Here three things most evidently appear, 1. _Jehovah_ was that person in the deity, who appeared visibly and discoursed with the patriarchs, not the invisible supreme. 2. That _Abram_ erected an altar to this divine person _Jehovah_, worshipped him, and invoked in his _name_. Invoked whom? the supreme unquestionably, _i. e._ prayed to the supreme Being, in the _name_, virtue, effect, and merit of _Jehovah_, the mediatorial deity. The word NAME, in these passages of scripture, means the mediatorial deity, JEHOVAH by name: Ὁ Θεος Επιφανης, the God who appear’d personally to the patriarchs, who was the king of the _Mosaic_ dispensation, and of the _Jewish_ people, call’d the anointed or _Messiah_, 1 _Sam._ ii. 10, 35. he was the captain of the _Israelites_, that conducted them from _Egypt_ to _Canaan_, _Exod._ xxiii. 20. the royal angel, the king, emperor. The angel of his face or presence, _Isaiah_ lxiii. 9. the angel of the covenant, _Malachi_ iii. 1. _Melech Jehovah_ the angelick king, _Zechar._ iii. 1, 2, 3, 4. he is very God: for, says the supreme, in the before quoted passage in _Exodus_, _behold I send an angel before thee_ (_the_ angel, it ought to be read) _to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my_ NAME _is in him._ This same way of speaking _Joshua_ uses, _Josh._ xxiv. 19. _Ye cannot serve Jehovah; for he is a holy deity, he is a jealous God, he will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins._ The _Jews_ confess this doctrine to be just. _Rabbi Hadersan_ upon that passage in _Zephaniah_ iii. 9. _to call upon the_ NAME _of Jehovah_, says, this _Jehovah_ is no other than _Messiah_. All this shews the patriarchs had a knowledge of the true nature of the deity, and that the Christian or mediatorial religion is the first and the last. And when men were quite deviated from the first, the _Mosaic_ dispensation was but an intervening vail upon the effulgence and spirituality of true religion for a time, to reduce them to it, in the actual advent of the Messiah. 3. These altars, as they are here called, were the patriarchal temples like those of our druids, the places of publick worship; and invoking in the name of _Jehovah_, is a form of speech importing publick worship on sabbath days: equivalent to our saying, to go to church on sundays. Whence _Servius_ on the _Æneid_ III. v. 85. writes, in the most ancient manner of worshipping, they only pray’d directly to the deity, without offering sacrifice. And thus I apprehend, we are to understand _Herodotus_ II. where he says the _Athenians_ learn’d invoking, of the _Pelasgi_, who were _Phœnicians_: and probably they had it from _Abraham_, who was introduc’d into the land of _Canaan_, as a reformer of religion. Invoking was the ordinary method of devotion on sabbath days: sacrificing was extraordinary.