3. Moses' greatest altar,—the altar of burnt-offerings, was not half so big as Ezekiel's altar, compare Ezek. xliii. 16 with Exod. xxvii. 1,(1366) so is Moses' altar of incense much less than Ezekiel's altar of incense, Exod. xxx. 2 compared with Ezek. xli. 22.

4. There are many new ceremonial laws, different from the Mosaical, delivered in the following part of this vision, chap. xlv. and xlvi., as interpreters have particularly observed upon these places.(1367)

5. The temple and city were not of that greatness which is described in this vision; for the measuring reed, containing six cubits of the sanctuary, not common cubits (chap. xl. 5), which amount to more than ten feet, the outer wall of the temple being two thousand reeds in compass (chap. xlii. 20), was by estimation four miles, and the city (chap. xlviii. 16, 35) thirty-six miles in compass.

6. The vision of the holy waters (chap. xlvii.) issuing from the temple, and after the space of four thousand reeds growing to a river which could not be passed over, and healing the waters and the fishes, cannot be literally understood of the temple at Jerusalem.

7. The land is divided among the twelve tribes (chap. xlviii.), and that in a way and order different from the division made by Joshua, which cannot be understood of the restitution after the captivity, because the twelve tribes did not return.

8. This new temple hath with it a new covenant, and that an everlasting one, Ezek. xxxvii. 26, 27. But at the return of the people from Babylon there was no new covenant, saith Irenaeus,(1368) only the same that was before continued till Christ's coming.

Wherefore we must needs hold with Jerome,(1369) Gregory,(1370) and other later interpreters, that this vision is to be expounded of the spiritual temple and church of Christ, made up of Jews and Gentiles; and that not by way of allegories only, which is the sense of those whose opinion I have now confuted, but according to the proper and direct intendment of the vision, which, in many material points, cannot agree to Zorobabel's temple.

I am herein very much strengthened while I observe many parallel passages(1371) betwixt the vision of Ezekiel and the revelation of John; and while I remember withal, that the prophets do in many places foretell the institution of the ordinances, government and worship of the New Testament, under the terms of temple, priests, sacrifices, &c., and do set forth the deliverance and stability of the church of Christ, under the notions of Canaan, of bringing back the captivity, &c., God speaking to his people at that time, so as they might best understand him.

Now if you ask how the several particulars in the vision may be particularly expounded and applied to the church of Christ, I answer The word of God, the "river that makes glad the city of God," though it have many easy and known fords where any of Christ's lambs may pass through, yet in this vision, and other places of this kind, it is "a great deep" where the greatest elephant, as he said, may swim. I shall not say with the Jews, that one should not read the last nine chapters of Ezekiel before he be thirty years old. Surely a man may be twice thirty years old, and a good divine too, and yet not able to understand this vision. Some tell us, that no man can understand it without skill in geometry, which cannot be denied, but there is greater need of ecclesiometry, if I may so speak, to measure the church in her length, or continuance through many generations, in her breadth, or spreading through many nations, her depth of humiliation, sorrows and sufferings, her height of faith, hope, joy, and comfort, and to measure each part according to this pattern here set before us.

Wherein, for my part, I must profess (as Socrates in another case), Scio quod nescio. I know that there is a great mystery here which I cannot reach. Only I shall set forth unto you that little light which the Father of lights hath given me.

I conceive that the Holy Ghost in this vision hath pointed at four several times and conditions of the church,—that we may take with us the full meaning, without addition or diminution.

Observing this rule, That what agreeth not to the type must be meant of the thing typified, and what is not fulfilled at one time must be fulfilled of the church at another time.

First of all, It cannot be denied that he points in some sort at the restitution of the temple, worship of God, and city of Jerusalem, after the captivity, as a type of the church of Christ, for though many things in the vision do not agree to that time, as hath been proved, yet some things do agree this, as it is least intended in the vision, so it is not fit for me at this time to insist upon it. But he that would understand the form of the temple of Jerusalem, the several parts, and excellent structure thereof, will find enough written of that subject.(1372)

Secondly, This and other prophecies of building again the temple, may well be applied to the building of the Christian church by the master-builders, the apostles, and by other ministers of the gospel since their days. Let us hear but two witnesses of the apostles themselves applying those prophecies to the calling of the Gentiles: the one is Paul, 2 Cor. vi. 16, "For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people;" the other is James, who applieth to the converted Gentiles that prophecy of Amos, "After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up," Acts xv. 16.

Thirdly, But there is a third thing aimed at in this prophecy, and that more principally than any of the other two, which is the repairing of the breaches and ruins of the Christian church, and the building up of Zion in her glory, about the time of the destruction of Antichrist and the conversion of the Jews; and this happiness hath the Lord reserved to the last times, to build a more excellent and glorious temple than former generations have seen. I mean not of the building of the material temple at Jerusalem, which the Jews do fancy and look for,—but I speak of the church and people of God; and that I may not seem to expound an obscure prophecy too conjecturally, which many in these days do, I have these evidences following for what I say:—

1. If Paul and James, in those places which I last cited, do apply the prophecies of building a new temple to the first-fruits of the Gentiles, and to their first conversion, then they are much more to be applied to the fulness of the Gentiles, and, most of all, to the fulness both of Jews and Gentiles, which we wait for. "Now, if the fall of them (saith the Apostle, speaking of the Jews) be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?" Rom. xi. 12. And again, "If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" ver. 15. Plainly insinuating a greater increase of the church, and a larger spread of the gospel at the conversion of the Jews, and so a fairer temple, yea, another world, in a manner, to be looked for.

2. The Lord himself, in this same chapter, ver. 7, speaking of the temple here prophesied of, saith, "The place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they nor their kings," &c.; which, as it cannot be understood of the Jews after the captivity, who did again forsake the Lord, and were forsaken of him, as Jerome noteth upon the place, so it can as ill be said to be already fulfilled upon the Christian church, but rather that such a church is yet to be expected in which the Lord shall take up his dwelling for ever, and shall not be provoked by their defilements and whoredoms again to take away his kingdom and to remove the candlestick.

3. This last temple is also prophesied of by Isaiah, chap. ii. 2, "And 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 (even as here Ezekiel did see this temple upon a very high mountain, chap. lx. 2), and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it," &c.; ver. 4, "And they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Here is the building of such a temple as shall bring peaceable and quiet times to the church, of which that evangelical prophet speaketh in other places also, Isa. xi. 9; lx. 17, 18. And if we shall read that which followeth, Isa. ii. 5, as the Chaldee paraphrase doth, "And the men of the house of Jacob shall say, Come ye," &c., then the building of the temple there spoken of shall appear to be joined with the Jews' conversion; but, howsoever, it is joined with a great peace and calm, such as yet the church hath not seen.

4. We find in this vision, that when Ezekiel's temple shall be built, princes shall no more oppress the people of God, nor defile the name of God, Ezek. xlv. 8; xliii. 7;(1373) which are in like manner joined, Psal. cii. 15, 16, 22, "The heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory; when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms (understand here also kings, as the Septuagint do), to serve the Lord;" which psalm is acknowledged to be a prophecy of the kingdom of Christ, though under the type of bringing back the captivity of the Jews, and of the building again of Zion at that time. The like prophecy of Christ we have Psal. lxxii. 11, "All kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him." But I ask, Have not the kings of the earth hitherto, for the most part, set themselves "against the Lord, and against his Anointed"? Psal. ii. 2. And how then shall all those prophecies hold true, except they be coincident with Rev. xvii. 16, 17, and that time is yet to come, when God shall put it in the hearts of kings to "hate the whore (of Rome), and they shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire"? It is foretold that God shall do this great and good work even by those kings who have before subjected themselves to Antichrist.

5. That which I now draw from Ezekiel's vision is no other but the same which was showed to John, Rev. xi. 1, 2,—a place so like to this of Ezekiel, that we must take special notice of it, and make that serve for a commentary to this,—"And there was given me (saith John) a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles; and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months." This time of forty and two months must be expounded by Rev. xiii. 5, where it is said of the beast, "Power was given unto him, to continue forty and two months;" which, according to the computation of Egyptian years (reckoning thirty days to each month), make three years and a half, or twelve hundred and sixty days, and that is the time of the witnesses' prophesying in sackcloth, and of the woman's abode in the wilderness, Rev, xi. 3; xii. 6. Now lest it should be thought that the treading down of the holy city by the Gentiles (that is, the treading under foot of the true church, the city of God, by the tyranny of Antichrist and the power of his accomplices) should never have an end in this world, the angel gives John to understand that the church, the house of the living God, shall not lie desolate for ever, but shall be built again (for the measuring is in reference to building), that the kingdom of Antichrist shall come to an end, and that after twelve hundred and sixty years, counting days for years as the prophets do. It is not to my purpose now to search when this time of the power of the beast and of the church's desolation did begin, and when it ends, and so to find out the time of building this new temple,—only this much I trust, I may say, that if we reckon from the time that the power of the beast did begin, and, withal, consider the great revolution and turning of things upside down in these our days, certainly the work is upon the wheel; the Lord hath plucked his hand out of his bosom, he hath whet his sword, he hath bent his bow, he hath also prepared the instruments of death against Antichrist: so saith the Psalmist of all persecutors, Psal. vii. 12, 13; but it will fall most upon that capital enemy. Whereof there will be occasion to say more afterward.

Let me here only add a word concerning a fourth thing which the Holy Ghost may seem to intend in this prophecy, and that is, the church triumphant, the new "Jerusalem which is above," unto which respect is to be had, as interpreters judge, in some parts of the vision, which happily cannot be so well applied to the church in this world. Even as the new Jerusalem is so described in the Revelation (Rev. xxi.), that it may appear to be the church of Christ, reformed, beautified, and enlarged in this world, and fully perfected and glorified in the world to come; and as many things which are said of it can very hardly be made to agree to the church in this world; so other things which are said of it can as hardly be applied to the church glorified in heaven, as where it is said, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, [having come down from God out of heaven] and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God," ver. 3. Again, "And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it," ver. 24.

But now I make haste to the several particulars contained in my text: "I pray God (saith the Apostle) your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless," 1 Thess. v. 23; Phil. i. 9, 11. And what he there prays for, this text, rightly understood and applied, may work in us, that is, gracious affections, gracious minds, gracious actions. In the first place, a change upon our corrupt and wicked affections,—"If they be ashamed of all that they have done," saith the Lord; Secondly, A change upon our blind minds,—"Show them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof," &c.; Thirdly, A change also upon our actions,—"That they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them."

For the first, the words here used is not that which signifieth blushing through modesty, but it signifieth shame for that which is indeed shameful, filthy, and abominable,(1374) so that it were impenitency and an aggravation of the fault not to be ashamed for it.

I shall here build only one doctrine, which will be of exceeding great use for such a day as this: "If either we would have mercy to ourselves, or would do acceptable service in the public reformation, we must not only cease to do evil and learn to do well, but also be ashamed, confounded and humbled, for our former evil ways." Here is a twofold necessity, which presseth upon us this duty,—to loathe and abhor ourselves for all our abominations, to be greatly abashed and confounded before our God: First, Without this we shall not find grace and favour to our own souls; Secondly, We shall else miscarry in the work of reformation.

First, I say, let us do all the good we can, God is not pleased with us unless we be ashamed and humbled for former guiltiness. Be zealous and repent (Rev. iii. 19), saith Christ to the Laodiceans; be zealous in time coming, and repent of your former lukewarmness: "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?" (Rom. vi. 21,) saith the Apostle to the saints at Rome, of whom he saith plainly, that they were "servants to righteousness," (ver. 19;) and had their "fruit unto holiness." But that is not all; they were also ashamed while they looked back upon their old faults, which is the rather to be observed, because it maketh against the Antinomian error now afoot.(1375) It hath a clear reason for it, for without this God is still dishonoured, and not restored to his glory: "O Lord (saith Daniel), righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces," Dan. ix. 7. These two go together. We must be confounded, that God may be glorified; we must be judged, that God may be justified; our mouths must be stopped, and laid in the dust, that the Lord may be just when he speaketh, and clear when he judgeth (Psal. li. 4). And as the Apostle teacheth us, 1 Cor. xi. 31, that if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged of God; and, by the rule of contraries, if we judge not ourselves, we shall be judged of God; so say I now, if we give glory to God, and take shame and confusion of faces to ourselves, God shall not confound us, nor put us to shame: but if we will not be confounded and ashamed in ourselves, God shall confound us, and pour shame upon us; if we loathe not ourselves, God shall loathe us.

Nay let me argue from the manner of men, as the Prophet doth, Mal. i. 8, "Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?" Will thy governor, nay, thy neighbour, who is as thou art, alter an injury done to him, be pleased with thee, if thou do but leave off to do him any more such injuries? Will he not expect an acknowledgment of the wrong done? Is it not Christ's rule (Luke xvii. 4) that he who seven times trespasseth against his brother, seven times turn again, saying, I repent? David would hardly trust Ittai to go up and down with him, who was but a stranger (2 Sam. xv. 19), how much more if he had done him some great wrong, and then refused to confess it? And how shall we think that it can stand with the honour of the most high God, that we seem to draw near unto him, and to walk in his ways, while, in the meantime, we do not acknowledge our iniquity, and even accuse, shame, judge, and condemn ourselves? Nay, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked," Gal. vi. 7.

This is the first necessity of the duty which this text holdeth forth. The Lord requireth of us not only to do his will for the future, but to be ashamed for what we have done amiss before.

The other necessity of it, which is also in the text, is this: That except we be thus ashamed and humbled, God hath not promised to show us the pattern of his house, nor to reveal his will unto us; which agreeth well with that, Psal. xxv. 9, "The meek will he teach his way;" and ver. 12, "What man is he that feareth the Lord? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose;" and ver. 14, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant." There is sanctification in the affections, and here is humiliation in the affections, spoken of as necessary means of attaining the knowledge of the will of God. Let the affections be ordered aright, then light which is offered shall be seen and received; but let light be offered when disordered affections do overcloud the eye of the mind, then all is in vain.

In this case a man shall be like "the deaf adder" (Psal. lviii. 4, 5,) which will not be taken by the voice of the charmers, "charming never so wisely." Let the helm of reason be stirred as well as you can imagine, if there be a contrary wind in the sails of the affections, the ship will not answer to the helm. It is a good argument: He is a wicked man, a covetous man, a proud man, a carnal man, an unhumbled man; therefore he will readily miscarry in his judgment. So divines have argued against the Pope's infallibility! The Pope hath been, and may be a profane man; therefore he may err in his judgment and decrees. And what wonder that they who receive not the love of the truth be given over to "strong delusion, that they should believe a lie?" 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10. It is as good an argument: He is a humbled man, and a man that feareth God; therefore, in so far as he acteth and exerciseth those graces, the Lord shall teach him in the way that he shall choose. I say, in so far as he acteth those graces,—because when he grieves the Spirit, and cherisheth the flesh, when the child of God is more swayed by his corruptions than by his graces, then he is in great danger to be given up to the counsel of his own heart, and to be deserted by the Holy Ghost, which should lead him "into all truth," John xvi. 13.

But we must take notice of a seeming contradiction here in the text. God saith to the Prophet in the former verse, "Show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities;" and, Jer. xxxi. 19, Ephraim is first instructed, then ashamed. And here it is quite turned over in my text; if they be ashamed show them the house.

I shall not here make any digression unto the debates and distinctions of schoolmen, what influence and power the affections have upon the understanding and the will; I will content myself with this plain answer: Those two might very well stand together,—light is a help to humiliation, and humiliation a help to light. As there must be some work of faith, and some apprehension of the love of God, in order before true evangelical repentance, yet this repentance helpeth us to believe more firmly that our sins are forgiven. The soul, in the pains of the new birth, is like Tamar travailing of her twins, Pharez and Zarah (Gen. xxxviii. 28-30): faith, like Zarah, first putting out his hand, but hath no strength to come forth, therefore draweth back the hand again, till repentance, like Pharez, have broken forth,—then can faith come forth more easily. Which appeareth in that woman, Luke vii. 47, 48: she wept much, because she loved much; she loved much, because she believed; and by faith had her heart enlarged with apprehending the rich grace and free love of Christ to poor sinners: this faith moves her bowels, melts her heart, stirs her sorrow, kindles her affection. Then, and not till then, she gets a prop to her faith, and a sure ground to build upon. It is not till she have wept much that Christ intimates mercy, and saith, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." Just so is the case in this text: Show them the house, saith the Lord, that they may be ashamed; give them a view of it, that they may think the worse of themselves, that they want it, that they may be ashamed for all their iniquities, whereby they have separate betwixt their God and themselves, so that they cannot "behold the beauty of the Lord," nor "inquire in his temple," Psal. xxvii. 4; and if, when they begin to see it, they have such thoughts as these, and humble themselves, and acknowledge their iniquities, then go to and show them the whole fabric, and structure, and all the gates thereof, and all the parts thereof, and all things pertaining thereto.

I suppose I have said enough for confirmation and clearing of the doctrine concerning the necessity of our being ashamed and confounded before the Lord. I have now a fourfold application to draw from it.

The first application shall be to the malignant enemies of the cause and people of God at this time, who deserve Jeremiah's black mark to be put upon them: "Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they wore not at all ashamed, neither could they blush," Jer. vi. 15; viii. 12. When he would say the worst of them, this is it: "Thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed," Jer. iii. 3. There are some sons of Belial risen up against us, who have done some things whereof, I dare say, many heathens would have been ashamed; yet they are as far from being ashamed of their outrages as Caligula was, who said of himself, that he loved nothing better in his own nature than that he could not be ashamed: nay, their glory is their shame, Phil. iii. 19; and if the Lord do not open their eyes to see their shame, their end will be destruction. Is it a light matter to swear and blaspheme, to coin and spread lies, to devise calumnies, to break treaties, to contrive treacherous plots, to exercise so many barbarous cruelties, to shed so much blood, and, as if that were too little, to bury men quick? Is all this no matter of shame? And when they have so often professed to be for the true Protestant religion, shall they not be ashamed to thirst so much after Protestant blood, and in that cause desire to associate themselves with all the Papists at home and abroad whose assistance they can have, and particularly with those matchless monsters (they call them subjects) of Ireland, who, if the computation fail not, have shed the blood of some hundred thousands in that kingdom? For our part, it seems they are resolved to give the worst name to the best thing which we can do, and therefore they have not been ashamed to call a religious and loyal covenant a traitorous and damnable covenant. I have no pleasure to take up these and other dunghills, the text hath put this in my mouth which I have said. O that they could recover themselves out of the gall of bitterness, and bond of iniquity, Acts viii. 23; O that we could hear that they begin to be ashamed of their abominations, "Lord, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people," Isa. xxvi. 11; the Lord "shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed," lxvi. 5.

But now, in the second place, let me speak to the kingdom, and to you whom it concerneth this day to be humbled, both for your own sins and for the sins of the kingdom which you represent. Although yourselves, whom God hath placed in this honourable station, and the kingdom which God hath blessed with many choice blessings, be much and worthily honoured among the children of men, yet when you have to do with God, and with that wherein his great name and his glory is concerned, you must not think of honouring, but rather abashing yourselves, and creeping low in the dust. Livy tells us,(1376) that when M. Claudius Marcellus would have dedicate a temple to Honour and Virtue, the priests hindered it, quod utri deo res divina fieret, sciri non posset, because so it could not be known to which of the two gods he should offer sacrifice. Far be it from any of you to suffer the will of God and your own credit to come in competition together, or to put back any point of truth, because it may seem, peradventure, some way to wound your reputation, though, when all is well examined, it shall be found your glory.

You are now about the casting out of many corruptions in the government of the church and worship of God. Remember, therefore, it is not enough to cleanse the house of the Lord, but you must be humbled for your former defilements wherewith it was polluted. It is not enough that England say with Ephraim in one place, "What have I to do any more with idols?" Hos. xiv. 8. England must say also with Ephraim in another place, "Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth," Jer. xxxi. 19. Let England sit down in the dust, and wallow itself in ashes, and cry out as the lepers did (Lev. xiii. 45), "Unclean, unclean," and then rise up and cast away the least superstitious ceremony "as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence," Isa. xxx. 22. I know that those who are not convinced of the intrinsical evil and unlawfulness of former corruptions may, upon other considerations, go along and join in this reformation; for according to Augustine's rule,(1377) men are to let go those ecclesiastical customs which neither Scriptures nor councils bind upon us, nor yet are universally received by all churches. And according to Ambrose's rule to Valentinian, epist. 31, Nullus pudor est ad meliora transive,—it is no shame to change that which is not so good for that which is better. So doth Arnobius(1378) answer the pagans, who objected the novelty of the Christian religion: You should not look so much (saith he) quid reliquerimus as quid secuti simus; be rather satisfied with the good which we follow, than to quarrel why we have changed our former practise. He giveth instance, that when men found the art of weaving clothes, they did no longer clothe themselves in skins; and when they learned to build houses, they left off to dwell in rocks and caves. All this carrieth reason with it, for optimum est eligendum. If all this satisfy not, it may be Nazianzen's rule(1379) will move some man: When there was a great stir about his archbishopric of Constantinople, he yielded for peace; because this storm was raised for his sake, he wished to be cast into the sea. He often professeth that he did not affect riches, nor dignities, but rather to be freed of his bishopric. We are like to listen long before we hear such expressions either from archbishop or bishop in England, who seem not to care much who sink, so that themselves swim above. Yet I shall name one rule more, which I shall take from the confessions of two English prelates. One(1380) of them hath this contemplation upon Hezekiah's taking away the brazen serpent, when he perceived it to be superstitiously abused: "Superstitious use (saith he) can mar the very institutions of God, how much more the most wise and well-grounded devices of men?" Another(1381) of them acknowledged that whatsoever is taken up at the injunction of men, and is not of God's own prescribing, when it is drawn to superstition, cometh under the case of the brazen serpent. You may easily make the assumption, and then the conclusion, concerning those ceremonies which are not God's institutions but men's devices, and have been grossly and notoriously abused by many to superstition.

Now to return to the point in hand, if upon all or any of these, or the like principles, any of this kingdom shall join in the removal of corruptions out of the church, which yet they do not conceive to be in themselves, and intrinsically corruptions in religion, in this case I say with the Apostle, "I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice," Phil. i. 18, because every way reformation is set forward. But let such an one look to himself, how the doctrine drawn from this text falleth upon him, that he who only ceaseth to do evil, but repenteth not of the evil,—he who applieth himself to reformation, but is not ashamed of former defilements, is in danger both of God's displeasure, and of miscarrying in his judgment about reformation. It is far from my meaning to discourage any who are, with humble and upright hearts, seeking after more light than yet they have; I say it only for their sake, who, through the presumption and unhumbledness of their spirits, will acknowledge no fault in anything they have formerly done in church matters.

I cannot leave this application to the kingdom till I enlarge it a little farther. There are four considerations which may make England ashamed and confounded before the Lord.

1. Because of the great blessings which it hath so long wanted. Your flourishing estate in the world could not have countervailed the want of the purity and liberty of the ordinances of Christ. That was a heavy word of the Prophet, "Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law," 2 Chron. xv. 3. It hath not been altogether so with this land, where the Lord hath had not only a true church, but many burning and shining lights, many gracious preachers and professors, many notable defenders of the Protestant cause against Papists, many who have preached and written worthily of practical divinity, and of those things which most concern a man's salvation. Nay, I am persuaded, that all this time past, there have been in this kingdom many thousands of his secret and sealed ones, who have been groaning under that burden and bondage which they could not help, and have been "waiting for the consolation of Israel," Luke ii. 25. Nevertheless, the reformation of the church of England hath been exceedingly deficient, in government, discipline and worship; yea, and many places of the kingdom have been "without a teaching priest," and other places poisoned with false teachers. It is said (1 Sam. vii. 2), that all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord, when they wanted the ark twenty years. O let England lament after the Lord, until the ark be brought into the own place of it!

2. There is another cause of this great humiliation, and that is, the point in the text, to be ashamed "of all that you have done." Sin, sin is that which blacketh our faces, and covereth us with confusion as with a mantle, and then most of all when we may read our sin in some judgment of God which lieth upon us; therefore the Septuagint here, instead of being "ashamed of all that they have done," read—"accept their punishment for all that they have done," which agreeth to that word in the law:(1382) "If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled (the Greek readeth there ashamed) and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity," Lev. xxvi. 41. This is now England's case, whose sin is written in the present judgment, and graven in your calamity as "with a pen of iron, and with a point of a diamond" (Jer. xvii. 1), to make you say, "The Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice," Dan. ix. 14. Did not the land make idol gods of the court, and of the prelatical clergy, and feared them, and followed them more than God, and obeyed them rather than God, so that their threshold was set by God's threshold, and their posts by God's posts? as it is said, ver. 7. I speak not now of lawful obedience to authority. Is it not a righteous thing with the Lord to make these, your idols, his rods to correct you? Hath not England harboured and entertained Papists, priests, and Jesuits in its bosom? Is it not just that now you feel the sting and poison of these vipers? Hath there not been a great compliance with the prelates, for peace's sake, even to the prejudice of truth? Doth not the Lord now justly punish that Episcopal peace with an Episcopal war? Was not that prelatical government first devised, and since continued, to preserve peace and to prevent schisms in the church? And was it not God's just judgment that such a remedy of man's invention should rather increase than cure the evil? So that sects have most multiplied under that government, which now you know by sad experience. Hath not this nation, for a long time, taken the name of the Lord in vain, by a formal worship and empty profession? Is it not a just requital upon God's part, that your enemies have all this while taken God's name in vain, and taken the Almighty to witness of the integrity of their intentions for religion, law and liberty, thus persuading the world to believe a lie? What shall I say of the book of sports, and other profanations of the Lord's day? This licentiousness was most acceptable to the greatest part, and they "loved to have it so," Jer. v. 31. Doth not the great famine of the word almost everywhere in the kingdom, except in this city, make the land mourn on the Sabbath, and say, "I do remember my faults this day?" Gen. xli. 9. Yea, doth not the land now enjoy her Sabbaths, while men are constrained not only to cease from sports on that day, but from labouring the ground, and from other works of their calling upon other days? What should I speak of the lusts and uncleanness, gluttony and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, prodigality and lavishness, excess of riot, masking, and balling, and sporting, when Germany and the Palatinate, and other places, were wallowing in blood, yea, when there was so much sin and wrath upon this same kingdom? Will not you say now, that for this the Lord God hath caused your "sun to go down at noon," and hath turned your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentations? (Amos viii. 9, 10.) Or what should I say of the oppressions, injustice, cozenage in trading and in merchandise, which yourselves know better than I can do how much they have abounded in the kingdom? Doth not God now punish the secret injustice of his people by the open injustice of their enemies? Do ye not remember that mischief was framed by a law? And now, when your enemies execute mischief against law, will you not say, Righteous art thou, O Lord, and just are thy judgments. One thing I may not forget, and that is, that the Lord is punishing blood with blood, the blood of the oppressed, the blood of the persecuted, the blood of those who have died in prisons, or in strange countries, suffering for righteousness' sake. He that departed from evil did even make himself a prey, Isa. lix. 15. There was not so much as one drop of blood spilt upon the pillory for the testimony of the truth but it crieth to heaven, for precious is the blood of the saints, (Psal. lxxii. 14.) Doth not all the blood shed in Queen Mary's days cry? And doth not the blood of the Palatinate and of Rochel cry? And doth not the blood of souls cry? which is the loudest cry of all. God said to Cain, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground," Gen. iv. 10. The Hebrew hath it, "Thy brother's blood," which is well expounded both by the Chaldee Paraphrase and the Jerusalem Targum, the voice of the blood of all the generations and the righteous people which thy brother should have begotten crieth unto me. I may apply it to the thing in hand: The silencing, deposing, persecuting, imprisoning, and banishing of so many of the Lord's witnesses, of the most painful and powerful preachers, and the preferring of so many either dumb dogs or false teachers, maketh the voice of bloods to cry to heaven, even the blood of many thousands, yea, thousands of thousands of souls, which have been lost by the one, or might have been saved by the other. God will require the blood of the children which those righteous Abels might have begotten unto him. There is, beside all this, more blood-guiltiness, which is secret, but shall sometime be brought to light. O blood! blood! O let the land tremble, while the righteous Judge makes "inquisition for blood," Psal. ix. 12; O let England cry, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God"! Psal. li. 14.

But you will say, peradventure, many of these things whereof I have spoken ought not to be charged upon the kingdom, they were only the acts of a prevalent faction for the time.

I answer, First, God will impute them to the kingdom, unless the kingdom mourn for them. God gives not a charge to the destroying angel (Ezek. ix. 4) to spare those who have not been actors in the public sins and abominations, but to spare those only who cry and sigh for those abominations.

Secondly, When the ministers of state, or others having authority in church or commonwealth, take the boldness to do such acts, the kingdom is not blameless; for they durst not have done as they did, had the Lord but disclaimed, discountenanced, and cried out against them. It is marked both of John Baptist (Matt. xiv. 5), and of Christ (Matt. xxi. 46), and of the apostles (Acts iv. 21), that so long as the people did magnify them, and esteem them highly, their enemies durst not do unto them what else they would have done.

3. A third consideration concerning the kingdom is this. Notwithstanding of all the happiness and gospel-blessings which it hath wanted in so great a measure, and notwithstanding of all the sins which have so much abounded in it, yet the servants of God have charged it with great presumption,(1383) that the church of England hath said with the church of Laodicea, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," Rev. iii. 17. It hath been proud of its clergy, learning, great revenues, peace, plenty, wealth, and abundance of all things, and as the Apostle chargeth the Corinthians, "Ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned," that the wicked ones "might be taken away from among you," 1 Cor. v. 2. And would God this presumption had taken an end when God did begin to afflict the land. It did even make an idol of this Parliament, and trusted to its own strength and armies, which hath provoked God so much, that he hath sometimes almost blasted your hopes that way, and hath made you to feel your weakness even where you thought yourselves strongest. God would not have England say, "Mine own hand hath saved me," Judg. vii. 2; neither will he have Scotland to say, "My hand hath done it:" but he will have both to say, His hand hath done it, when we were lost in our own eyes. God grant that your leaning so much upon the arm of flesh be not the cause of more blows. God must be seen in the work, and he will have us to give him all the glory, and to say, "Thou also hast wrought all our works in us," Isa. xxvi. 12. O that all our presumption may be repented of, and that the land may be yet more deeply humbled! Assuredly God will arise and subdue our enemies, and command deliverances for Jacob; but it is as certain God will not do this till we be more humbled and (as the text saith) ashamed of all that we have done.

4. There is another motive more evangelical: Let England be humbled even for the mercy, the most admirable mercy which God hath showed upon so undeserving and evil-deserving a kingdom. See it in this same prophecy, "I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: that thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God," Ezek. xvi. 62, 63. And again: "Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel," Ezek. xxxvi. 32; "O my God (saith Ezra), I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee," Ezra. ix. 6. And what was it that did so confound him? You may find it in that which followeth: God had showed them mercy, and had left them a remnant to escape, and had given them a nail in his holy place, and had lightened their eyes: "And now (saith he), O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments," Ezra. ix. 10. Let us this day compare, as he did, God's goodness and our own guiltiness. England deserved nothing but to get a bill of divorce, and that God should have said in his wrath, Away from me, I have no pleasure in you; but now he hath received you into the bond of his covenant, he rejoiceth over you to do you good, and to dwell among you; his banner over you is love. O let our hard hearts be overcome and be confounded with so much mercy, and let us be ashamed of ourselves, that after so much mercy we should be yet in our sins and trespasses.

There is a third application, which I intend for the ministry, who ought to go before the people of God in the example of repentance and humiliation. You know the old observation, Raro vidi clericum poenitentem,—I have seldom seen a clergyman penitent. As Christ saith of rich men (Mark x. 24, 25), I may say of learned men, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a man that trusts in his learning to enter into the kingdom of heaven. He will needs maintain the lawfulness of all which he hath done, and will not be, as this text would have him, ashamed of all that he hath done. Yet it is not impossible with God to make such an one deny himself, and that whatsoever in him exalts itself against Christ should be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. x. 5). Among all that were converted by the ministry of the apostles, I wonder most at the conversion of a great company of priests, Acts vi. 7. I do not suspect, as two learned men have done,(1384) that the text is corrupted in that place, and that it should be otherwise read. I am the rather satisfied, because there is nothing there mentioned of the conversion of the high priest, or of the chief priests, the heads of the twenty-four orders which were upon the council, and had condemned Christ: the place cannot be understood but of a multitude of common or inferior priests, even as, by proportion, in Hezekiah's reformation, the Levites were more upright in heart than the priests, 2 Chron. xxix. 34.

And now many of the inferior clergy (as they were abusively called) are more upright in heart unto this present reformation than any of those who had assumed to themselves high degrees in the church. The hardest point of all is, so to embrace and follow reformation as to be ashamed of former prevarications and pollutions. But in this also the Holy Ghost hath set examples before the ministers of the gospel. I read, 2 Chron. xxx. 15, "The priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought in the burnt-offerings into the house of the Lord." They thought it not enough to be sanctified, but they were ashamed that they had been before defiled. A great prophet is not content to have his judgment rectified which had been in error, but he is ashamed of the error he had been in; "So foolish was I (saith he) and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee," Psal. lxxiii. 22. A great apostle must glorify God, and humbly acknowledge his own shame; "For I am the least of the apostles (saith he), that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God," 1 Cor. xv. 9. And shall I add the example of a great father? Augustine confesseth(1385) honestly, that for the space of nine years he both was deceived, and did deceive others. Nature will whisper to a man to look to his credit: but the text here calleth for another thing,—to look to the honour of God, and to thine own shame; and yet in so doing thou shalt be more highly esteemed both by God and by his children. Now without this let a man seem to turn and reform never so well, all is unsure work, and built upon a sandy foundation. And whosoever will not acknowledge their iniquity, and be ashamed for it, God shall make them bear their shame; according to that which is pronounced in the next chapter, ver. 10-15, against the Levites, who had gone astray when Israel went astray after their idols; and according to that, Mal. ii. 8, 9, "Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts: therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people."

The fourth and last application of this doctrine is for every Christian. The text teacheth us a difference betwixt a presumptuous and a truly humbled sinner; the one is ashamed of his sins, the other not. By this mark let every one of us try himself this day. It is a saving grace to be truly and really ashamed of sin. It is one of the promises of the covenant of grace, "Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abominations," Ezek. xxxvi. 31. Try, then, if thou hast but thus much of the work of grace in thy soul; and if thou hast, be assured of thy interest in Christ and in the new covenant. A reprobate may have somewhat which is very like this grace: but I shall lay open the difference betwixt the one and the other in these particulars:—

1. To be truly ashamed of sin, is to be ashamed of it as an act of filthiness and uncleanness. The child of God, when he comes to the throne of grace, is ashamed of an unclean heart, though the world cannot see it. A natural man, at his best, looketh upon sin as it damneth and destroyeth the soul, but he cannot look upon it as it defiles the soul. Shame ariseth properly from a filthy act, though no other evil be to follow upon it.

2. As we are ashamed of acts of filthiness, so of acts of folly. A natural man may judge himself a fool in regard of the circumstances or consequents of his sin, but he is not convinced that sin in itself is an act of madness and folly. When the child of God is humbled he becomes a fool in his own eyes,—he perceives he had done like a mad fool, 1 Cor. iii. 18; therefore he is said then to come to himself, Luke xv. 17.

3. The child of God is ashamed of sin as an act of unkindness and unthankfulness to a sweet merciful Lord, Psal. cxxx. 4; Rom. ii. 4. Though there were no other evil in sin, the conscience of so much mercy and love so far abused, and so unkindly recompensed, is that which confoundeth a penitent sinner. As the wife of a kind husband, if she play the whore (though the world know it not), and if her husband, when he might divorce her, shall still love her and receive her into his bosom; such a one, if she have at all any sense, or any bowels of sorrow, must needs be swallowed up of shame and confusion for her undutifulness and treachery to such a husband. But now the hypocrite is not at all troubled or afflicted in spirit for sin as it is an act of unkindness to God.

4. Shame, as philosophers have defined it,(1386) is "the fear of a just reproof:" not simply the fear of a reproof, but the fear of a just reproof. That is servile; this filial. The child of God is ashamed of the very guiltiness, and of that which may be justly laid to his charge; the hypocrite not so. Saul was not ashamed of his sin, but he was ashamed that Samuel should reprove him before the elders of the people, 1 Sam. xv. 15, 30. Christ's adversaries were ashamed (Luke xiii. 17), not of their error, but because their mouths were stopped before the people, and they could not answer him. A hypocrite is ashamed, "as a thief is ashamed when he is found," Jer. ii. 26; mark that, "when he is found;" a thief is not ashamed of his sin, but because he is found in it, and so brought to a shameful end.

5. When the cause of God is in hand, a true penitent is so ashamed of himself that he fears the people of God shall be put to shame for his sake, and that it shall go the worse with them because of his vileness and guiltiness. This made David pray, "O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee. Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake; let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel," Psal. lxix. 5, 6. The sorrow and shame of a hypocrite (as all his other seeming graces) are rooted in self-love, not in the love of God: he hath not this in all his thoughts, that he is a spot or blemish in the body or church of Christ, and therefore to be humbled, lest for his sake God be displeased with his people; lest such a vile and abominable sinner as he is bring wrath and confusion upon others, and make Israel turn their back before the enemy. O happy soul that hath such thoughts as these!

I have now done with the first part of the text, wherein I have been the larger, because it most fitteth the work of the day.

The second follows: "Show them the form of the house," &c.

Before I come to the doctrines which do here arise, I shall first explain the particulars mentioned in this part of the text, so as they may agree to the spiritual temple or church of Christ, which in the beginning I proved to be here intended.

First, We find here the form and fashion of a house; in which the parts are very much diversified one from another. There are, in a formed and fashioned house, doors, windows, posts, lintels, &c.; there is also a multitude of common stones in the walls of the house. Such a house is the visible ministerial church of Christ, the parts whereof are partes dissimilares,—some ministers and rulers; some eminent lights; others of the ordinary rank of Christians,—that make up the walls. If God hath made one but a small pinning in the wall, he hath reason to be content, and must not say, Why am not I a post, or a corner-stone, or a beam? Neither yet may any corner-stone despise the stones in the wall, and say, I have no need of you.

Secondly, The Prophet was here to show them "the goings out of the house, and the comings in thereof." These are not the same but different gates, it is plain: "When the people of the land shall come before the Lord in the solemn feasts, he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to worship, shall go out by the way of the south gate, &c., he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in," Ezek. xlvi. 9. And that not only to teach us order, and the avoiding of confusion, occasioned by the contrary tides of a multitude, but to tell us farther, "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God," Luke ix. 62. We must not go out of the church the way that we came in (that were a door of defection), but hold our faces forward till we go out by the door of death.

Thirdly, The text hath twice "all the forms thereof," which I understand of the outward forms and of the inward forms, which two I find very much distinguished by those who have written of the form and structure of the temple. The church is exceedingly beautified, even outwardly, with the ordinances of Christ, but the inward forms are the most glorious: "For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you," Luke xvii. 21; and it "cometh not with observation," ver. 20; "The king's daughter is all glorious within;" yet even "her clothing is of wrought gold," Psal. xlv. 13. When the angel had made an end of measuring the inner house (Ezek. xlii. 15), then he brought forth Ezekiel by the east gate, which was the chief gate by which the people commonly entered, and measured the outer wall in the last place. God's method is first to try the heart and reins, then to give to a man according to his works, Jer. xvii. 10. So should we measure, by the reed of the sanctuary, first the inner house of our hearts and minds, and then to measure our outer walls, and to judge of our profession and external performances.

Lastly, The Prophet is commanded to write in their sight "all the ordinances thereof, and all the laws thereof;" for the church is a house not only in an architectonic, but in an economic sense. It is Christ's family governed by his own laws; and a temple which hath in it "them that worship," Rev. xi. 1, it hath its own proper laws by which it is ordered. Alioe sunt leges Coesarum, alioe Christi (saith Jerome(1387)),—Caesar's laws and Christ's laws are not the same, but divers one from another. Schoolmen say,(1388) that a law, properly so called, is both illuminative and impulsive: illuminative, to inform and direct the judgment; impulsive, to move and apply the will to action. And accordingly there are two names in this text given to Christ's laws and institutions: one(1389) which importeth the instruction and information of our minds; another,(1390) which signifieth a deep imprinting or engraving (and that is made upon our hearts and affections), such as a pen of iron and other instruments could make upon a stone. It is not well when either of the two is wanting; for the light of truth, without the engraving of truth, may be extinguished; and the engraving of truth, without the light of truth, may be obliterate.

All these I shall pass, and only pitch upon two doctrines which I shall draw from this second part of the text: one concerning the will of God's commandment, what God requireth of Israel to do; another concerning the will of God's decree, what he hath purposed himself to do.

The first is this: "God will have Israel to build and order his temple, not as shall seem good in their eyes, but according to his own pattern only which he sets before them," which doth so evidently appear from this very text, that it needeth no other proof; for what else meaneth the showing of such a pattern to be kept and followed by his people? Other passages of this kind there are which do more abundantly confirm it.

The Lord did prescribe to Noah both the matter, and fashion, and measures of the ark (Gen. vi. 14-16). To Moses he gave a pattern of the tabernacle, of the ark, of the mercy-seat, of the vail, of the curtains, of the two altars, of the table and all the furniture thereof, of the candlestick and all the instruments thereof, &c. And though Moses was the greatest prophet that ever arose in Israel, yet God would not leave any part of the work to Moses' arbitrement, but straitly commandeth him, "Look that thou make them after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount," Exod. xxv. 40. When it came to the building of the first temple, Solomon was not in that left to his own wisdom, as great as it was, but David, the man of God, gave him a perfect "pattern of all that he had by the Spirit," 1 Chron. xxviii. 11-13. The second temple was also built "according to the commandment of the God of Israel" (Ezra vi. 14), by Haggai and Zechariah. And for the New Testament, Christ our great Prophet, and only King and Lawgiver of the church, hath revealed his will to the apostles, and they to us, concerning all his holy things; and we must hold us at these unleavened and unmixed ordinances which the apostles, from the Lord, delivered to the churches: "I will put upon you (saith he himself) none other burden: but that which ye have already hold fast till I come," Rev. ii. 24, 25.

I know the church must observe rules of order and conveniency in the common circumstances of times, places, and persons; but these circumstances are none of our holy things,—they are only prudential accommodations, which are alike common to all human societies, both civil and ecclesiastical, wherein both are directed by the same light of nature, the common rule to both in all things of that kind, providing always that the general rules of the word be observed: "Do all to the glory of God," 1 Cor. x. 31; "Let all things be done to edifying," 1 Cor. xiv. 26; "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak," Rom. xiv. 21; "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. To him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean," Rom. xiv. 5, 14.

The text giveth some clearing to this point: There is here showed to the house of Israel a pattern of the whole structure, and of the least part thereof, and all the measures thereof; yet no pattern is given of the kind, or quantity, or magnificence of the several stones, or of the instruments of building. The reason is, because the former is essential to a house, the latter accidental,(1391) the former, if altered, make another building; the latter, though altered, the building is the same: therefore where we have in the text "the forms thereof," the Septuagint read ὑποστασιν αὐτοῦ,—the substance thereof.

But to clear it a little farther, I put two characters upon those circumstances which are not determined by the word of God, but left to be ordered by the church as shall be found most convenient. First, They are not things sacred, nor proper to the church, as hath been said. They are of the same nature, they serve for the same end and use, both in sacred and civil things; for order and decency, the avoiding of confusion and the like, are alike common to church and commonwealth. Secondly, I shall describe them as one of the prelates hath done, who tells us,(1392) that the things which the Scripture hath left to the discretion of the church are those things "which neither needed nor could be particularly expressed. They needed not, because they are so obvious; and they could not, both because they are so numerous, and because so changeable."

I will not insist upon questions of this kind, but will make a short application of the doctrine unto you, honourable and beloved. You may plainly see from what hath been said, that neither kings, nor parliaments, nor synods, nor any power on earth, may impose or continue the least ceremony upon the consciences of God's people, which Christ hath not imposed; therefore let neither antiquity, nor custom, nor conveniency, nor prudential considerations, nor show of holiness, nor any pretext whatsoever, plead for the reservation of any of your old ceremonies, which have no warrant from the word of God. Much might have been said for the high places among the Jews, as I hinted in the beginning; and much might have been said by the Pharisees for their frequent washings (Mark vii. 2, 3, 4, 7), which, as they were ancient, and received by the traditions of the elders, so they were used to teach men purity, and to put them in mind of holiness; neither was their washing contrary to any commandment of God, except you understand that commandment of not adding to the word (Deut. iv. 2; xii. 32; Prov. xxx. 6), which doth equally strike against all ceremonies devised by man.

"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," Gal. v. 9; and a little leak will endanger the ship. Thieves will readily dig through a house, how much more will they enter if any postern be left open to them. The wild beasts and boars of the forest will attempt to break down the hedges of the Lord's vineyard (Psal. lxxx. 13), how much more if any breach be left in the hedges. If, therefore, you would make a sure reformation, make a perfect reformation, lest Christ have this controversy with England, "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee," Rev. ii. 4. And so much of our duty.

The second doctrine concerneth God's decree, and it is this: "It is concluded in the council of heaven, and God hath it in the thoughts of his heart, to repair the breaches of his house, and to build such a temple to himself, as is shadowed forth in this vision of Ezekiel." For the comparing of this verse with ver. 7 in this same chapter, and with chap. xxxvii. 26, 27, will easily make it appear, that this showing of the pattern, and all this measuring, was not only in reference to Israel's duty, but to God's gracious purpose towards Israel. According to that, Zech. i. 16, "Therefore thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem." Now this vision cannot be said to be fulfilled in Zorobabel's temple, as I proved before, only here take notice that the second destruction of the temple by the Romans was worse than the first by the Babylonians,—that desolation was repaired, but this could never be repaired, though the Jews did attempt the building again of the temple,(1393) first under Adrian the emperor, and afterward under Julian the apostate. The hand of God was seen against them most terribly by fire from heaven, and other signs of that kind; and about the same time (to observe that by the way) the famous Delphic temple was without man's hand, by fire and earthquake, utterly destroyed and never built again,—to tell the world that neither Judaism nor paganism should prevail, but the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Where then must we seek for the accomplishment of Ezekiel's vision, I mean for the new temple in which the Lord will dwell for ever, and where his holy name shall be no more polluted? Surely we must seek for it in the days of the gospel, as hath been before abundantly proved; but that the thing may be the better understood, let us take with us, at least, some few general observations concerning this temple of Ezekiel, as it representeth what should come to pass in the church of Christ.

First of all, there is but one temple, not many, showed to him,—which is in part, and shall be yet more fulfilled in the church of the New Testament, according to that, Zech. xiv. 8, "And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem;" which is the same that we have, Ezek. xlvii. 1. Then follows, "And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." The like promise we find elsewhere: "I will give them one heart, and one way," Jer. xxxii. 39; Ezek. xi. 19. It is observed, that for this very end of uniformity, the heathens also did erect temples, that they might all worship the same idol-god in the same manner. The plague of the Christian church hitherto hath been temple against temple, and altar against altar, "But thou, O Lord, how long?" Psal. vi. 3.

Secondly, Ezekiel's temple and city are very large and capacious, as I showed in the beginning; and the city had three gates looking toward each of the four quarters of the world, Ezek. xlviii. 31-34: all this to signify the spreading of the gospel into all the earth; which is also signified by the holy waters issuing from the threshold of the temple, and rising so high that they were waters to swim in, Ezek. xlvii. 1, 5. God hath said to his church, "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes: for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left," Isa. liv. 2, 3. A great increase of the church there was in the apostles' times, Col. i. 6; but a far greater may be yet looked for, Rom. xi. 12. Though the enemy did come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifted up a standard against him, Isa. lix. 19; "The sea saw it, and fled; Jordan was driven back," Psal. cxiv. 3. But when the gospel cometh, "like a noise of many waters" (as the Prophet calls it, ver. 2, signifying an irresistible increase), it is in vain to build bulwarks against it: God will even break open "the fountains of the great deep," and open "the windows of heaven" (Gen. vii. 11); and the gospel will prove a second flood, which will overflow the whole earth, though not to destroy it (as Noah's did), but to make it glad; "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea," Hab. ii. 14; Isa. xi. 9.

Thirdly, In this temple, beside the holy of holies, were three courts:(1394) the court of the priests; the court of the people, commonly called Atrium Israelis; and, without both these, Atrium Gentium, the court of the heathen, so called, because the heathen, as also many of those who were legally unclean, might not only come unto the mountain of the house of the Lord, but also enter within the outer wall (mentioned Ezek. xlii. 20), and so worship in that outer court, or intermurale; unto which did belong (as we learn from Josephus(1395)) the great east porch, which kept the name of Solomon's porch,—in which both Christ himself did preach (John x. 23), and the apostles after him (Acts v. 12); by which means the free grace of the gospel was held forth even to heathens, and publicans, and unclean persons, who were not admitted into the court of Israel,—there to communicate in all the holy things: "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost," Luke xix. 10. This outer court of the temple is meant when it is said that the Pharisees brought a woman taken in adultery into the temple, and set her before Christ, John viii. 2, 3. Now all this will hold true answerably of the spiritual temple; for, first, As the uncircumcised and the unclean were not admitted into the temple among the children of Israel (Ezek. xliv. 9), so all that live in the church of Christ are not to be admitted promiscuously to every ordinance of God, especially to the Lord's table, but only those whose profession, knowledge and conversation, after trial, shall be found such as may make them capable thereof: yet as heathens and unclean persons did enter into the outer court, and there hear Christ and his apostles, so there shall ever be in the church a door of grace and hope open to the greatest and vilest sinners who shall seek after Christ, and "ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward," Jer. i. 5. Secondly, There shall be also somewhat answerable to the court of the children of Israel: God can raise up even of the stones children to Abraham (Matt. iii. 9); he will not want a people to tread in the courts of his house, and to inquire in his temple. Thirdly, And as in the typical temple there was a court for the priests, so hath the Lord promised to the church: "Yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers," Isa. xxx. 20; and again, "I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding," Jer. iii. 15. Fourthly, And as there was a secret and most holy place, where the ark was, and the mercy-seat, and where the glory of God dwelt, so Christ hath his own "hidden ones" (Psal. lxxxiii. 3), "the children of the bride-chamber" (Matt. ix. 15), who, "with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord," 2 Cor. iii. 18. There is also a time coming when God will open the secrets of his temple, and make the ark of his testament to be seen otherwise than yet it hath been; which shall be at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, Rev. xi. 15, 19.

Fourthly, The fourth thing wherein Ezekiel's temple represented the church of Christ is in regard of the great strength thereof: it stood "upon a very high mountain," chap. xl. 2. The material temple also in Jerusalem, as it is described by Josephus, was a very strong and impregnable place. Interpreters think that Cyrus was jealous of the strength of the temple, and for that cause gave order that it should not be built above threescore cubits high, whereas Solomon had built it sixscore cubits high, Ezra vi. 3. The Romans afterwards, when they had subdued Judea, had a watchful eye upon the temple, and placed a strong garrison in the castle Antonia (which was beside the temple), the commander whereof was called "the captain of the temple" (Acts iv. 1); and all this for fear of sedition and rebellion among the Jews when they came to the temple. Now the invisible strength of the spiritual temple is clearly held forth unto us by him who cannot deceive us: "Upon this rock," saith he (meaning himself), "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," Matt. xvi. 18. The princes and powers of the world are more jealous than they need of the church's strength; and yet (which is a secret judgment of God) they have not been afraid to suffer Babylon to be built in her full strength: "There were they in great fear where no fear was" (Psal. liii. 5); for when all shall come to all, it shall be found that the gospel and true religion is the strongest bulwark, and chief strength for the safety and stability of kings and states.

Lastly, The glory of this temple was very great, insomuch that some have undertaken to demonstrate(1396) that it was a more glorious piece than any of the seven miracles of the world, which were so much spoken of among the ancients. But the greatest glory of this temple was, that "the glory of the God of Israel" came into it, and "the earth shined with his glory," ver. 2; Christ, the brightness of his Father's glory (Heb. i. 3), walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks (Rev. i. 13), is and shall be more and more the church's glory; therefore it is said to her, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee," Isa. lx. 1. Surely as it was said of the new material temple, in reference to Christ, so it may be said of the new spiritual temple, which yet we look for, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts," Hag. ii. 9. Christ will keep the best wine till the end of the feast (John ii. 10); and he will bless our latter end more than our beginning, Ezek. xxxvi. 11.

That which I have said, from grounds of Scripture, concerning a more glorious, yea, more peaceable condition of the church to be yet looked for, is acknowledged by some of our sound and learned writers(1397) who have had occasion to express their judgment about it: and it hath no affinity with the opinion of an earthly or temporal kingdom of Christ, or of the Jews' building again of Jerusalem and the material temple, and their obtaining a dominion above all other nations, or the like.

I shall now bring home the point. There are very good grounds of hope to make us think that this new temple is not far off; and (for your part) that Christ is to make a new face of a church in this kingdom,—a fair and beautiful temple for his glory to dwell in: and he is even now about the work.

For, first, "The set time" to build Zion is come, when the people of God "take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof," Psal. cii. 13, 14, 16. The stones which the builders of Babel refused are now chosen for corner stones, and the stones which they chose do the builders of Zion now refuse: "They shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations," Jer. li. 26. Those that have anything of Christ and of the image of God in them begin to creep out of the dust of contempt, and to appear like stars of the morning. Nay, to go farther than that, the old stones, the Jews, who have been for so many ages lying forgotten in the dust, those poor "outcasts of Israel" (Psal. cxlvii. 2), have of late come more into remembrance, and have been more thought of, and more prayed for, than they were in former generations.

Secondly, Are there not great preparations and instruments fitted for the work? Hath not God called together, for such a time as this, the present Parliament, and the Assembly of Divines, his Zorobabels, and Jehoshuas, and Haggais, and Zechariahs? Are there not also hewers of stones, and bearers of burdens? much wholesome preaching, much praying and fasting, many petitions put up both to God and man? the covenant also going through the kingdom as the chief preparation of materials for the work? Is not the old rubbish of ceremonies daily more and more shovelled away, that there may be a clean ground? and is not the Lord by all this affliction humbling you, that there may be a deep and a sure foundation laid?

Thirdly, The work is begun, and shall it not be finished? God hath laid the foundation, and shall he not "bring forth the head-stone?" Zech. iv. 7, 9. Christ hath put Antichrist from his outerworks in Scotland, and he is now come to put him from his innerworks in England: "His work is perfect" (Deut. xxxii. 4), saith Moses; "I am Alpha and Omega (saith Christ), the beginning and the ending," Rev. i. 8; "Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth, saith the Lord? shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb, saith thy God?" Isa. lxvi. 9.

I may add three other signs whereby to discern the time, from Rev. xi. 1, the place before cited: First, Is there not now a measuring of the temple, ordinances and worshippers, by "a reed like unto a rod?" The reed of the sanctuary in the Assembly's hand, and the rod of power and law in your hand, are well met together. Secondly, There is a court, which before seemed to belong to the temple, left out and not measured: "From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath," Matt. xxv. 29. The Samaritans of this time, who serve the Lord, and serve their own gods too (2 Kings xvii. 33, 34), and do after the manners of idolaters, have professed (as they of old to the Jews, Ezra iv. 2), that they would build with you; that they will be for the true Protestant religion as you are; that they will also consent to the reformation of abuses, for the ease of tender consciences. But God doth so alienate and separate betwixt you and them, by his overruling providence, discovering their designs against you, and their deep engagements to the popish party, as if he would say unto them, "Ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial in Jerusalem," Neh. ii. 20; or as it is in the parable concerning those who had refused to come when they were invited, yea, had taken the servants of Christ and entreated them spitefully, and killed them,—the great king hath said in his wrath, that they shall not taste of his supper, and he sends forth his armies to destroy those murderers, and to burn up their city, Matt. xxii. 6, 7; Luke xiv. 24. Surely what they have professed(1398) concerning reformation is scarce so much as the Pope did acknowledge when reformation did begin in Germany. However, as it is our heart's desire and prayer to God for them that they may be saved, so we are not out of hopes that God hath many of his own among them, unto whom he will give "repentance to the acknowledging of the truth."

Lastly, The time seemeth to answer fitly: The new temple is built when the forty-two months of the beast's reign, and of the treading down the holy city (that is, by the best interpretation, twelve hundred and sixty years) come to an end. This computation, I conceive, should begin rather before the four hundredth year of Christ than after it; both because the Roman Emperor (whose falling was the Pope's rising) was brought very low before that time by the wars of the Goths and other barbarous nations, and otherwise, which will appear from history; and further, because pope Innocentius(1399) (who succeeded about the year 401) was raised so high that he drew all appeals from other bishops to the apostolical see, according to former statutes and customs, as he saith. I cannot pitch upon a likelier time than the year 383, at which time (according to the common calculation) a general Council at Constantinople (though Baronius and some others reckon that Council in the year 381) did acknowledge the primacy of the bishop of Rome,(1400) only reserving to the bishop of Constantinople the second place among the bishops. Did not then the beast receive much power when this much was acknowledged by a council of one hundred and fifty bishops, though sitting in the East, and moderated by Nectarius, archbishop of Constantinople. Immediately after this council, it is acknowledged by one of our great antiquaries,(1401) that the bishop of Rome did labour mightily to draw all causes to his own consistory, and that he doth scarce read of any heretic or schismatic condemned in the province where he lived, but straight he had recourse to the bishop of Rome. Another of our antiquaries(1402) noteth not long before that Council, that Antichrist did then begin to appear at Rome, and to exalt himself over all other bishops.

Now if we should reckon the beginning of the beast's reign about the time of that Council, the end of it will fall in at this very time of ours. But I dare not determine so high a point. God's work will, ere it be long, make a clearer commentary upon his word. Only let this be remembered, We must not think it strange if, after the end of the twelve hundred and sixty years, Antichrist be not immediately and utterly abolished; for when that time is ended he makes war against the witnesses, yea, overcometh and killeth them. But that victory of his lasteth only three days and a half, and then God makes, as it were, a resurrection from the dead, and a tenth part of the great city falls before the whole fall; see Rev. xi. 3, 7, 11, 13. Whether this killing of the witnesses (which seemeth to be the last act of Antichrist's power) be past, or to come, I cannot say: God knows. But assuredly, the acceptable year of Israel's jubilee, and the day of vengeance upon Antichrist, is coming, and is not far off.

But now, is there no other application to be made of this point? Is all this said to satisfy curious wits, or, at the best, to comfort the people of God? Nay, there is more than so: it must be brought home to a practical use. As the assurance of salvation doth not make the child of God the more presumptuous, but the more humble (Ezek. xvi. 63); neither doth it make him negligent, but diligent in the way of holiness, and in all the acts of his spiritual warfare, Phil. iii. 13, 14; 2 Pet. i. 10; so that "every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself," 1 John iii. 3: so answerably, the assurance of the new temple, and of the sweet days to come, serveth for a twofold practical use; even as David also applieth God's promise of Solomon's building the temple, 1 Chron. xxii. 9; for thus he speaketh to the princes of Israel, ver. 19, "Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God; arise, therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord God;" and this is, beside, the charge which he giveth to Solomon.

First, then, ye must set your heart and your soul to seek God, forasmuch as you know it is not in vain to seek him for this thing, Dan. ix. 2, 3. When Daniel understood by books that the seventy years of Jerusalem's desolation were at an end, and that the time of building the temple again was at hand, then he saith, "I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes." O let us do as he did! O let us "cry mightily unto God," Jonah iii. 8; and let us, with all our soul, and all our might, give ourselves to fasting and prayer. Now, if ever, "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," James v. 16.

Secondly, And the more actively you must go about the business. "Be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord," 1 Cor. xv. 58. What greater motive to action than to know that you shall prosper in it? "Arise therefore, and be doing."

And so I am led upon the third and last part of the text, of which I shall speak but very little.

The doctrine is this: Reformation ends not in contemplation, but in action. The pattern of the house of God is set before us to the end it may be followed; and the ordinances thereof to the end they may be obeyed: "Give me understanding (saith David), and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart," Psal. cxix. 34; "If ye know these things (saith Christ), happy are ye if ye do them," John xiii. 17. The point is plain, and needeth no proof but application.

Let me therefore, honourable worthies, leave in your bosoms this one point more: Many of the servants of God who have stood in this place, and could do it better than I can, have been calling upon you to go on in the work of reformation: O "be not slothful in business," Rom. xii. 11; and forget not to do as you have been taught. Had you begun at this work, and gone about the building of the house of God as your first and chief business, I dare say you should have prospered better. It was one cause, among others, why the children of Israel (though the greater number, and having the better cause too) did twice fall before Benjamin, because, while they made so great a business for the villainy committed upon the Levites' concubine, they had taken no course with the graven image of the children of Dan (Jud. xviii. 30, 31), a thing which did more immediately touch God in his honour.

But I am confident errors of this kind will be now amended, and that you will, by double diligence, redeem the time. I know your trouble is great, and your cares many, in managing the war, and looking to the safety of the kingdom, yet mark what David did in such a case: "Behold, in my trouble (saith he) I have prepared for the house of the Lord an hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver; and of brass and iron without weight," 1 Chron. xxii. 14. David did manage great wars with mighty enemies, (2 Sam. v., viii., x., xi.,) the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians; beside the intestine war made first by Abner (2 Sam. ii. 8), and afterward by Absalom (2 Sam. xv. 10), and after that by Sheba (2 Sam. xx. 1.) Notwithstanding of all this, in his trouble and poverty (the word signifieth both), he made this great preparation for the house of God; and if God had given him leave, he had, in his trouble, built it too, for you well know he was not hindered from building the temple by the wars or any other business, but only because God would not permit him.

Set before you also the example of the Jews, when the prophets of God did stir them up to the building of the temple, Ezra v. 1, 2. They say not, We must first build the walls of Jerusalem to hold out the enemy, but the text saith, "They began to build the house of God." They were not full four years in building the temple, and finished it in the sixth year of Darius, Ezra. iv. 24 with vi. 15. Now all the rest of his reign did pass, and all Xerxes' reign, and much of Artaxerxes Longimanus's reign, before the walls of Jerusalem were built, for about that work was Nehemiah from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes to the two and thirtieth year (Neh. v. 14); and if great chronologers be not very far mistaken, the temple was finished fourscore and three years before the walls of Jerusalem were finished.(1403)

It is far from my meaning to cool your affection to the laws, liberties, peace, and safety of the kingdom. I desire only to warm your hearts with the zeal of reformation, as that which, all along, you must carry on in the first place.

One thing I cannot but mention: The reverend Assembly of Divines may lament (as Augustine in another case), Heu, heu, quam tarde festino!—alas, alas, how slowly do I make speed!

But since now, by the blessing of God, they are thus far advanced, that they have found, in the word of God, a pattern for presbyterial government over many particular congregations; and have found also, from the word, that ordination is an act belonging to such a presbytery, I beseech you improve that "whereto we have already attained" (Phil. iii. 16), till other acts of a presbytery be agreed on afterward. Yourselves know better than I do, that much people is perishing (Prov. xxix. 18), because there is no vision: "The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few," Luke x. 2, Give me leave, therefore, to quicken you to this part of the work, that, with all diligence and without delay, some presbyteries be associated and erected (in such places as yourselves in your wisdom shall judge fittest), with power to ordain ministers with the consent of the congregations, and after trial of the gifts, soundness and conversation of the men. In so doing you shall both please God and bring upon yourselves the blessing of many poor souls that are ready to perish (Job xxix. 13); and you shall likewise greatly strengthen the hearts and hands of your brethren in Scotland, joined in covenant and in arms with you. I say therefore again, "Arise therefore, and be doing, and the Lord be with thee," 1 Chron. xxii. 16; yea, the Lord is with you (Hag. ii. 4, 5) according to the word that he hath covenanted with you, so his Spirit remaineth among you: Fear ye not, but "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might."



A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE HOUSE OF LORDS, IN THE ABBEY CHURCH AT WESTMINSTER.

A

SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE THE HOUSE OF LORDS,

IN THE ABBEY CHURCH AT WESTMINSTER,

AUGUST 27, 1645;

BEING THE DAY APPOINTED FOR SOLEMN AND PUBLIC HUMILIATION.

BY GEORGE GILLESPIE,

MINISTER AT EDINBURGH, 1642.

"Aliae sunt leges Caesarum, aliae Christi: aliud Papinianus, aliud Paulus noster praecipit."—Hieron. in Epitaphio Fabioloe

EDINBURGH:

ROBERT OGLE AND OLIVER AND BOYD

M. OGLE & SON AND WILLIAM COLLINS, GLASGOW. J. DEWAR, PERTH. W. MIDDLETON, DUNDEE.

G. & R. KING, ABERDEEN. W. M'COMB, BELFAST

HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO., AND JAMES NISBET AND CO., LONDON.

1645.

REPRINTED BY A. W. MURRAY, MILNE SQUARE, EDINBURGH

1844.



PREFACE TO THE READER.

I have in this sermon applied my thoughts toward these three things: 1. The soul-ensnaring error of the greatest part of men, who choose to themselves such a way to the kingdom of heaven as is broad, and smooth, and easy, and but little or nothing at all displeasing to flesh and blood, like him that tumbled down upon the grass and said, Utinam hoc esset laborare. 2. The grumbling and unwillingness which appeareth in very many, when they should submit to that reformation of the church which is according to the mind of Jesus Christ, like them that said to the seers, "See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things," Isa. xxx, 10; and again, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us," Psal. ii. 3. 3. The sad and desolate condition of the kingdom of Scotland, then calling for our prayers and tears, and saying, "Call me not Naomi (pleasant), call me Mara (bitter): for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me," Ruth i. 20. We were "pressed out of measure, above strength," and "had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead; who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver; in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us," 2 Cor. i. 8-10. Our brethren also "helping together by prayer for us," that for the mercy bestowed on us by means of the prayers of many, thanks may be given by many on our behalf. "The Lord liveth, and blessed be my Rock: and let the God of my salvation be exalted," Psal. xviii, 46; He is our God; and we will prepare for him an habitation; our father's God, and we will exalt him, Exod. xv. 2; "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory," Psal. lxxii. 18, 19. Scotland shall yet be "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God," Isa. lxii. 3; and shall be called Hephzi-bah and Beulah. Only let us remember our evil ways, and be confounded, and never open our mouth any more because of our shame, when the Lord our God is pacified towards us. Now are both kingdoms put to a trial, whether their humiliations be filial, and whether then can mourn for sin more than for judgment. And let us now hear what the Spirit speaketh to the churches, and not turn again to folly New provocations, or the old unrepented, will create new ones; therefore "sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto us."



SERMON.

MALACHI iii. 2.

"But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap."

If you ask, "Of whom speaketh the Prophet this, of himself or of some other man?" (Acts viii. 34)—it is answered, both by Christian and Jewish interpreters: The Prophet speaketh this of Christ, the Messenger of the covenant, then much longed and looked for by the people of God, as is manifest by the preceding verse. And as it was fit that Malachi, the last of the prophets, should shut up the Old Testament with clear promises of the coming of Christ (which you find in this and in the following chapter), so he takes the rather occasion from the corrupt and degenerate estate of the priests at that time (which he had mentioned in the former chapter) to hold forth unto the church the promised Messiah, who was to come unto them to purify the sons of Levi.

But if you ask again, Of what coming or appearing of Christ doth the Prophet speak this? whether of the first, or of the last, or of any other?—the answer of expositors is not so unanimous. Some understand the last coming of Christ, in the glory of his Father, and holy angels, to judge the quick and the dead. This cannot stand with ver. 34, "He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them," &c.; but at the last judgment it will be too late for the sons of Levi to be purified and purged, or for Judah and Jerusalem to bring offerings unto the Lord, as in the days of old.

Others understand the first coming of Christ. And of these some understand his incarnation, or appearing in the flesh; others take the meaning to be of his coming into the temple of Jerusalem, to drive out the buyers and sellers (Matt. xxi. 10-12), at which time all the city was moved at his coming. This exposition hath better grounds than the other, because the coming of Christ (here spoken of) did not precede, but soon follow after the ministry of John Baptist, and therefore cannot be meant of our Saviour's incarnation, but rather of his appearing with power and authority in the temple. But this also falleth short, and neither expresseth the whole nor the principal part of what is meant in this text; for how can it be said that the prophecy which followeth, ver. 3, 4 (which is all of a piece with ver. 2), was fulfilled during Christ's appearing and sitting in the temple of Jerusalem? or how can it be conceived that the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem were pleasant to the Lord at that time, when the Gentiles were not, and the Jews would not be brought in, to offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness? So that whether we understand by Judah and Jerusalem the Jewish church or the Christian, this thing could not be said to be accomplished while Christ was yet upon earth. And in like manner, whether we understand by the sons of Levi the priests and Levites of the Jews, or the ministers of the gospel, it cannot be said that Christ did, in the days of his flesh, purify the sons of Levi as gold and silver.

I deny not but the Lord Jesus did then begin to set about this work. But that which is more principally here intended, is Christ's coming and appearing in a spiritual, but yet most powerful and glorious manner, to erect his kingdom, and to gather and govern his churches, by the ministry of his apostles and other ministers, whom he sent forth after his ascension.

Of this coming he himself speaketh, Matt. xvi. 28, "Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom;" Mark addeth, "with power" (Mark ix. 1). Neither was that all. He did not so come at that time as to put forth all his power, or to do his whole work. He hath at divers times come and manifested himself to his churches; and this present time is a time of the revelation of the Son of God, and a day of his coming. We look also for a more glorious coming of Jesus Christ before the end be: for "the Redeemer shall come to Sion" (Isa. lix. 20), "and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom. xi. 26); and he shall destroy Antichrist "with the brightness of his coming," 2 Thess. ii. 8; in which place the Apostle hath respect to Isa. xi. 4, where it is said of Christ, the rod of Jesse, "with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." There, withal, you have the church's tranquillity, the filling of the earth with the knowledge of the Lord, and the restoring of the dispersed Jews, as you may read in that chapter. Some have observed(1404) (which ought not to pass without observation) that the Chaldee Paraphrase had there added the word Romilus: "He shall slay the wicked Romilus;" whereupon they challenge Arias Montanus for leaving out that word to wipe off the reproach from the Pope. However, the Scriptures teach us, that the Lord Jesus will be revealed mightily, and will make bare his holy arm, as well in the confusion of Antichrist, as in the conversion of the Jews, before the last judgment and the end of all things.

By this time you may understand what is meant in the text by the day of Christ's coming, or εἰσοδου,—coming in, as the Septuagint read, meaning his coming, or entering into his temple, mentioned in the first verse; by which temple Jerome upon the place rightly understandeth the church, or spiritual temple.

When this temple is built, Christ cometh into it, to fill the house with the cloud of his glory, and to walk in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. The same thing is meant by his appearing: "When he appeareth," saith our translation; "When he shall be revealed,"; others read, "When he shall be seen," or "in seeing of him." The original word I find used to express more remarkable, divine, and glorious sights, as Gen. xvi. 13, "Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?" xxii. 14, "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." From this word had the prophets the name of seers, 1 Sam. ix. 9; and from the same word came the name of visions, 2 Chron. xxvi. 5, "Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God."

Now, but what of all this? might some think. If Christ come, it is well,—he is the desire of all nations. O but when Christ thus cometh into his kingdom among men with power, and is seen appearing with some beams of his glory, "Who may abide, and who shall stand?" saith the text. How shall sinners stand before the Holy One? How shall dust and ashes have any fellowship with the God of glory? How shall our weak eyes behold the Sun of righteousness coming forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber? Did not Ezekiel fall upon his face at "the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord"? Ezek. i. 28. Did not Isaiah cry out, "Woe is me, for I am undone," "for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts"? Isa. vi. 5.

But why is it so hard a thing to abide the day of Christ's coming, or to stand before him when he appeareth in his temple? If you ask of him, as Joshua did, "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" (Josh. v. 13,) he will answer you, "Nay; but as a captain of the host of the Lord am I now come," (ver. 14.) If you ask of him, as the elders of Bethlehem asked of Samuel (while they were trembling at his coming), "Comest thou peaceably?" He will answer you as Samuel did, "Peaceably." What is there here, then, to trouble us? Doth he not come to save, and not to destroy? Yes, to save the spirit, but to destroy the flesh; he will have the heart-blood of sin, that the soul may live for ever. This is set forth by a double metaphor: one taken from the refiner's fire, which purifieth metals from the dross; the other, from the fuller's soap; others read the fuller's grass, or the fuller's herb. Some have thought it so hard to determine, that they have kept into the translation the very Hebrew word borith. Jerome tells us,(1405) that the fuller's herb which grew in the marsh places of Palestina, had the same virtue for washing and making white which nitre hath. Yet I suppose the fuller's soap hath more of that virtue in it than the herb could have. However it is certain that ברר,—borith, cometh from a word which signifieth to make clean, according to that, Mark ix. 3, "His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them."