Watts - BX5200 .W3 1813 v.3

DISCOURSE liI: 571 continued, even after a temple was built, and used by the pro- phets in following ages, to signify the place of God's residence and of his worship And Zion was the word they used to repre- sent and typify the church of God in future ages. When Solomon was ordered to build that glorious temple in Jerusalem, it was upon another mountain, even mount Moriah, not far off from Zion ; 2 Chron. iii. 1. and the ark ofthe cove- nant was brought up thither out of the city of David which is Zion ; 1 Kings viii. I. And this temple was the constant fixed place of the worship of the Lord for many generations, even till the days of the Messiah, or the end of the levitical dispensation. Thus the appointed place of the Jewish worship in its special forms, and at the stated returning seasons, was the tabernacle or the ark which was formed by Moses, or the temple built by Solomon, from the time of their departure from Egypt to the age of the Messiah. There the daily sacrifices of the two lambs were tobe offered, there the burning lamps were to be kindled, there thesweet incense was to smoke towards heaven every morn- ing and every evening ; Ex. xxix. 38. and xxx. 7, 8: There God appointed his own worship with a special uniformity in the whole scheme, and a peculiar harmony betwixt the several parts of it, to hold forth by of type and emblem, the beauty and glory of the church invisible, worshipping the great and invisible God. III. " While these appointed places of worship continued to be approved of God, they were called holm places; not only because God dwelt there, but because God claimed them as his own, and would have them solemnly separated for his own pecu- liar serviée : And he appointed also what special respect or regard the people should pay to them in testimony of their holi- ness." When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush on the mount, he commanded him to put of Isis shoes front his feet, for the place, says he, whereon thou standest is holy/ ground ; Ex. iii: 5. that is, because Godwas there. When God manifest- ed his presence in lightning and thunder, and thick smoke on mount Sinai, to pronounce his law from heaven, the mountain ryas tohave bounds or rails fixed round about it, that neither raan nor beast might touch it ; Ex. xix. 23. Heb. xii. 20. When he fixed his visible dwelling amongst his people Israel, even before they came to be settled in the land of Canaan, as well as after, there were various degrees of holiness assigned to places according to their nearness of God, or the visible token of his presence. When he appointed the orders of the camp of Israel, this camp though moveable, had some degrees of holiness in it: for God represents himself as dwelling in the midst of them, and walking among them, therefore no unclean thing was to be left public and visible there ; Deut, xxiii. 1,

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