Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAP.

[ocr errors]

Rom. iii.

2.

25.

sanctuary, at two thousand three hundred days. But can the natural man certainly tell whether the Spirit meant the days of man, or of the Lord; or a medium between, that is, two thousand three hundred of his natural years?

28. Which ever way he may take, it can profit him little. He may out-live the first period of six or seven years, and all the good it may bring. The second is entirely out of his reach; nor can he tell where it began, or where it will end: and the third is infinitely beyond his comprehension, being not less than two million, or twenty-three hundred thousand years.

29. The natural man, or the inspired man, (if he chuses to denominate himself so because he has the scriptures before his eyes,) may acknowledge, that he knows nothing about the time, because the Spirit of prophecy, by express declarations, obliges him so to do; yet he imagines that he can tell the event whenever it shall appear; but in this he is equally mistaken.

30. To whom were the prophecies first given? To whom were given the types and shadows of the law and the prophets? Was it not to the Jews? Much every way they had the advantage, saith the apostle.

31. What then? The prophet Daniel had told Dan. ix. them that it should be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks unto Messiah the prince. But how would the scripture-inspired Jew calculate this? Would he call it four hundred and eighty-three natural days? or four hundred and eighty-three years ? or four hundred and eighty-three thousand years? Without the very same Spirit which dictated those numbers, and that in the time of their accomplishment, either way darkness must be his portion.

Mat. xxi

32. Upon the first calculation, he finds nothing to satisfy his mind; his natural senses comprehend all he beholds. The second calculation, he thinks, will bring the Messiah; and the plan he has laid out by his understanding, he thinks, will determine the event whenever it comes to pass.

33. But instead of the Messiah, and the great and xxiv. event he looks for, there comes one Jesus of Nazareth, whom they know, and who is more like a beg

1.

gar than a prince; who called them a generation or CHAP. brood of vipers, denounced woes upon them, foretold the destruction of their city and temple, the abolition of their whole religious system, and their final extinction as a nation.

34. Thus the events of his most reasonable calculations take place, and he knows them not; and beyond this, the calculation of the sixty-nine or seventy weeks must out-run the most distant conception of either Jew or Gentile.

35. The truth is, natural men could never calculate God's times and seasons, they either came too soon or too late; and thus, in all their calculations, they have always placed God at a great distance from the calculator, either in the past or future tense; at so great a distance at least, that there remained no probability of his seeing the day of God's power; and the world have been best satisfied to have it so.

36. They shrink from the thought of their days being numbered, and their enjoyments in nature, being included within the small compass of a generation; and yet, upon their own calculation, themselves being judges, men in a state of nature cannot know the day of God's power; it is out of their sight, as far as eternity is out of sight of time.

37. They cannot see that to which the prophecy alludes, and therefore cannot interpret it. The vision of all is to them like a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, Isi.xxix, I pray thee; and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. 11. And the unlearned cannot read it because they are not learned.

vol. 1. p.

174.

[ocr errors]

38. It is therefore justly observed by Newton, "It Dias. xi. is no wonder that the fathers, norindeed that any one should mistake in particularly applying proph ecies, which had not then received their completion. The fathers might understand the prophecies so far 'as they were fulfilled, but when they ventured farther, they plunged out of their depth, and were 'lost in the abyss of error. Such prophecies can be ' explained only by the events."

39. All this is strictly true, to which it may be added, that when the prophecies received their com

CHAP.

II.

See 2 Pet.

pletion, none could make the just application but such as were in the spirit and truth of their fulfil

ment.

40. The prophecy came not in old time by the will 21, and of man, neither can it be accomplished by his will, Dan... nor agreeable to it; and consequently the time of its accomplishment cannot be dated, nor interpreted to serve his private views; but must be ascertained first of all by the event, and then understood by those who are in it.

[merged small][ocr errors]

CHAPTER II.

The Subject continued.

ECONDLY. The place, in which the work of

entirely out of sight of men in a state of nature, and in its real and full sense cannot possibly be communicated to the natural understanding, even by the spirit of prophecy.

2. The prophets spake of the Lord's descending from heaven, but natural men cannot call Jesus Lord, because his kingdom is not of this world;-for no man, in truth, can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

3. Again, they spake of Jerusalem, as being the place where the kingdom of God was to appear; and of a descendant from David sitting there upon his throne but these prophecies, according to the sense of a natural Jew, could not apply to Christ Jesus, nor to his day.

4. He was not descended of David, nor born in the palace of any of their princes; but begotten out of the ordinary course of nature, and brought forth in a stable; Jerusalem was also in bondage with her children; the sceptre was departed from Judah; and the throne of David laid waste.

5. The city and temple of God had been partic-, ularly described by the prophet Ezekiel, and all the

bounds and limits of the Holy Land round about; and the natural man supposed all those things would be literally established in the land of Canaan, and on the natural mount Zion. But the appearing of Christ, and the work of God, went directly against all such views; therefore natural men, were, in that instance, wholly mistaken as to the place, and why not again?

6. Since that mistake has been discovered, and the natural Canaan put out of the reach of Abraham's natural posterity, some have become a little more spiritual in their understanding, concerning the place of God's throne and kingdom, and have stated it to be the Church.

7. But the churches have become so numerous since this principle was discovered, that in this particular, natural men are more divided and bewildered than ever; and the enquiry, Where Lord? is more than ever out of their reach to determine.

CHAP.

II. .

8. If Christ should appear in one church, all the rest would of course reject him, because he came not where they looked for him. This difficulty was very evident in his first appearing :-They object, Johni. Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?

9. The prejudices of nations, kingdoms, churches, and individuals, are such against each other, that unless God should act contrary to them all, he could not open his kingdom or manifest his work of redemption where none of them expect it. For were it opened and revealed, according to the sagacity of any natural man, church or nation, all the rest would be offended, because they had not been favoured with the first discovery. Such is the very nature of proud

man.

46.

John iv.

10. Therefore the throne of God, and the place of the soles of his feet, are to the natural man, neither at Jerusalem, nor in this mountain; neither in the desert, nor secret chamber; neither here, nor there. It 21. is absolutely hid from the wise and prudent, who Mat. xxiv sought it by their human wisdom, and revealed unto 25,27. spiritual babes.

11. The powers of nature, in relation to God's spiritual work, are as far short of ascertaining Where, as How long. Man, by searching, may find

26, & xi.

II.

CHAP. out where he himself is, in relation to time and things; whether he is in sickness or disgrace; in poverty or debt; whether he is in a healthy country, in a kingdom, commonwealth or republic; whether he is in subjection to the laws of his country, or in secret or open violation of them; whether he is in war or in peace; in his own house or in prison.

12. He may also ascertain the position of other objects in relation to each other. He may know where this earth is, and measure its distance from the sun, and find out all the motions and distances of the moon and planets. The natural heavens and -earth are within the compass of his knowledge; here he may have his god, his favourite object of love, his virtues and vices, his good and evil.

13. But beyond this what doth he know? Can he tell where his soul is, in relation to the true God, and eternal life? Has he any certain knowledge either of the one or the other? What place or thing doth he comprehend beyond the use of his natural senses? Deprive him of seeing, hearing, feeling, and where is he? In a pavilion of profound darkness! 14. By the use of sensible objects, he may form a thousand places and things in his imagination, which never had, nor can have any reality in them. He may imagine a material heaven beyond the fixed stars, and contemplate its coming to this earth at some certain period far distant.

15. He may imagine a resurrection of material bodies, and fancy a union to be formed between that remote heaven and this earth. And when his imagination has been stretched to the utmost, he may correct his own errors, and reject revelation, because he supposed it led him into such unreasonable opinions.

16. Yet after all his fantastic ideas, and consequent disappointments, he will find that the error was not in revelation, because he never had it; but arose out of his own weakness, in trying to bring the sublime things of God within the limits of his own dark and sensual capacity.

17. If then, a material heaven cannot pass down to this earth, through the sphere of the fixed stars, the sun, moon and planets, nor a material body ascend

« PreviousContinue »