CHAP. CX.
Peace. Blessed be the God of truth, the God of peace, who hath so long preserved us in this our retired conference without interruptions. His mercy still shields us while you express and I listen to that so much imitated, yet most inimitable state of Israel.
Yet, before you descend to particulars, dear Truth, let me cast one mite into your great treasury, concerning that instance, just now mentioned, of the Persian kings.
The Persian kings make evidently against such as produce them for maintenance of the doctrine of persecution.
Methinks those precedents of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, are strong against New England’s tenent and practice. Those princes professedly gave free permission and bountiful encouragement to the consciences of the Jews to use and practise their religion, which religion was most eminently contrary to their own religion and their country’s worship.
Truth. I shall, sweet Peace, with more delight pass on these rough ways, from your kind acceptance and unwearied patience in attention.
In this discovery of that vast and mighty difference between that state of Israel and all other states, only to be matched and paralleled by the Christian church or Israel, I shall select some main and principal considerations concerning that state, wherein the irreconcilable differences and disproportion may appear.
First. I shall consider the very land and country of Canaan itself, and present some considerations proving it to be a non-such.
The land of Canaan chosen by God to be the seat of the church; but under the New Testament all nations alike.
First. This land was espied out, and chosen by the Lord, out of all the countries of the world, to be the seat of his church and people, Ezek. xx. 6.