Page:The rock of wisdom.djvu/90

 Sam. 23: 3. So shall the kingdom of Christ, as if he should say "this everlasting covenant was not due to my house, but purely owing to the bounty of him who is all my salvation and my will;" that is, who hath always saved me and executed what I desired of him so that I and my house, through his blessing, have sprung up and succeeded in all things. Sec. 11. The First Book of Kings. This and the following book are called by the holy fathers, the Third and Fourth Books of Kings, but by the Hebrews the first and second; they contain the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Juda, from the beginning of the reign of Solomon to the captivity. As to the writer of these books, it seem most probable they were not written by cue man nor at one time, but as there was all along a succession of prophets in Israel, who recorded, by divine inspiration, the most remarkable things which happened in those days, these books seems to have been written by those prophets, 2d Chron. 9: 39; do. 20: 34; do. 26: 23; do. 32: 32; for the express purpose to keep in view so that the rising generation might see and know the proceedings of their fathers, that they might have a correct knowledge of the oracles of God and the great temple that was built by Solomon, was a figure of the great celestial temple; so the stones for the building of God's eternal temple in the heavenly Jerusalem, must first be hewed and polished here, by many trials and sufferings before they can be admitted to have a place in that celestial structure. The inner house of the oracle, that is the sanctuary, which he separated from the other part of the temple, with this partition of cedar, instead of the veil which, in the tabernacle of Moses, hung before the sanctuary. And he set up two pillars in the porch of the temple, and he set up the right hand pillar and he called the name thereof Jachin, and he set up the left hand pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz; that is, in it is strength. By recording these names in holy writ, the spirit of God would have us to understand the invincible firmness and strength of the pillars on which the true temple of God, which is the church, is established, or, no less foundation than God himself, for he said, his soul shall dwell at ease, and his seed shall inherit the earth, the secret of the Lord is with