life: blessings and curses of all sorts opened at large, Lev. xxvi. and
Deut. xxviii., which cannot possibly be made good in any state, country,
or kingdom, but in a spiritual sense in the church and kingdom of Christ.
[Sidenote: The spiritual prosperity of God’s people now, the antitype.]
The reason is this: such a temporal prosperity of outward peace and
plenty of all things, of increase of children, of cattle, of honour, of
health, of success, of victory, suits not temporally with the afflicted
and persecuted estate of God’s people now: and therefore spiritual and
soul-blessedness must be the antitype, viz., in the midst of revilings,
and all manner of evil speeches for Christ’s sake, soul-blessedness. In
the midst of afflictions and persecutions, soul-blessedness, Matt. v. and
Luke vi. And yet herein the Israel of God should enjoy their spiritual
peace, Gal. vi. 16.
[Sidenote: What Israel’s excommunication was.]
Out of that blessed temporal estate to be cast, or carried captive, was
their excommunication or casting out of God’s sight, 2 Kings xvii. 23.
Therefore was the blasphemer, the false prophet, the idolater, to be cast
out or cut off from this holy land: which punishment cannot be paralleled
by the punishment of any state or kingdom in the world, but only by the
excommunicating or out-casting of person or church from the fellowship of
the saints and churches of Christ Jesus in the gospel.
[Sidenote: The corporal stoning in the law, typed out spiritual stoning
in the gospel.]
And therefore, as before I have noted, the putting away of the false
prophet, by stoning him to death, Deut. xiii., is fitly answered, and
that in the very same words, in the antitype: when, by the general
consent or stoning of the whole assembly, any wicked person is put away
from amongst them, that is, spiritually cut off out of the land of the
spiritually living, the people or church of God, 1 Cor. v., Gal. v.
[Sidenote: The rewards or punishments of the laws of Israel not to be
paralleled.]
Lastly, the great and high reward or punishment of the keeping or breach
of these laws to Israel, was such as cannot suit with any state or
kingdom in the world beside. The reward of the observation was life,
eternal life. The breach of any one of these laws was death, eternal
death, or damnation from the presence of the Lord. So Rom. x., James ii.
Such a covenant God made not before nor since with any state or people
in the world. For, _Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
every one that believeth_, Rom. x. 4. And, _he that believeth in that Son
of God, hath eternal life; he that believeth not hath not life, but is
condemned already_, John iii. and 1 John v.
CHAP. CXXII.
[Sidenote: The wars of Israel typical.]
_Peace._ Dear Truth, you have most lively set forth the unparalleled
state of that typical land and people of the Jews in their peace and
quiet government: let me now request you, in the last place, to glance at
the difference of the wars of this people from the wars of other nations,
and of their having no antitype but the churches of Christ Jesus.
[Sidenote: Israel’s enemies round about.]
[_Truth._] First, all nations round about Israel, more or less, some
time or other, had indignation against this people—Egyptians, Edomites,
Moabites, Ammonites, Midians, Philistines, Assyrians, and Babylonians,
&c., as appears in the history of Moses, Samuel, Judges, and Kings, and
in all the prophets: you have an express catalogue of them, Ps. lxxxiii.,
sometimes many hundred thousand enemies in pitched field against them: of
Ethiopians ten hundred thousand at once in the days of Asa, 2 Chron. xiv.
[9,] and at other times as the sand upon the sea shore.
[Sidenote: The enemies of mystical Israel.]
Such enemies the Lord Jesus foretold his Israel, The world shall hate
you, John xv. [18, 19.] You shall be hated of all men for my name’s
sake, Matt. xxiv. [9.] All that will live godly in Christ Jesus must be
persecuted, or hunted, 2 Tim. iii. [12.] And not only by flesh and blood,
but also by principalities, powers, spiritual wickedness in high places,
Eph. vi. [12,] by the whole pagan world under the Roman emperors, and the
whole anti-christian world under the Roman popes, Rev. xii. and xiii., by
the kings of the earth, Rev. xvii. And Gog and Magog, like the sand upon
the shore, (Rev. xx.)
_Peace._ Such enemies, such armies, no history, no experience proves ever
to have come against one poor nation as against Israel in the type; and
never was nor shall be known to come against any state or country now,
but the Israel of God, the spiritual Jews, Christ’s true followers in all
parts and quarters of the world.
[Sidenote: Enemies against Israel in her own bowels.]
[_Truth._] Beside all these without, Israel is betrayed within her own
bowels: bloody Sauls, Absaloms, Shebas, Adonijahs, Jeroboams, Athaliahs,
raising insurrections, conspiracies, tumults, in the antitype and
parallel, the spiritual state of the Christian church.
Secondly, consider we the famous and wonderful battles, victories,
captivities, deliverances, which it pleased the God of Israel to dispense
to that people and nation, and let us search if they can be paralleled by
any state or people, but mystically and spiritually the true Christian
Israel of God, Gal. vi. 16.
[Sidenote: The famous typical captivities of the Jews.]
How famous was the bondage and slavery of that people and nation 430
years in the land of Egypt, and as famous, glorious, and miraculous was
their return through the Red Sea, a figure of baptism, 1 Cor. x. [2,] and
Egypt a figure of an Egypt now, Rev. xi. 8.
How famous was the seventy years’ captivity of the Jews in Babel,
transported from the land of Canaan, and at the full period returned
again to Jerusalem, a type of the captivity of God’s people now,
spiritually captivated in spiritual Babel, Rev. xviii. 4.
[Sidenote: Their wonderful victories.]
Time would fail me to speak of Joshua’s conquest of literal Canaan, the
slaughter of thirty-one kings, of the miraculous taking of Jericho and
other cities: Gideon’s miraculous battle against the Midianites: Jonathan
and his armour-bearer against the Philistines: David, by his five smooth
stones against Goliah: Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, their mighty and
miraculous victories against so many hundred thousand enemies, and that
sometimes without a blow given.
What state, what kingdom, what wars and combats, victories and
deliverances, can parallel this people, but the spiritual and mystical
Israel of God in every nation and country of the world, typed out by that
small typical handful, in that little spot of ground, the land of Canaan?
[Sidenote: The mystical battles of God’s Israel now.]
The Israel of God now, men and women, fight under the great Lord General,
the Lord Jesus Christ: their weapons, armour, and artillery, are like
themselves, spiritual, set forth from top to toe, Eph. vi.; so mighty and
so potent that they break down the strongest holds and castles, yea, in
the very souls of men, and carry into captivity the very thoughts of men,
subjecting them to Christ Jesus. They are spiritual conquerors, as in all
the seven churches of Asia, _He that overcometh_: _He that overcometh_,
Rev. ii. and iii.
Their victories and conquests in this country are contrary to those
of this world, for when they are slain and slaughtered, yet then they
conquer. So overcame they the devil in the Roman emperors, Rev. xii.
[11,] _By the blood of the Lamb_: 2. _By the word of their testimony_:
3. The cheerful spilling of their own blood for Christ; for _they loved
not their lives unto the death_: and in all this they _are more than
conquerors through him that loved_ them, Rom. viii. 37.
[Sidenote: The mystical army of white troopers, Rev. xix.]
This glorious army of white troopers, horses and harness—Christ Jesus and
his true Israel, Rev. xix.—gloriously conquer and overcome the beast, the
false prophet, and the kings of the earth, up in arms against them, Rev.
xix.; and, lastly, reigning with Christ a thousand years, they conquer
the devil himself, and the numberless armies, like the sand on the sea
shore, of Gog and Magog: and yet not a tittle of mention of any sword,
helmet, breastplate, shield, or horse, but what is spiritual and of a
heavenly nature. All which wars of Israel have been, may be, and shall be
fulfilled mystically and spiritually.
I could further insist on other particulars of Israel’s unparalleled
state, and might display those excellent passages which it pleaseth God
to mention, Neh. ix.
CHAP. CXXIII.
_Peace._ You have, dear Truth, as in a glass, presented the face of old
and new Israel, and as in water face answereth to face, so doth the face
of typical Israel to the face of the antitype, between whom, and not
between Canaan and the civil nations and countries of the world now,
there is an admirable consent and harmony. But I have heard some say, was
not the civil state and judicials of that people precedential?
[Sidenote: Whether the civil state of Israel was precedential.]
_Truth._ I have in part, and might farther discover, that from the king
and his throne to the very beasts, yea, [to] the excrements of their
bodies (as we see in their going to war, Deut. xxiii. 12,) their civils,
morals, and naturals were carried on in types; and however I acknowledge
that what was simply moral, civil, and natural in Israel’s state, in
their constitutions, laws, punishments, may be imitated and followed
by the states, countries, cities, and kingdoms of the world: yet who
can question the lawfulness of other forms of government, laws, and
punishments which differ, since civil constitutions are men’s ordinances
(or creation, 2 Pet. ii. 13), unto which God’s people are commanded even
for the Lord’s sake to submit themselves, which if they were unlawful
they ought not to do?
_Peace._ Having thus far proceeded in examining whether God hath charged
the civil state with the establishing of the spiritual and religious,
what conceive you of that next assertion, viz., “It is well known that
the remissness of princes in Christendom in matters of religion and
worship, devolving the care thereof only to the clergy, and so setting
their horns upon the church’s head, hath been the cause of anti-christian
invention, usurpation, and corruption in the worship and temple of God.”
[Sidenote: The true Christendom.]
_Truth._ It is lamentably come to pass by God’s just permission, Satan’s
policy, the people’s sin, the malice of the wicked against Christ, and
the corruption of princes and magistrates, that so many inventions,
usurpations, and corruptions are risen in the worship and temple of God,
throughout that part of the world which is called Christian, and may most
properly be called the pope’s Christendom in opposition to Christ Jesus’s
true Christian commonweal, or church, the true Christendom; but that
this hath arisen from princes’ remissness in not keeping their watch to
establish the purity of religion, doctrine, and worship, and to punish,
according to Israel’s pattern, all false ministers, by rooting them and
their worships out of the world, that, I say, can never be evinced; and
the many thousands of glorious souls under the altar whose blood hath
been spilt by this position, and the many hundred thousand souls, driven
out of their bodies by civil wars, and the many millions of souls forced
to hypocrisy and ruin eternal, by enforced uniformities in worship, will
to all eternity proclaim the contrary.
[Sidenote: Great unfaithfulness in ministers to cast the chiefest burden
of judging and establishing true Christianity upon the commonweal or
world itself.]
Indeed, it shows a most injurious idleness and unfaithfulness in such as
profess to be messengers of Christ Jesus, to cast the heaviest weight
of their care upon the kings and rulers of the earth, yea, upon the
very commonweals, bodies of people, that is, the world itself, who have
fundamentally in themselves the root of power, to set up what government
and governors they shall agree upon.
Secondly, it shows abundance of carnal diffidence and distrust of the
glorious power and gracious presence of the Lord Jesus, who hath given
his promise and word to be with such his messengers to the end of the
world, Matt. xxviii. 20.
That dog that fears to meet a man in the path, runs on with boldness at
his master’s coming and presence at his back.
[Sidenote: To govern and judge in civil affairs load enough on the civil
magistrate. Magistrates can have no more power than the common consent of
the people shall betrust them with.]
Thirdly, what imprudence and indiscretion is it in the most common
affairs of life, to conceive that emperors, kings, and rulers of the
earth, must not only be qualified with political and state abilities to
make and execute such civil laws which may concern the common rights,
peace, and safety, which is work and business, load and burden enough for
the ablest shoulders in the commonweal; but also furnished with such
spiritual and heavenly abilities to govern the spiritual and Christian
commonweal, the flock and church of Christ, to pull down, and set up
religion, to judge, determine, and punish in spiritual controversies,
even to death or banishment. And, beside, that not only the several sorts
of civil officers, which the people shall choose and set up, must be so
authorized, but that all respective commonweals or bodies of people are
charged (much more) by God with this work and business, radically and
fundamentally, because all true civil magistrates, have not the least
inch of civil power, but what is measured out to them from the free
consent of the whole: even as a committee of parliament cannot further
act than the power of the house shall arm and enable them.
[Sidenote: Thousands of lawful magistrates, who never hear of the true
church of God.]
Concerning that objection which may arise from the kings of Israel and
Judah, who were born members of God’s church, and trained up therein all
their days, which thousands of lawful magistrates in the world, possibly
born and bred in false worships, pagan or anti-christian, never heard of,
and were therein types of the great anointed, the King of Israel, I have
spoken sufficiently to such as have an ear to hear: and therefore,
[Sidenote: The spiritual and civil sword cannot be managed by one and the
same person. The Lord Jesus refused to manage both.]
Lastly, so unsuitable is the commixing and entangling of the civil with
the spiritual charge and government, that (except it was for subsistence,
as we see in Paul and Barnabas working with their own hands) the Lord
Jesus, and his apostles, kept themselves to one. If ever any in this
world was able to manage both the spiritual and civil, church and
commonweal, it was the Lord Jesus, wisdom itself: yea, he was the true
heir to the crown of Israel, being the son of David: yet being sought for
by the people to be made a king, John vi. [15,] he refused, and would not
give a precedent to any king, prince, or ruler, to manage both swords,
and to assume the charge of both tables.
Now concerning princes, I desire it may be remembered, who were most
injurious and dangerous to Christianity, whether Nero, Domitian, Julian,
&c., persecutors: or Constantine, Theodosius, &c., who assumed this power
and authority in and over the church in spiritual things. It is confessed
by the answerer and others of note, that under these latter, the church,
the Christian state, religion, and worship, were most corrupted: under
Constantine, Christians fell asleep on the beds of carnal ease and
liberty; insomuch that some apply to his times that sleep of the church,
Cant. v. 2, _I sleep, though mine heart waketh._[225]
CHAP. CXXIV.
_Peace._ Yea; but some will say, this was not through their assuming of
this power, but the ill-managing of it.
_Truth._ Yet are they commonly brought as the great precedents for
all succeeding princes and rulers in after ages: and in this very
controversy, their practices are brought as precedential to establish
persecution for conscience.
[Sidenote: Who force the consciences of others, yet are not willing to be
forced themselves.]
Secondly, those emperors and other princes and magistrates acted in
religion according to their consciences’ persuasion, and beyond the light
and persuasion of conscience can no man living walk in any fear of God.
Hence have they forced their subjects to uniformity and conformity unto
their own consciences, whatever they were, though not willing to have
been forced themselves in the matters of God and conscience.
[Sidenote: Constantine and others wanted not so much affection as
information of conscience.]
Thirdly, had not the light of their eye of conscience, and the
consciences also of their teachers, been darkened, they could not have
been condemned for want of heavenly affection, rare devotion, wonderful
care and diligence, propounding to themselves the best patterns of the
kings of Judah, David, Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Josiah, Hezekiah. But
here they lost the path, and themselves, in persuading themselves to be
the parallels and antitypes to those figurative and typical princes:
whence they conceived themselves bound to make their cities, kingdoms,
empires, new holy lands of Canaan, and themselves governors and judges in
spiritual causes, compelling all consciences to Christ, and persecuting
the contrary with fire and sword.
[Sidenote: Sad consequences of charging the civil powers with the care of
spirituals.]
Upon these roots, how was, how is it possible, but that such bitter
fruits should grow of corruption of Christianity, persecution of such
godly who happily see more of Christ than such rulers themselves: their
dominions and jurisdictions being overwhelmed with enforced dissimulation
and hypocrisy, and (where power of resistance) with flames of civil
combustion: as at this very day, he that runs may read and tremble at?
_Peace._ They add further, that the princes of Christendom setting their
horns upon the church’s head, have been the cause of anti-christian
inventions, &c.
[Sidenote: Civil rulers giving and lending their horns or authority to
bishops, both dangerous to the truth of Christ. The spiritual power of
the Lord Jesus compared in scripture to the incomparable horn of the
rhinoceros.]
_Truth._ If they mean that the princes of Europe, giving their power and
authority to the seven-headed and ten-horned beast of Rome, have been
the cause, &c., I confess it to be one concurring cause: yet withal it
must be remembered, that even before such princes set their horns, or
authority, upon the beast’s head, even when they did, as I may say, but
lend their horns to the bishops, even then rose up many anti-christian
abominations. And though I confess there is but small difference, in
some respects, between the setting their horns upon the priests’ heads,
whereby they are enabled immediately to push and gore whoever cross their
doctrine and practice, and the lending of their horns, that is, pushing
and goring such themselves, as are declared by their bishops and priests
to be heretical, as was and is practised in some countries before and
since the pope rose: yet I confidently affirm, that neither the Lord
Jesus nor his first ordained ministers and churches (gathered by such
ministers), did ever wear, or crave the help of such horns in spiritual
and Christian affairs. The spiritual power of the Lord Jesus in the hands
of his true ministers and churches, according to Balaam’s prophecy, Num.
xxiii., is the horn of that unicorn, or rhinoceros, Ps. xcii. [10,] which
is the strongest horn in the world: in comparison of which the strongest
horns of the bulls of Bashan break as sticks and reeds. History tells us
how that unicorn, or one-horned beast the rhinoceros, took up a bull like
a tennis ball, in the theatre at Rome, before the emperor, according to
that record of the poet:[226]
Quantus erat cornu cui pila taurus erat!
Unto this spiritual power of the Lord Jesus, the souls and thoughts of
the highest kings and emperors must [be] subject, Matt. xvi. and xviii.,
1 Cor. v. and x.
CHAP. CXXV.
_Peace._ Dear Truth, you know the noise is made from those prophecies,
Isaiah xlix. 23, kings and queens shall be nursing fathers, &c., and
Rev. xxi. 24, the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honour
to the new Jerusalem, &c.
[Sidenote: A time when God’s people are wholly at a loss for God’s
worship.]
_Truth._ I answer with that mournful prophet, Ps. lxxiv., I see not that
man, that prophet, that can tell us how long. How many excellent penmen
fight each against other with their pens (like swords) in the application
of those prophecies of David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel,
Zechariah, John, when and how those prophecies shall be fulfilled!
[Sidenote: Nursing fathers and mothers.]
Secondly, whenever those prophecies are fulfilled, yet shall those kings
not be heads, governors, and judges in ecclesiastical or spiritual
causes; but be themselves judged and ruled, if within the church, by the
power of the Lord Jesus therein. Hence saith Isaiah, those kings and
queens shall lick the dust of thy feet, &c.
_Peace._ Some will here ask, What may the magistrate then lawfully do
with his civil horn, or power, in matters of religion?
[Sidenote: The civil horn or power being of a human constitution cannot
but be of a human operation.]
_Truth._ His horn not being the horn of that unicorn, or rhinoceros, the
power of the Lord Jesus in spiritual cases: his sword not the two-edged
sword of the Spirit, the word of God, hanging not about the loins or
side, but at the lips, and proceeding out of the mouth of his ministers,
but of a human and civil nature and constitution; it must consequently
be of a human and civil operation: for who knows not that operation
follows constitution? and therefore I shall end this passage with this
consideration:
[Sidenote: The civil power owes three things to the true church of
Christ.]
The civil magistrate either respecteth that religion and worship which
his conscience is persuaded is true, and upon which he ventures his soul:
or else that and those which he is persuaded are false.
Concerning the first; if that which the magistrate believeth to be true,
be true, I say he owes a threefold duty unto it:
[Sidenote: 1. Approbation.]
First, Approbation and countenance, a reverent esteem and honourable
testimony, according to Isaiah xlix., Rev. xxi., with a tender respect of
truth, and the professors of it.
[Sidenote: 2. Submission.]
Secondly, Personal submission of his own soul to the power of the Lord
Jesus in that spiritual government and kingdom, according to Matt.
xviii., 1 Cor. v.
[Sidenote: 3. Protection.]
Thirdly, Protection of such true professors of Christ, whether apart,
or met together, as also of their estates from violence and injury,
according to Rom. xiii.
[Sidenote: The civil magistrate owes to false worshippers.]
Now secondly, if it be a false religion, unto which the civil magistrate
dare not adjoin: yet, he owes,
[Sidenote: 1. Permission.]
First, Permission, for approbation he owes not to what is evil, and this
according to Matt. xiii. 30, for public peace and quiet’s sake.
[Sidenote: 2. Protection.]
Secondly, he owes protection to the persons of his subjects, though of a
false worship, that no injury be offered either to the persons or goods
of any, Rom. xiii.
_Peace._ Dear Truth, in this eleventh head concerning the magistrates’
power in worship, you have examined what is affirmed the magistrate _may
do_ in point of worship; there remains a second, to wit, that which they
say the magistrate _may not do_ in worship.
They say, “The magistrate may not bring in set forms of prayer: nor
secondly, bring in significant ceremonies: nor thirdly, not govern and
rule the acts of worship in the church of God;” for which they bring an
excellent similitude of a prince or magistrate in a ship, where he hath
no governing power over the actions of the mariners: and secondly, that
excellent prophecy concerning Christ Jesus, that his government should be
upon his shoulders, Isa. ix. 6, 7.