Speculum theologiæ in Christo, or, A view of some divine truths which are either…

First of all, let us look upon the state of the World, as it was at our Saviours coming. The world was made up of Jews and Gentiles, both of them were not only tainted with Original sin, but deeply corrupted with Actual; out of both God would raise up a Church to himself, to make the Power of his Grace known.

The Jews, once Gods special People, were now desperately degenerate; blindness was upon them, notwithstanding that Rabbinical learning was at the height in the Schools of Hillel and Shammai: they interpreted the holy Scriptures, as the Veil upon their hearts would let them, in a very gross, carnal ⟨p. 114⟩manner, as if they had lost all savour of things Divine and Spiritual. Thus the establishing the mountain of the Lords house in the top of the mountains, Isa. 2.2, is with one of them, the bringing of Tabor and Carmel, and setting Jerusalem upon the top of them.¹ The calling the sabbath a delight, Isa. 58.13, is to eat and drink, and indulge their genius. They made the Sacred Law, whose primary aim was at the heart, to bind only the outward Man. According to their corrupt gloss, there was no Murder, but what purpled the hand with blood; nor no Adultery, but what was in the gross Act: evil thoughts and purposes were not so much as peccadillo's; neither did God take notice of them, so as to punish for them. A thought or purpose of sacrilege in Antiochus, was nothing with Josephus; regarding or seeing iniquity in the heart, was nothing with David Kimchi, as appears by his gloss upon the 66th Psalm. Thus the Law was dispirited and stripped of its Divinity. Religion went off from its Centre, the heart, to paint and varnish over the outward Man. Sin might reign and do what it would within, so as it did not break out and profane the Life. Having thus humbled the Law according to their own Model, they stood upon their Terms with God: they would establish their own Righteousness, though it were a poor cadaverous thing, without any Divine Life or Spirit in it; yet they would prop it up, and make it stand before God: they were full of their own Righteousness, and complete in themselves; they looked only for a Temporal Messiah, one who by his outward greatness might subdue their Enemies, and feast them in the holy