SER M. unto the third and fourth generation; That III. is, Upon a People under a national covenant, and Bleffed or beloved (as St Paul fpeaks) for the Fathers fakes, he would for their national irreligion, fend down very Long temporal Judgments. And This threatning has actually been fulfilled upon them in fuch a captivity and fuch a difperfion, as never happened to any other nation upon the Face of the Earth.

AMONG Chriftians, (for the greater part even of Thofe alfo who call themfelves Chriftians, have for many Ages been Idolaters, as the Kingdom of Ifrael had been before;) Among Chriftians, I fay, the introducing This Vice, has not only corrupted the Simplicity of the Gospel, but has alfo greatly encouraged all immorality, by making Superftition an equivalent inftead of a virtuous Life; and particularly it has been the cause of infinite Cruelties and Perfecutions among Christians, in order to fupport tyranny and Superstition; infomuch that even of the Chriftian Church it is prophefied in Scripture, that in her feculd be found

the

the blood of Saints and of Prophets, and SER M. of all that are flain upon the Earth. For III. our deliverance from this tyranny by the n Reformation, we can never be too thankful; nor ever fufficiently careful, to guard against every appearance of approaching towards it again.

F10

SERMON IV.

Of the ETERNITY of GOD.

SALO

REV. i. 8.

I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, faith the Lord; which is, and which was, and which is to come, The Almighty.

HESE words are a defcrip-SER M. tion of the Perfon of the IV. God and Father of All, from the Primary Attributes of his Nature, and from the Part which he is reprefented to bear peculiarly in delivering This Prophecy.

T

IV.

SERM. In the giving of This Prophecy, he is Alpha and Omega, the First Author and the laft End of all. For the whole Prophecy is, The Revelation of Jefus Christ, which God, [that is, the Father,] gave unto him, ver. 10. And the manner of his giving it, is very elegantly defcribed, ch. iv. and v. by a reprefentation of God fitting upon a Throne, Supreme over all; and giving unto the Lamb a Book, which none other but He, in Heaven or on Earth, was worthy to open. Likewife abfolutely, with regard to his Proper Nature, the primary Attributes of the God and Father of All, are; He is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the first Author and Fountain from whom all things originally proceed, and the ultimate End in whom all things finally terminate; He is, "which is, and which was, and which " is to come," eternal of himself by abfolute neceffity of Nature, being derived from None, begotten of None, proceeding from None. Laftly, He is, The Almighty, Supreme abfolutely over all; For fo the word in the Original Properly fignifies; including every one of

the