Situation, as because the Law makes it Death without Mercy for any one to approach and look into it, except only the High Pricft, who is to be pure, faultlefs, and endued with all the Gifts of Nature: He indeed is permitted once a Year to enter and contemplate what is to be seen by none else; fince in him alone dwelleth the celestial and winged Love of incorporeal and incorruptible Good. And when he has confidered and admired the divine and beautiful Ideas of Virtue, which are couched under the fenfible Objects, a fudden Oblivion feizes him of his former rude and indocile State, which is fucceeded by a Flow of Knowledge and Erudition." P. 261. "The Scripture often calls this the Tabernacle of Witness; either because God, who is Truth, is the Witness or Teft of Virtue, to whom it behoves, and is good for us to give heed, or because Virtue confirms the Soul, banishing fluctuating and uncertain Thoughts, and is, as it were, the Tribunal in this Life for the Determination of Truth." p. 597. “There feems to be two Temples of God; the one this World, whofe High Prieft is the Firstbegotten, the Word of God; the other, the rational Soul, whofe Priest is that Man of Truth, whofe fenfible Image or Type

is

is the High-Priest who officiates, and performs divine Service after his Country Rites; to whom it is permitted, as was faid before, to put on a variegated Robe, the Type of the Heavens or Air, that the World might co-operate (in Sacris) with Man, and Man with the Whole. And thus the High-Priest is proved to have two of the three Marks or Types, the speckled and the grisled: [He is here allegorizing Gen. xxxi. 10] We will now explain the third and most perfect Mark, what is called ('AlaλEUXOV) white. When the High-Pricft enters the Holy of Holies, he puts off that variegated Veftment, and takes another, made of the purest white Byffus. This is the Symbol of the Strength and Firmness and Incorruptibility of the Light in its Brightness or Purity: For this is the leaft liable to tear, and is made of nothing corruptible, and when it is well cleaned, has a moft refplendent Whitenefs; by which this is to be understood, that those who diligently and fincerely worship him who is, have a Firmness and Strength of Mind which enables them to keep a good Refolution, and to despise fuch human things as pollute the Weak and Deceived, &c.-P. 111. What was typified by the Cherubim, and the

flaming

flaming turning Sword, comes next to be confidered. What if it mystically fignifics the Circumvolution of the whole Heaven or Air? For the heavenly Orbs have their contrary Motions, &c. P. 112. This is one Way in which the Cherubim may be understood allegorically. But we must understand the flaming and turning Sword in this Manner, viz. to fignify the perpetual Motion of the Stars and the whole Heaven or Air: What if we take them in another Senfe? and make the two Cherubims fignify the two Hemispheres: For they say that their Faces were turned towards each other, beholding the Mercy-Seat on either Side, &c." This, 'tis likely, had been the Practice, and expreffed the Sentiments of the then Heathens, which they had about their Gods and Goddeffes, that they were of the fame Substance; and, fuppofing the Earth ftood ftill, that fome of them dwelt in the upper, fome in the lower Hemisphere. "But my own Mind, which is wont to be feized by the divine Spirit, and to deliver Prophecies of things above its natural Conception, has informed me of a more right Interpretation, which if I can remember I will relate. It told me (obferve the Fiend, he could produce no Scripture for this; durft not put it upon oral Tradition, but brings you the Authority of the Spirit of Anti

chrift,

chrift, which possessed him, for it; and even was uncertain whether he remembred what that Spirit told him. The Devil first afferted that what the Aleim had revealed was not true; and that his Discoveries were true: Reasoning upon, and believing fuch Affertions, is ftill eating of the Devil's Tree of Good and Evil.) that next unto the one true God, there are two fupreme, primary Potentates, Goodness and Power. That all things were made by Goodness; and all Creatures are governed by Power. That there is a third Potentate, the Word, or Reason, a middle Term between them both. For by this Word, or Logos, God is both Goodnefs and Power. Therefore the Cherubim are Symbols of these two Potentates, Power and Goodness; and the flaming Sword of the Word or Logos, &c. P. 465. The two-winged Cherubim placed upon the Ark are the Reprefentatives of the regal and creative Powers or Potentates: But the divine Word is fuperior to thefe, falls not under any visible Idea; as being like no fenfible thing: For he is the Image of God, the most antient of all intellectual Beings, and the very next to the Chief, for there is no middle Being between him and that Effence who alone realy and truly exists or bees. As it is written (Exod. xxv. 22.) I will speak with thee over the

Mercy

Mercy-Seat between the two Cherubim. So that the Word is the Charioteer to the Potentates, but he who speaks presides, and directs the Charioteer how to drive, and shape his Course." This is his Reason why the Name Jehovah was given to the Word, which appeared in the Cloud, above the Mercy-Seat, and fpoke in that Name to Mofes; and who Mofes fays was Jehovah; and that is the Reafon why Jehovah is never written, read, nor fpoken, but Adonai, or &c. P. 503. "In like manner the two chief Potentates of him who is, the beneficent one by which he created the World, and from which he is called God *• And the avenging one, by which he governs and punishes, and from which he is called Lord, are faid to be divided by him, he standing above between them. I will speak with thee (fays he) over the Mercy-Seat, between the two Cherubim, (Exod. xxv. 22.) to fhew that the most antient Potentates of him who is the beneficent and Avenger are Peers, having him for their common Divifor. P. 668. For the Lid or Cover of the Ark which is

For this Change in the Order of the Words God and Lord from the other Editions, fee Mangey's Philo, Vol. I. P. 496. which he makes Fide MSS. though he does not name them; and by which Philo is freed from contradicting himself, as in the next Citation.

VOL. VI.

H

called