Cudworth on the union of Christ and the church, and in that refined and elegant work of Rous, provoft of Eaton, which he ftyles cæleftial nuptials. But this is a day, when men difpute away their own nature: we fpeak therefore to fuch, as know and taste the powers of the world to come, and bless him in fecret who sheds his love in the inner chambers of the new temple in believers. Heb. vi. 5. Cant.

i. 4.

Again: when merchandize, magnarab, is fignified by a word related to the root, gnarab, to mingle, it must bear a sense of interchange of love and liberality, and not of worldly traffick,' which forms the vile character of a Canaanite, the merchant, or felf-proprietor; a character not known, till Lucifer, the firft-felf, by the multitude of his merchandise, filled his city with violence, and by the iniquity of his traffick. Ezek. xxviii. 17, 18. God fet his feal of difapprobation of this temper by the community of goods in the fabbatical year. And John the Baptift opened his miniftry with reprobating this old thief and robber of his brethren, when he said to the first question asked, how to avoid the fire he threatened: he that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Luke iii. 11. 2dly, when our Lord drave out with a little infignificant fcourge of fmall cords in holy zeal, the buyers and fellers out of his father's typical houfe or palace, intimating

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mating to all ages, that this spirit and temper is the root of all evil; of all fraud, oppreffion, violence and injuftice under the fun: and that fuch worldly minds and difpofitions fhall go empty from the fpiritual temple, and its great bleffings, till like thieves and robbers, they have paid fourfold to divine juftice in the law of retaliation: for imprisonment in the outer darkness is the third and fourth generation, where his holy vengeance ftays, and paffes over into mercy and pardon. Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. Exod. xxii. 1. Luke xix. 8. 3dly. By the descent of the holy Spirit at Pentecofte, the Lord fhewed to all nations and tongues, his own free gifts of eternal things; and taught the brethren the true ufe of the gifts of the temporal Canaan and covenant. 4thly. The whole chriftian world is a merchandizing city in the worlt fense, and ftands in the ftate of the Laodicean church, whofe character is this: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; sọ then, because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth: because thou fayeft, I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; and knoweft not that thou art wretched and miferable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Rev. iii. 15, 17. Compare this picture with our Lord's words. Luke xvii. 26, 28. As it was in the days of Nce, fo fhall it be alfo in the days of the Son of Man. They eat, they drank, they married wives, and were given in marriage, until the day that

Noe

Noah entered into the ark; and the flood came, and deftroyed them all. Likewise alfo, as it was in the days of Lot: they did eat, they drank, they bought, they fold, they planted, they builded: but the fame day that Lot went out of Sodom; it rained fire and brimftone from heaven, and destroyed them all: even thus fhall it be in the DAY, when the Son of Man fhall be revealed. All these actions are just and neceffary; fo that our mafter only fhews the hearts and minds of profeffing chriftians fo fwallowed up and buried in worldly purfuits, that they have no concern or zeal for what they pretend to be their great and only intereft. And even this advent of our Lord, fo bleffed in the mystery, is not feen nor understood; fo darkened and dim is the eye of flesh, through the corrupt lufts and paffions of this enmity in man against God, that the preachers and people understand no more of the true and glorious nature of our Lord's kingdom and priesthood, than the Jews in the evening of the fixth day did, when they hung him on the cross for falvation to the ends of the earth. Amen. Even the friends (as they call themselves instead of brethren, the chriftian appellation) who profess perfection and finless obedience according to Barclay, are not afhamed to poffefs the coats and meat of twenty families: meafure them by the reed of John, the precursor of Chrift: weigh them in the balance, by the church baptized

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tized by the holy Spirit at Pentecofte; and how wanting and light will they feem! Dan. v. 27. Yet their system of opinions is, in general, nearest the truth. But as the Lord will foon destroy Babylon and her feducing merchandize of gold and filver, precious ftones and pearls, fine linen, and purple, and filk, and scarlet, and all thyne wood, and veffels of ivory, and veffels of moft precious wood, of brass, iron, marble, cinnamon, odours, ointments, and frankincenfe, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, beasts, sheep, horses, chariots, flaves and fouls of men. Rev. xviii. 11, 17. This description throws the whole world in view; and has no more relation to the church of Rome, than to any other church. The reformed churches are, perhaps, at this day more greedy and lufting after these things, for the food of pride, corrupt paffion, luxury, and felf-hood, than that community fo deceived, and enflaved by priefts to fuperftition, and other glaring and palpable abominations, and falfe doctrines. The fabbatical year of Mofes de

*

*The rich Jews fo far oppreffed their poor brethren, that for 490 years, they observed no fabbatical year, and were carried into captivity for seventy years, that the land might enjoy her fabbaths. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21. Jerem. xxv. 9, 10. As the jubile restored all houfes and lands under mortgage, (an excellent Agrarian law,) it is much to be doubted, whether the opulent Jews obferved this ftatute at all.

ftroyed

ftroyed all private property: the buyer and feller were no more; it was the Lord's year of common bleffings for all alike; the figures of which inftitution I have explained at large in a tract on that year. And the millennial reign of our Lord is, not by me only, but by almost all writers, acknowledged the antitype in fpiritual gifts, as at the Pentecofte before.

Laftly, where gnaraboth denote plains and fmooth places, we are prefented with two views, of God ruling over the world of emanations, in which fpirit and matter are in the highest poffible exaltation and purity, as fhewn by the cloud of incenfe, and the seven lights before the throne of the prefence of the most high God over the cherubim of glory in the inmoft holy place, called the third heavens. Secondly, it cafts before our eyes the great work of reducing, and melting down all matter in the fallen ftate of dark, cold, hard and heavy condensation, so that the fire, light and æther may penetrate and clothe every point, as the diffolution of the bodies of animals, and fruits of the earth, and their afcenfion in clouds, the liberty from conftriction, was exhibited in the figure continually at the altars of the temple. The ftate of matter we now ftand under, is called brafs, Nechofeth, from Nachafh, ferpent, because Lucifer by his rebellion brought the golden city to ceafe. Ifa. 14. where this king who firft brough: Babylon

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