(3.) As he hath been the preserver and enlarger of her to this day. Men think themselves concerned in honour to perfect those which they call their creatures, and often regard one act of kindness as an engagement upon them to successive acts of the like nature. 'Tis not for the honour of any man to stand by a friend a long time, and to enjoy the glory of assisting him, and desert him at the last pinch. God set up the Church after the fall in Adam's Family, rather than create a new world to create a new Church; he raised up Seth to propagate it, when Abel was taken off by the bloody hands of his Brother; he preserved it in Noah's Family, in the midst of a corrupted and degenerate world, and settled it upon the Foundation of the Gospel in both; Upon the first promise in the Family of Adam, Gen. 3.15. Upon the sweet-smelling Sacrifice offered by Noah, Gen. 8.20, 21, 2•. Not upon the Symbol or Type, the blood of the beasts, but upon the thing signified by it; and the preservation of the world promised after that Sacrifice, was chiefly in order to the preservation of a Church in it, as the Creation of the world was in order to the erecting it; and therefore the Rain-bow settled then as a sign of the Covenant, for the worlds preservation from a Flood of Waters, is made the sign of the Everlasting Covenant of Peace, both in Ezekiel*, and in the Revelation*, as a sign he would preserve his Church from the multitude of Waters, from the Rage of the People, signified by Waters in the Prophetic part of Scripture, and from the Floods that the Devil should cast out against her. And thence it is that this Covenant of her Establishment is compared with that Covenant God swore to Noah, and the Faith of the Church strengthened by reflection upon that, Isa. 54.9. After this settling it in Noah, he fixed it in Abraham, and cleared up the Promise of the Messiah, with a greater evidence than to the Ages before: He multiplied it in the fleshly Israel, and enlarged the bounds of it to a whole Nation. After that, he takes away the partition wall, and spreads her Confines to the possession of the Gentiles, that the Sons of Japheth might dwell in the Tents of Shem, according to his Promise, Gen. 9.27. out of the forlorn Gentiles, as stupid as stocks and stones, he raiseth up Children, a great posterity to Abraham.
(3.) As he hath been the preserver and inlarger of her to this day. Men think themselves concerned in honour to perfect those which they call their creatures, and often regard one act of kindness as an engagement upon them to successive acts of the like nature. 'Tis not for the honour of any man to stand by a friend a long time, and to enjoy the glory of assisting him, and desert him at the last pinch. God set up the Church after the fall in Adam's Family, rather than create a new world to create a new Church; he raised up Seth to propagate it, when Abel was taken off by the bloody hands of his Brother; he preserv'd it in Noah's Family, in the midst of a corrupted and degenerate world, and settled it upon the Foundation of the Gospel in both; Upon the first promise in the Family of Adam, Gen. 3.15. Upon the sweet-smelling Sacrifice offered by Noah, Gen. 8.20, 21, 2•. Not upon the Symbol or Type, the blood of the beasts, but upon the thing signified by it; and the preservation of the world promised after that Sacrifice, was chiefly in order to the preservation of a Church in it, as the Creation of the world was in order to the erecting it; and therefore the Rain-bow settled then as a sign of the Covenant, for the worlds preservation from a Flood of Waters, is made the sign of the Everlasting Covenant of Peace, both in Ezekiel*, and in the Revelation*, as a sign he would preserve his Church from the multitude of Waters, from the Rage of the People, signified by Waters in the Prophetick part of Scripture, and from the Floods that the Devil should cast out against her. And thence it is that this Covenant of her Establishment is compared with that Covenant God swore to Noah, and the Faith of the Church strengthened by reflection upon that, Isa. 54.9. After this settling it in Noah, he fixed it in Abraham, and cleared up the Promise of the Messiah, with a greater evidence than to the Ages before: He multiplied it in the fleshly Israel, and enlarged the bounds of it to a whole Nation. After that, he takes away the partition wall, and spreads her Confines to the possession of the Gentiles, that the Sons of Japhet might dwell in the Tents of Shem, according to his Promise, Gen. 9.27. out of the forelorn Gentiles, as stupid as stocks and stones, he raiseth up Children, a great posterity to Abraham.
- *Ezek. 1.28.
- *Rev. 4.3.
