all the Persons upon Earth is fingled out for it and he is told of God that in him all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed and this is called after in Scripture the blessing of Abraham being first pronounced to him which is the Blessing of the Messiah nor is any thing more particularly revealed touching the Messiah before his actual coming save that out of the numerous Posterity of Abraham one particular Tribe is singled out and one Family of that Tribe and 't is declared that Christ should come of the Tribe of Judah and of the House and Lineage of David That the Covenant of Grace was established with Abraham is plain from what the Apostle says Gal. 3. v. 8. The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the heathen through faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed which must needs be the Gospel because it refers to all Nations what particularly belong'd to the Jews went no farther than that Nation and the same Apostle in his grand Dispute with the Jews about Justification proves the Gospel-Method of Justification to be the true Method because Abraham was justified that way and was of more antiquity than the Law taking the Law for the whole Jewish oeconomy from the original of it for the first beginning of that was Circumcision and Abraham was justified in a Gospel-way that is had Righteousness imputed to him before he was circumcised and Circumcision was to him but a Seal of the Righteousness which he had being yet uncircumcised from whence the Apostle infers that Righteousness came not by the Law nor the Operations thereof but by Faith this was the first instance this of Abraham's in which we find any Man in Scripture justified and 't was intended to be an Instance of God's future and final Justification of Believers both Jews and Gentiles under the Gospel to the World's end and that the Law in the complex Notion of it was only a School-master to conduct and lead Men to Christ is very evident because both the Covenants were made with Abraham and the Gospel-Covenant had the precedence and the other though first in actual execution was in its nature but declarative and expressive of it and conductive to it and very proper and signifying it was that Christ should come from the Loins of Abraham who stood related to God as a publick person not only the natural Father of the Jew but the spiritual Father of all the faithful both Gentiles and Jews for although Christ as concerning the Flesh came of the Jews who were a holy enclosure unto God and under his own peculiar Regiment and it was a singular advantage to them to have it so and in some respect it was absolutely necessary that it should be so that so he might be born under the Law and under an obligation to all the righteousness of the legal Dispensation which he came to fulfil and might be a Minister of the Circumcision as the Apostle speaks for the truth of God to confirm the Promises made unto the Fathers yet he came as a publick Person in no sort confin'd to the Jewish Nation but equally related to all Mankind and therefore we find that one of the Evangelists derives his Pedegree from Adam From a triumvirate of Divine Favorites Men highly beloved of God and of great Heavenly Renown Heirs of all the Promises for Isaac and Jacob inherited all the Blessings of Abraham this People had their Original in those three God did not only epitomize his future gracious Proceedings with the World in the Covenant of his Grace and as it were appropriate himself to that triumvirate as their peculiar property by stiling himself the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob but so far honours them after death and when they had left this World as throughout all Generations to set forth the blessed state of the saved by their sitting down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven as if the very Company and Presence of those blessed Patriarchs to whom the Promises of Life and Salvation through the Messiah were first personally made would add much to our happiness there and as if their state above were the utmost felicity any could hope for or attain to for these Fathers sake of theirs they are to this day beloved of God and God owes them for what he promises he owes and intends them a kindness as shall be shewn hereafter for their sakes for as in those three the natural and the promised and spiritual Seed did both inhere and concenter so at last their natural Seed according to the Flesh shall also become Heirs of the Promise and the reason of it we have from St. Paul because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance The Consideration of three things will let us into a right account of that People First That God did intend by the impalement of them to himself to put in his Claim to the World generally run quite away from him into gross Idolatry the Worship of the Sun and other parts of the Creation and become Subjects of that Kingdom set up by the fallen Angels against him by this to challenge a part of the work of his hands and to have some select part of the World ruled and governed by Laws and Institutions of his own ordaining the great tendency of which were to prevent and over-rule that fatal miscarriage of Mankind in worshipping the Creature instead of the Creator and placing an Idol in the room of the true God and therefore throughout the whole Mosaical Institution there is a sacred Antiparistasis against Idolatry a total contradiction in every Ceremony of the Jewish Worship to it and the whole so contrived as to make that People utterly seperate themselves from the Sins of the Nations in that particular and to bring them up with the utmost detestation of it One constant Memorial of himself in a most eminent manner God by his Law placed amongst them which was the observance of the Sabbath intended as a constant weekly Memorandum against Idolatry and to put them in mind who it was that made the Heavens and the Earth and rested the seventh day from the works of his hands and upon this account it pleased God that Idolatry and breach of the Sabbath had the same punishment And as the Laws and Constitutions of this People were thus framed to secure them against Idolatry so the providential dealings of God with them all along tended this way God himself undertaking the particular charge and government of them which necessarily made them a Church and a State conjoyned together and exercising that government in such a way as might be expected from such a Soveraign and might in the highest manner oblige them to their obedience to him by mighty and open-face discoveries of himself by stupendious Miracles amazing Signs and Wonders and by an out-stretched Arm of Power subduing all
1000 Years but how and in what order and manner and in what succession all these things will be effected and whether the new Heavens and the new Earth will precede the first Resurrection or not are Questions not pertinent to be asked because they are as yet impossible to be resolved Thus we have seen by what hath been discoursed upon this Argument how all the great and eternal Designs of God touching this World were laid in his creation of it by the second Person and that by him all the glorious and blessed ends God proposed to himself there by are brought to pass and accomplished as all was made by him so all was made for him and the glory of all results to God through him The Apostle in this Epistle sets forth many Qualifications of the blessed Person of our Lord Jesus Christ that the Jews might think themselves no losers by changing their Legislator by taking him instead of Moses in respect of his Divine Nature he was infinitely exalted above all comparisons in respect of his Humane Nature he was exalted above the Angels as a Prophet he exceeded Moses as far as the Master of a Family exceeds his Servant for he is the Son in his own house and as a Priest he much exceeded Aaron by once for all offering up himself a compleat and perfect Sacrifice and shedding thereby the Blood of God for the Sins of the World and as a King and Priest together by reason of his absolute perfection in Sanctity and Soveraignty and that he is the great Reconciler of Earth and Heaven the great Peace-maker between God and Man he that brings down and proclaims Peace upon Earth and Good-will towards Men the true King of Salem he infinitely preceded Melchisedech having also the power of an endless Life and being indeed without beginning or ending of Days which Melchisedech was only in Historical Figure and in the Type And throughout the whole Epistle shews the wonderful excellency of the Gospel above that of the Law not only from its Original and Founder but also from the Nature and Constitution of it being a heavenly Frame pitch'd by God himself the other but an earthly one and all the Appurtenances to it the Sacrifice the Ordinances of Worship the Covenant and the efficacy of the whole sutable thereunto and all this to bring the Jews to own the truth of their own Religion to acknowledge their true and natural Messiah of whom as purtaining to the flesh Christ came after his departure and ascension Christ who compassionately wept over Jerusalem and that People while he was upon Earth was pleased to afford them this glorious Luminary to follow them with this Instruction and to kindle this Heavenly Lamp before them that ought to have been a Light to their Feet and a Lanthorn unto their Paths to have led them from Mount Sinai to Mount Sion from Mount Sion literal to Mount Sion spiritual and from the earthly to the heavenly Jerusalem but the success proved otherways for the State of the Jews the governing part of that Nation together with the Body of the People continued in the utmost rage and opposition they could possibly express against Christ and his Doctrine till that remove of their oeconomy and Worship which is here but spiritually and doctrinally laid before them and tendred to them for their information and instruction came to be materially sensibly and dreadfully put in execution to their utmost horror and confusion That People being chiefly concerned in this Epistle and having been so stupendious a Stage of singular Blessings and extraordinary Judgments a short Digression touching that People and Nation in particular cannot in this place seem either heterogeneal or impertinent A short Digression touching the Jews The Jews who were so long proprietors of the true God and in possession of the only instituted Religion of which he was the Author of whom it might for many Ages be said considering and comparing them with the rest of the World That Salvation was of the Jews that People that had so much advantage above all others every way and that made so great a divine and religious Figure in the World and so true a one for so long together having in Promises Types and Significations the Christian Religion it self amongst them for out of that Root it sprang there it was in Oar though it was afterwards coin'd and stampt and that as yet do remain as wonderful Monuments both of Divine Justice and Mercy and the Subjects of many Prophesies to be yet fulfilled to this very day a right Account of this People and a due and serious Consideration of them cannot but be of excellent use to all the ends of the Christian Religion Their Original was from Abraham they never pretended to derive themselves higher and therefore encountred our Saviour with what they most valued themselves upon We have Abraham for our father he was the first friend God was pleased to make to himself upon Earth and with him it was that God personally established the Covenant of Grace in all the Essentials and Substantials of it and the legal Covenant as the Type Figure and Forerunner of that in his Natural Capacity he was the Father of the Jews but restrictively by the Seed of the Promise in Isaac with whom the Covenant of Circumcision was made an Institution of great Sanctity and Distinction and whereby they obliged themselves against all false Gods and Idolatry to the Worship of the only true God as he himself declared the meaning of it to be and in his Spiritual Capacity as one that believed and obeyed what God revealed to him and followed him fully he was the Father of all the faithful who have ever since all gone to Heaven by treading in the steps of their Father Abraham but this must not be so strictly taken as if these two Seeds of Abraham were always subjectively divers for they were often the same and this the Apostle proves at large in the 9 10 11 Chap. to the Romans in the Instances of Isaac and Jacob and the Remnant of Israel that were at that time saved who were both Heirs according to the Flesh and according to the Promise the Gospel was all virtually utter'd unto him in that one expression In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed the meaning of which was that the Promise of the Messiah having yet lain at large and in very general terms and proceeded no farther than the first Promise made of him that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpent's Head God would graciously advance one step farther and not only enlarge that Promise by declaring that in the Seed of the Woman all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed but also make it known of what People of all the Nations and Kindreds of the Earth the Messiah should come and from whose Loins according to the Flesh he should proceed and this honour is done to Abraham and he of
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
their long expected Messiah and the dreadful Judgment that in a few Years after befel them thereupon ending in the total ruin both of their Church and State and their miserable forlorn Condition to this hour are all sufficiently convincing Evidences of this Truth The ten Tribes for their abominable Idolatries were early removed and captiv'd by Salmanaser and to this day never again heard of seem as lost only survive in the Promises made for their restoration and all we know of them is that the Scripture tells us out of what places at last they shall be recalled The other two Tribes about a Hundred and twenty Years after or somewhat more went into Babilon suffering the loss of all in a sore Captivity they returned indeed and continued a petty inconsiderable State which was at the best under the Maccabees till Christ came but then when the glory of all they hoped for and the substance of all their Religion signified appeared then was the Judgment of God compleated upon them What account can be given of this that these peculiar People of God in covenant with him above all the Earth to whom the Promises of the Messiah were chiefly and primarily made of whose flesh he came that they of all the World should be his crucifiers what account I say but this that God would compleat his Judgments for all their Rebellions upon them above all others and 't is a thing of great remark and observation that in the 6th Chap. of Isaiah where that fatal and dreadful Rejection of the Jews from the advantage they might have had from Christ and the Gospel at his coming is foretold and recorded we never find God more gloriously magnified nor his praise more celebrated in Heaven than upon this occasion In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple Above it stood the seraphims each one had six wings with twain he covered his face with twain he covered his feet and with twain he did fly And one cried unto another and said Holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried and the house was filled with smoke And in the 8th Verse Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying Whom shall I send and who will go for us Then said I Here am I send me And he said Go and tell this people Hear ye indeed but understand not and see ye indeed but perceive not Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and convert and be healed Then said I Lord how long And he answered Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man and the land be utterly desolate So clear and evidently just were God's proceedings with this People in suffering them to reject Christ and the Gospel who had so often and so long rejected him and bring at last a total ruin upon themselves their City and whole Country by the Romans that the whole heavenly Hoast admire and adore his Actings herein and give their utmost Suffrage thereunto But although all these Miseries have befallen this People and all the Judgments threatned in the Law of Moses have been most righteously executed upon them yet God according to his ancient Promise has not totally and utterly destroyed them but has subjected them in hope and will at last revive them with a glorious and merciful Revival and Resurrection which is the Point shall be last considered about this People Touching the Calling of the Jews The Calling of the Jews is a Matter that has been variously treated of and there has been considerable Advocates on both sides but to me it seems that no Man that with due diligence reads what the Scriptures informs us about this Matter can fairly deny but that the Jews will at last be called into the Christian Church and embodied with it and their restoration will be very glorious the whole stream of the prophetick part of the Old Testament runs this way God has upon all occasions by his Prophets declared himself very plain in this Point that he would not by any of his Judgments utterly raze that People out of the World but that there should be hope in their end and that although he had in punishing many other Nations made a full end with them that their Names should be no more remembred yet he would not do so with the Jews for he had married himself unto them and although he would with the exactest severity punish them for their Sins and take vengeance upon their Inventions yet he would not make a full end with them but reserve them to be Objects and Spectacles of his Mercy at the last so in the 31st of Jeremiah he declares That the sun moon and stars should as soon cease from enlightning the world as the seed of Israel cease from being a nation before him for ever which in a great measure our own eyes behold made good at this day in the forementioned 6th of Isaiah where their rejection from the advantages of the Gospel at its first publication and to this day is so solemnly and dreadfully declared by the Prophet the last Verse of that Chapter is a plain witness to this But yet in it shall be a tenth and it shall return and be eaten as a teil-tree and as an oak whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves so the holy seed shall be the substance therefore Though they look like a dead Tree without Leaves yet there shall be a secret Life within A holy seed that shall be the substance thereof To set down all that the Prophets have left upon record touching this restoration of the Jews at the last were to transcribe a considerable part of their Writings and therefore I shall confine my self in the proof of this Point to a narrow compass and insist only upon some few Scripture Evidences but such as I take to be very concluding and enough to convince in this matter First If there appear any Promises in the Old Testament for the restoring and recovering of the ten Tribes as there appear very many that Judah and Israel should be again united and those two broken and divided Sticks made into one then 't is past question that those Promises are yet to be made good and accomplished the ten Tribes have never yet been restored since they were captived by Shalmaneser and God himself declared by his Prophet Hosea in the first of Hosea that he would make a great difference between the Captivity of the ten Tribes and the other two in point of duration and continuance of time even so far that the ten Tribes should seem as utterly cast away yet in the 10th and 11th Verses he promises
objected upon the whole matter 1st That the ten Tribes were never lost nor are not in any sense extinct 2dly That what calling they were to have is past already He that affirms the first is obliged to tell us what came of the ten Tribes since their Captivity and give some good satisfying account where they now are which there is not a Man upon Earth that can do He that affirms the second must either shew when they were called and restored or else must deny that there are any promises made for it for if it be promised in Scripture that Judah and Israel should be again united as 't is plain enough to be and the ten Tribes restored then if those promises do not appear yet to have been fulfilled 't is an invincible argument that the fulfilling of them is yet to come for the Scripture cannot be broken but must have its punctual accomplishment one time or other But to come to a due and right consideration of these two things it will be necessary to take a view of their original Captivity the History of which we have in the second Book of Kings chap. 17. In the time of Hoshea's Raign Shalmaneser came up against Samaria the Capital City of the ten Tribes and after three Years siege took it and the Text says carried Israel away into Assyria and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes And in the 18th verse after a recapitulation of all their heinous and God-provoking sins 't is said Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight there was none left but the tribe of Judah only under which name that part of the Tribe of Benjamin that adhered to Judah is comprehended for a Considerable part of the Tribe of Benjamin joyned with the ten Tribes in the Idolatry of the Calves and underwent their Fate And in the 24th verse t is said The King of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cutha and from Ava and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel and they possessed Samaria and dwelt in the cities thereof by which 't is plain they were so effectually removed out of Canaan that they were placed in a far and remote Country and their own Country was Peopled with other Inhabitants a thing very unusual and rarely if ever heard of in Conquer'd Nations and in which a particular Hand of God seems to appear and this continued till our Saviour's time for the inheritance of the ten Tribes was much of it possessed by Assyrians then with a mixture of some Jews which Jews were moftly of the two Tribes that returned out of Babylon who after their return got into possession of divers parts belonging to the ten Tribes formerly the Samaritans who inhabited a very considerable part of the inheritance of the ten Tribes were all Assyrians and well known to remain there ever since Shalmaneser's Conquest and had the Jews in the utmost detestation and would have no converse with them of any sort this is all briefly expressed by Grotius in his judicious annotation upon the 4th Verse of the 4th Chapter of John Samariam intellige saies he illam partem Terrae promisse in quâ manserunt assyrii post quam caetera decem tribubus olim possessa Judaei a Babilonia reduces receperunt ab urbe enim olim regni capite nomen mansit regioni by all which it appears sufficiently evident that in our Saviours time the ten Tribes were not come back but their Country was generally possessed by Assyrians and Jews of the two Tribes t is like some few of the ten Tribes might be amongst them though Shalmaneser did not leave such numbers behind him as Nebuchadnezzar did but swept the Country more clear in order to a new Peopling of it So clear that it appears by the 27th Verse of the 17th Chapter of the second Book of Kings That not one individual Priest was left in the whole Country by which Providence God seemed to point at the long and lasting duration of that Captivity and the hopelesness of any sudden return whatever small part of the ten Tribes might possibly stay behind or get into other adjacent Countrys are not sure to be reckoned for the ten Tribes when all the Ruling part and the Bulk and Body of them were gone no more then those Nebuchadnezzar left though they far exceeded in number were to be reckoned for the two Tribes when the chief of them and the Bulk of them were in Babylon and the Scripture every where reckons the two Tribes to be there during their Captivity and above fifty Thousand returned those few of the ten Tribes that were in Canaan in our Saviours time were of three sorts First such as upon the first setting up of the Calves by Jeroboam had fled to Jerusalem which divers did to enjoy the true worship and service of God and setled there those upon the removal of the ten Tribes by Shalmaneser 't is likely might at least some of them return home to their former Inheritances 2dly Those few that were left behind when Shalmaneser transplanted them for some few of the meaner poorer sort were probably left And 3dly Those that upon the decree of Cyrus came back which some few people did that were near home and had fled into the adjacent Countrys but the Bulk and Body of the ten Tribes were gone and had not then returned nor have they had any restoration to this day but remain as to our knowledge of them buried and lost in their first Captivity The reason why Shalmaneser placed them in Halah and Habor by the River Gozan and in the Cities of the Medes may well be collected from hence 1st That those were the most uninhabited places of any parts of his Dominions And 2dly Because those places were at so very great a distance from the land of Canaan that they might have no thoughts nor opportunities of returning and for the matter of fact of these two reasons it is proved from Strabo and the best Geographers now the ten Tribes being so circumstanced at first in their Captivity 't is very probable to believe they setled and continued there or were by to us unknown accidents removed till all the Memorials of them were as now they be quite lost and extinguished this Captivity of the ten Tribes was above a 120 Years before the Babylonish Captivity and there is not the least colour of proof they returned during that time Nay 't is certain they remained in Captivity when the other two Tribes were in Babylon but 't is urged by some and great stress laid upon it to little effect that they being within the Dominions of Cyrus and his decree reaching all his Territories they might return when the two Tribes came out of Babylon for his decree set them all at liberty so to do but this
to accuse calumniate and misrepresent before God so these blessed Angels are constant Spectators and publick Notaries of all the Proceedings of the Church and all the Actings and Sufferings of every Member thereof in order to bear a faithful Witness before God and be a punctual Record thereof at the Day of Judgment And in this sense we are come unto them they are not only present in publick Assemblies but conversant in the Closet of every Saint and take an exact view of all their devout and fervent Addresses unto God upon this account it is that St. Paul tells us that the Apostles by their Preaching and Suffering were a Spectacle to Angels the holy Angels beheld their Spiritual Courage and Conquest with wonderful satisfaction and upon this account it is that St. Paul chargeth Timothy before the Elect Angels to look well to the discharge of his Work and Office because they are Witnesses appointed of God to take punctual notice of his Behaviour therein and the Presence of the Angels is made an Argument by the Holy Ghost for the well-ordering our selves and all our Actions in Church-Assemblies 5thly The Angels as they are God's Officers employed for the guard and security of the Church so they are also for the revenging of his Wrath upon their Enemies so it often was under the Old Testament and so it is under the New and will continue till the end that wretched prophane Herod who added to all his former wickedness to shut up John in Prison and after added to that addition to cut off his Head to please a Dalilah and at last came to make himself his own Idol by taking to himself that glory that should have been ascribed to God at last an Angel smote him and dispatch'd him to his own place by a woful and miserable Catastrophey the Angels stood all ready when our blessed Saviour was led to the Cross to have rescued him upon the least Command this our Saviour himself told the Jews when he was encompass'd with a Roman Guard he could upon request to his Father have more then twelve legions of angels to rescue and assist him which exceeded the number of Men the Romans then had in their whole Army for their Army at that time did not consist of twelve Legions and in the Revelations we find the Angels constantly employed by God as the great Executioners of his Wrath upon the Churches Enemies to the end of the World 6thly We are come to this innumerable company of Angels as to our truest Friends and most faithful Companions for they never leave us till they have brought us home 1st To the rest of our Souls in Heaven for they wait upon every dying Believer to comfort and chear his spirit so soon as ever it hath left the Body and safely to convey it into that Blessed fellowship above and into that glorious place and state of rest called Abraham's Bosom And 2dly They will be assisting and instrumental though it be effected by the mighty Power of God to call and raise the Bodies of the Saints out of their Graves at last when Christ comes to effect the first Resurrection he will be attended with all his Glorious Angels and by their Ministry the Dead in Christ shall rise first the Trumpet that will sound to summon them out of their ashes will be an Angelical sound probably the Voice of the Arch-Angel and when they arise out of the Earth they will together with all the Saints then living be caught up by the Angels and conveyed by them to meet the Lord in the Air the last office the Angels will have to perform and so will ever abide with him Whose heart would not burn within him upon the contemplation of these things that God should be such a lover of Men that the Eternal Son should by his death redeem them his own spirit by his influences come down and dwell in them and all the Angels in Heaven made their Guardians and their whole Ministry and Service employed on their behalf How blessed a condition does the Gospel instate us in above the Law in reference to this particular When Man first fell by sin the Angels became his most avowed Enemies and Executioners of Wrath that went out against him for the Cherubims stood with a flaming Sword to keep the Tree of Life and to shut Man out of Paradise he made his Angels Spirits and at that time his ministers a flame of fire When the Law was given upon Mount Sinai and Man considered only in his natural state the Angels were most dreadful and terrible in their appearance but now under the Gospel Angels and Men by the Blood of the Cross are embodyed into one Fellowship and Society united in and under one head engaged in the same Worship and Service and enjoy a sweet and most endeared communion each with other all which is fully insinuated and intimated by the Apostle in telling the Believing Jews they were come to this innumerable company of angels 4thly The Apostle tells them they are come to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in Heaven This is an expression of that part of the Catholick Church here upon Earth to which by the Gospel all Believers come and with which they are incorporated and imbodyed two things are intended hereby to shew the preference of the Gospel-state before that of the Legal 1st That instead of the Assembly of all the Males three times a Year at Jerusalem which is called in Scripture the great congregation they are come now to the great Assembly of all the Members of the true Catholick Church amongst Mankind to all the true servants of God both of Jews and Gentiles that any where call upon God in Spirit and Truth and that God would have such a general Assembly and such an universal Church of the first-born throughout all Nations without any farther respect to the Jews or their Church was a secret undiscovered till the Gospel Revelation came 2dly That this assembly consists only of real and true Saints such as have the right of the first born the great inheritance that men are born capable of in this World is the possession of Heaven at last those that obtain that are the eldest sons of this lower World and the first-born amongst Mankind in the Scripture sense and none obtain this inheritance but such as are eternally elected in Christ to it and therefore the Apostle when he names the Church of the first-born adds as explanatory of it whose names are inrolled in Heaven that is in the Lamb's Book of Life in the Roll of God's eternal purposes and councels there they are Registred and not in an Earthly Register as the Jews were this Church of the first-born is called in Scripture the first fruits of the whole Creation unto God and the Lamb they are said to be Heirs to God and Joynt-heirs with Christ they are made Kings and Priests unto God and so have