aw'd and taught to reverence the Law God raised by them the Smoak and the Fire at Mount Sinai 3dly It was they that shook and rent the Rock 4thly It was they that sounded the Trumpet And 5thly from the consideration of which the great Emphasis of the Apostle's Speech chiefly ariseth 't was they framed and effected the articulate Voices and Words from God by which he spake to the People and by which the Law was conveyed to their Ears that is the Angels received the Law from God's Mouth and uttered it by Sounds and Expressions to the People and thereby became so the publishers of the Law as that it is truly and very properly called the word spoken by Angels and may be very significantly said to be ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator 'T will be a thing in its nature most instructing and full of the greatest spiritual delight and satisfaction to consider over the Apostles first Point those glorious Excellencies of Christ that are appertainant unto him by which he hath the preference of all that went before him and by which he is infinitely exalted beyond what ever can possibly succeed him and therefore a Revelation made and a Religion setled by him must needs with the supreamest Authority command our utmost obedience First he informs us of two transcendent supereminent and unparalled Qualifications of this glorious Person by whom God now speaks first that he hath appointed him Heir of all things and secondly that by him he made the Worlds The first of these relates chiefly to his Assumption of the Humanity and as he is Man this is an eternal statute of the Trinity that the second Person humbling himself to become Man and assuming the Humane Nature to the Divine as he was Man should be Heir of the whole Creation and inherit as a Prince and a Saviour all created Supremacy and Glory and therefore he himself often affirms in St. John that all authority and judgment is given unto him upon this very account because he is the Son of Man a Title only given to him in Scripture by himself and by no other and another expression of the Seed of the Woman that very Humane Nature that look'd so meanly and was such a stumbling-block to the Faith of the Jews and the Philosophy of the Gentils had annexed unto it the Lordship and Dominion of all this could not simply belong to the Humane Nature in it self but was by Divine Ordination of the Father by him of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named and therefore the Apostle saith that God has appointed him heir of all things and by this insinuates to the Jews that if he were Heir of all things then has he power in the Church to alter and settle what Religion he pleaseth dispose of their Ecclesiastick Fabrick as he thought good and that if they did intend to keep those eminent and peculiar Priviledges they had above the rest of the World they must own him and enjoy all from him and under him because God has ordained him Heir of all things But the second is that I shall chiefly insist on by which the Apostle inculcates his Divinity that by him God made the worlds this is a discovery that at first view seems rather to stupifie and amuse the Object so far exceeding the Faculty than any way to encourage us to contemplate or enquire or farther to think over this matter nor can any one Meditation about it be drawn from any other Topick than pure Revelation this is a great Oracle let fall from Heaven for the instruction of the Church and we must with all humble and thankful adoration enquire how far the Holy Ghost has inform'd us in this matter and not farther gaze lest we lose our selves in vain fruitless and unbecoming Speculations By whom also he made the worlds By the Worlds is not meant as some have conceived several Successions of the same World but 't is meant in the sense the Jews took the word to whom the Apostle accommodates himself and they reckoned upon three Worlds that above of Angels and Spirits that beneath them of Sun Moon and Stars and this inferior World in which we converse the Apostles drift is to shew that what was any where created was created and made by him and that according to St. John without him was nothing made that was made and this appears to be his meaning from Col. 1.16 For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible By whom not as a created instrument any way inferior to himself so it cannot be taken for we are told by Sr. John that the word by which all things were made was in the beginning with God and was God but by him as his own eternal Word Wisdom and Power that is to say the making of the World was an act peculiar to the second Person in the Trinity and the whole Deity in making the World acted by the second Person for 't is not said absolutely that Christ made the World but God by him which notifies to us the order of working in the Trinity and the distinct subsistence and operations of the persons and not bare instrumentality True it is that the act of each Person in the Trinity is in some sense the act of all the three yet by the Trinity a threefold Record is said to be born in Heaven and distinct acts are applied to each of the three and God does appear to us under distinct actings in the same eternal and blessed Essence by that threefold Record To make this deep and important Point as plain and overt as we can the best way is to view over those Scriptures where the Holy Ghost treats most expresly touching this matter St. John begins his Gospel with a great discovery of it In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made The Apostle's design in this Gospel is evidently to begin it with the Divinity and Godhead of Christ as the rest had begun theirs with the Original and History of his Humanity and Incarnation and this Declaration of his Divinity must needs be very short for no man can write a History of God or make any Narrative of his Eternal Existence the Apostle therefore in a few words tells us all that was needful and proper to be told about his Divinity and all that could be known about the Man Christ Jesus as he was God In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God In the beginning 't is an allusion to what Moses says about the Creation In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth that is before any thing created was extant and so here St. John says In the beginning was the word
and Employments called Angels In the order of the Jewish Synagogues there was one that chiefly prayed for the People and blessed them and him they called the Angel of the Synagogue and that I believe St. John relates to when he writes to the Angels of the seven Churches how these I say were designed in a particular manner to all their future use service and happiness in their creation at the first by the second Person in the Trinity will very manifestly appear if we consider first the dependance they have upon him and secondly their subjection and serviceableness unto him First Their dependance upon him The Scripture informs us that after the disorder and scattered confused miserable state of things that Sin had introduced and occasioned God was pleased to recapitulate and gather all together into one head according to St. Paul Eph. 1.10 That he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are one arth even in him and erect an unalterable Kingdom wherein his Soul should rest under the rule of the second person incarnate with a distribution of several effects of his Government suitable to Divine Wisdom Justice and Goodness as the state of the World then stood for it was of old eminently foretold of him that the Scepter of his Kingdom should be a right Scepter wicked Angels and Men obstinately and finally impenitent and wicked were to remain enchain'd by his power until he pronounced their last Sentence the elect Angels were to come under his Headship and Rule he being their Head though he be not their Redeemer and their Security though not their Satisfaction and be secured thereby against all created danger of relapsing and embodied with all the saved amongst Men as Subjects of one intire Kingdom under the same Monarch and Soveraign And thus it pleased God that neither the happiness of Angels nor Men should be fixed or perfected by his creating Power exerted by the second Person at the first but by his restoring recovering establishing Power exerted in the same person becoming Man and fulfilling all the Laws of that mediatory Kingdom God designed for the praise of his Grace and Glory to erect in and by him So that we see the eternal design of creating these Angels by the second person was that first they might come under his Headship and be secured in all their created glory by him in that future state of Mediatorship he was designed unto and secondly that they might be ministerial and serviceable to all the ends of his Kingdom and Government wherein as the Apostle tells us 1 Coloss v. 20. By the blood of his cross all things in Heaven and Earth are reconciled to God and also things in Heaven and things on Earth one to another or else 't were not to be thought that the Angels who remain spotless and untainted of sin should ever enter into any converse with such a defiled apostate creature as Man much less to undertake a Ministry and Service on his behalf whereas now by vertue of that Reconciliation by the Blood of his Cross their great delight is in the Ministry of Reconciliation and to be ministring Spirits on their behalf who shall be Heirs of Salvation Two wonderful things by Christ's assumption of the Humane Nature and by the Blood of his Cross are brought to pass 1st That the Angels the more noble Creatures and who never fell under the least stain of any guilt should become Servants to poor miserable apostate Man 2dly That the Establishment and Security of all the created angelical Glory should depend upon that Assumption and Christ so circumstanced for he took not on him the Nature of Angels but in the Nature of a much more inferior Creature became their Security their Soveraign and Head and by this glorious contrivance of the blessed God Man upon Earth is set upon his legs and recovered the Tabernacle of Adam that was fallen is raised up again and the Angels that kept their first state are secured in ever so doing it having pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell and that every part of the Creation should some way or other owe their happiness to him and that upon the truest reason to him every Knee should bow both of things in Heaven and things on Earth even to him Secondly If we take a distinct consideration of Man the noblest part of this lower World and the Lord of it we shall soon discover that all the future designs of God relating to him were laid in his creation of him at the first by the second Person in the Trinity and this will appear several ways First Man we know was originally made in such a state as lasted but a while Man created in Honour abode not that innate freedom of choice he was made withal with reference to good or evil which was the bottom Adam first stood upon God well knew and foresaw would not secure him long but would soon decline and the tendency of Man's free choice would be ever in partem deteriorem yet so it pleased God to make him and not in the first state to secure him because his designs lay quite otherways and who shall councel infinite Wisdom the Scenes of this World as now it is were all before him he intended Man for a second Creation from whence should arise the Glory he designed to himself by him and from him and Man's Happiness and Rest for ever and both these Creations were to be performed by the second Person in the Trinity and therefore so soon as Man fell and discovered the impotency of that first state God declares his recovery in the second Person and puts forth his hand and lifts him up to a better upon which never any blot nor stain should come in which both the Soul of God and Man should rest for ever and this by that gracious yet withal then mysterious Promise That the seed of the woman should bruise the serpents head by which Promise the foundation of all Mens recovery and future happiness is laid in the second Person designed for the Assumption of the Humane Nature so that it evidently appears that when God made Man by the second Person in a state that was not to endure his design was to recover and remake him by the same blessed Person in that nature he had so made God at the first made Man by the second Person in the Image of God and that being lost brings forth the second Person in the Image of Man and therein Man is recovered and saved for he was made in the likeness of Men and found in fashion of a Man so that the union of the two Natures in the second Person is the great Corner-stone upon which the welfare and happiness of all created Beings and most eminently and particularly of Man's is built up and established Secondly This will appear from the mighty and stupendious Undertakings of the second Person incarnate on
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
and super-exceeding Excellency of the Doctrine published and delivered the Gospel in the very kind and constitution of it utterly exceeding all the Dispensations of God that ever preceded it being the very natural genuine and proper Issue and Product of them all Divine Revelations since the World began tended to Christ and the Gospel as their ultimate End and Center Although God had by sundry Ways and by divers Persons both Angels and Men at several times distinctly declared his Mind to the World yet he never before spake by his Son this is the Memorial of the Gospel throughout all Generations that it was first published by the Lord and after confirmed by those that heard him it came first from the Oracle of his Sacred Mouth and was sanctified by his most Blessed Lips and upon that account well may it be called as it is in the 1st of Timothy The glorious Gospel of the blessed God 'T is true that all former Divine Revelations brought to us either by the Ministry of Angels or Men were the Voice of God and had him for their Author but herein lyes the peculiarity of the Gospel Glory above them all that now he speaks to us without any intermediate Instrument personally Himself in his Son he comes Himself from Heaven Tabernacles in Humane Flesh becomes Emanuel converseth with us and speaks Face to Face with us in our own Nature Let us with an Holy Astonishment as Moses said in another case turn aside and view this great Sight and cry out with the Psalmist in Holy Admiration Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou shouldest so visit him and consider deeply what infinite condescention was this that when nothing else would serve to recover the lost World God comes from Heaven himself to treat with us about our recovery so that no man can now reasonably say who shall ascend into Heaven to instruct us from thence or who shall fetch Divine Knowledge beneath from the Deeps for all that we need to know and all that we can know is brought home to our Dores is put into our Hearts and into our Mouths by God himself in the fashion of a Man and like to us in all things sin only excepted Two things the Apostle seems to insinuate in his very first entrance and the beginning of this Epistle God who at sundry times and divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son First That it was the same God that spake now that spake before by Moses and the Prophets and so prevents their taking prejudice against the Gospel as if it came from any other hand than the God of Israel or were built upon any other Foundation than Moses and the Prophets And Secondly That God speaking now by his Son we may reasonably expect to hear more than ever was yet known and all that we are like ever to know by way of Revelation from above such a Person as He may well be supposed to bring down all God's Errand to the World at once he has none greater to send by and upon that account it is that the Gospel times are called in Scripture the last times because no more Revelation is to be expected If we consider Christ as he is God he is exalted far above all Heavens and beyond all reach of Comparisons if we consider him in that conjunction as he was Man even in that state he is Heir of all things he is the First-born of every creature and in all things has the pre-eminence he exceeds the noblest of creatures the Angels those glorious Spirits who in their very make and constitution were nearest of kin of all others to their Creator and are called Elohim a sort of Gods for God never said unto any of them thou art my Son this day speaking both of Christ's Incarnation and Resurrection have I begotten thee but at the Son 's first arrival in the World to give an eternal Instance of his Divinity he commands all the Angels of God to worship him and to worship him with the greatest Prostration and Adoration imaginable for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used upon this occasion intimates That the Apostle should treat so much when he is dealing with the Jews of the Preference of Christ above the Angels we may well conceive when we consider that he himself in this Epistle declares that the Law was the Word spoken by the Angels and Gal. 3. says that it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator not as if this were to be taken as Grotius and some learned men have conceived that the Law upon Mount Sinai was originally given forth by a created Angel there for it was most certainly published authoritatively by God himself there present nor is it any where said to be originally given forth by Angels but to be spoken by them and given forth by their Manage and Ministry In the 68th Psalm we are told The chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of thousands the Lord is among them as in Sinai by which 't is evident enough the glorious and eternal Jehovah was there personally present after a very peculiar and eminent manner And in Stephen's last Sermon he tells the Jews in that Historical Recapitulation of their whole Affairs that they had received the Law by the disposition of Angels and had not kept it So that the meaning is the delivery of the Law was by the Ministration of Angels and their ordering of things upon Mount Sinai though it was uttered by God himself but the delivery of the Gospel is singly by the Ministry of the Son of God in person And when we are told the Law was the Word spoken by Angels and that it was ordained by Angels it is in this sense and no other to be understood and well may it be so stiled if we reflect upon these several things 1st The whole heavenly Hoast of Angels those glorious Guards of Spirits that attend the Eternal Jehovah were all there present in a solemn and particular manner such as we no where else read of in their courses and order to execute what their Supream Lord came about and beholding with wonder and admiration the Wisdom of the Supream Legislator in giving forth those wise Laws to the World upon which the legal Dispensation was chiefly founded which was the reason perhaps made them so earnest afterwards to look down into the Gospel Dispensation having seen so much of the legal and been such Actors in it and behold the glory of that for by it the Apostle tells us expresly the manifold wisdom of God is made known unto them and by beholding the second Person incarnate they saw somewhat more of Heaven upon Earth then they could see in Heaven it self 2dly It was by the Ministry of Angels that those prodigious Terrors were effected by which the People were so
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
Apostle no way refers to the order of time in which things were made but his meaning is that his Humane Nature in that conjunction with the Divine has the preference to all Humane Beings God has given him the right of Primogeniture and the Dominion appurtenant to the First-born and made him Heir of all things as he is said in the 89th Psalm to make David his first-born higher than all the kings of the earth not by any priority of Time nor by vertue of that Dominion he had in Palestine but as he was a Type and Representation of Christ who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords God has made the Man Christ Jesus Lord of the whole Creation and given him the precedence of all things in Heaven and Earth St. Peter tells us he is gone into heaven angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him and this as being his First-born from all Eternity in purpose and as our Saviour stiles himself the Beginning of the creation of God he decreeing from everlasting that all that should be created should be created by him and not only so but for him and be entirely his property as he was the blessed Mediator God and Man in one person In a word he is the First-born amongst the Elect they are all chosen in him the eldest Brother in the Family of God whereunto is annex'd the Dominion and Power over the whole Creation whence he is called the First-born of every Creature What is more briefly expressed by St. John that all was created by him that was created and what is in few words said in this Epistle that by him God made the Worlds is here enlarged by the Apostle into particulars shewing that all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers they were all made by him the Apostle instanceth in the noblest and highest sort of Creatures as comprehensive of all the rest even all the Supream Rulers and Governours amongst Angels and Men all were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist as their Maker he must needs precede them and by whom they were originally created by him they must needs live move and have their being And as he is the Sourse of all Natural Creation so he is the Spring of the New Creature and of all Spiritual Life being called in the 18th Verse the head of his body the church the first-born from the dead he that first rose himself as victorious over the Grave and by whose influence as an effect of that Victory all others shall rise that in both the Creations both Natural and Spiritual in the whole concerns of this World and the next he might have the pre-eminence for it pleased the father that in him should all fulness dwell that that blessed Person our Saviour and Mediator should be as full of perfection and as glorious as all the glory of Heaven and Earth created and uncreated could possibly make him The most material difficulty that seems to result from these Illuminations the Holy Ghost has been pleased to give us in Scripture touching these matters is this If the Divinity and the Humanity in that conjunction constitute but one intire person how can so much be properly and distinctly ascribed to Christ as Man all things must needs belong to him as God but the Holy Ghost makes them appurtenant to him as Man the Reasons of which seem most probably to be these First To Honour and Recommend to the World that Humane Nature Christ debased himself to assume that because he in that Nature performed the Work of the Mediator and all the suffering part lay upon that therefore God has highly exalted it above all created things Secondly Because all the additional Glory that accrued unto Christ by vertue of his performance of the Law of his Mediatorship must needs fall upon his Humanity for there could be no addition made nor nothing accrue cumulative to his Divinity nothing could be added to him as God and therefore 't is attributed to him as Man Thirdly The Constitution of Christ as he appeared visibly to the World and wherein he acted all was Man the Prophesies and Promises that preceded him pointed to him as Man the Humanity was the Temple of the Deity in the Humanity he suffered died and rose again and performed all his Mediatory Work 't was all promised and designed to be performed by a Man visibly and Humane more though acted by the second Person in the Deity and therefore all the Glory is attributed in Scripture to his Humane part without which the Work of Redemption could not have been effected so we have it in the 5th of John all Authority is there said by Christ himself to be given to him Because he is the son of man which Expression I take to relate to his Office as Mediator which he could not have performed had he not been Man and so the sense of it is this that because Christ is the true Seed of the Woman that real Son of Man prophesied of by the Prophet Daniel by whom the World is to be redeemed and saved therefore all the Supremacy and Authority appurtenant to that Office by God's ordination belongs to him From what hath been discoursed upon this Argument that the Lord Jesus Christ is he by whom all things were originally created we may arrive at a twofold conclusion and safely establish these two most important Truths First That the Foundation of all God's Designs and his Eternal Councels and Purposes touching Angels and Men and the whole that was made by him was laid in his creation of all by the second Person in the Trinity And Secondly That all the Works of the first Creation were so framed and made that they might lye in a direct subserviency to the new Creation and the manifestation of God's infinite Grace in redeeming and saving the World by the second Person becoming Man and incarnate I shall apply my self chiefly to the former of these Our discovery of this Matter is a parte post no Man was conversant with God's Councels from everlasting all Men are eternally silenced with God's Question and Demand to Job he may say to all as he said to him Where were ye when I laid the foundations of the earth where were the Councels of your Hearts where were your Thoughts and Contrivances then ye were so far from instructing or assisting the Almighty that ye were not in being nor knew any thing what he was about to do what we know therefore is what God is pleased since to reveal to us and from the providential future effects which our eyes behold from both which we are plentifully instructed herein Moses indeed in his Writings is silent about this matter the full Relation of it was reserved for the Days of the Gospel when it came to be known how and by whom the World was to be redeemed then
we are more particularly told how and by whom it was made the blessed Person of our Lord Jesus Christ is represented to us as the Alpha and Omega of all the Beginning and the Ending of the Creation of God in whom there is a recapitulation of the whole God designing after things were scatter'd disorder'd and lost by sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to bring all Jews and Gentiles Angels and Men the whole Creation into one Head and under one Rule in him as the Apostle expresseth it in the first of the Ephesians that he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are one arth even in him and so as God was pleased to make all by him he recovers all back again through him and under him In discoursing this deep and mysterious Point what ever advance is made towards the right understanding of it be it never so small the design ought to be in every step that is taken to do it with perspicuity and evidence that so it may not be rendred a Notion obscure and useless but a Truth wherein the comfort satisfaction and interest of every Christian may appear much concerned And in order to this I will take a distinct and threefold Consideration of all the Works of God's Hands 1st Of the Angels 2ly Of Mankind 3ly Of all the rest of the Creatures Two things are eminently and principally to be considered about the Creation of the Angels 1st That they were so made that some of them might apostatize and fall and that others of them should keep their first and original station 2ly That all of them should be under the Lordship and Dominion of Christ as the great Recoverer of Mankind and the Mediator and Head of the Church Moses in his History of the Creation gives us no account of the Angels nor does the New Testament inform us any thing of the manner of their Creation so that when they were made in what part of the six days or how whether of pre-existing Matter or as the Soul of Man and other parts of the Creation without any such pre-existing Matter and whether when made they had all an equal vision and fruition of God because it seems difficult to conceive how any created Being could turn aside from that Vision or whether they sinned in God's presence and in foro Coeli because their Judgment is so heavy and irreversible are things unrevealed by the Scriptures passed over in silence nor can they by searching or any humane endeavour be found out The Angels that fell being of the noblest nature and complexion nearest unto God of any that he made and of greatest power and influence their fall was it that first introduced Sin and Apostacy amongst Men and occasioned all the Rebellion of this lower World against God and upon that account we are told by St. John for this cause was the Son of God manifested that he might destory the works of the devil as comprehensive of all the Apostasie both of Angels and Men and therefore it is that they first fell of all other Creatures under the Lordship and Dominion of Christ as Mediator by vertue of that declaratory Promise from which the mediatory Dominion of Christ bears actual date the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head Hence it came to pass that the apostate Angels who by the Temptations they laid before our first Parents and so early assaulted them withal appeared to be of an aspiring Temper and not contented with that present station which by their first and original make they were placed in but attempted something farther beyond those bounds God by the Law of their Creation had confined them to which could be nothing else but to deifie themselves for God had already made them above every thing but himself they fell from that glory they had received from the second Person in the Trinity by whom they were made as God into an absolute subjection to him as his Enemies and Vassals as he was Man and by God's most just wise and holy Judgment saw themselves subjected to that very Nature they so maliciously with respect both to God and Man sought the ruine of and the same Nature wonderfully assumed to the Divine by the second Person and in that glorious and splendid Conjunction the World recovered and a Dominion established over all the Rebellions Apostasies and Declensions both of Angels and Men. The Devil having been thus a Lyar and a Rebel from the beginning and using all the fraudulent endeavours possible to have all the Creation to their final and utmost Ruine his Associates therein and God having been pleased in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness to encounter all his Designs and Endeavours by the second Person incarnate whom he constitutes a Prince and a Saviour and sets him as his King upon his Holy Hill and declares his Decree from everlasting to establish his Kingdom with all Authority and Power the World has been ever since under a twofold Dominion that of Satan and that of Christ and these two Kingdoms that of the Fallen Angels and that of the Mediator have stood in direct opposition and in all Ages contested each other the Contest grew high very early in the World and continued so till the Flood the four great Monarchies since have all ofthem been Satan's Allies and Instruments and Factors for his Interest not only by their multiply'd Idolatries thereby throwing as much as in them lay the true God out of the World but by their proud and insolent defiance of him and placing themselves in his room upon all occasions To what inconceivable Insolence and Pride were those first Babylonian Monarchs arrived at we need no other account of it but to read what the Prophet Esaw tells them Thou hast said in thine heart I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north I will ascend above the heighths of the clouds I will be like the Most High The Persian Monarchy that next succeeded much affected to retain and improve the Grandeur and Heighth of their Predecessors and if it were possible to out do them one Instance they gave of that in which they greatly prided and valued themselves which was to make their Laws unalterable the Laws of the Medes and Persians were not to be changed as if they had arrived at once to all the Wisdom and Foresight of God himself The folly of this insolent Project of this vain Exaltation of Humane Wisdom and Power beyond its due bounds and setting themselves in the supreme Legiflator's place the Scripture has sufficiently recorded to its eternal shame and confusion in one Instance we have of it in the Book of Esthers Ahasuerus upon the Petition of Haman made an Edict that all the Jews in his Territories should be upon a prefixed day slain and destroyed after upon the
Petition of Mordecai and Esther he altered his purpose and had a mind to have all the Jews saved the first Law could not be altered nor reversed by their fundamental Constitution and therefore Abasuerus had no other way but he makes another Law after the same form and manner that he made the former wherein 't is thus decreed The king granted the Jews which were in every city to gather themselves together and to stand for their lives to destroy to slay and cause to perish all the power of the people and province that should assault them both little ones and women and take the spoil of them for a prey By which he downright settles a Civil War by two unalterable Laws in the Bowels of his Dominions and in all his Territories commands his Subjects to massacre and destroy each other nay even in his own Palace for upon this second Edict the Jews slew 500 Men in Shusan the King's Palace The last Monarchy of Rome had so far advanced Idolatry and carried on Satan's concerns that they ransack'd the whole Creation for Deities and arrived to Thirty thousand Gods and the Emperors came to such a degree of impudent Pride and Impiety as downright to deifie themselves the Kingdoms and Powers of the World have lain from the beginning in his hands and therefore 't is said upon the full recovery of the World The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ the Kingdom of the Mediator has consisted but of a few it pleasing God in his infinite Wisdom to declare the glory of that rather in quality than quantity This Kingdom of the fallen Angels is sometimes called in Scripture the Kingdom of Darkness and sometimes the Kingdom of Satan and he is himself sometimes called the Prince of this World and the Prince of the Power of the Air that old Serpent the Devil and Satan which deceiveth the World the original of it was Apostasie and Rebellion against the Supreme Soveraign and an endeavour to set up a Counter-Soveraignty in the creature against him and 't is carried on and will be till the end of his Reign with all possible counter-working to the Kingdom of the Mediator and all the gracious and glorious Designs and Purposes of God therein The chief of the fallen Angels is reckon'd the Prince of this Kingdom and all the fallen Angels and fallen Men unrecovered are embodied in it as his Subjects 't is carried on and supported by these two things First A malignant Opposition to God for his manage of the whole Affairs of the Creation by the second Person incarnate And Secondly By an insatiable appetite to throw off all Bonds and Ties of Obedience to their Supreme Soveraign and Maker and enjoy the uninterrupted possession of a lawless Life sutable to their degenerate and apostate Inclinations The woful state they arrive at by this to let us know no Man can oppose God and prosper is First Ever to labour and endeavour with a certainty of disappointment for the fallen Angels know very well their purposes and designs shall never be accomplished And Secondly To lye under a constant sense of ill doing and under guilt and terror in what ever they act And Thirdly To stand bound over to the dreadful Justice of God and be sentenced at the Judgment-Seat by that Man whom he hath appointed to the endless and utmost Misery and Horror of all which the fallen Angels and many of their adherents are sufficiently informed From the beginning God has not been pleased to set himself at any time against this Kingdom of his confederate Enemies and Rebbels by the Thunder of his Power and as it were most easie for him to do in a moment to grind them to Powder but in the profound depths of his Wisdom who is wonderful in councel and excellent in working suffers the continuance of it for great and holy ends and purposes and opposeth it and will at last utterly ruine it by a still small voice in those Methods by which the Mediator's Kingdom is to be erected that is the Laws of his Grace and the mighty Influences of his Spirit and hence it is that in every Generation we find a continued contest and opposition between the renewed and recovered part of the World and all apostate Angels and Men God contesting by his Grace and Spirit in the Hearts of his Servants all the violent Assaults that the Powers of Darkness the whole Race of degenerate Angels or Men could bring upon them and upon that account has had some faithful Servants in all Ages upon whose Fidelity and Ability in this way of Combate he has stak'd down his Interest and with whom he has trusted his Glory nor can he by this Method ever fail of the Glory due to him or by such an Adventure ever come short of it for 't is trusting his Glory with his Grace and the one stands upon as sure a foundation as the other and both in their nature immoveable Instances of this kind the Scriptures abound withal but that which in a particular case seems the most eminent of them all and most remarkable is the Case of Job and the Tryal he went through Whoever will nicely consider his Case shall find it a Story of wonderful distinction and circumstance the whole Business of Religion being by consent put upon tryal in him Job was declared by God himself and Satan deny'd it not to be the best Man then living one that had not his like in all the Earth but Satan objects unto God against him and affirms that though he was so eminent and had the priority of all the Religious Party then extant yet all his Religion was but Hypocrisie built upon a secular bottom and that if God brought him once to tryal it would appear so to be and himself manifested thereby to be a most notorious Hypocrite and Dissembler Had this in reality proved true Satan had carried his point for it had been an undeniable evidence that God had had no faithful Servants nor had there been any such thing as true and sincere Piety and Religion in the World for if the very best of all Men proved upon tryal but a rotten false-hearted Hypocrite the consequence had been very plain that all the rest of the same profession must needs have been much more so The tryal proceeds with all the possible advantage Satan could wish to obtain his end and he is permitted to go to the utmost extent of all the Artifices he had in order to stir up and provoke in Job all the exorbitant Passions unruly Ferments and irreligious profane Workings that belong to Humane Nature and usually appear upon such occasions in order to bring him to calumniatè Providence and even reproach God himself 1st By Afflicting his Body 2ly By Ruining his Estate And 3ly By laying him as to his present state and condition under the sharpest Judgments and severest Censures of his best and most
devout Friends yet for all this and all that Satan could do by himself or his Agents yet the Grace of Sincerity the main thing Satan struck at carried him triumphantly through all to the utter confusion of Satan and all his malicious Charges against him such a Sincerity he appeared to have as is the Badge of God's Israel and that Mark whereby the Lord knows those that are his Job indeed discovered much Weakness and manifold Infirmities which belong to the best Servants God has so gracious is he in his acceptance of them but that was in no sort the Point under question whether Job were a Man of Infirmities or no but the Matter put upon tryal was whether Job was an Hypocrite or no and in the main of his state and condition one under allegiance to Satan or a true and faithful Subject and Servant to God and that was by the carriage of the whole business clearly determined against Satan by Job's perfect and intire Submission unto God so far was he from Cursing him to his Face and total Resignation of himself to him in a way of trust and affiance though he should proceed to kill him and justifying of himself to the utmost in his Sincerity and keeping his Integrity throughout his whole Exercise and Tryal clear and untainted to the very last and rancountering Satan's Accusation with that holy submission in the very heighth of his Agony when the News of all his Misfortunes at once came upon him The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh and blessed be the Name of the Lord than which Expression nothing could more positively and expresly confute all the Charges and Accusations Satan brought against him for he declared quite contrary to Satan's suggestions so far was he from Cursing God to his Face and therefore the Holy Ghost immediately records the Victory on Job's side in the next Verse In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly But the greatest most general and most powerful Contest that ever happened between the Strength and Force of these Kingdoms appears to be the last of all wherein Satan with all the Powers that belong to his Kingdom will discover himself in his strongest and utmost Efforts and wherein he will at last perish this is by a spiritual Babylon reared up by him in the days of the Gospel and a System of Religion composed by him to encounter the Mediator withal in his own way this was the grand Infernal Project when the Gospel began to prevail against all opposition and Temporal Power would serve the Devil's turn no longer and herein he proves so successful as to delude and intoxicate the Nations of the Earth and make them drunk with his Compositions and to erect a spiritual and mighty Monarchy now of great and long continuance founded upon wonderful Artifice and Strength this was the great Secret revealed of old to that greatly beloved of God the Prophet Daniel that out of the fourth and last Temporal Monarchy of Rome should arise another Monarchy upon the dissolution of that diverse from all the rest that should mightily prevail speak great words against the Most High wear out the saints change times and laws and continue his power until a time and times and the dividing of time which is after punctually explained in Scripture to be 1260 Years the exact time of this Monarchy's continuance and should by a mighty Power in Spirituals resemble the great Power the Roman Monarchs had in Temporals have the same situation and much the same subjects in Spirituals that the other had in Temporals This is the Popish Fabrick the erecting of which is the Master-piece of Satan and the greatest Effect of the Wisdom and Process of the fallen Angels since they left their first state who have with their utmost vigor employed themselves herein and the affirmation of this cannot seem strange since we are directly told by the Holy Ghost that the coming of the man of sin is after the working of Satan The case was plainly this The Messiah so often promised from the beginning in the fulness of time that is in the exact time wherein all the Predictions of his coming did concenter comes and assumes Humane Nature compleats the work of Man's Redemption and by one Offering for ever perfects them that are sanctified proclaims the Gospel publishes a new Law of Grace and issues out a general Proclamation for all the World both Jews and Gentiles without exception to come in and upon the terms of this new recovering Law to be saved Satan very sensibly feeling this fatal Blow and finding his Kingdom fundamentally struck at and that unless fome new Infernal Councels were taken up his interest could not longer be supported turns every stone to invert and invalidate this gracious Design of God and this glorious Kingdom of the Mediator now shining forth in its native lustre and splendor To deny the Fact would have made him ridiculous and to endeavour to stop the Success of the Gospel if it went on he well knew was impossible and therefore resolves upon this Method as his last and only Remedy to Plow with Christ's Heifer to Erect a Religion seemingly founded upon the Gospel and extreamly like it that yet should be destructive to all the ends of it and by this to supersede the Gospel it self and have this false and spurious counterpart taken in the room of it this is the Papacy a false dead Image of the Christian Religion animated by the spirit of Satan and a thing in its nature utterly ruinous and destructive to it This Structure in Scripture is called Babylon with reference to the first Babel being like that set up in direct opposition to God and to confront his Authority As God is pleased that Jerusalem where his Worship and Ordinances were so solemnly setled by his own appointment shall keep up its Name and denominate the true Church throughout all Generations to the very end of the World so he is pleased to stigmatize the Name of Babylon and by it eminently and emphatically to denominate the very worst of his Enemies until Christ's second coming and the period of all the Names that are given to this Ecclesiastical Monarchy for there be several others though Babylon be the chief the Holy Ghost instructs us that they are spiritually to be understood and relate to its spiritual and ecclesiastical Abominations when 't is called Egypt and Sodom 't is to signifie the Filth of it and the cruel Bondage the Saints undergo there when 't is called and particularly denominated Babylon 't is to signifie its Grandeur Tyranny and Idolatry all which were eminent in that Monarchy Although this Spiritual Monarchy arise out of the ashes of the fourth and last Temporal Monarchy of Rome yet St. John writing during the continuance of that Monarchy the Holy Ghost chuseth to represent it by that first Monarchy of Babylon and there seems to be a peculiar resemblance between this Ecclesiastical Monarchy and that
the behalf of Mankind He it is that by his own Arm brings Salvation and singly undergoes the Burden and Weight of all Humane Miseries and Misfortunes the care of all the concerns that belong to Mankind are laid upon him and the recovery of the fallen Posterity of apostate Adam is solely left to his Undertaking Conduct and Manage ever since that first Promise concerning him set forth by the Seed of the Woman Mankind has been his Care and the Church his peculiar Province the Faith of all the Holy Men in the first times was built upon his promised and intended coming It was prophesied of him in the 72 Psalm Prayer also shall be made for him continually that is for his coming and incarnation before he did come and for the success of his Kingdom and his second coming after he was come It is he that hath been with the Church in all Ages and appeared so often to the Fathers in the Patriarchal times in humane shape to confirm their Faith and assure his future Incarnation and when the fulness of time for his being born of a Woman and born under the Law that is standing in Man's steed and obliged to the mediatory righteousness God required from him came the whole course of his Life his Sufferings Death and Resurrection and his Intercession above are all on the Churches account to make a full and ample provision for all the Declensions and Apostasies of Humane Nature and secure Man's Eternal Happiness with himself for ever so that 't is evident that God's making the World at first by the second Person was in order to the discovery of his manifold Wisdom and infinite Grace in redeeming and recovering it by the same blessed Person Thirdly This will appear from hence because that the whole Dominion and Soveraignty over Mankind the intire disposal of Man is committed unto him how correspondent is it to all God's revealed purposes touching his own Glory and Man's Happiness that a mediatory Dominion should be vested in the second Person that the creating and redeeming Right over Man should all concenter in him sometimes we are in Scripture told of his creating Right so in the first of St. John's Gospel He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not sometimes we are told of his Right by Redemption The Father so he himself tells us judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son and the reason given for it is because he is the Son of Man the true Seed of the Woman and the only Mediator between God and Man and upon that account 't is said he will judge the World by that man whom he hath appointed the ordering governing and final disposal of Man belongs alone to this blessed Person he that made us and knew our original frame he alone could best tell how to recover and remake us and from everlasting 't was God's pleasure it should be so In his Redemption all is taken care for all is recover'd and fetch'd back not a Hoof of what was made and lost is left behind there is a Plaister provided for every Sore and a Remedy for every Malady an infinite Treasury of Grace provided and suted to all depraved humane Faculties to unite Man again to his Maker and Redeemer with cords of love and bands of a man to influence the whole Soul of Man to convince his Understanding and govern him in a way of true Wisdom and Knowledge to seize his Affections with the most heart-affecting Motives and most glorious Objects and to fix the unruly Will in a right Path out of which it should never again wander All the Workings since Adam's fall of the Souls of Men towards God and the Influences of God and his Spirit upon them they are all transacted managed and will be finally judged of by the second Person this is the Kingdom of God and the great Realm of Christ within Men not a Divine Whisper into any Man's Breast by the Holy Ghost but 't is from the Mediator and a consequent of his Ordination and Government the great Effect of Christ's ascending Conqueror into Heaven was the sending down the Holy Ghost and till he did so the Holy Ghost could not in that glorious eminent manner appear as afterwards he did for he came from Heaven with the Ratification of that Peace and Reconciliation that Christ had purchased this we are positively told in the 7th of St. John's Gospel The Holy Ghost was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified It appears to be an eternal determination by the blessed Trinity that till the mediatory Work was all compleated and Christ was ascended and had made his triumphant appearance in Heaven as a Conqueror the Holy Ghost should not be sent down and therefore our Saviour tells his Disciples plainly Unless I go away the comforter cannot come and it is expedient for you upon that account that I do go away for if I go I will send him unto you this is the grand effect of Christ's ascention to procure the descent of the Holy Ghost that great Engine of Salvation the Sword of the Lord in Christ's hand the mighty Operator by which the Mediator erects his Kingdom and without whose Influences upon the Souls of Men to change and remark them no Laws of Grace no Terms of Salvation though never so easie would ever have proved effectual for Man's Recovery and Happiness this is the great effect of what Christ hath purchased for the World for Men to receive an ability from Heaven to believe and obey what God requires of us had not this been the Conditions of the Gospel would have been as little performed as those of the Law this sending down the Holy Ghost from Heaven St. Peter tells us the Angels desire to look into 't is an Allusion unto the Cherâ—bims that were made with their Faces looking upon the Mercy-seat to let us know that the Angels above diligently behold the glorious effects of God's Grace to this lower World and two sights they have had by their attentiveness thereon which were both stupendious and wonderful First The second Person leaving Heaven descending upon Earth becoming Man and making his abode for a time here And secondly Upon his return so soon as the second Person ascended the Holy Ghost coming down to manage all the concerns Christ left behind him here below And as all the Operations of the Holy Ghost upon the Spirits of Men are under the Mediator's Conduct so the Behaviour of all Men is noted in his Book and laid up in his Records in order to a future Judgment which Judgment is of everlasting duration for after he has given up the Kingdom to the Father both the Righteous and the Wicked will for ever remain in the same posture and condition his Judgment left them the Wicked will be for ever miserable by vertue of his Sentence and the Righteous enjoy their everlasting portion of
all the Title and Right of Primogeniture appurtenant unto them This infinitely exceeds the state of the Jews who were but a typical People their general Assembly was but a national Assembly and though many excellent particular Saints were amongst them yet they were in their National Constitution but a figure and representation of this true Saintship and the whole that belonged to them was but a shadow and Image of this true Catholick Church and not the thing it self they were enrolled indeed but it was upon Earth and upon an Earthly account to preserve their Tribes distinct and so to adjust their Earthly inheritances in Canaan The greatest difficulty that seems to be in this part of the Apostles Comparison is what is meant by this expression the general assembly since there neither was nor ever will be a time that all the Members of the Church under the Gospel shall meet together till Christ's second coming the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used I take to signifie the same thing and the latter to be exegetical of the former 't is not meant of the Church of the first-born of all assembling in any one place but of that Church every where assembling in several and distinct parts 't is spoken in opposition to the Assemblies of the Jews who were but one particular nation assembling at one place in Jerusalem to which they were confin'd the generality the Apostle means does not arise from their meeting all in one place but from their meeting without confinement all the World over to this general Assembly of the Gospel-Church every Believer is come and to it is united but 't is after a Spiritual manner and therein lies the excellency of this Union this Assembly where ever or in what parts soever they are met are animated by one Spirit they have the same Faith and Hope the same Priviledges and Enjoyments and wherein the Life of the Union lies they are all united under one common Head and are but one Body belonging to it and so the sense seems to be this which contains in it the force of the Apostles comparison ye are not after an Earthly manner come with your Bodies to any such assembly as that at mount Sinai nor as that of the Males at the earthly Jerusalem but ye are come which is infinitely better in your Souls and Spirits unto the Society and Fellowship of all the Sanctified and saved throughout the World who now every-where Worship the Father in Spirit and Truth and are all present together in one Spirit though corporally divided having but one common interest rejoycing in the welfare and prosperity of each other and closely united in their mutual prayers and concerns each for other This is of all others the most truly Honourable and Noble Society that we can converse with in this World here the Blessing is commanded life for evermore here 's the Crown of all Mans glory and Happiness to be obtained he that is no Member of this Association is under a black Character and comes no farther then the Assembly of the fallen Angels and their Associates the Scripture informs us that the Wrath of God abides upon every such Man and the Judge stands at the Door shortly to execute it the foundation of this Glorious Happy and Blessed Assembly stands sure and this is the seal of it the Lord knows them that are his they are those God has eternally designed for Happiness and Glory their Record is on high their Names are in the Roll of God's eternal Determinations And this ought to seem strange to none for no Man can with any tollerable sense conceive that infinite Wisdom should make any thing and not at the same time design it to its utmost end 't is contradicted by our own finite and imperfect discretion who still have our eyes upon the ultimate end of all that we enterprize and to me it seems that the whole system of those objections that are made against the Doctrine of God's Decrees touching Mens eternal condition is fully discarded with this one consideration that God infinitely foreseeing and perfectly knowing from all eternity whatever any creature he made would do and how he would behave himself when he should be brought into being and existence 't was all one for him in point of Justice to determin his condition before he was made as to determine it at the day of Judgment after all the actions of his Life were over the prescience of God cannot with any tollerable satisfaction to our own reason be denyed for whatever potentiality God created he must needs know and foresee the utmost extent of it or else he could not design any certain end to himself by it but might remain ignorant of the success and event of a Creature which he had from himself given being to which is absurd to suppose for infinite knowledge must needs comprehend and look beyond all finite actions and therefore when God made Man with freedom of choice he must needs foreknow that made that faculty which way his will would incline and the utmost journy it could possibly lead him or else he must remain wholly ignorant what would be the suceess of his own Work and incapable of making any certain determination with himself about him We find in Scripture prescience and election always go together and prescience has the precedence so in St. Peters first Epistle he calls those to whom he wrote elect according to the foreknowledge of God and St. Paul in his deep and solemn discourse about this matter tells us whom he did foreknow them also he did predestinate 5thly They are said to come to God the Judge of all they are come to the Lord paramount of the Church the great author and end of all transactions therein coming to him and drawing near to him in Scripture Phrase is coming to partake of his Fovour and Grace or else coming to the Judge of all were of all conditions the most dreadful the wicked he keeps at a distance and is said to know afar off this is of all attainments the most Superlative all that the Heart of Man can wish is included herein to come to his Maker with acceptation and to find favour in his sight whose favour is better then Life it self and to have the Supream Judge of all on his side As this mighty Judge was accompanied with all possible terror and dread at Mount Sinai and all the People kept upon pain of Death at a great distance from him to tell us how far removed from God every Man is by the Law and in his sinful estate so by the Gospel we are come as near to him as humane nature will admit and he appears to us in all the glory of his reconciling Grace and receives us into intimate fellowship and converse with him for this is the declared state of the Gospel We have fellowship with the Father and with the Son and the blood