have an account of his departure when he had done speaking with him, which was with a great rustling and noise of the wings of the cherubim, and the noise of the wheels. God rode on these cherubim as those that drew his chariot, as it is said, Ps. xviii. 10," He rode on a cherub, and did fly." And Ps. Ixviii. 17, "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels." And therefore God, in being in that chariot drawn by these cherubim, is said to be upon the cherub. Ezek. ix. 3. “And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house;" and God appeared about to leave the temple, and his glory departed from off the threshold into this same chario. Chap. x. 18, with the foregoing verses; and then it is said the cherubim lift up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in his sight; and the wheels also went beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was ov er them above; and after this, chap. xi. 22, 23, God is represented as departing in this manner up out of the midst of the city, ascending up to the top of mount Olivet, being about from thence to ascend into heaven, from whence this same person afterwards ascended after his resurrection. (See Note on that verse.) And when it was represented in vision to Ezekiel how God would afterwards return to the city and temple in those happy days that were to come, he is represented as returning in the same manner, chap. xliii. 2, 3, 4.

This chariot represents the world, which is confirmed by this, that one part of it is called the firmament, which was the upper part, but yet the pavement of it, above which was the seat of God, who sat and rode in that chariot, agreeably to Deut. xxxiii. 26, "Who rideth upon the heaven in thine help, and in his excellency on the sky;" and to Ps. lxviii. 4, "Extol him that rideth upon the heaven of heavens, which were of old." God appeared here on the same pavement as he appeared to the seventy elders on mount Sinai. (See Notes on Exod. xxiv. 10.) What is signified by the wheels which were under the firmament, but above u's upon the earth, is, God's providence in this visible world, especially representing mankind that dwell on the earth.

Christ was the person that appeared riding in this chariot, as is confirmed from that, that he appeared in the likeness of a man, ver. 26; and also from the description that is given of his appearance. (See Note on ver. 27)

This chariot is drawn on those wheels by the four animals, which denote God's power, wisdom, justice, and mercy, and all proceed on feet like a calf's foot, because the great work of providence, that is as it were the sum of all providences, is that work of mercy, the work of redemption.

Corol. Hence I would argue, that the affairs of heaven have doubtless great respect to the affairs of this lower world, and God's providence here; and that the church in heaven, as to the progress it makes in its state of glory and blessedness, keeps pace with the church on earth; that the glory of both is advanced together. These great dispensations of providence, by which glorious things are brought to pass for the church on earth, are accompanied with like advances made at the same time in the church in heaven. And also that the affairs of the church in heaven, have some way or other a dependence on God's providence towards his church on earth, and that their progress is dependent on the progress of things in God's providence towards his church here. For heaven and earth are both framed together. It is the same chariot, one part has relation to another, and is connected with another, and is all moved together; the motion of one part depends on the motion of the other; the upper part moves on the wheels of the lower part, for heaven is the room and seat of the chariot that is above the firmament that moves on the wheels that are under the firmament, and that go upon the earth; when these wheels are moved by the cherubim, then the upper part moves; when they stop that stops, and wherever the wheels go that goes. It is on these wheels that Christ, the King of heaven, in his throne in heaven, makes progress to the final issue of all things. It is in the wheels of his providence that move on earth, that he in his throne in heaven makes progress towards the ultimate end of the creation of both heaven and earth, and the ultimate end of all the affairs of both; for this is the end of the journey of the whole chariot, both wheels and throne, for both are moving towards the same journey's end. And the motion of all is by the wheels on earth; and if so, doubtless it is on these wheels that all the inhabitants of heaven, both saints and angels, are carried towards their ultimate end; for all are Christ's family, they are either his servants and attendants in the affair of redemption, which is the grand movement of the wheels, and are the ministers that draw the wheels, or are his members and parts of his body.

This therefore confirms that the saints and angels in heaven do make progress in knowledge and happiness, by what they see of God's works on earth. We know that all the happiness of the saints in heaven is entirely dependent on those great things that Christ did on earth, in the work of redemption, as it was purchased by it; and there is reason to think that their knowledge and glory is in other respects, by what they see of these great works of providence which God carries on in the world in the prosecution of the grand design of redemption.

[393] Ezek. i. 4. "And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind come out of the north, and a great cloud and a fire, infolding it

self, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof, as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire." This that was here seen by Ezekiel was the Shechinah, or the symbol and representation of the Deity.

Here is a cloud and fire as God appeared in the wilderness, as in a pillar of cloud and fire. Ps. xviii. 11. "His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies."

And

Ps. xcvii. 2. "Clouds and darkness are round about him." And there was a whirlwind, which was an usual symbol of the divine presence, as Job xxxviii. 1. "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind ;" so again Job xl. 6, and Nahum i. 3, "The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and the storm."

The fire that appeared, which did in a special manner represent the divine Essence, is said to be a fire infolding itself, or catching itself, as it is in the margin, or receiving, or taking itself into its own bosom; which represents the action of the Deity towards itself, in the action of the persons of the Trinity towards each other. The Godhead is perceived only by perceiving the Son and the Spirit, for no man hath seen God at any time; he is seen by his image, the Son, and is felt by the Holy Spirit, as fire is perceived only by its light and heat, seen by one, and felt by the other. Fire, by its light represents the Son of God, and by its heat the Holy Spirit. God is light, and he is love. This light, in the manner of the subsisting of the Father and the Son, shines on itself: it receives its own brightness into its own bosom. The Deity, in the generation of the Son, shines forth with infinite brightness towards itself, and in the manner of the proceeding of the Holy Ghost, it receives all its own heat into its own bosom, and burus with infinite heat towards itself. The flames of divine love are received and infolded into the bosom of the Deity.

It is the nature of all other fire to go out of itself, as it were to fly from itself, and hastily to dissipate. The flames are continually going forth from the midst of the fire towards the exterior air, but this fire receives itself into its own bosom. Ezekiel saw this cloud of glory and fire infolding, or taking in itself, before he saw the chariot of God, the cherubim and wheels, and firmament and throne, and the appearance of a man above upon it, which came out of that cloud and fire; and therefore this fire, infolding itself, does especially represent the Deity before the creation of the world, or before the beginning of the being of this chariot with its wheels, when all God's acts were only towards himself, for then there was no other being but He.

This appeared coming out of the north, from whence usually came whirlwinds in that country, and possibly because in the. north is the empty place. The chariot of the world came forth out of nothing.

[256] Ezek. xxxvi. 5. "It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea ;" and verse 14th, "And I will make thee like the top of a rock, and thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon." Mr. Maundrel, a minister of the church of England, who went there A. D. 1697, gives this account of New Tyre, that which was built on the Island, as Dr. Wells, in his Sac. Geog. vol. iv. p. 96, 97, relates. "On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle, besides which you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c., there being not so much as one entire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches harbouring themselves in vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing, who seem to be preserved in this place by divine Providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, viz: that it shall be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on." Ezek. xxvi. 14.

[433] Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix. Concerning Gog and Magog. This prophecy concerning Gog and Magog, seems manifestly to have respect to two things foretold in the book of Revelations :

First. To that great company or multitude of the enemies of Christ and the church, that shall be gathered together to fight against them, after religion has begun wonderfully to revive and prevail in the world, just before the utter destruction of Antichrist, and of the visible kingdom of Satan upon earth, that we read of Rev. xvi. 16, 13, to the end, and Rev. xix. 17, to the end.

Secondly. To that vast multitude that shall be gathered against the church after the Millennium, a little before the end of the world, that we read of in the xx. chapter of Revelations, who are expressly called Gog and Magog.

That there is some respect to the former of these, though they are not expressly called Gog and Magog, is evident by the many things wherein there is an agreement. In Revelations xvi. 14, the kings of the earth and of the whole world, are represented as gathered together to war against the church of God; so here the kings and nations of the world are represented as gathering together against God's Israel from the four quarters of the world, or the four winds of heaven: Magog, and Mesheck, and Tubal, Gomer and Togarmah of the North quarters; chap. xxxviii. 2. 6,; Persia from the East, v. 5; Ethiopia or Cush, and Lyhia or Phut, Sheba and Dedan from the South-East, South and South-West, v. 5. 13; and the merchants and young lions, (i. e. the princes) of Tarshish, and they that dwell in the Isles from the West, v. 13, and chap. xxxix. 6.

The great occasion of gathering that innumerable host, spoken of in the xvi. and xix. chapters of Revelations, to war against the church, is evidently her late great prosperity in a great revival and

restoration from her long continued captivated, desolate state under Antichrist. So here Gog and his multitude are represented as excited to come and war against Israel, on occasion of her being brought back from a long continued, and as it were perpetual, captivity and desolation. v. 8. 12.

This long desolation and captivity of Israel in the latter days, which is expressed by her having been always waste, can agree to nothing but the lying waste either of Israel according to the flesh, or the Christian church, the spiritual Israel, which has been waste for many ages in these latter days, and both of them through the devastations of Rome, or the mystical Babylon.

Rev. xvi. 18, 19, 20. It is said there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great; and the cities of the nations fell, and every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And in Ezek. xxxviii. 19, 20, it is said, "Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; so that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground." There seems to be a reference to this very place, in the passage from Revelations.

Rev. xix. 21. "And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse;" and Ezek. xxxviii. 21, "I will call for a sword against him, throughout all my mountains."

Rev. xviii." And there were thunders and lightnings;" and v. 21, "And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent, and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great," And here, Ezek. xxxviii. 22, it is said, "I will rain upon him and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire and brimstone." There seems to be reference to this in the passage from Revelations xviii.

Rev. xix. 17, 13. "And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven," &c.; ver. 28," And all the fowls were filled with their flesh;" and here, Ezek. xxxix. 4, 5, "Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee; I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured, thou shalt fall upon the open field, for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God;" and verses 17, 18, 19, 20, "And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord, Speak unto every feathered fowl," &c., very much in the same manner as there in the Revelation; so that there is a most plain reference in one place to the other.