l. 10. p. 360. when making gaudy offerings to them No let but the hand free from guilt be lifted up to the Altars of the Gods not the most rich or costly hecatombs shall sooner reconcile the angry Deities than those I shall add no more to shew that sense the Pagans had of the ends of religion but onely make a short reflection upon God's justice in dealing with Mankind as set down by St. Paul He tells us God will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2.6 c. to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish to every soul of man that doth evil to the Jew first and also to the Gentile Now that the Jews and Gentiles who stood upon no equal ground yet should suffer equally in case of disobedience seems to some very harsh but if again it be considered that that God who gave the Jewish Nation such great advantages required of them proportionably great returns whilst the Gentiles who had been partakers of less light were onely required to walk in that light they had to come up as near to a perfection in faith and virtue as that would admit of This consider'd the Gentiles were every whit as guilty in neglecting their duties which were lighter and fewer as the Jews in neglecting theirs which were more numerous and difficult since the disobedience to the Divine commands is as notorious in one case as in the other and this reflection reaches farther and teaches those who are more weak and ignorant not to presume too much upon God's mercy because they know so little since it 's as reasonable they should perform that little they know as that we who know more should do our duties and their negligence and proportionable unfruitfulness in good and ours proceed from one and the same damnably offensive principle for as the Apostle urges it v. 12. as many as have sinn'd without Law shall perish without Law and as many as have sinn'd in the Law shall be judg'd by the Law This every Man must acknowledge to be the greatest equity in the World the faith and works of the Jews and so of Christians shall be canvas'd and examin'd by those rules of faith and practice extraordinarily imparted to them the Gentiles had no such Law but the light of Nature was their guide therefore their works shall be tried by that and by no other light now a defect in obedience to the innate light of nature is as much a contempt of God and so as criminal as a defect in obedience to the written Law of God and consequently as justly punish'd now how far this natural light extends as these passages I have quoted from Heathen Writers considerably evidence so the Apostle tells us That the Gentiles which have not the Law i. e. the same Law that was given to the Jews v. 14. do by nature the things contain'd in the Law they not having the Law are a Law unto themselves This proves that truth that God's written Law is not a disannulling but a confirming and enlarging upon the Law of Nature in the manner of a Commentary upon an intricate Text to illustrate and explain it well then The Gentiles shew this natural Law written in their hearts by the witness of their consciences and their thoughts in the mean time accusing or excusing one another v. 15. for having as I shew'd before clear apprehensions of the Being of a God and having made very considerable discoveries of his nature so far as legible in the works of the Creation they cannot upon a serious debate with themselves and weighing their own actions by their own notions and rules but have an infallible certainty of the rectitude or pravity of their actions and this is as much as a Jew or Christian can do by his publick Laws and an exact scanning of them Now if my Conscience can certainly inform me of things essentially and eternally so whether they be good or bad the same Conscience will give me as infallible a certainty that God is and must be just when he rewards me according to my actions whether they be good or evil he calls me to account for what I do know not for what I do not know and punishes me for transgressions within the reach of my understanding to have avoided and not for those that were unintelligible without a positive revelation and this even corrupted Reason will own is agreeable to the strictest rules of equity and justice We are to enquire since we have seen what Jews and Gentiles before our Saviour's birth into the World understood concerning the nature and ends of Religion which every one for himself supposed to be true since none can be thought mad enough to trouble himself about that religion he certainly knew to be false We are to enquire how far both Jews and Gentiles had deprav'd and perverted those ends and what care they took to manage themselves according to that knowledge they really had when our Saviour appear'd in the flesh And here again we may begin with the Jews among whom if we find an extraordinary degeneracy we can the less wonder at it among the Gentiles If then we examine the state of things among them we have it thus It was once among them Do this and live i. e. Live here on Earth in a strict obedience to those things commanded you in the Law and you shall be rewarded with an happy future life Now when the terrors and glories of Mount Sinai were fresh in memory and Parents according as they were order'd took care to inculcate God's power justice and goodness particularly exerted toward the People of Israel into their Children and gave agreeable examples in themselves obedience was the common study and peace here and a glorious expectation hereafter the common consequence But when a new generation arose who had not seen God's wonderful dealings with his people and the too prevailing examples of neighbouring Idolaters taught the Israelites a wicked ingratitude the Law of God was slighted and as it is among us at this day the Man who could defie Heaven with the greatest audacity was the most set by And though frequent judgments over-took their Impieties there was no thorough purgation made among them but they went on to add sin to sin so that among the Scribes and Pharisees the great Zealots of the Law at the time of Christ's coming in the flesh things were at that pass that the blessed Jesus had reason when he told his Auditors that Except their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees Matth. 5.20 they should in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven If therefore the very best among the Jews as they were generally esteem'd were utterly uncapable of eternal happiness what may
sin which was incapable of pardon from an offended God but upon the terms of the passion of his dearly beloved Son and will be throughly satisfied of the danger of such transgression by a rational assurance That if men sin wilfully after they have receiv'd the knowledge of the truth Hebr. 10.26 27. there remains now no more sacrifices for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries If then true Religion consist in worshipping God according to those revelations he has made of himself to the world and we cannot propound any reason to our selves why God should have made any such revelation of himself to us but only that when we have a rule we might have an example too then whatsoever religion that is whose most obscure and incomprehensible mysteries highly promote that excellent work of following our exemplar or growing up into an assimilation to God himself by endeavouring to be holy as our heavenly father is holy and perfect as he is perfect That Religion must certainly carry us by the surest ways to eternal happiness but such a Religion is that instituted by our Saviour in the Gospel therefore that 's a Religion above all others for the sake of such mysteries so profound but withal so very profitable and instructive to be embraced by all wise and considering Men. A due reflection upon those mysteries any Religion is founded upon with a just apprehension of the deficiency of our own reason in tracing them is a very proper means to create in mens minds a due and exact reverence for it Thus that very notion that we have of God's infinity of his dwelling in impenetrable darkness or in inaccessible light of the unsearchableness of his ways the incomprehensibility of his wisdom c. All these things make awful impressions upon mens souls and make them to fear before God and to reverence him and this God him self intended when by his Prophet he assured the Jews My thoughts are not your thoughts Isai 55.8 9. neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts This prodigious distance between the nature of God and Man was enough to overawe man on whose side there was so very great a disadvantage God's prohibition so often repeated to the Jews that they should not represent him to themselves by any figure or image whatsoever with the reason as frequently inculcated that they never had seen any thing which could look like any representation of him was to prevent that contempt which too much familiarity with superiors naturally produces for representing a God by any thing of a gross or material nature is apt to create as gross an Idaea of the Divinity it self in the mind of a Man and those once entertained produce a sawciness and familiarity not at all agreeable to that immense distance there is between a divine and a mortal Being Thus it 's observable that the Gentiles generally were upon several occasions extravagantly free with those Gods they worshipp'd Hence the Tyrians when Alexander the great besieged them chain'd the Image of Apollo to that of Hercules lest the God should leave them because one of their Citizens had had a melancholick dream forsooth that he designed to serve them such a slippery trick in their necessity So the Athenians clip'd off the wings of the Image of the goddess Victory lest she should fly away from them So Dionysius the elder of Sicily took off a golden mantle from the statue of Jupiter and put him on a woolen blanket with that scoffing reason that the blanket was fitter for all weathers being lighter in Summer and warmer in Winter So he took off the golden beard of Aesculapius with that Witticisme That it became not him to have so long a beard when his father Apollo had none It 's true these affronts were proper enough for those Idols to whom they were offer'd but they were very unbecoming those who offered them since they profest to believe that they were really gods so that they were not those Images or Statues which were abus'd but it was the true Divinity it self which they imagined resident in or about those Images And of this Inconvenience from material Images even of material Saints the Romanists are sometimes sensible witness that action of a Spanish Peasant who making his offering to the Image of the blessed Virgin and imagining she look'd not so kindly on him for it as he expected He very briskly told her she need not be so proud for He remembred she was but a sorry piece of timber the other day it was yet the more effectually to prevent such inconveniences that God appointed a part of the Tabernacle first and of the Temple at Jerusalem afterwards under the Sacred name of the Holy of Holies to be wholly inaccessible to any but the High Priest who bore an extraordinary Character among the Jews nor might He enter into it above once a Year and that with a great deal of respect and ceremony This made God to strike the men of Bethshemesh with so terrible a judgment for daring to pry into what God intended to keep secret 1 Sam. â— 19 and to strike Vzzah dead upon the place for presuming to do what was above his station and touch the Ark though it seem'd an action proceeding from a good zeal or a fear that the Ark the peculiar Symbol of God's presence among his People should have fallen to the ground 2 Sam. 6.9 but we may see what a terror that signal vengeance struck upon David himself and all his Company v. 10. and it 's observ'd of Pompey the Great that after He had been so bold as to look into the Holy of Holies upon his taking Jerusalem that though He saw nothing there nor offer'd any violence to any thing about the Temple but expressed a great deal of reverence towards the place and those that attended on it yet that God's judgments pursued him from that time that He prosper'd in little or nothing that He undertook all things from thence verging hastily to his final ruine So jealous is God of his honour so terrible to those who will be strugling to know what he would have kept secret from the World That great reverence which a due distance between God and the things belonging to him and Man creates is so well known in the World that wise Men have thought it convenient that there should be somewhat of a Mysterious Majesty in those who are God's representatives on earth which has taught the great Eastern Monarchs that prudent piece of state to shew themselves as seldom as possible to the People by which means the Vulgar not being capable of any diminutive thoughts of those whose weaknesses they are unacquainted with almost reverence their Kings as Gods and conclude no submissions can be
him If He be a meer Man whatsoever obliges us to Worship the Lord our God and to serve him only excludes Christ from being any such Object of our adorations and we cannot reasonably believe but that after our Saviour had baffled the Tempter by that assertion when He came to see our Saviour permit himself nay and encourage and command himself to be Worshipped He would have reflected upon our Saviour as false to his own Principles and therefore none of God's Son or the worlds Saviour and the reflection must have been good unless the Devil had been satisfied beyond dispute that He whom he had tempted under the veil of a body assumed was really and truly God As such the Devil found him in his humble state able to confound able to command him and that in his own name upon all occasions Devils trembled at the sight of him as of their original and all-powerful Creator at whose hands they had received a glorious and blissful Being but had foolishly and ingratefully fallen from it So the guilty Soul trembles now at the distant apprehensions of it's terrible Judge and according to Evangelical assertions at his dreadful approach will cry eagerly to the hills to fall upon it and to the rocks to cover it if possible from the dismal effects of infinite and insupportable Fury The Apostle tells us That the earnest expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God Rom. 8.19 20 21 22. That the Creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope because the Creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God And that we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now By the Creature here we understand all creatures whatsoever or all created Beings of a purer or of a grosser Nature and the Creature is agreeably interpreted in the last cited verse by the whole Creation and this interpretation is so general that it seems incontestable Hence we infer that if our Saviour was a meer Creature he was under the same necessities and inconveniences as all other parts of the Creation were He must have earnestly expected the manifestation of the Sons of God as they themselves being a part of the Creation do i. e. to see the time wherein the Servants of God in spite of all sinister Opinions and Prejudices against them shall be gloriously proved to all the World to be what they are the real Sons of God and infinitely dear to Him Farther Christ as a Creature must have been subject to vanity as well as the rest lyable to corruption assertable into liberty something that could groan and be in pain till the time of manifestation all these things Christ if he were a meer Creature must have been and must be liable to at this present and be always in an obnoxious state till the great day of Judgment and the revelation of the righteous Judge that is of Himself Therefore he cannot now excuse any Man from the Sin of Idolatry who shall worship him as God any more than others can nor indeed can he be yet capable of that divine Glory and Honour which the Socinians would have us believe were conferred upon him after his Resurrection This consequence from these words the Socinians are so very sensible of that they endeavour by all means to prevent it and to do so they fly to one of their conceited interpretations and the Creature here must be the new Creature tho' the new Creature be no where in Scripture besides called either the Creature absolutely or the whole Creation Schlichtingius in particular is very elaborate and prolix in proving that the Creature can mean nothing else but what is elsewhere known by that Epithet of New but here their admired friend Grotius forsakes them and in effect declares that Interpretation of theirs meer Nonsence The Sons of God mentioned in the cited Text are unquestionably new Creatures they must be one before they can be the other Why then the Creature should signifie the same is unaccountable Vid. Deut. 32.1 especially seeing the Apostle in those Verses puts a plain distinction between them so that Grotius determines rightly Jer. 47.6 The words are a Prosopopoeia wherein by a Figure no way unusual in Scripture the Vniverse and all the parts in it are brought in as some single Rational Being expecting waiting groaning subject to vanity c. Nor is the subjection to vanity nor the expectation of liberty so uncouth an application to the Universe for besides that Solomon tells us that all things under the Sun are only vanity we cannot wonder at the thing it self Man 's first sin was prejudicial to the whole frame of Nature all things suffered by it the Earth fell under a curse the living Creatures embroyled in a state of War one with one another Sin and Death having gotten footing in the World all things in their proportion felt the dismal effects of it the Creatures according to Prophetical Predictions were to be partakers of very considerable advantages by the dominion of the Messias an Universal Peace was to overspread the World The Wolf to lye down with the Lamb and the Ox with the Lyon Children to play securely with the most noxious Creatures and Men to beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning-hooks c. And we make no doubt but that when the final determining Judgment shall be past and a notorious distinction made between God's Servants and his Enemies The New Heavens and the new Earth whatever Creatures we may imagine to be sharers in it will be the unchangeable habitations of Peace and Righteousness and even the most insensible parts of the Creation will receive advantages by those blessings the eternal Government of the Son of God must introduce At least we may be sure there will be an end put to all those Calamities and that extreme Servility the whole Creation lyes under at present by reason of Sin Now to this servile or vain state the Creature is subject not willingly nor indeed by it's own fault but as Subjects suffer whether they will or not by the miscarriages of their Princes so the several parts of the visible Creation by the folly of Man their Prince and Head It was from that time the Devil acquired his title of being the Prince of the power of the Air a Title and Power troublesom to every thing there but if that Crime committed by Man subjected the whole Creation to vanity that merciful Promise of a Saviour given to fallen Man could not but be of excellent advantage to his visible felow Creatures since the performance of that Promise would be so great an abatement to the Devil's Tyranny and the absolute Government of the Messias would put a full end to it at last So that the Criticisme of
by those particular Sufferings upon the Cross for his Father accepting that Price so paid down Christ as Man Heb. 7.25 acquired that Power as to be able to save to the utmost all those that come to God by him and therefore his humane Nature is immortal that he may always be capable of exerting such a Power But the Socinians would prove their position by that Heb. 8.4 That if Christ were on Earth he should not be a Priest seeing that there are Priests which offer Gifts according to the Law but here they are vastly wide from the Apostle's meaning for the Apostle writing there to Jews and arguing the matter with them concerning the Messiahship of Christ shows them that though he asserted Christ's High-priesthood yet he pretended not that he was any Successor of Aaron or the Legal High-priests for says he 7. 13. 14. it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah of which Moses spake nothing concerning the Priesthood therefore our Saviour was a Priest according to Prophecy after the order of Melchisedech and not only after that Order but for ever so a High-priest never to die never to be succeeded in that sacred Office by any other now being after that Order and under a necessity of having somewhat to offer as a Priest for so we are taught and 8.3 as a Priest having no right to offer any Jewish Sacrifices or Gifts the Order of Melchisedech not having any relation to them Christ offered himself the greatest the noblest Offering in the World having made that glorious Offering he soon left Earth having there no further immediate concern for could he have made his Title to Priesthood never so plain and offered himself never so freely among the Jews to execute the Priestly Office it had been to no purpose they having Priests of their own of the Aaronical Line of whom by Divine prescription they were to make use in things pertaining to God those Priests properly officiating so long as Sacrifices were legally necessary and when they were render'd unnecessary by the perfection of our Saviour's Sacrifice there being no need of any Priests at all to offer such external Sacrifices or Gifts the Apostles of Christ and their Followers succeeding their Master onely in the Instructing Governing and Interceding Parts of his Sacerdotal Function As for some part of their Argument to prove that Christ was not a compleat High-priest till his Entrance into Heaven it 's more dark and unintelligible to me than all those Mysteries in Religion which they pretend to explode for say they since the Apostle asserts that he ought in all things to be like his Brethren that he might be a compassionate and faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God and for expiating the Sins of the People it 's plain that so long as he was not like to his Brethren in all things i. e. in Afflictions and in Death so long he was not a compleat High-priest well is the Consequence from all this therefore he was not a compleat High-priest till he appeared in Heaven before his Father nothing less It will only follow on their own Principles that upon his Death without that Consequence the expiatory Sacrifice was compleated for there was no need of sanctifying the highest Heavens with his own Blood nor does this at all abate the necessity of Christ's Resurrection or Ascension into Heaven since without these that Faith fixt in one who had been false to his own Promises concerning himself who could neither have rais'd himself nor others who could neither have possest those eternal Mansions in his own Person nor have prepared them for his Followers who could neither have protected nor assisted them to the end of the World could have been no way justifiable but Christ's assimilation to his Brethren could proceed no further than to the end of his Sufferings which ended with his Death upon the Cross since none of his Brethren had been so glorified or had so risen as he did or so ascended into the presence of God to make Intercession for Sinners but indeed Death it self was not so essential to that Resemblance as they imagine for whosoever is liable to common Infirmities and obnoxious to Sufferings must of necessity be obnoxious to Death on the same reason though he should actually be translated with Enoch or carried up into Heaven with Elijah for though those holy Men after such a Translation were no more in a mortal state yet all that was no greater Privilege than all are Partakers of who after their final Resurrection die no more or than those who shall be found alive at the day of judgment for though such shall only be subjected to a change and not really die as others yet that hinders not but that in their own Natures they shall be mortal and as liable to Distempers so to Death as well as others To say truth our Saviour during the whose course of his Life and in all its particulars liv'd as Men do and being a Partaker of real and not fantastical Flesh and Blood it was not probable he should live otherwise only in his exemption from Sin he was beyond that general Rule the Deity not being capable of an Union with any thing imperfect or impure But having liv'd as real Man and suffer'd as such and having by himself throughly purged our Sins Heb. 1.3 he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high the Socinians indeed seem to point at somewhat of an Interstice between his Ascension and his Session at the right hand of God that 's not at all grounded upon Scripture for though we know he convers'd some time with his Disciples before he left them that was not the time of presenting himself before his Father and for any thing of a formal presenting himself before his Father as a Suppliant with his own Blood it 's an irrational Dream neither becoming Men pretending to Scriptural nor to Philosophical Reason for since we must to please their Fancies make an exact Parallelism between the Annual Sacrifice and that of Christ we must consider that the High-priest entring into the Holy of Holies had really with him the Blood of the Victim already dead and in that state of Death to continue till consumed by fire without the Camp and so never capable of a Resurrection but our Saviour rose again from the dead and though those of Rome would persuade us some of his Blood was gathered from under the Cross and preserv'd as a venerable Relick by some very Pious and Devout Persons and may be seen at this day by those who have Faith enough yet we doubt not but that Blood so shed was re-united to his Body being easily gathered by Almighty Power from that Diffusion it had suffer'd at his Crucifixion so that though our Lord had died yet his Blood after his Resurrection existed only as in a living Body therefore it could be presented before God only as in such a
before it was a sure sign of some extraordinary Person intended it gives us the very name proper to our Jesus as he was the Son of God Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son Isai 7.14 and shall call his name Immanuel where the thing foretold is so much a miracle that it cannot be believed to have occurr'd more than once in the World nay the prodigiousness of the thing has made some great pretenders to reason endeavour to weaken the very authority of Scripture it self from the impossibility of the thing foretold And the Jews have endeavour'd to affix a large sense upon the Text as if no more was meant than barely That a Woman should be with Child and so the miracle is wholly taken away But all these little stratagems of unbelievers have fail'd and the very Name added would convince considerate Men of some great thing design'd since a meer Man or one coming into the World according to the ordinary course of nature could not be truly call'd Immanuel or God with us This declaration of the Evangelical Prophet as He 's justly call'd is soon follow'd by another of the same nature For unto us a Child is born Isai 9 6 7. unto us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be call'd Wonderful Counseller the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of peace of the increase of his Government there shall be no end upon the Throne of David and upon his Kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever In all which the Prophet seems to write a perfect History of things past he speaks with that assurance and confidence as if he had seen that hope of Israel born into the World and wholly ecstatick in his contemplation of so infinite a blessing bestow'd on the World he fixes such Titles upon him as were compatible with no meer man nay he makes him God an Infinite an everlasting God the Vniversal Monarch of Earth and Heaven yet leaves him drest in flesh and blood at last a Child born a Son given to us miserable perishing Creatures But Isaiah's reflections on the promised Saviour are so many as not to be instanced in more particularly we may just name that Isai 11.1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of Counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the Earth and he shall smite the Earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked and more to that purpose which St. Paul in his discourse to the Antiochians in Pisidia alludes to And that again Acts 13.22 22 24. The voice of him that crieth in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make streight in the desert an high-way for our God every Valley shall be exalted and every Mountain and Hill shall be made low and the crooked shall be made streight and the rough places plain â—â—i 40.3.4 5. and the glory of the Lord shall be reveal'd and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it which John the Baptist applies to himself and his Master Joh. 1.23 Such is the whole fifty-third Chapter a compleat though compendious Chronicle of our Saviour from his Cradle to his Tomb happily read by the Aethiopian Eunuch since from thence the Evangelist Philip took occasion to preach to him Jesus Acts 8.34 35. Such that The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the Captives and the opening of the Prison to them that are bound Isai 61.1 2. Luk. 4.17 18 19. to proclaim the acceptable Year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God apply'd to himself by our Saviour Agreeably to these Predictions the Prophet Jeremy foretels Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will raise to David a righteous branch and a King shall reign and prosper Jerem. 23.5 6. and shall execute judgment and righteousness in the Earth in his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is the name whereby he shall be call'd The Lord our righteousness Which is again repeated by him Jer. 33.15 16. To the same purpose Ezekiel I will save my Flock and they shall be no more a prey and I will set up one Shepherd over them and he shall feed them even my servant David he shall feed them and he shall be their Shepherd and I the Lord will be their God Ezek 34.22 23 24. and my servant David a Prince among them I the Lord have spoken it Which is repeated and enlarged Ezek. 37. 21 ad fin Daniel yet more plainly I saw in the night visions and behold one like the Son of Man came with the Clouds of Heaven and came to the Ancient of days and they brought him near before him And there was given him dominion and glory and a Kingdom Dan. 7.13 14. that all People Nations and Languages should serve him his dominion is an everlasting Dominion which shall not pass away Rev. 14 14. and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroy'd Which St. John alludes to not to mention any thing of Daniel's weeks Micah gives us that Thou Bethlehem Ephratah though thou be little among the thousands of Judah Mica 5.2 yet out of thee shall he come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel Matt. 2.6 whose goings forth have been from of old from everlasting which those Priests Herod afterwards enquired of could remember very well And lastly Malachi as plain as any Mat. 3.1 Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddainly come to his Temple even the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in behold he shall come saith the Lord of hosts These are a few of that very great number of Prophecies which rais'd the expectation of the Jews for the appearance of a Saviour whom they expected as a mighty temporal Prince not considering that the things foretold of him were beyond the atchievments of the greatest Potentate in the world For to be the great messenger of that Covenant which was between God and his people and at the same time the God whom they sought and whose their Temple was who yet were taught to worship only the true God to be the glory of a private town as of Bethlehem yet of an eternal original with respect to the time past