they have an Unity in relation to the Houfe, which is all the stress I put this Place to.

But if we rife hence to the Unity of the Mafter of this great Houfe, it will give more Countenance to our Argument.

God is Ŏne. All Men, Reprobates as they are, Called as well as Elect, fhare in relation to this one God, have one and the self-fame God; the Elect have not one God, and the Reprobate another, but one God is God of them both. It is an Argument God ufes in Mal. ii. 10. againft Oppreffion of one another: Have not we all one Father? hath not one God created us ? Yea, the fame good, and kind, and merciful God and Father made all; fo the Apostle to the Ephefians, chap. iv. 6. to conclude the Argument to Unity, brings in this one God and Father of all, which though applied there to Believers, as the former Place in Malachy is to the Jews, yet it is true of all Men, God is the God and Father of ali Men. And doth that afford no Comfort and Hope to Men? It is the great and Crowning Joy of the New Jerufalem, that God himfelf fhall be with them, and be their God, and I will be your God, in the New Covenant, and you fhall be my People. I grant God is especially and peculiarly the God of Believers, yet he is the God of all Men, Believers eminently have the prefent actual Fruit and Comfort of it; but is God the God of any, and is there not a Comfort and Hope in it, firft or laft? Te are of your Father the Devil, faith Chrift to the Jews, that fought to kill him in that Image, in that Spirit they were of the Devil, yet God's Right in them cannot be loft, God is not the Father of Sin, though of the Sinner, he is the God and Father of Sinners, though not as Sinners, but as his Creatures, and in that Rank of Creatures Men: (who made of one Blood all Nations of Men, as Acts xvii, 26.) And the very Heathen by the Light of Nature, did Jay claim to him as his Offspring: And the Holy

.

Ghoft

1

Ghost allows it, faying, Moreover he is not far from every one of us; though we be far in our Minds from him, yet there is fuch a rooted Hope towards God in the very worst of Men, except fuch who are under the Judicial Stroke of Despair, which is alfo in its Time to vanifh, that they promise themfelves Mercy from him, though they know not why, nor are fenfible, as they fhould be of their Forfeiture.

2. The Relation that this one God bears to Men, was Original and antecedent to Sin, there was a Relation between God and Man before Sin entered, Sin is of a later Date than that Relation. You read in Genefis i. that God made Man and all things elfe Good, exceeding Good; when God reviewed every Day's Work, he faw it good. Good then hath the Start of Evil, the Precedence of it, it is the Elder, and though God made but one Man, yet that one Man was all, as we all finned and fell in him, fo we all were made in the Image of God in him, we were all crowned with Glory and Honour in him, with the Favour and Love of God. This is no Strain; the Scripture faith, Levi paid Tithes to Melchizedeck, though then in his Father Abraham's Loins, and not brought forth of feveral Ages afterwards. Now therefore turn your Eye, and fee how God begun with Man, how concerned for him, calling a Council about making him: Let us make Man. With what a Hand of Art and Skill he formed him curiously, fearfully, wonderfully, how being fo formed, he breathed into him the Breath of Life, the Lives of all the Creatures, vegetative, fenfitive, rational, and angelical, making him truly an Abftract and Compendium of the whole, a Microcofm; how he ftampt his own Image upon him, and fealed him for himself, for his own Converfe and Society: How he arrayed him with the Robes of his own Sovereignty, making him next himself, Lord

of

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of all his Works in the lower World: how he accommodated him, and made a Garden of Pleafure for him, ftored with all delicious Fruits, and fo tender of his full Satisfaction and Content, that he confidered his being alone, before he confidered it himself, and that nothing might be wanting, made him a Helpmeet for him, giving him Power by that Means to Increase and propagate himself into a Multitude, as ample as might ballance all other Species.

Now was there, Love in all this or no? This was not to Adam alone, but to every one of us in him; I fay, were thefe Acts of Love, or did God only! make a Flourish, and lay a Snare for Man, that forfeiting all thefe, he might be more miferable than if he had never been? If you fay it was Love, as I fee not how it can be avoided, then did you think God began thus with Man to end in a Tempeft? A Tempeft enfued, I grant, and lies ftill upon the greateft part of Mankind, and a worfe is referved for them, as a juft Recompence of their Deeds, even a fiery Indignation, which shall deftroy the Adverfary, as the Apoftle fpeaks, and make an end of the Flesh, and fo of Sin, which what it means may be fhewed in its Place.

But fhall that bright Sun of Favour and Love. that arofe fo fplendidly on Man, fet in an everlafting Cloud? (Pf. lxxvii. 8, 9, 10.) fhall all those Thoughts of God, whereof he gave an earneft to Man in his firft Creation, perifh? Shall the Lord lofe his everlasting Poffeffion for ever? The fame that is faid of Chrift, may be faid of Man in his Root, and fo of all Men. The Lord poffeffed them in the beginning of his Ways, the Lord had Livery and Seifin of them when there was no ftrange God among them, before ever Sin, or Law, whereby Sin is imputed, did enter. Adam was firft formed, faith the Apoftle, then Eve, and the Man was not deceived, but the Woman being deceived was in the Tranfgreffion. The Woman ftands in

Scripture

Scripture for the Natural Principle, or flefhly Image. Sin therefore, where it is founded, there it is alfo confounded, condemned in the Flefh, and fo alone poor flefhly Man comes to know Salvation through the Sorrow of Child-bearing, either born by Chrift for us, which is the Privilege of Believers, or hearing their own Iniquity as all others must do, to the Destruction of the Flesh, that the Spirit, which is the Seed, may rife. But before the Woman was thus deceived, upon what amicable Terms was God and Adam? How fweetly, as Two that were perfectly agreed, did they walk together? Now God is One, and in one Mind, though he may change his Way, and ufe a fuitable Variety in that, yet if he begin in Love, as here he did, furely he will not end in Wrath; though the Creature may apprehend God hath done with him, and will be merciful no more; yet it is not fo, for as he is Alpha, fo is he Omega; if his Love were the Firft, certain it fhall be Laft alfo: For who fhall get the upper hand of that Love which is God himself?

3. This Onenefs of God imports, that his Wrath and Love is one, but of this when we come to that Scripture where God is recognized by the Name of Love.

CHAP III.

Purfuing the fame Text. An Argument from the Unity of the Mediator.

WE

E come to the next Words, which afford further Evidence. One Mediator between God and Man, the Man Chrift Jefus. Here again

Men

Men are Recapitulated and Headed in One, whe is the Mediator of Reconciliation, and of all Communication of good from God to Man, in whom, as fuch, all Men have joint and equaf Intereft. And the Apoftle faying there is one Mediator of God and Man, feemeth to import, that Originally the cafe is alike with all Men, and fo it is, all are Children of Wrath by nature, one as well as another, and he that pleads the Cause of the Elect, and the Propitiation for their Sins, he is the Advocate of the Reft alfo: And therefore if the Caufe of the Elect fucceeds and goes fo well in his Hands, it affords Grounds of hope for the other alfo. This Unity of the Mediator is often reflected on, though in other Words, as one Lord, Eph. iv. 5. And one Head, Eph. i. 10. As was hinted before, touching which, this efpecially is to be further noted; that thefe all things here recapitulated, are diftributively reflected on; both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth; which is not a local Diftribution, or a Diftribution of Place, but of Quality and Condition. All the Elect, and called Ones are Heavenly Ones, 1 Cor. xv. The reft are Earthly in this prefent State, yet thefe, as well as the others, are recapitulated or re-headed again in Chrift, which relates to the first Heading of them; which muft alfo have been in Him, for there was no other Head of Angels, or Men Originally, but He; He was that Arche, that Head, which the Fallen Angels kept not, which our Tranflators render their firft State, but it may as well be rendered their Beginning or Head, from which they departed by Disobedience, and fell.

Now mark here two things:

1. The Argument the Apoftle is upon. And, 2. The Aptnefs of the terms of the medium by which he would evince it. The Argument is here. praying for all Men, the Ground, God will have

all