best Man upon Earth could not stand before God under that dispensation which addition to the story God for some especial ends we may be assured gave to the Apostle by Revelation there being no such thing recorded by Moses himself In the 22th Verse the Apostle comes to the second Part of the comparison the affirmitive Part shewing what it is that the believing Jews when they embraced Christianity came to but ye are come to mount Sion 1st This in general is to instruct the converted Jews that by the Gospel they are come to and embodyed with the true Catholick Church called in scripture the fulness of him that filleth all things of which the National Church of the Jews was but a Type and a Figure 2dly That this true Catholick Church is partly in Heaven and partly on Earth And 3dly The Apostle by intermixing these parts together in his account of them gives them to understand that they are all of one piece and together make but one Church and one Body under one Head things in Heaven and things on Earth being united in Christ as their common head and by telling them they are come they are come to this Catholick Church the Apostle signifies this unto them that as their Fathers after several Days Travel upon their coming out of Egypt and by great and solemn preparations came at last to Mount Sinai so they and their Fathers having travelled through the former dispensation which was the great preparative to this they are now safely arrived hither and are come to all the Glories and Priviledges of the Gospel they are come in respect of Relation and Communion to all that part of the Church that is in Heaven and to all the true and real parts of it upon Earth not now confin'd to any National Constitution whatever and this is the best state and utmost that we can attain to in this World The Apostles drift here is not at all to describe the Church Triumphant but the Militant Church the force of this Discourse lies in preferring the state of the Gospel Church here upon Earth beyond and before that of the legal and judicial Church and the Apostle chooseth to represent them both by two Mounts one where the Law was given which was the greatest thing belonged to the Judaical oeconomy and the other from whence the Gospel first issued If you ask why the Apostle represents the Gospel state by Mount Sion and Jerusalem that were places proper and peculiar to the Jews there are several accounts may be given of it 1st Because those places had Spiritual and Gospel significations even as the Jews enjoy'd them and so the Apostle represents by them the better to engage the Jews what they truly and really signified and speaks of them in their own native and proper representation Mount Sion consisted of two parts on the highest part the Temple was built and on the other the Palace of their Kings so that this Mount was typically comprehensive of their Civil and Ecclesiastical state 2dly The Gospel first issued from thence and it was prophesied that so it should do Esau 2.3 out of Sion shall go forth the Law speaking of the Gospel and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem And the same Prophet tells us the deliverer shall come out of Sion and upon that account in Psal 133. God is said from Mount Sion to command the blessing even life for evermore the meaning is Christ himself came into the Temple upon Mount Sion in Jerusalem and from thence in person issued out the Proclamation of the Gospel and therefore the Apostle keeps up the Honour of this Mount and this City because it had ever been by right and designation the seat of the true Worship of the only true God in opposition to all Idolatry and upon that account called the City of the Living God and in regard of the most glorious Types and Prefigurations were therein included and at last therein appeared the great end and substance of them all the glorious Person of God-Man of Christ himself it seems in a sort necessary if the Church were denominated by any one place it should be from this as being comprehensive of the whole Church and State of the Jews and the very center of it the Catholick Church under the Gospel being under confinement to no one place more then another no one place could so give a denomination to it as it might do to a National Church and therefore this place is made choice of by the Holy Ghost and being comprehensive of all God's sacred institutions of old of the Jewish Church Litterally and the Gospel Church Spiritually The Catholick Church universally thereupon is denominated from it and by it to the end of the World To which we may add in the Third place That since all the promises in the Old Testament that are made to the Gospel Church to the end of the World are made to it under those names of Sion and Jerusalem that therefore it seems necessary to keep up those names as it hath pleased the Holy Ghost to do to the end of the World to shew the punctual fulfilling of those promises in all Ages What Mount Sion and Jerusalem signified will not be compleated till the Consummation of all things upon which account God was said to take up his rest and dwell there for ever Nothing therefore seems so proper so decent and fit as to denominate the Gospel-Church by those terms and as it was in the Apostles times a great help to them to find out what Christ was to do and suffer by what was signified and typified of him under the Law so it will be to the very end of the World a marvellous help to the Church to understand the glorious methods of his Kingdom and Government by looking back and seeing how it was set forth in the prefigurations of it that belonged to Jerusalem and Mount Sion It pleaseth the Holy Ghost throughout the whole Scripture most frequently to represent the Gospel in Judaical Types and Phrases and two reasons we may probably suppose for it 1st To shew what an exact Agreement and Harmony there is in all God's Dispensations how every shadow truly represented the substance and every counter-part punctually agrees with the original And 2dly As a means to promote the conversion of the Jews in the latter times when they shall lay to heart and consider that all their own Religion expressed in their own Language is truly and fully to be found in the Christian Religion that the Law therein is exactly conster'd into the Gospel and every particular thing they most valued they shall here find by name expressed and fully to be enjoyed in the substance and perfection of it But for the more punctual and exact discovery of the Apostles sense in these Verses it will be needful to consider the particulars to which he tells the believing Jews they were come severally and distinctly The First thing he tells
to accuse calumniate and misrepresent before God so these blessed Angels are constant Spectators and publick Notaries of all the Proceedings of the Church and all the Actings and Sufferings of every Member thereof in order to bear a faithful Witness before God and be a punctual Record thereof at the Day of Judgment And in this sense we are come unto them they are not only present in publick Assemblies but conversant in the Closet of every Saint and take an exact view of all their devout and fervent Addresses unto God upon this account it is that St. Paul tells us that the Apostles by their Preaching and Suffering were a Spectacle to Angels the holy Angels beheld their Spiritual Courage and Conquest with wonderful satisfaction and upon this account it is that St. Paul chargeth Timothy before the Elect Angels to look well to the discharge of his Work and Office because they are Witnesses appointed of God to take punctual notice of his Behaviour therein and the Presence of the Angels is made an Argument by the Holy Ghost for the well-ordering our selves and all our Actions in Church-Assemblies 5thly The Angels as they are God's Officers employed for the guard and security of the Church so they are also for the revenging of his Wrath upon their Enemies so it often was under the Old Testament and so it is under the New and will continue till the end that wretched prophane Herod who added to all his former wickedness to shut up John in Prison and after added to that addition to cut off his Head to please a Dalilah and at last came to make himself his own Idol by taking to himself that glory that should have been ascribed to God at last an Angel smote him and dispatch'd him to his own place by a woful and miserable Catastrophey the Angels stood all ready when our blessed Saviour was led to the Cross to have rescued him upon the least Command this our Saviour himself told the Jews when he was encompass'd with a Roman Guard he could upon request to his Father have more then twelve legions of angels to rescue and assist him which exceeded the number of Men the Romans then had in their whole Army for their Army at that time did not consist of twelve Legions and in the Revelations we find the Angels constantly employed by God as the great Executioners of his Wrath upon the Churches Enemies to the end of the World 6thly We are come to this innumerable company of Angels as to our truest Friends and most faithful Companions for they never leave us till they have brought us home 1st To the rest of our Souls in Heaven for they wait upon every dying Believer to comfort and chear his spirit so soon as ever it hath left the Body and safely to convey it into that Blessed fellowship above and into that glorious place and state of rest called Abraham's Bosom And 2dly They will be assisting and instrumental though it be effected by the mighty Power of God to call and raise the Bodies of the Saints out of their Graves at last when Christ comes to effect the first Resurrection he will be attended with all his Glorious Angels and by their Ministry the Dead in Christ shall rise first the Trumpet that will sound to summon them out of their ashes will be an Angelical sound probably the Voice of the Arch-Angel and when they arise out of the Earth they will together with all the Saints then living be caught up by the Angels and conveyed by them to meet the Lord in the Air the last office the Angels will have to perform and so will ever abide with him Whose heart would not burn within him upon the contemplation of these things that God should be such a lover of Men that the Eternal Son should by his death redeem them his own spirit by his influences come down and dwell in them and all the Angels in Heaven made their Guardians and their whole Ministry and Service employed on their behalf How blessed a condition does the Gospel instate us in above the Law in reference to this particular When Man first fell by sin the Angels became his most avowed Enemies and Executioners of Wrath that went out against him for the Cherubims stood with a flaming Sword to keep the Tree of Life and to shut Man out of Paradise he made his Angels Spirits and at that time his ministers a flame of fire When the Law was given upon Mount Sinai and Man considered only in his natural state the Angels were most dreadful and terrible in their appearance but now under the Gospel Angels and Men by the Blood of the Cross are embodyed into one Fellowship and Society united in and under one head engaged in the same Worship and Service and enjoy a sweet and most endeared communion each with other all which is fully insinuated and intimated by the Apostle in telling the Believing Jews they were come to this innumerable company of angels 4thly The Apostle tells them they are come to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in Heaven This is an expression of that part of the Catholick Church here upon Earth to which by the Gospel all Believers come and with which they are incorporated and imbodyed two things are intended hereby to shew the preference of the Gospel-state before that of the Legal 1st That instead of the Assembly of all the Males three times a Year at Jerusalem which is called in Scripture the great congregation they are come now to the great Assembly of all the Members of the true Catholick Church amongst Mankind to all the true servants of God both of Jews and Gentiles that any where call upon God in Spirit and Truth and that God would have such a general Assembly and such an universal Church of the first-born throughout all Nations without any farther respect to the Jews or their Church was a secret undiscovered till the Gospel Revelation came 2dly That this assembly consists only of real and true Saints such as have the right of the first born the great inheritance that men are born capable of in this World is the possession of Heaven at last those that obtain that are the eldest sons of this lower World and the first-born amongst Mankind in the Scripture sense and none obtain this inheritance but such as are eternally elected in Christ to it and therefore the Apostle when he names the Church of the first-born adds as explanatory of it whose names are inrolled in Heaven that is in the Lamb's Book of Life in the Roll of God's eternal purposes and councels there they are Registred and not in an Earthly Register as the Jews were this Church of the first-born is called in Scripture the first fruits of the whole Creation unto God and the Lamb they are said to be Heirs to God and Joynt-heirs with Christ they are made Kings and Priests unto God and so have
all the Title and Right of Primogeniture appurtenant unto them This infinitely exceeds the state of the Jews who were but a typical People their general Assembly was but a national Assembly and though many excellent particular Saints were amongst them yet they were in their National Constitution but a figure and representation of this true Saintship and the whole that belonged to them was but a shadow and Image of this true Catholick Church and not the thing it self they were enrolled indeed but it was upon Earth and upon an Earthly account to preserve their Tribes distinct and so to adjust their Earthly inheritances in Canaan The greatest difficulty that seems to be in this part of the Apostles Comparison is what is meant by this expression the general assembly since there neither was nor ever will be a time that all the Members of the Church under the Gospel shall meet together till Christ's second coming the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used I take to signifie the same thing and the latter to be exegetical of the former 't is not meant of the Church of the first-born of all assembling in any one place but of that Church every where assembling in several and distinct parts 't is spoken in opposition to the Assemblies of the Jews who were but one particular nation assembling at one place in Jerusalem to which they were confin'd the generality the Apostle means does not arise from their meeting all in one place but from their meeting without confinement all the World over to this general Assembly of the Gospel-Church every Believer is come and to it is united but 't is after a Spiritual manner and therein lies the excellency of this Union this Assembly where ever or in what parts soever they are met are animated by one Spirit they have the same Faith and Hope the same Priviledges and Enjoyments and wherein the Life of the Union lies they are all united under one common Head and are but one Body belonging to it and so the sense seems to be this which contains in it the force of the Apostles comparison ye are not after an Earthly manner come with your Bodies to any such assembly as that at mount Sinai nor as that of the Males at the earthly Jerusalem but ye are come which is infinitely better in your Souls and Spirits unto the Society and Fellowship of all the Sanctified and saved throughout the World who now every-where Worship the Father in Spirit and Truth and are all present together in one Spirit though corporally divided having but one common interest rejoycing in the welfare and prosperity of each other and closely united in their mutual prayers and concerns each for other This is of all others the most truly Honourable and Noble Society that we can converse with in this World here the Blessing is commanded life for evermore here 's the Crown of all Mans glory and Happiness to be obtained he that is no Member of this Association is under a black Character and comes no farther then the Assembly of the fallen Angels and their Associates the Scripture informs us that the Wrath of God abides upon every such Man and the Judge stands at the Door shortly to execute it the foundation of this Glorious Happy and Blessed Assembly stands sure and this is the seal of it the Lord knows them that are his they are those God has eternally designed for Happiness and Glory their Record is on high their Names are in the Roll of God's eternal Determinations And this ought to seem strange to none for no Man can with any tollerable sense conceive that infinite Wisdom should make any thing and not at the same time design it to its utmost end 't is contradicted by our own finite and imperfect discretion who still have our eyes upon the ultimate end of all that we enterprize and to me it seems that the whole system of those objections that are made against the Doctrine of God's Decrees touching Mens eternal condition is fully discarded with this one consideration that God infinitely foreseeing and perfectly knowing from all eternity whatever any creature he made would do and how he would behave himself when he should be brought into being and existence 't was all one for him in point of Justice to determin his condition before he was made as to determine it at the day of Judgment after all the actions of his Life were over the prescience of God cannot with any tollerable satisfaction to our own reason be denyed for whatever potentiality God created he must needs know and foresee the utmost extent of it or else he could not design any certain end to himself by it but might remain ignorant of the success and event of a Creature which he had from himself given being to which is absurd to suppose for infinite knowledge must needs comprehend and look beyond all finite actions and therefore when God made Man with freedom of choice he must needs foreknow that made that faculty which way his will would incline and the utmost journy it could possibly lead him or else he must remain wholly ignorant what would be the suceess of his own Work and incapable of making any certain determination with himself about him We find in Scripture prescience and election always go together and prescience has the precedence so in St. Peters first Epistle he calls those to whom he wrote elect according to the foreknowledge of God and St. Paul in his deep and solemn discourse about this matter tells us whom he did foreknow them also he did predestinate 5thly They are said to come to God the Judge of all they are come to the Lord paramount of the Church the great author and end of all transactions therein coming to him and drawing near to him in Scripture Phrase is coming to partake of his Fovour and Grace or else coming to the Judge of all were of all conditions the most dreadful the wicked he keeps at a distance and is said to know afar off this is of all attainments the most Superlative all that the Heart of Man can wish is included herein to come to his Maker with acceptation and to find favour in his sight whose favour is better then Life it self and to have the Supream Judge of all on his side As this mighty Judge was accompanied with all possible terror and dread at Mount Sinai and all the People kept upon pain of Death at a great distance from him to tell us how far removed from God every Man is by the Law and in his sinful estate so by the Gospel we are come as near to him as humane nature will admit and he appears to us in all the glory of his reconciling Grace and receives us into intimate fellowship and converse with him for this is the declared state of the Gospel We have fellowship with the Father and with the Son and the blood
of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin Several things result from this Supreme Priviledge of the Gospel That we are come to God the Judge of all as reconciled to him and having his righteous judgment on our side First That he will certainly revenge the Churches Cause upon all their implacable Enemies who alone is the Judge of all Causes and Complaints and whatever Controversie hath been at any time in any Age between Satan and the Church and between the wicked prophane persecuting part of the World and the Church God the Judge of all will determine it on the Churches side will vindicate their innocency and their faithful adherence to him his own interest and theirs being the same And how great a comfort ought this to be to every sincere Christian however persecuted and oppressed by Men to consider that yet the righteous God is of his side and that the Supreme Judge who cannot do unrighteously whose Judgment is the very perfection of Justice and whose Judgment is final and irreversible will be sure to give judgment for him at last and reward his Enemies with shame and confusion 2dly He will certainly recompence all his Servants for every faithful service they shall perform for him the reward of all their Works will be sure to follow them into the next World this is the great stay and support to all true Christians under their present pressures that their labour shall not be in vain in the Lord this St. Paul encouraged himself in the prospect of in the midst of all the Heroclitons and Hurricanes of Persecution he met with There is says he laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give unto me 3dly All the dreadful fears and apprehensions of God that ever since the fall have inhabited the minds of Men are by this access unto God discharged and dismiss'd this is that which hath kept the whole World in bondage all their days the fear of God as their Judge standing at the door ready to execute Wrath upon all Disobedience this is the inward invisible Wound Mankind carry about them this is the inward heart-afflicting Fear and Terror of every sinner nor can he any way discharge or disburden himself of it for 't is engraven in his being and is part of himself every Man 's own Conscience which is the ability he has to judge of himself with reference to the Judgment of God is God's Vice-Roy and whether he will or no will give in evidence for God against him and justifie truth against carnal and corrupt interest What sad and doleful reflections has the sense of God's judgment occasioned in Men Men think of God and are troubled and say with Job Destruction from God was a terrour to me and by reason of his highness I could not endure How uneasie are Men in all Humane Comforts and Enjoyments where the sense of this abides A Man that has God for his Enemy at last and nothing but this present World for his Portion is meanly and wofully circumstanced now by the Gospel all this is removed we come to the Judge of all as our best friend and are able to say with an holy boast and exâ—ltation Who shall condemn 't is God the Judge of all that justifies who shall lay any thing to our charge since the Supreme Judge of all the World is for us what now can trouble us what is it can now engender sorrow in our breasts we are now impregnable against ever being made truly miserable he that has God of his side can never be made unhappy the false corrupt judgment of this wicked degenerate World will be of mean value with us and little concern us since the Judge of all is on our side and we are secure of being by his judgment made eternally happy for as the Apostle tells the suffering Saints God will reward tribulation to them that trouble them but to those that are troubled eternal rest and glory 6thly We are said to be come to the spirits of just men made perfect that is compleated in the full reward of their Christian course the Apostle mentions all the parts of the Gospel Catholick Church both in Heaven and in Earth to manifest to what a Noble and Honourable Society we are joyned and incorporated by the Faith of the Gospel and how desperate and irrecoverable an evil Apostasie from such a Communion were this Expression throws that foolish idle Fiction of Purgatory quite out of dores 't is by this Expression of the Apostle excommunicated and utterly cast out of the Catholick Church for ever for all the departed Saints are reckoned here to be in one only condition they are not some in one state and some in another but they are all perfect and compleat which utterly confutes all the fictitious doting Dreams of such a refining state as Purgatory every departed Saint's spirit is in a state of perfection with God they are all in his presence and therefore they are by the Apostle in this enumeration placed next unto him The best way of considering this Expression is to discover what prospect we can gain by it into the other World and what can be certainly collected from it of the state of the blessed in Heaven These three things are very plainly deductive from hence 1. That all the Saints departed are in a state of Perfection and enjoy a blessed Communion with God 2. That they also enjoy a Communion with the Church militant here And 3. That the Church here enjoy also a Communion with them both which last particulars are implied in our being said to be come unto them The Souls departed hence have this Communion with the Church below 1. They worship as they do him that sits on the Throne and the Lamb they adore the Merit of Christ's Blood and the Glory of free Grace for ever and wheresoever any Gospel-worship is offered up upon Earth they are present in spirit and concur in it the Service and Worship of Heaven is of the very same nature with that of the Saints upon Earth thô performed in the Royal Presence and in the heavenly Temple and in some respects differently circumstanc'd 2. They have a tender regard to all the labouring fighting striving Servants of Christ here below wishing a happy success to them well remembring that themselves were lately in that condition the state of the Church here that is at Sea and tossed with many storms no doubt is much in their minds thô they are safely arrived themselves in the Harbour of Eternal Rest and Happiness 3. They rejoyce greatly in all the Churches prosperity and particularly in its increase if the conversion of sinners on Earth cause great joy in Heaven no doubt but the Spirits made perfect are partakers of it as well as the Angels for they are altogether as one Society and they are equally capable of it as they are for they are like the Angels of God and they have much
are often ignorant and so his Writings seems to us the more difficult and obscure Thus we have taken a brief view of the Apostle's Comparison of the Law with the Gospel in this short Epitome of both and seen the wonderful preference the Gospel has to the Law and the great and eminent Advantages and Priviledges of the one above the the other and the glorious Inhabitants of this Spiritual Mount Sion and the Heavenly Jerusalem not only all the true Saints upon Earth the Church of the first-born written in Heaven but even God himself Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant all the Blessed Angels and the Spirits of just Men made perfect nothing could be more destructive and ruinous to the true Interest of the believing Hebrews than to turn their backs upon such a Communion to go back to the Old Covenant that God upon Man's account found fault with and again put on that Legal Yoke that neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear the Jews much boasted of and rested in those literal Typical Advantages they had above the rest of the World upon which they might with very good reason value themselves and therefore the Apostle's business is to manifest to them how much by embracing the Gospel they changed for the better that instead of a Legal Temporary Temple built upon Mount Sion and an Earthly Jerusalem they are come to the true signified Mount Sion to the Spiritual and Heavenly Temple which is Christ Mystical where God dwells for ever and the Heavenly Jerusalem the name of which is Jehovah Shammai that is the glorious spiritual worship of the Gospel and the state of the Catholick Church in all its parts those on Earth and those in Heaven and thereby to all that was signified by and all that was any where promised unto Jerusalem and Mount Sion instead of that Dreadful Appearance of the Angels upon Mount Sinai with which they were so terrified and from which they were kept at so great a distance they are now come to an innumerable Company of Angels that is to a sweet Fellowship Brotherhood and Communion with them all which is implyed in their being said to be come to them under the Law 't was firmly believed whoever should see an Angel so great the distance was thought between Mankind and them should certainly die we are now Men and Angels all of the same Family and Houshold and the Saints on Earth have the whole Ministry and Service of the Angels employed on their behalf they are now always ascending and descending about their Affairs and there is a most endeared and intimate Relation and Affection between all the Myriads of Angels above and the Saints below instead of the National Church of the Jews assembled at Jerusalem they are come to the General Assembly and Church of the first-born whose Names are written in Heaven To the general Assembling of the true Catholick Church who Assemble and Worship all the World over in Spirit and Truth without any confinement to any place whatever they are come to them so as to be of the same Body and Society with them to be fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the Houshold of God and so as to partake of all their Spiritual and Heavenly Advantages and they are come to all the parts of this Catholick Communion as well those in Heaven as those on Earth even to God himself which is as far as they can come the judge of all under the Law they were not suffered so much as to approach the outward signs of his Presence but under the Gospel they have free access to himself and to his very Throne which is now become a Throne of Grace and nothing appears now from thence but a Scepter of Mercy held forth they are come to the Spirits of just men made perfect not only to the Fellowship and Fraternity of all the Saints living from the Fraternity of an outward Typical and only National Church but to those in the Heavenly state all those mentioned in the 11th Chap. before and all the Apostles and those Blessed Saints they had conversed with in the first times of the Gospel who were then removed and gone to their rest even to them by the Gospel-state they were come with them they are embodyed as Members of the same Society and with them in a short time they are sure to be resident And to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant a Saviour as well as a Mediator and a Mediator not of the Sinai but of the Sion Covenant a Covenant bringing grace life and peace a Mediator not like Moses a meer Man a Servant a Sinner himself trembling in his Office and weary of his Burden and whose Ministry was like his Person decaying vanishing and dying But to the Son himself in his own House able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him in that he liveth for ever to make Intercession for them and to the Blood of sprinkling infinitely exceeding all the Blood that was sprinkled under the Law for that brought sin yearly and daily into remembrance but those that are sprinkled with this are for ever perfected and to them there remains no more Sacrifice for sin and this Blood they are come to speaks a better Language quite than the Blood of Abel did although the Blood of both was most unjustly shed and they were both wickedly murdered and slain yet they speak two different Languages Abel's Blood called and cried unto God for vengeance upon Cain but this pleads and cries aloud for pardon and forgiveness even for those very Persons that were most guilty of it and deepliest concerned in it so that none are excluded from the benefit of it The Apostle winds up all with deep and solemn Admonitions and Cautions to the Believing Jews not to play fast and lose with the Gospel 't is of such Jews St. James writes in his Epistle directed to the Twelve Tribes when he tells them A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and let not such a man think says he to obtain any thing from the Lord for he halts between two Opinions and is unresolved whether he shall be a Jew or a Christian the Apostle conjures them upon their utmost peril not to refuse him that speaks from Heaven which is no other than God himself speaking by his Son and declaring by a solemn voice from Heaven even from the excellent Glory that he was his Beloved Son in whom he was well pleased which beloved and blessed Son of God might well be said to speak from Heaven because we are expresly told he was also in Heaven when he spake here upon Earth he proceeds to mind them that the Legal state was like an old House ready to fall upon their heads for he that once by his voice shook the Earth at Mount Sinai and made the Mount to tremble will now once more shake both Heaven and Earth and dissolve the Apostle tells them their whole Religious Constitution and Fabrick and this taking away of things that are shaken is in order to this that things that cannot be shaken which are the blessings and glories and sure mercies of the Gospel may remain the Gospel is the last and only remedy that God has provided for sinful Man 't is a fearful thing to fall into his hands and not have this to plead to fall into the hands of the living God without an interest in Jesus the Mediator of this New Covenant and the Blood of sprinkling appurtenant thereunto he that has once embraced the Gospel and then out of choice refuseth it and turns his back upon it refuseth his remedy and thereby renders his Cure desperate and impossible and to such a man nothing can possibly remain but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment The Consideration of this Glorious and Honourable state to which by the Gospel we are come this Celestial Mount of Spirits should always inflame our minds with holy and thankful Contemplations and also with fervent and devout adoration of that infinite goodness that has made such provision for the happiness recovery and welfare of rebellious and apostate Man that has opened the flood-gates of Heaven and showr'd down all the blessings and glories thereof upon the World by the descent of the second person into Human Nature how happy were it if instead of mean low and perishing satisfactions Men would solace themselves with this heart-satisfying and everlasting Salvation let us follow the example of Moses who when God proclaimed his Name unto him and caused all his goodness to pass before him the Text says Moses made haste and bowed his head towards the earth and worshipped he only heard the report of what we possess and enjoy our whole business therefore should be to exalt the Praises of so Gracious a Benefactor and to Magnifie that Glorious being that has all possible Perfection to whom nothing can be added and from whom nothing can be taken away and to whom all Blessing and Honour and Praise and all Worship and Service and Adoration will be due throughout all Generations from time to time till time ceaseth and is dissolved in Eternity and thence Eternally FINIS
aw'd and taught to reverence the Law God raised by them the Smoak and the Fire at Mount Sinai 3dly It was they that shook and rent the Rock 4thly It was they that sounded the Trumpet And 5thly from the consideration of which the great Emphasis of the Apostle's Speech chiefly ariseth 't was they framed and effected the articulate Voices and Words from God by which he spake to the People and by which the Law was conveyed to their Ears that is the Angels received the Law from God's Mouth and uttered it by Sounds and Expressions to the People and thereby became so the publishers of the Law as that it is truly and very properly called the word spoken by Angels and may be very significantly said to be ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator 'T will be a thing in its nature most instructing and full of the greatest spiritual delight and satisfaction to consider over the Apostles first Point those glorious Excellencies of Christ that are appertainant unto him by which he hath the preference of all that went before him and by which he is infinitely exalted beyond what ever can possibly succeed him and therefore a Revelation made and a Religion setled by him must needs with the supreamest Authority command our utmost obedience First he informs us of two transcendent supereminent and unparalled Qualifications of this glorious Person by whom God now speaks first that he hath appointed him Heir of all things and secondly that by him he made the Worlds The first of these relates chiefly to his Assumption of the Humanity and as he is Man this is an eternal statute of the Trinity that the second Person humbling himself to become Man and assuming the Humane Nature to the Divine as he was Man should be Heir of the whole Creation and inherit as a Prince and a Saviour all created Supremacy and Glory and therefore he himself often affirms in St. John that all authority and judgment is given unto him upon this very account because he is the Son of Man a Title only given to him in Scripture by himself and by no other and another expression of the Seed of the Woman that very Humane Nature that look'd so meanly and was such a stumbling-block to the Faith of the Jews and the Philosophy of the Gentils had annexed unto it the Lordship and Dominion of all this could not simply belong to the Humane Nature in it self but was by Divine Ordination of the Father by him of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named and therefore the Apostle saith that God has appointed him heir of all things and by this insinuates to the Jews that if he were Heir of all things then has he power in the Church to alter and settle what Religion he pleaseth dispose of their Ecclesiastick Fabrick as he thought good and that if they did intend to keep those eminent and peculiar Priviledges they had above the rest of the World they must own him and enjoy all from him and under him because God has ordained him Heir of all things But the second is that I shall chiefly insist on by which the Apostle inculcates his Divinity that by him God made the worlds this is a discovery that at first view seems rather to stupifie and amuse the Object so far exceeding the Faculty than any way to encourage us to contemplate or enquire or farther to think over this matter nor can any one Meditation about it be drawn from any other Topick than pure Revelation this is a great Oracle let fall from Heaven for the instruction of the Church and we must with all humble and thankful adoration enquire how far the Holy Ghost has inform'd us in this matter and not farther gaze lest we lose our selves in vain fruitless and unbecoming Speculations By whom also he made the worlds By the Worlds is not meant as some have conceived several Successions of the same World but 't is meant in the sense the Jews took the word to whom the Apostle accommodates himself and they reckoned upon three Worlds that above of Angels and Spirits that beneath them of Sun Moon and Stars and this inferior World in which we converse the Apostles drift is to shew that what was any where created was created and made by him and that according to St. John without him was nothing made that was made and this appears to be his meaning from Col. 1.16 For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible By whom not as a created instrument any way inferior to himself so it cannot be taken for we are told by Sr. John that the word by which all things were made was in the beginning with God and was God but by him as his own eternal Word Wisdom and Power that is to say the making of the World was an act peculiar to the second Person in the Trinity and the whole Deity in making the World acted by the second Person for 't is not said absolutely that Christ made the World but God by him which notifies to us the order of working in the Trinity and the distinct subsistence and operations of the persons and not bare instrumentality True it is that the act of each Person in the Trinity is in some sense the act of all the three yet by the Trinity a threefold Record is said to be born in Heaven and distinct acts are applied to each of the three and God does appear to us under distinct actings in the same eternal and blessed Essence by that threefold Record To make this deep and important Point as plain and overt as we can the best way is to view over those Scriptures where the Holy Ghost treats most expresly touching this matter St. John begins his Gospel with a great discovery of it In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made The Apostle's design in this Gospel is evidently to begin it with the Divinity and Godhead of Christ as the rest had begun theirs with the Original and History of his Humanity and Incarnation and this Declaration of his Divinity must needs be very short for no man can write a History of God or make any Narrative of his Eternal Existence the Apostle therefore in a few words tells us all that was needful and proper to be told about his Divinity and all that could be known about the Man Christ Jesus as he was God In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God In the beginning 't is an allusion to what Moses says about the Creation In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth that is before any thing created was extant and so here St. John says In the beginning was the word