after that time to happen life from the dead 2dly 'T is said by some That what Calling they are to have is passed already and this they chiefly ground upon what was discoursed before of the Advantages they had by the Gospel in the time of our Saviour and the Apostles and what Numbers of them were then converted in so much that the Epistle to the Hebrews is directed to the believing Hebrews and St. Peter and St. James write to the twelve Tribes scattered That some of the ten Tribes as well as of the other two did embrace the Gospel in those times is out of question and that the Apostles met with many of them in Heathen Countries where they went to preach is very evident the occasion of their dispersion besides those common accidents by which Nations come to inhabit and dwell one amongst another was chiefly upon this twofold account 1st Wheresoever they were at any time carried captive many of them stayed behind and never returned And 2dly When they were to be removed as Captives by their Conquerors many of them fearing the consequences of their Captivity fled into other Countries to conceal themselves and there continued and so the Apostles found some of them almost every where dispersed as they went about preaching and occasionally converted part of them and upon that account those Epistles are directed to the Strangers scattered and to the twelves Tribes reckoning a part for the whole and to keep up the Honour and Memory of the Tribes and to make good St. Paul's assertion That God even then had not quite cast off his People though 't is likely of some of the ten Tribes there were but a very few that became Christians a very mean small inconsiderable handful in respect of the body and bulk of them But let the Conversion the Jews had in the Apostles times be put as far as it will or can be put it is certain if St. Paul be infallible that those that make that to be the great Conversion and Restoration of that People foretold in the Old Testament are undoubtedly mistaken for all the Jews that were then converted St. Paul in the 11th of the Romans makes to be no more than a small Remnant like that in the time of Elias which Elias did not see it was so inconsiderable and opposeth it to the bulk and body of that People no Man would think it a reasonable and fair dealing with the Scriptures if any should say that in Elias his time the body of the Jews were free from the Idolatry of Baal because seven thousand of them were 't is the same thing to say the Jews were called and restored to the Church in the Apostles times because a small Remnant of them were then converted St. Paul as plain as words can express distinguisheth between the Call of that Remnant then and the general Call of that People which he terms their Fulness and which he refers all along to a future season when the fulness of the Gentiles should be come in 't were a strange thing to conceive that that Season wherein the Holy Ghost tells us Wrath was come upon that People to the uttermost that that should be the Season wherein all the glorious Predictions concerning their Call and Restoration should be accomplished And 't is not to be passed over without much observation that the Prophet Isaiah having in the forementioned 11th Chapter of his Prophesie so positively foretold the restoration of the Jews and particularly of the ten Tribes and in the last Verse of that Chapter declared There shall be a high-way for the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt The twelfth Chapter following is the very Song in Terminis set down and indicted by the Holy Ghost which the Jews shall sing at that glorious time of their recovery and restoration Chap. 12. And in that day thou shalt say O Lord I will praise thee though thou wast angry with me thine anger is turned away and thou comfortest me Behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my glory he also is become my salvation Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation And in that day shall ye say Praise the Lord call upon his Name declare his doings amongst the people make mention that his Name is exalted Sing unto the Lord for he hath done excellent things this is known in all the earth Cry out and shout thou inhabitant of Sion for great is the holy One of Israel in the midst of thee So that as there was a solemn Song sung unto God upon the mighty deliverance out of Egypt for 't is said in Exodus than sang Moses and the children of Israel this song even so upon this mighty and wonderful restoration and recovery of the Jews shall this solemn Song of Thanksgiving be sung by them all to the Praise and Honour of that great God that hath brought again together these poor dry Bones and made a People and Nation of them and has remembred his Promise of old to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and declared thereby his faithfulness and truth to this his ancient Inheritance according to that of the Psalmist He hath remembred his covenant for ever the word which he commanded to a thousand generations which covenant he made with Abraham and his oath unto Isaac and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a Law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant Though their Posterity by their sins have brought a long suspension upon these Promises yet the Entail is not cut off for it shall last through a thousand Generations In the New Testament this Point is largely discussed and as I conceive very plainly determined by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans having professed there his great zeal for and love to the Jews that were his own flesh he proposeth this Question Hath God says he cast away his people He answers it with the most sacred and withal the most vehement and abhorrent Negation God forbid just as he answers that Question in the 6th Chapter Shall we sin that grace may abound which was one of the vilest scandals that could be put upon St. Paul's Doctrine and the Gospel He answers God forbid So that the case is so far very clear that God has not cast off his People and 't were a great piece of impiety when we reflect upon the Promises made to them and the Prophesies yet unfulfilled concerning them so to think The Apostle makes good this point that God had not cast off his People by this twofold answer to that Question 1st That some of them amongst whom himself was one had embraced the Gospel at that time and that although the bulk of that People remained in unbelief yet 't was then as 't was in Elias his time
devout Friends yet for all this and all that Satan could do by himself or his Agents yet the Grace of Sincerity the main thing Satan struck at carried him triumphantly through all to the utter confusion of Satan and all his malicious Charges against him such a Sincerity he appeared to have as is the Badge of God's Israel and that Mark whereby the Lord knows those that are his Job indeed discovered much Weakness and manifold Infirmities which belong to the best Servants God has so gracious is he in his acceptance of them but that was in no sort the Point under question whether Job were a Man of Infirmities or no but the Matter put upon tryal was whether Job was an Hypocrite or no and in the main of his state and condition one under allegiance to Satan or a true and faithful Subject and Servant to God and that was by the carriage of the whole business clearly determined against Satan by Job's perfect and intire Submission unto God so far was he from Cursing him to his Face and total Resignation of himself to him in a way of trust and affiance though he should proceed to kill him and justifying of himself to the utmost in his Sincerity and keeping his Integrity throughout his whole Exercise and Tryal clear and untainted to the very last and rancountering Satan's Accusation with that holy submission in the very heighth of his Agony when the News of all his Misfortunes at once came upon him The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh and blessed be the Name of the Lord than which Expression nothing could more positively and expresly confute all the Charges and Accusations Satan brought against him for he declared quite contrary to Satan's suggestions so far was he from Cursing God to his Face and therefore the Holy Ghost immediately records the Victory on Job's side in the next Verse In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly But the greatest most general and most powerful Contest that ever happened between the Strength and Force of these Kingdoms appears to be the last of all wherein Satan with all the Powers that belong to his Kingdom will discover himself in his strongest and utmost Efforts and wherein he will at last perish this is by a spiritual Babylon reared up by him in the days of the Gospel and a System of Religion composed by him to encounter the Mediator withal in his own way this was the grand Infernal Project when the Gospel began to prevail against all opposition and Temporal Power would serve the Devil's turn no longer and herein he proves so successful as to delude and intoxicate the Nations of the Earth and make them drunk with his Compositions and to erect a spiritual and mighty Monarchy now of great and long continuance founded upon wonderful Artifice and Strength this was the great Secret revealed of old to that greatly beloved of God the Prophet Daniel that out of the fourth and last Temporal Monarchy of Rome should arise another Monarchy upon the dissolution of that diverse from all the rest that should mightily prevail speak great words against the Most High wear out the saints change times and laws and continue his power until a time and times and the dividing of time which is after punctually explained in Scripture to be 1260 Years the exact time of this Monarchy's continuance and should by a mighty Power in Spirituals resemble the great Power the Roman Monarchs had in Temporals have the same situation and much the same subjects in Spirituals that the other had in Temporals This is the Popish Fabrick the erecting of which is the Master-piece of Satan and the greatest Effect of the Wisdom and Process of the fallen Angels since they left their first state who have with their utmost vigor employed themselves herein and the affirmation of this cannot seem strange since we are directly told by the Holy Ghost that the coming of the man of sin is after the working of Satan The case was plainly this The Messiah so often promised from the beginning in the fulness of time that is in the exact time wherein all the Predictions of his coming did concenter comes and assumes Humane Nature compleats the work of Man's Redemption and by one Offering for ever perfects them that are sanctified proclaims the Gospel publishes a new Law of Grace and issues out a general Proclamation for all the World both Jews and Gentiles without exception to come in and upon the terms of this new recovering Law to be saved Satan very sensibly feeling this fatal Blow and finding his Kingdom fundamentally struck at and that unless fome new Infernal Councels were taken up his interest could not longer be supported turns every stone to invert and invalidate this gracious Design of God and this glorious Kingdom of the Mediator now shining forth in its native lustre and splendor To deny the Fact would have made him ridiculous and to endeavour to stop the Success of the Gospel if it went on he well knew was impossible and therefore resolves upon this Method as his last and only Remedy to Plow with Christ's Heifer to Erect a Religion seemingly founded upon the Gospel and extreamly like it that yet should be destructive to all the ends of it and by this to supersede the Gospel it self and have this false and spurious counterpart taken in the room of it this is the Papacy a false dead Image of the Christian Religion animated by the spirit of Satan and a thing in its nature utterly ruinous and destructive to it This Structure in Scripture is called Babylon with reference to the first Babel being like that set up in direct opposition to God and to confront his Authority As God is pleased that Jerusalem where his Worship and Ordinances were so solemnly setled by his own appointment shall keep up its Name and denominate the true Church throughout all Generations to the very end of the World so he is pleased to stigmatize the Name of Babylon and by it eminently and emphatically to denominate the very worst of his Enemies until Christ's second coming and the period of all the Names that are given to this Ecclesiastical Monarchy for there be several others though Babylon be the chief the Holy Ghost instructs us that they are spiritually to be understood and relate to its spiritual and ecclesiastical Abominations when 't is called Egypt and Sodom 't is to signifie the Filth of it and the cruel Bondage the Saints undergo there when 't is called and particularly denominated Babylon 't is to signifie its Grandeur Tyranny and Idolatry all which were eminent in that Monarchy Although this Spiritual Monarchy arise out of the ashes of the fourth and last Temporal Monarchy of Rome yet St. John writing during the continuance of that Monarchy the Holy Ghost chuseth to represent it by that first Monarchy of Babylon and there seems to be a peculiar resemblance between this Ecclesiastical Monarchy and that
and that in several things 1st In the continuance and time of its duration 1260 Years being near about the time that the Babylonian Monarchy lasted 2dly In respect that all the holy and sanctified Utensils of the Temple were captived in Babylon and there prophaned as all the Sacred Institutions of the Gospel are captived and prophaned in this Mystical Babylon how shamefully have the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper and the other Holy Institutions and Ordinances of the New Testament been prophan'd and abus'd under the Papal Reign 3dly This Ecclesiastical Mornarchy is set forth and described by that of the Babylonian after a very peculiar manner in respect of the sore Persecutions the Church meets with under both the Holy Ghost makes the one typical and representative of the other 4thly The Babylonian Monarchy was not ruined by a common Providence but by peculiar and extraordinary Judgments they are three times in one Chapter called the Vengeance of his Temple And so shall this Papal Babylonian State be ruined after a peculiar manner by the brightness of Christ's coming and by the glory of his Power 5thly And that which I think the principal Reason why the Holy Ghost brands this Ecclesiastical Monarchy with the Name of Babylon though it arose out of the Ruins of the Roman Monarchy and have its situation at Rome is this to keep up and maintain the Harmony and due decorum of the Visions set forth in the Revelation and the Representations and Expressions thereof Now it is plain that in the Revelation the true Church is represented under the Gospel by Jewish Similitudes and Expressions and the Enemies of it are represented in the Names of those great Enemies the Jews had to their Church and State The three most remarkable Calamities that befel the Jews was first in Egypt secondly in Babylon and thirdly from the Outrages of Antiochus and upon that account we find Egypt often mentioned in the Revelations and the sore Bondage and Persecutions of the Church reckoned from thence and in regard the Jewish Church and State with their City and Temple were totally ruined and themselves captivated by the Monarchy of Babylon their constant and avowed Enemy therefore the grand Enemy of Christ and the Gospel the Antichristian State is called Babylon and perhaps the Persecutions and Desolations of Antiochus are represented by God and Magog when Satan shall be let loose This Ecclesiastical Structure is also in Scripture stiled Antichristian and the Monarchy of it Antichrist and that not only for the general opposition it makes and the tendency it has against Christ and his Interest but for this peculiar reason because there is a Vice Head and a Vice Christ and so a False Christ set up in the Church Christ's Place is by this Monarchy notoriously usurped it being enthroned by its Head the Man of Sin in the Temple of God as God and most impiously and impudently personating Christ in all his mediatory Authority Satan and the rest of his Associates having thus from the beginning declared their enmity to God and peculiarly to the Seed of the Woman and the Interest and Kingdom of Christ as Mediator and pursued it in all Ages with the greatest Rage and Malice imaginable and having in the Antichristian Reign for 1260 Years which began at the fall of the Roman Empire for the Beast and the ten Kings which are the shivers of that Empire are expresly said to take their Power in one hour and St. Paul tells us he that does let will let till he be taken out of the way which is to tell us in other words that till the Temporal Monarchy of Rome fell the Spiritual Monarchy could not be erected I say having brought their Apostate Practices and Principles to the utmost culmen and heighth they could arrive at they will then grow ripe for destruction the Judge will appear to stand at the door Christ will bring these lapsed Angels and their Associates to their final doom and destroy them and all their contrivances by the spirit of his mouth and the brightness of his coming he will at last come to judgment with all his Holy Angels and according to that ancient Prophesie of Enoch with all his Saints he will come first in his Father's glory to manifest before all that he and the Father are one and that the essential glory of God is his 2dly In his own glory the glory of his mediatory Kingdom having by his Humiliation Suffering Death and Resurrection conquered the Grave Death Hell Sin and all the Effects of it and acquited a peculiar glory to himself thereby And 3dly In the glory of the Angels who are all his Attendants not only in the glory they received from him in their first creation but the glory they have acquired through him in keeping their first state and the glory of all their faithful service and conformity to him and his Kingdom to the end and this honor will all the Saints then have not only to appear with him in glory but to sit in judgment with him as his mystical body and as part of the reward of their works that follow them and joyn in the Sentence pronounced by him The first Sentence he pronounceth will probably be upon these apostate Spirits who were the first created Rebels and them he will doom to eternal darkness and misery and so these Angels that could not content themselves with the glory they had in their first creation from the second Person as God come to be fatally sentenced by him for their aspiring Impieties as he is Man as they were made by him so were they made for him to come under his mediatory Authority and be finally disposed by him and with this tormenting aggravation that he is accompanied and glorified therein by the blessed Angels whose company they forsook and in opposition to whom they have all along carried on a distinct interest and by all the Saints the whole body of the Church which they have so malign'd and persecuted since the World began So let all thine Enemies perish O Lord then will it be said the Mystery of God is finished the Spirits Influences compleated the Mediator's Kingdom perfected and delivered up the Wicked are gone to their own place the Saints are all come safe home to their Father's House and rest for ever God is all in all Amen Hallelujah Touching the other part of the Angels those that kept their first state of whom the Scripture makes such honourable mention as sometimes to call them Morning stars sometimes Sons of God Angels of Light Chariots of God his Hoasts his Ministers the Elect Angels who with respect to their Nature are called Spirits with respect to their Dignity Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers and with respect to their Office and Employment Angels and ministring Spirits for Angel is a word relates to their Employment and not to their Nature and we find Men sometimes in Scripture by vertue of their Offices
happiness from his adjudging them thereunto so that he is to all Men their Alpha and Omega in Creation in Redemption in Superiority and Government and in that final irreversible and eternal Judgment he will at last pass upon them Fourthly This important Truth is evident from hence The supreme End of all God's Works is his Glory now 't is plain that the glory God designed to himself by the making and forming of Man 't is all given up and handed unto him in by and through the Son upon that account he that honours the Son honours the Father the creating Work of our Lord Jesus his redeeming Work his mediatory Government all his Workings and Operations by the Holy Ghost upon the Hearts and Spirits of Men and his final Judgment at last they are but to collect and bring in a Revenue of Glory for the Father and when the Kingdom is delivered up to the Father all the Glory of it will for ever center in him This will farther appear the larger View we take of the Particulars First In the Creation of Man by the second Person how greatly does the glory of God's Power manifest it self in bringing into being such a creature as Man first was so stupendiously constituted and ever after so fearfully and wonderfully propagated compounded part of Heaven and part of Earth between an Angel above and a Beast that perisheth below a spark of Divinity and Eternity put into a lump of mouldering Clay intended to be separated after a dreadful manner and as wonderfully to meet again and be reunited such is the Soul breathed into the Body a Creature made able still to mount upwards be guided by his nobler part and cleave to his Maker as his chief good and also under possibility of being influenced by his meaner and lower part and still sinking down into vanity sensuality and folly a Creature so made as to be of everlasting duration and a future Subject of mighty Rewards and Punishments and his Person by reason of the wonderful and unbounded workings of his Soul a Stage of stupendious Transactions wherein the whole Trinity are most eminently manifested all the Angels both above and below most highly concern'd and in which the welfare of all the rest of the Creatures and of this lower part of the World is much bound up this Creature although he may derive himself from the eternal pleasure of all the Persons in the Godhead yet his Creation was the peculiar Act and Operation of the second Persons and the Glory of that Creation results to the Deity through him Secondly The Glory of God's innate Mercy and Goodness is exceeding transparent from hence no sooner had Man lost himself but the flood-gates of Divine Bounty are let open by the undertakings of the Son nothing imaginable nothing possible could so display Divine Grace as Christ's undertaking to leave Heaven and become Man and do what he did for Man's sake no Glass but this could have shew'd at once the compleat and intire Glory of that Attribute the Faculties of Angels and Men though they are large and inquisitive comprehensive and sagacious yet they are quite silenc'd and extasiz'd by this Transaction the Object quite over-matching the Faculty when God gives his Son and himself in him what Creature can think himself into the Heighths and Depths of that Gift or pretend to span its Dimensions in his Imagination all we can utter upon this Subject is what St. Paul in a Sacred Extasie says in the 8th of the Romans What shall we say to these things and improve it as he does there by that holy Interrogation He that has given us his Son will he not with him also freely give us all things Thirdly How transparent is the Glory of God's Justice in punishing Sin upon his own Son and redeeming the World by no less a Sacrifice than the Blood of God this is to exalt the Glory of that Attribute to its utmost heighth and for ever to abase Man and lay him as low as he can be this is a stupendious Instruction to the prophane ignorant World to let them see what Sin is and what the sense is God has of it and how hard a thing it is for a rebellious creature to be reconciled again unto God when we consider the absolute boundless Dominion and Soveraignty God has over us as our Maker and the uncontroulable Authority that is inherent and resides in that infinite Being that gives being to all besides himself and whose Laws are in their nature perfect and the very quintessence of all rectitude we must needs then reflect upon that rebellious Evil and Poyson that is in Sin no contradiction can consist with such a Being as God is and therefore no Man can oppose him and prosper whil'st Man abides in a state of subjection and conformity to him he is happy and nothing can make him miserable but when he turns aside to Rebellion and the Madness and Folly of Sin he becomes naked a dread and terror a frightful Ghost to himself and renders himself exposed to all the Misfortunes and Miseries his Being is capable of Fourthly By the second Person is given up unto God the glory of his rectoral and magistratical Authority over all his Creatures and therefore in the second Psalm God calls him his King being both from him and for him this is done by Christ's Rule and Government as Head of the Church the whole Creation is put into subjection to him and he that is in our own nature our Redeemer and Saviour him has God made to be Ruler and Lord of all By his Government all the Divine Attributes are clearly and evidently display'd all the righteous Methods of Government pursu'd and all the true and noble Ends of it brought about and accomplished All the various Turnings and Windings of Humane Affairs here below as they are under the Mediator's regulation are but subservient to a discovery and manifestation of God's Wisdom his Power his Grace and other Divine Attributes and through them all perfect Methods are pursu'd and at last the right Ends will be attained giving every Man according to his Works and setling Rewards and Punishments in their due places In two respects the Excellency of Christ's Government does chiefly appear 1st In respect of the World as he is King of Nations And 2dly In respect of the Church as he is King of Saints With respect to the World the Glory of Christ's Government appears eminent in these four things 1. In his providential Endeavours in the course and motion of Humane Affairs for their Information Reformation and Salvation bringing Men out of Satan's Kingdom and embodying them with his Church over-ruling things in the course of the World to tend that way his Heart is still upon Salvation and his ultimate design to make Men eternally happy 2. In respect of those spiritual invisible Influences and Convictions by which he more nearly treats with the World about their Eternal Welfare and all
their long expected Messiah and the dreadful Judgment that in a few Years after befel them thereupon ending in the total ruin both of their Church and State and their miserable forlorn Condition to this hour are all sufficiently convincing Evidences of this Truth The ten Tribes for their abominable Idolatries were early removed and captiv'd by Salmanaser and to this day never again heard of seem as lost only survive in the Promises made for their restoration and all we know of them is that the Scripture tells us out of what places at last they shall be recalled The other two Tribes about a Hundred and twenty Years after or somewhat more went into Babilon suffering the loss of all in a sore Captivity they returned indeed and continued a petty inconsiderable State which was at the best under the Maccabees till Christ came but then when the glory of all they hoped for and the substance of all their Religion signified appeared then was the Judgment of God compleated upon them What account can be given of this that these peculiar People of God in covenant with him above all the Earth to whom the Promises of the Messiah were chiefly and primarily made of whose flesh he came that they of all the World should be his crucifiers what account I say but this that God would compleat his Judgments for all their Rebellions upon them above all others and 't is a thing of great remark and observation that in the 6th Chap. of Isaiah where that fatal and dreadful Rejection of the Jews from the advantage they might have had from Christ and the Gospel at his coming is foretold and recorded we never find God more gloriously magnified nor his praise more celebrated in Heaven than upon this occasion In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple Above it stood the seraphims each one had six wings with twain he covered his face with twain he covered his feet and with twain he did fly And one cried unto another and said Holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried and the house was filled with smoke And in the 8th Verse Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying Whom shall I send and who will go for us Then said I Here am I send me And he said Go and tell this people Hear ye indeed but understand not and see ye indeed but perceive not Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and convert and be healed Then said I Lord how long And he answered Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man and the land be utterly desolate So clear and evidently just were God's proceedings with this People in suffering them to reject Christ and the Gospel who had so often and so long rejected him and bring at last a total ruin upon themselves their City and whole Country by the Romans that the whole heavenly Hoast admire and adore his Actings herein and give their utmost Suffrage thereunto But although all these Miseries have befallen this People and all the Judgments threatned in the Law of Moses have been most righteously executed upon them yet God according to his ancient Promise has not totally and utterly destroyed them but has subjected them in hope and will at last revive them with a glorious and merciful Revival and Resurrection which is the Point shall be last considered about this People Touching the Calling of the Jews The Calling of the Jews is a Matter that has been variously treated of and there has been considerable Advocates on both sides but to me it seems that no Man that with due diligence reads what the Scriptures informs us about this Matter can fairly deny but that the Jews will at last be called into the Christian Church and embodied with it and their restoration will be very glorious the whole stream of the prophetick part of the Old Testament runs this way God has upon all occasions by his Prophets declared himself very plain in this Point that he would not by any of his Judgments utterly raze that People out of the World but that there should be hope in their end and that although he had in punishing many other Nations made a full end with them that their Names should be no more remembred yet he would not do so with the Jews for he had married himself unto them and although he would with the exactest severity punish them for their Sins and take vengeance upon their Inventions yet he would not make a full end with them but reserve them to be Objects and Spectacles of his Mercy at the last so in the 31st of Jeremiah he declares That the sun moon and stars should as soon cease from enlightning the world as the seed of Israel cease from being a nation before him for ever which in a great measure our own eyes behold made good at this day in the forementioned 6th of Isaiah where their rejection from the advantages of the Gospel at its first publication and to this day is so solemnly and dreadfully declared by the Prophet the last Verse of that Chapter is a plain witness to this But yet in it shall be a tenth and it shall return and be eaten as a teil-tree and as an oak whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves so the holy seed shall be the substance therefore Though they look like a dead Tree without Leaves yet there shall be a secret Life within A holy seed that shall be the substance thereof To set down all that the Prophets have left upon record touching this restoration of the Jews at the last were to transcribe a considerable part of their Writings and therefore I shall confine my self in the proof of this Point to a narrow compass and insist only upon some few Scripture Evidences but such as I take to be very concluding and enough to convince in this matter First If there appear any Promises in the Old Testament for the restoring and recovering of the ten Tribes as there appear very many that Judah and Israel should be again united and those two broken and divided Sticks made into one then 't is past question that those Promises are yet to be made good and accomplished the ten Tribes have never yet been restored since they were captived by Shalmaneser and God himself declared by his Prophet Hosea in the first of Hosea that he would make a great difference between the Captivity of the ten Tribes and the other two in point of duration and continuance of time even so far that the ten Tribes should seem as utterly cast away yet in the 10th and 11th Verses he promises
they shall be at last restored and embodied with the other two Secondly When God speaks by his Prophets as he very often does of a second restoration that he would vouchsafe the Jews 't is as I conceive very plain that it is yet to come and cannot be interpreted to be already past The Text I shall chiefly insist on for both these Points is in the 11th Chapter of Isaiah Verse the 11th and so to the end of the Chapter It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea And he shall set an ensign for the nations and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth And Verse the 16th There shall be a high-way for the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria like as it was unto Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt This seems a direct foretelling of the recovery of the ten Tribes out of their captivity for these were the very places whither they were carried and dispersed but the two Tribes we know were captived into Babylon and Babylon here is not so much as once named and there were many particular Prophesies that concerned the recovery of the two Tribes from thence In the 49th Chapter of this Prophesie we find great Joy and Admiration expressed by the two Tribes under the name of Sion by which they are very often expressed and well might they be so the other Tribes being gone and they only in possession of Jerusalem the Temple and the true Worship at the restoration of the ten Tribes Verse 21. Thou shalt say in thy heart speaking of Sion Who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my children and am desolate a captive and removing to and fro and who hath brought up these Behold I was left alone these where had they been They looked on them as lost but now behold them with rejoycing and wonder The plain meaning of the Prophesie seems to be that as God had graciously recovered the two Tribes out of Babylon so he would set his hand the second time to recover the ten Tribes out of those remote Countries where they were captived and dispersed and make a glorious restoration of all the Tribes and this Prophesie as I conceive is not yet fulfilled for it relates evidently to the times of the Messiah and is generally granted both by Jews and Christians so to do and then to be fulfilled according to the judicious Note of Calvin upon the place Itaque haec says he de Babilonica redemptione intelligi non possunt sed ad regnum Christi referri debent These things cannot be interpreted of the deliverance out of Babylon but ought to be referred to the days of the Messiah and the Context puts it out of all doubt for the Chapter begins with the Messiah And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jessey And every Verse after in the Chapter appears evidently a Description of what shall happen under his Kingdom and Government Two things are objected against this to prove that this second Deliverance of the Jews often promised is not yet to come but is already pass'd First 't is said That this second Deliverance is spoken with reference to that out of Egypt which is meant as first and the Deliverance out of Babylon as this second but this Objection is wonderful impotent for besides that it does not cohere nor fit the case because the People were not captived in Egypt but came at first voluntarily thither and were after bred and born there though they were we know kept in sore bondage yet they were not Captives there 't is to make the Prophet intend otherways than he speaks and that when he says God would a second time bring the Jews out of Assyria and Cush and Elam he meant he would a second time bring them out of Babylon and should it be admitted that the Jews were when they came out of Babylon called out of all those places yet it was but the first time and this second Call must needs be yet to come But the Prophet Zachary decides this Matter and puts it out of all question for after the Babylonish Restoration was over he prophesieth the very same thing and directly foretells the restoration of the ten Tribes Zach. 10. v. 9 10. They shall remember me in far countries and I will bring them again out of the land of Egypt and gather them out of Assyria and I will bring them to the land of Gilead and Lebanon The Babylonish restoration could not be this that God says he would again bring about for that was effected when the Prophet wrote and the two Tribes were at that time come home and in their own Country So that 't is very plain there was a second Restoration of the Jews to be after the Deliverance out of Babylon was over Secondly 't is said That this second Restoration of the Jews the Prophets so much point at and so often foretel was accomplish'd at the coming of Christ by those Converts amongst the Jews that then embraced the Gospel but this is utterly out of the way of all right reasoning about this matter for St. Paul absolutely denies that the conversion of that remnant of the Jews in those times that those few that then received the Gospel that that was the glorious state of the Jews foretold and prophesied of in the Old Testament which he calls their fulness though it was an evidence God had not even then totally cast off his People but on the contrary looks upon that season as their very lowest ebb and calls that season their fall their diminishing their casting away and in his second Epistle to the Corinthians ch 3. he tells us their minds were blinded for until this day says he remains the vail untaken away in the reading the Old Testament that is he means upon the bulk and body of that People which Vail he tells you in the 16th Verse when it shall turn to the Lord shall be taken away but at that day when he wrote the Vail remained upon them In the 11th of the Romans v. 11. By their fall says he salvation is come to the Gentiles and clearly refers it to another season that is when the fulness of the Gentiles should be come in that the Jews should have their fulness and then all Israel shall be saved and Christ not only be a Light to lighten the Gentiles but the Glory of his People Israel for says he God has concluded them that is the bulk and body of them at this time under unbelief that he might hereafter have mercy upon them all 'T is also farther
them they are come to is to Mount Sion of which for the clearer comprehension of the Apostles meaning by it some things may be particularly considered of that Mount as it stood circumstanced under the Law and this in especial that the great Honour that is put upon it in Scripture is principally with respect to the Temple that then stood upon the top of it and which was meant and signified by it this was the place whither all the Males were to come three times a Year and the solemn part of all the Jewish Worship could be no where else performed and their private Worship where ever they were at home or abroad upon Solomon's request to God at the first dedication of it was generally directed towards this place This we may see in the case of Jonah who in the Whale's Belly thought of directing his Prayer towards this Holy Temple and the Prophet Daniel when it was pulled down and lay in Rubbish prayed even then towards it three times a day as we see in the 6th of Daniel This Temple placed upon Mount Sion was the only sanctified House where the mighty God was pleased to take up his dwelling since the World began the Tabernacle was small and ambulatory and but preparative to this glorious sanctified solemn Fabrick the City of Jerusalem and the Land of Canaan were only holy relatively and upon collateral accounts the City with reference to the Temple the place of God's residence but the Temple was inherently Holy made so by God's own dedication and descent into it at the first this was the place where day and night God was served without ceasing according to his own ordination and therefore he is said to love it above all the dwelling places of Jacob. Here the long expected Messiah the Son of God Christ himself was brought and all that the Law required performed about â—im in this Sacred House But sure we are the Apostle intended nothing literal about this Mount his drift is wholly spiritual and therefore having premised thus much of the literal typical State of this Mount we must now examine what it means in this place and as it lyes in the comparison and the sense intended seems very obvious by Mount Sion the heavenly Jerusalem and the City of the living God the same thing is intended and this is the meaning ye are come to all that was typified by them and all that was promised on the Churches behalf to them to every Promise made to the Church under those denominations which is no other but the Gospel-state and the blessed Priviledges and Administrations thereof in its fulness and glory the Apostle declares the meaning of these places to be spiritual and neither of private interpretation nor literal signification that the Jews might cease doting upon them in that low and mean sense and might be convinced that the Gospel vertually contains all that was excellent in them Mount Sion as was before said had its value from the Temple that stood upon it and therefore when the Gospel is prophesied of by it 't is said the mountain of the Lord's house shall be exalted on the top of the mountains Now instead of this material Temple every Christian under the Gospel is himself a living Temple of the Holy Ghost a Temple wherein God dwells and all spiritual Worship and Service is continually offered up and the whole Church is one intire living Temple wherein God is always spiritually served so 't is expressed in the 2d of Ephes Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the houshold of God and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord And he that is arrived at this true Gospel-state and all the glorious Enjoyments of it to have access to the Father through the Son by that one Spirit he is come to the true Mount Sion and the real Temple where God will dwell for ever he abides in the nearest access to God he is capable of and in all those holy and sanctified Qualifications which the Temple signified as it was then the Seat and Center of all the true Worship of God The second thing the Apostle tells the Jews they are come to is the heavenly Jerusalem the City of the living God and although the signification of this is the same with Mount Sion yet it is greatly farthering to the Apostle's design the mention of it that so the Jews might think nothing valuable amongst them was lost but all to be found with great advantage in the profession of the Gospel the whole Religion of that National Church of the Jews being contained in this City and therein vertually comprised the whole state of the Gospel The Catholick Church with great reason and signification under the Gospel every where spread and under no confinement is stiled a City and is called Jerusalem a vast difference there was between coming to that dreadful barren Mount Sinai in the Wilderness of Horeb and the City of the living God Several things are considerable in this City to heighten the comparison taking it to be made either with Mount Sinai or Jerusalem literal 1st The Noble and Honourable Government of this City 'T is governed by the great Charter of the Gospel none have any Rule but the living God himself no Laws are in force here but what come from Christ's own Mouth the Gospel Church is built up and managed as the Temple was which was the soul and glory of this City in every particular by God's own punctual direction and there is his delight there his Soul rests where he is served by Laws of his own composing and enacting 2dly This City is a place of invincible strength and security the Jews knew to their cost the earthly Jerusalem was not so here 's the Mount Sion that cannot be moved the Gates of Hell can never prevail against it 't is sure to remain against all opposition till it be safely taken up into Heaven from whence it came 3dly The Inhabitants of it are all united 't is a City compact together not with carnal and earthly but spiritual Ligaments there is such an union in it as God has chosen and takes pleasure in amidst great variety they have but one Head they all minister under him as fellow-citizens for the good of each other they are all guided and animated by one Spirit and they all tend to one and the same end 4thly 'T is a City of wonderful Beauty the City of the great King the Palace of the living and eternal God as the Psalmist says comprehensively and prophetically of it under the name of Sion Beautiful for scituation is mount Sion the joy of the whole earth this Beauty lyes in the Presence of God and in its Sanctity and in that Image and Superscription of God that it
Apostle no way refers to the order of time in which things were made but his meaning is that his Humane Nature in that conjunction with the Divine has the preference to all Humane Beings God has given him the right of Primogeniture and the Dominion appurtenant to the First-born and made him Heir of all things as he is said in the 89th Psalm to make David his first-born higher than all the kings of the earth not by any priority of Time nor by vertue of that Dominion he had in Palestine but as he was a Type and Representation of Christ who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords God has made the Man Christ Jesus Lord of the whole Creation and given him the precedence of all things in Heaven and Earth St. Peter tells us he is gone into heaven angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him and this as being his First-born from all Eternity in purpose and as our Saviour stiles himself the Beginning of the creation of God he decreeing from everlasting that all that should be created should be created by him and not only so but for him and be entirely his property as he was the blessed Mediator God and Man in one person In a word he is the First-born amongst the Elect they are all chosen in him the eldest Brother in the Family of God whereunto is annex'd the Dominion and Power over the whole Creation whence he is called the First-born of every Creature What is more briefly expressed by St. John that all was created by him that was created and what is in few words said in this Epistle that by him God made the Worlds is here enlarged by the Apostle into particulars shewing that all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers they were all made by him the Apostle instanceth in the noblest and highest sort of Creatures as comprehensive of all the rest even all the Supream Rulers and Governours amongst Angels and Men all were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist as their Maker he must needs precede them and by whom they were originally created by him they must needs live move and have their being And as he is the Sourse of all Natural Creation so he is the Spring of the New Creature and of all Spiritual Life being called in the 18th Verse the head of his body the church the first-born from the dead he that first rose himself as victorious over the Grave and by whose influence as an effect of that Victory all others shall rise that in both the Creations both Natural and Spiritual in the whole concerns of this World and the next he might have the pre-eminence for it pleased the father that in him should all fulness dwell that that blessed Person our Saviour and Mediator should be as full of perfection and as glorious as all the glory of Heaven and Earth created and uncreated could possibly make him The most material difficulty that seems to result from these Illuminations the Holy Ghost has been pleased to give us in Scripture touching these matters is this If the Divinity and the Humanity in that conjunction constitute but one intire person how can so much be properly and distinctly ascribed to Christ as Man all things must needs belong to him as God but the Holy Ghost makes them appurtenant to him as Man the Reasons of which seem most probably to be these First To Honour and Recommend to the World that Humane Nature Christ debased himself to assume that because he in that Nature performed the Work of the Mediator and all the suffering part lay upon that therefore God has highly exalted it above all created things Secondly Because all the additional Glory that accrued unto Christ by vertue of his performance of the Law of his Mediatorship must needs fall upon his Humanity for there could be no addition made nor nothing accrue cumulative to his Divinity nothing could be added to him as God and therefore 't is attributed to him as Man Thirdly The Constitution of Christ as he appeared visibly to the World and wherein he acted all was Man the Prophesies and Promises that preceded him pointed to him as Man the Humanity was the Temple of the Deity in the Humanity he suffered died and rose again and performed all his Mediatory Work 't was all promised and designed to be performed by a Man visibly and Humane more though acted by the second Person in the Deity and therefore all the Glory is attributed in Scripture to his Humane part without which the Work of Redemption could not have been effected so we have it in the 5th of John all Authority is there said by Christ himself to be given to him Because he is the son of man which Expression I take to relate to his Office as Mediator which he could not have performed had he not been Man and so the sense of it is this that because Christ is the true Seed of the Woman that real Son of Man prophesied of by the Prophet Daniel by whom the World is to be redeemed and saved therefore all the Supremacy and Authority appurtenant to that Office by God's ordination belongs to him From what hath been discoursed upon this Argument that the Lord Jesus Christ is he by whom all things were originally created we may arrive at a twofold conclusion and safely establish these two most important Truths First That the Foundation of all God's Designs and his Eternal Councels and Purposes touching Angels and Men and the whole that was made by him was laid in his creation of all by the second Person in the Trinity And Secondly That all the Works of the first Creation were so framed and made that they might lye in a direct subserviency to the new Creation and the manifestation of God's infinite Grace in redeeming and saving the World by the second Person becoming Man and incarnate I shall apply my self chiefly to the former of these Our discovery of this Matter is a parte post no Man was conversant with God's Councels from everlasting all Men are eternally silenced with God's Question and Demand to Job he may say to all as he said to him Where were ye when I laid the foundations of the earth where were the Councels of your Hearts where were your Thoughts and Contrivances then ye were so far from instructing or assisting the Almighty that ye were not in being nor knew any thing what he was about to do what we know therefore is what God is pleased since to reveal to us and from the providential future effects which our eyes behold from both which we are plentifully instructed herein Moses indeed in his Writings is silent about this matter the full Relation of it was reserved for the Days of the Gospel when it came to be known how and by whom the World was to be redeemed then
we are more particularly told how and by whom it was made the blessed Person of our Lord Jesus Christ is represented to us as the Alpha and Omega of all the Beginning and the Ending of the Creation of God in whom there is a recapitulation of the whole God designing after things were scatter'd disorder'd and lost by sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to bring all Jews and Gentiles Angels and Men the whole Creation into one Head and under one Rule in him as the Apostle expresseth it in the first of the Ephesians that he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are one arth even in him and so as God was pleased to make all by him he recovers all back again through him and under him In discoursing this deep and mysterious Point what ever advance is made towards the right understanding of it be it never so small the design ought to be in every step that is taken to do it with perspicuity and evidence that so it may not be rendred a Notion obscure and useless but a Truth wherein the comfort satisfaction and interest of every Christian may appear much concerned And in order to this I will take a distinct and threefold Consideration of all the Works of God's Hands 1st Of the Angels 2ly Of Mankind 3ly Of all the rest of the Creatures Two things are eminently and principally to be considered about the Creation of the Angels 1st That they were so made that some of them might apostatize and fall and that others of them should keep their first and original station 2ly That all of them should be under the Lordship and Dominion of Christ as the great Recoverer of Mankind and the Mediator and Head of the Church Moses in his History of the Creation gives us no account of the Angels nor does the New Testament inform us any thing of the manner of their Creation so that when they were made in what part of the six days or how whether of pre-existing Matter or as the Soul of Man and other parts of the Creation without any such pre-existing Matter and whether when made they had all an equal vision and fruition of God because it seems difficult to conceive how any created Being could turn aside from that Vision or whether they sinned in God's presence and in foro Coeli because their Judgment is so heavy and irreversible are things unrevealed by the Scriptures passed over in silence nor can they by searching or any humane endeavour be found out The Angels that fell being of the noblest nature and complexion nearest unto God of any that he made and of greatest power and influence their fall was it that first introduced Sin and Apostacy amongst Men and occasioned all the Rebellion of this lower World against God and upon that account we are told by St. John for this cause was the Son of God manifested that he might destory the works of the devil as comprehensive of all the Apostasie both of Angels and Men and therefore it is that they first fell of all other Creatures under the Lordship and Dominion of Christ as Mediator by vertue of that declaratory Promise from which the mediatory Dominion of Christ bears actual date the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head Hence it came to pass that the apostate Angels who by the Temptations they laid before our first Parents and so early assaulted them withal appeared to be of an aspiring Temper and not contented with that present station which by their first and original make they were placed in but attempted something farther beyond those bounds God by the Law of their Creation had confined them to which could be nothing else but to deifie themselves for God had already made them above every thing but himself they fell from that glory they had received from the second Person in the Trinity by whom they were made as God into an absolute subjection to him as his Enemies and Vassals as he was Man and by God's most just wise and holy Judgment saw themselves subjected to that very Nature they so maliciously with respect both to God and Man sought the ruine of and the same Nature wonderfully assumed to the Divine by the second Person and in that glorious and splendid Conjunction the World recovered and a Dominion established over all the Rebellions Apostasies and Declensions both of Angels and Men. The Devil having been thus a Lyar and a Rebel from the beginning and using all the fraudulent endeavours possible to have all the Creation to their final and utmost Ruine his Associates therein and God having been pleased in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness to encounter all his Designs and Endeavours by the second Person incarnate whom he constitutes a Prince and a Saviour and sets him as his King upon his Holy Hill and declares his Decree from everlasting to establish his Kingdom with all Authority and Power the World has been ever since under a twofold Dominion that of Satan and that of Christ and these two Kingdoms that of the Fallen Angels and that of the Mediator have stood in direct opposition and in all Ages contested each other the Contest grew high very early in the World and continued so till the Flood the four great Monarchies since have all ofthem been Satan's Allies and Instruments and Factors for his Interest not only by their multiply'd Idolatries thereby throwing as much as in them lay the true God out of the World but by their proud and insolent defiance of him and placing themselves in his room upon all occasions To what inconceivable Insolence and Pride were those first Babylonian Monarchs arrived at we need no other account of it but to read what the Prophet Esaw tells them Thou hast said in thine heart I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north I will ascend above the heighths of the clouds I will be like the Most High The Persian Monarchy that next succeeded much affected to retain and improve the Grandeur and Heighth of their Predecessors and if it were possible to out do them one Instance they gave of that in which they greatly prided and valued themselves which was to make their Laws unalterable the Laws of the Medes and Persians were not to be changed as if they had arrived at once to all the Wisdom and Foresight of God himself The folly of this insolent Project of this vain Exaltation of Humane Wisdom and Power beyond its due bounds and setting themselves in the supreme Legiflator's place the Scripture has sufficiently recorded to its eternal shame and confusion in one Instance we have of it in the Book of Esthers Ahasuerus upon the Petition of Haman made an Edict that all the Jews in his Territories should be upon a prefixed day slain and destroyed after upon the