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world, and the happy intercourse between heaven and earth during this time; so remarkable as to entitle this septenary chiliad of the world to be called the great sabbath,

or rest of the people of God.* The holy psalmist represents the almighty Father as saying to Christ, (after his resurrection, and at his entering upon this kingdom in its incipient state,) "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool."†— To which St Paul alludes, saying, "after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, be for ever sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." This manifestly implies a great length of time, and being so understood, it agrees well with our Lord's own repeated descriptions of his kingdom, and the accounts the prophets have given of the long time that was to intervene, and the many important events that were to take place, between the commencement of it, "in the days

Hebrews iv. 9.

Heb. x. 12, 13; Mark xvi. 19.

+ Psalm cx. 1.

of these kingdoms," and its full establishment upon their total destruction.

In fact, the real state of religion in the world has hitherto been, and still continues to be strangely inconsistent with this millenary kingdom, and indeed affords a strong contrast to those beautiful pictures the prophets have drawn of that happy and holy time. Our Saviour foretold that this would be the case,* and that between the open bostility of unbelievers, and false measures of sanctity in misguided religionists, the few really sincere and steadfast friends of genuine piety and faith, should have an uneasy time of it; and must often by mortification of their most sanguine hopes, and through much tribulation, from the enmity and deceitfulness of a wicked and injurious world, expect to enter into the realms of the blessed.-" Think ye, (said he,) that I came to send peace on earth?—I came not to send peace, but a sword!"-And by reason of his fidelity to

* Luke xviii. S.

me, it shall happen not unfrequently, that man's enemies shall be they of his own housebold."*

Christ was undoubtedly in prophecy announced as "the prince of peace," and to make peace between heaven and earth was the errand on which he was sent. Yet prophecy holds forth many strong indications of a temporary effect the very reverse of peace, though the final result should be conformable to it. But our blessed Lord was far from insinuating by those expressions, that such an effect of the amiable and conciliatory doctrines of the gospel was a natural and necessary consequence of its introduction; but only that as the hearts of men are deceitful and corrupt, religious zeal would too often have the ill effect of inflaming and heightening their mutual jealousies, and envious passions against each other; and not tend (as it ought, if tempered with charity,) to sooth and allay them.

Quantum relligio potuit suadere malorum !

LUCR. 1. i. 102,

Matt. xvi. 36.

While holy truth with heady zeal is sought,
What ills hath counterfeit religion wrought!

To pass by the barbarous and long perpetuated warfare of the church of Rome against the gospel and its professors, by which she has fully evinced the fury of her antichristian zeal for God ;* even amongst the reformed churches themselves there has been sufficient room for censure. The hostility and heart burnings of the numerous sects against each other, and of all of them unitedly against the establishment and church of England, (the only firm and effectual barrier that could have been opposed in these kingdoms to the insidious designs and open violence of popery, exerted hitherto in vain to effect their common overthrow,) have been very inconsistent with that godly simplicity, mutual forbearance, and brotherly love, which are inculcated by that gospel, that each professes to hold in its primitive and genuine purity. And what is not a little remarkable in these religious antipathies, it has been com

* Rom. x. 2; Phil. iii. 6,

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monly observed that the more trivial and insignificant the difference between them is, in their respective opinions in religion, the more violently tenacious they are of it; the rancour and bitterness is the greater, and the schism by so much the more difficult to admit of any accommodation.

This strange propensity to quarrelling and calling of names, this endless variety and fastidious caprice of religious controversialists, has given but too strong an handle to the sceptic for his sweeping censure and general conclusion; that the christian religion itself, in any of its forms, could never in reality have been a gift sent down by divine revelation from heaven, (as all its professors are agreed in believing,) seeing it hath been disfigured by intermixture with the most gross and notorious errors, defiled with fraternal blood, and been made a never-failing pretext for holy altercation and the bitterness of party spirit.* St Paul had abundant occasion to la

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