are often ignorant and so his Writings seems to us the more difficult and obscure Thus we have taken a brief view of the Apostle's Comparison of the Law with the Gospel in this short Epitome of both and seen the wonderful preference the Gospel has to the Law and the great and eminent Advantages and Priviledges of the one above the the other and the glorious Inhabitants of this Spiritual Mount Sion and the Heavenly Jerusalem not only all the true Saints upon Earth the Church of the first-born written in Heaven but even God himself Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant all the Blessed Angels and the Spirits of just Men made perfect nothing could be more destructive and ruinous to the true Interest of the believing Hebrews than to turn their backs upon such a Communion to go back to the Old Covenant that God upon Man's account found fault with and again put on that Legal Yoke that neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear the Jews much boasted of and rested in those literal Typical Advantages they had above the rest of the World upon which they might with very good reason value themselves and therefore the Apostle's business is to manifest to them how much by embracing the Gospel they changed for the better that instead of a Legal Temporary Temple built upon Mount Sion and an Earthly Jerusalem they are come to the true signified Mount Sion to the Spiritual and Heavenly Temple which is Christ Mystical where God dwells for ever and the Heavenly Jerusalem the name of which is Jehovah Shammai that is the glorious spiritual worship of the Gospel and the state of the Catholick Church in all its parts those on Earth and those in Heaven and thereby to all that was signified by and all that was any where promised unto Jerusalem and Mount Sion instead of that Dreadful Appearance of the Angels upon Mount Sinai with which they were so terrified and from which they were kept at so great a distance they are now come to an innumerable Company of Angels that is to a sweet Fellowship Brotherhood and Communion with them all which is implyed in their being said to be come to them under the Law 't was firmly believed whoever should see an Angel so great the distance was thought between Mankind and them should certainly die we are now Men and Angels all of the same Family and Houshold and the Saints on Earth have the whole Ministry and Service of the Angels employed on their behalf they are now always ascending and descending about their Affairs and there is a most endeared and intimate Relation and Affection between all the Myriads of Angels above and the Saints below instead of the National Church of the Jews assembled at Jerusalem they are come to the General Assembly and Church of the first-born whose Names are written in Heaven To the general Assembling of the true Catholick Church who Assemble and Worship all the World over in Spirit and Truth without any confinement to any place whatever they are come to them so as to be of the same Body and Society with them to be fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the Houshold of God and so as to partake of all their Spiritual and Heavenly Advantages and they are come to all the parts of this Catholick Communion as well those in Heaven as those on Earth even to God himself which is as far as they can come the judge of all under the Law they were not suffered so much as to approach the outward signs of his Presence but under the Gospel they have free access to himself and to his very Throne which is now become a Throne of Grace and nothing appears now from thence but a Scepter of Mercy held forth they are come to the Spirits of just men made perfect not only to the Fellowship and Fraternity of all the Saints living from the Fraternity of an outward Typical and only National Church but to those in the Heavenly state all those mentioned in the 11th Chap. before and all the Apostles and those Blessed Saints they had conversed with in the first times of the Gospel who were then removed and gone to their rest even to them by the Gospel-state they were come with them they are embodyed as Members of the same Society and with them in a short time they are sure to be resident And to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant a Saviour as well as a Mediator and a Mediator not of the Sinai but of the Sion Covenant a Covenant bringing grace life and peace a Mediator not like Moses a meer Man a Servant a Sinner himself trembling in his Office and weary of his Burden and whose Ministry was like his Person decaying vanishing and dying But to the Son himself in his own House able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him in that he liveth for ever to make Intercession for them and to the Blood of sprinkling infinitely exceeding all the Blood that was sprinkled under the Law for that brought sin yearly and daily into remembrance but those that are sprinkled with this are for ever perfected and to them there remains no more Sacrifice for sin and this Blood they are come to speaks a better Language quite than the Blood of Abel did although the Blood of both was most unjustly shed and they were both wickedly murdered and slain yet they speak two different Languages Abel's Blood called and cried unto God for vengeance upon Cain but this pleads and cries aloud for pardon and forgiveness even for those very Persons that were most guilty of it and deepliest concerned in it so that none are excluded from the benefit of it The Apostle winds up all with deep and solemn Admonitions and Cautions to the Believing Jews not to play fast and lose with the Gospel 't is of such Jews St. James writes in his Epistle directed to the Twelve Tribes when he tells them A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and let not such a man think says he to obtain any thing from the Lord for he halts between two Opinions and is unresolved whether he shall be a Jew or a Christian the Apostle conjures them upon their utmost peril not to refuse him that speaks from Heaven which is no other than God himself speaking by his Son and declaring by a solemn voice from Heaven even from the excellent Glory that he was his Beloved Son in whom he was well pleased which beloved and blessed Son of God might well be said to speak from Heaven because we are expresly told he was also in Heaven when he spake here upon Earth he proceeds to mind them that the Legal state was like an old House ready to fall upon their heads for he that once by his voice shook the Earth at Mount Sinai and made the Mount to tremble will now once more shake both Heaven and Earth and dissolve the Apostle tells them their whole Religious Constitution and Fabrick and this taking away of things that are shaken is in order to this that things that cannot be shaken which are the blessings and glories and sure mercies of the Gospel may remain the Gospel is the last and only remedy that God has provided for sinful Man 't is a fearful thing to fall into his hands and not have this to plead to fall into the hands of the living God without an interest in Jesus the Mediator of this New Covenant and the Blood of sprinkling appurtenant thereunto he that has once embraced the Gospel and then out of choice refuseth it and turns his back upon it refuseth his remedy and thereby renders his Cure desperate and impossible and to such a man nothing can possibly remain but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment The Consideration of this Glorious and Honourable state to which by the Gospel we are come this Celestial Mount of Spirits should always inflame our minds with holy and thankful Contemplations and also with fervent and devout adoration of that infinite goodness that has made such provision for the happiness recovery and welfare of rebellious and apostate Man that has opened the flood-gates of Heaven and showr'd down all the blessings and glories thereof upon the World by the descent of the second person into Human Nature how happy were it if instead of mean low and perishing satisfactions Men would solace themselves with this heart-satisfying and everlasting Salvation let us follow the example of Moses who when God proclaimed his Name unto him and caused all his goodness to pass before him the Text says Moses made haste and bowed his head towards the earth and worshipped he only heard the report of what we possess and enjoy our whole business therefore should be to exalt the Praises of so Gracious a Benefactor and to Magnifie that Glorious being that has all possible Perfection to whom nothing can be added and from whom nothing can be taken away and to whom all Blessing and Honour and Praise and all Worship and Service and Adoration will be due throughout all Generations from time to time till time ceaseth and is dissolved in Eternity and thence Eternally FINIS
thing than what by his degeneracy and apostasie he has made himself nothing did more plainly and evidently discover itself in the whole transaction of God with this People then that there could be no Law given that would singly and of itself without foreign Assistance introduce Righteousness that there was an absolute necessity the Holy Ghost should be sent down from Heaven if ever Mankind were made fit to go thither and such a Covenant made with the World as would give to Men a new Heart and a new Spirit and such a Covenant God declares having found fault with this that he would make whereby he would write his Laws in Mens Hearts and put them into their inward parts and so possess them with his Grace and lock them up to himself by his fear that they should not depart from him If we begin with this People in Egypt and consider them there it is plain the generality of them had fallen in with the Religion of the Country notwithstanding all the colateral inducements they had and all the obligations they lay under to the contrary and totally forgotten the true God this seems plain from what Moses in Exodus replied unto God when he commanded him to go to them and tell them The God of their fathers had sent him unto them Moses Answers when I come unto the Children of Israel and shall say unto them the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you and they shall say what is his Name or as it is better rendred what God is he what shall I say unto them 'T is plain from hence that Moses was well aware of the success he was like to have and that the God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob was a thing that the people at that time had no notion at all of and upon their entrance into Canaan when Joshua had by Gods direction circumcised them God himself declares this day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you which reproach of Egypt was their Idolatry in Egypt which was rolled away by their being devoted by Circumcision to the true God and his Worship some learned men have supposed that the people were not circumcised in Egypt and that their uncircumcision there was that reproach that was rolled away but 't is I conceive a mistake for we are told in Josh 5. v. 5. Now all the People that came out speaking of Egypt were circumcised but all the People that were born in the Wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt them they had not circumcised And in the 4. v. that is said to be the reason of their being now circumcised those that came out of Egypt 't is expresly said were circumcised now if they were circumcised by Moses after their coming out then the reproach of Egypt was rolled away before and this circumcising could not be it if they were as I believe they were circumcised before they came out of Egypt then uncircumcision could not be the reproach of Egypt here meant and 't is probable they were all circumcised there because Pharaohs Daughter so soon as she had taken Moses out of the water and looked upon him knew him to be an Hebrew Child which is likely she did by the mark of circumcision If you ask how Circumcision and their Idolatry could stand together the answer is They kept up that Right without any regard to the ends of it just as the Posterity of Esau and Ishmael do to this day who are the greatest Idolaters in the World though circumcised and constant observers of that Right No sooner were they come into the Wilderness though by such stupendious deliverances as the World before had never been acquainted withal and although they had a Miracle by the Cloud and the Pillar of Fire always in their eye yet while Moses was gone into the Mount to treat personally with God about their concerns they fell greedily into the Egyptain Idolatry a great demonstration they had been used to it before and set up the Calves to declare in the Highest manner their disloyalty to God their King their uneasiness under his Government and that his Rule and their unruly Humours would never sute together and withal to signifie their wretched ingratitude for all he had done for them against Pharaoh and the Egyptians And to testifie their utmost satisfaction and delight in what they had so done the Text says Exod. 32. v. 6. And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt-offerings and brought peace-offerings and the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play Suitable to this was their carriage all along in the Wilderness so Stephen told their successors that for Forty Years in the Wilderness they took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the Star of their God Remphan Figures which they made to Worship them and had not sacrificed unto God as they ought the 78 Psalm is a Holy recapitulation of all the disloyal undutiful and unthankful treatment God had from them If we follow them to their last settlement into Canaan their constant spiritual Whoredom there was intolerable provoking the most high to his face their whole behaviour was utterly to testifie their dislike of God and his Government and that they desired not him of all others to rule over them but rather subjected themselves to the meanest Idol the two tribes of Judas and Benjamin that kept longest in their Integrity yet soon fell to the Worship of Baal and before the great Captivity they had set up the most odious Idol-worship in the very House of God this was plainly shewn in vision to Ezekiel when he was in Babylon upon the first Captivity there he saw Men in the Temple worshipping the Sun Women weeping for Tamuz and many more Abominations and in the 19th of Jeremiah God tells them by his Prophet Jerusalem and Judah shall be destroyed because they have burnt incense to all the hoast of heaven The ten Tribes early deserted the true God and fell down before the Calves at Dan and Bethel and at last under one of their apostate Kings those Idols were removed to Samaria the Metropolis of the ten Tribes and placed there to put the utmost Honour and Credit upon them that possibly could be this was done by Omri of whom the Scripture records that he did worse than all that went before him because he made Laws to bring these Idols from Dan and Bethel to Samaria the Royal and Capital City of the ten Tribes for so it is called in the 7th of Esau to affront the God of Israel in the highest manner and as much as in him lay to obliterate the Name and Mention of him amongst those Tribes in his own chosen and peculiar Country The Holy Ghost has left a perpetual Brand throughout all Ages upon these Statutes of Omri and in the 6th of the Prophet Micah tells the People nothing they did should prosper because they kept the
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
THE MOUNT OF SPIRITS THAT Glorious Honorable State To which BELIEVERS ARE Called by the GOSPEL EXPLAINED In some MEDITATIONS upon the 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Verses of the 12th Chapter to the Hebrews With some Previous Reflections upon that whole EPISTLE and the People of the JEWS Psalm 1.2 But his delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth he meditate day and night London Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheap-side near Mercers-Chappel 1691. THE PREFACE TO THE READER 'T IS an uneasie Reflection but a very reasonable Supposition That no Person will view over this small Collection of some few uneven Thoughts with any Delight comparable to what I had in the composing of it those Satisfactions are I well know personal and in their nature not transferrable or else I would heartily remit them to every Reader the Meditations herein contained did I confess much affect and delight me while they were upon the Anvil though perhaps herein I shall prove to resemble a mean active Preacher that warms only his own Affections and starves those of his Auditors I have this to solace my self withal let the Effect otherways be never so small That I sought out these things for no other reason but because I my self had pleasure therein and originally designed an intire confinement of them to my own private satisfaction possibly by their publication I shall be told I have mistaken my Talent and medled with things that are too great and too high for an ordinary Genius and have brought my self under the correction of that old Axiom Prestat de Carthagine Tacere quam pauca dicere 'T is better to say nothing of Carthage than to say but a little I will not contend with this Reproof nor yet labour after any farther Excuse than what I find made for me in that good-natur'd modern Expression In magnis voluisse sat est The Matters here treated of are I well know of a sublime Nature and require the deepest Consideration and Caution and therefore I have all along proposed to my self what I am sure is the safest Method which is to walk by the Light of Revelation and take the Scriptures in all that I have said for my only Guide if Men will understand any thing aright of God's Eternal Councels and Designs touching the Making Ruling and Saving of the World here they must have it 't is to no purpose to hearken to any other Instructor but the Holy Ghost about these Matters for none knows the Mind of God herein but the Spirit of God alone the Wisdom and Philosophy of the World has after its utmost Enquiries and Pursuits after these things attained no farther but to record their own insufficiency and folly the Holy Scriptures as they are the great Luminary placed by God in this lower Firmament to inform and enlighten the rational part of the World in all Sacred Things so they are the Rule and the Standard by which all Divine and Religious Concerns are to be tryed and determined 'T is a sorry change and a very mean shift to forsake the infallible Determinations of God that he has transmitted unto us upon Record and by an Appeal from them to put Religion upon tryal by the failing uncertain Opinions and Practices of Men It ought to be made a perpetual Memorandum in the Church in order to their constant Direction that when our blessed Saviour came and the greatest Points that ever were debated on Earth were then on foot Whether he were the True Messiah or No And whether the Religion established by him was to dissolve and discharge the Mosaical oeconomy and of right to succeed it Our Saviour and the Apostles insist not upon any one Proof but what they fetch'd from the Old Testament not a word of the Church then nor any of those Humane Authorities the pressing of which upon the Minds of Men has so pester'd and disordered the World ever since and whenever they contested either with the Jews the Gentiles or with Satan himself they never used other Weapon than the Scriptures nor was any other Medium so much as once mentioned by them to determinate Divine Things by although that Age was as much filled with the Noise of Tradition and the Church as any that hath been since St. Paul when he is treating of the deepest Points flies to that Interrogatory Appeal But what saith the Scripture And I doubt not but the glorious State of the Church in the last times so much fore-spoke of will consist in a strict and close Agreement with the Canon of the Scriptures and appearing in the Splendor of an Entire Conformity to the Laws of Christ utterly rejecting all Humane Authorities and all such Constitutions of which Christ himself is not the Author and such as by which the Antichristian Fabrick has been chiefly erected 'T is of great remark That the last Item God gave to the Church of the Jews when the Spirit of Prophesie ceased and with which the Old Testament is closed was to prevent an invasion of Humane Traditions and to oblige them to an exact Conformity and Obedience to what he himself had prescribed them Remember the Law of Moses my Servant which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the Statutes and the Judgments And our Saviour's last Direction to his Disciples when he left the World was That they should teach all Nations to observe whatsoever he had commanded them to prevent all other Legislators from usurping Authority in the Church In the following Discourse I have also applied my self as much as the Matter would give me leave to the use of Scripture-Phrases as thinking to all Inquirers into these Matters those would prove the most acceptable Words and also because the Scripture is best expressed by it self Scripture-Notions sound best and are most properly utter'd in Scripture-Expressions and what in one place looks obscure is often so expressed in another as renders it obviously intelligible and easie we can never be too much inur'd to Scripture-Expressions because the Scriptures contain in them after an admirable manner a Sacred Language and Holy Dialect dictated by God himself for him and his People to converse together in here it is that holy Men have of old and all good Men to the end of the World will constantly learn in what Language to express their Prayers and their Praises and how to utter themselves in all their Approaches to the Most High and in whatsoever converse they shall happen to have with him 't is the Treasury of all Divine Utterance and Expression both from God to Man and from Man to God and which the Holy Ghost will principally make use of in all the intercourse that will be between Christ and the Church to the end of the World and will very particularly make such skilful in who are to bring down the Lively Oracles and to administer in Sacred Things
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
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
and that in several things 1st In the continuance and time of its duration 1260 Years being near about the time that the Babylonian Monarchy lasted 2dly In respect that all the holy and sanctified Utensils of the Temple were captived in Babylon and there prophaned as all the Sacred Institutions of the Gospel are captived and prophaned in this Mystical Babylon how shamefully have the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper and the other Holy Institutions and Ordinances of the New Testament been prophan'd and abus'd under the Papal Reign 3dly This Ecclesiastical Mornarchy is set forth and described by that of the Babylonian after a very peculiar manner in respect of the sore Persecutions the Church meets with under both the Holy Ghost makes the one typical and representative of the other 4thly The Babylonian Monarchy was not ruined by a common Providence but by peculiar and extraordinary Judgments they are three times in one Chapter called the Vengeance of his Temple And so shall this Papal Babylonian State be ruined after a peculiar manner by the brightness of Christ's coming and by the glory of his Power 5thly And that which I think the principal Reason why the Holy Ghost brands this Ecclesiastical Monarchy with the Name of Babylon though it arose out of the Ruins of the Roman Monarchy and have its situation at Rome is this to keep up and maintain the Harmony and due decorum of the Visions set forth in the Revelation and the Representations and Expressions thereof Now it is plain that in the Revelation the true Church is represented under the Gospel by Jewish Similitudes and Expressions and the Enemies of it are represented in the Names of those great Enemies the Jews had to their Church and State The three most remarkable Calamities that befel the Jews was first in Egypt secondly in Babylon and thirdly from the Outrages of Antiochus and upon that account we find Egypt often mentioned in the Revelations and the sore Bondage and Persecutions of the Church reckoned from thence and in regard the Jewish Church and State with their City and Temple were totally ruined and themselves captivated by the Monarchy of Babylon their constant and avowed Enemy therefore the grand Enemy of Christ and the Gospel the Antichristian State is called Babylon and perhaps the Persecutions and Desolations of Antiochus are represented by God and Magog when Satan shall be let loose This Ecclesiastical Structure is also in Scripture stiled Antichristian and the Monarchy of it Antichrist and that not only for the general opposition it makes and the tendency it has against Christ and his Interest but for this peculiar reason because there is a Vice Head and a Vice Christ and so a False Christ set up in the Church Christ's Place is by this Monarchy notoriously usurped it being enthroned by its Head the Man of Sin in the Temple of God as God and most impiously and impudently personating Christ in all his mediatory Authority Satan and the rest of his Associates having thus from the beginning declared their enmity to God and peculiarly to the Seed of the Woman and the Interest and Kingdom of Christ as Mediator and pursued it in all Ages with the greatest Rage and Malice imaginable and having in the Antichristian Reign for 1260 Years which began at the fall of the Roman Empire for the Beast and the ten Kings which are the shivers of that Empire are expresly said to take their Power in one hour and St. Paul tells us he that does let will let till he be taken out of the way which is to tell us in other words that till the Temporal Monarchy of Rome fell the Spiritual Monarchy could not be erected I say having brought their Apostate Practices and Principles to the utmost culmen and heighth they could arrive at they will then grow ripe for destruction the Judge will appear to stand at the door Christ will bring these lapsed Angels and their Associates to their final doom and destroy them and all their contrivances by the spirit of his mouth and the brightness of his coming he will at last come to judgment with all his Holy Angels and according to that ancient Prophesie of Enoch with all his Saints he will come first in his Father's glory to manifest before all that he and the Father are one and that the essential glory of God is his 2dly In his own glory the glory of his mediatory Kingdom having by his Humiliation Suffering Death and Resurrection conquered the Grave Death Hell Sin and all the Effects of it and acquited a peculiar glory to himself thereby And 3dly In the glory of the Angels who are all his Attendants not only in the glory they received from him in their first creation but the glory they have acquired through him in keeping their first state and the glory of all their faithful service and conformity to him and his Kingdom to the end and this honor will all the Saints then have not only to appear with him in glory but to sit in judgment with him as his mystical body and as part of the reward of their works that follow them and joyn in the Sentence pronounced by him The first Sentence he pronounceth will probably be upon these apostate Spirits who were the first created Rebels and them he will doom to eternal darkness and misery and so these Angels that could not content themselves with the glory they had in their first creation from the second Person as God come to be fatally sentenced by him for their aspiring Impieties as he is Man as they were made by him so were they made for him to come under his mediatory Authority and be finally disposed by him and with this tormenting aggravation that he is accompanied and glorified therein by the blessed Angels whose company they forsook and in opposition to whom they have all along carried on a distinct interest and by all the Saints the whole body of the Church which they have so malign'd and persecuted since the World began So let all thine Enemies perish O Lord then will it be said the Mystery of God is finished the Spirits Influences compleated the Mediator's Kingdom perfected and delivered up the Wicked are gone to their own place the Saints are all come safe home to their Father's House and rest for ever God is all in all Amen Hallelujah Touching the other part of the Angels those that kept their first state of whom the Scripture makes such honourable mention as sometimes to call them Morning stars sometimes Sons of God Angels of Light Chariots of God his Hoasts his Ministers the Elect Angels who with respect to their Nature are called Spirits with respect to their Dignity Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers and with respect to their Office and Employment Angels and ministring Spirits for Angel is a word relates to their Employment and not to their Nature and we find Men sometimes in Scripture by vertue of their Offices
bears here are to be seen the Beauties of Holiness and the Stamp of all the Divine Attributes and this City as it is called the heavenly Jerusalem and the City of the living God is opposed to the earthly Jerusalem as it abode during the whole state of the Law for we are told in the Epistle to the Galatians that that was in bondage with her Children as well as Mount Sinai but Jerusalem which is above says he is free which is this heavenly Jerusalem he here speaks of the Apostle means not by Jerusalem above the Heavenly State that is plain by the Context but he means the State of the Gospel-Church here upon Earth the thing to be enquired after is upon what account 't is called the heavenly Jerusalem and Jerusalem above and that we shall find to be a most proper and reasonable Appellation of it and that upon several accounts 1st It comes originally down from Heaven Divine Revelation is the Ground and Foundation of it 2dly All the Inhabitants of Heaven dwell also here both the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost by their gracious Presence and Influences and in that respect this is said to be their Dwelling-place and their Abode for ever and therefore in the following words the Apostle tells them who the Inhabitants are of this Mount and City to which they are come God the Judge of all Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and an innumerable company of Angels the Angels are all as ministring Spirits and Servants present in it and conversant about it and such Inhabitants must needs make an holy City 3dly It is made up of Members part in Heaven and part on Earth the blessed Angels and the Saints departed as well as the Saints living on Earth are parts of it and so it has a good Title to be called Heavenly and Jerusalem above 4thly All the true Members of it even upon Earth are holy and heavenly Persons their conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their City-conversation is in Heaven and they are all travelling towards their everlasting rest there And so this Heavenly Jerusalem is the Heavenly State of the Catholick Church under the Gospel which is not fixed to any one earthly place nor can it be in bondage or come under captivity but is free is the Mother of us all comes from above and returns thither it may be said of it as it was of Christ when he was the Son of Man upon Earth he was also the Son of Man in Heaven and so this Jerusalem this heavenly City whil'st it is upon Earth it is also in Heaven the nature of it is purely spiritual and heavenly and the whole World both Jews and Gentiles are comprehended in it making as the Apostle speaks of them twain one new man The third think Believers are said to come to is an innumerable company of Angels the expression is taken out of the 7th of Daniel where it is said speaking of God Thousand thousands minister unto him and Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him ye are come to Miriads of Angels which is well render'd an innumerable company of Angels and this is made good several ways 1st We are come so to them as to be of the same Society and Family with them they are part of Christ's Houshold only inhabit a Story above us for by the Blood of his Cross all things in Heaven and Earth are gathered together in and under him as their Supreme Head and Soveraign and make but one Incorporation they all joyn together in the same Adoration and Worship for God hath said let all the Angels of God worship him and they declare themselves upon all occasions to be fellow-servants with the Saints in all Christ's Concerns in all the Affairs of his House and Family 2dly We are come to these Angels by having a secret invisible yet constant and sweet Communion with them great is the invisible influence the Angels have upon us and the converse they have with us taking notice of all our private Devotions and farthering us therein by many unthought of and undiscerned yet very advantageous circumstances such as lyes in their way to administer and also by being present in the publick and solemn Assemblies of the Church where they not only joyn and concur in the Worship and Service performed but without all doubt in such methods as are proper to them to operate in they are aiding and assisting and both in the private and publick Worship of the Saints continually preventing and opposing the malignant endeavours of Satan and the other Angels and so there is always a sweet Communion maintained between the Saints upon Earth and them in Heaven as the Saints here look upwards and rejoyce in their fix'd and establish'd Happiness and Glory above so they are continually ascending and descending and visiting the Saints here below and using all endeavours to bring them safe to the same blessed state with themselves and beholding the whole Trinity so employed as they are for Man's recovery and taking such complacency in it and they themselves having received Orders in Heaven from their Supreme Soveraign and Head to that purpose their whole Endeavours tend that way and to assist in the compleating of the Church as it is their peculiar Province so it is also their great Delight and Satisfaction 3dly We are come to those Miriads of Angels as they are Christ's supreme invisible Agents and Officers in his Church and to all the Advantages of their Service and Ministry in general they have the care of all the Elect the whole Body of the Faithful are committed to their charge and keeping we are told the Angels of the Lord encampeth about them that fear him as they did about Elisha of old How many gracious and wonderful Deliverances does Christ effect for his Church in general and each individual Member of it by the Angelical Ministry the manner of which though we enjoy the benefit is to us unknown and as they were under the Old Testament employed to make extraordinary Revelations of the Will of God to the World so they are now employed to be continually suggesting the Mind and Will of God to the Hearts and Spirits of his chosen and to counter-work the Devil in all his Temptations and Suggestions to the contrary this is not done in such a way as the holy Spirit operates who is an indweller with us and cohabits with the Soul but the Angels work upon us only as external Operators and so what they do is by making impressions upon our Faculties from outward and external Means and Circumstances suted thereunto and from our present Inclination and Disposition sutable to which they accommodate their Actings but they convey not as the Holy Ghost does any inward Power of Acting nor any new Abilities to our Souls 4thly As the evil Angels are constant observers of all the Transactions of the Church in general and of every Member of it in particular in order
to accuse calumniate and misrepresent before God so these blessed Angels are constant Spectators and publick Notaries of all the Proceedings of the Church and all the Actings and Sufferings of every Member thereof in order to bear a faithful Witness before God and be a punctual Record thereof at the Day of Judgment And in this sense we are come unto them they are not only present in publick Assemblies but conversant in the Closet of every Saint and take an exact view of all their devout and fervent Addresses unto God upon this account it is that St. Paul tells us that the Apostles by their Preaching and Suffering were a Spectacle to Angels the holy Angels beheld their Spiritual Courage and Conquest with wonderful satisfaction and upon this account it is that St. Paul chargeth Timothy before the Elect Angels to look well to the discharge of his Work and Office because they are Witnesses appointed of God to take punctual notice of his Behaviour therein and the Presence of the Angels is made an Argument by the Holy Ghost for the well-ordering our selves and all our Actions in Church-Assemblies 5thly The Angels as they are God's Officers employed for the guard and security of the Church so they are also for the revenging of his Wrath upon their Enemies so it often was under the Old Testament and so it is under the New and will continue till the end that wretched prophane Herod who added to all his former wickedness to shut up John in Prison and after added to that addition to cut off his Head to please a Dalilah and at last came to make himself his own Idol by taking to himself that glory that should have been ascribed to God at last an Angel smote him and dispatch'd him to his own place by a woful and miserable Catastrophey the Angels stood all ready when our blessed Saviour was led to the Cross to have rescued him upon the least Command this our Saviour himself told the Jews when he was encompass'd with a Roman Guard he could upon request to his Father have more then twelve legions of angels to rescue and assist him which exceeded the number of Men the Romans then had in their whole Army for their Army at that time did not consist of twelve Legions and in the Revelations we find the Angels constantly employed by God as the great Executioners of his Wrath upon the Churches Enemies to the end of the World 6thly We are come to this innumerable company of Angels as to our truest Friends and most faithful Companions for they never leave us till they have brought us home 1st To the rest of our Souls in Heaven for they wait upon every dying Believer to comfort and chear his spirit so soon as ever it hath left the Body and safely to convey it into that Blessed fellowship above and into that glorious place and state of rest called Abraham's Bosom And 2dly They will be assisting and instrumental though it be effected by the mighty Power of God to call and raise the Bodies of the Saints out of their Graves at last when Christ comes to effect the first Resurrection he will be attended with all his Glorious Angels and by their Ministry the Dead in Christ shall rise first the Trumpet that will sound to summon them out of their ashes will be an Angelical sound probably the Voice of the Arch-Angel and when they arise out of the Earth they will together with all the Saints then living be caught up by the Angels and conveyed by them to meet the Lord in the Air the last office the Angels will have to perform and so will ever abide with him Whose heart would not burn within him upon the contemplation of these things that God should be such a lover of Men that the Eternal Son should by his death redeem them his own spirit by his influences come down and dwell in them and all the Angels in Heaven made their Guardians and their whole Ministry and Service employed on their behalf How blessed a condition does the Gospel instate us in above the Law in reference to this particular When Man first fell by sin the Angels became his most avowed Enemies and Executioners of Wrath that went out against him for the Cherubims stood with a flaming Sword to keep the Tree of Life and to shut Man out of Paradise he made his Angels Spirits and at that time his ministers a flame of fire When the Law was given upon Mount Sinai and Man considered only in his natural state the Angels were most dreadful and terrible in their appearance but now under the Gospel Angels and Men by the Blood of the Cross are embodyed into one Fellowship and Society united in and under one head engaged in the same Worship and Service and enjoy a sweet and most endeared communion each with other all which is fully insinuated and intimated by the Apostle in telling the Believing Jews they were come to this innumerable company of angels 4thly The Apostle tells them they are come to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in Heaven This is an expression of that part of the Catholick Church here upon Earth to which by the Gospel all Believers come and with which they are incorporated and imbodyed two things are intended hereby to shew the preference of the Gospel-state before that of the Legal 1st That instead of the Assembly of all the Males three times a Year at Jerusalem which is called in Scripture the great congregation they are come now to the great Assembly of all the Members of the true Catholick Church amongst Mankind to all the true servants of God both of Jews and Gentiles that any where call upon God in Spirit and Truth and that God would have such a general Assembly and such an universal Church of the first-born throughout all Nations without any farther respect to the Jews or their Church was a secret undiscovered till the Gospel Revelation came 2dly That this assembly consists only of real and true Saints such as have the right of the first born the great inheritance that men are born capable of in this World is the possession of Heaven at last those that obtain that are the eldest sons of this lower World and the first-born amongst Mankind in the Scripture sense and none obtain this inheritance but such as are eternally elected in Christ to it and therefore the Apostle when he names the Church of the first-born adds as explanatory of it whose names are inrolled in Heaven that is in the Lamb's Book of Life in the Roll of God's eternal purposes and councels there they are Registred and not in an Earthly Register as the Jews were this Church of the first-born is called in Scripture the first fruits of the whole Creation unto God and the Lamb they are said to be Heirs to God and Joynt-heirs with Christ they are made Kings and Priests unto God and so have
every Man comes naturally to speak and understand this heavenly Language when he is born of the Spirit and brought up in the Nurture and Instruction of the Holy Ghost The prophane part of the World are ever deriding this and making it a constant part of their diversion Now what a profound solid part of Discretion do such Men act who have in contempt the Result and Effects of Infinite Wisdom The Papists have a Saying That never any Dog barked at a Crucifix but he run mad The Moral of that Fable is very good and may serve to instruct a prophane Protestant God himself gives a very solemn and withal dreadful Caution and Premonition to all prophane Scoffers by the Prophet Esaias Be not Mockers saith he lest your Bands be made strong that is lest I chuse your Delusion and give you irrecoverably up to your own prophane sence which will be found at last to be the worst sort of Madness I will not believe any will be so unnecessary critical and nice as to blame the Title of this small Tract in regard the Catholick Church under the Gospel is so very often in Scripture denominated by Mount Sion called the Mountain of the Lord's House which is to be set up upon the top of the Mountains And to this Mount Sion that is to the Gospel-Catholick Church are some way or other related all the blessed and glorious Spirits that are extant the fallen Angels are only excluded for by coming to this Mount the Apostle tells us we are come to God the Judge of all to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant to an innumerable company of Angels and to the Spirits of Just Men made perfect A great part of a true Christian's Life and I am sure the best part of it is a Converse with Spirits the best and noblest part of Man is a Spirit and he must shortly for some time exist only in that part and when the Body is reunited to it that second Coalition and Constitution will be altogether Spiritual for a Soul and a Spiritual Body conjoyned will render a Man not less Spiritual than he was while he existed singly in his Soul but will make him perfectly like to an Angel so we are told by our Saviour That in the Resurrection the Saints shall be like to the Angels of God Upon this account God is training us up and gradually fitting and preparing of us for this state he is acquainting us as much as our present condition will allow with himself and other Spirits here that so we may joyfully resign up our earthly state to become of their number and at last abide in that condition that will be purely Spiritual without any sort of Terrene Allay and such who live without any Communion with Spirits here and have no sort of foretaste nor any preparative relish of that state must needs if they any way make use of the thinking faculty leave their Bodies with very great Amusements The Mount of Spirits Hebrews 12.18 For ye are not come unto the Mount that might be touched and that burned with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest Verse 19. And the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more Ver. 20. For they could not endure that which was commanded and if so much as a beast touch the mountain it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart Ver. 21. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake Ver. 22. But we are come unto Mount Sion and unto the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels Ver. 23. To the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect Ver. 24. And to Jesus the Mediatour of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel THis Epistle is a Funeral Sermon preached at the Interment of the Law the material Body of Moses God himself buried long before and no man ever knew the place of his Sepulture and now his mystical Body his Doctrine growing old and ready to vanish away ripe for abolition or rather dissolution not so much by being repealed or rescinded but its use ceasing the end and substance of it appearing and its glory being naturally and of course swallowed up and dissolved into a greater glory that excels The Holy Ghost himself by this Epistle lays it honourably in the grave and so we have the Sepulchre of this mystical Body of Moses abiding with us at this day And happy had it been for the whole Nation of the Jews if this Sermon had had its due effect upon them God in his wise and gracious Providence gave them this Warning this Holy Instruction and Admonition to prevent their obstinate adhaesion to the Mosaical Rites and violent opposition of the Gospel thereby which ended in a very few years after the writing of this Epistle in the sad and utter Ruine of their Temple their City and themselves The Penman of this Epistle by such Probabilities as come very near to a Certainty appears to be St. Paul the great Doctor of the Gentiles and that Person whom it pleased God so eminently to make use of in the glorious Fulfilling of that early prophetick Prediction God shall perswade Japheth to dwell in the tents of Sem. The exact Time when this Epistle was written is very uncertain Antiquity affords us little or no Information about it what Knowledge we can have of it must be by consulting the Scripture and comparing it with it self It seems reasonable to suppose that St. Paul wrote it after his Release at Rome from two Years Imprisonment there with which the Story of the Acts of the Apostles ends wherein is contained an Ecclesiastical History of the Church for about 28 Years after our Saviour's Resurrection unto the 7th Year of Nere that he wrote it after his Release appears from hence that Chap. 13. v. 23. he intends and promiseth a Journey with Timothy which had he been a Prisoner and not in his own power is not reasonable to think he would have done 'T is likewise very probable to be written before the sharpest and most violent Persecutions fell upon the believing Jews before the slaughter Herod made at the instance of the Jews of St. James and those at Jerusalem because he tells them in this Epistle they had not yet resisted unto Blood and 't is very evident to be writ and to be well known to the Jews before St. Peter wrote his second Epistle for therein he seems very plainly to refer to this Epistle and if so then 't is plain also beyond denial the Author of it was St. Paul And Account says he that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation even as our beloved