I come unto the children of Ifrael, and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers bath fent me unto you; and they fball fay unto me, What is his name? What shall I fay unto them? And God faid unto Mofes, I AM THAT I am : And be faid, Thus fhalt thou fay unto the children of Ifrael, I AM hath fent me unto you. And God said, moreover, unto Mofes, Thus fhalt thou fay unto the children of Ifrael, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Ifaac, and the God of Jacob bath sent me unto you : this is MY NAME for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Of this Ifrael was again admonished, Exodus xxiii. 20, 21.-with which compare 2 Cor. iv. 6. It was alfo enjoined upon the high-priests continually to put that name, by their very forms of bleffing, upon the people, Numb. vi. 27.

There is no neceffity of detaining you with any obfer. vations upon the particular titles by which it hath pleased God to distinguish himself in the Old or New Testament. The word JEHOVAH is the most expreffive, and is abfolutely incommunicable. It denotes his effential and independent being, and has an immediate relation to the covenant of grace. It points, with all the others, to the fame important centre, and defignates the Supreme as a reconciled God in the Mediator. This is the fum and scope of Divine revelation. This is his name, and this is his memorial. Believers, under the old difpenfation, confidered it in that light. When they mentioned the name of the Lord as a plea, or an invocation in prayer, they comprifed, what we now intend by naming the Redeemer, or calling upon God, as the God and Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift. All, therefore, that is implied in the redemption of finners, and which is, perhaps, expreffed in feweft words, by faying with the Pfalmift, Pfal. lxviii. 19. that God is THE GOD OF OUR SALVATION, is meant in the

text.

text. This is the name here defigned, a name much forgotten or corrupted among other nations, but manifefted to Ifrael as the great object of their faith and worfhip, and committed to them as a depofite of infinite value.

2. Let us now see in what respects that name may be faid to BE RECORDED in any place.

The words might be rendered, in all places where I fball fix the memory of my name; or, in all places where I fball make my name to be invoked. The Chaldaic paraphrase has it, in every place where I shall make my majefly to dwell. The phrase, agreeably to either of these trans lations, evidently refers to the public worship of God, and has refpect both to the place when, and the manner in which it was to be celebrated. The bleffing was not difcriminately located in every spot where any of the tribes might determine to fix a fanctuary; nor did God promise to be propitious to every kind of worship they might choose to celebrate, but only to fuch place as he should defignate, and fuch worship as should be performed according to his appointment.

It is well known, that the tabernacle was the place of public worship, which God, exclufively of all others, determined for the Ifraelites while they were in the wildernefs. After they had poffeffion of the promised land, the ark of the covenant was lodged at Shiloh, and there, for a long while, the people celebrated divine fervice. When the temple was finished, Jerufalem was fixed upon as the permanent feat. To that place the tribes were obliged to go up, and thrice every year all the males were there to appear before the Lord. After the captivity in Babylon, the privileges of the fanctuary were again reftored. A fecond temple was built by Zerubbabel, and

Ifrael continued to worship at Jerufalem until the Meffiah came.

If you now enquire, how the name of the Lord was RECORDED in all thefe places, and by what means it might be said that he made himself to be there remembered as the God of Salvation? we refer you, for a general answer, to the genius and fcope of the Mofaic inftitution. The covenant of Sinai, that whole dispensation was not only fubordinate to the covenant of grace, but it had an immediate refpect to the Meffiah, and was fubfervient to his coming. The types and ceremonies,—the religious rites, and all the various parts of their worship were inftituted of God himself, for the exprefs purpose of confirming the faith of his church; and they all pointed to the bleffed Jefus as the end of the law. By thefe, therefore, the name of the Lord was recorded in Ifrael, and the worship performed in the fanctuary, ferved to perpetuate the memory of Jehovah as the God of Salvation.

But, this great end was more especially attained by the SACRIFICES and burnt-offerings, which formed an ef fential part of the daily worship in Ifrael. Abstractly confidered, and without any reference to the Divine appointment, there is, indeed, nothing inftructive, or even rational, in spilling the blood of a beast, or offering either the vegetable or animal creation as a part of religious fervice. It is eafy for infidels, upon the fubject, to fhew their enmity against revealed religion, by arguing: "The "extreme folly of fuppofing God fhould ever be pleased "with the mere waste of his own productions; or, in the "cafe of animal facrifice, in particular, fhould consider as an act of acceptable religion, the deftruction of a life, of " which he had fo exquifitely provided for the continu64 ance. That, while the very idea of a Divine Being implies in it such a superior excellence of nature, as to be

a

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"wholly

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wholly out of the reach of our good offices, the general "notion of facrificing is altogether as extraordinary as it appears to have been universal in the world." But however strange and improper facrifices may appear to fuperficial obfervers; yet, when they are confidered as commanded of God, and calculated to represent and confirm the great benefits he defigned to confer upon finners, through the Saviour, they must be acknowleged to be a rational and divine fervice. They cannot, it is true, be ingrafted by the religion of nature into the worship of finlefs creatures. Had man not fallen, a victim had never bled. The idea of an expiation, where there is no guilt, is incompatible. But the religion of finners is founded upon the relation they fuftain to God as their Redeemer. They cannot approach him without a Mediator, and the intervention of an atonement. A facrifice, therefore, either in the type or archetype, is abfolutely effential in their worship. It was a confciousness of guilt which prompted the defire of fatisfying Divine juftice by fome offering, or rather a tradition respecting the Saviour, which was the fource of facrifices among the heathen nations, and the practice cannot be accounted for upon any other principle. But in Ifrael, where the truths of revelation were preserved, and facrifices had the fanction of a new and immediate appointment, they constituted a noble and inftructive part of divine worship. Believers were then looking for the appearance of the promised feed, who was not yet come. What could be better calculated to affift their faith, to eftablish their hope, and instruct them in the method of falvation, than to be commanded of God to substitute a bloody offering in their own stead, and thus transfer the legal guilt and punishment upon a facrifice? In this act of worship, the bleeding lamb and smoking altar directed them to the promised 3 Surety,

Surety, the precious Lamb of God, who, by his fufferings and death, was fully to atone for his people, and, by one perfect facrifice, became the author of falvation unto all that obey him. Thus, by the manner in which the folemn worship was celebrated in thofe places, the Lord recorded his name in Ifrael as a God of Salvation. In this way the faints of the Old Teftament difpenfation had their graces drawn into exercise. They lived by faith; and the Apostle, in his epistle to the Hebrews, affures us, that they also died in faith, not having received the promifes, but having feen them afar off, they were perfuaded of them, and embraced them.

When the Meffiah came, a new difpenfation commenced. The object for setting apart a distinct nation, under a theocracy, was fully obtained. The neceffity of a fingular government no longer exifted. The feparating wall was confequently broken down, and the peculiarities of the Mofaic worship and polity were totally abrogated. Now there is no distinction of nations, nor is there any place particularly affigned by Divine appointment for public worship. The hour cometh, faid our Lord to the woman of Samaria, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerufalem, worship the Father; the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers fhall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for the Father feeketh fuch to worship him. Wherever the people of God unite in spiritual worship, the blefling is fecured. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. A gracious word! which reaches to every place where his children may be engaged in the duties of religion; and extends the text in its fullest import, to the churches under the New Teftament difpenfation, as much as formerly, to the tabernacle or temple; to Shiloh or Jerufalem.

But