that is Christ was extant when all things else began and so he was and was in being before them and did not then begin to be he was before time or any thing that was created had a beginning 't is in a short way to express him eternal the expression that he was is evidently taken out of the 8th Chapter of Proverbs from the 23d to the 31st Verse where the Word St. John speaks of is represented as present with God in all the Business that relates to this World and principally and especially in the work of Redemption The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was when there was no depths I was brought forth when there was no fountains abounding with water and in the 30th Verse Then I was with him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him rejoycing in the habitable parts of this Earth and my delights were with the sons of men of which we can conceive no more but that God's Works being known unto him and present with him from all eternity the Word the second Person in the Trinity by whom they were to be made managed and finally disposed was with him in that particular concern and relation from all eternity and God took the same complacency in them as if they had been actually in being the Apostle's words are a plain Syllogism Christ was in the beginning not created but existing before all created beings And was and if you ask where he was he was with God and therefore must needs be God upon these premises that Christ was before all and was with God It may be undeniably concluded he was God for nothing but God could precede all beginning and creation and exist with himself Was the Word The Reasons why the Apostle chuseth to express Christ when he writes of his Divinity by the name of the Word seem to be two and they both result from that other undeniable evidence he gives of his Divinity that he was not only before the World with God but that the World was actually made by him and that without him nothing was made that was made The first reason of his being called the Word is because words are the express Image of Ourselves of our Wisdom Councels and Will and so was Christ the very express Image of God the Deity in that work of creation utter'd and express'd it self in its eternal Wisdom Councels and Will by the second Person as the voice of all the three and so he is called the Word Secondly He is called the Word with particular reference to the History Moses gives us of the manner of Creation the Creatures were all originally framed by God's speaking for says he God said of every thing let it be and it was he said let there be light and it was so The Psalmist speaking of the Creation expresseth it thus He spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fast Psal 33.9 God spake and the Creation was effected the method of it is so represented and it being performed by the second Person and God speaking solely by him he is thence called the Word And this seems to be all the knowledge we can attain to about this deep and profound Expression and we must know withal that the Expression is metaphorical and suted to our frame and capacity In the first of the Colossians from the 15th Verse to the 19th we find the Apostle's expression very full in this matter who is says he the image of the invisible God and the first-born of every creature for by him were all things created which are in heaven and that are in earth whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him And he is before all things and by him all things consist and he is the head of the body the church who is the beginning and first-born from the dead that in or among all things he might have the pre eminence In the 15th Verse the Apostle lays down these two deep and grand fundamenral Truths First That he is the image of the invisible God the same that he affirms in the first of this Epistle to the Hebrews That he is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person And Secondly That he is the first-born of every creature The Apostle's meaning in the first of these in both Texts is principally to assert and prove the Divinity of Christ appearing in the fashion of a Man and to give us to understand that the second Person in the Deity united unto the Humanity though he be so distinct from the Father as that the Father and he bear a distinct and twofold Record yet he is essentially God and has all the Qualifications of the Deity appurtenant unto him he is the brightness of his Father's glory Now his glory is the radiation of his excellency and Christ being the brightness of his glory is the perfection of his glory and so an essential part of his being and in that conjunction of God and Man wherein he is visible he is the very Image of the invisible God and represents the inaccessible and invisible Deity unto us the great thing the Wisdom and Philosophy both of Jews and Gentiles stumbled at and renders it the object of our knowledge our delight our communion and unutterable satisfaction the Humane and Divine Nature being united in one person and making and constituting but one Person he that sees what is visible and can be seen in that Person is said and truly so to see that Person as he that sees a Man is truly said to see the whole Man though he do not actually see the Soul of that Man nor distinctly and particularly the Understanding Will and Affections of which that Man is constituted but by their effects in corporeal Operations the Deity was as visible in the Humane Person of Christ as the Soul is in the Fabrick of any Man we converse with and in this sense our Saviour himself says he that seen him hath seen the Father by the Effects and his Mighty Operations he that sees that Person where the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily has seen God himself that is has seen that express visible Image of his Person set forth for us to converse with him by and through which the Godhead acts and shews it self by its omnipotent effects according to that of St. John No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten son in the bosom of the father he declares him that is the Humane Nature of Christ united to the Deity is that Image whereby God is pleas'd to reveal and manifest himself to us and all that is acted in by and through that Image is the Actings of God Secondly The Apostle says he is the first-born of every creature by which the
best Man upon Earth could not stand before God under that dispensation which addition to the story God for some especial ends we may be assured gave to the Apostle by Revelation there being no such thing recorded by Moses himself In the 22th Verse the Apostle comes to the second Part of the comparison the affirmitive Part shewing what it is that the believing Jews when they embraced Christianity came to but ye are come to mount Sion 1st This in general is to instruct the converted Jews that by the Gospel they are come to and embodyed with the true Catholick Church called in scripture the fulness of him that filleth all things of which the National Church of the Jews was but a Type and a Figure 2dly That this true Catholick Church is partly in Heaven and partly on Earth And 3dly The Apostle by intermixing these parts together in his account of them gives them to understand that they are all of one piece and together make but one Church and one Body under one Head things in Heaven and things on Earth being united in Christ as their common head and by telling them they are come they are come to this Catholick Church the Apostle signifies this unto them that as their Fathers after several Days Travel upon their coming out of Egypt and by great and solemn preparations came at last to Mount Sinai so they and their Fathers having travelled through the former dispensation which was the great preparative to this they are now safely arrived hither and are come to all the Glories and Priviledges of the Gospel they are come in respect of Relation and Communion to all that part of the Church that is in Heaven and to all the true and real parts of it upon Earth not now confin'd to any National Constitution whatever and this is the best state and utmost that we can attain to in this World The Apostles drift here is not at all to describe the Church Triumphant but the Militant Church the force of this Discourse lies in preferring the state of the Gospel Church here upon Earth beyond and before that of the legal and judicial Church and the Apostle chooseth to represent them both by two Mounts one where the Law was given which was the greatest thing belonged to the Judaical oeconomy and the other from whence the Gospel first issued If you ask why the Apostle represents the Gospel state by Mount Sion and Jerusalem that were places proper and peculiar to the Jews there are several accounts may be given of it 1st Because those places had Spiritual and Gospel significations even as the Jews enjoy'd them and so the Apostle represents by them the better to engage the Jews what they truly and really signified and speaks of them in their own native and proper representation Mount Sion consisted of two parts on the highest part the Temple was built and on the other the Palace of their Kings so that this Mount was typically comprehensive of their Civil and Ecclesiastical state 2dly The Gospel first issued from thence and it was prophesied that so it should do Esau 2.3 out of Sion shall go forth the Law speaking of the Gospel and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem And the same Prophet tells us the deliverer shall come out of Sion and upon that account in Psal 133. God is said from Mount Sion to command the blessing even life for evermore the meaning is Christ himself came into the Temple upon Mount Sion in Jerusalem and from thence in person issued out the Proclamation of the Gospel and therefore the Apostle keeps up the Honour of this Mount and this City because it had ever been by right and designation the seat of the true Worship of the only true God in opposition to all Idolatry and upon that account called the City of the Living God and in regard of the most glorious Types and Prefigurations were therein included and at last therein appeared the great end and substance of them all the glorious Person of God-Man of Christ himself it seems in a sort necessary if the Church were denominated by any one place it should be from this as being comprehensive of the whole Church and State of the Jews and the very center of it the Catholick Church under the Gospel being under confinement to no one place more then another no one place could so give a denomination to it as it might do to a National Church and therefore this place is made choice of by the Holy Ghost and being comprehensive of all God's sacred institutions of old of the Jewish Church Litterally and the Gospel Church Spiritually The Catholick Church universally thereupon is denominated from it and by it to the end of the World To which we may add in the Third place That since all the promises in the Old Testament that are made to the Gospel Church to the end of the World are made to it under those names of Sion and Jerusalem that therefore it seems necessary to keep up those names as it hath pleased the Holy Ghost to do to the end of the World to shew the punctual fulfilling of those promises in all Ages What Mount Sion and Jerusalem signified will not be compleated till the Consummation of all things upon which account God was said to take up his rest and dwell there for ever Nothing therefore seems so proper so decent and fit as to denominate the Gospel-Church by those terms and as it was in the Apostles times a great help to them to find out what Christ was to do and suffer by what was signified and typified of him under the Law so it will be to the very end of the World a marvellous help to the Church to understand the glorious methods of his Kingdom and Government by looking back and seeing how it was set forth in the prefigurations of it that belonged to Jerusalem and Mount Sion It pleaseth the Holy Ghost throughout the whole Scripture most frequently to represent the Gospel in Judaical Types and Phrases and two reasons we may probably suppose for it 1st To shew what an exact Agreement and Harmony there is in all God's Dispensations how every shadow truly represented the substance and every counter-part punctually agrees with the original And 2dly As a means to promote the conversion of the Jews in the latter times when they shall lay to heart and consider that all their own Religion expressed in their own Language is truly and fully to be found in the Christian Religion that the Law therein is exactly conster'd into the Gospel and every particular thing they most valued they shall here find by name expressed and fully to be enjoyed in the substance and perfection of it But for the more punctual and exact discovery of the Apostles sense in these Verses it will be needful to consider the particulars to which he tells the believing Jews they were come severally and distinctly The First thing he tells
every Man comes naturally to speak and understand this heavenly Language when he is born of the Spirit and brought up in the Nurture and Instruction of the Holy Ghost The prophane part of the World are ever deriding this and making it a constant part of their diversion Now what a profound solid part of Discretion do such Men act who have in contempt the Result and Effects of Infinite Wisdom The Papists have a Saying That never any Dog barked at a Crucifix but he run mad The Moral of that Fable is very good and may serve to instruct a prophane Protestant God himself gives a very solemn and withal dreadful Caution and Premonition to all prophane Scoffers by the Prophet Esaias Be not Mockers saith he lest your Bands be made strong that is lest I chuse your Delusion and give you irrecoverably up to your own prophane sence which will be found at last to be the worst sort of Madness I will not believe any will be so unnecessary critical and nice as to blame the Title of this small Tract in regard the Catholick Church under the Gospel is so very often in Scripture denominated by Mount Sion called the Mountain of the Lord's House which is to be set up upon the top of the Mountains And to this Mount Sion that is to the Gospel-Catholick Church are some way or other related all the blessed and glorious Spirits that are extant the fallen Angels are only excluded for by coming to this Mount the Apostle tells us we are come to God the Judge of all to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant to an innumerable company of Angels and to the Spirits of Just Men made perfect A great part of a true Christian's Life and I am sure the best part of it is a Converse with Spirits the best and noblest part of Man is a Spirit and he must shortly for some time exist only in that part and when the Body is reunited to it that second Coalition and Constitution will be altogether Spiritual for a Soul and a Spiritual Body conjoyned will render a Man not less Spiritual than he was while he existed singly in his Soul but will make him perfectly like to an Angel so we are told by our Saviour That in the Resurrection the Saints shall be like to the Angels of God Upon this account God is training us up and gradually fitting and preparing of us for this state he is acquainting us as much as our present condition will allow with himself and other Spirits here that so we may joyfully resign up our earthly state to become of their number and at last abide in that condition that will be purely Spiritual without any sort of Terrene Allay and such who live without any Communion with Spirits here and have no sort of foretaste nor any preparative relish of that state must needs if they any way make use of the thinking faculty leave their Bodies with very great Amusements The Mount of Spirits Hebrews 12.18 For ye are not come unto the Mount that might be touched and that burned with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest Verse 19. And the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more Ver. 20. For they could not endure that which was commanded and if so much as a beast touch the mountain it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart Ver. 21. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake Ver. 22. But we are come unto Mount Sion and unto the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels Ver. 23. To the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect Ver. 24. And to Jesus the Mediatour of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel THis Epistle is a Funeral Sermon preached at the Interment of the Law the material Body of Moses God himself buried long before and no man ever knew the place of his Sepulture and now his mystical Body his Doctrine growing old and ready to vanish away ripe for abolition or rather dissolution not so much by being repealed or rescinded but its use ceasing the end and substance of it appearing and its glory being naturally and of course swallowed up and dissolved into a greater glory that excels The Holy Ghost himself by this Epistle lays it honourably in the grave and so we have the Sepulchre of this mystical Body of Moses abiding with us at this day And happy had it been for the whole Nation of the Jews if this Sermon had had its due effect upon them God in his wise and gracious Providence gave them this Warning this Holy Instruction and Admonition to prevent their obstinate adhaesion to the Mosaical Rites and violent opposition of the Gospel thereby which ended in a very few years after the writing of this Epistle in the sad and utter Ruine of their Temple their City and themselves The Penman of this Epistle by such Probabilities as come very near to a Certainty appears to be St. Paul the great Doctor of the Gentiles and that Person whom it pleased God so eminently to make use of in the glorious Fulfilling of that early prophetick Prediction God shall perswade Japheth to dwell in the tents of Sem. The exact Time when this Epistle was written is very uncertain Antiquity affords us little or no Information about it what Knowledge we can have of it must be by consulting the Scripture and comparing it with it self It seems reasonable to suppose that St. Paul wrote it after his Release at Rome from two Years Imprisonment there with which the Story of the Acts of the Apostles ends wherein is contained an Ecclesiastical History of the Church for about 28 Years after our Saviour's Resurrection unto the 7th Year of Nere that he wrote it after his Release appears from hence that Chap. 13. v. 23. he intends and promiseth a Journey with Timothy which had he been a Prisoner and not in his own power is not reasonable to think he would have done 'T is likewise very probable to be written before the sharpest and most violent Persecutions fell upon the believing Jews before the slaughter Herod made at the instance of the Jews of St. James and those at Jerusalem because he tells them in this Epistle they had not yet resisted unto Blood and 't is very evident to be writ and to be well known to the Jews before St. Peter wrote his second Epistle for therein he seems very plainly to refer to this Epistle and if so then 't is plain also beyond denial the Author of it was St. Paul And Account says he that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation even as our beloved
after that time to happen life from the dead 2dly 'T is said by some That what Calling they are to have is passed already and this they chiefly ground upon what was discoursed before of the Advantages they had by the Gospel in the time of our Saviour and the Apostles and what Numbers of them were then converted in so much that the Epistle to the Hebrews is directed to the believing Hebrews and St. Peter and St. James write to the twelve Tribes scattered That some of the ten Tribes as well as of the other two did embrace the Gospel in those times is out of question and that the Apostles met with many of them in Heathen Countries where they went to preach is very evident the occasion of their dispersion besides those common accidents by which Nations come to inhabit and dwell one amongst another was chiefly upon this twofold account 1st Wheresoever they were at any time carried captive many of them stayed behind and never returned And 2dly When they were to be removed as Captives by their Conquerors many of them fearing the consequences of their Captivity fled into other Countries to conceal themselves and there continued and so the Apostles found some of them almost every where dispersed as they went about preaching and occasionally converted part of them and upon that account those Epistles are directed to the Strangers scattered and to the twelves Tribes reckoning a part for the whole and to keep up the Honour and Memory of the Tribes and to make good St. Paul's assertion That God even then had not quite cast off his People though 't is likely of some of the ten Tribes there were but a very few that became Christians a very mean small inconsiderable handful in respect of the body and bulk of them But let the Conversion the Jews had in the Apostles times be put as far as it will or can be put it is certain if St. Paul be infallible that those that make that to be the great Conversion and Restoration of that People foretold in the Old Testament are undoubtedly mistaken for all the Jews that were then converted St. Paul in the 11th of the Romans makes to be no more than a small Remnant like that in the time of Elias which Elias did not see it was so inconsiderable and opposeth it to the bulk and body of that People no Man would think it a reasonable and fair dealing with the Scriptures if any should say that in Elias his time the body of the Jews were free from the Idolatry of Baal because seven thousand of them were 't is the same thing to say the Jews were called and restored to the Church in the Apostles times because a small Remnant of them were then converted St. Paul as plain as words can express distinguisheth between the Call of that Remnant then and the general Call of that People which he terms their Fulness and which he refers all along to a future season when the fulness of the Gentiles should be come in 't were a strange thing to conceive that that Season wherein the Holy Ghost tells us Wrath was come upon that People to the uttermost that that should be the Season wherein all the glorious Predictions concerning their Call and Restoration should be accomplished And 't is not to be passed over without much observation that the Prophet Isaiah having in the forementioned 11th Chapter of his Prophesie so positively foretold the restoration of the Jews and particularly of the ten Tribes and in the last Verse of that Chapter declared There shall be a high-way for the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt The twelfth Chapter following is the very Song in Terminis set down and indicted by the Holy Ghost which the Jews shall sing at that glorious time of their recovery and restoration Chap. 12. And in that day thou shalt say O Lord I will praise thee though thou wast angry with me thine anger is turned away and thou comfortest me Behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my glory he also is become my salvation Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation And in that day shall ye say Praise the Lord call upon his Name declare his doings amongst the people make mention that his Name is exalted Sing unto the Lord for he hath done excellent things this is known in all the earth Cry out and shout thou inhabitant of Sion for great is the holy One of Israel in the midst of thee So that as there was a solemn Song sung unto God upon the mighty deliverance out of Egypt for 't is said in Exodus than sang Moses and the children of Israel this song even so upon this mighty and wonderful restoration and recovery of the Jews shall this solemn Song of Thanksgiving be sung by them all to the Praise and Honour of that great God that hath brought again together these poor dry Bones and made a People and Nation of them and has remembred his Promise of old to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and declared thereby his faithfulness and truth to this his ancient Inheritance according to that of the Psalmist He hath remembred his covenant for ever the word which he commanded to a thousand generations which covenant he made with Abraham and his oath unto Isaac and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a Law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant Though their Posterity by their sins have brought a long suspension upon these Promises yet the Entail is not cut off for it shall last through a thousand Generations In the New Testament this Point is largely discussed and as I conceive very plainly determined by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans having professed there his great zeal for and love to the Jews that were his own flesh he proposeth this Question Hath God says he cast away his people He answers it with the most sacred and withal the most vehement and abhorrent Negation God forbid just as he answers that Question in the 6th Chapter Shall we sin that grace may abound which was one of the vilest scandals that could be put upon St. Paul's Doctrine and the Gospel He answers God forbid So that the case is so far very clear that God has not cast off his People and 't were a great piece of impiety when we reflect upon the Promises made to them and the Prophesies yet unfulfilled concerning them so to think The Apostle makes good this point that God had not cast off his People by this twofold answer to that Question 1st That some of them amongst whom himself was one had embraced the Gospel at that time and that although the bulk of that People remained in unbelief yet 't was then as 't was in Elias his time
them they are come to is to Mount Sion of which for the clearer comprehension of the Apostles meaning by it some things may be particularly considered of that Mount as it stood circumstanced under the Law and this in especial that the great Honour that is put upon it in Scripture is principally with respect to the Temple that then stood upon the top of it and which was meant and signified by it this was the place whither all the Males were to come three times a Year and the solemn part of all the Jewish Worship could be no where else performed and their private Worship where ever they were at home or abroad upon Solomon's request to God at the first dedication of it was generally directed towards this place This we may see in the case of Jonah who in the Whale's Belly thought of directing his Prayer towards this Holy Temple and the Prophet Daniel when it was pulled down and lay in Rubbish prayed even then towards it three times a day as we see in the 6th of Daniel This Temple placed upon Mount Sion was the only sanctified House where the mighty God was pleased to take up his dwelling since the World began the Tabernacle was small and ambulatory and but preparative to this glorious sanctified solemn Fabrick the City of Jerusalem and the Land of Canaan were only holy relatively and upon collateral accounts the City with reference to the Temple the place of God's residence but the Temple was inherently Holy made so by God's own dedication and descent into it at the first this was the place where day and night God was served without ceasing according to his own ordination and therefore he is said to love it above all the dwelling places of Jacob. Here the long expected Messiah the Son of God Christ himself was brought and all that the Law required performed about â—im in this Sacred House But sure we are the Apostle intended nothing literal about this Mount his drift is wholly spiritual and therefore having premised thus much of the literal typical State of this Mount we must now examine what it means in this place and as it lyes in the comparison and the sense intended seems very obvious by Mount Sion the heavenly Jerusalem and the City of the living God the same thing is intended and this is the meaning ye are come to all that was typified by them and all that was promised on the Churches behalf to them to every Promise made to the Church under those denominations which is no other but the Gospel-state and the blessed Priviledges and Administrations thereof in its fulness and glory the Apostle declares the meaning of these places to be spiritual and neither of private interpretation nor literal signification that the Jews might cease doting upon them in that low and mean sense and might be convinced that the Gospel vertually contains all that was excellent in them Mount Sion as was before said had its value from the Temple that stood upon it and therefore when the Gospel is prophesied of by it 't is said the mountain of the Lord's house shall be exalted on the top of the mountains Now instead of this material Temple every Christian under the Gospel is himself a living Temple of the Holy Ghost a Temple wherein God dwells and all spiritual Worship and Service is continually offered up and the whole Church is one intire living Temple wherein God is always spiritually served so 't is expressed in the 2d of Ephes Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the houshold of God and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord And he that is arrived at this true Gospel-state and all the glorious Enjoyments of it to have access to the Father through the Son by that one Spirit he is come to the true Mount Sion and the real Temple where God will dwell for ever he abides in the nearest access to God he is capable of and in all those holy and sanctified Qualifications which the Temple signified as it was then the Seat and Center of all the true Worship of God The second thing the Apostle tells the Jews they are come to is the heavenly Jerusalem the City of the living God and although the signification of this is the same with Mount Sion yet it is greatly farthering to the Apostle's design the mention of it that so the Jews might think nothing valuable amongst them was lost but all to be found with great advantage in the profession of the Gospel the whole Religion of that National Church of the Jews being contained in this City and therein vertually comprised the whole state of the Gospel The Catholick Church with great reason and signification under the Gospel every where spread and under no confinement is stiled a City and is called Jerusalem a vast difference there was between coming to that dreadful barren Mount Sinai in the Wilderness of Horeb and the City of the living God Several things are considerable in this City to heighten the comparison taking it to be made either with Mount Sinai or Jerusalem literal 1st The Noble and Honourable Government of this City 'T is governed by the great Charter of the Gospel none have any Rule but the living God himself no Laws are in force here but what come from Christ's own Mouth the Gospel Church is built up and managed as the Temple was which was the soul and glory of this City in every particular by God's own punctual direction and there is his delight there his Soul rests where he is served by Laws of his own composing and enacting 2dly This City is a place of invincible strength and security the Jews knew to their cost the earthly Jerusalem was not so here 's the Mount Sion that cannot be moved the Gates of Hell can never prevail against it 't is sure to remain against all opposition till it be safely taken up into Heaven from whence it came 3dly The Inhabitants of it are all united 't is a City compact together not with carnal and earthly but spiritual Ligaments there is such an union in it as God has chosen and takes pleasure in amidst great variety they have but one Head they all minister under him as fellow-citizens for the good of each other they are all guided and animated by one Spirit and they all tend to one and the same end 4thly 'T is a City of wonderful Beauty the City of the great King the Palace of the living and eternal God as the Psalmist says comprehensively and prophetically of it under the name of Sion Beautiful for scituation is mount Sion the joy of the whole earth this Beauty lyes in the Presence of God and in its Sanctity and in that Image and Superscription of God that it