fee the fulfilling of that declaration of the Lord, I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; and none shall deliver out of my hand. Deut. xxxii. 29. No, Lord, none who know thy name, would ever wish to be removed from the hand and bosom of love itself. And the evangelical destruction of fin was openly published at the glorious Pentecostal feaft, when the holy Spirit came according to our Lord's promise, and according to the words of Joel prophecying from the temple-altars (to which all the prophets look in their teftimony, and preaching,) in fire, and blood, and vapor of fmoke; and fo will he come in the end of the days, and be poured out on all flesh, as well as on that of the firft-born who enjoyed the double portion of the father's goods, or gifts. The devout men were finners in the ftrict fense of the law, as born flesh of flefh: they were juftified, or declared righteous by grace, and by faith in the great coverer of our nakedness and fhame, as much as all other finners must be fo clothed in their order

rite, and the righteous one for all men, as Paul fhews in the whole fifth chapter to the Romans. In a fecondary fense, the word imports restleffnefs, as a troubled fea, fays Bythner from Isaiah lvii. 20. and in the high fenfe of prophecy, it comprehends the fallen angels, Spirits of darkness, like Cain wandering about: and with regard to man, every one who rejects the mercy of the gospel, for unbelievers are never fatisfied, nor at ease.

of

of rifing in Chrift. These had the first fruit, and pouring forth of that holy Spirit, the free gift of God in his fon and they were in no other manner righteous, than as they accepted with mot grateful hearts the righteoufness of God through Jefus Chrift, acknowledging their fall and lofs of the glory in Adam, and having waited in hope and belief of the restoration, they then received the confolation of Ifrael, that is, the return of the Schechinah, or the presence of the majesty of God, to cover their nakedness, by the white rayment, in the mystery, the white cloud or body of light, the true antitype to the fine white linen of the typical priesthood.

The will of flesh is enmity againft God; for it is never fubject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. Rom. viii. 6: They that feel their burden first, and are heavy laden through a sense of moral impotence to answer the laws of God, come to Chrift, empty of felf, that they may be filled: they justify the teftimony of God against their flesh, by the circumcifion and the rejection of it from the temple, till typically cut off, and the woman purified by the offering, confeffing, that The brought forth the finner to die, and in a manner, dying from the womb. The abolition of this flesh, called the garment of captivity, and the filthy garment, is the great myfterious work of our king and high-prieft, which he performs by

the

the invifible fword of concifion, even the holy fire, and the judgment or trial by fire, spoken of by Peter, where Chrift in his fpirit, (piritual form) fits in the faithful, his temples as a refiner of gold and filver, and has the fan in his hand, to purge his floor, and to burn the chaff and ftubble with unquenchable fire. Philofophers, and even divines have extinguished all spiritual fense of the new teftament, and will both of them, kick hard against these humiliating truths, but all must be found liars against the law, and the gospel, who prefume to deny the evil imagination of every man's heart, which the Hebrew Church called jatzar harang, the evil effigiator, or figurer of internal conceptions, thoughts, defires and appetites, contrary to the dictates of the mind and fpirit: which Paul fo defcribes at large, and laments; and all contemplative men, from the earliest schools of wisdom, and from felf-infpection have equally acknowledged and lamented with the apoftle. Rom. vii. 12, 25. Intellectual pride is the moft ftubborn, and unwilling to bow down to the righteousness of God; and like the old pharifee would be juftified by his own works, and not by the fpirit of his creator, renewing him; because here, the wisdom of the world is found foolishnefs before God, and man has nothing to boast of, or claim by, but the free grace of his merciful father, and his elder brother, Jefus Chrift. And

to

to remove, in this place, one objection against Mofes, and David, from unhappy infidels, and their misconception of the divine judgments, the fword and anger of God; whenever the fword cuts to pieces the flesh of the Moabites, Edomites, the Canaanites and other nations devoted to deftruction: they were killed in the flesh, in order to be quickened in the fpirit, by that two edged fword which goeth out of the mouth of Jefus Chrift; and which fignifies in the mystery the pouring forth the breath of lives, or the holy fpirit in fire, blood and vapor, in their order of rifing in Chrift, into the new image or spiritual body. Hence the prophets call upon these nations to rejoice, and promise their restoration, or bringing again. For this end, compare Deut. xxiii. 7. concerning Edom, or mount Efau, and Moab's return to the congregation of the Lord, with the paffages of the prophets relating to them; and with the apostle's deftruction of the flesh, in 1 Cor. v. 5. and in 1 Tim. i. 20. and with pfalm 107. from v. 6. to v. 20. where the gracious end of his afflictions, rod and anger is pointed out, for all ages, and all eyes to fee, how different the Lord is from man, even in his vengeance: a truth forgot by priests for thirteen centuries; when the name of faint was denied to Tertullian and Origen, and planted on the foreheads of Auflin, and Jerome. The first justly denominated

nominated durus pater infantum, who thought the Lord God had no more bowels than himself: and the last, the father of Monks; for though a bishop might have children, and rule his own house: and fo might a deacon too, by the apostle's council, for these two principal minifters and rulers of a christian community, or family; they would not do for a pope, a cardinal, an archbishop, prieft, or deacon, under the pretended holy catholic apoftolical church, where the fins of* Sodom and Gomorrah are lefs than the fin and crime of honourable marriage. 1 Tim. iii. 1-13.

In regard to the smoke and destruction of the wicked, let us remember, that the judgment began as foon as this male was taken to the throne, Rev. xii. 5. Dan. vii. 13. And he has been coming in clouds, and spirit of burning, ever since he sat on Mount Zion, in the day mentioned in Pf. ii. 7.

Verfe 3. And the righteous fhall rejoice: they fhall exult before the faces of God: and they fhall joy with exceeding joyfulness.

* This most unnatural fin is commended by John de la Casa, archbishop of Beneventum, in a public writing. And priests guilty of this abomination were by the bull of Pius Quintus to be divested of their character, but Efcobarius wrote to deny that such a bull was binding. v. Heiddeggeri, Diatr. de Babylone Magna. Tom. ii. c. 14. fect. 41, and 46.

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