Power And again when you meet with my spirit and the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ. That this was a Judging Power is plain by all that Chap. speaking of casting out and judging them which are within while God only judgeth them that be without And in the next Chapter Do you not know The Saints shall judge the world Are you not worthy then to judge the smallest matters Know ye not that we shall judge Angels how much more things that pertain to this life Set ye them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church Is there not a wise man among you not onethat is able to judge between his Brethren And in that very Chapter you presse so much against your self he saith Judge in your selves Is it comly that a woman pray to God uncovered And of their Church-meetings he saith If ye speak with Tongues speak by two or three at most but if ye Prophesie do it by two or three at the least for so seems the opposition and let the others judge For you may all Prophecy and you should all desire earnestly and pray that you may Prophecy even above all other spiritual Gifts but it must be in order and not confusion while some Iudge and still the spirit of all Prophets are subject to the Prophets both old and now also while you be in Churches you must keep Church Order and your spirits must be subject to the Prophets before you and among you also But of the Sacrament he saith You must here Iudge your selves and be not concluded by others Judgement But let a man examine himself and so let him eat and drink For He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh Damnation or at least Judgement to himself and for this cause are many weak and sick and many sleep For If wee would judge our selves we should not be judged but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World Which is one of the most sweet and comfortable places in the whole Bible as before we observed in this Epistle also about Temptation Which also may and should comfort you So far are you from being condemned as you think by God who will never confirm or execute any wrong judgement though you give it against your self And yet you should be tender how you judge your self unworthy of Eternal Life which is the free gift of God least the spirit say as Paul and Barnabas to the Iews Seeing you put the Gospel from you and judge your selves unworthy of Eternal Life Lo we turn to the Gentiles But if you judge a wrong judgement God is so merciful and just also as not to confirm it And if you judge Rightly you are so far from being so wretched and miserable as you think your self that you are one of the happiest men in the World and not onely still under the gracious Spirit of Promise convincing you ofsin and also of righteousnesse setting up Christ in you and making you bow and long for him but also receiving from him one of the greatest and highest gifts possible which is a right Judgement and a power and priviledge to judge your self the hardest and highest work in the world so that you never shal be judged by the Lord. A Royalty not given unto any but the Kings and Princes or first-born of Jesus Christ his Churches as at Corinth or the members of them or such as are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints and to such as in any place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord both theirs and ours as I hear and see and know you do And therefore I pronounce it written to you also as a letter from Heaven or the Throne and Heart of God in Jesus Christ our Lord and yours whom you so call upon and trust in For how could you call upon Him if you had not believed on him As you may read in the Tenth of the Epistle to the Romans compared with the beginning of the first Epistle to the Corinthians which we now speak of Nor do I wonder Paul should put such a stresse upon calling on Christ when by his own experience and observation of all Christians he had found it the great Badge of a Christian and the greatest Character he could well expresse of one taught and drawn by God to come to Jesus Christ who though the Mediator to God yet indeed is the end also of all the Teaching and Drawing of the Father which I will therefore on this occasion more largely insist upon as one of the greatest and sweetest things I can declare to you especially in this great hour of darknesse and temptation When Paul saw Stephen the first Martyr stoned consenting to his death and standing by keeping the clothes of them which stoned him he might easily observe and remember that he died calling on Jesus Christ and saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit And again kneeling down he cryed Lord lay not this sin to their charge and saying this he fell asleep He might very well wonder that in the very Infancy of Christian Religion any could so quickly speak and pray to Christ and that also with such courage and boldnesse as daring to die in it and to desire no other rest or happinesse then that Jesus only should receive his spirit and forgive his stoners Doubtlesse it could not but take deep impression in so wise a man as Paul or Saul was And so it seems it did for presently he went and got a Commission from the Rulers to bring bound to Jerusalem all that he should find calling on Jesus Which he could not but see a most distinguishing Character between Jews and Christians for the Jews also called on God but the Christians only called on Jesus Christ and by that character he might easily discern who were only Jews and who were also Christians and so binde All he found calling on Christ. And when Christ appeared to Ananias in a vision he bad him Enquire in the house of Iudas Which we may consider again when we see Paul rising up in the room of Iudas and of Saul also being of the same Tribe much about a Thousand years after David that is Love had cast him out and bound him up as Satan must be bound for a Thousand years and then perhaps struck down as Saul here was by fire from heaven Saul also signifying Hell or the Grave and so might well be an Emblem of Satan which is the very Phrase used by David of Abishai to which Christ also might allude when he called Peter Satan And when Ananias or the Lords grace was sent by Christ to look out Saul he said Lord I hear he hath authority to bind all that call on thy Name To which Christ replyed Go for he is a chosen Vessel to bear my Name to the Gentiles and to Kings and the children of Israel though the Jews shall reject and persecute him yet he shall bear
before the worst of sinners And we see how gracious Christ was also to the Woman of Canaan although she were as a Dog or one degenerate into a Dog-like spirit and nature Yet the Dogs also enjoy Crumbs and in great Families and Christ is Lord of All the Family in Heaven and Earth The very Dogs have better Diet than it may be Children have in other houses And That Dog-like Woman of Canaan was received into favor and had great Grace and Faith given her though a cursed Woman under the greatest Curse both of God and Man Noah cursed her and God also cursed her so that he commanded all his people to hate and curse her Nation so that they might neither Treat with them nor seek their good all their daies Which we see how Christ observed towards her when he would not so much as Treat with her or speak to her till his Disciples as the Representatives of his Church interceded with him for her or it may be against her for the Text is somwhat doubtful Yet by Faith Her heart also is purified and there is No difference between Jew and Gentile No not a Cursed Canaanite Which might also be seen long before when the high and proud and stout Gibeonites some of the chiefest of those cursed Canaanites bowed down and though by a Wile only they got into a Covenant with Joshua a mighty Type of Jesus yet they could never be cast off No by no means by no means But when Adonizedech the Lords Justice King of Jerusalem and other Kings with him would have chalenged them back again as to have brought them back into the Curse again Joshua must not only stand up and rise early Yea and march all night in defence of these poor late accursed Canaanites but also the Sun and Moon must stand still over Gibeon and the course of Nature must be changed rather than Gibeon must be deserted or so much as left into the hand of Gods Justice in his own Throne which is Adonizedech King of Jerusalem And Gibeon is not only made one of the greatest Scenes of Gods presence a long time together as we often find in Scripture before it was Solomons greatest High Place Where God also appeared to him after such great Sacrifices in Gibeon But also This very History of the strange Works of God in defending Gibeon is made the Type of what God means to do Hereafter also I suppose for his People and his Enemies also When he shall rise up to do his great and strange Work of Gibeon or as he did at Gibeon or Mount Perazim Where also at Davids coming up the five great Lords of the Philistins rose up against him as at Gibeon the five great Kings of the Amorites or Canaanites against Joshua And about Gibeon also the great Quarrel was ended between David that is Love and the House of Saul that is the Grave or Hell Acted by Abner the Fathers Light or Understanding and by Joab his Will or Affection which were here reconciled and a New Heaven and Earth brought up As afterwards the New Jerusalem when David beat the Jebusites which had their name from Treading down for the Holy City must be Trodden down till the Times of the Centiles be fulfilled And a Type of This Fulfilling of Time might be in That when the twelve men of Joab and Abner ran through one another as the twelve hours of Day and Night and there fell down slain on Sauls side 360. For their common Year had so many Daies in it And though Saul himself was dead cut off by God because he sought to the Devil and would not seek to God as we read in Chronicles although he complained that God would not answer him But the Truth was he would not seek to God who could yet have pardoned All but he would not ask it and God therefore cut him off and for his sparing Amaleck himself was slain by an Amalachite if at least he Lyed not to David who could not be quiet in the Throne till he had also cut off the Amalachites whom Saul spared even after Sauls Death His House and Family was sorely punished and Davids Kingdom also afficted with divers years Famine for Sauls afflicting the poor Gibeonites though it were in Zeal to Israel So much doth God abhor All Cruelty and hard Usage of any poor men though in never so much Zeal for God or his Cause or any of his People Which the Lord make me and all mine and all His still to remember in all my Actions lest I afflict some poor Gibeonite in Zeal to Israel and thinking I do God good service By All which we may also learn that even Those that are most Hated or cursed by God as These Gibeonites and Canaanites were and Children of Wrath and curse as much as any Nation or People we read of Yet they may come to be Blessed and Loved by the same God who so hated and cursed them And yet He changeth not himself but Them whom he first cursed and so shut them up in guilt and sin and sorrow That their cries that is His in them might draw out his own bowels and compassions more to them by how much more he had cursed or afflicted them Which is one of the great Mysteries of the Gospel running Through the Law and the Prophets and the Curses thereof Which should teach us not to despair under the hardest and worst words God doth or ever will speak against us while we live O do not say This Evil is from God and why then should I wait or Hope on Him Yea rather make hast to bow down and Worship and seek his face as the 3d Captain to Elijah For the King of Israel is a merciful King He is a gracious God and He delighteth in those that sear him and Hope in his goodness Trembling at his Word For it is still good for a man to Hope and patiently wait for the salvation of God Let me also tell you It is an honor that God will speak to us though he do but chide us Threaten us sharply rebuke or chasten us which himself and we may call Hating or cursing us But His Frowns and Chidings and Hatings and Cursings as we may interpret them may be better than the Smiles and Loves and Embracings of the whole World besides And we do not only read him saying I have forsaken the dearly beloved of my soul as we see Christ himself was so forsaken but also that he Hated Her even the dearly beloved of his soul as we read in Jeremy and did not only strike her with an hard and sore and Cruel stroke as an Enemy but even Curse her and make her a Curse As we know he dealt with Christ himself his dearly beloved Son and as a Type of Christ with Israel Because he knew them and they should have known him above All Nations of the Earth Therefore he would punish them above All Nations So that he never
own already Seeing in this case Polygamy is not only permitted but commended and commanded And Sauls wives were Given it seems by God himself into Davids Bosom And the omission of this Law of doing the office of a Kinsman had a perpetual brand of disgrace By loosing the shoe and spitting to be added to the blessed History of Ruth or Truth or Drouth as a Saxon may sound it the dry barren widdow of Mahlon that is VVeakness married unto Strength in him As Boaz signifies But I am unworthy to unloose his shoo That was here also Typified And the Reason of This Law is That his Brothers or his Kinsmans Name be not put out of Israel or out of the Book of the Living or blotted out from under the Heavens of the Lord. Threatned to Amalech a branch of Esau by a Concubine or others when their Males were to be rooted out as we touched before For the Male in Heb speaketh Memorial or Remembrance And yet Edoms Children and VViddows also are called to Come and Trust in God with promise to be kept alive Though all the Males were rooted out or their Memorial perished Although I say not that This was but according to This Law of marrying the Kinsmans Widdow But However God abhorred Edom for letting his VVrath Tear for ever and forgetting the Brotherly kindness and Covenant yet in that very place where Israel is forbidden to seek the Peace of Moab and Ammon All their Daies for ever They are forbidden also to abhor an Edomite because He was and still is Thy Brother as we read in Deut. 23. And though the Lamentations say that God wil visit Edom and accomplish the Iniquity or Punishment of Zion yet Edom also is There bid to rejoyce And as alluding to the word Edom which Job also useth for I will be Dumb he saith it is good for a man to be Dumb and quietly wait for the Salvation of God as Jacob also on his death bed He sitteth alone and is Dumb c. For the Lord will not cast off for ever the very word used by David to Solomon or Forsake even for Adultery being neer akin in Heb. And when God seemeth resolved to cut off Edom or Moab yet it is with such regret and so much tenderness of Heart and Bowels as a most tender Father or Mother going to chasten a dear child O give wings unto them that they may flee away Leave the Cities dwell in the Rock and be like the Dove in the Clefts of the Rock O my Heart my Heart shall sound for him I will Howl and Cry and Mourn sor him O Vine of Sibma I will weep for thee I will water thee with my Tears O Heshbon And again My Heart shall Cry out for Moab Let his Fugitives flee unto Zoar. Take Councel execute judgment Hide the Ontcasts bewray not him that wandreth Flee ye Turn back dwell deep O Inhabitants of Dedan c. As if he foresaw That which Job or the Psalmist speaketh when he shall have cut off he will look in the morning and see his place empty as Davids was before Saul and he will have desire to the work of his own hands And when David had conquered Ishbosheth and all Sauls Family he melted and said to Ziba Is there not yet any of the House of Saul that I may shew the kindness of God unto him The kindness of God! Even towards dead Saul And there came an halting Son of Jonathan or Jaacob Trembling and hardly believing the King would look upon such a Dead Dog But it was to shew the Kindness of God to an House he had cut off And how sweetly and solemnly did David celebrate Sauls Funeral and bless the men of Jabez that shewed kindness to his dead body Blessed he ye of the Lord that have shewed this Kindness to your Lord even unto Saul and have buried him And now the Lord shew Kindness and Truth unto you And I also will requite you this kindness because you have done this thing And the Kindness of Rispa to Sauls Sons that were Hanged up before the Lord for Gibeon was not only told David but remaineth on Scripture Record to all Eternity And it also occasioned David to shew new kindness to Saul and the Bones of his dead children And though Shimei cursed with a bitter heavy Curse as if David had been cruel or bloody to the House of Saul Yet David bears it patiently saying Let him Curse because the Lord hath said unto him Curse David And again Let him Curse for the Lord hath bidden him And again at his Return to his Kingdom when Ahishai pressed that he might die who had so cursed the Lords Annointed David replied You are Satan to me Shall there a Man he put to death this day in Israel For do I not know that I am this day King of Israel A saying so remarkable and repeated so that it may not only be pressed on a King especially when God hath so restored him to his Kingdom as David After banishment But on Christ also I hope when he shall come again and be restored to His Great Kingdom Will he not Then also say Shall a Man be put to death This day Am I not King of Israel and the rather because himself seems to allude to This very saying of David to Abisai when he said to Peter Get thee behind me Satan Thou savorest not the things of God but men and therefore art Satan an Offence or Adversary to me The very Phrase used by David to Abishai the Father of Jesse or My substance Doth not Solomon allude to This of Shimei also when he saith Hearken not and Shimei is Hearken what thy servant saith lest thou hear thy self cursed Or accuse not a servant to his Master and Thou knowest that Thou also hast cursed others I have yet said nothing of the Ceremonial Law O what a Sea of Love under which Christ was Made also to Fulfil it Time would fail us but to flie with the Bee and suck Honey from every Flower All the kinds of Sacrifice seem hinted to Abraham in the Vision sealing his Everlasting Covenant Which preserved his seed and all the Elect Gentiles also as the Turtle Dove and the Young Pidgeon whole and undivided or unbroken in the midst of the Heifer Gods own Emblem of Aegypt Moab Babylon or other Beasts about his People the Ram which in Daniel is a Type of the Mede and Persian Empire and the Goat in Him also the Grecian Kingdom or Aegeans which with many persons and places Thereabout had their name from Goats As we read in divers Authors or All men of the world or Seed of the Serpent That is the head and chief of Beasts that so signally pressed or oppressed the poor Dove which was also the Ensign of the Assyrian Banner as we are taught from Semiramis a Dove or fed by Doves whence the Prophet Jeremy cryeth Flee ye from the Dove coming out of the North. Though it
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
read in the Psalmes and Epistle to the Hebrews with the four Watches or Watchers and the four and twenty Elders of which again when we shew all measures borrowed from the twelve hours of darknesse or the twelve sons of Ishmael and the twelve sons of Light or of Israel they all fall down and Worship Praying and singing Praises to the Lamb also even as cloathed with flesh as well as to him that sat on the Throne which yet was Christ also as is clear from many passages but Christ in more Majesty and Glory of the Deity then onely as a Lamb slain For it was the Lamb exalted and set down in Glory even in his Fathers Throne As of old the 24. courses of Priests and of Levites and of Porters or Watchers or Singers and other Officers so ordered by David who was also the 24th from Noah as the number of his Name in Hebrew and the 14th from Abraham as also his Name when written without a jod as frequently it is and signifieth love and a Fathers Brother or a very neer kindsman so in the Revelation those 24. Elders did fall down in Adoration to the Lamb even to the Lamb that was slain they had Harps it s said and golden Vials full of Odours which are the praiers of Saints Which may intimate that as our great High Priest over all the Houshold in Heaven and Earth The great Angel of the Covenant offers up his own Incence with the Prayers of all Saints to his Father So these Intercessors also to the Lamb even the Elders of Churches offer up their Churches yea and other Saints Prayers to the Lamb. For the whole Bride and the Spirit acting the Bride also do not onely converse with Christ as her Husband but Worship him also as Her Lord as Sarah called Abraham and she is so commanded in the Psalmes both to Kisse him and to Worship him And she so practiseth in the Canticles and the Revelation also crying to the last come even come and so come Even come Lord Iesus come quickly It may also be easie to shew very many if not most or all of the Prayers and praises in the Psalmes are plainly directed to Christ and many commands and encouragements to call upon him there also As He arken unto my cry my King and my God for unto Thee will I Pray my voice shall thou hear in the morning O Lord in the morning will I direct my prayers to Thee and will look up And again they that know Thy Name will trust in Thee for Thou Lord hast not forsaken them that seek Thee And again Lord thou hast heard the desire of the humble Thou wilt prepare their heart and thou wilt cause their ear to hear And again Blessed be my Rock and blessed be the God of my Rock and my Saviour clense me from my secret sins and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me and let the words of my Mouth and the Meditations of my Heart be acceptable in Thy sight O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer And again Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever and ride on prosperously because of Truth and Meeknesse of Righteousnesse And to the Spouse of Christ He is thy Lord Worship thou him And again Be still and know that I am God Clap hands all People sing unto God with Triumph He shall speak the people under us He shall chuse our Inheritance for us even the Excellency of Jacob whom he loved and his blessing prevailed over all the blessings of his Ancestors And again gather my Saints together and I will speak and then declares the forme of the great Judgement both to the good and evil And concludes call upon me in the day of thy trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me plainly spoken by Christ and repeated by the Psalmist afterwards Saying In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee for Thou wilt answer me And in an other Psalm Thou calledst in trouble and I did deliver thee and answered thee in the secret place of Thunder And what time I am afraid I will trust in Thee And again Trust in him at all times ye People and power out your Souls before him And again Praise waiteth in silence for thee And to thee shall the Vow be performed O thou that hearest prayer unto thee shall all flesh come Iniquity prevaileth over me but thou hast made Atonement for our transgressions O our Jesus or our Salvation The hope of the ends of the Earth and them that are a far off in the Seas And again my lips shall ever praise Thee and and in thy Name will I lift up my hands when I pray And again Thou hast ascended up on High Thou hast led Captivity Captive Thou hast received gifts for men even for the Rebbels also that God may dwell among them And thy God hath commanded thy strength Strengthen O God that thou hast wrought c. And again In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee for Thou wilt answer me and Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in Mercy to all that call upon Thee Or as St. Paul to the Romans Lord of All and Rich unto all that call upon him plainly spoken of Christ. As that also of the Lord speaking unto my Lord Sit at my right hand c. And then the Psalmist speaketh to him the Lord at Thy hand shall smite through Thy enemies and Thy people shall be a willing people in the day of thy power and the Lord hath sworn and will not repent Thou art a Priest for ever cited so remarkably in the New Testament by the Apostles and by Christ also asking the Jews who it was there or how David called him Lord. And the 102. Psalm being entituled a prayer of one afflicted when his soul is overwhelmed in him and poureth out his sighing before the Lord is plainly spoken to Christ as we see by divers verses cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews as spoken to Him and proving Him to be the Son of God and so are many other like passages cited in the New Testament and applyed to Christ. As also the context will shew speaking somewhat that belongeth properly to Christ and not to God but as he is in Christ and the Humane Nature and so he hath eyes ears heart and hands and passions also and affections which are else improperly given to God or supposed to be in him and so he descends to earth ascends on high Returning also to judge the World Which is oft spoken by David to Him he calleth Lord and King and Judge of All. But the Father judgeth no man but hath committed alâ— judgement to the Son and authority also to execute judgement because he is the son of man And often doth the Psalmist speak to a Lord or King or Judge as Job also saying I will make supplication to my Judge and my Redeemer liveth a phrase also frequently
draw All men to him and to make All things new being as the Psalms expresse not only to satisfie the desire of every living thing which is no great matter except also they have great and good desires for else I know not ought I feare or more oppose or pray against then his giving me the desire of my own foolish narrow heart but also that he shall give forth Good and goodnesse so that all things shall be filled with it As we may find by comparing the 85. Psalm concluding thus Yea the Lord shall give forth Good or goodnesse and Righteousnesse shall go before him and direct or set us in the way of his steps with the 104. and 145. Psal. which of all is to be marked most as that which giveth name to all the Book of Psalms as the Jews tell us being thence All called Praises or Songs of blessing The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy the Lord is good to All and his tender mercies are over All his works All thy works shall praise thee O Lord and thy Sainis shall bless thee The Lord upholdeth All that fall and raiseth up all that are bowed down which is again so repeated and enlarged in the next Psalm also that it may teach us how Christ put himself under that Law also to mourn with every one that mourneth and to weep with every one that weepeth yea and to make us sensible of our own wants and emptinesse that so he may fill us being sent to comfort every one that mourneth and to replenish every empty soul. At this I awaked and my sleep was sweet to me as the Prophet expresseth it Yea and Christ is such an Head to every man as Paul expresseth and such a Root to all our soules and Spirits that our mourning and our sufferings reach and pierce his soul also And in all our afflictions he is afflicted For if any one member suffers all suffer but especially the head and heart and if one be honoured all rejoyce with it The strength of a King is in his Subjects and his glory in their multitude and greatnesse Riches Honour Happinesse and Freedome it being more honour also to govern one freeman then many slaves And it is a union with free Subjects that maketh a King so strong that as Solomoâ— saith There is no rising against him Where the Arabick also may help us to a better sence and notion of Alkum then is yet common May we not all say to our Saviour as Abigail did to David When my Lord shall sit on the throne of his Rest and when the Lord hath done to my Lord according to all he promised shall it indeed be any offence or grief of heart to my Lord that he spared us and did not shed our blood or avenge himself which is so much forbidden or reserve a grudge in his heart against the Children of his people When he shall see us all come bowing to him to his glory and his Fathers glory also who is glorified he saith when we bear much fruit And is not he so also When He beareth much And as much as he can If he could have been contented to be happy glorious all alone he never needed any world of men or Angels But O! how was he straitned in himself till he had found a means to multiply himself his Image Happinesse and Glory by Creation How much more than by Redemption while we live we shall praise him and shall ever bless him if he save us But the grave cannot praise him death cannot celebrate him the living the living shall praise thee as Hezekiah said And what profit is there in our bloud He did not care to drink the bloud of beasts doth he now delight in eating mans flesh and drinking mans bloud Or what doth he gain by losing us Can the enemie give a recompense for us As Esther spake of Haman And if he cut us off will he not look in the morning and when he sees our places empty will he not have desire to the work of his own hands as Job and the Psalmist to that needle work he curiously wrought in his closet When he hath ground us to powder will he not say return again againe yee sons of men O that God would perswade us even in suffering according to his will to commit our souls to his keeping as to a Faithfull Creator Can he be angry more in time then from eternity before he made the World or ought that could provoke him Or if he can may little children so provoke him with their raising dust or dirty pies against him that he must also turn and curse them in the name of God and give them up to Bears to teare them will he offer children also and his own to Moloch Or with musick drown their yellings in Gehinnon or in Tophet which he so much hates and threatens and his soul abhors so much in others Or if fury can be in him which yet himself denyeth in the Prophet Isa. can it rest in such a bosome When as Solomon saith it resteth in the bosome of fools Can it remain in such a soul which hath so often spoken it self well pleased satisfied and infinitely delighted in himself and his Image his Son and his own most glorious and most gracious Righteousness Can the Sun go down upon his wrath Or if he must for some great reason act a part awhile and wear a mask or frown and cast abroad his Thunderbolts and shew the fierceness of his sore displeasure or the Power of his anger or wrath can it be shown upon a moath a bubble nothing weaker than nothing will he also set his eyes or heart or heavy hand on that which is not What Glory Honour Profit Pleasure can the Power and Wisdom that we lay aside awhile the Goodness of an Infinite God beget it self in crushing us Will the King of Israel hunt a Partridge in the Mountains or pursuite a fly will he prosecute dry stubble or the little moats of dust in the balance can his Almighty Arm delight to strangle little worms or wrestle with a shadow will he create a mighty whirlwind to contend with nothing less than nothing and lighter than vanity when his very thoughts may easily create the Angels and his Word this glorious World and think it down again at pleasure Drawing in his breath or spirit and they perish and then giving it out again and they are created as the Psalmist shadoweth out his Respiration or his hearts Diastole Syslole VVill his sore and great and strong sword contend with feathers or lead captive atomes will it boast it self in cutting little straws or glory in a Triumph over that which is more feeble than the tender grass when yet it might awake against a man that is his Fellow and his equal match Mighty to bear his weight and power and wrath and strongest blowes when we are all to him as
Flood was such a Baptism to the Earth also As helped to wash away its Curss and Then God said in his Heart I will no more Or I will not yet add or go on to Curss the Earth for mans sake For or although all the mouldings of his heart be evil continually Which was the great reason brought for the Flood and yet now against it and the Curse or its continuance So gracious was God seeing the Flood also did not change mans heart but still left it as bad as it found it he resolved another Course and that he would Overcome Man with Kindness For it it was not only the Heathen Poet that told us Love would Conquer All Nor the Apostle only that Love covereth a multitude of sins but Solomon expressly saith Love covereth or shall cover as the Original expresseth All Transgressions Which St. Paul also Comments on Love beareth All believeth All hopeth All endureth All. Which was seen before in Davids that is Loves perfect Victory over All his Enemies Yea and Saul also which is the Grave and Hell to which David also alludeth perhaps in That very Psalm Crying the Kables of Hell laid hold of me Kable Seol I shall not digress Here to shew How the Flood it self was a Blessing also to the Earth and a Type of a greater Blessing to come When the skies shall pour down Righteousness and the Earth also shall bring forth Salvation When we shall receive the great showrs and the Latter Rain of the Spirit as we have received the Former little drops and first fruits of it hinted in divers places of Scripture For the whole Earth also must be full of the Knowledg of God as the Waters fill up the Sea and did once cover the Earth yea once and again But the Spirit also moved on the Waters and formed out the Heaven and the Earth so also it shall bring forth a new Heaven and a new Earth in which Righteousness shall dwell And in the Revelation the Earth also holped the woman and drunk up the Flood cast out of the Dragons mouth May it not also be about 1656 from Christs Resurrection or the New Creation as the Flood was so long after the Old Creation And That very Earth which God so cursed even This Cursed Earth must become the Blessed of the Lord. Yea so much his Darling That he resolveth to make it the very Centre of All his Glory and to fill it so with his glorious presence that the very Saints or Angels in Heaven rejoyced in the Revelation that they should come out of Heaven to reign upon the Earth Which is many times also hinted in the Psalms and All the Prophets to be compared with that most remarkable Discourse of God with Moses on Mount Sinai of the Lands enjoying her Sabboth of Rest in Leviticus And the very Song of Moses which is as the Bass to All following Prophesies concludeth with This He will be gracious to his Land as to his People or he will Cover or Atone or Expiate his Land Yea the very word by which God named the Earth which is one of the few things God Himself named and would not leave to Adams Naming as he did other things is such a word as might be also rendered I will delight or be pleased as if Here he meant to take his pleasure and delight rather than in All the Heavens Which must pass away as a Scroul of Parchment before the fire and They shall be no more being only as a Canopy or Curtains now to hide the Glory of God which must ere long fill the Earth which therefore shall Endure for ever and be never moved though renewed and filled both with Righteousness and Peace And God will come to keep his Sabboth of Rest and will delight on Earth and take his pleasure Here and Here also accept his People as himself seemeth sweetly to allude to the very Name Erets by which he named the Earth in the 40. verse of the 20. chapter of Ezekiel Where also This allusion is more sweet and fuller much in the Original than other Languages can well express Berets sam eretsem And in the 34. of the same Prophet he saith I will make them and the places about my Hill a Blessing I will cause the showr to come in his season there shall be showers of Blessing And the Tree of the field shall yield her fruit and the Earth even the whole Earth shall then yield her Increase Which we also read in the 67. 96 97 98 99. and divers other Psalms and in the second of Hosea and divers other Prophets And this Land of Canaan more Accursed than the whole Earth besides while it was held by those accursed Nations so devoted to destruction came to be the Pleasant Land the Holy Land the place of Gods Delight and Residence on which his Eyes and Heart were fixed All the Year And This also but as the First fruits of the Earth For it must All be Full of the glory of God And All Nations must worship him and All Kingdoms must be His. So it is prayed and promised in many places of Scripture Let All the Earth fear the Lord let all the Inhabitants of the World Reverence him For he looketh on them and fashioneth their hearts alike and his Eyes are on them that fear him and Hope in his Mercy All his Works are done in Truth He loveth Righteousness and Judgment All the Earth is full of his Goodness And the next Psalm is Davids Heart or Christs when driven out from Abimeleck the King my Father or the Father of the King he Changed his Habit c. And among other sweet Expressions That may be One When the Face of God is against the wicked to cut them off from Earth They Cry for so is the Original and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their Trouble And again All the Ends of the World shall remember and Turn unto the Lord. And All Nations and Kindreds shall worship him Yea All Kings shall fall down before him and All Nations shall serve him For he shall deliver the Needy when he Cryeth the Poor also and Him that hath no Helper And again All Nations which thou hast made shall come and Worship before thee O Lord and glorifie thy Name And the reason is in the same Psalm For the Lord is Good and ready to forgive and plenteous in Mercy to all that call upon him O sing unto the Lord a New Song which is cited also in the Revelation Sing unto the Lord All the Earth Fear before him All the Earth Say among the Heathen the Lord Reigneth and the whole World shall be Established that it thall not be moved Let the Heavens rejoyce and let the Earth be glad Let the Sea Dance and Rowl with All the Fulness thereof which hereafter we may understand Let the Field be Joyful and All in it Yea Then shall all the Trees of the Wood rejoyce before the
of Iohn lead us plainly to the Feast of Tabernacles and its Evening Songs and joy for Drawing of Water as the Jewes expresse it in their Talmud Adding also That He that never saw That Drawing of Water never saw Ioy in all his Life for more could hardly be expressed on earth then was expressed There And themselves confess it was to shew the Pouring out of the Spirit on All flesh in the Latter Daies which we saw beginning at Pentecost As the fiâ—st Drops of the Former Rain was followed by the great showrs of the Latter Rain After That Feast to prepare the Earth for the Wheat Then to be sown As Barley in the Spring Yea the Prophet Zechary tels us that the very Fast of the 7th Month How solemn and How strictly commanded should be Turned into Ioy and Gladnesse and Solemn Feasting And Then Many peoples plurall and Inhabiters of many Cities Yea the Rabble as the word soundeth shall Goe and say Come and let us Go speedily to seek the faee of God the Lord of Hosts and the Lambs Bride and the Spirit also will say I will Go also Yea Many People and strong Nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem Yea and Damascus it self shall become his quiet Rest his Menu hath when the Eyn of Men or Mankind shall be to the Lord as All the Tribes of Israel And He that remaineth shall be for our God Yea as a Governor in Judah And then are Both Comings of Christ described as before in the second Chapter First on an Ass the Foal of an Ass of which before on the Fourth Command â—nd other places of the Law And then he shall speak peace to the Heathen and have Dominion srom the River to the Ends of the Earth And to Them afar off in the Sea Which we touched before in America And yet Farther And As sor Thee also by the Blood of thy Covenant I have sent forth thy Prisoners out of the Pit where there is no Water Turne ye to the strong hold O Prisoners of Hope even to day do I declare that I will render Double to Thee And then follows the Conquest of Turk or Greece c. And Then the Lightning from the East So shall his coming be we must touch it again in our Discourse of Barak the word here used And Then the Feast of Trumpets in the Seventh Month and so of the Year of Release at the solemnity of Tabernacles As Moses expresseth it And the Jews bring it as High as Isaacs Release for the Ram and Thence they blow with Rams Horns the Jobelin alluding also to the Turnings and overturning of Jericho that is His Moon before the Sun of Josuah Then follow the Songs and other solemn shoutings of That Feast of Tabernacles of which also Lament 2. 7. and it may be Psalm 74. 3 4. Where Perpetual Desolations shall be Ended And the Chapter concludeth How Great is his Goodness How Great his Beauty Corn shall make the young men speak or sinq and New Wine the Maids A sure Character of That Feast at the Great Vintage of which also before in that chapter and the next and 12th also And in That day I will make the Governors of Judah like a Torch in a sheaf another Character of Harvest And the Lord shall save the Tabernacles of Judah first another Character that David or Jerusalem do not glory or exalt themselves against Judah And I will pour on the House of David and Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of Grace and Supplication and they shall look upon me It is Jesus who speaketh This and All whom they have Pierced Of which also St John in his Gospel and yet again how often in the Revelation And we may touch Megiddon again in our Paralels of Kings and Judges And in that day there shall be a Fountain opened for Uncleanness And I will 〈◊〉 off the Names of Idols And then again of Both Comings of the Man that is Gods Fellow And of that Great Feast of Tabernacles which himself also cited or remembred on the Last and Great day of That Feast as we spake before And again in Hosea Great shall be the day of Jesreel it signifies the Seed of God But I will first take away her Corn and Wine and Oyl in the Moads or Seasons thereof and will cause her Mirth to cease her Sabbaths Moons and solemn Moads But I will allure her into the Wilderness and There I will speak comfortably to her And I will give her Vineyards and the Valley of Achor for a Door of Hope How Gracious and she shall sing There as in the Daies of her youth when she came out of Egypt and dwelt in Tabernacles as we read in That Prophet also And in That Day thou shalt call me Ishi my Man and Husband and shalt call me no more Baali my Lord or Master for I will take away the Name of Baalim or Lords out of her mouth and they shall be No more remembred by Their Name And I will hear the Heavens and they shall hear the Earth and This the Corn and Wine and Oyl and All shal hear Jesreel But the children of Israel shall abide many daies without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice But afterwards they shall return and seek their Lord and their God and David their King and shall fear the Lord and his Goodness in the latter daies or End of the Year And as That greatest Feast of Tabernacles was at the End of the year so was their Greatest Meal at the End of the Day Whence we read of the Lambs Supper and the Lords Supper rather than Dinner which with Them was slight and little or nothing else but a Break fast As the Ravens brought the Prophet Flesh at the Morning and Flesh at the Evening Yea and God also had a Lamb at the Morning and another at Evening And Blessed is the Land whose Princes are Noble Offering Tamid before Break fast and Minha before Supper As the old Targum and other Jewish Writers on That of Solomon And although there were 12 kinds of Minha Yet That in Evening and Time thereof alone was called The Minha Being offered at the End or Evening of the Dayes As we read in Abels Minha or â—ains in Gen. 4. being just at the Time of the Evening Incense the Ketureth As Abrahams Evening Marriage if we may so call it of Keturah brought him More sons then his Morning Marriage of Sara Let my Prayer come like Ketureth and the lifting up of my Hands As the Evening Minha And the Priests of Baal cryed till Minha Then and not till Then God shewed himself by the Prophet Elijah Who was Then As the Evening Star Though in the Revelation compared to the Morning Star scattering the dark Clouds and Nightbirds of Jesabels time as we saw before in the Fourth Church And Then Elijah Treadeth Carmel or Cramel the Vintage of God which from Esay 63 and
Prophets and our Saviour also that God would never deal worse with any then with that Nation And the Prophet Ieremiah saith he that believeth shall never cease from giving fruit and the Psalmist that his leaves shall never quite fall off and Christ saith that he which beareth any fruit in him shall be purged that he may bear more In him is all our fruit found and in him we go in and out and still find fresh pasture and he that once drinketh of His living waters never thirsteth more or is quite dry but still findeth a fountain in him flowing up to Eternal Life And St. Paul saith If thou shalt confesse with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved For which also he citeth two great Prophets Isaiah and Joel which is cited also by St. Peter in his first publique Sermon For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved For this Jesus is Lord of All even Davids Lord also and Rich unto All that call upon him And Paul also saith that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Which was oft no little stay to one I sometime knew in great anguish fearing the good Spirit had forsaken him And to all that so acknowledge Christ for their Lord and as their Lord worship him as the Psalms bid us and call upon him the same Apostle saith that no temptation comes but common unto man And that God is faithful and will not suffer them to be Templed above their strength but with the Temptation will provide an Issue that they may be able to bear it Which is also the last Petition in Our Lords Prayer and so sure to be granted And to All so acknowledging Christ St. John saith If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse And to All such he saith If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sin and not for ours onely but for the sins of the whole World which are some of the sweetest places in the Bible and belonging to All that call on Jesus of Nazareth which I see you do And to All such and therefore to you also St. Paul the great Teacher of the Gentiles writeth as from God in Heaven and his Son Jesus the Judge of all men and Angels also that if we judge our selves as I see you do we shall not be judged by him which is one of the greatest and highest Prerogatives or Royalties a mortal man can be capable of The Jews speak of it as one of the first things delivered by God to Moses and by him to Joshua and so down through all their Elders and Wise men in all ages to be Slow to judge or very slow in judging and it is one of the greatest and most difficult things in the world to be a righteous Judge in any matters of concernment more of our selves and yet more in matters of another world and yet most of all for all eternity so far above our sence and reason also that we know not how to guess about it but by Revelation The great thing foretold of Christ in the Psalms and Prophets is That he was to be the great and most supream Judge of all Persons in all Causes Which we might track through all the Bible up as high as Enoch Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgement upon all c and for this he received a most solemn Commission and was fitted and filled also with the spirit of Wisdom Knowledge Understanding Councell Power and Fear of-the Lord yea to make him very quick or tender in the Fear of God that he might judge righteous judgement And this was one great reason of his being made Man that he might be our Peer and an equal daies-man between God and us that should not make us afraid with his Terror when he judged us it being so consonant to Reason and to Scripture also that the Power Legislative Judiciall and Executive should be in distinct persons and run in distinct Channels God would have it so in himself also and came out in the person of the Father giving the Law though indeed the Free persons that receive and submit even the Law-takers are the great Law-makers But the Sonne is the Judge and the Spirit executes his judgements For the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father For as the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself and the Son quickneth whom he will and hath given him authority to execute judgement also because he is the Son of man Jesus Christ therefore being the great and only Judge having all judgement committed to him no man may pre sume to make himself a Judge or take it on him but when Christ committeth it and then onely As he commandeth and directeth Let me therefore first desire you to consider that you run not on a Premunire or be Anti-christian or a Traitor against the main office of Christ while you judge your self or any other for who hath made you a Judge or a divider If you say Christ hath bid you judge your self you must be sure of your Commission that you have it and can read and understand it also For his own general rule out of his own mouth was Judge not that ye be not judged And he that taketh upon him to judge and condemn another or so much as to think evil of his neighbour and t' is worse of a stranger whom he knoweth not speaketh evill of the Law and judgeth or condemneth the Law yea and it may be the Law-maker also And though Christ did promise first to his twelve Apostles Judas also it seems being among them that they having followed him in the Regeneration should sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel And afterwards even after his last supper before his death he said to them Yee are they which have continued with me in my Temptations and I appoint you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom and sit on Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel there being then also it seems twelve with him and so Judas also though Saint John saith he went out immedately after the sop Yet this was not to be till he himself was to receive his Kingdom and As he did receive it at his Fathers hand and appointment which was not till after Death and Resurrection and Ascention to his glory Then he received gifts for men and for the Rebel also Then and not till then he gave out the Spirit which was not to be
my Name even to the Ten Tribes of Israel and I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my Name even for my Name which now he fights against And when Ananias came he laid his hands upon him saying Brother Saul the Lord even Jesus who appeared to thee in the way hath sent me that thou mayest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost Adding also as Saint Paul observeth to the chief Captain and people of Ierusalem The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his Will and see that just One and hear the voice of his mouth for thou shalt be his witnesse unto all men And now why tarriest thou Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins for even those that were baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire like the Apostles at Pentecost yet were to be baptized with water also as we see in the History of Cornelius calling on the Name of the Lord. And that it was the Lord Jesus on whose Name he bad Paul pray and that he prayed to him is very plain by that which Paul himself addeth to those words Arise and call upon the Name of the Lord And while I prayed in the Temple I fell in a Trance and saw him saying to me Hast and get thee out of Ierusalem for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me And I said Lord they know that I imprisoned and beat in every Synagogue those that believed on thee And when the blood of thy Martyr Stephen was shed I also was standing by and consenting to his death and kept the raiment of them that slew him And he said unto me Depart for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles As before Unto my people Israel Which may be one among other divers other Reasons why I may think the Ten Tribes scattered among them were then also called Gentiles yea and that they might be even some of those Gentiles while they were to be called Loammi and Loruhama though afterwards the very same people were to be called Ammi and the people of God as an Emblem also that the world should come to be the Lords Ammi and Ruhama from Loammi Loruhama Israel being but the first fruits of the world as we may clear anon And there are many things which makes me a little suspect that some Gentile Nations as they seem may be some of the Ten Tribes or at least the posterity of Abraham by Keturah or by Ishmael if not by Isaak also through Esau especially the old Saxons and those Northern people whose very Lawes Customs and Language savour so much of the Hebrew in very many things and words besides their common use of A and The for Articles with very many Monosillables and words written with ch gh gn cn or kn th dh wh wr. fr. And many others plainly Hebrew sounds In another place also Paul giving an account of this matter to Agrippa the King saith I verily thought I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth which I did also having received authority from the chief Priests and I punished them in every Synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme styling himself also a Blasphemer And being exceeding mad against them c. But being strucken down and hearing a voice speaking I said Who are thou Lord And he said I am Jesus whom thou persecutest But arise and stand upon thy feet for I have appeared to thee for this purpose to make thee a Minister and a Martyr both of these things which thou hast seen and those in which I wil appear unto thee Delivering thee from the people of the Jews and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgivenesse of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith which is in me Which I cite so largely because I take it for the best compendium of the Gospel and a true Ministers Commission that I remember And that phrase of Faith in me not only on me but in me seemeth not by chance but so considerable that Saint Paul often useth it in divers places especially to the Galatians where he calleth it Faith of Christ or Christs faith as if he would say He lived and was saved by faith indeed but that which was in Christ rather then in himself or Christs faith rather then His as if Christ by believing for he was justified by faith also in a true sense did not only carry out himself but all his Members also from the Grave and Death and Hell to life and glory And to summe up all I have or should deliver of Pauls observing prayers unto Jesus Christ 't is said in the Ninth of the Acts That when he Preached Christ in the Synagogues that he is the Son of God all that heard him were amazed and said Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this Name and came hither that he might bring them bound to the chief Priests So that it is clear it was in Pauls account the great Badge of a Christian and the distinguishing Character of Christian profession And it is worth observing How he useth that Name and what a stresse he put upon it all along his life and writings Having obtained help of God saith he I continue witnessing to small and great saying no other things then what Moses and the Prophets said that Christ should suffer and should be the first the very first that should rise from the Dead though others might be raised before him and should shew light unto the People and to the Gentiles Which also he cites to the Jews in that most remarkable Sermon at Anioch Acts the Thirteenth of the sure mercies or holy things of David promised to every one that thirsteth and cometh to the waters and many other particulars concluding with their turning to the Gentiles as the Lord commanded saying I have set thee to be a Light to the Gentiles and for salvation to the utmost ends of the earth And the Psalm addeth To them also that are afar off in the seas and America in the Hebrew may signifie a People afar off though I believe that Phrase in the Psalms may mean some farther or mere lost or miserable then the poor Americans So old Simeon said Christ was to be a Light to lighten the Gentiles first to lighten the Gentiles and then to be the glory also to Israel his people Israel Whence People often opposed to the Gentiles And another Simeon at the great Council Acts 15. saith God put no difference between them and us purifying their hearts by faith But we believe saith he that through the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they Here Paul learned or might learn his Character or proper mark he giveth them of his genuine Epistles The Grace of our Lord
Lords Threatnings and This in particular used to Adam Dying thou shalt die or Thou shalt surely die The very Words spoken to Adam and the worst of All that was Threatned to Him When I say to the Wicked as I did once to my dearly beloved Adam in Innocence Thou shalt surely die Yet if he Turn and Thou must warn him of those very words that he may Turn and Repent and Then he shall surely live he shall not die Which is several times repeated notwithstanding that Doom Thou shalt surely Die. Which in general God hath here interpreted when ever he so speaketh or shall so speak for it is the Infinite Mood or Manner of speaking In my saying or when ever I do say or shall say Dying thou shalt Dië or Thou shalt surely Die Yet it is not nor may be taken as any Absolute Doom but a conditional Threatning Which in case of Repentance shall never come to Sentence and much less to Execution And yet it was to a Wicked Man as Wicked O Thou wicked Man and so to one in a much worse condition and more desperate than Adam was when it was so pronounced to him in Paradice And upon This Occasion also God Comments on that Clause in the second Command of visiting the Fathers sins upon the Children which the Jews judged not Equal and expressed by their usual Proverb The Fathers have Eaten the sowr Grapes and the Childrens Teeth are set on Edge Which he confutes at large in the 18 of Ezekiel and sweareth it shall not be used any more Which is to be compared with That most sweet Chapter the 31. of Jerem. Where also That Evil Proverb is commanded and promised Down with such a sweet and gracious Context both before and after it as can never be too much considered And the Lords Discourse against That Proverb may be a good Comment on that passage in the second Command of visiting Iniquities of the Fathers on the Children But on Those that go on in their Fathers Iniquities And Then also the Children never Die for the Fathers sin They may be visited or chastened But They shall not Die for their Fathers sin No not for their Great Father Adams Which is a very comfortable thing and much to be considered by All and in special with relation to Infants that die without Actual sin having not sinned after the similitude of Adams Transgression But the Lord hath here promised the Children shall not die for or Bear the Fathers sin Nor indeed was That Expressed to Adam or for ought appeareth was intended that His Children should Die for His sin Nay rather God hath expressly declared the contrary that They shall not And yet Death came in by sin and passed over All seeing All have sinned and came short of the Glory of God And yet They do not Die and sure Then not Eternally for their Fathers sin Which may be compared with That of our Savior touching the man born blind and yet neither for His Own sin or his Fathers but that the Glory of God might be seen in his blindness And yet the Fathers Iniquity for That is the Phrase May be visited upon the Children and are the Visitations of God Smal things But yet why should we despair of the Goodness of God even in his visitation seeing Himself also hath chosen such a Phrase that with God and man speaketh kindness And a Love visit rather than any Hatred And if we rightly understand Gods heart in All we would long for his visits though he should come but to chide or to chasten us and we should value the very lowest and the meanest of his visits at a very great rate Sure it is not a little thing to be visited by a great Man How much more by a good Man which if we understood and saw the person they represent to us and the Embassage they still come about we should cry as Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary How is it that the Mother Brother Sister of my Lord vouchsafeth thus to visit me for every one that is His and doth His Fathers will is his Mother Brother Sister as himself speaketh And have not many Thus entertained Angels How much more is it then for God and Jesus Christ to come and visit such poor Worms as we are For What is Man that thou shouldest so magnifie him even so magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thy heart upon him and That Thou shouldest Visit him every morning and Try him every moment Yea as if David would lead us up to the very Visits made by God to Adams Children after the Fall he expresseth it Thus Lord what is Enos that thou shouldest remember him and the Son of Adam that thou shouldest visit him For he very well knew it a great condescention in God and happiness to Man that God should come to visit him For his Visitations sustain our spirits and preserve us alive I need not tel you what the Jews say of Sampsons visiting his Wife with a Kid or Abrahams visiting of Hagar in the Wilderness a Type of what is on her and her Children to this day as St. Paul speaketh Or what is promised to all the Kings and great men in the Terrible Pit that after many daies they should be visited as we read in Esay to be compared also with Zech. 9. 11 12. Yea even when his Visit is to chasten us it is an Honor and an Happiness My Son despise not thou the Chastening of the Lord neither be thou weary of His Correction for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as a Father doth a Son of his delight Behold Happy is the man whom the Lord correcteth Therefore despise not thou the chastising of the Almighty For be maketh sore and bindeth up He woundeth and his hands make whole Which in That very Book also is more largely repeated by Elihu in the person of Christ as his Name imports He is my God who sheweth Gods designs in afflicting of Man yea and Then when he visiteth in Anger though he know it not in great Extremity a very considerable Expression whether we take it of God or of Job who was taught that all Gods Angry visits were for Good of man to shew him his Way and to hide Pride from him and to recover him from his sins and sorrows also Which is confirmed also by the Psalmist in divers places Especially after he hath so solemnly called Invited and Wooed all Nations and People of the Earth to come in and bow to God because of his Goodness and marvelous Kindness to the children of men from the 95. onward Shewing also that Afflictions and the Lords visits even unto Fools the worst of men is to make them cry to God and stir up his Pities and Compassions that never fail and to make his tender bowels yearn over them so that he will hear them in their trouble and will save them out of their distress He will send his Word and heal them and
Lord. For he Cometh He Cometh to Judg the World The Lord Reigneth let the Earth rejoyce and let the many Isles be glad The Heavens declare his Righteousness and all the People see his Glory Which in the next Psalm is All the ends of the Earth have seen the Salvation of God As in Luke also All flesh shall see the salvation of God Which in Esay is Thus The Glory of God shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together And in the same Prophet Sing O Heavens for the Lord hath done it Shout O lower parts of the Earth break forth into singing ye Mountains O Forrest and every Tree therein And again Look unto me and be saved All the ends of the Earth For I am God and there is None else I have sworn by my self for there is No Greater that to me every Knee shall bow and every Tongue shall swear and pray and praise and confess to the Glory of God and my Father who said Ask of me and I will give thee the utmost ends of the Earth And while our Saviour lived on Earth he travelled to Aegypt and to other places about the Holy Land As taking possession of them Blessing them also by his blessed presence For the time was coming yea and Then come when not only at That or other Mountains of that Holy Land but in All places men should Worship God in Spirit and in Truth For the Father Seeketh such to worship him Yea and Those Lands also that had so afflicted and oppressed the People of God in all Ages even Aegypt and Assyria must come to sharers with the Land of Israel it self in the greatest Blessings For in that day shall Israel be a Third and but a Third with Aegypt and Assyria even a Blessing in the midst of the Earth whom the Lord of Hosts himself shall bless saying Blessed be Aegypt my People and Assyria the work of my hands as we read in the Prophet Esay to be compared with other places And the Reason given in the very Law of Redemption speaketh This because the Land was Gods Land and they were but Gods Tenants in it though in the Best and freest Fee for it was given to Abraham and his seed for Ever who was Heir of the World as the Apostle speaks And yet So that they must still acknowledg God to be their Lord Paramount their Grand Landlord And They might never give or sell or aliene no nor forfeit it which is very comfortable but so that it still must and should and shall be Redeemed again by the Tenant himself or his Kinsman Or however which was still to be observed it must go out Free wholly Free at the great Year of Jubilee of which more ere long And the Reason was This Because the Land was Gods Land and He would still retain his Right to it and in it and would still dispose it as he pleased whatever the present Tenant did And doth not the same Reason hold for All the Earth Yea did it not hold from the very first Fall of Adam and Man-kind in him Was not Then also the Earth even the whole Earth the same Landlords Had he not as much Right to it as to This Land of Canaan Would he so easily quit his Right in it Though Man a weak and vain and foolish Creature made a Forfeiture of His Possession or His Right shall it not then be as it was divers times with this Land of Canaan that when he shall have purged out the filth thereof by the spirit of Judgment and of Burning That which remaineth shall be Holy And why may it not be Thus also with our bodies and our flesh which hath so long been As the accursed Earth Yea as Babylon it self an Habitation of unclean spirits and a Cage of all unclean birds Why may it not also become the blessed Land of Promise and the Land of Rest Yea the Holy Place and Temple of the Lord of all the Earth Which is a Phrase very much to be marked As a name in which the Lord himself seemeth to glory being also the same Lord that is stiled the God of the Spirits of All flesh Which may be the Foundation of That Prayer and That Promise also that All flesh may and shall be brought to praise and bless the Lord as also that All the Earth must be full of the Glory of God For the place of his very Feet must be Glorious And what Glory Then will be upon This Earth when the Curtains or Canopy of the Heavens shall be drawn and the Glory of God shall appear and will the Earth as his chiefest Residence Will he not Then Give the Greatest Honour to the Weaker Vessel and the more abundant honor to the most uncomly parts or That which lacked most before It might be added also that the very City Jerusalem was not only Accursed as the rest but longer than other parts of the Land Trodden down by the accursed Jebusites which had their very name from Tredding down as the Revelation also seemeth to allude and These Jebusites grew up to be so Odious that before he conquered them 't is said His Soul even Davids Soul that is Love it self Hated them Even Them who possessed That very Fort which was afterwards his Darling and the dearly beloved of his Soul Yea That which God Chose-above all the Gates or Cities of Judah Yet in it self besides its accursed possessors it was but a dry barren Rock and so called Zion Drought or a Dry barren place And Morijah also where the Temple stood was but the Threshing place of one of these accursed Jebusites though as a Liberal Prince to David himself And though in Hebrew it may signifie the Lords Teaching yet others bring it up to Myrrh or Bitterness and in Greek it signifieth Foolishness to which also the Apostle may allude in several places And by This time I may conclude this Discourse of Turning accursed places or unholy into Blessed and Holy with That solemn saying of our Saviour The last shall be first and the first last Which he repeated so that I often think it might intimate a greater Mystery than I am yet sensible of As if All the Course of Gods Providence were as a Wheel in constant Motion pulling down the high Spoaks and bringing up the low ones Which Moses also long before described in his Psalm of Nature Grace and Glory Thou turnest man about as grinding him with the upper and the lower Milstone of Grief and Pain to clay or dust and Then thou sayest Return again Again ye Sons of Man Return again O Lord How long and let it repent thee concerning thy servants That is Make them Turn and Repent as we find it plain enough in the 80. Psalm and divers other places that Gods Effects In Man are expressed as His Affections To Man O satisfie us with thy Free Grace in the morning when our Night of pain and sorrow is past For Though sorrow
Her Captivity must return again as we saw in Abrahams History compared with Ezekiel and where ever those Waters came there was Life and Healing and no more curse It s possible also that the Time of This great change may be hinted in the fourteenth year or second Sabboth of Prophetical years as David also was the fourteenth from Abraham as the Number of his Name imports after the four great Monarchies had Lorded it Twelve whole years which may be also Prophetical years from Nimrod Or from Abrahams Time or Promise And as Israel got off their Curss and Gods goodnesse turned it into a Blessing as our evil sometimes turns our Blessings into Curses so doth his Goodnesse turn his Curses in Blessings whence it may be the very same Word in Hebrew signifieth both to Curse and to Blesse as we find in several places of Job and other Scriptures So did Edom also cast off his Yoak and his Curse also it seems and got a Blessing As we see in his Fathers Blessing and Prophecy Which was also hinted by his Brother when by wrestling he had got the Name of Israel a Prince with God and had prevailed also with men he useth his Power for Edification presently as the Apostle speaketh and not for Destruction And cometh out in the Power and Spirit of that God whom he had so conquered and doth not only carry a Blessing to his Brother Esaw and intreateth him but with an Holy violence forceth him to take it Receive the Blessing which I bring thee from God and he urged or forced him by pressing on him and he took it And we read how he cast off the Yoak of Israel even to this day at the time of Jehoshaphat or the Lords Judgement Yea he did not only cast off Israels Yoak but came to rule and reign over Israel himself at the comming of Christ. As we find in the Herods and Agrippa the King from the Seed of Edom hated cursed Esaw Which we may consider when we read of Gods Shining out from Seir Coming from Teman or appearing from Paran And the Prophet Esay cryeth Who is This that cometh from Edom with Dyed garments from Bozra I that speak Righteousnesse mighty to Save And his Red Garments may allude to Edom if it signifie Red as many will have it which may be rather a Glutton And though Balaam say the Star of Jacob or the Scepter of Israel shall smite the Corners of Moab and Destroy all the Children of Seth and Edom shall be a Possession to be compared with Obadiah yet the Prophet Amos speaketh of Edoms Possessing the Tabernacle of David when raised up As we may Translate the words cited also in the Acts where Edom also is coupled with Those that call upon or are called by the Name of the Lord. in Dan we read that Edom with Moab and Ammon shall escape out of the hand of the Destroyer which some make Antichrist or the Turck who to this day payes Tribute to those Arabs of Edom Moab and Ammon rather then Ruleth over them Yet as Babylon is threatned with perpetual Desolations because he laid the World wast and would not open his Prison Doors to let his Prisoners loose and send them home a-again which hath been very comfortable when I have applyed it to Christ in prayer So also the great Curse Threatned to Edom was because he forgot the Brotherly kindnesse and the Covenant that should have been between Him and his Brother Jacob and let his Wrath tear for ever Which hath also been sweet to my thoughts when I have applyed it to Christ and asked whither He also would put himself under the perpetual Curse of Edom by forgetting the Brotherly Kindnesse and Brotherly Covenant and by letting His wrath also Tear for Ever God forbid Next unto Cursed Edom Moab and Ammon may be well placed the Incestuous Children of Lot which signifieth a veil or cloth as God himself seemeth to allude when after Lot was Separate from Abraham for Israel must dwell alone God said Lift up now thy eyes and look c. And again in the Prophet Isa. I will take away the Veil or Lot for that is the Word in Hebrew from the face of all people Even in that Mountain where he will tread down Moab who was Son of that Lot twice named There in Heb. Of Moab and Ammon it is said they should never come into the Church of God one of the worst threatnings in all the Bible and the cause in Deut. and Neh. is because they met not their Brethren with Bread and Water and hired Balaam to curse them but God turned his curse into a blessing and so I hope he did This Curse also of Moab and Ammon For their Ever or Never is in another place limited by Ten Generations Seeing God himself hath expounded ever and never in the Case of Ammon and Moab by Ten Generations Why may not we Take it so in other places also Especially seeing it is often used where it cannot be meant of Eternity As the Servant bored in his ear must serve for ever which is but till the next Jubile as we may find in the twenty fifth of Leviticus and all the Jews on those places And Christ also tells us the Servant abides not in the House for Ever And how often is it said Jerusalem shall Ever be desolate and never be built again or Inhabited As we found in Idumeah And yet it was built again after the seventy Years Captivity and may be yet again after all This. As we find Ay was built again and inhabited in the return of Nehemiah the Lords Comfort or Repentance Though Josuah himself that mighty Type of Jesus had made it so signally Desolate and that for Ever also a Desolate heap for ever As the very Name may intimate in Hebrew Greek and divers other Languages As the Stones also placed by the same Josuah are called a Memorial for ever And so are the Rites of the Passover and the Shew-bread and Aarons Priest-hood Yea in the very Family of Phineas though it was soon changed nay the very Garments of the Priests are a Statute for ever And his Trimming the Lamps and Restraint of blood and fat also for ever and Circumcission is called an everlasting Covenant in their Flesh. And Samuel was presented at the Tabernacle to abide There for ever And David was chosen to be King over Israel for Ever and his Son Solomon saith I know that whatsoever God doth it shall be for Ever And I know not any Word or Phrase for Eternity in Scripture that is not applyed to Heaven and Earth or other things which pass away But Christs Words shall Never passe away And for Moab and Ammon As I live saith the Lord the God of Israel and the Common Rule is that Threatnings with an Oath are never reversed Surely Moab shall be as Sodom and Ammon as Gomorrah and Perpetual Desolation as we read in Zeph. And yet in Jeremy
Kallath a Spouse and somwhat else also in Hebrew or in English calling our Kall about our Belly by such a name Shall I add also How often God commands his people to abstain from or take heed of Kelaim Though the word be hard enough and never used that I now remember but in Moses Laws and once or Twice in Esay or Solomon complaining of a foolish people that entangled themselves in Kelaim which some translate the Stocks As Solomon speaks of a Fool hasting to the Stocks till a Dart strike through his Liver Or his Reins be consumed among many Witnesses as if he would allude to all the Hebrew words we are now speaking of Prov. 5. 11 14. 7 22 23. It is cleer enough that Kelaim signifies some Mixed seed and that not only in Grains but Beasts also as it is plainly seen in Leviticus 19. And This also makes the very Number of the Beast 666. as it is with the usual Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 turned Backward Is it not also the very number of the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not only as the Latine Renes or the English Reins which yet keep course enough with the Moon in our Brain and in Heaven too And taught David every Night as the Heavens in the 19. Psalm and they may teach us every Day also which in Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is just 666. As the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is also the Reins of our Brains How neer is the sound to Reins and Rains also as we saw before in Showrs even our very Secret Thoughts or Fancies which should be covered as other Secrets in Nature Which are akin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or our Shame in Hebrew or the most privy Secrets whence the Latine Clam And Olam also may signifie Their Iniquity their Folly their Yoak their Shame or Hidden Secrets As also Sodam in Heb is not only the City Sodam of which also the Revelation But also their Secret As Jacob speaks of his cruel Sons Let not my soul be in their secret in Heb Be Sodam Where the very word in Numbers according to the old Mazorites in 666. Let me add also that the word Beast in Hebrew Letters is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is also Shame and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Shame as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our seat or in Natibus as the Jews also use that word As the English also in a Phrase not to be spoken And the Number of it is 700. And that Beast or Bosht or shame is the Idol which God doth so often complain of in the Prophets As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their Bush and Shame That I say nothing of That part which the Jews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fools or Beasts Orion But to return to Numbers It may be like enough that every such Revolution may bring up some Great Change as in the Moon seeing also many if not All the 7th and 10th Persons or Generations in Scripture had some very signal Characters As Enoch the 7th from Adam Noah the 10 th As Abraham was the 10th from Noah and Moses the 7th from Abraham and David the second 7th or 14th as we found in the very number of his Name and Years also Though it be somtimes written by 24 as he was from Noah As the 24th hour of the New Day beginning from Noah that is Rest as at first from the Rest of Night or Nihat Heb. And perhaps David did not make but finde all things about the Priests or Tabernacle setled by 24. Which from the Jews also we may learn to be the Number of Things given to the Priests by God Some of which themselves only might eat Others their Children also and others were common to their very slaves or sons of their Handmaids if born in the Priests Houses or bought with his Money So that it was a saying common enough among the Jews That the Priests Boyes and slaves had more right to Holy Meats than All the Men of Israel Which may be considered by them that deny the Sacrament to the Children of Professors in the visible Church as Children born in the Priests Family or sons of persons Bought or Redeemed which might eat the Holy things that might not be eaten by a man of Judah though Hired to work in the Priests Family Noah is said to be Perfect in his Generations for he saw Two Worlds or Generations coming up at the beginning of the seventh great Week as we may call it or as many years from the Creation as the seventh Week is Hours We see what a change there was in His Time by the Flood in the second Thousand Years As the Waters were Divided in the second Day of Creation What it might Typifie out also in These Daies we touched before Jaacob is said also to be Perfect which some read a Plain man but it is as of Noah before a Perfect man Which hath made me consider whither Jacob might not be the Close of His Generation as Noah of His and David of His who saw the Times or Periods of the Kingdoms or World about him as we read in the close of the first of Cronicles Which the Jews call Words of Dayes Which we may understand Hereafter David also brought up a New Jerusalem and a New World as a New Heaven and a New Earth and bound up Satan or Saul for 1000 Years as we also touched before in Saul or Paul And Elijah also and Elisha with Jehosaphat the Lord Judging Though a good while before Zedekiah the Lords Justice or the General Judgment As Laodicea after Philadelphia the New Jerusalem And Jehoram the High Lord both in Israel and Judah When also Moab and Edom freed themselves from the Yoak of Jaacob as his Father promised in his Blessing Esau so much and so oft supplanted by his brother Jacob though God own him as a Plain man without Guile And among divers other things we read no where but in Esdras of the Roman Empire and Christ also who citeth divens things of that Book we are There also told that Esaus Heel was the End of the World and Jacobs Hand on that heel the beginning of another And as Jaacob was a Perfect man in his Generation one of a Thousand as Solomon speaketh After Elihu in Job So his Children are the True Israelites indeed in whom there is No Guile As our Saviour speaketh of Nathaniel And They are Sons of Light in opposition to the Sons of Esau or Ishmael as sons of Darkness As the 12 hours of Night were before the 12 Hours of Day or Children of Light But there is yet more in it For although All the sons of Jacob were beloved before Fsaus in the Type yet among Jacobs also there was a Joseph and a Benjamin Son of the Right hand and Those were
read it As The Lord is in his Holy Place let All Flesh be Silent and again Let All the Earth be Silent before him Let my Prayer be directed as Incense and the Lifting up of my Hands as the Evening Minha of which again And In Thy Name I will Lift up my Hands And in His Name Every Knee must bow Which with Christians was As Lifting up Hands with the Jews Who in praying Stood and seldom Kneeled or fell upon their Faces or much Bowed except very Creat and Good or as they speak Righteous men But generally they Stood Praying and Lifting up their Hands And so Paul also biddeth though himself Kneeled on the sands and Christ Kneeled and fell flat in his Agony I will that men pray Every where or in All Places Lifting up Pure Hands as in the Prophets Pure Incense or Holy hands without wrath and doubting Yea and Christ also lifted up his eyes to Heaven as he bid us sav Our Father in Heaven though he said and knew the Father was in Him And yet when he lifted up his hand to swear that it might appear he owned none greater than himself he sware by himself that every knee should bow to Him And yet as the Apostle saith this also must be to the glory of God the Father which is Reason enough for granting all we can ask For only For Thine is the Kingdom Power and Glory Thus in our Prophet Daniel Lifting up of hands was a figure of Swearing And so in that of Amalech a Branch of Esau by a Concubine because his Hand against the Lords Kiss or Throne or covering of the Moon the Lords hand on his Throne for War with Amalech from Age to Age Middor Dor 448 reaching to David And blotting I will blot out the memorial of Amalech from under Heaven Yet but Under heaven O how cautious and how gracious God is in his lifting up his heavy hand David was as keen against Amalech as any we finde remembring how Saul was cut off and that by an Amalekite for sparing Amalech Nor could David rest till he had cut off Amalech though we find Reliques of them in Hezekiahs time and yet the great end of all this against Amalech also is That they may seek the Pace of the Lord and that they may know that thou JEHOVAH art most High over all the earth As we read of Amalech also in Psalm 83 which may Comment on all those heavy Prayers against Edom and Moab and Amalech and all Gods Enemies also not to destroy them for Ever as some think putting men in little letters The Text is plain enough That They may seek and that They may know c. So God lifted up his Hand in the Wilderness to swear in his Zeal t is often cited what Not that they should not rest But If they enter into My rest How cautious Yet I may add That as there was a Second Moneth for such as could not keep the Mood and Tense of the right Passover and for such The Lord be merciful though they be not according to the strictnes of the Sanctuary as good Hezekiah prayed and the Lord heard and accepted and Healed So there was also a Second Sabbath and a Third and yet an Olam or a New Moon Yea and after all the Changes of That year there was a Sabbatical year also and a Jubile when All must rest and come again into the possessions of their Fathers Yea and the very standing still of Joshvahs Sun and moon and over Gibeon also might intimate a Rest of Heaven for some that had not kept a Rest or Sabbath on Earth And if That were just so many Sabbaths of years from the Creation as there were Dayes in their Solar or Lunar year Or just so many Jubilies from the Creation as there be Weeks in a year it may be some little Help to fix Chronology which may be considered again And That summ of the Law and Gospel too the 20th of Ezekiel sheweth us How and Why God made the Sabbaths for Man and not Man for the Sabbath As Christ himself glosseth on Those words Moreover and above all the Law and Statutes also I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and Them That they might know that I the Lord am still sanctifying Them For it is a Participle Present noting a continued Act. And again in the same Chapter That you may know that I am the Lord your God And There also he often speaketh of Lifting up his Hand to swear against them and of That very Oath of not bringing them into Canaan but addeth many times Neverthelefs my Eye spared them and his Heart is better than his Eye from destroying them nor did I make an end of them c. Yea and after All their own and Childrens Blaspheming of Him That is the Word yet the sum of his Threatnings is that He would bring them into the Wilderness of the People and There I will speak kindly to them in Hoseah But Heer Plead with them as I pleaded with their Fathers in the Wildernesse And I will cause you to passe under the Rod and bring you into the Bond of the Covenant or Masoroth thereof And then follow some of the sweetest promises in all the Bible for True Gospel Repentance and Remission of Sins And This after they had forfeited that Good Land of Rest and God took the Forfeiture awhile and drove them out As Adam out of Paradice But Then followed Them with Both Hands lifted up to Blesse them When he went about to swear against them He lifted up but One Hand and That also was pulled back again But to Blesse them he Lifted up Both Hands As Christ also in Healing and Blessing All about him in severall places to be added to Act. 3. 26. And the Priests came Out of the Temple Lifting up Both Hands and opening their fingers as the Holy Windows Blessed Those might not come In. To which also the Psalmist may allude in That The Lord Blesse thee Out of Zion and send thee Help Out of his Holy Place Out of it though thou be not In it but As Jonah said I am Cut off yet I will Look towards his Holy Place As Solomon also Prayed for Those that should so look towards it As we find also Our Prophet Daniel Looking towards it from a Great Distance And That Saying Send thee Help Out As it plainly intimates They were not There but Out at Distance So it may also allude to the usuall name they gave the Temple Court from Ezra Help As Eben-Ezer And there was No Case so Bad They say But There might Help be Had. And so They called it Help As a Present Help in Time of Need. There was One thing more We must observe in Lifting up of Hands and That is Numbering In the very Name of Right Hand Jamin It shall Number Order and Prefer And as Right-Hand Blessings were the Greatest So were their Right-Hand Numbers At her
touched before in 3 And Even Numbers for Earth And 7 the first Number in which Heaven and Earth do meet and are Reconciled And the first made of any Three whole Numbers and an Half The next is 14 for 10 and an half is a Fraction As famous for the Passover to Israel as 7 for the Sabboth To Israel I say for when they did not enter His Rest and keep His Sabbath or first seventh as they should have done in great kindnesse he prepared or sanctified the next Sabbath for Them Or the fourteenth day of the first Moneth for their Passover And for their Vnclean or Travellers which God did own and encourage as in Strangers a second Passover on the fourteenth day of the second Moneth But in the New Jerusalem or That described in Ezekiel 45 The Sanctuary is cleansed and the Posts of the House and Gates of the Court also with the Corners of the Alters Settle are sprinkled with Blood On the very first Day of the first Moneth So quick will he be in Cleansing his House And Then on the very first Seventh Day of the first Moneth a Sacrifice is ordered and offered for All and every One that Erreth As also Heb. 5. 2. And least This might leave out Any He addeth also For Him whoever that is Simple or Seduced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Even as English use the word Pity and a Piteous simple Creature which is just 490. as in Daniels Weeks from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both in Greek and Hebrew to lead one in or from ones Path and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in Greek also the great Seducer Which I may not English Though a kin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both full and foul and fool as well as folly and folium Faba sed abstinendum est a fabis and to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also Though it be often used in a good sence as to pun or pound or ponder ones path as Caleb was of Jephunne much a kin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fane and faine and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What ever Time This in Ezekiel may intimate It seems to lessen the great work of Aarons Family and sets up the King or Nasi Is it not the time of Melchisedech who he saith shall no more oppress the people Yet They shall All be His and for Him and but an Offering for him And upon him it shall be to order or offer All the Oles or whole offerings and Minhaes and Sack also the Drink offerings In the Haggings or feasting dayes and New Moons and Sabbaths In All the Moeds of the House of Israel He shall Doe cum vitulo faciam the sins and sin offerings and the Minha and the Ole and Solemn Salems in the Ever of the House of Israel As if Jerusalem it self were but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jeru Salem They shall see peace When the first stone was laid they cryed Grace grace But now Peace also Grace and Peace Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and Peace of God that passeth All Passovers and all Pentecosts also with All understanding shall preserve and keep your hearts first and then your Minds also Through Christ Jesus and no wonder Then the next words be Finally my brethren Yet a little while and it shall be Eternally my Brethren For Your Fathers good pleasure is to give you a Kingdom And you shall See Eye to Eye Grace and Peace also He hath willed it and through His Grace We will it also Say Amen and say it Boldly Yet with Reverence Kiss him also but with Reverence Concerning his Sons and his Daughters Ask him They are All Princes and you must but Ask of Them or for Them But concerning the VVorks of his Hands you may Command Be of good cheer He calleth you And stayeth for you Unaware I am carried Back by the Hand to the Number 14. For just so many are in the Hebrew word for Hand which is Jad It shall Cast and It shall Bless As in Juda. The same letters and numbers are in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Day Sufficient for the Day is the Bread and Good and Evil thereof And Shadai who is still Sufficient And how near akin Jad is to Jah 14 to 15 we may come to know when we also see how near the Lamb or the Goat of the 14th Evening was to the Lamb also of the 15th Morning And both and All to the Holy Lamb of God that beareth away the Sin of the Lambs the World This was yet at Bethabara the House of Wrath and beyond Jordan but also the House of That which must Pass Over yea and Pass away which is Wrath in Hebrew Before the sun go down and the Cursed Hanged Ones must then be down also The next Day and next and third He came also But I knew him not but had read in Esay that the Spirit must Rest upon him As a Dove or Master of the Wing on a Branch or Natsar But Now I saw and bear Record Here is is One Witness and when He was Taken off Then Christ followed for His three Dayes and an Half also of which we ought to speak again and then comes Stephan the Crown to the Conqueror and then Paul a Witness with a Witness or a Martyr But after Three Dayes being as Dead or Blinde and then recovered by Ananias the Lords Grace But where is Poor Saphira We may finde Her also And thy Eyes from Tears for there is Hope in the latter End And yet All this while but Saul 1000 years after David and Ananias sent to the house of Judas also to seek Saul as we saw before and Saul of Tarsus a City Built by Lascivious Sardanapalus or by others in pursuit of Io Turned to a Beast they say and now a Beast must be recovered As the sound may hint As Tauros And Mount Taurus Thereabout began to all the East which from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Syriac 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just 666. As Tyrus Tyras Thrace Threscos how near to Japhets Tiras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who shal be perswaded yet to dwell in the Tabernacles of Sem in this Feast of Tabernacles But Paul is now at Damsack Blood-sucking or sacking Damascus Though it had suckt the Blood of Righteous Abel as they say There slain yet It had also an Eliezer my God Helping and a King anointed by Elisha God Jesus For Damascus also must be Menuha as we saw before And the Prince that carryed the Heavy Doom to Babilon it self was Seriah the Lords Sir and Servant Son of Neriah the Lords Light Son of Maasiah the Lords Trust and Refuge And he went with Zedekiah the Lords Justice to Babel which is Lebab our Heart Turned Backward in the Fourth year or after Three years and an Half And this
beginning of the 15th which is shut up with 360 Hours as their Year with 360 Dayes We are now in the Feast of Unleavened bread and at Full Moon As if That were to shadow out the Sun of the â—d Year to be 10 times better then the Light of the â—d Day coming up in 36 Hours And 360 is 3 times 120 Gods Moed for Man which is 3 times 40. 372 Bring up the Morning of the 16th Day the Wave sheaf of Barley the first of First-fruits Heaved up as our Saviour Raised on the Third day after the Passover was slain And from This Day 50 Days to Pentecost are 1200 Hours Added to 360 they make 1560 for the Moed of Pentecost Or Biccurim the first Fruits Of wch 420 bring up the Morning of the 18th Day or Crisis of Their Passing through the Sea or end of three Dayes and Half their Hour of Temptation Beginning from the Passover though they got not out till the Sun-set of the 15th Day or Hour 360 As a new year Deut. 16. 6. Nunb 33. 3. 430 The Evening Minha of that Day answering to their coming from Aegypt 430 Years after the Promise to Abraham That very Night 444 Brings up the next Morning with its Tamid It is Two Thirds of 666. 450 the Noon of That Day But after Moses song and the Lambs they wanted water 3 Days and came to Marah Bitterness till the 12 Fountains and 70 Tamars 480 Brings up the 21st Evening As the Temple after Aegypt Though a very Learned man would have it 580 and 490 the Morning of That great Feast of Unleavened Bread as Daniels Weeks 490 Years 500 To the Minha of That great Feast or the 7th Evening from the Passover And 555 to the first watch of the 24th Evening 600 Hours are in 25 Dayes 36 more bring us to the Morning of the 27th Day By which time the Moon beginneth to approach the skirts of the Suns Robe or Clamyd in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Mantle Mantle is Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an upper Garment There she becometh Gloomy Glum in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 639 As the Sun is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 640. And the Hebrew Galum is not only Glum or sad and Glummed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also Turned or Twisted as Galume Lace And so the Moon in the Suns Rayes an Hebrew word as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then she is Calm and Clam and Clammed or Clummed as English use that Phrase which is Hebrew made to Blush or be ashamed as the Latine Calumn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 650 and 656. Which in Hours brings us to the Morning Watch of the 28th Day And 666 to the Point of Noon in That Critical Day to the Moon of 4 times 7 and 3 times 9 and 3 quarters And her Cloud or Clade or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which before makes up the perfect Olam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so near the Morning of the 30th Day And Olam may signifie their Hight as well as Hiding or their Secret as Sodom and Let not my soul be in Their seeret or in Sodom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just 666. Or their Yoaking or Childing or Fooling or being Naught as English use that word akin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Night and Râ—sting as we saw before But Sleep may be frm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is to slip off ones Clothes and to slâ—p a Flower Psal. 120 6 7 8. and Ruth 2. 4. or from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to slop or sloop or throw down as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or else from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Both slow and slouth which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Safe or Salf and Salve as akin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Slack ones hand or to Pardon and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 akin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to send out Siloam and Shilo As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Jacobs blessing Judah or Shâ—lah Judahs Son Of which befor in Tamar And what if Childe be Shiloed As Birth may be from Bar a Son as Bara Create and Bar Bare sent out or Bear as also from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Covenant which ever included Children Through all the Bible and mainly for them And Abrahams Berith Olam much about the Burning of Sodom and from Beritus to Sodom was the Length and Cross Bredth of the Land promised in His Berith Olam And the Flames of Sodom might possibly intimate the Ole or Whole and Holy Burnt-Offerings as Seals of That Olam Berith Especially at the Change and Full of every Moon as flaming Fire or as the World Burning at the End of the great Olam when she shall be As Gold afire rather than Ophir Which yet may be akin to the Greek Pyr and English Fire as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as alluding to Ur of the Chaldes whence He was called Or to Ire Wrath which may be onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Fear and that Where no Fear needed As the 90 and other Psalms tell us But That Ketem Ofire Perfect Fire of Love shall cast out Fear and Curss and Sorrow As it did Gomorrah the People of the Curss or Rebellion The Spot fixed on them Gen 14 Though but in Freeing themselves from Tyrants or Usurping Monarchies So little doth God countenance Oppression or Rebellion or such Fighters As Zeboim may signifie And those be the first Goats we read of I think in all the Bible For so also does Zeboimâ—ignifie â—ignifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Zebaoth Armies or Militia and Goats also much akin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Woolves and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flies as we see in Baalzebub the Lord of wanton lustful fighting Flies But our Jesus by the finger of God shall cast him out and even by Silence shall destroy Babling and Babylon He is the Great Zerubbabel and Jerubbaal also And Solomon That King of Peace had but One War I remember and That was onely to destroy Lust and Wrath and Rage of an Army That is in Hebrew Hamath Zobae From Zeboim we go to Admah which are joyned in Genesis and in Hosea also A most Pathetical Scripture He had said Come and let us return unto the Lord For he hath Wounded us and He will Heal us He hath sâ—itten He will binde us up After Two dayes He will quicken us Here are Two Moeds In the 3d Day or 3d Moed He will Raise us up As he raised Jesus so he will Raise his Witnesses And we shall live in his sight Will he also shorten the Time for his Elect as Christ or Esay promised so that he will prevent the last Moed after the 3 are past As he put up his Sword before the last Moed In Davids Pestilence We shall know if we follow on to know the Lord. His going is prepared As the Morning to the Evening Or as the Evening or Dark time and he
34. Gen. 15. 9. cometh up to minde them of their Golden Calf while Moses was in the Mount as many Daies from the Law as now perhaps he had been Years in Heaven And Eglon was destroyed by Josuah 10 34. But about the Evening Minha of the 6th Day Ehud helpeth them and Shamgar so that they Rest from That Moed all the 6th and 7th or Sabbath Day Which may be observed also in all the Sabbaths of those Daies or Years which we are now measuring by Hours of the first Month. Othniels 40 Ehud and Shamgars 80 make up 120 Years the Great Moed for Man as we saw before And 120 Hours make 5 Daies which added to Moses and Josuahs 2 Daies bring us quite through the Sabbath or 7th Day into the 8th And Then Jabin Instructeth or Teacheth them to understand as the word may intimate akin to the Hebrew Phrase we saw before to Correct and Instruct As the men of Succoth were Taught with Briers made to Know Judg. 8. 16. and Jabins 20 bring us about the Morning watch of the 9th Day And Then Awake Awake Deborah Awake Awake As there were 4 Hours to the Morning Utter a Song Arise Arise O Morning Star or Bright and Light Barak Lead Captivity Captive Let All thine Enemies fall O Lord as Saul with Lightning But his Lovers be like the Sun in his brightness For This Barak was also the son of Abinoam the Fatbers Brightness or Beauty As we saw before in glancing on That song in Judges 5. Barak and Deborahs 40 made them Rest till about the end of the 10th Day And Then the Lamb is prepared for the Passover As being Then tyed up by Midian oppressing them And now comes out Gideons Fleece as alluding to That Lamb and his Lamps also in Earthen Pitchers as St Paul remembers and the Barley Cake rouling in a Dream at the Middle Watch or soon after Midnight For the 7 Hours or Years of Midian came to Midnight and an Hour after And Then Gidion as a little Kid Rising by night to destroy Baal Lord of Darkness is Jerubbaal and the Watchman of Israel for That morning and offers the 2d Bullock yet akin to Eglon that Calf and his 40 giveth them Rest till the 11th Daies Evening There is more to be spoken of the Times of Sibboleth and Shibboleth and of Abimelech or King Father and of Sechem and Dinah Judgement and Jotham the Orphan If indeed you dealt kindely with my Father for he did deliver you Then c. But Quis talia Abimelech dwelt at Aruma from Rome to Roam and Ramp in Hebrew letters 254 which may be the very year of his Coming up though others make it about 260. And so with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 added as Verse 31 it will be near 666 when he slew his 70 Brethren of which again His 3 and Tola's 23 and Jairs 22 make up just 48 as 48 Hours of two Daies more which bring us to the 14th Day or 2d Sabbath It had a very sad Night to paralel the Time when Angry Pharaoh said to Moses Get thee from me see my Face no more but Dye So God himself frowned on Israel in that Night of Darkness under Ammon son to Lot the Veyle as we saw before saying Go and and see my Face no more Or Go and cry to the gods which you have Chosen Let Them deliver you in the time of your Tribulation For you have forsaken me and Feared other gods of whom I said You shall not Fear them as it is often pressed and given for the great Reason of their final Captivity 2 Kings 17. from Judges 6. 10. and 10. Therefore I will deliver you no more As in Hosea I will no more have mercy on you and you shall be no more My People Loammi and Loruhamah and I will be no more your God As bad or worse I think them That I do not yet Pray for the World Of which so much before But the Children of Israel said unto the Lord as Job saith it is still meet to say I have sinned I will bear the Rod till he turn and have pity on me For He will will Turn again and have pity on us and Who is a God as Thou art that is Micha Do unto us what seemeth good in thine own eyes If he will he can bring me back and shew me his Arck also and the New Jerusalem but if not and that he have no pleasure in me which yet is worse much worse than Brown bread and my own Tears for Water Here I am by his Grace I will not worship the Golden Image or of the Beast slain with the sword but his Deadly wound was Healed and the World all worshipped but Those in the Lambs Book of Life Let him do what seemeth good in his own eyes Father if it be possible it is possible Save me from this hour of Temptation But However let Thy will which is Holy still and wiser and better also for me than my own will Let Thy will be done and not mine in My Earth as in thy Heaven So we Chatter as a Crane or a Swallow when we cannot mourn as a Dove even Then when we reckon at Morning He will break all our Bones And they put away the strange gods from in and among them and served the Lord And his soul was grieved sor the Misery of Israel It shortned his very Spirit and Breath as in us when we would sigh and cannot O! how is our Heart Burnt as bound and straitned in us O! How am I straitned till it be Accomplished we saw it before Then Ammon encamped in Gilead thestones of Witness and Israel at Mispa the Watch they prayed and also set the Watch and we shall come to Mahanaim For we are already at the times when Jacob said The Lord Help me and watch over me and Laban also God is my Witness and These also for there be Witnesses in Heaven and They are All One as on Earth they agree in One And to what But That Haran or Wrath shall pass away but never Pass over these Stones of Witness to do me Hurt and that I never pass These Witnesses to grieve thy Spirit or to wrong thy Daughters Though thou hast changed my wages 10 or 12 times as often as the Moon or Lebana Now Jephta was a Mighty Valiant man but the son of a common woman which they call an Harlot though the greatest Norman Princes came from Arlott the Mother to That English word And Boaz also that mighty man of whom before in Ruth the Jewes count him Ibsan the Judge was son to Rahab the Harlot as she is called but the mother of Christ in David so that it is almost impossible there should be 580 Years from Aegypt to Solomon or Solomons Temple As that great man will have it from Acts 13 with other Arguments And God perswaded Japhet or his Anagram and Names-sake Jephta to dwell in the Tabernacles of Sem and to
will not forsake his People for his great Names sake because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his People Moreover as for me God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you but I will Teach you the good and the Right way Onely fear the Lord and serve him in Truth with all your Heart as Davids Dying words to Solomon and Christ also God is a Spirit and they that worship him must do it in Spirit as here with All the Heart and Truth also For Such the Father Seeketh to worship Him And such he will finde For consider How great things he hath done for you But if you will still do wickedly you shall be consumed both you and your King There is yet much more in That History of Nahash of Ammon of Lot the Veyl which must be separate from the face of all people As at first from Abraham as we saw before from Esay and divers places And now Here also he would not onely cover their Eyes but put them quite out or at least their Right Eyes and that also must be A Reproach for All Israel Though This was onely at Jabesh-Gilead the Reliques of that woful business at Gibeah which did not onely cut off Benjamin but Jabesh-Gilead also by 12000 chosen men of Israel as the first Fruits to God and the Lamb as we may see in Judges 21. Where also both Gilead and Mispeh lead us to the Watch and Stones of Witness we saw before in Jacob their Father and Laban when Rachel was going to her long home at Bethlehem Ephrata with this Benjamin the youngest of her sons for whom she wept so much and so long because They were not Joseph was not and Ephraim was not see 1 Chron. 7. 21. and now they Take Benjamin also All these things are against her And yet little Benjamin that had so ruined Jabesh-Gilead must now save it by Saul the first King of that Tribe coming up because of Nahash besieging Jabesh-Gilead And the men of Jabesh-Gilead said Forbear us 7 Dayes and if none can save us we will come out to thee Then came Messengers to Gibeah of Saul That very Gibeah which had caused all the mischief both to Benjamin and Jabesh-Gilead also Then the people wept and Saul yearneth over their Tears so good it is to go or be with a Mourning weeping people of God For who can tell but their tender Eyes may affect and soften our hard Heart and Then the Spirit of God came upon him and remembring that All the mischief came by hewing a woman into pieces He now slayeth the Beast and heweth it into 12 pieces and by Those summons the 12 Tribes as One man with one consent or as the Prophet speaks with One Sechem He had now 300000 of Israel and 30000 of Judah a bad Omen that they should be so Divided and they must be Parted into 3 Bands and by Night also as Abraham his 300 and Gideon his 300 and Jacob his at Mahanaim and Joshuah his at Gibeon and David his for Ziglag and again As Jacob at Mahanaim and in the Morning Watch as before in the Red Sea and Barak or Gideon against the Midnight Midianites who though so near akin to Abraham and Isaak and Moses yet had been the Buyers of Joseph in the Pit and Sellers to Aegypt so that Moses must not dye before he had avenged God on Midian and recovered such a spoyl as possibly may help us to number all the Times and Numbers in their Bondage ever after Now is Nahash defeated and his Ammonites scattered so that two remained not together while Israel was as One man the onely way to destroy the Serpent and to break his Head And when also They shall be As a Beacon on an Hill the Lord will Wait that he may be Gracious to them and Therefore be exalted Therefore That he may have mercy on them and on All that wait for him For the Lord is a God of judgement Blessed are All They that wait for him As we read in the 30th of Esay How Jabesh-Gilead remembred and requited This of Saul even to his Dead body we observed before How David also blessed them for it when he shewed the kindness of God to the House of Saul Dead Saul And which is yet stranger even to this very Nahash or his Son or Namesake King of Ammon also Till they so abused his Embassadors An History that may be more considered And the people said to Samuel Who is he that said shall Saul Reign over us Bring the men that we may put them to death But Saul said There shall not a man be put to death this day for to day the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel And David also in his sweet Return after his Banishment from his Kingdom would not slay Cursing Shimei because he knew he was That day King of Israel As we saw before with divers circumstances Then said Samuel to the People Come and let us go to Gilgal and Renue the Kingdom There Even There where God in Joshuah Rouled away the shame of Israel And now They rouled away This shame also of Nahash the Serpent on All Israel Though I add not here again how Circumcision it self was a Type or Pledge of their cutting off Nahash or the Serpents Head in every Age and World and Region also of the little World as we saw before How David or any other of the Kings cut off this Serpent or Nahash also in that remarkable History 2 Sam. 10. we leave for another season as God shall please And though Solomon had but One War as we saw before with Hamath Zoba the Wrath of an Army or fighting Rage or Fury Yet These also as All within the River Euphrates became his Servants or his Tributaries Even to the River of Aegypt whence he married his Queen as we saw before Of Solomons Temple I have little to add to Those Excellent Books lately written by English men also of Both Temples with That of a very Learned man before the Great Bible there also published That may never dyâ— Or Those that did or yet do labour to perfect it But I suppose Many if not All the Numbers we have spoken of may be in those Temples also with the Tabernacle and Noahs Ark in proportion to a mans body with its Three Regions also 30 Cubits High and 50 Broad and 6 times as Long. 300 by 50 is 15000 and the Waters prevailed 15 Cubits Upwards and that by 30 is 450000 filled up with 8 Persons and Beasts Unclean also with their Food and Ayre and other requisites of which again as God shall help us The Tabernacle 30 long and 10 broad that is 300 as the Ark and 10 high 3000. And its Court 100 long and 50 broad 5000. As we touched before in the 5000 fed by our Saviour as after by Peter Ranked by 100 and 50. Solomons Temple Double to the Tabernacle 60 long and 20
with odd Minutes Preter propter And as He was the 7th from Adam as Moses the 7th from Abraham the 10th from Noah the 10th from Adam So he was born in the 7th Hundred or 3d 7th Year of that Hundred or 621 or 22 Year of the World Now is Israel become Loammi and Loruhamah Not my People and I will not have mercy on them Yea and God called to contend with Fire But Amos prayed O Lord God Cease I beseech thee As before spare and forgive by whom shall Iacob Rise for he is very small And God repented of the Evil and said It shall not be And yet when God had called the Fire to devour It must devour and so it did But what Even the Great Deep or Abyss which was the great thing to be feared and the Spirit of God also to kindle the Fire but in devouring the Deep or the Devourer it also devoured a Part of Israel as the words may hint Amos 7. 4. And the word Clack which we often saw before for a Click Clack Clakin of Time as in a Clock And from a part of Time it is also used for a part of other things and may hint to us How Time and All else below may perish by Fire Devouring the great Deep or Abyss of Waters the same word used Gen. 1. 2. when there shall be No more Sea As in the Revelation or Fishes Zeph. 1. 8. but a Sea of Glass with Harpers as on Cinnereth we saw before Amos also saw a Tenth reserved for Israel 5. 3. to Help her up Though his doleful Ditty was The Virgin is fallen and shall Rise no more Nafela lo Tosiph Kum Bethulath Israel Which the Iewes say should have been in the Psalm of Praise 145. which gives Title to the Book of Psalms in Hebrew Praises and there wants the Letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But when David was bringing it out they say the Spirit stopt and said The Lord upholdeth All that Fall and Raiseth All that are Bowed down As that Psalm We have now but One Moed more to the 70 Years Captivity in Ioachin As if God would now give Iudah that Moed of 120 Years for Repentance as he gave it to the Old World before the Flood Ahaz had hired Assyria that sharp Rasor to shave off Rezin and Syria but he came to the Neck and Throat also And because This people refuse the Waters of Siloah that run softly and rejoyce in Rezin and the son of Remaliah the Lords Height Now therefore behold the Lord Bringeth on them the waters of that great Flood the King of Assyria and all his Glory who shall overflow and reach to the Neck and with his stretching Wings fill the breadth of thy Land O Emanuel a Type of Antichrist to fill the Church or Emanuels Land As the Wings of the Cherubins filled the Breadth of the Oracle As Ezekiel also speaketh of a Covering Cherub and Annointed also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 388 so near His 390 Or as the English George on Horsback a Covering Cherub and from Those parts also where yet they shew his Castle or the Reliques of the Dragon which from Thence might come to the Saxon standard or from the Dragon seen in Heaven also as so many great Historians speak besides the Dragon in the Revelation so long before Merlins Dragon Hezekiahs Revolt from this King of Assyria hired by his Father Ahaz is called Rebellion 2 Kin. 18. 7. And it cost him Dear besides That humble Confession Verse 14 with All his own and the Temples Tresures So little did God ever countenance Rebellion Yet when Assyria becommeth Insolent and sendeth Rayling Rabshakeh from Lachish that Mother of Idolatry the Lord rebuketh him while Hezekiah spreads the Rayling Letter having also sent to the Prophet Esay It is a Day of Trouble of Rebuke and Blasphemy the Children c. Now therefore lift up thy Prayer for the Remnant left after the 10 Tribes who first parted themselves from David with Sheba c. before God ever parted them In the Mount God will be seen Iehovah Jireh And the Decree was that Assyria must be troden down in the Holy Mountain And That also but a Type of what God meant to do in All the Earth as we read in Esay 14 24 c. So that it may reach through All the Times of the Witnesses also Till That Fire came down on Them that compass the Holy City As now the Destroying Angel came down on the Assyrians round about Ierusalem A story famous enough in Iosephus Berosus Herodotus with divers others How This great Deliverance was in the 14th year of zekiah As Abraham freed his friends and Sodom also in the 14 year and Joreph was freed in the 14th year being then 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh but 17 when he was sold as Gen. 37. 2. 41. 46. we saw before With many other things of 14 being the 2d Number made of 3 whole Numbers and an half as 7 is the first The next Half Moed may carry Menasseh to Babilon As a Type of Judahs Captivity and Return also As Manasseh returned and Zedekiah was visited in Babylon it self and Jeconia freed and advanced above All the Princes with him And How after All his horrid sins Menasseh judged himself and Bowed greatly praying to His God! O the mans confidence and to his Fathers God a Blessed thing to have a Fathers God! and How he heard and Bowed down to Hear we saw before And though God brought him to his Throne again as also Nebuchadnezar Yet the Blood he shed is often brought as a great Cause of the following Captivity Yea and That also although Josiah was so good a King and made so great a Reformation Yet God sent him even Him This Message My Wrath shal be poured out on This Place and shal not be quenched Yet it was so quenched that from This also a poor soul may learn how to interpret All Gods Frownings and Threatnings on it So also the Prophet Zephany concludeth his most terrible Threatnings in the time of Josiah I will gather them that sorrow for the solemn Moed c. I will undo them that afflict thee As to Abram They that Curse Thee shal be Cursed I will save Her that Halteth and Gather Her that was driven out and I will get them Praise and Fame in every Land where they are put to shame For I will make you a Name and a Praise among All people of the Earth Their Last 40 years as the 40 from Christ or his Baptism to their End beginning with Jeremy in Josiahs 13 or his solemn Covenant and Passover a while after run out with Ezekiels 390 for All Israel from the great Schism in Jeroboam As their sister Sodoms Flames were 390 years from the Great Flood 365 hefore the Promise 370 as in Salem before Melchisedeck met Abraham 372 as in Sheba before his â—nant at Beersheba The 70 years Captivity beginning with Daniel at the
returned Sara with Riches and Blessing as before from Aegypt And a solemn Covenant made between them Not onely Abimelech Healed by Abrahams Prayer but with Picol also the Mouth of All as saying Amen to the Covenant and the Blessing also For it may be observed how God himself to bring out a Great Blessing will prepare the People common People also to desire and expect it and then to confirm it by saying Amen So that Christ himself the Power and Wisdom of God could do no great Work till the People did consent believe expect or cry Amen And indeed the Women and the common Law-Takers are the great Law-makers Receive the Instruction of thy Father but the Law of thy Mother As we touched before in his Mothers bidding them Do whatever He bade them before he did Any Miracle And now also though at the Right Hand of God and so hath Power over All his Handy-works which he saith we may command also yea and come to Do as much or more than He then did Yet That Hand of God is too great for Him to weild as a man and so he pleaseth to Act to us and not to Force us but to Woo us and he never Wears us till he win us fairly by his Wooing us as first by Power he conquered us from Death and Hell And so He hath None till the Father in Them give them up to him which is also called Their giving up themselves Till which he Wooeth or Weepeth but unless the soul come to give it self to him He seeth that the Father for He is the Son of man or Every man the Father doth not give him such a soul and so the match is never made but by consent of Both. But when once his Thunders or his Earthquakes or his Fire in the Bush do make us startle so as to say I will now turn aside from the Noise and Dust and Croud of the world to see this Great sight and to Do it Then he quickly calleth to us as to Moses with a little 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which they say he made the World with a soft still voice and a meek quiet spirit he begins by Kindeness he hath Art enough to conquer All our fears and frowardness so much as to begin to try and then to mark remember and consider All his dealing with us Till we come to Hope and then to Trust his Heart and Fathers Heart in Him The work is done And though to try us once or twice perhaps he may put on a Mask or Veil or seem to frown yet when once we begin to know his Heart we kiss him when we Tremble and with Reverence bow and Pray and long to see him More and more and yet still more and do not fear his worst his Blackest Mask His heart is good O my want of words a thousand fold much Better than we ever heard although it be a Good Report or can as yet believe When we so know him we shall quickly know if we follow on to know and see and feel he knoweth us and knew us first by Name And now he will not leave us till we break off speaking to him as Abraham in his Intercession for Sodom The Oyl will never cease while we can Buy or Begg or Borrow Vessels to receive it And it is yet plainer that although God Bless us oft alone by Himself yet he never Curseth men without themselves not onely to joyn with the envious One but even pull or force it on themselves and cry Amen when others wash their hands and say Be it so Let his Blood be on us and our Children also Poor Children of Wrath and Curse before they heard or saw O that we could consider what a Parents words may do when we little think what we say as before we saw in Jacob and Laban of Rachel God did but propose the Law it self and bade Moses ask if They would take it They accepted This Enacted it a Law to Them And so its Curses God proposed them but so that They must say Amen before they did or could oblige or hurt them Deut. 27. 30. 15. c. And to Aegypt God put them not till They put themselves There in fear of Famine As in Abrahams time and Isaaks Onely Joseph was carried against his will As Moses also was thrust out of Egypt as a Type of them that were to be thrust out Thence also though they now cryed Who made thee a Judge among us But God exalted Both. And God never carryed them to Babylon or Assyria till they Hired or called those Rasors to shave them and shewed them their Treasures or their Nakedness So it was in Syria So with Nahash the Serpent as in Paradice also till they Chose a King and Then God gave him and set him Over them But yet He also even Saul himself or all the Sheols in the world could never Curse them till themselves consented to the Curse and cryed Amen As we see in the famous case of Jonathan Whom the People Blessed and He shall be Blessed though his Father and the King also Cursed with an Oath also So was That Covenant with Abimelech confirmed both with Picol the Mouth of All the people and by an Oath also Both with Abraham and Isaak afterwards And for the Land also in which they sojourned as Gen. 21. 23. Often remembred in Scripture And we should remember it as often as we read Beersheba the Well of Seven and the Oath also Madc at this Covenant with Philistines And as David fulfilled that part also of sojourning among the Philistines as the Ark had done before him So I doubt not but he Blessed Them also as Abraham and Isaak did according to their Covenant for the Land also which God mentions so often in which they sojourned and sware before Abimelech both King and Father with Picol also at Beersheba That famous Bound of All the Land of Rest and Hope or Promise Blessed and for ever Blessed be my Rock and Blessed be the God of my Rock who delivereth me from the strivings of the People and maketh me the Head of the Heathen Strangers will submit themselves As soon as they Hear they will obey For He will speak the People under me by his Holy Word As the English singing Psalms do rightly tune Tha tword so often used by David With his Gittits also And his Mictam of Aram Naharaim and Zoba as before Cryeth O Philistia Triumph over me Nor do I know that Solomon thought it any Solecism or any scorn or Irony to set the Philistines so near the very Top of his Triumphant Arch or Pillars in the Holy Temple Porch The Left hand Pillar is called Boaz as the Judge that married Ruth a Root of Davids Jesse Jachin is the Right So weak a thing is Strength it self or Boaz when it is compared or opposite to Prudence and Order Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of Thy Times and Strength of Salvations
The Fear of the Lord his Treasures Even Then when Babylon shall sweep away All other Treasures As we read in Esay 33 as a Gracious Promise to That Prayer in the 3d Verse O Lord be Gracious to us We have waited for thee Be thou our Arm Their Arm Every Morning Our Salvation also in the Time of sorrow or the Sore Yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we saw in Daniel Boaz was of Bethlehem Judah Jachin both of Simeon Hearing and Obeying and of Levi Love A kinde of Sacred Tenth of Tenths For in Jerusalem were men os Judah Little Benjamin his Brother Josephs Ephraim and Manasseh as the 1st of Chron. 9. Psal. 80 And of the Priests also with other Levites and Nethinims of Gibeon Jachin c. in the 10th Verse And in the 10th Verse also which is frequent in Scripture of the 11th Chapter of Nehemiah we finde him again among the Tenths or First Fruits from Babylon where we read Thus The Rulers of the People dwelt at Jerusalem For upon All appeals from any City Gate where Judges must be placed by the Law He that will do presumptuously and will not hearken to the Priest or unto the Judge in the place which God shall choose must Dye as we read in Deut. 16 and 17. And therefore the Rulers must live at Jerusalem And the Rest of the People cast Lots to bring One of Ten to dwell at Jerusalem the Holy City and Nine parts to dwell in Other Cities But when the Seventh Trumpet soundeth for the Seventh Month and great Feast of Tabernacles with the great Release and greater Jubilie to follow That Feast When All the Fruits of the Earth be gathered in before the joy of Harvest These Nine parts also come in with all the Fulness of the Gentiles to be joyned so to the Tenth of That Holy City That this Tenth shall Then be little thought or spoken of and so it is said to Fall in the 11th of the Revelation as this Holy Tenth is in the 11th of Nehemiah with the 11th 12th and 13th of the 6th of Esay cited in the first 6 Books of the New Testament as we saw before But the People Blessed them As the common People and his very servants Blessed Ruth and Boaz who came freely in and offered themselves to Dwell at Jerusalem the Holy City To be compared with That gracious Promise to a Levite coming from Any Gate of Israel with All the desire of his Minde to the place which God shall choose in Deut. 18. which in Esay 56 is made to the Gentiles And the sons of the Strangers also that Leave themselves to Cleave to the Lord as we may render Levim touched before and Loveh to Love the Name of the Lord to be His Servants Every One that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it which is often repeated Here and Chap. 58. and pressed much in Nehemiah also and taketh hold of my Covenaut in the Chapter before and 59th I will bring them to my Holy Mountain as Chap. 4. and 33. and Psal. 15. and 24 and make them joyful in my House of Prayer or Delight themselves in God as Chap. 58. For my House shall be and be Called an House of Prayer for All Peoples And All Nations and Gentiles as our Saviour also citeth it The Lord God which gathereth the Outcasts of Israel a very small thing to raise Them up as Chap. 49. He saith I will yet and yet and yet for what he speaketh Once he speaketh Ever I will yet gather to him More than yet are gathered Or others also He hath said it He will do it And He will then appear in his Glory and yet not despise the Prayer of the Destitute when the very Dust of Zion shall be Pytied Psal. 102. And among the Tenths of That Holy City we finde Jachin also a Priest and as the Tenth of That Tenth in the 10th of the 11th of Nehemiah and the 10th of the 9th of the First of Chronicles On Jachin and Boaz both he set a Crown and so the Prophet Set a fair Mitre on his Head and bring forth Crowns for them of the Captivity and especially for Jeshuah the Priest Who shall grow up in his place and Build the House of God as Jachin and the common People also Gens Enthea cryed to Ruth with Boaz as Rachel and Leah to Build the House of Israel And on Both he set a Chapter What if Caput Turris Capâ—tur be from Caphtor a Pomegranate which was the Form of the Chapter or the great Fruit of That place which the Scripture calls a Land of Pomegranates which are also Poma Punica or of Phenicia to this day And as the old Inhabitants were called Caphtorim from Caphtor the Pomegranate so the great God of Syria Jupiter Casius had his Temple in That Hill Cassius which was Katsi the Bound towards Aegypt where Pompey lost his Life but left the name of Cassius to revenge him on Cesar where his Statue stood with his arm out holding a Pomegranate as a most Natural Emblem of Heaven and Earth which some later Princes represented by a Globe or a Sphere held in their Hand And besides Aarons Bells and Pomegranates with Those on These Pillars the Canticles speak often of Pomegranates in or upon or for the Spouse and in one Verse may allude both to Rahabs Scarlet Ticket of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Benjamins Rimmon also or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Flake of Rimmon which is also a Pomegranate and its Rim or Rimb or Rinde which the Greeks call Rojan as the English sound Pomroy And as Solomon findes Pomegranates in his Spouses Temples so he placeth them in His Temple and it may be for Times also as our Temple Pulses which they called Tempora somwhat of Time in so many Languages besides all else that He might seal up in His Pillars from Those of Seth or Enos Mothers to the Chaldean and Aegyptian Pillars as much as These were to the Grecian Roman Obeliscs And though we should not finde so many Cranes in a Granate as some made Havens or Daies or Hours in a Year yet there may be somwhat of Years in them and their Number Here also Especially if we finde them just 400 Years from That of Benjamin at Rimmon which Josephus placeth so near to Josuahs Time and in Phineas as Judges 20. 28. And of Benjamin at Rimmon just 400 men were married to 400 Virgins all the Reliques of poor Jabesh-Gilead As of Davids 600 onely 400 could hold out to recover his two Spouses or Witnesses of Ziglag As Abrahams 400 or thereabout to recover Lot and Sodom also from Dan whence God will judge his People and That Nation I will judge but first thy seed must serve 400 Year Of the other 200 Rimmons also or of Benjamin from Rimmon there is more to be said of Their Dance at Shiloh which of all places is there so exactly described and compared with Bethel Sechem and Lebonah