days; but the love of God was not greater to Solomon than to all other men: " for HE regardeth not persons, nor taketh rewards? "* And the love of Solomon was frail, inconstant, and impure; and was soon after changed into dislike and contempt, and became transformed to the most abominable objects of idolatry and lust. CHRIST was loved by God with love everlasting, and his lové to God was unceasing, uniform, and eternal. Their love was mutual, for he was in the Father, and the Father in him: and the fruits of that love was a perfect obedience. For, says Christ himself, " I seek not "mine own will, but the will of the Father who hath << sent me. I can of myself do nothing, but what I "see my Father do for what things soever he doeth, "these doeth the Son likewise‡." 6th.-SOLOMON ; possessed great wisdom above the rest of mankind but it was like all other temporal and worldly things, weak and uncertain; and which, when not directed by - right reason and the grace of God, is "foolishness "with God, who knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain, and therefore let no man glory in "men§." It was that wisdom by which Solomon led the Tribes of Israel into idolatry; and the same philosophy or wisdom which has led the French nation into atheism, and certain perdition. CHRIST's wisdom was "from above," the spiritual wisdom of *Deut. x. 17.-1 Pet. i. 17. John v. 30, 19. † John x. 38. § 1 Cor. iii. 19, 20, 29. his heavenly Father: "The price of it is above rubies. "The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither "shall it be valued with pure gold*." "The wisdom "that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gen"tle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy, and good "fruits, without partiality or hypocricyt," and leads "to eternal light and life. 7th.-SOLOMON possessed of more wisdom, wealth, grandeur, and temporal blessings, than any mortal before or since, with the covenant of God to give him an everlasting kingdom, if he would keep his statutes, suffered himself to be tempted to violate that covenant, and those statutes: and to forfeit that everlasting kingdom, by wicked, foolish, wanton, strange women. CHRIST was tempted by Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, with no less abribe than "all the kingdoms of the world;" but he resisted and repelled the mighty temptation with meekness, yet with the firmest fortitude, and rose immaculate above it. 8th.-SOLOMON came into the world a fallen sinful creature, and passed out of it in the usual course of other men, with this exception, that he was one of the most ungrateful and wicked of men, if we may judge from the scriptural account of his life and actions; and answering no other purpose, in a moral point of view, than a conspicuous and notorious example of evil. * Job xxviii. 18, 19. † James iii. 17. CHRIST came into the world, and expended a life in perfect obedience to God, and exemplary love, good works, and good will to man; and then offered it up to an ignominious and agonizing death upon the cross, to answer two glorious purposes: one, demonstrative of the justice of God in the creation of man; the other, of his infinite mercy, in offering him terms of life and salvation, after he had forfeited them. The first in shewing, that as HE, the second Adam,* having assumed the complete and identical nature of the first Adam before his fail, could resist the temptations of the same evil spirit, and all the lusts of the world, and live sinless, and in perfect obedience to the will of God; so the first Adam, who had been created pure, innocent, and happy, after the image of God, might, by a right use of his free will, have maintained his innocent and happy state, during the period allotted for his probation; at the close of which, and as a reward for his fidelity, he would have been translated, without knowing either the first or second death, into a state of immortal and never ending happiness, whence he could not fall. And the second, to make an atonement for him and his posterity, to the justice of an offended God, that they might, notwithstanding Adam's disobedience, enjoy eternal life. In short, Sir, 9th.-SOLOMON, although the most favoured of men, was a great, proud, ambitious, vain, and wicked oppressor, fornicator, adulterer, idolater, and in his heart a murderer. And on the contrary, * 1 Cor. xv. 47. CHRIST, although loaded with the just wrath of an offended God, to which he was about to make an atonement for the sins of mankind, was "meek and lowly in heart; his yoke is easy and his burthen light:" the perfect and immaculate "Sun of Righteousness," enlightening the world. I would have dwelt longer on the dissimilitude, or rather striking contrast betwen your type and your prototype; but the serious mind recoils from the comparison at every step. Far be it from us then, to seek for any thing like a perfect type of the immaculate Son of the most High God, among the fallen, frail, sinful race of Adam: for we may be assured it is not to be found among them. And were it otherwise, there have been many more righteous and perfect characters than Solmon, who yet fall infinitely short of that resemblance necessary to constitute a type of our Redeemer: such as Noah, Job, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samuel, &c. And as you seem not to have duly attended to them, by your having recourse to one so improper as Solomon, I will refer you to a few of them sanctioned by Christ and his Apostles. The Brazen Serpent* erected upon a pole by Moses in the wilderness by the command of God, which healed the Israelites when bitten by the fiery serpents, and saved them from a temporal death, was a type of Christ, who, by the healing virtue of his atonement and suffering on the cross, healed and saved a fallen and sick world from the second death, upon their looking up to him with hope and faith in him, and his doctrines. And this type he confirms himself: for he tells us, "As Moses "lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness, even so must *Numb. xxi. 8, 9. "the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believ "eth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”* The baptism of the Israelites unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea,+ was a type of the spiritual baptism of the Gentile world, under the cloud, and in the sea of Pagan idolatry, with the Holy Ghost. The manna, or bread sent down from heaven, with which the Israelites were filled in the wilderness,§ was a type of the hidden manna, or spiritual bread, with which Christ now, and will for ever, feed and fill the souls of all men, who seek and obey him through faith. The water that came out of the rock when smitten by Moses,¶ and of which the Israelites drank, that rock was a type of Christ, and the water of that spiritual comfort and renewal of life, with which all those that seek Christ in spirit and in truth, are refreshed and comforted.**"Now these things were our examples," (or figures) says St. Paul; and again, "all these things happened to them "(the Israelites) for types or examples of things to come, "and were written for our admonition."‡‡ Indeed, I firmly believe, that were divines to follow the advice of their great master; and with due diligence "search the Scriptures," they would find few, if any, great and important matters, which have, and are to come to pass under the Christian dispensation, but what have been either typically or expressly foretold in the Old Testament. What an irresistible demonstration would a work of that kind be, of the divine truths of the Gospel of Christ! But enough has been said upon this point. I will therefore proceed to examine a strange and unaccountable error, which those you have followed have incautiously committed in their construction of the Apocalypse, which has thrown that part of the word of God * John iii. 14, 15. Exod. xvi. 14. Numb. xx. 11. † 1 Cor. x. 2. Mark i. 8.-Luke iii. 16. tt Ibid, 6. ‡‡ Ibid, 11. |