3Ô ESSAY TOWARD TIIE tSECT..IIL' VII. Heb. xii. 22-24. " Ye are corne to the hea 'venly'Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly, and church of the first-born, whichare written, or registered, in heaven, to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits ofjust men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator Of the new covenant," that is, the gospel, or the christian state, brings good men into à nearer union and communion with the heavenly world, and the inhabitants thereof, than the jewish state could do : Now the inhabitants of this upper world, this hea- venly Jerusalem, are here reckoned up, God, as the. prime Lord or head ; ,Jesus the mediator, as the. king of Es church ; the innumerable company of angels, as mi- nisters of his kingdom ; the general assembly of God's favourites, or children, who are called the first-born, perhaps, this may refer, in general, to all the saints of all ages past, and to come, whose names are written in the book of life in heaven ; and, particularly, to the.separate spirits ofjust men, who are departed from this world, and are made perfect in the heavenly state. The criticisms, that are used to put other sensés upon these words, seem to carry them away so far from their more plain and obvious meaning, that I can hardly think they are the meaning of the apostle ; for it would be of very little use for a common christián, to read these verses of divine consolation and grace, if he could take no comfort from them till he had learned those critical and distant exposi- tions of suchplain language. It has been, indeed, objected, against the plain -sense of this text, that the spirits of thejust, or good men, are not yet made perfect in heaven, becahse the same apos- tle ; Heb. xi. 39, 40. says, ." These all, that is, the saints of the Old Testament, having obtained a good re- port through faith, received not the promises, God hav- ing provided some better thing for us, that they, without us, should not be made perfect." Now these had been dead for many generations, yet they received not the promises, nor were made perfect. Thus saïth the ob- jection. But the plain meaning of this text is, that they lived and died in the faith of-Many promises, some of which were to be fulfilled after their dáys here on earth, but were not fulfilled in their-life : They did not enjoy the
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