A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

3. Another thing for which this last period or space of time before Christ was particularly remarkable, was the wonderful preservation of the church through all those overturnings. The preservation ⟨p. 106⟩of the church was on some accounts more remarkable through this period, than through any of the foregoing. It was very wonderful that the church, which in this period was so weak and in so low a state, and mostly subject to the dominion of Heathen monarchies, should be preserved for five or six hundred years together, while the world was so often overturned, and the earth was […] in pieces, and made so often empty and waste, and the inhabitants of it came down so often every one by the sword of his brother. I say it was wonderful that the church in its weak and […] state, being but a little handful of men▪ should be preserved in all these great convulsions; especially considering that the land of Judea, the chief place of the church's residence, lay in the midst of them, as it were in the middle between the contending parties, and was very much the fear of war amongst them, and was often over-run and subdued, and sometimes in the hands of one people, and sometimes another, and very much the object of the envy and hatred of […] Heathen nations, and often almost ruined by them, often great multitudes of its inhabitants being slain, and the land in a great measure depopulated; and those who had them in their power, often intended the utter destruction of the whole nation. Yet they were upheld; they were preserved in their captivity in Babylon, and they were upheld again under all the dangers they passed through, under the kings of Persia, and the much greater dangers they were liable to under the empire of the Greeks, and afterwards when the world was trodden down by the Romans.

3. Another thing for which this last period or space of time before Christ was particularly remarkable, was the wonderful preservation of the church through all those overturnings. The preservation ⟨p. 106⟩of the church was on some accounts more remarkable through this period, than through any of the foregoing. It was very wonderful that the church, which in this period was so weak and in so low a state, and mostly subject to the dominion of Heathen monarchies, should be preserved for five or six hundred years together, while the world was so often overturned, and the earth was in pieces, and made so often empty and waste, and the inhabitants of it came down so often every one by the sword of his brother. I say it was wonderful that the church in its weak and state, being but a little handful of men should be preserved in all these great convulsions; especially considering that the land of Judea, the chief place of the church's residence, lay in the midst of them, as it were in the middle between the contending parties, and was very much the fear of war amongst them, and was often over-run and subdued, and sometimes in the hands of one people, and sometimes another, and very much the object of the envy and hatred of Heathen nations, and often almost ruined by them, often grea multitudes of its inhabitants being slain, and the land in a great measure depopulated; and those who had them in their power, often intended the utter destruction of the whole nation. Yet they were upheld; they were preserved in their captivity in Babylon, and they were upheld again under all the dangers they passed through, under the kings of Persia, and the much greater dangers they were liable to under the empire of the Greeks, and afterwards when the world was trodden down by the Romans.