Num. xxiii. 14. Who was to be OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS? GOD fays by Jer. xxiii. 6. Jeнovaн. And Jeноvaн is faid in Pf. lxxxv. 2. to còver the offences of His people. The Autos, the very being HIMSELF therefore refers to this [JE] ESSENCE. But if [JE] is not in the name there can be no fuch reference. Whence I conclude it is there, and that becaufe JESUS fignifies THE [JE] ESSENCE THE SAVIOR, the ANGEL faid HE, the Being HIMSELF Shall fave His people from their fins; and fo made a declaration pregnant with the completion of the SS and their hopes, in terms expreffive of His dignity and office, as well as of its spirituality. For what could more plainly speak HIM their LORD than calling them His people? - what more difplay His office, than telling them HE (this JE) fhould SAVE, and fo do what [JE] the ESSENCE had promised to do? what more prove its /piritual nature than affuring them He would work a falvation of them, not only in the end from earthy foes, as from EGYPT and BABYLON, but from enemies that war against the soul, and fo are fpiritual ones, FROM, not in their SINS; and of course from every fad consequent of them, from divine wrath, from death and hell? Yet all these things the ANGEL declares, and so confirms this interpretation.

Nor are thefe conclufions from His words

new.

The primitive writers held this [JE]

ESSENCE

ESSENCE was in His name, and that Hrs being fuch was a part of the reafon affigned for it. Tertullian, fpeaking of " the unclean spirit crying out, What have we to do with thee, JESUS, &c. I know THEE?-and faying, "How could the "devil know HIM to be fo called?" answers "he remembered the prophet to have declared "HIM the HOLY ONE of GOD, and JESUS the "name of GOD to have been in the fon of NUN. "Also these he had heard of the ANGEL, &c." thou shalt call His name JESUS, p. 417, 418, fect. 7. where 1. he calls JESUS" the name of GOD;" 2, collects it to be fuch from St. Luke and St. Matthew, and makes JOSHUA to have borne the name. Cyprian alfo L. II. against the JEWS having urged in proof that CHRIST was about to come" a GOD, I. xxxv. 3, lxiii. 9. not an "elder, nor an angel, but [ipfe DOMINUS] THE LORD HIMSELF will deliver or fave them, [IPSE] HE HIMSELF will redeem them, &c. and P. xxv. 5, Thou art GOD my SAVIOR," adds, "Whence in the gospel, &c. Mat.i. 20. the ANGEL [GaBRIEL] faid to JOSEPH Thou shalt call His name JESUS (Hic enim, &c.). For this one or Being Himfelf fhall fave His people, &c. alfo according to Luk. ii. 10. This day is born to you -a SAVIOR which is CHRIST the LORD. So that he thought St. Mat.i. a proof of our SAVIOR's Divinity, and that this was the [HIC IPSE] ALMIGHTY HE HIMSELF.

Ferom,

Jerom in Mat. c. i. tranflates the words Becaufe [IPSE] The being HIMSELF fhall fave, &c. Cyril in Illumin. X. p. 129, proving the name was predicted from Is. lxii. 2. "Behold the

"SAVIOR shall come to thee, having His reward "with HIM, (before called Jeнovaн, and JE) and then citing this text, Thou shalt call His name JESUS, adds, "of which name HE [the 66 ANGEL] immediately subjoining the reason, " fays, For [Autos, Dr. Mills has IPSE] HE the very BEING HIMSELF Shall fave His people, &c. on which he remarks," how fhould HE, "who was not yet born, be understood to have "a people, unless HE exifted previously to His "birth?" And as on this account Suidas renders SOTER, [SAVIOR] by the word, "GOD," fo Caffiodorus obferves L. V. de incarnat. c. i. "that these two particulars, to fave or deliver << from fins, and His people, cannot with the "leaft propriety be attributed to any but HIM, "who is naturally GOD:" and the verfion of the New Teftament by Tindal has this note (e) on the text, "JESUS doth fave us from our fynnes, 66 whereby we may evidently fee that He is a very naturall GOD, for GOD onely faveth "from fynne." Mercer on Pagnin fays the fame under [] Jeso. Chriftian writers then have rendered Autos fofei THE VERY BEING HIMSELF fhall fave, which is the defcription of what the name denotes HIM to be. Indeed if JESUS

JESUS is fuppofed to fignify only the SAVIOR, as JesHuA and OSHA or Hosea, then the words contain no reason why He should be called JESUS rather than JesHuА, &c. But fuch reason is herein given, JESUS standing for JeноsнuА, which is different from OsHeA and fignifies THE ESSENCE THE SAVIOR; therefore this is another proof it must have this meaning. So truly might Bishop Andrews fay "This is one of GOD's own names, I AM, and

befides ME there is no SAVIOR, Is. xliii. 11. "the chief of all His names, the name of a "SAVIOR, &c, JESUS is the name of GOD,

and the chief name of GOD :" for we fee JE the name of this divine perfon is in it.

And the JEWS should have no objection to its being the MESSIAH's name, because as fome have faid HE would appear under it, fo their fore-fathers have rendered I. xxxviii. I said I fhall not fee [JE] the LORD in the land of the liv ing, &c. thus, I faid, I fhall not fee [to faterion tou THEOU] THE SALVATION of the GOD in the land of the LIVING ONES, I shall no more behold [to foterion tou ISRAEL] the SALVATION of ISRAEL in the land, I shall no more behold man : understanding by [JE] THE ESSENCE HIM that JACOB waited for, the SALVATION of IsRaEL, as SIMEON calls CHRIST, the SALVATION of GOD, and confequently holding the inverted propofition," that this SALVATION OF MES

SIAH was to be [JE] THE ESSENCE defcribed in JESUS. Whence Philo de Monarch. I. II. p. 639. fays of the high-prieft, "The law re<< quires this perfon to be one of a more ex"cellent nature than man, drawing nearer to "the divine, to fay the truth, the confine of both; that by a certain mediator or middle perfon

men might propitiate GOD, and God ufing 66 a certain ministry might give and dispense "His graces to men." Of this we also find a perfuafion among the later heathens not only from their feigning the angel or messenger of their gods to be a god, but alfo from these words of Plato in Alcibiad. I. II. de Precat. that "'tis

neceffary to wait 'till one (the just one to be "fcourged, tortured, bound and fuffering all "evils [avagırdıλeudnoetaı anaskindileuthese"tai] as Scapula renders it to be crucified, de "republ. 1. II.) fhall come to teach them how "they ought to be difpofed to the gods and to 66 men; O when will that time come, and "who will be that teacher? moft greatly do I "long to fee that man who he is.” De Leg. IV. More than human, fays he, must this law-giver be; because as beafts are governed by men, fo men must be by one superior to themselves, and therefore by one to have the nature of GOD. Befides we have seen, p. 69, the call to the JEWS was as in Pf. cxxxv. 3, 4, Praise the NAME or DISPOSER JEHOVAH [JE] THE ESSENCE,

the