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this consolation, that though their earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, he who raised up the tabernacle of David from its ruins to a more glorious state in the Gentile world, and raised up the temple of Christ's body which the Jews destroyed, shall in like manner quicken our mortal bodies by the spirit that dwelleth in us, and give us an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

It was observed above, that the tabernacle of David is a figurative term for the Christian church as the mystical body of Christ: we shall likewise find, that the blessings and privileges of the Christian society or assembly of Christian people do all correspond with the economy of the congregation of Israel, and are described in terms borrowed from the law; of which the following example in the epistle to the Hebrews will be sufficient, where the apostle says-Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better

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things than that of Abel. Every Christian is to conceive what his own state is, by looking back to the privileges of the church of old. He is I come to mount Zion, to a situation exalted above the world; a mountain chosen and favoured of God, blessed with the dew of heavenly grace, and inheriting the promise of eternal life; even to that holy hill, on which Christ is established as King against all the opposition of the world below. It is the new Jerusalem, because it is ordained to be, as that city was of 'old, at unity with itself, and a principle of unity to all the land; where all the tribes of the earth unite in one religion, as the tribes of Israel assembled to worship at Jerusalem. The cities of the neighbouring nations were dedicated to some tutelary idol; Jerusalem alone to the true and living God; so now is the same God connected with the Christian city and with that only; and all the company of heaven, innumerable as they are, who assisted at the delivery of the law, are with him. As the firstborn of Israel, who had the right of inheritance, were redeemed and written down by name; so are all the children of the Christian society enrolled in heaven as the first-born of God, and the book of life in which they are written answers to the register of the church

of

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of Israel. We are come to God the Judge of all, because we are taken out of the world of the ungodly, who are aliens, to be subject to his laws, and consequently to be under his government. It is true that all the world are under the authority of God; but then all are not related to him as citizens and subjects. In this respect, God was said to be nigher to the Jews than to any nation upon earth, because he was with them as their judge and protector. We have our Jesus, as they had their Moses; both of them mediators, to stand between God and the people. The Hebrews were not permitted to draw near to God to treat for themselves on pain of death; but Moses was to be between them, as Christ is now betwixt us and God, and no man can come to the Father but by him and in his blood we have remission, as all things were purified under the law, and nothing accepted or sanctified without the blood of sprinkling; which speaketh better things than that of Abel; for the blood of Abel cried for vengeance, this for mercy and

pardon.

Thus is our society on like terms with theirs

in every respect: and to these particulars I may add, that as the congregation of Israel on great and solemn occasions was called together by the sound

sound of a trumpet, so shall the great assembly of all nations, all the tribes of the earth, and we ourselves among the rest, be summoned after the same form: the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised: and then we shall see with our eyes what that great society is, in the which we now live by faith.

There are many particular institutions remaining, some of a religious, some of a moral, and others of a civil nature; a few of the most useful of which I must select, and shew how the scripture has applied them.

The sabbath, which succeeds the labours of the week, appears to have been appointed from the beginning as a perpetual sign, a sign for ever*, of that happy Rest which the servants of God are to expect after the labours of this life. For thus the apostle hath reasoned about it; that being called the Rest of God, it cannot be of an earthly, but must be of an heavenly nature; for God doth not rest upon earth where men labour. He shews that the true rest promised to the faithful was not the sabbath that was appointed after God had finished his works; nor yet the state of rest, so called, in the land of Canaan; because the promise is still suspended, aud repeated again in the time of David:

* Exodus xxxi. 17.

David: whence he concludes that it was a rest never yet fulfilled in this life, but still remaining for the people of God, and into which the faithful enter when they die in the Lord and rest from their labours. I say no more of this here, because I have considered the subject more at large in my lectures on the epistle to the Hebrews, to which it properly belongs.

Circumcision was that rite of the law by which the Israelites were taken into God's covenant; and (in the spirit of it) was the same as baptism among Christians. For as the form of baptism expresses the putting away of sin; circumcision was another form to the same effect. The scripture speaks of a circumcision made without hands, of which that made with hands was no more than an outward sign, which denoted the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, and becoming a new creature; which is the sense of our baptism. Of this inward and spiritual grace of circumcision the apostle speaks expressly in another place; he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter t. Some may suppose

that

this

* Col. ii. 11.

+ Rom. ii. 28.

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