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methods, political or religious, of thy own devifing, and in the multitude of thy mighty men. Amos viii. 14. The manner, the way, i. e. the religious conftitution, of Beersheba liveth, fubfifts, flourisheth, notwithstanding the oppofition made to it. nwy fignifies to constitute, or dain, appoint, difpofe. Num. xxviii. 6. 2 Chron, ii. 11. Pfal. civ. 19. Eccl. iii. 11.

Hence Ways and Works fignify the appointments, conftitutions, or Difpenfations of God. By which are meant, "The schemes or me"thods devifed or contrived by the wifdom and goodness of God, to ❝ difcover, or fhew himself, his nature and will, his beneficence, holi"nefs and justice, to the minds of his rational creatures, for their in" ftruction, difcipline and reformation, in order to promote their hap"pinefs." These are the great ends of the Divine Difpenfations; and these the principal points to be attended to, in the explications of

them.

The great God, for ever to be adored, hath actually given existence to a world of moral agents, fuch as we are. He therefore is our Father, and we are his offspring, whom he hath created in love, that in a right and virtuous ufe of our rational powers, we may be qualified for honour and enjoyment in the heavenly world. This feems to be the highest defign the Divine Goodness can form, and the higheft excellency to which our nature can attain. And this may be confidered as the basis of all the Divine Difpenfations from the beginning of the world. For without pious and virtuous difpofitions we cannot be qualified for honour and enjoyment. But pious and virtuous difpofitions cannot be forced upon us, by any external power whatever; they muft, in some degree, be the effect of our own attention and choice. It is, therefore, becoming the Father of our Spirits, and fuitable to beings of our capacities and circumftances, that proper means be provided for our inftruction and difcipline. For inftance, as God is not the object of any. of our fenfes, and can be feen only by our underftandings, it is proper that he should set before us, in the frame and furniture of the world, fuch vifible and various difplays of his Being, Power, Wisdom, Juftice, and kind Regards, as may engage our attention, difcover his eternal Godhead, and lead us to the acknowledgment, adoration, love, and dutiful obedience of our Creator, Father, and Benefactor. These are the works, the difpenfations, or conftitutions of Nature; whereby our Father, as in a glafs held before our eyes and thoughts, has fhewn himfelf to us for our inftruction in piety and virtue.

But befides the conftitution of univerfal Nature, there are a variety of difpenfations, which are more immediately relative to mankind. As the being born of parents, to fupply the feveral generations of the world, whence refult fundry relations and duties; the being fuftained by food, covered and sheltered by clothes and habitations, healed by phyficians, taught by the learned and skilful; the infirmities, appetites, and paffions of our conftitution; the forming focieties for mutual help and commerce; the inftitution of government, or the fubordination of fome to the authority of others, for preferving good order, for the protection of virtue, and the restraint and punishment of vice. Add to thefe, wars, pefti

lence,

lence, famine, earthquakes, and fuch like events; all thefe may be reckoned among the Divine Appointments, or Dispensations; some for the exercise of our rational powers in right action; fome for difcipline, correction, and reformation; but none merely for deftruction, except where reformation cannot be effected.

But thofe Ways, or Difpenfations, which in Scripture are confidered as the great hinges of Divine Providence, on which his dealings with mankind have turned; or, as the principal events, by which the great purposes and councils of God's will have been executed, are chiefly to be attended unto. Because right conceptions of thefe, under their feveral views, circumftances, and connexions, will greatly contribute to the explaining of Scripture-Theology, and alfo mark out the proper order and method, in which it may be ftudied. Let us therefore here, at first fetting out, take a general furvey of them.

I. The Creation of the World, as above.

II. The Formation of Man after the Image of God.

III. Man, being created capable of enjoying the honours and felicity of heaven, was to be disciplined and proved, in order to his being confirmed in the habits of virtue and holiness; without which, neither man, nor any other rational being, can be fit to fee, or enjoy, the Lord. Accordingly, the first most remarkable of God's works, in the newlycreated world, was to put the Man, whom he had formed, upon a trial fuitable to his circumstances.

IV. Under which trial, man, yielding to temptation, finned, and fo became fubjected to the threatening of eternal death.

V. Which heavy doom, God, not willing to deftroy his creature, was pleased in mercy, not only to mitigate, but alfo, man having altered his moral ftate, thought fit to introduce a new difpenfation of grace, in. the hands of a Mediator; at the same time, subjecting the human race to a laborious life, to difeafes, and to death temporal; and this, in much goodness, to fubdue the fleshly Principle, to give a tafte of the bitter fruits of fin, to prevent the opportunities and occafions of it; and, by increafing the vanity of the creature, to turn his regards more fteadily to the all-fufficient Creator.

VI. But men multiplying in the earth, abused the grace of God, and in about 1656 years time became fo wicked, that all flesh had corrupted his way, and the earth was filled with violence. Then, to purge the world from iniquity, and to recover it to a state of righteousness, God created a new thing in the earth, and, by a deluge of water, deftroyed that wicked generation, preferving the only Family that remained uncorrupt in the old world, in order to propagate piety and virtue in the new. fame time, and for the fame good purposes, he reduced human life into much narrower bounds.

VII. Not long after the deluge, to prevent a fecond general corruption, God introduced another difpenfation, by confounding the language of mankind; which divided the world into feveral diftinct focieties, and, confequently, kept them under a stricter government, and better preferved their liberties, than if the world had been one great Empire. VIII. Thus the outrage of violence and rapine was, in a good meafure, cured. But now mankind fall into a different iniquity, namely,

that

that of idolatry; whereby, within 400 years after the flood, the worship and knowledge of the one fupreme God was in danger of being utterly loft. To prevent this, the Divine Wisdom erected a new difpenfation by calling Abraham from among his idolatrous kindred, and conftituting his family the ftorehouse and standard of divine knowledge. To them he fpake and revealed himself at fundry times, and in divers manners, and separated them from the rest of the world, by peculiar laws and religious ceremonies, to fecure them from the idolatrous practices of their neighbours. Thus they became God's peculiar people, diftinguished above all other nations, but with a view to the future great benefit of all nations. And to this day, bleffed be God, we experience the happy effects of this noble scheme, and owe to it both our Bible, and the very being of the Gospel church.

IX. The family of Abraham, by the divine conduct, was led into Egypt. And when they had been there, under grievous oppreffion, 215 years, and were grown numerous enough to be a nation, God fet himfelf at the head of them, as their King. And, in a country much efteemed for learning and arts, whither men of genius and curiofity reforted from all other parts, upon this ftage, fo proper, because fo public, God, as the king of Ifrael, combated the king of Egypt, and his fictitious gods, and difplayed his infinitely fuperior power both to deftroy and to fave, by many plagues inflicted upon the land of Egypt, and by bringing out the Ifraelites in oppofition to all the forces of the king, and all the obftacles of nature, and fettling them, after they had been fufficiently difciplined in the wilderness, in the land of Canaan. Here God fet up his peculiar kingdom amongst them; and they alone of all the nations of the earth were the fubjects of it, and happy in its fingular privileges and bleffings; but, at the fame time, were exercised with various providential difpenfations. The general rule of which, was this while they adhered to the worship of the true God, they were always profperous; when they declined to idolatry, they were either oppreffed at home, or carried captive into other countries.

X. The long captivity in Babylon was not only a punishment to the Jews, but also a mean of publishing the knowledge of the true God over all the Babylonish empire, as appears very evidently in the Book of Daniel. And the divifion of the Grecian empire, which put an end to the Perfian, after the death of Alexander, caused a new difperfion of the Jews, especially into Afia minor, Syria, Egypt, Cyrene, and Lybia, where their fynagogues were very common. And lastly, when they were fubjected to the Roman power, their God and religion became more known over all the Roman empire. Thus the way for the kingdom of the Meffiah was gradually prepared. For though the knowledge of God, received from the Jews, made no public reformation of Pagan idolatry, yet it greatly difpofed men to receive the Gospel when it fhould be preached unto them. Some became Jews, many renounced idolatry, and worshipped no other but the living and true God, who, in the Acts of the Apoftles, are called, devout Profelytes, Greeks, thofe. that feared God.

XI. Thus we are brought to the coming of Chrift, who came in the fulnefs of Time; for he came as foon as God, by the various methods of his

pro

providence, had prepared the world to receive him. When God had made ready a people prepared for him, then Chrift came, and fully explained the nature, laws, extent, and glory of the kingdom of God, and fulfilled the great and most excellent defigns of divine wifdom, by giving himself a facrifice and propitiation for the fin of the world.

XII. Then the great mystery of God, the calling of other nations, befides the Jews, into his kingdom and church, was opened, and made manifeft by the preaching of the Gofpel. For which purpofe, he fent out his apoftles, furnished with proper powers and credentials, efpecially the gift of tongues, whereby they were enabled to communicate the wonderful things of God to people of different countries. And by this means, the glad tidings of falvation, and the glorious light and privileges of the Gofpel, have reached even to us in Great-Britain, who dwell in the uttermoft parts of the earth.

XIII. But as Christ came to reftore, to explain, and by the most glorious discoveries, and the richest promises, to enforce the law of nature, the true religion of all nations; and confequently, as his defign was to erect an univerfal religion, which should recommend itself to all people, under their feveral political distinctions, and which, therefore, was to interfere with no political eftablishments, but fhould leave them, in every country, juft as it found them, teaching the nations. only to obferve the eternal rules of righteousness in the hope of eternal Jife; I fay, upon this grand, noble, and extenfive plan, the Jewish polity would be funk to a level with all other national governments; and the Jew, on account of any prior national advantages, would have no more claim to the bleffings and privileges of the kingdom of God, than any of the Gentiles, or nations, who, in any of the moft barbarous and defpifed parts of the earth, should receive the faith of the Gospel. For in the Chriftian religion there is neither Greek nor few, circumcifion nor uncircumcifion, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Chrift, i. e. the faith and obedience, or true religion, which Chrift taught, is all, and in all, Col. iii. 11. Thus the few is fallen from his fuperior claims and privileges; and he falls by that very method of divine wifdom and grace, which brought falvation to all other nations. Thus the diminishing of the Jews is the riches of the world, and the cafting away of them is the reconciling of the world, (Rom. xi. 12, 15.) of the opening a door for the whole world to come into the peculiar kingdom of God.

This is the idea we ought to have of the rejection of the Jews. The grace of God was, and ftill is, as free to them as to other people, upon their embracing the Gofpel; but their political conftitution from henceforth gave them no diftinction, or privileges in the kingdom of God, above the rest of mankind. And in no long time after the publication of the Gofpel, their polity and civil conftitution, which otherwise would have remained in full force, and have obliged them to obey its laws, as much as the conftitutions of the other kingdoms of the world obliged their feveral fubjects, was quite overthrown, by the deftruction of the temple, and the expulfion of the Jews out of the land of Canaan. Which they have not been able to recover, but remain difperfed over the face of the whole earth to this day. Thus the Gospel difpenfation was erected, and spread and prevailed every where.

XIV. The

XIV. The next of God's works was the permitting and managing a grand apoftacy and corruption of religion in the chriftian church, foretold by the Apofties, and at large in the book of the Revelation. After the apostles were removed out of the world, it pleafed God to leave the profeffors of the Gospel, in matters of religion, to their own ignorance, paffions and prepoffeffions. Thus the chriftian faith, by degrees, was depraved, till the Man of Sin arose, a tyrannical, ufurped power, domineering over, and impofing upon confcience, forbidding the ufe of understanding, and intoxicating the inhabiters of the earth with falfe and delufive learning, worldly pomp and fplendor, religious forcery, and cruel perfecution of the truth. This, as it was the propereft mean of producing the most eminent and nobleft characters, was to be a long and fevere trial of the faith and patience of the faints. In the times of this fad difpenfation, it is certain, we are now living; but, we hope, towards the latter end of it. Through the whole courfe of it God hath variously appeared, both in wrath upon the corrupters of religion, and in mercy for the comfort and fupport of thofe who oppofed it. And thus the wheele providence moved on, till the morning of reformation appeared in ou. Sappy land, which, for fome centuries, hath been gradually advancing, and still continues to advance, towards the perfect day. For a fpirit of religious liberty, which hath been long oppreffed, revives and gains ftrength, the fcriptures are more carefully ftudied, ecclefiaftical tyranny and perfecution, under every form, more generally detefted; and things feem to have a tendency towards love, unity, and concord, the most perfect state of religion in this world.

XV. This must give pleasure to every good man, and he will cheerfelly join his endeavours to bring on the next glorious difpenfation, which we have in profpect, when the mystery of God, with regard to the aforesaid corrupt ftate of religion, fhall be finished; when Babylon, in all its principles and powers, fhall fall; when the holy city, the new Jerufalem, fhall come down from Heaven, and God fhall fet up a pure and happy state of the church.

XVI. How long that state will continue, we do not certainly know. Nor have we any further clear difcoveries of God's works till the awful day of the refurrection, when the Lord himself fhall in perfon defcend from heaven with a fhout, with the voice of the arch-angel, and the trump of God. Then all they that fleep in the dust of the earth fball awake, and fhall be judged, fome to everlasting life, and fome to fhame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wife, under any of the changes and difpenfations of this prefent world, fhall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that work together with God, and endeavour to turn many to righteousness, as the jars, for ever and ever.

Thus I have given a fketch of the works of God from the beginning of the world to the confummation of all things. And very beautiful and surprifing would the whole appear, could we fee them in a full and clear light. But before we attempt a more particular explication of them in their feveral views, circumftances, and connexions, we muft make a few general remarks, which will affift our conceptions and inquiries.

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