A supplement to the several discourses upon various divine subjects

The Psalmist reckons up here nations that were greatest enemies to the Church, Rahab or Egypt ^*her ancient enemy; Philistia her perpetual invader: Rahab signifies pride or fierceness, the fiercest people shall be subdued to Zion by the power of the Gospel: Egypt the wisest and learnedst nation, the most Idolatrous and Superstitious, men that rest in their own parts and strength shall cast away their Idols; Babylon the strongest and most powerful Empire, the subjects of which the Scripture often describes as luxurious, cruel, proud: Tyre the greatest mart, whose Citizens were the greatest merchants, The Ethiopians the posterity of Cursed Ham, whose souls are blacker than their bodies: men buried in sin, benighted with ignorance, poisoned with pride, the most fierce and envenomed enemies shall be brought in by an infinite grace, and make up one body with her, and shall be counted as related to her by a new birth, and be made members of her by regeneration; this is properly to be born in Zion^*; as without regeneration we have not God for our father, so neither have we Zion or the Church for our mother: this is the great privilege we should inquire after, without which we are not in Gods register; this 2d birth God only approves of, he enrols no man in the number of the Citizens of Zion, nor endows them with the special privileges of it upon the account of their first, wherein they lye buried in the corruption of Adam, and are Citizens of Hell, not of Jerusalem. Again, this 2d birth is never without the knowledge of God.^* Ignorance is a bar to this enrolment; he is no man that is not a rational creature, and he no regenerate man that hath not some knowledge in the great mysteries of God in Christ.

The Psalmist reckons up here nations that were greatest enemies to the Church, Rahab or Aegypt ^*her antient enemy; Philistia her perpetual invader: Rahab signifies pride or fierceness, the fiercest people shall be subdued to Sion by the power of the Gospel: Aegypt the wisest and learnedst nation, the most Idolatrous and Superstitious, men that rest in their own parts and strength shall cast away their Idols; Babylon the strongest and most powerful Empire, the subjects of which the Scripture often describes as luxurious, cruel, proud: Tyre the greatest mart, whose Citizens were the greatest merchants, The Aethiopians the posterity of Cursed Cham, whose souls are blacker than their bodies: men buried in sin, benighted with ignorance, poysoned with pride, the most fierce and envenom'd enemies shall be brought in by an infinite grace, and make up one body with her, and shall be counted as related to her by a new birth, and be made members of her by regeneration; this is properly to be born in Sion