Just as many also are now seen to contemn and laugh at the natural thunder, even though they see many struck dead by it.

This is what David says, and this is what is meant by the figure where it is written, that the Lord descended upon mount Sinai. For the Lord did thus bow the heavens according to the figure: that is, he sent his apostles throughout the whole world against the proud sons of Adam: and he himself descended, co-operating with and confirming their word: as it is said, Gal. ii. 8, "For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles."

"And darkness was under his feet." That is, his works and his ways cannot be known. And this is the case when he works his strange work, Isaiah xxviii. 21, when he is damning that he might save, disturbing the conscience that he might give peace. For the works of God in the justifying of a sinner are contrary to all human sense, which will not suffer itself to be humbled and reduced to nothing by the power of the law: because the man cannot understand that good is done to him by these things, he imagines that he is destroyed: whereas in truth he is rising like the morning star: he is scattered that he might be gathered, and plucked up that he might be planted. Therefore, faith is necessary under this darkness: as Job saith, iii. 23, "Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?" And Jeremiah x. 23, 24, "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing."

Ver. 10.—And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly; he did fly upon the wings of the wind.

Of this we read nothing in the sacred history before alluded to. Perhaps David has respect unto that of Exod. xxv. where Moses is commanded to look into all things and see that they were made after the pattern

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shewn him in the mount. Among which things were the cherubim of beaten gold, and the mercy-seat between them,'from which God should speak to him as it is there said. Here, therefore, from the overflowings of his feelings and language David couples the mysteries of the tabernacle with the mysteries of Sinai. For it is wonderful how copiously the various mysteries of the holy scriptures will flow together, harmonize, and abound, when all the clouds of peril and temptation are dispersed and calmed, and the saint filled with the liberty and joy of the Spirit: for then, as it were, there is nothing that he does not know, and nothing that he will not dare to speak out: he can do all things because the present unction teaches him. And it was a general usage in the scriptures after this to speak of God as sitting upon the cherubim as in Psalm xcix. 1, "The Lord reigneth; let the people tremble: he sitteth between the cherubims; let the earth me moved." And Psalm lxxx. 1, 2, "Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Before Ephraim, and Benjamin, and Manasseh, (that is, before the ark, which was towards the west, where those three tribes were placed,) stir up thy strength."

For the Lord's will, and that which he especially took care of from the beginning, was, that there should be always some external sign, and 'some memorable monument, by which he might bind the faith of those who believed unto himself, that they might not be led away by various and strange affections into self-formed religions, or idolatries. Thus, Gen. xxii. we have the appellation" Mount Moriah :" that is, "the Lord shall be seen:" because the Lord there had respect unto Hunto the offering of Abraham. And chap. xxxv. it is comTh manded to Jacob that he should build an altar unto God, who appeared to him in Bethel. And hence Moses commanded that they should never choose to themselves any place for the worship of God but that which the Lord had chosen. But this command they often afterwards transgressed, by their groves and high places which they built. And in the same way he gave them the tabernacle, mercy-seat, and cherubim, as places

in which they should call upon him and find him: all which were intended as prefigurations of Christ.

We have not now any particular place of this kind; but yet we are not without our signs and monuments. We have Baptism and the Lord's Supper. But these are fixed to no place in particular: for Christ reigns every where. Wherefore, Christ is our propitiation, or mercy-seat, and our cherubim, in a mystery: which mysteries can only be understood by the ministry of the word of faith. Of Christ being our propitiation, Paul teaches, Rom. iii. 25, "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood:" and "in whom (as the same Apostle saith) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." And again, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself."

And the two cherubim with their wings touching from above and covering the mercy-seat, and both looking down upon the mercy-seat, are the Two Testaments of which the one is the word of the law, the other the word of grace: which though they seem to be two different things, the one increasing sins, while the other takes them away: yet in Christ they agree; because, that which was impossible unto the law, God sending his own Son, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.'

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And this is what is intended by those who say that cherubim signifies the multitude, or rather, the plenitude of science: because the ministration of each word, that is, of the law and of the promise or grace, if it be rightly administered, teaches all things. The Lord therefore rides or is carried upon the cherubim in spirit and in truth; seeing that he reigns in us by faith,. which is produced in us by the ministration of each word. For what our translator renders "ascended upon a cherub," the Hebrew has, was carried or rode upon a cherub;' thereby setting forth the power and domi nion of the word spoken. Our cherubim therefore are fixed to no place, but, where the word of faith is, there the Lord sits upon a cherub and reigns through

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Christ in us. And hence this is also preserved in the figure. For, as there was nothing placed above the cherubim and mercy-seat which could be seen, but God was believed, by faith only, to sit there; (as he said himself, "And I will speak to thee from thence;") so, Christ is believed by us, by faith only, to dwell in God; which we believe upon the testimony of both cherubs or testaments; and we are not to expect the Word of God from any other place than from the mercy-seat, Christ.

And the same thing seems to be implied by this repetition, "Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind." He is here speaking of the spiritual wind; which is the Word of the Spirit itself, opening the nature of the law and pointing out grace. For this word, like a wind, comes with velocity blowing where it will: thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.-And the "wings" of these winds are the vocal words themselves, in which the spiritual winds blow. For even the. Gentiles have their Mercury, (by whom they signify divine communication by word,) and they represented him with winged feet. So naturally is this allegory of wings fixed in the human mind. God flies therefore upon the wings of the wind: that is, upon the ministry of the vocal word by which faith is taught; for it is upon these wings he flies above and over us wherever the vocal word is, when he is apprehended by faith; where he is thus apprehended, there without doubt the Lord flies above us.

And God is said to "fly," though the cherubim which were made of beaten gold did not fly. For David saw that wings were not given to the cherubim in vain, under the Mosaic dispensation: for wings are given to fly with. David by this therefore saw it to be signified, that there would be a certain flying of the Word throughout the whole world, (which is the ministry of the Word itself,) and that it would fly with this kind of flight and upon these wings, and that the Lord would be every where present with his Word: as he says, Mark xvi. 20, "The Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following." Wherefore this flying seems

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to me to signify the velocity of the Word's progress through the whole world: as we have it, Psalm cxlvii. 15, "His Word runneth very swiftly." It not only signifies this, however, but also shews, that the Word will never cease to sound, nor God to work with and by it in the church. For we are never to cease from the Word: it is to be in use, in motion, and in flight, that the Lord may always fly above and move in us by faith. Who, although he can do all things by himself, has yet decreed to do all these things by the ministry of the Word, that there may be opportunity and occasion for faith, and that he may thereby meet our infirmities, which cannot endure divine things unless covered and veiled by the Word; in which, the Lord carries us as in a womb or bosom, as Isaiah saith, xlvi. 3.

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Wherefore, David is not to be despised when he uses the verb flying' thus in a repetition; because he does it to instruct us, and to shew us, that the Spirit of the Lord does not move upon the face of the waters of all mankind in general, and that he does not rule by his presence any but those who are disciplined by the Word; that he might thereby destroy all the presumption of human power and free-will, and set forth the grace and kindness of God our Saviour to those who hear his Word and keep it. Hence we have it written, Deut. xxxii. that the Lord flew above the people of Jacob as an eagle leadeth forth her young to fly, and fluttereth over them, and beareth them upon her wings.

Ver. 11. He made darkness his secret place: his tabernacle was round about him: and dark water in the clouds of the sky.

The prophet seems here to have touched upon the two-fold figure of Sinai, and the tabernacle; at least in the first part of the verse; which seems to speak of the tabernacle and of the holy of holies. Because there being no light in the holy of holies, signified that where God dwelt in his church, through Christ, there was faith in their hearts; which neither comprehends nor is comprehended, neither sees nor is seen-and yet sees all