican copy at least) has it not; and Arias Montanus makes it militantibus,' who militated, which here must surely be taken in a religious sense, like the church militant.' And,

if