word of my Patience I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the World to try them that dwell upon the Earth Rev. 3.10 By which it is plain that the power of protecting and defending his Subjects is inherent in Christ as an essential part of his Regal Authority and this power he continually exercises now he is is heaven for it was for this end among others that he promises to be with his Church to the end of the World Mat. 28.20 namely to guard and defend it by his Providence against the outragious attempts of its numerous enemies For it is for this end that the Father hath put all things in subjection under him and that he hath left nothing that is not put under him Heb. 2.7 8. that so having the Universal Government of all things in his hand he might by his over-ruling Providence render them all subservient to the interest of his Church For so Eph. 1.21 we are assured that the Father hath put all things under his feet and given him to be head over all things to his Church i. e. hath vested him with an universal power over all things that so he might order and direct them all to the interest and advantage of his Church And accordingly now he is in heaven the defence and preservation of his Church is the great business which he intends upon earth there he now sits looking down from his Throne with a watchful eye to observe all the motions and trace out all the dark designs of her enemies and from thence he stretches forth his Almighty hand to guard and defend her against them to repel or over-rule their malice to drive back their venemous Darts upon themselves or to temper their Poyson into Physick and extract a healing Balm out of the Stings of those Scorpions In which how careful and diligent he hath been is abundantly manifest from the glorious success for considering the vast opposition that hath been made against it even from its infancy how is it possible it could ever have subsisted had it not been guarded by an invisible hand No sooner did this light upon a Hill appear in the World but all the four Winds immediately conspired to blow it out yet which is miraculous to consider still the harder they blew the brighter it flamed and though for the first 300 years it was the main and almost constant exercise of the Power and Policy the Wit and Cruelty both of Devils and Men to suppress and ruine it yet still it thrived and encreased under the most powerful means of its extirpation It conquered by suffering gathered strength by bleeding and like a head-strong Floud still the more it was checked the more it swelled and over-flowed till at length it filled the Earth as the Waters cover the Sea. Which if well considered is an amazing instance of the vigilant and powerful Providence of our Saviour which hath not only preserved this burning Bush from consuming but made it spring and flourish in the flames And though since those Primitive Persecutions he hath many times for wise and gracious ends let loose the Wolves upon his Flock and permitted them to worry and sometimes almost to devour it yet still he hath kept a strict and steady Reign upon their Power and Malice and when they have served his ends hath check'd and stop'd them in their savage career and when they have thought the trembling Prey their own hath stretched out his own Almighty Arm and snatched it from their devouring jaws So that while they are clubbing all their Power and Policy against it he that sits in the Heavens laughs them to scorn the Lord hath them in derision and doth contemn their impotent malice which he can manage as he pleases he can either prevent the mischievous effects of it or cause them to recoile upon themselves or make those very persecutions with which they design to destroy his Church the means of its enlargement and propagation and what in his own infallible Wisdom he thinks best that he hath always done and will always do for his Church and People For many a time have they afflicted me from my youth may Israel or the Church of Christ now say many a time have they afflicted me from my youth yet have they not prevailed against me the Plowers have plowed upon my back they have made long furrows but the Lord is righteous he hath cut asunder the Cords of the wicked and in his own due time will confound and turn back those that hate Sion And as he exerciseth a most vigilant Providence over his Church in general so doth he also over all the faithful and obedient Subjects of it whose interest is as dear and precious to him as his own bloud for they are not only the purchase of his bloud but also the Trophies and Conquests of his Spirit which makes them his by a double Propriety and more peculiarly entitles them to his care and protection they are living Members of his own Body and as such he feels their pains by a most tender sympathy and therefore his Providence is as much concerned for their defence as his Eye-lid is to defend the Apple of his own Eye Zech. 2.8 and therefore though he exercises a merciful Providence over all men yet these he incloses out of the Common of the World and fences about with a peculiar care These are his Iewels and he keeps them in his Treasury under the strongest and most inviolable security He is always watching over them for good and it is his peculiar and continual concern to protect and defend them to keep off Temptation from their Souls and Calamities from their Bodies and so to over-rule and direct the course of things as that whatever befals them may concenter in their happiness For though he many times corrects them with his own hand and permits them to be oppressed and afflicted by others yet still he doth it with a most gracious intention either to cure or prevent some disease in their minds or to excite and exercise their graces or to wean them from the love of this vain World and discipline them for a blessed Eternity and whatsoever evils happen to them in the course of his Providence still he takes care to extract good out of them and so to contrive and order the whole Scene of Affairs as that in the issue all things may still work together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose Rom. 8.28 IV. And lastly Another of those Regal Acts which our Saviour hath always and doth always continue to perform in his blessing and rewarding all his faithful Subjects in the Life to come for this as he himself declares he hath power to do so Rev. 2.7 To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God i. e. I will admit him in a
our Advocate in Heaven yet we can never be so fond sure as to imagine that he loves us better than his own Father and if he doth not we may build upon it that he is as zealously concerned to assert his Authority as to prosecute our interest and to provide that he be obeyed or avenged as that we be pardoned and rewarded but for us to rely upon Christ as mediating for us without submitting to him as mediating for God is in effect to hope that he will be so exceeding gracious to us as to betray his Father's trust for our sake and sacrifice his authority to our safety For should he take our part with God and solicite him to favour us while we persist in our rebellions against him he would in effect abandon the cause and interest of God's Government and endeavour all that in him lay to expose his authority to the scorn and contâ—mpt of Mankind Whilst therefore we obstinately refuse to hearken to him in his Mediation for God that is to submit to his Laws and return to our duty and allegiance he will be so far from interceding for us in the vertue of his meritorious sacrifice that he will appear against us as an incensed Judge in the quarrel of his Father's Authority and dearly revenge upon our guilty heads all those shameless affronts and indignities we have offered it and by making us everlasting Monuments of his Vengeance convince us by woful experience that he is no less a just Mediator for God than a merciful Mediator for Men. So that by resolving to persist in our rebellion against God we do in effect renounce the Mediation of our Saviour and proclaim before God and Angels that we will not be beholden to the one and only Advocate of sinners And when we have flung our selves out of this Protection Lord whither shall we go for sanctuary from thy vengeance When there is but this one Mediator and he hath discarded me O my wretched Soul whither wilt thou betake thy self Call now and see if there be any will hear thee to which of all the Saints or Angels wilt thou turn thee What Favourite of Heaven will plead thy cause when the only Advocate of Souls hath rejected thee For if he who is my only Mediator be incensed against me who shall Mediate between me and him When God alone was angry with me there was some hope because my Saviour stands as a living Screen between me and his displeasure to guard and defend me from it but when that is kindled against me too what is there to interpose between me and the devouring flame Be wise therefore O ye sinners be instructed ye obstinate Rebels against God Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way for if his wrath be kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him but Wo be to them that provoke him Thus the Mediation of Christ addresses to our fear as well as hope in order to the subduing us to the Will of God and presses at once upon both these great Avenues of our Souls with the most irresistible Motives III. That this his Mediation proceeds upon certain terms and stipulations between God and Men which he obtained of God for us and in his name hath published and tendered to us For when Mankind by reason of the degeneracy of humane nature were cut off from all immediate intercourse with God and this most wise and holy Method of conversing with us by a Mediator was resolved on by the Divine Council God in consideration of what our Mediator had ingaged himself to suffer for us in the fulness of time granted to him in our behalf a most gracious and merciful Covenant whereby he ingaged himself to bestow his spirit upon us to inable us to repent and return to him upon condition that we should seek it and co-operate with it to pardon all our past sins upon condition that we should unfeignedly repent of them and to crown us with eternal life upon condition we should persevere to the end in well-doing This is the substance of that gracious Covenant which God hath granted to us for the sake of our Mediator who hath accordingly assured us from God that he will give his holy Spirit unto them that ask Luke 11.13 That if we will repent and be converted our sins shall be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord Acts 5.19 And that if we will be faithful to the death we shall receive a Crown of life Rev. 2.10 And upon this Covenant it is that our blessed Saviour proceeds in his Mediation between God and Men. For our Baptismal Vow is nothing else but only a solemn engagement of our selves to perform the condition of this Covenant upon which there results to us a conditional right to all that God hath promised in it and when by this federal solemnity of Baptism God and we have once obliged our selves to each other by mutual promises and engagements Christ's Office as Mediator between us is to solicite on both sides for mutual performance and accordingly in Mediating for God with us he requires nothing of us but what we promised to God and in mediating for us with God he claims nothing of God but what God promised to us And hence he is called The Mediator of this better Covenant Heb. 8.6 and The Mediator of the new Covenant Heb. 12.24 because he transacts between both Parties to solicite the performance of their mutual engagements For so the same Author in Heb. 9.14 15. seems to explain it How much more saith he having spoken before of the vertue of the bloud of Bulls and Goats shall the bloud of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge our Consciences from dead Works to serve the living God and for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Covenant that by means of death for the Redemption of transgressions c. they which are called might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance where those words and for this cause seem as well to refer to what went before as to what follows and then the sence will be this For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Covenant both that he might take care that our Consciences being purged from dead works we might serve the living God and that having redeemed us by his Death we might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance And accordingly he proceeds in his Mediation for in acting for God as his King or Vicegerent he hath enacted the conditions which this Covenant requires of us into the Laws of his Kingdom and exacts them of us under the fearful Penalty of eternal Damnation whereby he hath taken effectual care that we shall either perform these conditions or undergo a punishment as great as the guilt of our neglect and contempt of them and having thus tied them upon us by the
And therefore to satisfie us in this also after he had abode some time upon Earth after his Resurrection and satisfied his Disciples by frequent converses with them that he was really risen and given them all necessary Orders for their future conduct in the propagation of his Gospel he carried them out to Bethany where after he had lift up his hands and blessed them he ascended before their eyes into Heaven upon which it is said Luke 24.52 That they worshipped him and returned to Ierusalem with great Ioy surely not because their dear Lord was gone from them never in this World to be seen by them more that was cause of sorrow rather than joy to them but because he was gone to the right hand of the Father there to intercede in Person for them and for ever to exhibite that wounded and bleeding body of his by which he had made expiation for the sins of the World and purchased the promise of the Spirit and of eternal life upon this account indeed they had great cause to rejoyce because now they knew they had a sure Friend in Heaven where their main hope and interest lay even that very Friend who not long before had freely exposed himself to a most shameful and tormenting death to rescue them from death eternal and who after such an instance of love they could not but conclude would employ his utmost interest with the Father in their behalf and in a word who being the only begotten of the Father whose precious Bloud he had graciously accepted as a ransom for the sins of the World could not but have an interest with him infinitely sufficient to obtain for them all the graces and favours that were fit either for them to ask or for his Father to bestow So that now if we heartily comply with him as Mediating for his Father with us we have all the encouragement in the world to depend on him as Mediating for us with his Father since he doth not Mediate with him by a second hand or at a distance but in his own Person in that very Person which is not only infinitely dear to the Father as being his only begotten Son but hath also infinitely merited of him by offering him his own life at his command as a Sacrifice for the sins of the World. And accordingly upon this consideration the Apostle founds the hope of Christians 1 Iohn 2.1 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that ye sin not but if any man sin let him not presently give up himself as hopeless and irrecoverable for we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins VI. And lastly Another thing which the Scripture proposes to our belief concerning this Mediator is that upon his return from us to Heaven there to Mediate Personally for Men with God he substituted the divine and Omnipresent Spirit Personally to promote and effectuate his Mediation for God with Men. When he went up to Heaven there to Mediate for us with God he did not thereby abandon his Mediation for God with us but immediately substituted a certain mighty spiritual Being to act for him whom he calls the Advocate or as we render it the Comforter and the Holy Ghost and who was to Mediate with Men in his behalf even as he Mediated with them in the behalf of his Father and to Advocate for his Authority as he Advocated for his Father's For so he tells his Ministers whom he left behind him to assert and propagate his Authority in the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter or Advocate i. e. to plead for and inforce your Ministry in my behalf whose Ministers you are that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth c. I will not leave you comfortless or without an Advocate I will come to you that is by this Spirit of Truth who is to be my Vicegerent even as I am my Father's Iohn 14.16 17 18. But for the fuller explication of this great and necessary Article I shall first shew what this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence Secondly I shall explain his subordination and substitution to Christ in this part of his Mediation Thirdly I shall shew what it is that he hath done and still continues to do in order to the effecting this Mediation First What this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence I answer it is the third Person in the Tri-une Godhead For that besides the Father and the Son there is a third divine Person subsisting in the Godhead seems to have been a current Doctrine among the ancient Writers both Gentile and Iewish and is most plainly and expresly asserted in holy Scripture which third Person is known in Scripture by the name of the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of the Lord. For that the Holy Ghost so often named in the New Testament is the same with that Spirit of the Lord so much celebrated in the Old S. Peter expresly asserts 2 Pet. 1.2 For the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost from which words it is evident that this Holy Ghost whom S. Peter here mentions is the very same with that holy Spirit or Spirit of the Lord by whom as we are told in the Old Testament the ancient Prophets were inspired vid. Isa. 63.11 2 Sam. 23.2 Mich. 2.7 and abundance of other places and accordingly S. Peter applies that Prophecy of Ioel 2.28 I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh to that miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost Acts 2.16 17. but this is that saith he which was spoken by the Prophet Ioel c. which could not be true if Peter's Holy Ghost were not the same with Ioel's spirit of the Lord. But it is most certain that the Holy Ghost whom S. Peter and the New Testament so often mention was in the first place a real Person and not a meer Quality as the Socinians vainly dream For so we every where find personal properties and actions attributed to him Thus he is said to speak Acts 28.25 and Heb. 3.7 yea and his speeches are frequently recorded so Acts 10.20 The Spirit said unto Peter arise therefore get thee down and go with them for I have sent thee and Acts 13.2 The Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them and how can we without horrible force to such plain historical relations which ought to be literal and not figurative attribute these speeches to a meer Vertue or Quality And elsewhere he is said to reprove the world Iohn 16.8 and to search into and know the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 11. and to divide his Gifts
sacrificed body to the Father he did what the High Priest did when he sprinkled the bloud of his Sacrifice i. e. he interceded for us with God and indeed he interceded more prevalently by this significant action than if he had used all the Eloquence of Men and Angels For his wounds are vocal and his bloud speaks yea and not only speaks better things for us than the bloud of Abel spoke but also expresses what it speaks far more powerfully and emphatically than it is possible for any verbal Oratory to do So that by the presenting to his Father his wounded and bleeding body which carries with it an inexhaustible fountain of Rhetorique and Persuasion he makes the most moving and pathetical intercession for us the sense of which is this though the full force and Emphasis of it no Language can express O my Father behold this sacrificed body of mine which by thy consent and approbation hath been substituted to bear the punishment which was due to thee from Mankind and through the wounds of which I have chearfully poured out the precious bloud of God as a ransom for the sins of the World for the sake of this bloud therefore be thou so far propitious to those miserable sinners it was shed for as upon condition they shall repent to accept it in exchange for the lives of their Souls which are forfeited to thee to release them from the Obligation they are under to die eternally and upon their final perseverance in well-doing to crown them with eternal life and that this bloud which at thy command I have willingly shed for them may not through their inability to repent and persevere be utterly ineffectual to them O send thy Holy Spirit to assist their weak faculties to excite their endeavours and co-operate with them This is the Language of Christ's sacrificed body in Heaven and these are the better things which his bloud bespeaks for us For his bloud bespeaks those good things for us in Heaven for which he shed it upon Earth i. e. the remission of our sins and our eternal life of which blessings his bloud being the price that God had promised to accept his presenting it to him in Heaven not only speaks for but humbly demands them as carrying with it the unanswerable claim of an accepted Price to a stated Purchace So that this address which Christ makes for us to God in heaven is not performed by him after the manner of a prostrate Supplicant with bended knees up-lifted hands and lowly supplications but in such a manner as comports with the Kingly Majesty he is advanced to and so as at the same time to assert his own right of purchace in the blessings he addresses for and yet to acknowledge God to be the supreme fountain and disposer of them And this the Scripture tells us he performs by appearing in the presence of God for us and presenting his sacrificed body to him as a standing motive to prevail with him to be propitious to us and to crown us with all those graces and favours in consideration of which he laid down his life for us And accordingly he is said to offer himself to God for us in heaven Heb. 9.25 and to offer his one Sacrifice i. e. to God in heaven for sin for ever Heb. 10.12 By which offering or presenting his Sacrifice to God he doth at once claim for us by the right of his purchace all those good things for which he paid down the price of his bloud and also by a silent desire pray to God to bestow them upon us whereby he acknowledges him to be the sovereign disposer of them So that this significant action of Christ's presenting his sacrificed body to God is both a Claim and a Prayer or rather it is a Prayer backt and enforced with a rightful claim to the blessings he prays for For so for that particular blessing of the Spirit he himself tells us I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever John 14.16 not that he offers up any other Prayer to the Father but what his wounds and bloud continually make which with incessant importunity do move and solicite God in our behalf but his meaning is this by presenting that Sacrifice to my Father in Heaven which I am going to offer on the Cross and by which among other blessings I shall purchace of my Father his Holy Spirit for you I will pray him to send his Holy Spirit to you I will pray him by my wounds and bloud which are a thousand times more moving and eloquent than any vocal Prayer I can offer in your behalf for while they pray him to send his Spirit to you they lay an undeniable claim to what they pray for as being the dear and inestimable price by which I am purchasing his Spirit for you From all which it is evident that this address which Christ now makes for us to his Father in Heaven consists in the presenting his sacrificed body to him by which he both prays to him and claims what he prays for III. It is by the continued and perpetual oblation or presentment of this his sacrificed body to the Father that Christ continues and perpetuates this his address or intercession in our behalf For the fiâ—st presenting or oâ—lation of his sacrificed body in Heaven was the beginning and commencement of his intercession and the whole progress of his intercession is nothing but that same oblation continued and perpetuated For as the High Priest was interceding for the people all the time that he was presenting the bloud of the Sacrifice before the Lord so Christ is interceding for us all the while that he is presenting his sacrificed body in Heaven For it is by the presence of his sacrificed body that he intercedes and therefore so long as his body is present in Heaven so long he must be interceding by it in our behalf So that between the Iewish High Priest's Intercession and Christ's there is this vast difference that the former presented himself in the Holy of Holies with his Sacrifice and consequently interceded by it but once a year viz. on the great day of Expiation whereas the latter continually presents his Sacrifice in Heaven and so doth continually intercede by it and whereas the bloud which the High Priest presented was so mean and inconsiderable that the whole vertue of it was still spent in one Act of Intercession as not being available enough for him to intercede with it twice insomuch that in every new act of Intercession he was still fain to present new bloud the bloud of Christ was of that infinite moment and value as that though he makes a continued and perpetuated Intercession by it yet the vertue and efficacy the power and prevalency of it with God remains fresh and unimpaired so that he needs not sacrifice again that so he may have new bloud to present but with that
Prince or that that voice was a designed delusion Since therefore our Saviour declares that he is the first and the last which is the essential Character by which Iehovah the King of Israel describes himself and doth no where intimate a different sence of this Character as applied to himself from what it signified as applied to the Iehovah it necessarily follows that either he meant not sincerely or that himself and that Iehovah the King of Israel were the same Person And accordingly Zach. 9.9 which all agree is a Prophecy of our Saviour he is expresly called the King of Israel Rejoyce greatly O Daughter of Sion shout O Daughter of Ierusalem behold thy King cometh unto thee the most natural sence of which Phrase thy King is he that is now thy King not he that is hereafter to be so and if then when this Prophecy was delivered he was King of the Daughter of Zion or People of Israel to be sure he was always so and therefore the Prophet Malachi calls the Temple which was the Palace of the divine King of Israel the Temple of Christ Mal. 3.1 Behold I will send my Messenger i. e. John Baptist and he shall prepare my way before me and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple even the Angel of the Covenant whom ye delight in behold he shall come saith the Lord of Hosts from whence I infer first that this Lord of Hosts which is the ordinary stile of the God of Israel was Christ whose Messenger and fore-runner Iohn Baptist was vid. Luke 1.76 And secondly That the Temple which was the abode of this Lord of Hosts was the Temple of Christ the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple which cannot be meant of God the Father because in the next words he is called the Angel of the Covenant which all agree is Christ if then the Temple of Ierusalem was the Temple of Christ and he was that Lord of Hosts that dwelt in it it necessarily follows that he was that divine King of Israel who under God the Father governed the Iewish Church And now having proved at large this fourth Proposition which is the principal Hinge upon which the whole Argument turns I proceed Fifthly That after his coming into the World he still retained this his Right and Title of King of Israel in particular till they finally rejected him and Apostatized from that Covenant on which his Kingdom is founded For he did not at all divest himself by his Incarnation of that Royal Authority he was vested with as he was the Eternal Word and Son of God hereafter to be incarnate For this his Royal Authority as I shewed before is necessarily implied in his Mediatorship of the New Covenant of which as I have also shewed he was always Mediator without any discontinuance or interruption So long therefore as the New Covenant continued in force with the Iews in particular so long he was their Mediatorial King in particular under God the Father Now it is certain that the New Covenant continued in force with them so long as they continued to be the Church of God because it was the New Covenant that made them so and it is certain they continued the Church of God many years after the Incarnation of our Saviour even till such time as by their obstinate rejecting of our Saviour and incurable Apostasie from that Covenant which made them the Church and People of God they had finally incensed him to reject them to break off his Covenant-relation to them and utterly to dispark and un-Church them And therefore we find that for several years both our Saviour and his Apostles continued in close Communion with the Iewish Church frequented their Temple and Synagogues and joyned with them in all the Solemnities of their Publick Worship by which they owned them to be the true Church of God and consequently to be yet in Covenant with him Since therefore they continued in the New Covenant after Christ's Incarnation Christ must also continue the Mediator of that Covenant to them and consequently their Mediatorial King. And hence he is stiled the King of the Iews in particular after his Incarnation for so the Wise-men in their enquiry after him Where is he that is born King of the Iews Matt. 2.2 And that he was born King of the Iews not merely as he was descended from the Loins of David but by a Title that he had Antecedent to his birth viz. as he was the Son of God hereafter to be Incarnate is evident by that confession of Nathanael Joh. 1.49 Rabbi thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel where his being the King of Israel is consequent to his being the Son of God and so Iohn 12.13 they who attended him in his progress to Ierusalem salute him with a Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord which S. Iohn makes the accomplishment of that forementioned Prophecy Zach. 9.9 Rejoyce greatly O daughter of Zion behold thy King cometh unto thee sitting on an Asses Colt verse 14 15. And this Title our Saviour assumes to himself in that good confession he made before Pontius Pilate who asking him Art thou King of the Iews He answered him Sayest thou this of thy self or did others tell it thee of me And when Pilate presses him for a more explicite answer he tells him My Kingdom is not of this world as much as if he had said I know the Jews mine enemies have insinuated to thee that by assuming to my self this Title of King of the Iews I design to usurp the temporal Dominion of Caesar thy Master but let not that trouble thee for though it is most certain that I am King of the Jews yet my Kingship and Caesar's are of a quite different nature and do no way clash or interfere with one another for whereas his Kingdom is Temporal mine is purely spiritual and not of this world and when Pilate insists farther Art thou a King then Jesus answers Thou sayest I am a King i. e. thou sayest truly so to this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness to the truth John 18.33 34 35 36 37. And as he retained the Title of King of the Jews after his Incarnation so we frequently find him exercising his Royal Authority among them For in the first place he not only authoritatively explained to them those old and eternal Laws of Morality which he delivered to them from Mount Sinai and inforced them with new Sanctions and Motives but he also gave them two new Laws viz. that of Baptism and that of the Lord's Supper to be continued in force to the end of the world Secondly He erected a perpetual form of Government and Discipline in his Church and gave Commission to his Apostles to exercise and administer it and to derive down their Commission to all succeeding Generations Thirdly
Angel of the same Rank and degree with the Princes or Guardian Angels of Persia and Greece from whence it follows that those Guardian Angels were Archangels as well as he and consequently that they also had their Angels or appropriate Armies of Angels under their Conduct and Command in which Armies of theirs whose Ministry without doubt they always used in the Administration of their respective Guardianships there is no question but there was an exact Order and Regiment which cannot well be supposed without supposing in them particular Officers subordinated to each other under their respective Princes or Archangels and this seems to be implied in that distinction which the Apostle makes between these heavenly Spirits Col. 1.16 Whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers where by Thrones he seems to mean the respective Princes or Archangels of the several Orders by Dominions or Lordships the Reguli or chief Dignitaries under the Archangels by Principalities their Governours of such Provinces or Cities as were within their Guardianships by Powers their inferiour Magistrates or Officers These Archangels therefore who were the Tutelar or Guardian Angels of Countries together with their respective Cohorts or Armies of Angels seem not to have been subjected to the Mediatorial Dominion of our Saviour till after his Ascension into Heaven at which time it seems God totally dissolved those Angelocracies or Angelical Governments of Countries and Nations and subjected both them and the Archangels together with their Armies of Angels that governed them to the Mediatorial Scepter of our Lord and Saviour upon which he who before was King only of the Iews vid. P. 224 225. became universal Lord and Emperour of the World for so Heb. 2.5 we are told That to the Angels God hath not put in subjection the World to come or future Age as it is in the Greek where by the future Age it is evident he means the time of the Gospel for this is the very Phrase used by the Septuagint to express the State of Christianity Isa. 9.6 where Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Father of the future Age. This passage therefore of God's not subjecting the future age to the Angels plainly implies that he had subjected the past age to them by constituting them the Guardians of Nations but that now in this age of the Gospel he hath wholly dissolved that Oeconomy by subjecting both the Guardians and the Nations they guarded to the Dominion of our Lord and Saviour so that now the whole world of Angels is in the same subjection to Jesus Christ as it seems Michael and his Angels were before Christ's Exaltation that is they are now no longer subject as Deputy Governours of Provinces and Nations who as such were impowered to do good or hurt to those who were under their Government according to their own discretion but as the immediate attendants of his person to whom nothing is left arbitrary but all they do is determined by the sovereign Will of him who imploys them for thus the Scripture declares that upon his Ascension into Heaven he was vested with a new Dominion over the Angelical World so 1 Pet. 3.22 we are told that it was upon his going into Heaven and sitting down at the right hand of God that Angels and Authorities and Powers were made subject to him and in Eph. 20.21 that God raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places far above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion i. e. above all Angels of what rank and quality soever and every name that is named not only in this World but also in that which is to come and accordingly Col. 2.10 he is said to be head of all Principality and power i. e. of all the heavenly Hierarchy as well as earthly Dominions thus also the Apostle tells us that upon his Ascension into Heaven God hath given him a name above every name that at the name of Iesus every knee should bow i. e. that every Being should acknowledge subjection either of things in Heaven or of things on Earth or things under the Earth i. e. whether of Angels or Men or Devils And as all these Angelical Powers are now subjected to Christ so do they all of them minister under him in his Kingdom for so Heb. 1.14 they are said to be all of them ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be Heirs of Salvation and in so doing they must necessarily minister under him who is the Captain of our salvation and accordingly in Rev. 5.6 those seven Angels which in Zâ—ch 4.10 are said to be the seven eyes of the Lord which run to and fro the whole Earth and therefore stiled the Watchers Dan. 4.13 as being the chief Instruments of the divine Providence are called the seven eyes of the Lamb by whose Ministry and Agency he inspects and governs his Kingdom which plainly implies that they now minister to the Exalted Mediator in the same capacity that they heretofore ministred to God Almighty himself 2. And then secondly as the good Angels are subjected to Christ by the Ordination and appointment of God so the bad are subjected to him by just and lawful Conquest for so the Scripture assures us that our blessed Saviour subdued them to his Mediatorial Empire by pure dint of just force and violence for so we find in his life-time he frequently contested with these evil spirits and in despite of all their power and malice continually vanquished and repelled them Thus in his Temptation in the Wilderness with only that powerful Command Get thee hence Satan he put the Devil to flight Matth. 4.10 11. so also upon his approach towards the two possessed Gergesens the Devils that possessed them made a hideous outcry What have we to do with thee Iesus thou Son of God art thou come hither to torment us before the time and were forced to depart immediately upon his Command Matth. 8.29 Nor did he only vanquish them himself in all the personal conflicts he had with them but he also gave his Disciples authority over all Devils Luke 9.1 insomuch that Luke 10.17 his Disciples acquaint him Lord even the Devils are subject unto us through thy Name but these were only so many successful skirmishes with those Powers of darkness in which they fought against him sometimes in single Combate and sometimes in smaller Parties but the main Battel in which they engaged him with all their power and might and by winning of which he compleated his Conquest and finally subdued them to his Empire seems to have been that which he fought in his last Agony wherein after they had reduced him to the utmost distress he struck them with the spiritual Thunderbolts of inward horror and confusion and in a Panick Dread forced them to turn their backs and flee from him For first it is evident that before he entered the Garden where his Agony seized him he expected
of the Principal of the twelve Apostles and S. Iames was not so much as one of that number yet in the Church of Ierusalem he had the Priority of them both now considering that S. Iames is called an Apostle and considering the Preference he had in all these instances above the other Apostles at Ierusalem it is at least highly probable that he was peculiarly the Apostle of the Church of Ierusalem but if to all this evidence we add the most early Testimonies of Christian Antiquity we shall advance the Probability to a Demonstration for by the unanimous consent of all Ecclesiastical Writers S. Iames was the first Bishop of Ierusalem for so Hegesippus who lived very near the times of the Apostles tells us that Iames the Brother of our Lord called by all men the Iust received the Church of Ierusalem from the Apostles vid. Euseb. lib. 2. c. 23. so also S. Clement as he is quoted by the same Author l. 2. c. 1. tells us that Peter Iames and Iohn after the Assumption of Christ as being the men that were most in favour with him did not contend for the Honour but chose Iames the Just to be Bishop of Ierusalem and in the Apostolical Constistitutions that pass under the name of S. Clement which though not so ancient as is pretended yet are doubtless of very early Antiquity the Apostles are brought in thus speaking Concerning those that were ordained by us Bishops in our life time we signifie to you that they were these Iames the Brother of our Lord was Ordained by us Bishop of Ierusalem c. so also S. Ierom. de script Eccles. tells us that S. Iames immediately after the Passion of our Lord was ordained Bishop of Ierusalem by the Apostles And S. Cyril who was afterwards Bishop of that Church and therefore a most Authentick Witness of the Records of it calls Saint Iames the first Bishop of that Diocess Catech. 16. To all which we have the concurrent Testimonies of S. Austin S. Chrysostom Epiphanius S. Ambrose and a great many others and S. Ignatius himself who was an immediate Disciple of the Apostles makes S. Stephen to be a Deacon of S. Iames Ep. ad Trall and therefore since Stephen was a Deacon of the Church of Ierusalem S. Iames whose Deacon he was must necessarily be the Bishop of it Upon this account therefore S. Iames is called an Apostle in Scripture because by being Ordained by the Apostles Bishop of Ierusalem he had the Apostolick Power and Authority conferred on him for since it is apparent he was none of the Twelve to whom the Apostleship was at first confined he could no otherwise become an Apostle than by deriving the Apostleship from some of the Twelve and therefore since that Apostleship which he derived from the Twelve was only Episcopal Superiority over the Church of Ierusalem it hence necessarily follows that the Episcopacy was the Apostleship derived and communicated from the Primitive Apostles The second Instance of the Apostles Communicating their Apostolick Superiority to others is Epaphroditus who in Phil. 2.25 is stiled the Apostle of the Philippians But I suppose it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my Brother and companion in labour and fellow souldier 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but your Apostle for so S. Ierom Com. Gal. 1.19 Paulatim tempore precedente alii ab his quos Dominus elegerat Ordinati sunt Apostoli sicut ille ad Philippenses sermo declarat dicens necessarium existimavi Epaphroditum c. i. e. by degrees in process of time others were ordained Apostles by those whom our Lord had chosen as that passage to the Philippians shews I thought it necessary to send unto you Epaphroditus your Apostle And Theodoret upon the place gives this reason why he is here called the Apostle of the Philippians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. he was intrusted with Episcopal Government as being their Bishop so that here you see Epaphroditus is made an Apostle by the Apostles and his Apostleship consists in being made Bishop of Philippi A third instance is that of Titus and some others with him 2 Cor. 8.23 Whether any do inquire of Titus he is my partner and fellow helper concerning you or our Brethren be inquired of they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostles of the Churches and the glory of Christ where it is plain they are not called the Apostles of the Churches merely as they were the Messengers of the liberality of the Churches of Macedonia for it was not those Churches but S. Paul that sent them vers 22. and therefore since they were not Apostles in relation to those Churches whose liberality they carried it must be in relation to some particular Churches over which they had Apostolical Authority and that Titus had this Authority over the Church of Crete is evident both from S. Pauls Epistle to him and from Primitive Antiquity As for Saint Pauls Epistle there are sundry passages in it which plainly speak him to be vested with Apostolical Superiority over that Church so Chap. 1. vers 5. For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldst set things in order that are wanting and ordain Elders in every City as I have appointed thee For in the first place S. Paul here gives him the supreme judgment of things that were wanting with an absolute power to reform and correct them which is a plain demonstration of his Superiority in that Church Secondly he Authorizes him to ordain Elders in every City and whether these Elders were Bishops or Presbyters is of very little consequence as to the present debate for first it is of undoubted certainty that there were Presbyters in the Church of Crete before Titus was left there by the Apostle and secondly it is as evident that those Presbyters had no Power to ordain Elders in every City as Titus had for if they had what needed S. Paul to have left Titus there for that purpose What need he have left Titus there with a new power to do that which the Presbyters before him had sufficient power to do For if the Presbyters had before the power of Ordination in them this new power of Titus's would have been not only in vain but mischievous it would have look'd like an invasion of the Power of the Presbyters for S. Paul to restrain Ordination to Titus if before him it had been common to the whole Presbytery and upon that account have rather proved an occasion of strife and contention than an expedient of peace and good order From hence therefore it is evident that Titus had a Power in the Church of Crete which the Presbyters there before him had not and this Power of his extended not only to the establishment of good Order and the Ordaining of Elders but also to rebuking with all authority i. e. correcting obstinate offenders with the spiritual Rod of Excommunication chap. 2. vers 15. and taking cognisance of Heretical Pravity so as first to
Where it is plain he places the Bishops in the same rank with the Apostles so also in Ep. 1. ad Heliodor speaking of the Bishops of his time they stand saith he in the place of S. Paul and hold the place of S. Peter and in Psal. 45.16 Now because the Apostles are gone from the World thou hast instead of those their Sons the Bishops and these are thy Fathers because thou art Governed by 'em and Ep. ad Nepot What Aaron and his Sons were that we know the Bishops and the Presbyters are And therefore as Aaron by Divine Right was superiour to his Sons the Priests so is the Bishop above his Presbyters all which are as plain contradictions to that famous passage of his understanding it as the Presbyterians do as one proposition can be to another and whether is a man more to be credited when he speaks without Bias or Partiality or when he speaks in his own cause and under the influence of his own Interest VI. It is further to be considered that the Decree of which S. Ierom here speaks by which the Government of the Church was translated from a Common Council of Presbyters to a single Bishop must according to his own words be Apostolick and consequently much earlier than the Presbyterians will allow it for it was made at that time when it was said among the People I am of Paul and I am of Apollos and I of Cephas and this as S. Paul tells us was said in his time and therefore this Decree must be made in his time and that S. Ierome did mean so we are elsewhere assured from his own words for so in his Book de Eccles. Script he tells us that immediately after the ascension of our Lord S. James was Ordained by the Apostles to be Bishop of Jerusalem Timothy by S. Paul Bishop of Ephesus Titus Bishop of Crete and Polycarp by S. John Bishop of Smyrna So that either he must here expresly contradict himself or else the Decree of which he speaks must have been made immediately after the Ascension of our Lord and consequently be a Decree Apostolick V. It is yet farther to be considered that if any such Decree of changing the Church Government from Presbyterial to Episcopal had been made by the Apostles it is strange we should not find the least mention of it in Scripture and if it had been made after the Apostles about the year 140. it is as strange we should have no mention of it in Ecclesiastick Antiquity for an universal Change of the Government of the Church from one kind to another is a matter of such vast moment that had the Apostles made a Decree concerning it they would doubtless have been very solicitous to publish it through all the Churches and to have transmitted down to Posterity some standing record of it which yet they were so far from doing that they have not given us the least intimation of it in all their Writings And had it been made afterwards about the year 140. to be sure all Primitive Antiquity would have rung of such a publick and important alteration but on the contrary you see both Clemens and Ignatius who lived before that period testifie that the Church was not Governed in their time by a Common Council of Presbyters but by Bishops Hegesyppus Irenaeus and Dionysius of Corinth who lived in that period are so far from taking notice of any such Decree of alteration that they testifie the Government of the Church by an uninterrupted Succession of Bishops even from the Apostles themselves and as for Irenaeus who gives us an account of the Succession of the Roman Bishops from S. Peter down to the time when he himself was at Rome it was as easie for him to know who they were that succeeded from S. Peter as it is for us to know who succeeded from Arch-Bishop Whitgift in the Chair of Canterbury he being no farther distant from the one than we are from the other and though through the Ambiguity or defect of the Records of some Churches this succession be not equally clear in all yet in the most eminent Churches such as Ierusalem Rome Antioch and Alexandria the successions are as clear as any thing in Ecclesiastical History and is it not much more reasonable to conclude what was the Government of those Churches that are not known from what we find was the Government of those that are than to question those Ecclesiastical Records that are preserved because of the uncertainty of those that are not for though we do not find in all Churches an exact Catalogue of all their Bishops yet we cannot produce any one instance in any one ancient Church of any other form of Government than the Episcopal and therefore we may as well question whether ever there was any such thing as an ancient Monarchy in the World because many of the Histories of the Monarchs are defective as to their Names and the Order of their Succession as whether there was ever any such thing as a Primitive Episcopacy in the Church because the Records of several Churches are defective as to the Names and Successions of their Bishops Since therefore this Story of S. Ieroms universal Decree is not only altogether unattested but also directly contradictory to the concurrent Testimony of all Antiquity how can we reasonably look upon it otherwise than as a mere figment of his own fancy especially considering VI. And lastly How odiously this conceit of his reflects upon the Wisdom of our Saviour and his Apostles for the Apostles devolving the Government of the Church upon Common Councils of Presbyters was as he himself tells us the occasion of sundry Schisms and Divisions for the removal of which the Church afterwards found it necessary to dissolve those Presbyteries and introduce Episcopacy in their Room and this S. Ierom approves as a very wise and prudent action for saith he the safety of the Church depends upon the Authority of the High-Priest or Bishop to whom if there were not given by all supreme Authority there would be as many Schisms in the Churches as there are Priests So that according to him had the Church continued under that Government which the Apostles left in it it must unavoidably have been torn in pieces with endless Schisms and Divisions and if so either the Apostles were very imprudent in not foreseeing this or very neglective in not preventing it so that had not the after-age taken care to supply the defect of their Conduct by erecting a wiser-form of Government than they left the Church had infallibly run to ruin This is the unavoidable consequence of S. Ieroms Hypothesis which therefore I can look upon no otherwise than as a mere device of his own brain snatched up in hast to defend his Order against the Insolence of those Factious Deacons that flew in the face of the Presbytery This therefore being removed which is the main and indeed the only considerable Objection against the
our faith cannot be sufficient to discharge us from its penalty unless it be such as includes in it repentance and sincere obedience In short the law of grace condemns us as well for impiety injustice and uncharitableness as for infidelity and therefore we cannot be acquitted by it upon forsaking our infidelity unless we also forsake our impiety c. and while we continue in any one wilful sin for which it condemns it is impossible that at the same time we should be acquitted and pardoned by it so that unless our faith be such as doth include in it a renuntiation of all wilful sin or which is the same thing repentance and sincere obedience we cannot be acquitted upon it by the Law of Grace And then if we consider the matter of our Pardon and Remission which is nothing but a releasing us from our obligation to punishment it will from thence also appear that that faith upon which we obtain our pardon must be such as works in us sincere repentance and obedience For the punishment to which we are obliged by the Law of grace consists in the loss of Heaven as well as in the positive Torments of Hell and therefore our pardon must include a release from both but to be released from our obligation of losing Heaven is the same thing as to have a right of enjoying it confer'd upon us so that the Faith upon which we are pardoned and forgiven is the Faith upon which we are intitled to Heaven as all agree includes in it repentance and sincere obedience For these two things are of undoubted certainty that every man shall go to Heaven that dies intitled to it and that no man shall go to Heaven that dieth in impenitence and wilful disobedience For it is our keeping the Commandments of God that gives us a right to the Tree of life Rev. 22.14 And our keeping Gods Commandments is that Holiness without which no man shall see God Heb. 12.14 And accordingly in Scripture the Remission of our sins is attributed to our repentance and obedience as well as to our faith so Acts 3.19 Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And in Eph. 1.7 If ye walk in the light as he is in the light you have communion with him and the blood of Christ cleanseth you from all sin So also Acts 10.34 35. God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that fearâ—th him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him From whence it is evident that when the Scripture makes mention of faith only in the matter of our Justification it is to be understood of faith in the greatest latitude as comprehending Repentance and sincere obedience for how can we be justified by faith only and yet be justified by obedience too unless our obedience be included in our faith and indeed the Scripture plainly declares that faith it self is not at all available with God unless it be accompanied with sincere obedience So Gal. 5.6 In Christ Iesus neither Circumcision availeth nor Uncircumcision but faith whick worketh by Love and what he means by faith working by love he tells us Gal. 6.16 Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing but the new Creature and what he means by the new Creature he also tells us 1 Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing and Uncircumcision is nothing but keeping the Commandments of God so that the only thing which avails us with God is faith working by love Faith working by Love is the new Creature the new Creature is keeping the Commandments of God and in Iames 2.26 we are told that as the body without the spirit is dead so faith also is dead without works that is it is altogether ineffectual For so if you compare the 14. and 17. Verses of this Chapter you will find that those two phrases faith cannot save and faith is dead do both signifie the same thing Since therefore faith it self without obedience is unavailable when the Scripture makes mention of our being justified by faith it must necessarily be understood of faith comprehending Obedience And thus you see what God the Fathers part is in remitting our sins viz. that it consists in granting to us an universal act of pardon and Indemnity in consideration of our Saviours Sacrifice and upon Condition of our sincere Repentance and future obedience And this is the ground-work and foundation of all remission of sins without which our Saviour himself hath no right to pardon and forgive us for since the Law against which we have all sinned was peculiarly from God the Father as he is the fountain of Divinity and consequently the head of the divine Dominion it was he peculiarly that was the party offended and consequently it was he to whom our obligation to punishment was due and by whom alone it can be released and remitted and as the grant of Remission was wholly in his will and pleasure so was it also to accept the consideration and appoint the Conditions of it So that now as none can be pardoned but upon his Grant so neither can his grant be available to any but upon that consideration which he hath accepted viz. the precious sacrifice of his own Son and upon such conditions as he hath appointed viz. faith working in us sincere repentance and obedience and accordingly our Saviour in all that he doth in the part he acts in forgiving sins proceeds upon and according to this Grant of his Father for 't is in the right and upon the consideration and condition of this Grant that he forgives us nor can he forgive any by any other right than that which it gives him or upon any other consideration than that which it hath admitted or upon any other condition than that which it hath specified and determined And this brings me to the second Head I proposed which was to shew what it is that the Son doth in forgiving Sins In short therefore the part which our Saviour bears in it consider'd as King under God the Father is to make an actual and particular application of this general Grant of his Father to particular Sinners upon their faith and repentance For the Fathers grant is only a general promise that we shall be pardoned for Christs sake whenever we sincerely believe and repent but the actual pardoning us consists in the application of this general Promise to us in particular by which the general promise of pardon is converted into a particular sentence of pardon For the promise says thus Whosoever believes and repents shall be pardoned the particular application of the Promise says thus Thou doest believe and repent and therefore by vertue of that Promise I pardon and forgive thee And this is the proper part of our blessed Saviour who having first obtained this Promise of his Father by his sacrifice upon Earth and then still continuing to obtain of him by
of the Earth For the Scripture not only foretels this universal conquest of his but also describes and delineates the whole method and progress of it which upon laying the Scripture Prophesies together in their proper Train and Series seems to me to be this that the opening of this great Scene of Providence will be the conversion of the Iewish Nation those obstinate and hitherto implacable Enemies of our Saviour whom notwithstanding they have been a thousand times over conquered slaughtered and oppressed and do to this day continue scattered over the face of the whole Earth he hath preserved by a strange and unparalleled Providence for above sixteen hundred years together a distinct and separate people from all the Nations of the Earth to shew his mighty power in them and once more render them what they have always been the Subjects of his miraculous conduct For by a wonderful effusion of his Holy Spirit upon them such as that was on the day of Pentecost though far more extensive he will all of a sudden and in a most surprizing manner open the eyes of this blinded Nation and powerfully convince them of the error and wickedness of their infidelity and malice against him whereupon with one heart and one mind they shall return to the Lord and with penitent tears wash off the guilt of the blood of their Saviour which like an Heir-loom hath hitherto descended upon them from one Generation to another for thus Rom. 11.25 26. I would not brethren that ye should be ignorant of this mystery that blindness in part is hapned to Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till when the fulness of the Gentiles be come in and so all Israel shall be saved as it is written there shall come out of Zion the deliverer c. From whence it is plain that that blindness which then hapned to Israel and which continues on them to this day shall one day be removed viz. about that time when the Conversion of the Gentiles shall be compleated and that then all Israel and not a small remnant of them as at first shall be saved so also 2 Cor. 3.14 16. But their minds are blinded meaning the People of Israel for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord the vail shall be taken away where he first supposes that Israel that till then was blinded and that till now remains so should turn unto the Lord and then asserts that then the vail of ignorance which hindered 'em from discerning Christ in the Figures and Prophesies of the Old Testament should be removed from before their eyes And now the Jews being thus converted by the power of our Saviour shall under his victorious Banners be conducted into the Holy Land and repossessed of their ancient native Country whither they shall be close pursued with mighty Hosts of the Eastern Infidels and be reduced by them into imminent danger of utter desolation in which extremity of theirs our blessed Saviour will make bare his Almighty Arm and in a most miraculous manner confound and scatter those mighty swarms of Infidels and crown his Israel with Victory and Triumph The fame of which miraculous events spreading far and wide even to the utmost ends of the Earth shall in a little time convince all the Heathen World of the truth of Christianity and prevail with the Kingdoms of the earth to become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ And now the Kingdom of Christ in this World being arrived to its full extent and growth Truth and Peace Charity and Justice shall reign and flourish over all the Earth Now all the World shall be Christendom and Christendom shall be restored to its ancient Purity For now he who is to come with the Fan in his hand will throughly purge the Floor of his Church from all that Chaff of Superstition and Idolatry Schism and Heresie Irreligion and Immorality with which it is almost totally covered and the true Faith the sincere Piety the generous and unaffected Vertue which Christianity teaches and prescribes shall be the universal livery and cognisance of the Christian World For much about the time of this Conversion of the Iews and that glorious Call of the Gentiles thence ensuing that corrupt and degenerate Faction of Christians whom the Scripture calls the mystical Babylon and the Antichrist and which for several Ages hath been the great Nuisance of Christendom will in these Western parts of the World muster up all its Forces to destroy and extirpate the purer Professors of Christianity by a general persecution in which attempt for some time this Faction will be very prevalent and successful when all of a sudden the Kings and Princes of the Earth who have thitherto been partakers with it in its foul Impostures and corruptions being either awakened by those miraculous Conversions of the Jews and Eastern Gentiles or convinced of their errors by the powerful impressions of his Spirit in whose hands the hearts of Kings are will turn their Swords upon this Antichristian Faction whose Cause they have hitherto espoused and conspire to root it out from off the face of the Earth which being effected the Western Church will universally reform it self according to the Standard of the Church of Ierusalem which will then be in a literal sense the Mother of us all Thus partly by destroying and partly by converting its Enemies our Saviour will yet mightily enlarge the borders of his Kingdom and advance it to the utmost pitch of purity and splendour that this state of mortality will admit and in this happy state he will preserve and continue it for several Ages till a little before the commencement of the General Iudgment at which time the Devil who had been hitherto chained up will be loosed again to work in the Children of disobedience to excite them to delude and deceive the World again and to persecute the sincere Professors of Christianity with incessant cruelties when all of a sudden and while they are securely triumphing in the success of their Villanies they shall be surprized with the Day of Judgment which like a Thief in the night shall come upon them and put an end to all their mischiefs for ever II. Another of those Regal Acts which he is yet to perform is to destroy Death the last Enemy by causing a general Resurrection of the Dead which being one of the great Articles of our Creed I shall insist more largely upon it and endeavour First To prove the certainty of the Fact and Secondly To explain the manner how it will be performed I. I shall endeavour to prove the certainty of the Fact viz. that our Saviour shall raise the dead which is as plainly and frequently asserted in holy Scripture as any Proposition contained in it for so 2 Cor. 4.14 we are assured that God will
those dreadful words Go ye cursed into everlasting fire the persons concerned will immediately perceive the dire effects for all on a sudden they will see the Clouds from above and the Earth from beneath casting forth Torrents of fire upon them which in an instant will set all the World in a Blaze about their ears At the sight of which all this wretched World will be turned into a mournful Stage of Horrours in which the miserable actors being seized with inexpressible amazement to see themselves all on a sudden encompassed on every side with flames will raise a hideous Roar and outcry millions of burning men and women shrieking together and their noise shall mingle with the Archangels Trumpet with the Thunders of the dying and groaning Heaven and the crack of the dissolving World that is sinking into eternal ruins In which miserable state of things whither can the poor Creatures fly or where can they hope to find a Sanctuary If they go up to the tops of the Mountains there they are but more openly exposed to the dreadful lightnings of Heaven if they go down into the holes and caverns of the Rocks there they will be swallowed up in the burning furnaces of the Earth if they descend into the deep there they will soon be overtaken with a storm of fire and brimstone and where-ever they go the vengeance of God will still pursue them with its everlasting burnings And thus having no retreat left them no avenue to escape out of this burning World here they must remain for ever surrounded with smoak and fire and darkness and wrap'd in fierce and merciless flames which like a shirt of burning pitch will stick close to and pierce through and through their passive bodies and for ever prey upon but never consume them And now the Almighty Judg having seen his dread sentence executed will arise from his Throne and from thence return to the Seat of the blessed in a solemn and Glorious Triumph with all his holy myriads of Angels and Saints who as they follow him through the Air and aether will with loud Hosanna's and triumphant acclamations celebrate the praises of their Redeemer Thus shall the Ransomed of the Lord return with him with Songs to the heavenly Zion and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads and everlasting praises in their mouths For being arrived into those blissful Regions there in those glorified Bodies which they put on at their Resurrection they shall live for ever in unspeakable pleasures and delights and be entertain'd not only with all that happiness which they enjoyed in the state of their separation when they were only blessed Spirits but also with all the satisfactions and delights that their glorified Bodies can require and enjoy So that now their blessedness shall be consummate and all the capacities of their humane nature compounded of body and soul shall be fulfilled with bliss till they overflow and can contain no more But wherein the happiness of their glorified Bodies shall consist I shall not presume to inquire the Scripture being silent concerning it And what the happiness of their souls shall be hath been shewn at large before Part 1. c. 3 4. So that as to that state of eternal life in which our Saviour shall place his faithful servants in the conclusion of this great Judgment I need say no more of it in this place SECT XI Concerning the conclusion and surrender of the Kingdom of Christ. WHen our Saviour hath finished that last and most glorious act of Royalty viz. Iudging the World and hath finally condemned to everlasting fire the irreclaimable enemies of God and crowned all his faithful subjects with eternal Glory and Beatitude the Apostle tells us He shall deliver up the Kingdom to God even the Father 1 Cor. 15.24 For our better understanding of which we are to consider that the Kingdom of Christ is twofold First Essential as he is God Essential and doth subsist in the divine Essence by the supereminent perfections of which he being exalted above all things hath an essential Right of Dominion over all things and this is Co-eternal with himself and is as inseparable to him as his Being this he can no more deliver up than he can his Godhead which without ceasing to be can never cease to be supreme over all things But then in the second place there is his Mediatorial Kingdom which is that of which we have hitherto been treating and this as hath been shewn before was by solemn compact and agreement confâ—r'd upon him by the Father upon condition that he should assume our Nature and therein make expiation for our sins in consideration whereof the Father obliged himself to grant a Covenant of Grace to the sinful World and to constitute him the Mediator of it by which Mediatorial Office he is authorized to rule for God according to the tenour of that gracious Covenant as well as to intercede for us and in ruling for God according to that Covenant he is to crown and reward all such as return to and persevere in their duty with everlasting happiness and to render eternal vengeance to all such as obstinately persist in their rebellion So that when this is done as it will be in the conclusion of the day of Judgment the whole business of his Mediatorial Kingdom is at an end then the Covenant of which he is now Mediator will be completely executed and consequently his Mediation will cease as being of no farther use and having no farther part to act For now God and Man being made completely one the Office of a Mediator ceases of its own accord for a Mediator is not a Mediator of one Gal. 3.20 and therefore the two parties being perfectly united there is no farther use of a Mediator between them Wherefore as our beatifical Vision will supercede the necessity of his prophetick Office to teach and instruct us as our perfection and intire fruition will supercede the necessity of his Priestly Office to offer and intercede for us so the security of our possession of both will supercede the necessity of his Kingly Office to protect and defend us and therefore when our Affairs are once reduced to this happy issue his Kingly Office as well as all other parts of his Mediatorship will for ever cease But since this great Mystery is no where expresly delivered in Scripture but only in that forecited 1 Cor. 15. I shall endeavour to give a brief account of the whole passage which lies in vers 24 25 26 27 28. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall put down all Rule and all Authority and all Power for he must reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death for he hath put all things under his feet but when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest that he is excepted which did put
Spirit we could have no imagination of him because imaginations are nothing but the Images of sensible things we can now by the strength of our Imagination fetch him down from the Heavens when we please and set him before our minds in all that venerable Majesty wherein he sits at the right hand of his Father So that tho he be never present to our outward sense yet which is almost equivalent when ever we have occasion to converse with him we can make him present to our inward viz. our fancy and imagination into this spacious Gallery of the Pictures of sensible things our mind can walk when it pleases and there behold him in Effigie tho it cannot see him face to face and considering how much we are governed in this degenerate state of our nature by fancy and imagination as well as by sight and feeling it is doubtless a most advantageous circumstance of Gods Government of the World that he governs us by one whom we can fancy and imagine when we cannot see or feel him There are a great many men that never saw the King who yet are overawed by the imagination they have of his Majesty and greatness whereas were not the King a man but a pure invisible Spirit they could form no imagination of him the want of which would very much abate if not utterly extinguish their aw and reverence of his Person Considering therefore how much we are governed by our sense in this state of our Apostacy it was doubtless a wonderful wise contrivance of God who is a pure Spirit to assume to himself some sensible matter that therein by presenting himself to our outward or inward sense he might strike the deeper aw on us and thereby the more effectually rule and govern us But of all sensible matter none could be so proper to this purpose as a human form in which we are inured and accustomed to be governed and of which as was hinted before we have of all sensible things the greatest love and veneration during this our Degeneracy therefore by which we are so unqualified to be governed by God immediately God the Father hath most wisely contrived to govern us by God-man i. e. by his own eternal Son Hypostatically united to our natures But when once mankind is recovered out of this lapsed condition when our sense is perfectly subdued to our reason and all our faculties are reduced into their Primitive Order then we shall return under Gods immediate Dominion for then God-man shall deliver up the Kingdom and God shall be all in all II. God now governs us by his own eternal Son in our natures to cure and prevent the spreading contagion of Idolatry There is no one Vice to which our corrupt nature is more propense and of which it hath been more universally tardy than that of Idolatry for as for other Vices they have their peculiar Provinces and such a Vice is more predominant in such a Clime and Temperament of Air In one Nation Pride reigns in another Intemperance in another Treachery and in a fourth Malice and Revenge as for Idolatry it 's an universal Monarch to whose Empire all the World hath been enslaved and subjected and notwithstanding all the care which God hath taken to prevent it it hath spread like the Plague till it became the Epidemical Disease of human Nature Now to be sure such an universal effect must necessarily be owing to some universal cause and what other can that be than the universal degeneracy of human Nature from its primitive life of Reason into a life of Sense For while Man was under the Government of his Reason he was as much influenced by dry arguments as he is now by his Sense and the full reason he had to believe that there is an invisible divine Being presiding over all things did as vigorously excite him to adore and worship him as the sight of him could have done had he appeared to his bodily eyes in a Glory proportionable to the immense perfections of his Nature But when once his sense had usurped the Throne of his reason and enslaved him to its Empire the case was quite altered now Reason and Argument have very little influence on him unless it be back'd with some impressions on his sense and his predominant affections are those that are raised by the strokes of sensible objects upon the sensories of his Sight and Taste and Feeling which the divine substance and perfections can never touch they being purely spiritual by which means that communication and intercourse which was between God and man whilst man was governed by reason is mightily disturbed and interrupted tho it be not altogether stopt and intercepted for still our reason which was not extinguished by the degeneracy of our natures suggests to us that there is a God and inspires us with an awful sense of his divine perfections which still maintains in us Religious Inclinations and Affections whereby we are importuned and solicited to adore and worship but we being under the Government of Sense are thereby naturally inclined either to look upon God who is in himself a pure invisible Spirit under the notion of a sensible Being and as such to worship him for so anciently some adored the Sun for God others the universal material Nature others such particular parts of it and in this consists that gross Idolatry of worshiping false Gods or at least to blend our conceptions of him with corporeal Phantasms and then to express those Phantasms in outward visible Images by them to excite and direct our Worship to him for so in most Nations the supreme Numen was heretofore adored in Statues and Images of several shapes and figures copied from the several Images by which they represented him to themselves in their own vain and roving imaginations and herein consists that more refined Idolatry of worshiping the true God in a false manner Thus the general cause of all Idolatry is nothing but the general Apostacy of human nature from the life of reason to the life of sense by which we are naturally inclined either to transform God into a gross and sensible nature or at least to assist our selves in conceiving of and adoring and worshiping him by sensible and visible Objects To prevent which God hath been graciously pleased to assume some material substance and therein from time to time to exhibit to mens eyes a visible presence of himself which in Scripture is frequently called the Glory of the Lord and by the ancient Jews the Shechinah or habitation of God and consisted of a shining luminous matter which exhibited a glorious lustre of flame or light set off with thick and solemn clouds whence it is probable he is said to cover himself with light as with a garment Psal. 104.2 and in this glorious appearance he conducted Israel through the Red Sea and Wilderness came down upon Mount Sinai and was seen by Moses and the Elders of Israel and from thence removed into