An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eleventh, twelfth, & thirteenth chapters of…

Well, but yet we see not all the mind of God in this expression, ¹nor the chief part of his mind, for we find in in Matth. 2. 15. that there the holy Ghost cites this Scripture that now I am opening to you, and interprets it of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ was fain to fly into Egypt to save his life, the holy Ghost saith, That it was to fulfil that Scripture, I called my Son out of Egypt.

1. 1The Text as cited Mat. 2. 15, further expounded.

It is a very strange Interpretation, (as we have divers other such in the new Testament) and Hierom upon the place saith, That Julian takes advantage upon this, and ¹some of the Jews, with others that hated Christian Religion, did take much advantage upon this quotation of Matthew, against the Authority of the Gospel, and said, surely it argued Matthew very unskilful in Scripture, that he should make such a quotation as this, when it is apparent that it is spoken of the calling of the people of Israel out of Egypt. And truly we should never have thought that there had been such a meaning in this place of Hosea, had we not found it so interpreted by the holy ⟨p. 16⟩Ghost. And by the way, before we come to open that, and show how that was a right quotation of this Scripture, I'll but observe this one Note from it, that we may see that by the interpretation both of Matthew, and divers other places we find in the new Testament, that there is much more of the mind of God in the old Testament, than was ordinarily known to them that lived in those times. Which of the Jews could have made such an Interpretation, I have called my Son out of Egypt? That is, Jesus Christ after he is born, he shall be persecuted and forced to fly for his life, and that into Egypt, and he shall come again out of Egypt; who could have thought the holy Ghost could have intended such a thing as this is? Things were not understood till they came to be fulfilled, and then they were understood. And the truth is, as in the old Testament, so in the new, there are a great many Scriptures that we understand yet but little of. And the time of our knowing the meaning of them is reserved to the time when they are to be fulfilled, many Prophesies we have in the Revelations, and other places, that are (I am confident) as dark to us as this place of Hosea was dark to the Jews; and there is as excellent a spiritual meaning in many places of the new Testament hidden from us, that will hereafter to the Church of God be revealed clearly, as there were in the old Testament, many places (I know not whether I may say as many as those) but are as much hidden from us. Jesus Christ that was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world, in