Jews might be preserved and secured from mingling with the Gentile idolaters. Now by these distinguishing rites, which begat an inveterate mutual prejudice between the Jews and Gentiles, the Jewish church was very much narrowed and contracted. For in the first place these distinguishing rites, by prejudicing the Jews against the Gentiles, restrained them from all free converse and communicating with them, and thereby from propagating their religion among them: and secondly, by prejudicing the Gentiles against the Jews, they also prejudiced them against the Jewish religion, and rendered their minds extremely averse to the entertainment of it. Thus, as these ceremonious singularities of the Jewish church were to the Jews great preservatives against the idolatries of the Gentiles, so to the Gentiles they were very great hinderances of their conversion to the religion of the Jews. And therefore our Saviour, in order to his design of propagating Christianity among the Gentiles, which is the true spirit and mystery of Judaism, found it necessary to remove it from these offensive rites, which lay as so many stumblingblocks in the way to the conversion of the Gentiles to it, and so by pulling down this middle wall of partition between the Jews and Gentiles, and abolishing this enmity of ordinances, which created such a vast distance between them, he opened and prepared the way to the conversion of the Gentiles, and took a most prudent and effectual course to make peace between them and the Jews, and to reconcile them both into one body in the cross, and hereby to extend and enlarge the church into an universal corporation.

In short therefore, Christianity being nothing else

but only Judaism separated from all those appendages of it, which rendered it obscure, and burdensome, and narrow, it hence follows, that that remnant of Jews who received and embraced it were so far from renouncing their old religion, that they still admitted, and professed, and adhered to it under its greatest advantages and improvements; that they renounced nothing of it, but only its comparative defects, and did only admit of these new reformations of it, by which our Saviour advanced it to its utmost lustre and perfection, and rendered it infinitely more clear, and easy, and extensive: and since it was their old religion, thus reformed and improved, that they still embraced and continued in, upon their turning Christians, it necessarily follows, that they did not become a new, distinct church, but were only a continued succession of the old one. And hence it is that Christians in the New Testament are sometimes called Jews, Rev. ii. 9. i. e. reformed Jews, or, which is the same, true Christians; and sometimes the Israel of God, Gal. vi. 16. and sometimes the children of Abraham, Gal. iii. 7. and sometimes a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, 1 Peter ii. 9. which is the proper character of the Jews; because by their faith and religion, which is nothing but the true spiritual and mystic Judaism, they were Jews and Israelites, and the children of Abraham; though they were not all so according to the flesh, as the apostle distinguishes, 1 Cor. x. 18. and hence also it is that the Christian church is called the new Jerusalem, Rev. iii. 12. because it is nothing but the old Jerusalem or Jewish church renewed and enlarged.

Eighthly and lastly, That to this individual church

or kingdom of Christ, thus reformed and improved, were superadded all those Gentiles that were afterwards converted to Christianity. When the main body of the Jews had rejected our Saviour, his kingdom was reduced to a very narrow compass, and consisted only of one single congregation of Christians in Jerusalem; which, through the blessing of God upon the indefatigable industry of his apostles and disciples, was by degrees spread and dilated over all the world: for this single congregation was the primitive root, out of which the vast stock of the catholic church sprung, which hath since branched forth itself into particular churches to all the ends of the earth for it is of this church that the apostle speaks, Acts ii. 47. when he tells us, that the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. So that all that were converted to the faith of Christ were but so many additions to this primitive church, so many living stones incorporated into this spiritual building, which by the industry of its builders did soon increase and multiply into several other congregations; and these congregations, though they were several, yet were not separate or independent, but continued all of them united to the first, as homogeneous parts growing out of the same body, or distinct apartments superadded to the same building. So that the Christian church began in one congregation, and by degrees enlarged itself, like a fruitful stock, by branching forth itself into other congregations, in a continued unity with its own body, which, for the convenience of worship and discipline, were afterwards formed into several (though not separate) particular churches, under the conduct of their particular pastors and governors. And thus all the parti

cular churches that are now in the world are only so many lines drawn from this primitive centre, and united in it; and it is upon this account particularly that they all of them constitute but one catholic church; because they all grew out of one, and so are but comparts of the same body, and branches of the same root, and are only that one primitive church multiplied into several churches living in the same catholic communion and unity. And accordingly the Gentile converts are said to be grafted in the Jewish church, which the apostle calls the good olive tree, in Rom. xi. 17, 18. For if some of the branches, that is, the unbelieving Jews, be broken off, i. e. rejected from being any more the church and people of God, and thou being a wild olive tree, growing in the wild common of the world, without the pale and enclosure of God's church, wert grafted in among them, i. e. incorporated with the believing Jews, and made a member of the body of their church, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree, i. e. communicatest with them in all the blessings of God's promise to Abraham, which is the foundation of their church, boast not against the branches; but if thou boast, consider thou bearest not the root, but the root thee, i. e. the Jewish church grew not out of thee, but thou out of that; she is no branch of thee, but thou of her, as being ingrafted into her stock, and added to her communion. By which it is evident that the converted Gentiles were all but so many superadditions to that primitive church of Jerusalem, which was the only remainder of the ancient Jewish church, and which from one single congregation did by degrees increase and multiply itself into an infinite

number of particular churches, in union with itself, from one end of the world to the other.

And this, in short, is the progress of Christ's kingdom, which from Adam to Abraham consisted of all such as were true worshippers of God, of whatsoever kindred or nation; from Abraham to Jesus Christ, principally of the Jewish nation; and when the greatest part of that nation had revolted from Christ, and renounced their relation to him, his kingdom extended no farther than to the small remnant of the Jews that adhered to him, who made up but one single congregation; which congregation, by the diligence of its ministers, and the blessing of God, increased and propagated from itself vast numbers of other congregations, and these were formed into particular churches, which, like so many conquered provinces, were still united to that primitive kingdom, till at last, by a continued accession of new conquests, it was spread and enlarged into an universal empire.

SECT. IX.

Of the nature and constitution of Christ's kingdom.

THE kingdom of Christ and the church of Christ are phrases of a promiscuous use in holy scripture, and import the same thing. Thus Matth. xvi. 18, 19. Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: where the church and the kingdom of heaven are the same thing. And thus, to be translated into the kingdom of Christ, Col. i. 13. and called to the kingdom of Christ, 1 Thess. ii. 12. imports no more than to be made a member of