This promise has been fulfilled in the elect of GOD, considered collectively, as well before, as since the coming of our LORD in the flesh: for they may be called, the seed of the woman. Marvel not, that all who will live godly in CHRIST JESUS, must suffer persecution. In this promise, there is an eternal enmity put between the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent; so that those that are born after the flesh, cannot but persecute those that are born after the spirit. This enmity shewed itself, soon after this promise was revealed, in _Cain_’s bruising the heel of _Abel_: it continued in the church through all ages before CHRIST came in the flesh, as the history of the Bible, and the xith chapter of the _Hebrews_, plainly shew. It raged exceedingly after our LORD’s ascension; witness the _Acts of the Apostles_, and the History of the Primitive Christians. It now rages, and will continue to rage and shew itself, in a greater or less degree, to the end of time. But let not this dismay us; for in all this, the seed of the woman is more than conqueror, and bruises the serpent’s head. Thus the _Israelites_, the more they were oppressed, the more they increased. Thus it was with the Apostles; thus it was with their immediate followers. So that _Tertullian_ compares the church in his time to a mowed field; the more frequently it is cut, the more it grows. The blood of the martyrs was always the seed of the church. And I have often sat down with wonder and delight, and admired how GOD has made the very schemes which his enemies contrived, in order to hinder, become the most effectual means to propagate his gospel. The devil has had so little success in persecution, that if I did not know that he and his children, according to this verse, could not but persecute, I should think he would count it his strength to sit still. What did he get by persecuting the martyrs in Queen _Mary_’s time? Was not the grace of GOD exceedingly glorified in their support? What did he get by persecuting the good old Puritans? Did it not prove the peopling of _New-England_? Or, to come nearer our own times, what has he got by putting _us_ out of the synagogues? Hath not the word of GOD, since that, mightily prevailed? My dear hearers, you must excuse me for enlarging on this head; GOD fills my soul generally, when I come to this topic. I can say with _Luther_, “If it were not for persecution, I should not understand the scripture.” If Satan should be yet suffered to bruise my heel further, and his servants should thrust me into prison, I doubt not, but even that would only tend to the more effectual bruising of his head. I remember a saying of the then Lord Chancellor to the pious _Bradford_: “Thou hast done more hurt, said he, by thy exhortations in private in prison, than thou didst in preaching before thou wast put in,” or words to this effect. The promise of the text is my daily support; “I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Further: this promise is also fulfilled, not only in the church in general, but in every individual believer in particular. In every believer there are two seeds, the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent; the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. It is with the believer, when quickened with grace in his heart, as it was with _Rebekah_, when she had conceived _Esau_ and _Jacob_ in her womb; she felt a struggling, and began to be uneasy; “If it be so, says she, why am I thus?” Thus grace and nature struggle (if I may so speak) in the womb of a believer’s heart: but, as it was there said, “The elder shall serve the younger;” so it is here,――grace in the end shall get the better of nature; the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head. Many of you that have believed in CHRIST, perhaps may find some particular corruption yet strong, so strong, that you are sometimes ready to cry out with _David_, “I shall fall one day by the hand of _Saul_.” But, fear not, the promise in the text insures the perseverance and victory of believers over sin, Satan, death, and hell. What if indwelling corruption does yet remain, and the seed of the serpent bruise your heel, in vexing and disturbing your righteous souls? Fear not, though faint, yet pursue: you shall yet bruise the serpent’s head. CHRIST hath died for you; and yet a little while, and he will send death to destroy the very being of sin in you. Which brings me
To shew the most extensive manner in which the promise of the text shall be fulfilled, viz. at the final judgment, when the LORD JESUS shall present the elect to his Father, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, glorified both in body and soul.