SECTION I. $'Os the union between God and man in Christ Jesus is much more near, more intimate and glorious, so as to make one complex person or God -man, and it is so constant as never to be dis- solved ; for Christ, who is the seed of David, after the flesh, is by this union God over all blessed for evermore. See Rom. ix. 5. Ex. xxxi. 18. " When God had made an end of commun- ing with Moses on mount Sinai, he gave unto him two tables of testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God." This seems to intimate a human shape giving the tables to Moses, but not the vision of a human face. In Ex. xxxii. 2. When Israel had offended God by the golden calf, he said, " I will send an angel before thee, and I will drive out the Canaanites, &c. for I will not go up in the midst of 'thee, for thou art a stiff - necked people, lest I consume thee in the way." It is the opinion of Doctor Owen on this place, that the angel which. God in his anger told them he would sendbefore them, when he himself re- fused to go up in the midst of them, was different from that angel whom he promised to them ; Ex. xxii. 21. " in whom the name of God was :" But upon their mourning and repentance, and upon the intercession of Moses, verse 4. and 14. God says, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest ; which is much the same thing as if he liad said, the angel of My presence shall go with thee, for so this angel in whom the name of God dwelt, is called ; Is. lxiii. 9. In all their afflictions he was a flicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. Ex. xxxiii. 9. f° Moses entered into the tabernacle, and the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord s, talked with Moses, and all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle doer, and all the people rose up and worshipped, everyman in his tent-door. Verse 11. And the Lord snake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. Yet, as I before intimated; perhaps this signifies only free mutual discourse like human and friendly conversation ; for a few. verses afterwards, God refused to let Moses see his face, verse 23. Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. Upon this account it may be queried, whether Moses ever saw the likeness of a human face in all the appearances of God to him : yet there seems tobe the similitude of the back ofa man as to the shape of his body, in which God appeared to Mosesat * Note, The Lord is not in the original in this place ; and this is the only place that Occurs to me-where the nominative case iswanting when God or the segel is said to talk with Moses out of the cloud ; but vet. I imthédiately it is said, " The Lord, that is, Jehovah spoke to Moses face to face." And Exod xxxiv. 5. it is said, " The Lord descended in the cloud, and, stood with Moses there, Enc." So that this single ellipsis or subintellection of the nominative case Lord, ver. 9. ought not tobe construed in opposition to all other places where the Lord himself is said to speakwith Moses.
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