(2.) This is certain, that all nations whatever, which in their present stale and government, have given their power to the dragon and the beast, to oppose the Lord Christ withal, shall be shaken, broken, translated, and turned off their old foundations and constitutions, into which the antichristian interest hath been woven for a long season. God will shake the heavens and the earth of the nations round about, until all the Babylonish rubbish, all their original engagements to the man of sin, be taken away.
This I have fully demonstrated elsewhere." All those great wars which you have foretold, wherein the saints of God shall be eminently engaged, are upon this account.
(3.) That the civil powers of the world, after fearful shak- ings and desolations, shall be disposed of into a useful sub- serviency to the interest, power, and kingdom of Jesus Christ : hence they are said to be ' his kingdoms ;' Rev. xi. 15. that is, to be disposed of for the behoof of his in- terest, rule, and dominion : of this you have plentiful pro- mises, Isa. Ix. and elsewhere ; when the nations are broken in opposition to ' Zion, their gain must be consecrated to the Lord, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth;' Micah iv. 13. Even judges and rulers, as such, must kiss the Son, and own his sceptre, and advance his ways. Some think, if you were well settled, you ought not in any thing, as rulers of the nations, to put forth your power for the interest of Christ : the good Lord keep your hearts from that apprehension. Have you ever in your affairs received any encouragement from the promises of God, have you in times of greatest distress been refreshed with the testimony of a good conscience, that in godly simplicity, you have sought the advancement of the Lord Christ; do you believe that he ever owned the cause as the head of his church ? Do not now profess you have nothing to do with him : had he so professed of you and your affairs, what had been your portion long since?
(4.) Look what kingdom soever the Lord Christ will ad-
* Sermon on Heb. xii. 27.
48G Christ's kingdom and
vance in the world, and exercise amongst his holy ones, the beginning of it must be with the Jews ; they are to be ' ca- put Imperii,' the head and seat of this empire must be amongst them ; these are the * saints of the Most High,' mentioned by Daniel : and therefore in that part of his pro- phecy, which he wrote in the Chaldean tongue, then com- monly known and spoken in the east, being the language of the Babylonish empire, he speaketh of them obscurely, and under borrowed expressions ; but coming to those visions which he wrote in Hebrew, for the sole use of the church, he is much more express concerning the people of whom he spake. The rod of ' Christ's strength goes out of Zion,' and thence he proceeds to rule those that were his enemies ; Psal. ex. 2. All the promises of the glorious kingdom of Christ are to be accomplished in the gathering of the Gen- tiles, with the glory of the Jews. * The Redeemer comes to Zion, and to them that turn from transgression' (that great transgression of unbelief) 'in Jacob;' Isa. lix. 20. 'Then shall the Lord rise upon them, and his glory shall be seen upon them, the Gentiles shall come to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising ;' Isa. Ix. 2, 3. I dare say there is not any promise any where of raising up a kingdom unto the Lord Christ in this world, but it is either expressed, or clearly intimated, that the beginning of it must be with the Jews, and that in contradistinction to the nations : so eminently in that glorious description of it, Micah iv. 7, 8. * I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast afar off a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in mount Zion, from henceforth even for ever: and thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion, the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.' When the great hunter Nimrod set up a kingdom, the beginning of it was Babel, Gen. x. 10. and when the great Shepherd sets up his kingdom, the beginning of it shall be Zion ; so farther it is at large expressed, Micah v. 7, 8. Nothing is more clear to any, who, being not carried away with weak, carnal apprehensions of things present, have once seriously weighed the promises of God to this purpose : what the Lord Christ will do with them, and by them, is not so clear; this is certain, that their return shall be marvellous, glorious, as
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life from the dead. When then Euphrates shall be dried up, Turkish power, and popish idolatry be taken out of the world, and these ' kings of the east' are come, when the seed of Abraham being multiplied like the stars of heaven, and the sands of the sea shore, shall possess the gates of their enemies, and shall have peace in their borders, we may lift up our heads towards the fulness of our redemption : but whilst these things are, or may be, for any thing we know, afar off, to dream of setting up an outward, glorious, visible kingdom of Christ, which he must bear rule in, and over the world, be it in Germany, or in England, is but an un- grounded presumption. The Jews not called, antichrist not destroyed, the nations of the world generally wrapped up in idolatry and false worship, little dreaming of their deliver- ance : will the Lord Christ leave the world in this state, and set up his kingdom here on a molehill ?