Jesus Christ be with you all Which he wrote with his own hand it seems in all his true epistles From Antioch Paul and Barnabas came to Iconium and there spake boldly in the Lord which gave Testimony to the Word of his Grace granting signes and wonders to be done by their hands And returning again to Antioch and other places confirming the souls of the Disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God which St. Matthew onely calleth the Kingdom of Heaven and ordaining them Elders in every Church praying with fasting they commended them to the Lord Iesus in whom they believed Thence coming up to the Counsel at Ierusalem they there declared the Miracles and Wonders God had wrought by them among the Gentiles where Iames whom Paul calls an Apostle and so Peter also owned him as chief among the Brethren in the twelfth of the Acts which tells us before of Herods killing the Apostle Iames discourseth of Gods promise to raise up the Tabernacle of David that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom My Name is called saith the Lord even Jesus who doth all these things For we may generally observe that by Lord especially where distinct from God they mean the Lord Jesus who is Lord of All as St. Paul to the Romanes and rich unto All that call upon him and we have but one God the Father and One Lord Christ Jesus And to Him the Apostles and whole Church prayed at the Election of Matthias calling him the Lord Jesus and then set two saying Thou Lord that knowest or searchest the Hearts of All men the proper character of Christ as he writes to Thiatyra all the Churches shall know that I search the reins and hearts and that also as God Man for as God only he need not search our Hearts From that great Counsel It seemed good to the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church to send chosen men with their beloved who had hazzarded their lives for the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ Barnabas and Paul For the Holy Ghost setteth Barnabas generally before Saul and often also before Paul which name is not given him till he taught Sergius Paulus that prudent Roman Governour Assaying to go into Bithynia the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them for so it is read in some of the best copies At Philippi called by a man of Macedonia in a vision Paul meets a Damsel possessed with a spirit of Divination tho she cried These men are the servants of the most High God which shew unto us the way of salvation For an evil spirit may preach true Doctrine but Paul being grieved turned and said to the spirit I command thee in the Name of Iesus Christ to come out of her and he came out the same hour And on this being beaten and cast in prison and there loosed at midnight to the Trembling Jayler they say Believe on the Lord Iesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house Thine House also Even as salvation came to Zacheus House also when to him and to Lydias Houshold also when to her At Ephesus finding certain Disciples they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus Which seems equal therefore to the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost for the Apostles were commanded to baptize in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost and yet they did it in the Name of Christ onely and no wonder For the full latitude or fulnesse of the god-head dwelt in Him and there is no other God but in him and one with him and therefore he that sees him sees the Father also and he that worships him worships the Father also and him that serves him will his Father honour as himself saith and by consequence him that prayes to him which a great piece of worship and service He is thy Lord Worship him as the Psalmist to the Spouse or whole Church which therefore prayeth unto him all along the Canticles and Revelation also where the Bride or whole Church and Spouse of Christ and the Spirit also prayeth to Him saying Come Lord Iesus When Paul had laid his hands on the Twelve Disciples also of the Gentiles at Ephesus which then might be the head of the Gentiles and the first that received an Epistle from Christ in the Revelation the Holy Ghost came upon them and they spake with Tongues and Prophesied as the Twelve Apostles at Pentecost To which also Saint Paul seems plainly to allude in the first Chapter of his Epistle to that Church at Ephesus or to the Saints there and faithfull in Christ Jesus as he styleth them and not a Church as at Corinth and other places Some Vagabond Jews adjure evil spirits there in the Name of Jesus whom Paul preacheth and the evil spirit answering Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are you and leaping beat them through the man possessed Whence fear fell on them all and the Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified As we read at the close of that History Acts 19. At Miletus calling the Elders from Ephesus also most pathetically he discourseth how for divers years he had served the Lord Jesus among them with all humility of minde and with many tears and temptations testifying both to Jewes and Greeks Repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. But none of these troubles move me nor count I my life dear to me so I may finish my course with joy and the Ministry which I have received of the Lord Iesus to testifie the gospel of the grace of God even of the grace of God And now I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the Kingdom of God shall see my face no more And yet that he came after this also again to that very place is probable or certain from his leaving Trophimus at Miletus sick in the 2. to Tim. who now went with him to Jerusalem Acts 21. 29. Or shall we say he was deceived when from Rome also he wrote to so many neer those countreys that he trusted to be given to their prayers and to come to them again O how watchful must a good man be least his own spirit rise too much with the true Spirit of God or least the Envio us one sow Tares with the good mans Wheat And when Agabus had bound his hands and feet with Pauls girdle he saith What mean you to weep and to break my heart For I am ready not only to be bound but to die also for the Name of the Lord Iesus Then they ceased saying The will of the Lord that Lord be done From Jerusalem where he spake often of that Name and in it and of praying to it as I observed before he is brought by a dangerous Voyage and shipwrack to Rome It is no sign that a man is out of the way or not sent by God or called
by him to a journey when he meets with great storms and danger of death by shipwrack or otherwise For the Lord met Moses in the Inn and sought to slay him in his way to Aegypt though he sent him thither on so great an errand Noah brought rest to the World through the Floud and many tossings in great Waters And we might have lost some of the sweetest portions of the Gospel but for such storms by Sea In one of them Christ is in the Ship but asleep and they wake him crying Carest thou not that we perish And he soon took care and rebuked the winds though blaming their unbelief and fear with amazement which is Peters phrase to the Daughters of our good Mother Sara and he might learn it from our Saviour in their storms and fears with such amazement which is a phrase used several times in the Gospel But doth God take care of bodies Will he not be more careful of our souls and pity them more If we would cry and wake him also when he seems asleep about or in us and among us and say to him Master carest thou not that our souls perish Even those precious and Immortal souls which thou seemest to value above the whole World saying What shall a man give in exchange for his soul It is said Our blood shall be precious in thy eyes and shall not our Souls be more precious O we of little faith At another time Our Saviour did not onely send away his Disciples but constrained them to go in a ship when they might have gone another way But they would have sent away the poor people supperlesse from him and when he had supped them He sends away his Hard Disciples to be tossed in the Sea while he blessed the poor people In the fourth watch of the night he shews himself God is nearer us in a storm then we believe or Expect and he saw them tossed some pretty while it seems but would not help them or appear till the last watch and then they are more afraid and cryed out supposing it to be an evil spirit So easily may we mistake the kindnesse of God and think him to be the Devil to devour us even then when he comes in goodnesse to save us But he first rebuketh their fears and saith It is I be not afraid And when Peter would venture out beyond his strength and ready to sink cryed Save me I perish He is moved with compassion and immediately stretcheth out his hand and catcheth him the very phrase used to the Hebrews He caught not the nature of Angels but he caught the seed of Abraham He suddenly reached out his hand and caught as we snatch a thing perishing in fire or water So he caught Peter As he would do us also if in our fears and sinking we would so cry out to Him Help Lord I perish How quickly did he bring him into the Ship and it with them all safe in a calme to their wished Haven O that men would praise the Lord for his goodnesse and wonderful kindnesse to the sons of men as the Psalmist repeats it several times in the 107. Psalm Such goodnesse and wonderful kindnesse did the Lord shew to Paul also in that stormy voyage to Rome wherein yet he did not onely preserve Him safe but all his fellow passengers also as he told him in a night vision saying Fear not Paul thou must be brought to Cesar and lo God hath given thee all them which sail with thee And when he came to Rome he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God perswading them of Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets And for two years dwelt in an hired house receiving All that came to him Preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence As we read in the Acts. That he also taught them to pray to Jesus Christ is plain enough from the stresse he putteth on it in his Epistle to those very Romanes in the tenth chapter Where to believing with the heart he joyns also confession with the mouth and explaineth it by praying to him For it is written Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved For the same Lord over All is Rich unto All that call upon him But how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed And the first Epistle to the Corinthians is directed to the Church of God at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with All that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours And concludes thus The Salutation of me Paul with my own hand If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you my love be with you all in Christ Jesus Amen Which belongeth to every one that in any place calleth on Jesus Christ. And to All us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are All things and we by him as he speaketh in the same Epistle And the second Epistle concludeth with the Grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you All. As that Epistle so all his Epistles generally begin with Grace and Peace and some add Mercy also from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who as the Epistle to the Galathians addeth gave Himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil World according to the will of God and our Father and I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the Grace of Christ. And concludes that Epistle From henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Brethren the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit Amen And to the Ephesians among many other remarkable passages of Jesus Christ he prayes that Christ may dwell in their hearts by Faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulnesse of God Namely by him in whom All fulnesse dwelleth Yea all the fulness of the Godhead And therefore He that desireth Him and prayeth to Him prayeth to the whole fulnesse of the Godhead and desireth it And in the same Epistle He that descended is now ascended far above all Heavens that he might fill All things and gave gifts c. for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the
terrour of the Lord might perswade men yea and save them by fear and with much compassion catch them as brands out of that horrible pit of which we read so much in Job and the Psalmes and our Saviours own words also besides other Scriptures And dyed this Abner Father of light or Fathers light as Naball or a Fool dyeth Was he drunken also as Naball Or did his heart dye in him or becmoe as a stone before he died Will he not improve his death and all his sufferings all he may Is his heart narrow or his eye evill to himself also Doth he envy us shall I say or himself his full recompence of Reward for which he despised the Crosse and endured the shame and pain being promised that he should see the travell of his soul and be satisfied not only contented but fully Satisfied for all the travel of his soul which should have a full recompence yea a Reward also Will he then lose the things that he hath wrought and Suffered also Which hath oft sounded in my eare or heart from his beloved Disciple to the elect Lady which might represent the whole Elect and Church and Spouse of Christ who cryeth to us all in the words of that Disciple Look to your selves and I am taught to say Lord Look thou to it also that we lose not the things we have wrought or born but that we may receive a full a very full Reward also I should tire you much to observe one quarter of that St. Paul speaketh of the Sufferings of Christ and the mighty weight and stresse he layeth on them yea and upon the very little drops of them he felt or bore in his own person which yet he calleth the sufferings of Christ and to fill up the sufferings of Christ. Which in himself also he is bold to say were for the Consolation and Salvation also of others yea of many others as he writeth to the Corinthians and with them also he joyned all that in all places called on Jesus Christ as we noted before And to the Colossions having said of Christ that it pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell and having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself which afterwards in that very Chapter and to the Ephesians also he calleth the Mistery of his will according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself to be compared with the 5. to the Romans many other Scriptures He addeth also that this Gospell was preached to every Creature under heaven as our Lords commission was Whereof I Paul am made a Minister who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions or sufferings of Christ in my flesh for his Bodies sake which is the Church And to Timothy he writes For the which cause I also suffer these things Therefore I endure all things for the Elects sake for the Elects sake that they may also obtain the Salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternall glory And to the Philippians In my Bonds you All are partakers of my grace Yea and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your Faith I joy and rejoyce with you all But if Christ neither loved us nor himself or valued his own Glory or his own Sufferings yet his love to his Father or his very duty to him though he did not love him may be found a great foundation of our Faith and Hope in him and in God through him And for this I may not only cite the Scriptures that speak of Gods loving Christ because he loved us and laid down his life for us One of the sweetest and the strangest sayings in the Bâ—ble But also as Paul said A necessity is laid upon me and wo to me if I do not preach the Gospell Even so our Saviour also This Commandement I have received of my Father And had he not received it he neither would nor could have given that Commandement to others which he so often presseth and repeateth as his own his new Commandement to all his Children Friends or servants that they love one another as even as he loved them which was to lay down his life for them and this Commandement he received of his Father and solemny professeth he never said a word but what and how and as the Father spake it to him nor did ever do a work but what he saw the Father do and what he did as if the Father also Suffered in him Nor shall we go far to search for this Commandement of God to him either in that of Ezekiel the son of man the great Watch man and the great Warner at whose hand God would require the soules of all that were under him who are all men yea and at the price and weight of his own blood with which he must therefore prepare a sacrifice for every one that erreth and is simple as we touched before to be compared with the 53 of Esay and divers other Scriptures And the 58 of the same Prophet sheweth how it delighteth the soul of God that Christ should break every yoak and deal his bread to the hungry and bring the poore and them that are cast out or banished into his own House when he doth but see a man naked though he weep not beg not yet to cover him and not to hide himself from his own flesh If then thou draw out thy soul thy very soul to the hungry and satisfie the affâ—icted soul the Lord shall guide thee continually c. One of the sweetest promises in all the Bible and yet sweeter if we consider it spoken to Christ before it was to us and then follow the gracious promises upon the keeping of the Sabboth in which also we shall find our Saviour very much concerned But the very ten Commandements and all the Law of God through all the Bible which he took upon him and was made under it was written in his heart and so rivetted in that he can unmake himself again as soon as leave or lose one tittle of that Wise and Just and Holy Law of God which is all yet one Royall Law of Love Did not himself summe it all up into Love Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and might and there is another word of Love yet like to this a strange expression like to this or as good as this or as much required and accepted as this and of as much stresse and strength or force as this which is Thou must love thy Neighbour also as thou lovest thy self Yea and this is not only as the former of loving God but rather before iâ— in Gods account as we may find in his beloved Disciple and divers others So that God will much sooner dispence with his own love and hâ—s worship even of the Sabboth day as we find in our Saviours own words
God promiseth to bring back the Captivity of Ammon as of Sodom also in Ezechiel and of Moab in the latter dayes or Time of Messiah as the Jews use to expound that Phrase of the latter Dayes And in the Tenth Generation They also may enter into the Church of God though it was threatned They should Never enter And as David was the fourteenth Generation and the fourteenth seventy Years from Abraham so was Boas the Tenth or eleventh who married Ruth a Moabite who might be the Tenth from Lot who by a former Man of Iudah was Daughter to Naomy Beauty Wife to Elimelech who had two Sons Mahlon weaknesse and Chilion consumption or perfection or Espousal who had Orpha stiffneckednesse who left her Mother The other Ruth who choosing her Mothers people and God is led to a field of Boaz and is bid stick close to his Maidens O tell me where thou feedest and restest at Noon for why should I stray and at length is bid to lie at his feet and say Thou art my Kinsman as Solomon bids us say to Wisdome Thou art my Sister And Christ is both Iachin and Boaz the Wisdom and Strength of God and so very near a kin to Elimelech my God the King see the third of Esay compared with the 7 8 17. 22. of the 23. chap. and see the Women of Moab and Ammon married to Kings of Israel and Judah And David in his straits carried his Parents to the King of Moab saying Let my Father and Mother be with you till I know what God will do for me Or as Esay Let my Out-casts dwell with Thee Moab be thou a Covert to them And in Mercy shall the Throne be established as we found before in the Psalms and Proverbs and he shall sit upon it in Truth in the Tabernacle of David judging and seeking judgement and Hasting Righteousnesse And my Heart shall Cry for Moab O the Tender Heart of God! Let his Fugitives flee to Zoar. As his Father Lot did from Sodom to Zoar which seemeth therefore to have stood in Moab on the East of Iordan and not on the West as the Tables place it And again send ye the Lamb to the Ruler of the People to the mount of the Daughter of Zion as alluding to the King of Moabs paying Lambs for Tribute to the King of Israel But about Ahabs Death Moab and Edom also brake their yoak and freed themselves from Iaacob under Iehoram the high Lord in the dayes of Elisha or God Iesus as the Name implies who had a double portion of the Spirit of Elijah the Lord my God And shall a Man be able to give a Double portion of his Spirit and That at his Parting and going away and shall not He that hath the Residue of the spirit in opposition to shear Baser the Residue of the Flesh which is so many times in Scripture Language for near Kindred or He that hath the Spirit without Limits or not by measure shall not He be able and willing also to give His Holy Spirit unto all that ask it and a Double Portion unto All his First Born Who saw and yet see him ascending and cry to him my Father my Father the Charriot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof And it may be That remarkable promise of the Spirit unto all that ask it may allude to This very History of Elijah giving his Spirit to Elisha crying my Father my Father As in Luke it is not as some read it your Heavenly Father But Your Father who is Out of Heaven or came out of Heaven And he took the Mantle of Elijah and smote the Waters saying as we may now say Here indeed is the Mantle of Elijah O but Where is the Lord God and the Spirit of Elijah and the Waters parted Hither and Thither Though I do not yet say when they so parted as before at Josuahs coming over Jordan there began an Other Generation or a New Age of the World As at first dividing the Waters by the Firmament of Heaven with the Waters above the Heavens of which in the Psalms and divers other places that I speak not of Esdras Ecclesasticus or Wisdom of Solomon And the Sons of the Prophets said the Spirit of Elijah resteth on Elisha and they bowed down or Worshipped him and afterwards he enlarged their Colledge and it may be their Spirit also The Hebrew Word Saul used in That History puts me in mind How Saul cut off the Lords Priests and How he fell and How the Jews say He was Recovered aand saved though I dare not say by the Mediation of Elias or Elisha Who they say must come and loose all knots or as our Saviour saith He must Restore All Things yea and that after John the Baptist was beheaded And some other words in That History put me also in mind How Elijah destroyed the false prophets of Baal and Jezabel and how Elisha did encourage and enlarge the True Prophets and at length by one of the young prophets annointeth Jehu which yet was given in charge to Elijah himself One of the best Texts I know for Deputations And Jehu destroyeth Jezabel who had not onely Destroyed and Corrupted the Lords Prophets and driven away Elijah and Elisha but had even quite stifled the very Spirit of Prophecy in the Seed of God as the Hebrew words Naboth in Jezreel may import Which may be compared with That of Jezabel opposed by the Bright morning Star breaking and scattering the Dark Clouds and bringing in the Morning and Our Rising and cloathing with White and fresh Linnen in fourth and fifth Churches and thâ—slaying of the two Witnesses with the Spirit of Prophecy in the Revelation And the sixth Church of Philadelphia or Brotherly Love is plainly the New Jerusalem as Christ himself expresseth in his Epistle to that Church before the General Iudgement of the People or Laodicea as the Word signifies Which may also be compared with the latter part of the eleventh and also the four last Chapters of the Revelation Where the great Judgement also is Described which the Prophets place in the Valley of Jehoshaphat whose very Name implies the Lords Judgement Which was also called the valley of Beraca or Blessing When they had troden down Moab and Ammon and Edom. Which we find also cited in the Prophets as foretelling somewhat yet to be done in the Revelation And had it not been for Jehoshaphat Elisha said he would not have seen the other two Kings met against Moab also saying Nay but hath God gathered these Kings and their people also together to Destroy them But as Jehoshaphat smarted sorely for joyning with Ahab and his Sons so They Got by His good Company In which we may see God pitying a Wicked man and Hearing his Cry and Prayer as most remarkably after he did the Prayer of Jehoahaz 2 Kings 13. 4 5 6. 23. How the Waters came at the morning Sacrifice and How he multiplyed the VViddows Oyl that was like to
for such is mans heart And So was Ishmael foretold to be in the Original as was touched before And the 72. Psalm and divers other Scriptures shew us how Christ also was made under All those Laws that concern the Poor and Needy And we should urge and press them All on Him Yea especially to make us Poor in spirit or rightly sensible of all our wants which indeed may be one of our greatest wants and That for which Christ especially calls us to Him As we may see in that most remarkable Epistle to the Church of Laodicea in the Revelation which shews us the Heart of Christ even unto those that are not senfible of their wants But He sees them and remembers the Law If thou see the Naked in Esay or thy poor Neighbor want as we find in St. John and James Yea though they do not weep or word out any of their wants Yet if thou do but See them and thou must not Hide thy self from thy own flesh Which have been exceeding sweet to me in many cases when I could urge them on Christ also and Tell him he hath said a Brother is Born for a day of Sorrow And the very Sigh by which God hath taught us all to express sorrow which is Ah Ah in Hebrew and most Languages I know in Gods Language is Brother Brother to which he seems to allude in Jer. 22. and divers places As if he would have us in all our sorrow cry out Brother brother Help us And Christ was not only sent to Preach the Gospel to the Poor and to comfort All that mourn but also gave That as the demonstrative Character to Johns Disciples that he was the True Messiah That the Poor were Gospelized or Turned into the Gospel As the Phrase imports And himself read his Commission not only to Preach Deliverance to the Captives or opening of prison to them that are bound but also to Deliver and set at Liberty those that are Bruised which is less than Broken with which he began saying he hath sent me to Heal the broken Hearted Or the shivered from the Heb. shiver as in English also to break into atomes or Moats which is also an Hebrew word And though the Prophet speak of a Day of Vengeance where also the word is akin to Repentance and Comfort also yet Christ omits That in his reading it and speaks not a word of Vengeance though but a Day But the Acceptable Year of Jubilee O How Acceptable it is to God! And the Poor were so much upon Gods Heart when he gave the Law that he begins all his Judicial Laws in the 21. of Exodus with the case of a Poor man or woman sold to be a Servant As the Foundation of the great Law of Redemption which is the Gospel And in the next chapter he calls them His People with an especial Emphasis If thou lend mony to any of My People the Poor with thee And again If thou take thy Neighbors Garment for a Pledg Thou shalt deliver it to him again by Sun set For it is his Covering and wherein he sleeps and if he cry to me I will hear For I am Gracious For I am Gracious O how sweet is That to a Poor Soul That also of Delivering the Pledg by Sun set which in the Repetition of that Law is said should be their Righteousness before the Lord a strange expression may occasion us to remember How the same God also commanded that He that was Hanged up as a pledg of the greatest Wrath and Curse as we find in the Law and in Christ whom the Jews to this day call the Tall or Lifted up or Hanged person must be taken down by Sun set As Joshua practised diverstimes at the Going down of the Sun To which it may be That also may allude Let not the Sun go down upon your Wrath nor give place to the Devil the Prince of Wrath and Darkness Which hath also put me in mind that the word Wrath in Heb signifies somwhat that in God also I hope more than any man is to Pass away and not to Endure for Ever Which is one of the first Articles God seems to hold out of our Faith and Hope in Him Who is Wisdom it self Pure and Peaceful Power and Goodness But Wrath resteth only in the Bosom of Fools And is their Weakness also As we read in Solomon And the Prophet Micha saith I will bear the Indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him till he return c. And concludeth Who is a God like unto Thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgressions of the remnant of his Heritage He retaineth not his anger for ever because he delighteth in mercy He will turn again he will have compassion upon us he will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast Their sins into the depths of the sea Thou wilt perform the Truth to Jacob and the Mercy to Abraham which thou hast sworn unto our Fathers from the daies of Old And the very next chapter in Deuteronomy limits the punishing of a wicked man Which must not exceed forty stripes though he that knew his Masters will may be beaten with many stripes but not above fourty And the reason is yet better Lest Thy Brother should seem Vile unto thee And yet stripes were for the fools back and for the vilest slaves they might not touch a Roman and they are here appointed for a Wicked man and yet how careful is God that a Wicked man even a VVicked man for he is still a Brother by this very Law may not be made too vile in the eyes of any Judg and so of Christ also the great Judg But made under this Law also And it is considerable that this number of 40. is the Trying Tempting Punishing number much through all the Bible Fourty Daies in the Flood divers times And so for Purification after a male child and twice forty for a Female Fourty years for Canaans Repentance and Israels wandring in the Wilderness and Fourty years for Judahs sin in Ezekiel and fourty daies or years of Nineveh and of Jerusalem about our Saviors Resurrection and Ascention after fourty daies and the City stood but fourty yeers after And Thrice fourty yeers was the Tryal of the old World or their Day of Repentance And Then the Flood by fourty and fourty daies And though Moses make our longest age but twice fourty or eighty years yet he lived Thrice fourty years and Fasted Thrice fourty daies it may be Representing both Elijah and Christ also fasting fourty daies That which followeth in the same chapter of the Kinsmans raising seed to his dead Kinsman For it is not a Brother only in Hebrew and we see it in Ruth at a greater distance may be applied to Christ also for a spiritual seed to God Seeing the first Adam in us dieth childless Nor may he plead I shall mar my own Inheritance or Family I have a wife or children of my