ALUE and Rock, mentioned in this verse, are to be identified with "JEHOVAH, the King of Israel, and Israel's Redeemer, the Lord of hosts," who is introduced as the speaker in ver. 6; and as the Bishop himself, in his notes on this chapter, considers its subject to be "the general redemption of mankind by a descendant of Abraham," he could hardly object to a reference of the question in the 8th verse, to a claim made by the Divine Mediator to a participation of Deity, as being JEHOVAH Incarnate. (Phil. ii. 6.) And the notion of a spiritual redemption is always connected with the redemption-price, the payment of which we suppose to be implied in the awful title ALUE.

If, my dear friend, the etymology and interpretation of the two awful but gracious titles, ALEIM and ALUE, which I have advocated, be founded in truth; we may expect to find frequent allusions to their import scattered over the pages of Divine Revelation: And therein we shall not be disappointed. The whole record is an elucidation of that covenant, confirmed by oath, into which the Persons of the Godhead entered for the redemption and salvation of fallen man. To this covenant all the promises of Scripture are to be traced up as to their fountain head; with it the government of the world, in all its arrangements, and the whole narrative of the Bible, are to be connected. In the dispensations of Providence,

and the discoveries of grace, we shall discern a long consistency of character, only to be accounted for on the supposition of a vast plan formed from the beginning, a "covenant" or obligatory disposition, ordered in all things and sure. (2 Sam. xxiii. 5.)

Let us inquire, my friend, before I lay down. my pen, whether we can discover any intimation in the record, assigning a date to that great transaction in which the name of ALEIM originated,when it was that the covenanting parties entered into their mutual stipulations, and our adorable ALUE bound himself to his tremendous part in the work of redemption:—whether we can discover any traces of renewals that have been graciously afforded (I will not say, of covenant engagement, for a supposed necessity for such renewals would imply imperfection in the contracting parties) but of the revelation of those engagements made to the persons who are beneficially interested in them:-and then let us further inquire how these solemn engagements have been hitherto fulfilled, and how the pledge given to a lost world in the titles ALEIM and ALUE, has been redeemed.

The immediate revelation which was made after the fall of man, of that scheme of mercy which was laid in the covenant of redemption, affords proof that the covenant on which the revelation was founded had a previous existence.

And we accordingly find, that one of these names, that which conveyed an endearing view of the connexion between Jehovah and his creatures in their state of innocence, (as it now conveys a more endearing view of his renewed regard to them in their lapsed state) was used both by Eve and by the Tempter in the conversation which issued in the catastrophe of the fall, and so introduced the necessity for that Divine interposition which is implied in the other title of ALUE. That the transaction to which the name of ALEIM refers, was antemundane, may be gathered from the account which our Lord gives of Himself in the 8th chapter of the book of Proverbs,* where he speaks of his designation to his office before time was; and from the declaration of St. Peter that he was "foreordained" to it "before the foundation of the world;" (1 Pet. i. 20.) in relation to which we read of "the Book of Life of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world" (Rev. xiii. 8); where, whether the date spoken of refer to the Book of Life or to the sacrifice of Christ, the passage will equally confirm the view we have taken. (Comp. Math. xiii. 35; xxv. 24. Eph. i. 4. Rev. xvii. 8.) It was, I conceive, in relation to his mediatorial character

* "Twas of old constantly believed, that WISDOM, Prov. iii. and viii. did denote the Aого. I have showed it from Philo the Jew, from the Apocryphal Book, and from the Cabalists." Allix's Judgment. p. 404.

and office, that our Lord, in addressing his heavenly Father, John xvii. 24, declares that he had been the object of his love," before the foundation of the world." And that this designation to mediatorial office was confirmed by the solemn sanction of an oath, is explicitly affirmed in the cxth Psalm, where we read, ver. 4. "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." (Comp. Heb. v. 6; vii. 17.)

The first revelation of this awful transaction between the ALEIM, or Persons in the Godhead, as made to our first parents after their fall, we have already considered. That revelation was renewed after the flood, as will appear from my next letter. And when man had again lost sight of it, through a growing corruption of faith and practice, it was again revealed to Abraham, on which revelation St. Paul has largely commented in his Epistle to the Galatians (chap. iii. 6, &c.) A comment in which the name ALUE occurs in a Greek translation of it, Christ " was made A CURSE for us," ver. 13.

You must have remarked, in reading the history of the Gospels, that continual references are made to the Old Testament Scriptures, for the purpose of showing that the acts and sufferings of the Messiah were fulfilments of prophecy, and connected with a preconcerted plan of operation. The events that came to pass could not

manner.

occur otherwise than they did, because it was written that such events should take place, and at a precise time, and according to a prescribed Now what is prophecy but prediction of the purposes of THE ETERNAL MIND, all which purposes are insured by the import of that awful title, JEHOVAH ALEIM; of whom, and of their mutual stipulations, the CHERUBIM were symbols up to the time when those stipulations began to be fulfilled in the incarnation, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension of Him who became the ALUE for us men and for our salvation?

If the Scriptures be read with the clew to their contents which the title ALEIM furnishes,-If the Bible be considered as the record of THE ETERNAL THREE in covenant for the redemption of mankind; a continual reference to the import of that gracious title will be found in the pages of Divine Revelation. To some of those, contained in the history of the patriarchal religion, I mean that a few more letters shall relate. And should you wish to see an epitomized view of the subject to which the oath of the ALEIM referred, you will find one in the 53rd chapter of the Prophecies of Isaiah. And let me request you to remark the importance which St. Paul assigns to the oath by which our Lord Jesus Christ was constituted the high priest of our profession, in Heb. vii. ; and the manner in which he comments on the