not understood by the Ages before the Coming of Christ. This is what St. Paul very frequently and in divers Manners afferts in most of his Epiftles. That it was God's Defign, he fhews, by calling it, the Mystery of his Will, which he pur- Eph. i. 9. pofed in himself; and in this Chapter, v. II. his eternal Purpose, which he purposed in Chrift Fefus our Lord; and elsewhere he fays, God that cannot lie, promised Tit. i. 2. eternal Life before the World began; and in the 2 d Epiftle to Timothy, he calls it, 2 Tim. i. God's own Purpofe and Grace, which was given us in Chrift Jefus, before the World began.

9.

Now that this Defign of God Almighty, was not fully revealed to the World before Chrift's Coming, the fame Apostle doth as frequently affirm, in that he fo often calls it a Myftery: A Myftery, which Col.i. 26. had been bid from Ages and Generations. Eph. iii 9. A Myftery, which from the Beginning of the World had been hid in God. And Rom.xvi. bidden Wisdom, which none ces of this World knew: known it, they would not the Lord of Glory. Some of thefe Expreffions indeed may refer to God's great

25.

of the Prinfor bad they 1 Cor. ii. have crucified

I

7,8.

Design of redeeming Mankind in general, Jews as well as Gentiles; which was never fully explained, as to the Manner of it, even to the Jews themselves, till the Coming of the Meffias; though they had frequent Revelations from God, which gave them Hopes of a clearer Light to come, and had at leaft fome Part of God's Will difcovered to them. But as for the Gentiles, all thefe Expreffions, of their total Ignorance of the Matter, do in a particular Manner affect them, both because St. Paul, being the Apostle of the Gentiles, and directing his Epiftle chiefly to fuch as had been Converts from Gentilifm, may be fuppofed principally to intend their Ignorance by fuch Expreffions; and because in this very Epistle, Eph. ii. he bids the Ephefians remember, That they II, 12., being in Time paft Gentiles in the Flesh,

were at that Time without Chrift, being Aliens from the Common-wealth of Ifrael, and Strangers from the Covenant of Promife, having no Hope, and without God in the World: Which we are not fo to underftand as if the Heathens had not had any Notion of God at all, or had been utterly without any Law or Light of Na

ture;

ture; for he himself in his Epistle to the Romans affures of the contrary. But their being without Hope, and without God, must be explained by their being Aliens from the Common-wealth of Ifrael, and Strangers from the Covenant of Promife; that is, they were not Members of that Community to which God Almighty by particular Revelation from Heaven had given a written Law, and with which he had entred into Covenant, and had made diftinct Promises of good Things upon keeping that Covenant. The Gentiles. had no true Revelation communicated to them, nothing more than the Light of Nature to direct them, and even that alfo they had miferably corrupted, and through grofs Superftition and Idolatry, and all Manner of Wickednefs, almost extinguished, fo that they might be faid to be even without God, having depraved all the original Notions of the One True God: and they were without Hope, because they had no direct Promise from God to affure them what they might expect or hope for from him for the future. BUT then, in that Revelation which God made to Abraham, that in his Seed

Should

Gen. xii. fhould all the Families and all the Nations

3. of the Earth be blessed; and in divers Plaxviii. 18. ces of the Old Teftament from Mofes xxii. 18. down to the laft of the Prophets, there

Rom. xv.

are many fucceffive Predictions of the Calling of the Gentiles; divers of which St. Paul himself takes Notice of, and proves from thence, that they were defigned by God to be Partakers of the Promises of the Gofpel, And that the 9, 10, &c. Gentiles might glorify God for his Mercy; as it is written, For this Cause I will confefs to thee among the Gentiles, and fing Praise unto thy Name. And again, Rejoice ye Gentiles, with his People. And again Efaias faith, There shall be a Root of Jeffe, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles truft. There are many other Paffages both in Ifaiah and the other Prophets to this Purpose, speaking of the Coming in of the Gentiles, which St. Paul frequently infifts upon, and argues, that God is not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles alfo. How then comes it to pass, that he himself so often calls this a Mystery; Rom.xvi. anda Mystery, auir, kept under Silence, 25. and which in other Ages was not made

known

27.

known unto the Sons of Men. Now thefe are very confiftent if we do but obferve, that not only the Gentiles themselves were ignorant of thefe Prophecies, and of all other true Revelations, as we obferved before, but even the Jews, who had the keeping of these Oracles, were yet Strangers to the true Meaning of them, as they were to many other Paffages relating to the Meffias. And fo St. Paul fays in his Sermon at Antioch, They that dwell at Jerufalem, and A&s xiii. their Rulers, because they knew not him, nor yet the Voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath Day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. Notwithstanding all the exprefs Paffages of the Prophets, they had fo grofs and worldly a Notion of the Meffias, and of a temporal Kingdom under him, and were fo conceited of their being Abraham's Children, and by Confequence fole Heirs of the Promifes made to him and his Seed, that they could not entertain any other Thoughts of the reft of Mankind, but as of Perfons common and unclean, and not fit to be Partakers of any fuch Promifes of Blessing from God. Even the Apostles