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
1000 Years but how and in what order and manner and in what succession all these things will be effected and whether the new Heavens and the new Earth will precede the first Resurrection or not are Questions not pertinent to be asked because they are as yet impossible to be resolved Thus we have seen by what hath been discoursed upon this Argument how all the great and eternal Designs of God touching this World were laid in his creation of it by the second Person and that by him all the glorious and blessed ends God proposed to himself there by are brought to pass and accomplished as all was made by him so all was made for him and the glory of all results to God through him The Apostle in this Epistle sets forth many Qualifications of the blessed Person of our Lord Jesus Christ that the Jews might think themselves no losers by changing their Legislator by taking him instead of Moses in respect of his Divine Nature he was infinitely exalted above all comparisons in respect of his Humane Nature he was exalted above the Angels as a Prophet he exceeded Moses as far as the Master of a Family exceeds his Servant for he is the Son in his own house and as a Priest he much exceeded Aaron by once for all offering up himself a compleat and perfect Sacrifice and shedding thereby the Blood of God for the Sins of the World and as a King and Priest together by reason of his absolute perfection in Sanctity and Soveraignty and that he is the great Reconciler of Earth and Heaven the great Peace-maker between God and Man he that brings down and proclaims Peace upon Earth and Good-will towards Men the true King of Salem he infinitely preceded Melchisedech having also the power of an endless Life and being indeed without beginning or ending of Days which Melchisedech was only in Historical Figure and in the Type And throughout the whole Epistle shews the wonderful excellency of the Gospel above that of the Law not only from its Original and Founder but also from the Nature and Constitution of it being a heavenly Frame pitch'd by God himself the other but an earthly one and all the Appurtenances to it the Sacrifice the Ordinances of Worship the Covenant and the efficacy of the whole sutable thereunto and all this to bring the Jews to own the truth of their own Religion to acknowledge their true and natural Messiah of whom as purtaining to the flesh Christ came after his departure and ascension Christ who compassionately wept over Jerusalem and that People while he was upon Earth was pleased to afford them this glorious Luminary to follow them with this Instruction and to kindle this Heavenly Lamp before them that ought to have been a Light to their Feet and a Lanthorn unto their Paths to have led them from Mount Sinai to Mount Sion from Mount Sion literal to Mount Sion spiritual and from the earthly to the heavenly Jerusalem but the success proved otherways for the State of the Jews the governing part of that Nation together with the Body of the People continued in the utmost rage and opposition they could possibly express against Christ and his Doctrine till that remove of their oeconomy and Worship which is here but spiritually and doctrinally laid before them and tendred to them for their information and instruction came to be materially sensibly and dreadfully put in execution to their utmost horror and confusion That People being chiefly concerned in this Epistle and having been so stupendious a Stage of singular Blessings and extraordinary Judgments a short Digression touching that People and Nation in particular cannot in this place seem either heterogeneal or impertinent A short Digression touching the Jews The Jews who were so long proprietors of the true God and in possession of the only instituted Religion of which he was the Author of whom it might for many Ages be said considering and comparing them with the rest of the World That Salvation was of the Jews that People that had so much advantage above all others every way and that made so great a divine and religious Figure in the World and so true a one for so long together having in Promises Types and Significations the Christian Religion it self amongst them for out of that Root it sprang there it was in Oar though it was afterwards coin'd and stampt and that as yet do remain as wonderful Monuments both of Divine Justice and Mercy and the Subjects of many Prophesies to be yet fulfilled to this very day a right Account of this People and a due and serious Consideration of them cannot but be of excellent use to all the ends of the Christian Religion Their Original was from Abraham they never pretended to derive themselves higher and therefore encountred our Saviour with what they most valued themselves upon We have Abraham for our father he was the first friend God was pleased to make to himself upon Earth and with him it was that God personally established the Covenant of Grace in all the Essentials and Substantials of it and the legal Covenant as the Type Figure and Forerunner of that in his Natural Capacity he was the Father of the Jews but restrictively by the Seed of the Promise in Isaac with whom the Covenant of Circumcision was made an Institution of great Sanctity and Distinction and whereby they obliged themselves against all false Gods and Idolatry to the Worship of the only true God as he himself declared the meaning of it to be and in his Spiritual Capacity as one that believed and obeyed what God revealed to him and followed him fully he was the Father of all the faithful who have ever since all gone to Heaven by treading in the steps of their Father Abraham but this must not be so strictly taken as if these two Seeds of Abraham were always subjectively divers for they were often the same and this the Apostle proves at large in the 9 10 11 Chap. to the Romans in the Instances of Isaac and Jacob and the Remnant of Israel that were at that time saved who were both Heirs according to the Flesh and according to the Promise the Gospel was all virtually utter'd unto him in that one expression In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed the meaning of which was that the Promise of the Messiah having yet lain at large and in very general terms and proceeded no farther than the first Promise made of him that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpent's Head God would graciously advance one step farther and not only enlarge that Promise by declaring that in the Seed of the Woman all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed but also make it known of what People of all the Nations and Kindreds of the Earth the Messiah should come and from whose Loins according to the Flesh he should proceed and this honour is done to Abraham and he of
all the Persons upon Earth is fingled out for it and he is told of God that in him all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed and this is called after in Scripture the blessing of Abraham being first pronounced to him which is the Blessing of the Messiah nor is any thing more particularly revealed touching the Messiah before his actual coming save that out of the numerous Posterity of Abraham one particular Tribe is singled out and one Family of that Tribe and 't is declared that Christ should come of the Tribe of Judah and of the House and Lineage of David That the Covenant of Grace was established with Abraham is plain from what the Apostle says Gal. 3. v. 8. The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the heathen through faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed which must needs be the Gospel because it refers to all Nations what particularly belong'd to the Jews went no farther than that Nation and the same Apostle in his grand Dispute with the Jews about Justification proves the Gospel-Method of Justification to be the true Method because Abraham was justified that way and was of more antiquity than the Law taking the Law for the whole Jewish oeconomy from the original of it for the first beginning of that was Circumcision and Abraham was justified in a Gospel-way that is had Righteousness imputed to him before he was circumcised and Circumcision was to him but a Seal of the Righteousness which he had being yet uncircumcised from whence the Apostle infers that Righteousness came not by the Law nor the Operations thereof but by Faith this was the first instance this of Abraham's in which we find any Man in Scripture justified and 't was intended to be an Instance of God's future and final Justification of Believers both Jews and Gentiles under the Gospel to the World's end and that the Law in the complex Notion of it was only a School-master to conduct and lead Men to Christ is very evident because both the Covenants were made with Abraham and the Gospel-Covenant had the precedence and the other though first in actual execution was in its nature but declarative and expressive of it and conductive to it and very proper and signifying it was that Christ should come from the Loins of Abraham who stood related to God as a publick person not only the natural Father of the Jew but the spiritual Father of all the faithful both Gentiles and Jews for although Christ as concerning the Flesh came of the Jews who were a holy enclosure unto God and under his own peculiar Regiment and it was a singular advantage to them to have it so and in some respect it was absolutely necessary that it should be so that so he might be born under the Law and under an obligation to all the righteousness of the legal Dispensation which he came to fulfil and might be a Minister of the Circumcision as the Apostle speaks for the truth of God to confirm the Promises made unto the Fathers yet he came as a publick Person in no sort confin'd to the Jewish Nation but equally related to all Mankind and therefore we find that one of the Evangelists derives his Pedegree from Adam From a triumvirate of Divine Favorites Men highly beloved of God and of great Heavenly Renown Heirs of all the Promises for Isaac and Jacob inherited all the Blessings of Abraham this People had their Original in those three God did not only epitomize his future gracious Proceedings with the World in the Covenant of his Grace and as it were appropriate himself to that triumvirate as their peculiar property by stiling himself the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob but so far honours them after death and when they had left this World as throughout all Generations to set forth the blessed state of the saved by their sitting down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven as if the very Company and Presence of those blessed Patriarchs to whom the Promises of Life and Salvation through the Messiah were first personally made would add much to our happiness there and as if their state above were the utmost felicity any could hope for or attain to for these Fathers sake of theirs they are to this day beloved of God and God owes them for what he promises he owes and intends them a kindness as shall be shewn hereafter for their sakes for as in those three the natural and the promised and spiritual Seed did both inhere and concenter so at last their natural Seed according to the Flesh shall also become Heirs of the Promise and the reason of it we have from St. Paul because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance The Consideration of three things will let us into a right account of that People First That God did intend by the impalement of them to himself to put in his Claim to the World generally run quite away from him into gross Idolatry the Worship of the Sun and other parts of the Creation and become Subjects of that Kingdom set up by the fallen Angels against him by this to challenge a part of the work of his hands and to have some select part of the World ruled and governed by Laws and Institutions of his own ordaining the great tendency of which were to prevent and over-rule that fatal miscarriage of Mankind in worshipping the Creature instead of the Creator and placing an Idol in the room of the true God and therefore throughout the whole Mosaical Institution there is a sacred Antiparistasis against Idolatry a total contradiction in every Ceremony of the Jewish Worship to it and the whole so contrived as to make that People utterly seperate themselves from the Sins of the Nations in that particular and to bring them up with the utmost detestation of it One constant Memorial of himself in a most eminent manner God by his Law placed amongst them which was the observance of the Sabbath intended as a constant weekly Memorandum against Idolatry and to put them in mind who it was that made the Heavens and the Earth and rested the seventh day from the works of his hands and upon this account it pleased God that Idolatry and breach of the Sabbath had the same punishment And as the Laws and Constitutions of this People were thus framed to secure them against Idolatry so the providential dealings of God with them all along tended this way God himself undertaking the particular charge and government of them which necessarily made them a Church and a State conjoyned together and exercising that government in such a way as might be expected from such a Soveraign and might in the highest manner oblige them to their obedience to him by mighty and open-face discoveries of himself by stupendious Miracles amazing Signs and Wonders and by an out-stretched Arm of Power subduing all
thing than what by his degeneracy and apostasie he has made himself nothing did more plainly and evidently discover itself in the whole transaction of God with this People then that there could be no Law given that would singly and of itself without foreign Assistance introduce Righteousness that there was an absolute necessity the Holy Ghost should be sent down from Heaven if ever Mankind were made fit to go thither and such a Covenant made with the World as would give to Men a new Heart and a new Spirit and such a Covenant God declares having found fault with this that he would make whereby he would write his Laws in Mens Hearts and put them into their inward parts and so possess them with his Grace and lock them up to himself by his fear that they should not depart from him If we begin with this People in Egypt and consider them there it is plain the generality of them had fallen in with the Religion of the Country notwithstanding all the colateral inducements they had and all the obligations they lay under to the contrary and totally forgotten the true God this seems plain from what Moses in Exodus replied unto God when he commanded him to go to them and tell them The God of their fathers had sent him unto them Moses Answers when I come unto the Children of Israel and shall say unto them the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you and they shall say what is his Name or as it is better rendred what God is he what shall I say unto them 'T is plain from hence that Moses was well aware of the success he was like to have and that the God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob was a thing that the people at that time had no notion at all of and upon their entrance into Canaan when Joshua had by Gods direction circumcised them God himself declares this day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you which reproach of Egypt was their Idolatry in Egypt which was rolled away by their being devoted by Circumcision to the true God and his Worship some learned men have supposed that the people were not circumcised in Egypt and that their uncircumcision there was that reproach that was rolled away but 't is I conceive a mistake for we are told in Josh 5. v. 5. Now all the People that came out speaking of Egypt were circumcised but all the People that were born in the Wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt them they had not circumcised And in the 4. v. that is said to be the reason of their being now circumcised those that came out of Egypt 't is expresly said were circumcised now if they were circumcised by Moses after their coming out then the reproach of Egypt was rolled away before and this circumcising could not be it if they were as I believe they were circumcised before they came out of Egypt then uncircumcision could not be the reproach of Egypt here meant and 't is probable they were all circumcised there because Pharaohs Daughter so soon as she had taken Moses out of the water and looked upon him knew him to be an Hebrew Child which is likely she did by the mark of circumcision If you ask how Circumcision and their Idolatry could stand together the answer is They kept up that Right without any regard to the ends of it just as the Posterity of Esau and Ishmael do to this day who are the greatest Idolaters in the World though circumcised and constant observers of that Right No sooner were they come into the Wilderness though by such stupendious deliverances as the World before had never been acquainted withal and although they had a Miracle by the Cloud and the Pillar of Fire always in their eye yet while Moses was gone into the Mount to treat personally with God about their concerns they fell greedily into the Egyptain Idolatry a great demonstration they had been used to it before and set up the Calves to declare in the Highest manner their disloyalty to God their King their uneasiness under his Government and that his Rule and their unruly Humours would never sute together and withal to signifie their wretched ingratitude for all he had done for them against Pharaoh and the Egyptians And to testifie their utmost satisfaction and delight in what they had so done the Text says Exod. 32. v. 6. And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt-offerings and brought peace-offerings and the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play Suitable to this was their carriage all along in the Wilderness so Stephen told their successors that for Forty Years in the Wilderness they took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the Star of their God Remphan Figures which they made to Worship them and had not sacrificed unto God as they ought the 78 Psalm is a Holy recapitulation of all the disloyal undutiful and unthankful treatment God had from them If we follow them to their last settlement into Canaan their constant spiritual Whoredom there was intolerable provoking the most high to his face their whole behaviour was utterly to testifie their dislike of God and his Government and that they desired not him of all others to rule over them but rather subjected themselves to the meanest Idol the two tribes of Judas and Benjamin that kept longest in their Integrity yet soon fell to the Worship of Baal and before the great Captivity they had set up the most odious Idol-worship in the very House of God this was plainly shewn in vision to Ezekiel when he was in Babylon upon the first Captivity there he saw Men in the Temple worshipping the Sun Women weeping for Tamuz and many more Abominations and in the 19th of Jeremiah God tells them by his Prophet Jerusalem and Judah shall be destroyed because they have burnt incense to all the hoast of heaven The ten Tribes early deserted the true God and fell down before the Calves at Dan and Bethel and at last under one of their apostate Kings those Idols were removed to Samaria the Metropolis of the ten Tribes and placed there to put the utmost Honour and Credit upon them that possibly could be this was done by Omri of whom the Scripture records that he did worse than all that went before him because he made Laws to bring these Idols from Dan and Bethel to Samaria the Royal and Capital City of the ten Tribes for so it is called in the 7th of Esau to affront the God of Israel in the highest manner and as much as in him lay to obliterate the Name and Mention of him amongst those Tribes in his own chosen and peculiar Country The Holy Ghost has left a perpetual Brand throughout all Ages upon these Statutes of Omri and in the 6th of the Prophet Micah tells the People nothing they did should prosper because they kept the
New Covenant This New Covenant is also called a Testament because the great Promulgation of it was to be a consequent of Christ's death and the Gospel that Law and Covenant of Grace the Legacy he left to the World was to be dispensed to the Legatees by his grand Executor the Holy Ghost And whatever we read of God's Covenants in the Old Testament 't is to be reduced to one of these two for the Apostle in the 8th and 9th Chapters of this Epistle calls the Mosaical Covenant the first Covenant and the old Covenant the whole Mosaical oeconomy was included in it and reckoned as part of it but it was chiefly denominated from Mount Sinai because there was the most solemn promulgation of the most essential part of it The Covenant God made with Man in his Innocency was peculiar to him in that state and went no farther is not at all continued in any force since the fall By a Covenant of God in the Scripture sence of it is meant a Law promulged wherein God obliges himself to such rewards and punishments and Men stand obliged to such duty and performance this was the case of the Old Covenant at Sinai and so is the case under the Gospel God has in Christ obliged himself to the salvation of the World upon such and such terms and Man stands obliged to the performance of them if ever he will be happy 'T is a vain and a wild conceit to think the Gospel offers Salvation otherways then upon conditions to be performed on our part the first Proclamation of it is with this condition annexed he that believes shall be saved And Faith is every-where used in the Gospel as a Word comprehensive of all that is therein required of us Punctually to pursue the Apostles drift in this place by this expression the best way is to shew in what particulars this new covenant to which he tells the Believing Hebrews they were come exceeded the old which was the point he designed to himself to make good 1st Both Covenants agreed in this they both had a Mediator an internuncius between God and Man which was to inform us of the vast distance sin had made between them what a vast gulph there was fixed between Heaven and Earth and that 't was impossible there should be any converse between God and Man by vertue of any Covenant without some third Person interposing and herein this New Covenant has infinitely the preference the Mediator of it being of so glorious a composition and constitution and so adapted to this matter as is wonderful to conceive he that intercedes to bring God and Man together is himself both after a stupenduous and wonderful manner united in one and the same Person 2dly This New Covenant delivers us from all the Fear Bondage and Condemnation which the Old Covenant brought upon us the Law left Men to answer to God for their disobedience without either assistance or remedy and so the case of every Man was that when the law came sin revived and he dyed by coming to the Mediator of this New Covenant we are totally discharged from any concern with the Law or the first Covenant the satisfaction of Christ to God's Justice is fully accepted in our stead for all our disobedience of the Law of Works and by this New Covenant we are wholly discharged from any obligation to the Old God found fault with it and it being in its nature and designment to prepare for a better Covenant it grew Old and upon the publication of the Gospel is quite vanished away 3dly This New Covenant much exceeds the other in its nature and constitution for it always admits of Repentance and Pardon which the other never did 't is an intire Law of Grace accepts of sincerity of intention in the stead of perfection of action and is accommodated with all imaginable tenderness to the weak and frail constitution of Man since his fall 4thly And wherein the Glory of this New Covenant chiefly lies and wherein it fundamentally exceeds the other and displays eminently the Glory of God's Grace and Goodness to the World a Divine ability is given from Heaven for the performance of every part of it whatever is required is given the great security of Mens Salvation under this New Covenant is that we are kept by the mighty power of God through faith unto salvation and that when Men work out their salvation 't is God that worketh in them both to will and to do of his own good pleasure 't is his power that is perfected in weakness and grace only that proves sufficient for us in this case the ways and methods by which this Divine assistance of the Holy Ghost from above is conveyed into the Hearts and spirits of Men is admirable but known only to God and out of the compass of all humane discovery a Man born after the Spirit is compared to the Wind the effects of which we know but we know nothing whence it comes nor whither it goes how far God is pleased at first in some to move and excite humane abilities and still to reward their motion Heaven-ward with more and farther grace and how far he is pleased in others to reward with Divine assistance endeavours purely Natural and Human is a knowledge too high for us and what we cannot by searching attain to this we are sure of that grace is never wanting to such as make a faithful improvement of what power they have he that under the Gospel does but what he can do will be sure to be enabled to do what he should do I make no question but that generally speaking grace comes in to the assistance of Humane endeavours and is grafted at first upon such natural improvements as are preparative to the reception of Christ and the Gospel but 't is not always so but Grace breaks in upon some in the height of their carreer against Christ and the Gospel as it did upon St. Paul to make him an instance in this point and makes a perfect conquest of the Soul unto Christ where there is nothing but a Wicked Profane opposition against him Had not this Divine assistance been a gracious appurtenant to the Covenant of Grace Mankind had never reaped the benefit of it no terms of Salvation that were consisting with the Holiness and Justice of God though never so condescending and easie without this would ever have made Mankind happy so desparate and as to their own power irrecoverable an apostacy are all Men subjected to so that if either we consider the Mediator of this New Covenant or the Covenant it self we shall perceive the great advantage the Apostle has of his side in the comparison and what a foolish choice the believing Jews would make to depart and apostatize from this New Covenant and this Mediator to Moses and Mount Sinai The last thing the Apostle mentions and which he couples and conjoyns with the Mediator of this New Covenant as