ready for thy coming out of those chambers of death, upon thine Easter morning; rolling away that massy stone, which the vain care of thine adversaries had laid, curiously sealed, upon the mouth of that cave, for the prevention of thy fore-threatened Resurrection; and sitting upon it with a countenance like lightning, and his garment white as snow: the terror of whose presence made the guard to shake, and to become as dead men; Matth. xxviii. 2, 3, 4: I find two of them no less glorious, sitting the one at the head, the other at the feet of that bed of earth, whereon thou hadst newly slept; John xx. 12. By these angels wert thou both seen and attended; and, no doubt, but as, at thy first coming into the world, when but one angel published thy birth, he was seconded by a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God with hymns of rejoicing for thy Nativity; so, when but one or two angels were seen at thy second birth, which was thy glorious Resurrection, there were more of that heavenly company invisibly celebrating the joyful triumph of that blessed day; wherein, having conquered death and hell, thou shewedst thyself, in a glorified condition, to the redeemed world of men.

After this, when, for the securance of thy Resurrection, upon which all our faith justly dependeth, thou hadst spent forty days upon earth, I find thee upon Mount Olivet, at thy most glorious Ascension, not seen only, but proclaimed and fore-promised, in thy certain and at least equally-glorious return, by the blessed angels: And, behold, while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken from you into heaven, shall so come again, as ye have seen him go into heaven; Acts i. 10, 11.

But, O Saviour, these views of thee by thine angels hitherto were but special, and visible even by bodily eyes: how do I, by the eyes of my soul, see thee both attended up in that heavenly progress, and welcomed into thine imperial heaven, by all the host of those celestial spirits! no small part of whose perpetual happiness it is, to see thee, in thy glorified Humanity, sitting at the righthand of Majesty: there, they enjoy thee: there, they sing continual Hallelujahs to him, that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.

SECT. XI.

IF thine angels, O Blessed Jesu, desired to look preached unto into this great and deep Mystery of the Gospel, the Gentilestheir longing is satisfied in the sight of thy blessed Incarnation, and the full accomplishment of the great office of thy Mediatorship; since, now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, is made known the manifold wisdom of God, in this wonderful work of man's redemption; 1 Pet. i. 12: which, from the beginning of the world, hath been hid in God, who created all things by thee; Eph. iii. 9. But, that the unsearchable riches of Christ

should be preached to the Gentiles, (Eph. iii. 8.) how marvellous an accession is it to the greatness of this Divine Mystery of Godliness! Of old, in Judah was God known: his name was great in Israel: In Salem was his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Sion; Psalm lxxvi. 1, 2: but, in the mean while, we, miserable Gentiles, sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death; without God in the world; exposed to the displeasure of heaven; tyrannized over by the powers of hell; strangers from the covenants of promise; forlorn, without hope of mercy; Eph. ii. 12. That, therefore, O Saviour, thou vouchsafedst, in the tender bowels of thine infinite compassion, to look down from heaven upon us; and, at the last, graciously to visit us, in the clear revelation of the saving truth of thy Gospel; to break down the partition-wall, whereby we were excluded from any participation with thee; to own us for thy people, and to ad> mit us unto the fellowship of thy saints: O the wonderful Mystery of Godliness, effectually manifested to us out-cast Gentiles, to our conversion, to our eternal salvation!

What a veil, O God, was spread over all nations! Isaiah xxv. 7: a dark veil of ignorance, of error, of impiety. How did our forefathers walk in their own ways; following the sinful lusts of their own hearts; worshipping dumb idols; sacrificing to all the host of heaven; offering, not their substance only, but their sons and daughters to devils! It was thine own infinite goodness, that moved thee to pity our woeful and despaired condition; and to send thine Eternal Son into the world, to be no less a light to lighten the Gentiles, than to be the glory of thy people Israel; Luke

ii. 32.

How fully hast thou made good thy gracious promises, long since published by thy holy prophets! It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see my glory; Isaiah Ixvi. 18. And, again, It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it and many people shall go, and say, Come ye, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths; Isaiah ii. 2, 3. And, again, Behold, thus saith the Lord, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders; Isaiah xlix. 22. And, again, Behold, thou shalt call a nation, that thou knowest not; and nations, that know not thee, shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee; Isaiah lv. 5. O blessed then, ever blessed be thy name, O God, that thou wouldest vouchsafe to be made known among us Gentiles: Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord, glory and strength give unto the Lord the glory due to his name; Psalm xcvi. 7, 8. All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee: they shall sing unto thy name; Psalm lxvi. 4. All the ends of the

world shall remember, and run unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee; Psalm xxii. 27.

We

How did we, O Saviour, of old lie under the pity and contempt of those thy people, which challenged a peculiarity of thy favour! We have a little sister, said thy Jewish Spouse, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister, when she shall be spoken for? Cant. viii. 8. Take no thought for us, O thou once beloved Synagogue of the Jews: thy little sister is not only spoken for, but contracted; but happily married to her Lord and Saviour; having been betrothed to him for ever, in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies; Hosea ii. 19: so as we can now retutn our pity to thee, and say, "We had an elder sister, which had breasts; but her breasts are long since wrinkled and dried up what shall we do for our sister, in these days of her barrenness, and just neglect? We shall surely pray for our sister, that God would be pleased to return to her, in his compassion of old; and restore her to the happy state of her former fruitfulness." follow them with our prayers; they us, with malice and despite. With how envious eyes, did they look upon those first heralds of the Gospel, who carried the glad tidings of salvation to the despised Gentiles! What cruel storms of persecution did they raise against those blessed messengers, whose feet deserved to be beautiful! wherein, their obstinate unbelief turned to our advantage: for, after they had made themselves unworthy of that Gospel of peace, that blessing was instantly derived upon us Gentiles, and we happily changed conditions with them. The natural branches of the good olive tree being cut off, we, that were of the wild olive, contrary to nature, are graffed in; Rom. xi. 17. O the goodness and severity of God! on them which fell, severity; on us, which succeeded, goodness; v. 22. They were once the children; and we, the dogs under the table: the crumbs were our lot; the bread was theirs. Now is the case, through their wilful incredulity, altered: they are the dogs; and we, the children: we sit at a full table, while their hunger is not satisfied with scraps. The casting away of them was the reconciling of the world, v. 15: their fall, our exaltation. It is not for us to be high minded, but to fear; v. 20.

The great sheet with four corners is let down from heaven, with all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and creeping things, and fowls of the air: we may kill and eat, without any difference of clean or unclean; but even of clean meats we may surfeit; Acts x. 11, 12. O Saviour, it is thy great mercy, that thou hast been thus long preached amongst us, Gentiles; that we, in the remote ends of the world, have seen the salvation of our God: but, if we shall abuse thy graces to wantonness, and walk unanswerably to this freedom of thy Gospel, how both just and easy is it for thee, to withdraw these blessings from us, and to return us to the woeful condition of our old forlornness. Oh, let it not be enough, that thou art preached amongst us Gentiles, but do thou work us to a holy obedience of thy blessed Gospel: reclaim us from our abo

minable licentiousness of life, from our hellish heresies of opinion; and teach us to walk worthy of that great salvation, which thou hast held forth unto us: so shall it be our happiness, that thou wert preached to us Gentiles; otherwise, our condemnation shall be so much the deeper, as our light hath been more clear, and our means more powerful.

SECT. XII.

--believed on So poor and despicable, O Saviour, wouldest thou in the world have thy coming in the flesh, that it is no marvel, if the vain world utterly disregarded thee: for what is the misjudging world led by, but by outward pomp and magnificence? Yea, thy very domestic followers, after so long acquaintance with thy person and doctrine, even when thou wert risen from the dead, could think of the royalty of a temporal kingdom to be restored to Israel: and still, the perverse generations of Jewish Infidels, after the conviction of so many hundred years, gape for an earthly monarchy of their expected Messiah. That, therefore, appearing to the world in so contemptible means, so born, so living, so dying, thou shouldest be universally believed on in the world, is the just wonder of the Mystery of Godliness.

It was the largeness of thy divine bounty, to allow thy Gospel preached to every creature: but, alas, it is liberally preached; sparingly received: Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Isaiah liii. 1. It was the complaint of thy Chosen Vessel, the Doctor of the Gentiles, We preach Christ crucified; to the Jews, a stumbling block; to the Greeks, foolishness; 1 Cor. i. 23. What a power, therefore, is there, in the Mystery of Godliness, that thou art not preached only, but believed on in the world!

Hadst thou exhibited thyself in the magnificence and majesty of the Son of God; attended, either with the glorious angels of hea ven, or the mighty monarchs of the earth; scattering honours and riches upon thy followers, in abundance: how large a train wouldest thou have had; how would all the earth have rung with Hosannas to the Highest! Matt. xxi. 9. but now, that thou wouldest come as the Son of Man; in the homeliest condition of birth, education, life, and death; not having so much as a house wherein to put thy head, or a grave wherein to lay thy dead body; now, that thou wouldest suffer thyself to be spat upon, scourged. crucified, reviled : that the stubborn hearts of men should be so convinced by the truth and power of thy Deity, that thou art believed on in the world, is the great Mystery of Godliness.

The powers of darkness could not but see their kingdom shaken, by thy coming down to the earth, upon this errand of thy mediation: how busy and violent, therefore, were those gates of hell, in opposing so glorious a work! How did they stir up cruel tyrants, in the first dawning of thy Gospel, furiously to persecute this way unto death! What exquisite torments, of all kinds, did they

devise,

for the innocent professors of thy Name! How drunken was te earth, with the blood of thy martyrs, in all parts! And, when they saw how little force could prevail, since this palm-tree grew the more by depression, how did they set their wits on work, in attempting by fraud to bring about their cursed designs! How cunningly did they go about to undermine that wall, which they could not batter! Now, whole troops of the skilfullest engineers of hell are sent up, by damned heresies to blow up and overthrow that truth, which they could not beat down. One while thine eternal Deity, another while thy sacred Humanity, is impugned by those, who yet style themselves Christians: one while either of thy Natures, another while thy entire Person, is laid at by those, that profess themselves thy friends and clients: one while thine Offices, another while thy Scriptures, are opposed by those, who yet would seem thine. And, though their insinuations have been so craftily carried and their colours so well laid, that no small part of the world hath been for the time beguiled by them, and drawn into a plausible misbelief; yet still, great hath the truth ever been, and ever prevailed; happily triumphing over those damnable heresies, that have dared to lift up their head against her, and chasing them into their hell: so as, in spite of men and devils, the Great Mystery of Godliness is gloriously vindicated, and God manifested in weak flesh is believed on in the world.

SECT. XIII.

THE world is not all of one making: there is a world of creatures, not capable of belief: there is a world of men, that lieth in wickedness, (1 John v. 19.) refusing to believe: there is a world of faithful souls, that do believe; and, in believing, are saved: and, Oh, Blessed Saviour, that thou wouldest graciously enlarge this world of believers!

Woe is ine, what a world of this world of men lies still under the damnable estate of unbelief! Alas, for those poor savage Indians, that know nothing of a God; which, out of their fear and tyrannical superstition, worship devils, that they may not hurt them: for those ignorant, and woefully blindfolded Mahometans, that are not allowed to see any more, than one bink of thee, as a great Prophet; being taught to blaspheme thy Deity, and to enslave their faith to a wretched impostor: for those obstinate Jews, that are wilfully blind, and will not see the light of that truth concerning thee their Messiah, which shineth forth clearly to them, in the writings of the prophets, in the undeniable accomplishment of all former predictions, in the powerful conviction of miraculous works. What Christian is there, whose bowels do not yearn, whose heart doth not bleed, at the thought of so many millions of miserable unbelievers?

O thou, the God of infinite mercy and compassion, in whose hands are all the hearts of the sons of men, look graciously from