can compare the cafe of Hagar and Ifhmael, with the then ftate of Jerufalem.

It would answer very little purpose to attempt making out a connection between Hagar and mount Sinai, and between that mountain, and thofe on which Jerufalem ftood, which feveral very learned men have amufed themselves with. It is the covenant or law given at Sinai the Apostle pitches on as the ground of the accommodation he is making. To this law the Jewish nation, (commonly defigned the children of Jerufalem), owed, we may fay, their very being: It was this that made them what they were, a peculiar people distinguished from all the other nations in the world: and it was this law that brought and held them and their children in precisely fuch a state of bondage as Hagar and her fon Ishmael were. And the Apostle evidently carries it no further: fo that it seems but an idle amufement fome have beftowed much labour in, to find the Arabians, the defcendents of Ishmael, in a state of bondage.

There is fome appearance of ambiguity in the last part of the verse, as it is not clear in the words, whether it is Sinai

or

or Jerufalem which the Apostle means to fay are in bondage. But it is only an appearance, and may be certainly determined from the context; where Sinai, or rather the law given there, is the mother, bringing forth the early Jerufalem and her children, all involved in the fame bondage, by the fervile condition of that mother, and thus exactly answering the cafe of Hagar and her fon. Several other circumftances might be observed wherein they agree: but as in parables and allegories every circumftance is not defigned to be applied particularly, but the scope of the whole must be attended to; fo it is in true history when it is treated in that manner: To apply every minute circumftance is abufing and disgracing the whole.

The Apostle having adjusted Hagar the bond-woman's part, proceeds, verf. 26. to the part of Sarah the free-woman, and her children. And as he had left the then Jerufalem in the state of the bond-woman, he directs us to another Jerufalem, the Jerufalem which is above, the fame we find described, Rev. xxi. 2. et feqq. the new and holy Jerufalem; and the fame which the Apoftle fays the believing He

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brews were then come to, Heb. xii. 22.

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mount Sion, the city of the living God, ແ the heavenly Jerufalem;" the fame with these heavenlies, or heavenly places, which those who are quickened and raised up with with Chrift, are made to fit in, or inhabit together with, and in him, Eph. ii. 6. And I hope no Christian needs be told, that under thefe images is reprefented the state of the kingdom of Chrift, as manifefted and managed by what we call the gospel, the testimony of God concerning his Son, and the gift of eternal life. When Mofes was commanded to make the tabernacle,' with all the furniture and utenfils belonging to it, he had a pattern fhowed him, with a very folemn charge to fee that he made all things exactly according to it. And there was great need of exactnefs: for it was defigned to be a fenfible reprefentation of the heavenly fanctuary and true tabernacle, the figure of the good things to come; a fhadow the fubftance of which was Chrift

That rigid fchoolmaster had it in commiffion to keep even the children and heirs under a very fevere bondage, until the feed should come who had the promises. But VOL. III. U u they

they must be egregiously mistaken who imagine, that Chrift came to fet up a new religion, entirely different from, and even contrary unto the Jewish, at least in many, and these the most material instances; a notion which many modern divines, and profeffed defenders of the Chriftian religion too, appear extremely fond of. But the measures of divine government, or, in other words, the conftitution of grace revealed to our first fathers, Adam and Noah, and the promise and grant of grace made and confirmed by oath to Abraham, are unchangeable like their author; and could not be difannulled by the law of Mofes given fo many hundred years after, but were continued down in full force under it.

It is true, there was a bastard Judaism in fashion, when the Son of God came into the world, which ftands in a direct oppofition to the gofpel; and which, by leaving out the promife, made the law a dead, and, which is worse, a killing letter. This brought the then Jerufalem into bondage, fuch as made it as abfolutely neceffary that they fhould be born again, as the Gentiles, who had nothing at all

to

to trust to. The difpenfation therefore of the Spirit is the life of the finner; and the life which that Spirit conveys, is the only way by which he can be entered into the spiritual world, or, which is the fame thing, brought to God; and the only title any finner can have, is, the grant of fovereign grace in the free mife.

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In this fame divine conftitution, this fovereign grant and promife, the church and kingdom of Chrift, the fpiritual and heavenly Jerufalem, is founded; and the Apoftle fays, he is free. There needs no words for the explanation of this, unless we should run out into an account of all the kinds of bondage and liberty which we can have any notion of. But we may fee as much as we have occafion for, in the view the Apoftle gives us of the eternal inheritance conveyed, and the poffeffion of it fecured, by a free and irrevocable deed of gift; and it is true to a proverb, that nothing can be freer than a gift. Had the grant come, clogged with terms and conditions to a fet of creatures who could do nothing, it would have been the fame thing as if they had been honeftly told,