478 OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS. [BOOK IX.
a work, which until it be engaged in, let men talk what they please of reconciliation, the worst of men will be reviling and persecuting those who are better than themselves unto the end of the world; and this way is, that all churches should endeavour to reduce them- selves unto the primitive pattern. Let us all but consider what was the life and spirit of those churches, wherein their honour, glory, and order did consist, making it our joint design to walk in the principle of that grace of the Spirit wherein they walked, in the exercise and use of those gifts of the Spirit which were the spring of and gave virtue unto all their administrations, renouncing whatever is foreign unto and inconsistent with these things, and that grace and unity will quickly enter into professors which Christ hath purchased for them. But these things are here only occasionally mentioned, and are not farther to be pursued.
These spiritual gifts the apostle calls the " powers of the world to come," Heb. vi. 4, 5 ; that is, those effectual powerful principles and operations which peculiarly belong unto the kingdom of Christ and administration of the gospel, whereby they were to be set up, planted, advanced, and propagated in the world. The Lord Christ came and wrought out the mighty work of our salvation in his own person, and thereon laid the foundation of his church on himself, by the confession of him as the Son of God. Concerning himself and his work he preached, and caused to be preached, a doctrine that was opposed by all the world, because of its truth, mystery, and holiness; yet was it the design of God to break through all those oppositions, to cause this doctrine to be received and submitted unto, and Jesus Christ to be believed in, unto the ruin and destruction of the king- dom of Satan in the world. Now, this was a work that could not be wrought without the putting forth and exercise of mighty power; concerning which nothing remains to be inquired into but of what sort it ought to be. Now, the conquest that the Lord Christ aimed at was spiritual, over the souls and consciences of men; the enemies he had to conflict withal were spiritual, even principalities and powers, and spiritual wickednesses in high places, the god of this world, the prince of it, which ruled in the children of disobedience; the kingdom which he had to erect was spiritual, and not of this world; all the laws and rules of it, with their administrations and ends, were spiritual and heavenly. The gospel that was to be pro- pagated was a doctrine not concerning this world, nor the things of it, nor of any thing natural or political, but as they were merely subordinate unto other ends; but heavenly and mysterious, directing men only in a tendency according to the mind of God, unto the eternal enjoyment of him. Hereon it will easily appear what kind of power is necessary unto this work and for the attaining of these
CHAP. V.] ORIGIN, DURATION, ETC., OF EXTRAORDINARY GIFTS. 479
ends. He that, at the speaking of one word, could have engaged " more than twelve legions of angels" in his work and unto his assistance, could have easily, by outward force and arms, subdued the whole world into an external observance of him and his com- mands, and thereon have ruled men at his pleasure. As this he could have done, and may do when he pleaseth, so if he had clone it, it had tended nothing unto the ends which he designed. He might, indeed, have had a glorious empire in the world, comprehen- sive of all dominions that ever were or can be on the earth; but yet it would have been of the same kind and nature with that which Nero had, — the greatest monster of villany in nature. Neither had it been any great matter for the Son of God to have out-done the Romans or the Turks, or such like conspiracies of wicked oppressors. And all those who yet think meet to use external force over the persons, lives, and bodies of men, in order unto the reducing of them unto the obedience of Christ and the gospel, do put the greatest dishonour upon him imaginable, and change the whole nature of his design and kingdom. He will neither own nor accept of any subject but whose obedience is a free act of his own will, and who is so made willing by himself in the day of his power. His design, and his only design, in this world, unto the glory of God, is to erect a king- dom, throne, and rule in the souls and consciences of men ; to have an obedience from them in faith, love, and spiritual delight, pro- ceeding from their own choice, understandings, wills, and affections; an obedience that should be internal, spiritual, mystical, heavenly, with respect solely unto things unseen and eternal, wherein himself and his laws should be infinitely preferred before all earthly things and considerations. Now, this is a matter that all earthly powers and empires could never desire, design, or put a hand unto, and that which renders the kingdom of Christ, as of another nature, so more excellent and better than all earthly kingdoms, as liberty is better than bondage, the mind more excellent than the outward carcass, spiritual and eternal things than things carnal and temporary, as the wisdom and holiness of God are more excellent than the folly and lusts of men.