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place when the Jews had filled up the measure of their fins by perfecuting, rejecting, and murdering, the Son of God and his apoftles, when the kingdom was taken from them and given to the Gentiles; and this is exprefsly called biotting them out of the book of the living, as it is written; They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table become a fnare before them; and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they fee not; and make their loins continually to fbake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be defolate, and let none dwell in their tents. For they perfecute him whom thou haft fmitten, and talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded. Add iniquity to their iniquity; and let them not come into thy righteousnefs. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous. Pfalm lxix. Now, in the matter before us, this epiftle is written to a church under the type of Sardis. A church is the household of faith, or a congregated body of believing fouls; and all that believe are paffed from death to life; yea, he that believeth hath everlasting life, and shall live, and muft live; for the juft fhall live by faith. The word church includes the whole of them; and they have not only the name church put upon them in this epiftle, but a living name, a name to live, but thou art dead; the laft word, dead, blots out and difannuls the name live. And fo they are D 3

confidered

confidered by us: we do not confider Judas in his profeffing name, nor in his apoftolic office, but as the traitor, and fon of perdition; and fo we confider all the rest of the apoftates and hypocrites, not according to what they were in their profeffion, but according to their real character when God made them manifeft. Hence the name Ifrael in the best sense is now denied to the pofterity of Jacob; They are not all Ifrael which are of Ifrael, This name is now put upon the Gentile church. Read If, xciv. 5. And so the name Jew is not now allowed to them; I know the blafphemy of them which fay they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; I will make them of the fynagogue of Satan. The latter name blots out, makes void, and difannuls, the former altogether; for the name Jew is a facred name, and in the best fenfe applicable to none but to a real fubject of the King of the Jews; for he is not a few which is one outwardly, but he is a few which is one inwardly. And not a few spoken to, and pointed out, in this epiftle, have had their names blotted out by the discovery that Chrift hath made of them in this hour of temptation. Many, who before were looked upon to be upright men, and lively minifters of the word, were foon discovered to be guilty of perjury, infurrection, and rebellion, against both God and the king; fins which Chrift never fuffered one of his apoftles to be guilty of, or fall into fo far from it, that the Holy Spirit, which fpake in them, commanded every foul that professed Chrift to be subject to the higher powers, to obey

magistrates,

magistrates, to fear God and honour the king; to be fubject not only for wrath, but for confcience fake: yea, these warned the unruly, and vehemently exclaimed against thofe that were felf-willed, prefumptuous, and not afraid to speak evil of dignities. But many of ours, who had a name to live, have quite broken the yoke, and burst the bands; and Chrift in this epiftle has blotted out their name, which was but a name to live, and has put them upon another lift, in the eyes of his people; not among the killed and wounded, but among the dead, who never had the Spirit of life in them; and their flocks are gone with them. God hath taken away their names out of the book of life, out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. Rev. xxii. 19. For their name, whether in the city or in the book, is only a name to live. Hence it appears that this book of life is the lively oracles of God, the fcriptures of truth. I proceed.

Are not the fcriptures of truth written on the minds, and put into the hearts, of God's faints? Does he not promife that the new covenant and the bleffings of it fhall be experienced by his people in the pardon of their fins, and be written on their minds, and on the fleshly tables of their hearts, fo as to make them living epiftles, known and read of all men? Yea, the fame Spirit that dictated the fcriptures, and infpired holy men to write them, Paul fays, writes the fame on our hearts. Ye are our epiftles, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on

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tables of ftone, but on the fleshly tables of the heart, And not a few who have had their names written here in this book, in thefe living epiftles, and who have had a place in their mind, judgment, memory, confcience, heart, and affections; of whom we could fay, and have faid, as Paul did, Ye are in our hearts to die and live with you. But God blots many out of this book of life; and it is to be remarked, that it is common among men, when they difcover a perfon to be a different man from what they once thought, to fay, "He, or fuch an one, is quite out of my books.” Nor, could Paul fay of Alexander the copperfinith, Demas, Philetus, Hermogenes, and Hymeneus, that these were in his heart to live and die with them? No, God had made them manifeft that they were no true fellowlabourers, or yoke-fellows, with Paul. God blotted out the above names from his book, and from the heart and affection of his faithful fervant Paul. And fo it is in this epiftle written to us; many by subfcribing the articles of the establishment, and then joining with them that hate the truth, are discovered by the word of God, and by their own conduct, to be none of them that love the truth and peace, or who received the truth in the love of it; for not fuch, but those that do not receive the truth in the love of it, shall be given up to strong delufions, to believe a lie and be damned. A real child of God will hold faft that which he hath till Christ come; for it is he who keeps the word of his patience that he will keep from the hour of temptation; and it is they who keep Chrift's

Chrift's fayings, and only they, that shall never fee death. These are blotted out of the book of the facred fcriptures, where their name to live stood; and this epiftle declares them dead; and the Lord's manifestation of them 'fhews us where to apply his declaration of them. And God will make them that are not his, work themselves out of his children's books too; for, when they exhibit their pride, ftiffness, stubbornness, and inflexibility, before the word of truth, that they will neither bow, yield, nor fubmit to divine revelation, and the will of God made. known therein, we know by our own experience where they are; for neither the unruly, presumptuous, nor rebellious, stand on the lift of God's obedient ones, but they dwell in a dry land. And he will blot them out of the affections and prayers of his people, however painful it may be'; as we fee in Samuel.. Saul had a strong standing in the heart and in the prayers of Samuel; yea, he mourned for Saul, even till God rebuked him for it. And the Lord faid to Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, feeing Ihave rejected him? Saul had turned his back upon the word of God, and had not kept that which the Lord had committed to him when he fent him against Amalek; for which a heavy charge was brought in against him, for he had refufed God's orders, and followed his own will, as appears by the charge following:

And Samuel.faid, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and facrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than facrifice, and

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