Zerubbabels encouragement to finish the temple. A sermon preached before the honourable House of…

2.¹ His love to his Churches holding forth his Name and worship in the world, is such, as nothing shall withstand the repairing and perfecting of them, and of that his worship and every parcel of it. If God had not such Assemblies in the world, he should have no worship. Therefore these Churches are called the Ground and Pillar of Truth, both where it grows, and where it is held forth; 1 Tim. 3. 15. he there speaks of Church assemblies, as wherein Timothy was to learn how as an Evangelist to behave himself, in the ordering and governing of them, as you have it in the words immediately fore-going, Th•• thou mightest know how to behave thy self in the House of God, &c. And the truth is, that that building of the House of God, of which only Zechariah here gives us occasion to speak, was but the completing all the ordinances of worship. It was not so much the building up the Nation of the Jews that was here directly intended; but the building of their Temple, the seat of worship, and introducing the Candlestick, &c. And their Assemblings there to worship according to Gods own prescription, was more to him, and is so still, then what ever else was or is done in the world. In the 87. Psal. ver. 2. ⟨p. 31⟩The Lord loves the gates of Zion more then all the dwellings of Jacob. The gates of Zion were the gates of the Temple that stood upon mount Zion, set open for the Jews to worship in; and these he loves more then other Societies, or Assemblings, though of Jacob, and this more then them All, take them all together; whether civill in their Cities and families, or religious in their Synagogues; where they were capable but of some few, not of all the Ordinances that were in the Temple.

2.¹ His love to his Churches holding forth his Name and worship in the world, is such, as nothing shall withstand the repairing and perfecting of them, and of that his worship and every parcell of it. If God had not such Assemblies in the world, he should have no worship. Therefore these Churches are called the Ground and Pillar of Truth, both where it growes, and where it is held forth;