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glory and favour of God; the fubjective ingredients, divine light, peace, love, with all the holy difpofitions belonging to the new heart; the principal efficient cause, the Spirit of God; the outward means, the word of God, and the ordinances of his worship, making his people joyful in his house of prayer, If. lvi. 7.; all which blessings are entirely different from outward profperity and greatness, and very consistent with the want of it. If fome passages in the prophecies relate to particular feafons, when God would give relief from perfecution, and make his people taste of the comforts of outward tranquillity; seeing such events have actually happened in various times and places, and that in fuch a manner as has shown that it was the doing of the Lord, it was very fit that such things should have been foretold, though they are far from being the Meffiah's chief benefits. If some predictions concerning the outward tranquillity of the church, are not yet fulfilled, this is no just objection, as was observed before, against other predictions that are fulfilled. And the notion of a temporal Meffiah will be still farther refuted, in considering prophecies which foretell the perfecutions of the gospel-church at her first erection, and in after ages.

Though the effential glory and gracious purpofes of God are always the fame; yet as the manifestations of the glory and favour of God, and our apprehenfions and impreffions of these things, admit of very different degrees, the highest degree conftituting the heavenly blessedness; so the prophets give much the fame account with the apostles, of the fuperiority of the new above the old difpensation, in respect of more abundant measures of divine light and peace, holiness and joy.

As to the light of divine knowledge, the prophets foretell, that in the times of the Meffiah that light would not only be more diffusive, in extending to the Gentile nations, but also more full and clear

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clear. In Jeremiah's description, chap. xxxi. 34. which is one of the most remarkable descriptions of God's new covenant, and upon the matter the same with the new teftament, or new dispensation of God's covenant in the last days, one of the principal things infitted on is a fuperior measure of divine knowledge by virtue of a divine teaching. And in various prophecies formerly cited, the times of the Meffiah are extolled as times when God's righteoufnefs and falvation should be revealed, If. lvi. 1.; when the righteousness of Zion should break forth as brightness, and the falvation thereof as a lamp that burneth, If. Ixii. 1.; when the glory of the Lord should arife on Zion, If. lx. i.; and when the Sun of righteousness should arife with healing in his wings, Mal. iv. 2.

As that light, which was to be far more clear, as well as more extensive, in the times of the Meffiah, was to be a light, discovering God's incomprehenfible mercy and grace to finners, and fo caufing God's righteousness and falvation to break forth as brightness, it is evident, that it behoved fuperior measures of fuch light to tend to greater degrees of the most folid peace and pureft joy. Accordingly, in If. liv. 13. great measures of divine peace are mentioned as the effect of divine knowledge and instruction: and in other prophecies formerly cited, we are told, that the chastisement of our peace would be laid on the Meffiah, If. liii. 5.; that he himself would be the prince of peace; that of the increase of his government and peace there would be no end, If. ix. 6. 7.; that his people should go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; that the mountains and hills should break forth into finging before them, and all the trees of the field clap their hands, If. Iv. 12; that in his days the righteous should flourish, and abundance of peace, fo long as the moon endureth, Pf. lxxii. 7 *. Such increase

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* See Pf. cx. 4. and Hebr. vii. 1.

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and abundance of divine peace, is the native fruit, not only of fuperior measures of divine light, difcovering the grounds of the finner's peace, hope, and joy, but alfo of the actual accomplishment of the promises concerning divers glorious caufes of peace and falvation; particularly the Meffiah's facrifice, finishing the tranfgreffion, making an end of fins, and making reconciliation for iniquity; opening a fountain for taking away fin and uncleanness, and of the promises concerning his intercefsion as a high priest for ever at the right hand of the Majesty on high, Pf. cx. 4. Heb. i. 3. and of larger measures of the divine Spirit, giving efficacy to the most perfect divine revelation.

As the Apostle Paul calls the New-Teftament dif pensation, not only the ministration of life and righteousness, but also of the Spirit, 2 Cor. iii. 6. 8.9. the prophets give the fame view of that dif pensation, when they speak of the times of the Mefsiah, as times when, in an eminent manner, the Spirit would be poured down from on high, so as to make the wilderness become a fruitful field, If. xxxii. 15. And in If. xliv. 3. after these metaphorical expreffions, " I will pour water upon him that " is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground," a plain explication of these metaphors is added in the following words; "I will pour my fpirit upon thy "feed, and my bleffing on thine offspring; and "they shall spring up as - willows by the water"courses." Seeing, therefore, it is an uncontested rule of interpretation, That the words of any writer should be understood according to his own definition or explication of them, in case he give any such explication, it follows, that prophetic figures, about pouring down waters and floods, If. xxxv. 7. xli. 18. mutt fignify God's pouring down

☐ the influences or operations of his Spirit, as well as the inftructions of his word. And as, in the prophecy now cited, pouring down waters and floods

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floods evidently denotes new plenty, or abundance of the bleffing promised; fo in lf. lix. 21. we have a clear proof, that the promise of the divine Spirit is not confined to the first age of the gospel-church, feeing it is faid exprefsly, "This is my covenant "with them, faith the Lord, My spirit that is up"on thee, and my words which I have put in thy "mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor " out of the mouth of thy feed, nor out of the " mouth of thy feeds feed, faith the Lord, from " henceforth and for ever." As these words may reafonably be conceived spoken to the Meffiah, who is mentioned by the name of the Redeemer in the preceding verse, and whose people are called his feed, If. 53.; so the prophecies which speak of the Meffiah, as filled with the divine Spirit, If. lxi. 1. 2. 3. speak of him as qualified, by that means, for communicating the fruits of the Spirit to his people. New degrees of the inward operations of divine grace, or of the divine Spirit, are included in Jeremiah's account of the new covenant, or new dif penfation, when he defcribes it by promifes of God's putting his law in mens inward parts, and writing it on their hearts. Though some measures of the fanctifying grace of God's Spirit were bestowed under the old difpenfation, as is evident, besides other arguments, from scripture-prayers concerning that bleffing; yet that larger measures of it should be the diftinguishing privilege of the new difpenfation is hinted even in the words of Mofes, Deut. xxx. 6. where circumcifing the heart, in order to mens loving God with the whole heart, is mentioned as a bleffing belonging to the latter days; which must be understood of greater degrees of that ineftimable benefit.

This leads us to confider the prophetic account of future blessedness: for though that doctrine is not by far fo fully or so clearly revealed in the Old Teftament as in the New, by which life and immor. tality are faid to be brought to light, or more clearly discovered; yet, besides various paffges which either contain direct affertions, or come very near to direct afsfertions, of that doctrine, there are many instructions in the Old Testament from which that doctrine may be inferred by neceffary confequence; and that not only by more remote consequences from more general views of the divine perfections, but more immediate confequences from the divine promises. And as to the general question, Why the Old Testament does not reveal this doctrine more fully and clearly? it is fufficient here to refer to what is faid in another part of this Effay, about the comparative obfcurity of the Old Testament in general.

The passages in the Old Testament which speak more directly of a blessed immortality, may be ufefully divided into those that speak particularly of the refurrection of the body, and those that speak only in general of a state of future blessedness after death. One of the most remarkable passages of the first fort is in Job xix. 25. 26. &c. where Job affirms in the strongest manner, that though the worms should destroy his skin and his body, and though his reins should be confumed within him, yet he should fee God, his Redeemer; he should fee him in his flesh; he should fee him for himself, and his eyes should behold him, and not another (for him); he should fee him standing on the earth at the latter day: which expreffions contain a very strong affertion of the reunion of the foul and body at the last day. And this literal meaning of Job's words is much confirmed by the uncommon folemnity of the introduction, y 23.24. "Oh that my " words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead, in the rock for ever! For "I know that my redeemer liveth," &c.

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