Testament, but for princes under the New, 1 Tim. ii. 2; Rom. xiii. 4;
Esay. xlix. 23. Neither did the kings of Israel reform things amiss
as types of Christ, but as civil magistrates, and so exemplary to all
Christians. And here reformation in religion is commendable in a Persian
king, Ezra vii. 23. And it is well known that remissness in princes
of Christendom in matters of religion and worship, devolving the care
thereof only to the clergy, and so setting the horns thereof upon the
church’s head, hath been the cause of anti-christian inventions,
usurpations, and corruptions, in the worship and temple of God.
“Secondly, they have not power to press upon the churches stinted
prayers, or set liturgies, whether new or old, popish or others, under
colour of uniformity of worship, or moral goodness of them both for
matter and form, conceiving our arguments sent to our brethren in England
concerning this question to evince this truth.[219]
“Thirdly, they have no power to press upon the churches, neither by law,
as hath been said before, nor by proclamation and command, any sacred
significant ceremonies, whether more or less popish or Jewish rite, or
any other device of man, be it never so little in the worship of God,
under what colour soever of indifferency, civility, using them without
opinion of sanctity, public peace, or obedience to righteous authority,
as surplice, cross, kneeling at sacrament, salt and spittle in baptism,
holy days; they having been so accursed of God, so abused by man, the
imposing of some ever making way for the urging of more, the receiving of
some making the conscience bow to the burden of all.
“Fourthly, they have not power to govern and rule the acts of worship in
the church of God.
“It is with a magistrate in a state in respect of the acts of those who
worship in a church, as it is with a prince in a ship, wherein, though
he be governor of their persons, else he should not be their prince, yet
is not governor of the actions of the mariners, then he should be pilot:
indeed if the pilot shall manifestly err in his action, he may reprove
him, and so any other passenger may: or if he offend against the life
and goods of any, he may in due time and place civilly punish him, which
no other passenger can do; for, it is proper to Christ, the head of the
church, as to prescribe so to rule the actions of his own worship in the
ways of his servants, Esay. ix. 6, 7. The government of the church is
upon his shoulder, which no civil officer ought to attempt. And therefore
magistrates have no power to limit a minister, either to what he shall
preach or pray, or in what manner they shall worship God, lest hereby
they shall advance themselves above Christ, and limit his Spirit.”[220]
_Truth._ In this general head are proposed two things.
First, what the magistrate _ought_ to do positively, concerning the
worship of God.
Secondly. What he _may_ do in the worship of God.
What he ought to do is comprised in these particulars:—
First. He ought to reform the worship of God when it is corrupted.
Secondly. He ought to establish a pure worship of God.
Thirdly. He ought to defend it by the sword: he ought to restrain
idolatry by the sword, and to cut off offenders, as former passages have
opened.
For the proof of this positive part of his duty, are propounded three
sorts of scriptures.
First. From the practice of the kings of Israel and Judah.
Secondly. Some from the New Testament.
Thirdly. From the practice of kings of other nations.
Unto which I answer,—
[Sidenote: The argument from the Babylonian and Persian kings reminded.]
First. Concerning this latter, the Babylonian and Persian
kings—Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes—I conceive I have
sufficiently before proved, that these idolatrous princes making such
acts concerning the God of Israel, whom they did not worship nor know,
nor meant so to do, did only permit, and tolerate, and countenance the
Jewish worship; and out of strong convictions that this God of Israel was
able to do them good, as well as their own gods, to bring wrath upon them
and their kingdoms, as they believed their own also did, in which respect
all the kings of the world may be easily brought to the like; but [they]
are no precedent or pattern for all princes and civil magistrates in the
world, to challenge or assume the power of ruling or governing the church
of Christ, and of wearing the spiritual crown of the Lord, which he alone
weareth in a spiritual way by his officers and governors after his own
holy appointment.
Secondly. For those of the New Testament I have, as I believe, fully and
sufficiently answered.
So also that prophecy of Isa. xlix. [23.]
[Sidenote: The precedent of the kings and governors of Israel and Judah,
examined. The state of Israel relating to spiritual matters proved
typical.]
Lastly. However I have often touched those scriptures produced from the
practice of the kings of Israel and Judah, yet, because so great a weight
of this controversy lies upon this precedent of the Old Testament, from
the duties of this nature enjoined to those kings and governors and their
practices, obeying or disobeying, accordingly commended or reproved, I
shall, with the help of Christ Jesus, the true King of Israel, declare
and demonstrate how weak and brittle this supposed pillar of marble is,
to bear up and sustain such a mighty burden and weight of so many high
concernments as are laid upon it. In which I shall evidently prove,
that the state of Israel as a national state, made up of spiritual
and civil power, so far as it attended upon the spiritual, was merely
figurative, and typing out the Christian churches consisting of both Jews
and Gentiles, enjoying the true power of the Lord Jesus, establishing,
reforming, correcting, defending in all cases concerning the kingdom and
government.
CHAP. CX.
_Peace._ Blessed be the God of truth, the God of peace, who hath so long
preserved us in this our retired conference without interruptions. His
mercy still shields us while you express and I listen to that so much
imitated, yet most inimitable state of Israel.
Yet, before you descend to particulars, dear Truth, let me cast one mite
into your great treasury, concerning that instance, just now mentioned,
of the Persian kings.
[Sidenote: The Persian kings make evidently against such as produce them
for maintenance of the doctrine of persecution.]
Methinks those precedents of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, are strong
against New England’s tenent and practice. Those princes professedly
gave free permission and bountiful encouragement to the consciences of
the Jews to use and practise their religion, which religion was most
eminently contrary to their own religion and their country’s worship.
_Truth._ I shall, sweet Peace, with more delight pass on these rough
ways, from your kind acceptance and unwearied patience in attention.
In this discovery of that vast and mighty difference between that state
of Israel and all other states, only to be matched and paralleled by
the Christian church or Israel, I shall select some main and principal
considerations concerning that state, wherein the irreconcilable
differences and disproportion may appear.
First. I shall consider the very land and country of Canaan itself, and
present some considerations proving it to be a non-such.
[Sidenote: The land of Canaan chosen by God to be the seat of the church;
but under the New Testament all nations alike.]
First. This land was espied out, and chosen by the Lord, out of all the
countries of the world, to be the seat of his church and people, Ezek.
xx. 6.
But now there is no respect of earth, of places, or countries with
the Lord. So testified the Lord Jesus Christ himself to the woman of
Samaria, John iv. [21,] professing that neither at that mountain, nor at
Jerusalem, should men worship the Father.
While that national state of the church of the Jews remained, the tribes
were bound to go up to Jerusalem to worship, Ps. cxxii. But now, _in
every nation_, not the whole land or country as it was with Canaan, _he
that feareth God and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him_, Acts
x. 35. This then appeared in that large commission of the Lord Jesus to
his first ministers: _Go into all nations_, and not only into Canaan, to
carry tidings of mercy, &c.
Secondly. The former inhabitants thereof, seven great and mighty nations,
Deut. vii. 1, were all devoted to destruction by the Lord’s own mouth,
which was to be performed by the impartial hand of the children of
Israel, without any sparing or showing mercy.
[Sidenote: The inhabitants of Canaan’s land, every soul, to be put to
death, that the Israelites might enjoy their possessions: not so now.]
But so now it hath not pleased the Lord to devote any people to present
destruction, commanding his people to kill and slay without covenant or
compassion, Deut. vii. 2.
Where have emperors, kings, or generals an immediate call from God to
destroy whole cities, city after city, men, women, children, old and
young, as Joshua practised? Josh. vi. and x., &c.
This did Israel to these seven nations, that they themselves might
succeed them in their cities, habitations, and possessions.
This only is true in a spiritual antitype, when God’s people by the
sword, the two-edged sword of God’s Spirit, slay the ungodly and become
heirs, yea, fellow heirs with Christ Jesus, Rom. viii. 17. God’s meek
people inherit the earth, Matt. v. [5.] They mystically, like Noah, Heb.
xi. 7, condemn the whole unbelieving world, both by present and future
sentence, 1 Cor. vi. 2.
CHAP. CXI.
[Sidenote: The very material, gold and silver, of Canaan’s images,
typically to be abhorred.]
Thirdly. The very materials, the gold and silver of the idols of this
land, were odious and abominable, and dangerous to the people of Israel,
that they might not desire it, nor take it to themselves, Deut. vii. 25,
26, lest themselves also become a curse, and like unto those cursed,
abominable things. Whereas we find not any such accursed nature in the
materials of idols or images now; but that, the idolatrous forms being
changed, the silver and gold may be cast and coined, and other materials
lawfully employed and used.
Yet this we find in the antitype, that gold, silver: yea, house, land:
yea, wives, children: yea, life itself, as they allure and draw us from
God in Christ, are to be abominated and hated by us, without which hatred
and indignation, against the most plausible and pleasing enticings, from
CHRIST JESUS, it is impossible for any man to be a true Christian, Luke
xiv. 26.
[Sidenote: The land of Canaan ceremonially holy.]
Fourthly. This land, this earth, was a holy land, Zech. ii. 12.
Ceremonially and typically holy, fields, gardens, orchards, houses, &c.,
which holiness the world knows not now in one land or country, house,
field, garden, &c., one above another.
[Sidenote: Greater holiness in the antitype under the gospel, than in the
types under the law.]
Yet in the spiritual land of Canaan, the Christian church, all things
are made holy and pure, in all lands, to the pure, Tit. i. [15;] meats
and drinks are sanctified, that is, dedicated to the holy use of the
thankful believers, 1 Tim. iv. 5; yea, and the unbelieving husband, wife,
and their children, are sanctified and made holy to believers, insomuch
that that golden inscription, peculiar to the forehead of the high
priest, _Holiness to Jehovah_, shall be written upon the very bridles of
the horses, as all are dedicated to the service of Christ Jesus in the
gospel’s peace and holiness.
[Sidenote: The land of Canaan Jehovah’s land.]
Fifthly. The Lord expressly calls it his own land, Lev. xxv. 23; Hos. ix.
3, _Jehovah’s land_, a term proper unto spiritual Canaan, the church of
God, which must needs be in respect of his choice of that land to be the
seat and residence of his church and ordinances.
But now the partition-wall is broken down, and in respect of the Lord’s
special propriety to one country more than another, what difference
between Asia and Africa, between Europe and America, between England and
Turkey, London and Constantinople?
[Sidenote: Emanuel’s land: so no land or country more than another.]
This land, among many other glorious titles given to it, was called
Emanuel’s land, that is, God with us, Christ’s land, or Christian land,
Isa. viii. 8.
But now, Jerusalem from above is not material and earthly, but spiritual,
Gal. iv. [25;] Heb. xii. [22.] Material Jerusalem is no more the Lord’s
city than Jericho, Nineveh, or Babel, in respect of place or country:
for even at Babel literal, was a church of Jesus Christ, 1 Pet. v. [13.]
It is true, that anti-christ hath christened all those countries whereon
the whore sitteth, Rev. xvii., with the title of Christ’s land, or
Christian land.
[Sidenote: The blasphemous titles of the christened and Christian world.]
And Hundius, in his map of the Christian world, makes this land to
extend to all Asia, a great part of Africa, all Europe, and a vast
part of America, even so far as his unchristian christening hath gone.
But as every false Christ hath false teachers, false Christians, false
faith, hope, love, &c., and in the end false salvation, so doth he also
counterfeit the false name of Christ, Christians, Christian land or
country.
[Sidenote: The material land of Canaan was to keep her sabbaths, so no
material land or country now.]
Sixthly. This land was to keep her sabbaths unto God. Six years they were
to sow their fields, and prune their vines, but in the seventh year they
were not to sow their fields, nor prune their vineyards, but to eat that
which grew of itself or own accord.
But such observations doth not God now lay upon any fields, vineyards,
&c., under the gospel.
[Sidenote: God feedeth his sometimes immediately.]
Yet, in the spiritual land of Canaan, the true church, there is a
spiritual soul-rest or sabbath, a quiet depending upon God, a living by
faith in him, a making him our portion, and casting all care upon him who
careth for us: yea, sometimes he feedeth his by immediate, gracious works
of providence, when comforts arise out of the earth, without secondary
means or causes, as here, or as elsewhere, manna descended from heaven.
Seventhly. Such portions and possessions of lands, fields, houses,
vineyards, were sold with caution or proviso of returning again in the
year of jubilee to the right owners, Lev. xxv. 23.
Such cautions, such provisos, are not now enjoined by God in the sale
of lands, fields, inheritances, nor no such jubilee or redemption to be
expected.
[Sidenote: The jubilee of Canaan a type of restitution and redemption in
the gospel.]
Yea, this also finds a fulfilling in the spiritual Canaan, or church of
God, unto which the silver trumpet of jubilee, the gospel, hath sounded
a spiritual restitution of all their spiritual rights and inheritances,
which either they have lost in the fall of the first man Adam, or in
their particular falls, when they are captive, and sold unto sin, Rom.
vii. [14,] or, lastly, in the spiritual captivity of Babel’s bondage. How
sweet then is the name of a Saviour, in whom is the joyful sound of a
deliverance and redemption!
[Sidenote: Canaan’s land a type of the kingdom of God on earth and in
heaven. Why Naboth refused to part with a garden plot to his king, upon
hazard of his life.]
Eighthly. This land or country was a figure or type of the kingdom of
heaven above, begun here below in the church and kingdom of God, Heb.
iv. 8; Heb. xi. 9, 10. Hence was a birthright so precious in Canaan’s
land: hence Naboth so inexorable and resolute in refusing to part with
his inheritance to King Ahab, counting all Ahab’s seeming reasonable
offers most unreasonable, as soliciting him to part with a garden plot of
Canaan’s land, though his refusal cost him his very life.
What land, what country now is Israel’s parallel and antitype, but that
holy mystical nation, the church of God, peculiar and called out to
him out of every nation and country, 1 Pet. ii. 9. In which every true
spiritual Naboth hath his spiritual inheritance, which he dares not part
with, though it be to his king or sovereign, and though such his refusal
cost him this present life.
CHAP. CXII.
_Peace._ Doubtless that Canaan land was not a pattern for all lands: it
was a non-such, unparallelled, and unmatchable.
[Sidenote: The difference of the people of Israel and all other peoples.]
_Truth._ Many other considerations of the same nature I might annex, but
I pick here and there a flower, and pass on to a second head concerning
the people themselves, wherein the state of the people shall appear
unmatchable: but only by the true church and Israel of God.
[Sidenote: The people of Israel the seed of one man.]
First. The people of Israel were all the seed or offspring of one man,
Abraham, Psalm cv. 6, and so downward the seed of Isaac and Jacob, hence
called the Israel of God, that is, wrestlers and prevailers with God,
distinguished into twelve tribes, all sprung out of Israel’s loins.
But now, few nations of the world but are a mixed seed; the people of
England especially: the Britons, Picts, Romans, Saxons, Danes, and
Normans, by a wonderful providence of God, being become one English
people.
[Sidenote: Only made good in the spiritual seed, the regenerate, or
new-born.]
Only the spiritual Israel and seed of God, the new born, are but one.
Christ is the seed, Gal. iii. [16,] and they only that are Christ’s are
only Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
This spiritual seed is the only antitype of the former figurative and
typical. A seed which all Christians ought to propagate, yea, even the
unmarried men and women who are not capable of natural offspring, for
thus is this called the seed of Christ (who lived and died unmarried),
Isa. lix. 21.
Secondly. This people was selected and separated to the Lord, his
covenant and worship, from all the people and nations of the world
beside, to be his peculiar and only people, Lev. xx. 26, &c.
[Sidenote: The people of Israel separate from all nations in spiritual,
and in some civil things.]
Therefore, such as returned from Babylon to Jerusalem, they separated
themselves to eat the passover, Ezra vi. [21.] And in that solemn
humiliation and confession before the Lord, Neh. ix. [2,] the children of
Israel separated themselves from all strangers.
This separation of theirs was so famous, that it extended not only to
circumcision, the passover, and matters of God’s worship, but even to
temporal and civil things: thus (Ezra ix.) they separated or put away
their very wives, which they had taken of the strange nations, contrary
to the commandment of the Lord.
[Sidenote: No nation so separated to God in the gospel, but only the
new-born Israel that fear God in every nation.]
But where hath the God of heaven, in the gospel, separated whole nations
or kingdoms, English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, &c., as a peculiar
people and antitype of the people of Israel? Yea, where the least footing
in all the scripture for a national church after Christ’s coming?
Can any people in the world pattern this sampler but the new-born Israel,
such as fear God in every nation, Acts x. 35, commanded to come forth,
and separate from all unclean things or persons? 2 Cor. vi. [17,] and
though not bound to put away strange wives as Israel did, because of that
peculiar respect upon them in civil things, yet to be holy or set apart
to the Lord in all manner of civil conversation, 1 Pet. i. 15: only to
marry in the Lord, yea, and to marry as if they married not, 1 Cor. vii.
[29:] yea, to hate wife and children, father, mother, house, and land,
yea, and life itself for the Lord Jesus, Luke xiv. 26.
[Sidenote: The whole people of Israel miraculously brought forth of
Egypt.]
Thirdly. This seed of Abraham thus separate from all people unto the
Lord, was wonderfully redeemed and brought from Egypt bondage, through
the Red Sea, and the wilderness, unto the land of Canaan, by many strange
signs and wonderful miracles, wrought by the out-stretched hand of the
Lord, famous and dreadful, and to be admired by all succeeding peoples
and generations, Deut. iv. 32-34, _Ask now from one side of the heaven
unto the other, whether there hath been such a thing as this?_ &c.
[Sidenote: Not so any whole nation now.]
And we may ask again from one side of the heaven unto the other, whether
the Lord hath now so miraculously redeemed and brought unto himself any
nation or people, as he did this people of Israel.
_Peace._ The English, Scotch, Dutch, &c., are apt to make themselves the
parallels, as wonderfully come forth of popery, &c.
_Truth._ 1. But first, whole nations are no churches under the gospel.
[Sidenote: Popery not so easily turned from as is conceived.]
2. Secondly, bring the nations of Europe professing protestantism to the
balance of the sanctuary, and ponder well whether the body, bulk, the
general, or one hundredth part of such peoples, be truly turned to God
from popery:—
Who knows not how easy it is to turn, and turn, and turn again, whole
nations from one religion to another?
[Sidenote: Wonderful turnings in religion in twelve years’ compass in
England.]
Who knows not that within the compass of one poor span of twelve years’
revolution, all England hath become from half papist, half protestant, to
be absolute protestants; from absolute protestants, to absolute papists;
from absolute papists, changing as fashions, to absolute protestants?
[Sidenote: The pope not unlike to recover his monarchy over Europe before
his downfall.]
I will not say, as some worthy witnesses of Christ have uttered, that
all England and Europe must again submit their fair necks to the pope’s
yoke; but this I say, many scriptures concerning the destruction of the
beast and the whore look that way. And I add, they that feel the pulse of
the people seriously, must confess that a victorious sword and a Spanish
inquisition will soon make millions face about as they were in the
forefathers’ time.
CHAP. CXIII.
_Peace._ Oh! that the steersmen of the nations might remember this, be
wise and kiss the Son, lest he go on in this his dreadful anger, and dash
them in pieces here and eternally.
[Sidenote: Who are now the true seed of Abraham.]
_Truth._ I therefore, thirdly, add, that only such as are Abraham’s
seed, circumcised in heart, new-born, Israel (or wrestlers with God),
are the antitype of the former Israel; these are only the holy nation,
1 Pet. ii. 9; wonderfully redeemed from the Egypt of this world, Tit.
ii. 14; brought through the Red Sea of baptism, 1 Cor. x. 2; through
the wilderness of afflictions, and of the peoples, Deut. viii., Ezek.
xx., into the kingdom of heaven begun below, even that Christian land of
promise where flow the everlasting streams and rivers of spiritual milk
and honey.
[Sidenote: The people of Israel all holy in a typical holiness.]
Fourthly, all this people universally, in typical and ceremonial respect,
were holy and clean in this their separation and sequestration unto God,
Exod. xix. 5. Hence, even in respect of their natural birth in that
land, they were a holy seed, and Ezra makes it the matter of his great
complaint, Ezra ix. 1, 2,—_The holy seed have mingled themselves._
But where is now that nation, or country, upon the face of the earth,
thus clean and holy unto God, and bound to so many ceremonial cleansings
and purgings?
[Sidenote: All nations now alike since the coming of the Lord Jesus.]
Are not all the nations of the earth alike clean unto God? or rather,
alike unclean, until it pleaseth the Father of mercies to call some
out to the knowledge and grace of his Son, making them to see their
filthiness, and strangeness from the commonweal of Israel, and to wash in
the blood of the Lamb of God?
This taking away the difference between nation and nation, country and
country, is most fully and admirably declared in that great vision of
all sorts of living creatures presented unto Peter, Acts x.; whereby it
pleased the Lord to inform Peter of the abolishing of the difference
between Jew and Gentile in any holy or unholy, clean or unclean respect.
[Sidenote: The children of Israel a figure of the Israel, or people, of
God only under the gospel.]
Fifthly—not only to speak of all, but to select one or two more—this
people of Israel in that national state were a type of all the children
of God in all ages under the profession of the gospel, who are therefore
called the children of Abraham, and the Israel of God, Gal. iii. and Gal.
vi. [16.] A kingly priesthood and holy nation, 1 Pet. ii. 9, in a clear
and manifest antitype to the former Israel, Exod. xix. 6.