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the lions' den, or the three Hebrew children, had no other God but a gold image to pray unto for deliverance, methinks they would have been devoured forever, no more to be heard: but the bread they lived on perished not, something like the manna that was given to the children of Israel when passing through the wilderness; this bread, because they were always to stand before the face of the Lord, in his temple as a figure of the original sacrifice and sacrament in the church of Christ: the lamps which was always to give light in the house of God, was a figure of the light of the Holy Ghost, and his sevenfold grace in the sanctuary of the church of Christ; the sanctuary, that part of the tabernacle which was without the veil, into which the priests daily entered, is here called the sanctuary or holy place; that part which was within the veil, into which no one but the High Priest ever went, and he but once a year, is called the holy of holies (literally the sanctuarus of the sanctuary, as being the most holy of all holy places.) Seeing now the sun at high meridian, what a glorious light of perfection, while standing upright.—Doctrine and Truth: these words written on the rational sons to signify the light of doctrine and the integrity of life, which the priest of God ought to approach him. See Exo. 33 c. 11 v. "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend, and he turned again into the camp." This is a most familiar manner, though as we learn from this very chapter, Moses could not see the face of the Lord; in the language of the scriptures God is said to know such as he approves and loves, and to know by name those whom he favors in a most singular manner, as he did his servant Moses ; the Lord by his angel usually spoke to Moses in the pillar of the cloud, so that he could not see the glory of him that spoke familiarly with him in the vision here mentioned, he allowed to something of him in an assumed corporeal form, not in the face, the rays of which were too bright for mortal eye to bear, but to view him, as it were, behind, when his face was turned from him. Thus we see the close communion with God to admit Moses to converse with him, and I believe to this day, for as much as Moses did it in a temporal sense, the true christian may converse with him in a spiritual sense here, while travelling in this hostile world. See
