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

Thus the Christian church was first of all of the nation of Israel: and therefore, when the Gentiles were called, they were but as it were added to Israel, to the seed of Abraham. They were added to the Christian church of Israel, as the proselytes of old were to the Mosaic church of Israel; and so were as it were only grafted on the stock of Abraham, and were not a distinct tree; for they are all still the seed of Abraham and Israel: as Ruth, the Moabitess, and Uriah the Hittite, and other proselytes of old, were the same people, and ranked as the seed of Israel.

So the Christian church at first began at Jerusalem, and from thence was propagated to all nations: so that this church of Jerusalem was the church that was as it were the mother of all other churches in the world; agreeable to the prophecy. Is. ii.3.4. "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem: and he shall judge among the nations, and rebuke many people." So that the whole church of God is still God's Jerusalem: they are his spiritual Jerusalem, and are as it were only added to the church, which was begun in the literal Jerusalem

After this, we read of many thousands of Jews that believed in Jerusalem, Acts xxi.20. And so we read of multitudes of Jews who were converted in other cities of Judea; and not only so, but ⟨p. 194⟩even in other parts of the world. For where-ever the apostles went, if there were any Jews there, their manner was, first to go into the synagogues of the Jews, and preach the gospel to them, and many in one place and another believed; as in Damascus & Antioch, and many other places that we read of in the Acts of the Apostles.