David by the same Inspiration in many Psalms celebrates the Kingdom of the Messiah In Psal. 22. he is introduc'd speaking My praise shall be of thee in the great Congregation all the ends of the World shall remember and turn unto the Lord all the kindreds of the Nations shall worship before thee And in the 67 Psal. God be merciful to us and blessus and cause his Face to shine upon us Selah That thy way may be known upon Earth and thy saving health among all Nations Let the people praise thee O God let all the people praise thee The Prophet Esay in his Revelations clearly speaks of the great design of God to bring the Gentiles to his service Thus in the second Chapter 't is prophesied And it shall come to pass in the last days that the Mountain of the Lords House shall be established in the tops of the Mountains and shall be exalted above the Hills And many People shall go and say Come ye let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord to the House of the God of Jacob and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths for out of Zion shall go forth the Lord and the Sword of the Lord out of Jerusalem And among all the rest none is more clear and express than what is recorded in Isa. 49. There first the Messiah is represented as declaring his Commission from God to go to the People of Israel The Lord hath called me from the womb from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my Name and he said unto me Thou art my Servant in whom I will be glorified And after complains of the obstinacy of the ingrateful Synagogue Then I said I have laboured in vain I have spent my strength for nought in vain yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work with God And immediately after 't is added And now saith the Lord that form'd me from the Womb to be his Servant to bring Jacob again to him though Israel be not gather'd yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord and my God shall be my strength And he said it is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the Tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou maist be my Salvation to the ends of the Earth This Oracle is precise and full for it speaks of the Nations in opposition to the Tribes of Israel and directly foretels that the Jews would neglect the instructions of the Messiah and that upon their Infidelity God would by the Messiah give saving knowledge to all Nations And in the same sense he speaks in the 54th Chapter Sing O Barren thou that didst not bear break forth into singing and cry aloud thou that didst not travel with Child for more are the Children of the desolate than of the married saith the Lord. Who is the desolate and barren but the Gentiles without God in the World whiles the Jews were honour'd and blest in the Mystical Marriage with him And who are the Children of the forsaken that should be far more numerous than those of the married but the Believers of the Christian Church in opposition to the Jewish Church And the other succeeding Prophets concur in this prediction Malachy the last speaks of it in such express terms as are capable to convince any that does not wilfully renounce the use of his Eyes and Understanding After God is introduc'd rejecting the Jews and their Temple Service I have no pleasure in you saith the Lord of Hosts neither will I accept an Offering at your hands He adds to signifie the calling of a new Church for from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place Incense shall be offer'd to my Name and a pure Offering for my Name shall be great among the Heathen saith the Lord of Hosts Thus that great wonder was clearly foretold by the Prophets and as a work to be performed by the glorious Power of God And accordingly it is accomplish'd For who but God could have inspir'd the Apostles to undertake an Enterprise so contrary to Humane Prudence being equally dangerous and impossible And who else could have made it successful beyond all imagination When the Pride of Pharoah was humbled and his Strength broken by the most despicable creatures even the Magicians were compelled to acknowledge it to be the Finger of God but his Arm was revealed when the Spiritual Pharoah with all his Powers of Darkness were overcome by such weak Instruments What furious Winds from all parts of the World conspir'd to extinguish the first springing Light of the Gospel The Heathen Emperours destroyed innumerable Persons presuming to drown the Memory of Christ in the Blood of the Christians But such were the Faith and Love of Believers of all conditions to their Crucified Redeemer that with the same joy they ran to suffer the most terrible punishments as if they had been to receive Crowns In vain the strongest Combinations were made against the Truth For the knowledge of the only true God and his incarnate Son Jesus Christ overcame Impiety with all its Idols and Ignorance with all its numerous Masters What is become of all the Heathen Deities so honour'd so fear'd so obstinately defended Where are their Altars their Statues their Sacrilegious Priests and Sacrifices They are buried in the ruines of their own Temples in the darkness of eternal oblivion Where are all the Sects of Philosophers the Platonists the Peripateticks the Stoicks the Epicureans and the rest that fill'd Greece with their Fame and so many Volumes with their Fancies and Errour Like a Torrent that rouls down with great noise from the top of a Mountain so for a time the Speculations of their lofty Minds poured along in a floud of swelling froathy Eloquence but now and for how many Ages since the very channel is dryed up wherein they ran so that scarce any visible ruines remain in Athens it self of the Schools where they taught The greatest among them Plato adorn'd with the title of Divine could never see his Commonwealth fram'd by him with so much study to be establish'd in one City Whereas if we consider the Gospel of Christ 't is hard to determine whether the Doctrine be more simple or the Apostles the first Masters of it to outward appearance Yet without Learning or humane strength in a short space they triumphed over the Eloquence of the Greeks the Power of the Romans the Rage of Barbarous Nations They abrogated Laws chang'd Customs and renewed the face of the World In this the Prophetick Parable was fulfill'd The Kingdom of Heaven that is the dispensation of the Gospel is like to a grain of Mustard-seed one of the smallest grains but of that spirit and quality that it suddenly springs up and
Punishment God has taken away all the marks of his Alliance with them No distinction of their Tribes remain no observance of their legal Ceremonies no Priests no Altars no Sacrifices no Prophets nor Miracles in short there is no true Worship among them no God but angry and revenging their bloody impieties And which is most worthy of consideration the Romans that conquer'd them have lost their Empire and the Nations which were subdued by their Arms have recovered their Liberty But the Jews after sixteen hundred years are still miserable Now is not this Judgment of God upon them a dreadful proof of the extremity of their Wickedness in crucifying JESUS CHRIST and that consequently he was as he declar'd himself to be the Son of God and that his Office and Doctrine were from Heaven Never before did the Wrath of God break forth in such a fierce manner against a sinful Nation Therefore 't is represented under the Image of the final Doom when Justice arm'd with flames shall devour the Ungodly and the whole World become a Theatre of Terrors And never was any other Nation guilty of such an high provocation for the Son of God descended but once among Men to be personally crucified The singularity of the punishment is a visible instructive sign of their transcendent Crime Immediately upon their pronouncing the capital Sentence against him on Earth their utter Ruine was pronounc'd in Heaven And the execution of the Sentence was deferr'd no longer but till the Elect of that People were brought in and by the Preaching and excellent Miracles of the Apostles the Resurrection of Christ and the truth of the Gospel were confirm'd and thereby a beginning and form given to the new Christian Church Now they have written on their foreheads in very legible characters the Fatal Curse which their Fathers pronounc'd concerning Jesus Christ His Blood be on Us and our Children When with indignation for their Idolatry broke the Tables of the Law God reestablish'd them but when for a greater guilt God himself broke them there is no possible Redintegration If it be said that 't is not necessary to attribute this Ruine of the Jews to the particular Vengeance of God but only to the Instability of humane things wherein such disastrous Revolutions sometimes happen I answer That although Divine Justice was so visible in their astonishing Destruction that Titus himself refus'd a Triumphal-Crown after his compleat Victory declaring that he was but the Instrument of God's Anger who was the Invisible Emperor in that bloody Expedition yet to force an acknowledgment of it from all that are not wilfully blind it was foretold when the Jews were in peace and their killing the Messiah specified as the Meritorious Cause wherein that terrible Effect was included Thus our Saviour in the Parable of the Husbandmen and Vineyard after they had put to death the Master's Son he adds What shall therefore the Lord of the Vineyard do He will come and destroy the Husbandmen and give the Vineyard to others And upon his drawing near to the City of Jerusalem he wept over it saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes For the days shall come upon thee that thine Enemies shall cast a Trench about thee and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side and shall lay thee even with the Ground and shall not leave in thee one stone upon another because thou knewest not the time of thy Visitation This was also foretold by Moses in all the terrible Circumstances The Lord shall bring a Nation against thee from far from the end of the Earth as swift as the Eagle flyeth a Nation whose Tongue thou shalt not understand a Nation of fierce countenance which shall not regard the person of the old nor shew favour to the young and he shall eat the fruit of thy Cattel and the fruit of thy Land until thou be destroyed which also shall not leave thee either Corn Wine or Oyl or the encrease of thy Kine or flocks of thy Sheep until he have destroyed thee And he shall besiege thee in all thy Gates throughout all thy Land which the Lord thy God hath given thee in the Siege and in the straitness wherewith thine Enemies shall distress thee Such was the Threatning and the Event was correspondent in all the degrees of misery Which as it demonstrates the truth of the Prophecy so it may instruct us how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God 3. The converting of the Gentile World to the saving Knowledg of God by the Messiah was foretold in the Scriptures The beams of this glorious Truth were gradually dispens'd to the Israelites as their weak understandings could sustain it When the Covenant was made with Abraham God declared in express terms In thy Seed shall all the Nations of the World be blessed That Seed was the Messiah not the people of the Jews descended from Abraham for they were so far from being a universal Blessing to the World that on the contrary they vainly presum'd that God for their sakes despis'd the rest of Mankind And indeed before the coming of Christ they were an inclosed Garden the peculiar People of God and without the compass of Judea Sin reign'd absolutely and universally Now that Promise clearly signifies that the Favour and Blessing of God that he conferr'd upon Abraham in making known to him his Will and promising to be his God and of his Posterity should one day be extended to all Nations by calling them to his Knowledg and Service To this agrees the Prophesie of Jacob The Scepter shall not depart from Juda nor the Law-giver from between his feet till Shilo come and to him shall the gathering of the People be that is the Gentiles shall be converted from their Idols to the true God by the Messiah whom the Jews acknowledg to be signified by that Title And Moses introduces God as complaining of the Idolatry and Ingratitude of the Jews and declaring They have moved me to jealousie with that which is not God they have provoked me to anger with their vanities and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a People and I will provoke them to anger with a foolish Nation The external Covenant between God and his People is represented by the union of Marriage to signifie the Duty they owe to God the highest honour the most ardent affections and the benefits they receive from him Therefore when the Jews gave Divine Adoration the highest respects of Religion to Idols they provok'd God to jealousy and he threatens he would break his Alliance with them and give his Heart and Love to those which were not a People And by the Law of Counter-Passion they should be provok'd to Jealousy 'T is very visible these expressions signify the calling of the Gentiles And
be true or false as they are favourable or disagreeing to them Carnal persons fortify every Objection that may render the Mysteries of Godliness unlikely and incredible and will be partial for Sensuality Of this we have a great instance in the first rejection of the Gospel The Jews expected the Messiah would come with pompous Wonders and external Magnificence that he would deliver them from the Roman Yoke and found an Universal Monarchy for them and according to those carnal fancies they would understand the Promises concerning him Now though JESUS CHRIST approved himself to be the Son of God the true Messiah by the Sanctity of his Life the Rectitude of his Doctrine and the Divinity of his Miracles yet for the poverty and meanness of his Condition being without any sensible shew of Greatness and Glory they despised him as most unworthy that Divine Relation and Office Tho in him all the Characters of the Messiah were conspicuous and the Scriptures declare expresly that the Messiah the Prince should be cut off but not for himself but to make reconciliation for Iniquity and to bring in everlasting Righteousness yet they were so prepossest with the Ideas of a Terrene Felicity that they would interpret all the Scriptures by that measure as if the Messiah should come into the World to repair no other ruines but of their Temporal State and Liberty Therefore they spake of him with scornful titles as for this Fellow we know not from whence he is And is not this the Carpenter Shall the glorious Prophecies of the Messiah be accomplish'd in him Shall he have Dominion from Sea to Sea and from the River to the ends of the Earth Shall all Kings bow down before him and all Nations serve him There was nothing to satisfie their sight in his outward appearance and Retinue and his Miraculous Condescention so much below their expectations was more powerful to harden them in unbelief than all his supernatural Operations to induce them to believe in him And as the Jews from their affection to Secular things were enemies to the Gospel so the Heathen Philosophers from Spiritual Pride for they vainly affected the praise of Knowledge and Vertue as the fruit of their own mind and the product of their own will They did not consider God as the Fountain of Truth and whether the Ray of his Knowledg comes directly and immediately into us or by reflection from others the glory of it is entirely due to him Besides the great Mysteries of Godliness not being suitable to their first Opinions were rejected with disdain as foolish Impossibilities And in every Age since even in the pale of the Church there are some secret Infidels that esteem the Gospel a Fable and some who peremtorily deny the fundamental Articles of Christianity Those who are slaves to their eyes and appetites will raise Clouds to obscure that Truth that forbids their dear Lusts upon pain of Damnation The pretended difficulty of Belief is but a thin transparent pretence the difficulty of Practice is the true cause of their rejecting the Gospel They would not have the Precepts of it to be their duty and therfore are unwilling to acknowledg the Doctrines of it to be true And those who set up a Tribunal in their own Understandings to which Divine Revelation must submit will not believe what is above their presumptuous Reason But that the Soul exempt from passions and prejudice has no just temptation to disbeleive the Christian Doctrine is evident in that so many Persons in whom the concurrence of Wisdom and Vertue was equally flourishing and excellent after the most exact discussion imbrac'd it as the Heavenly Truth If there were falseness in its Principles or weakness in its Proof how could it scape their discovery And that they were sincere in their belief is above all doubt for they willingly sacrificed all that is valuable and dear in this life for the profession of it Now was it ever known that any person would knowingly choose an Errour so destructive The Will seduc'd by Sense imbraces sometimes that that is condemn'd by Reason but it never adheres to those things that are contrary both to Reason and Sense By this it appears that Infidelity has no just plea from the insufficiency of the proofs of the Christian Religion which have fully satisfied the wisest the most considerate and sincere part of Mankind A corrupt Heart is the spring and principle of the illusions of the mind in things that concern Salvation 2. The Gospel propounds to us the most proper and powerful motives of love to God In the visible World there is a Representation so conspicuous and full of his Divine Majesty Power Wisdom that form'd and regulates all things that 't is not possible but the attentive regarding of it will make impressions of reverence and fear will raise our esteem and admiration But those are dead sentiments without Love And that in the guilty Creature fearful of God's Wrath must be first excited by the hopes of his Pardoning Mercy Now the Love and Kindness of God our Saviour appear'd to Man in his Redemption in the most eminent manner Though in that blessed Work the Divine Perfections are relucent in various effects Wisdom design'd it Power accomplish'd it Holiness and Righteousness was gloriously declar'd in it yet as 't is applied to the benefit of Man 't is the sole effect of Wise Almighty Holy Tender Love Mercy soften'd God's Bowels open'd Heaven sent down his Son to be one with us in nature that he might exchange his Merits and Blessedness for our guilt and misery Miraculous Love to make his only begotten Son our Brother to humble him to the condition of a Servant that we most unworthy to be his Servants should be advanc'd to be his Children Nay to expose him to the death of a Malefactor equally ignominious and painful that we Malefactors might obtain Life and Glory If ever Love deserv'd the title of Excess 't is this for though not without Reason yet 't is without all bounds and measure 'T is so far above our thought that 't is hard to have a firm belief of it What the Psalmist speaks of the temporal Deliverance of the Church is more justly applicable to its Spiritual Eternal Deliverance When the Lord turned again the Captivity of Sion we were like to them that dream As if a poor man fancying in a dream that he is a King adorn'd with the Ensigns of Royalty and between hopes and fears should enquire of himself Am I awake and in my right mind Is this Scepter this Robe this Crown real Or is it all the pleasant deceit of Imagination And how can we reflect upon the amazing Grace of God that brings Salvation but such thoughts will arise Is it true that God did not spare his most innocent and dear Son to absolve us guilty Rebels Did he dye for his Father's Enemies and his own Unparallel'd Love only to be fully conceiv'd by an