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The main ground and foundation of all this is laid out, verses 6-9 of this chapter,-containing a rich discovery how all things here below, especially such as concern the gospel and Church of Christ, are carried along through innumerable varieties and a world of contingencies, according to the regular motions and goings forth of a free, eternal, unchangeable decree: as all inferior orbs, notwithstanding the eccentrics and irregularities of their own inhabitants, are orderly carried about by the first Mover.

In verse 6, the planters of the gospel are "forbidden to preach the word in Asia" (that part of it peculiarly so called); and, verse 7, assaying to go with the same message into Bithynia, they are crossed by the Spirit in their attempts; but in my text are called to a place on which their thoughts were not at all fixed:-which calling and which forbidding were both subservient to His free determination" who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will," Eph. i. 11.

And no doubt but, in the dispensation of the gospel throughout the world, unto this day, there is the like conformity to be found to the pattern of God's eternal decrees; though to the messengers not made known aforehand by revelation, but discovered in the effects, by the mighty working of Providence.

Amongst other nations, this is the day of England's visitation, "the Day-spring from on high" having visited this people, and “the Sun of righteousness" arising upon us "with healing in his wings;"-a man of England hath prevailed for assistance, and the free grace of God hath wrought us help by the gospel.

Now, in this day three things are to be done, to keep up our spirits unto this duty, of bringing down our souls by humiliation.

First, To take us off the pride of our own performances, endeavours, or any adherent worth of our own: "Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel,”-O house of England! Ezek. xxxvi. 32.

Secondly, To root out that atheistical corruption which depresses the thoughts of men, not permitting them, in the highest products of Providence, to look above contingencies and secondary causes;-though God "hath wrought all our works for us," Isa. xxvi. 12; and "known unto him are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts xv. 18.

Thirdly, To show that the bulk of this people are as yet in the

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"Eo ipso tempore, quo ad omnes gentes prædicatio Evangelii mittebatur, quædam loca apostolis adire prohibebatur ab eo, qui vult omnes homines salvos fieri."-Prosp. Ep. ad Rufin. [cap. xv]. As diriλiíiro Bovλń.—Hom. i. 5.

• Mal. iv. 2.

wilderness, far from their resting-place, like sheep upon the mountains, as once Israel, Jer. 1. 6,—as yet wanting help by the gospel.

The two first of these will be cleared by discovering how that all revolutions here below-especially every thing that concerns the dispensation of the gospel and kingdom of the Lord Jesus-are carried along according to the eternally fixed purpose of God, free in itself, taking neither rise, growth, cause, nor occasion, from any thing amongst the sons of men.

The third, by laying open the helpless condition of gospel-wanting souls, with some particular application; to all which my text directly leads me.

The words in general are the relation of a message from heaven unto Paul, to direct him in the publishing of the gospel,-as to the place and persons wherein and to whom he was to preach. And in them you have these four things:

1. The manner of it; it was by vision,-"A vision appeared." 2. The time of it,-" In the night."

3. The bringer of it,- -"A man of Macedonia."

4. The matter of it,-help for the Macedonians, interpreted, verse 18, to be by preaching of the gospel.

A little clearing of the words will make way for observations. 1. For the manner of the delivery of this message,-it was by vision. Of all the ways that God used of old to reveal himself unto any in an extraordinary manner,-which were sundry and various, Heb. i. 1,—there was no one so frequent as this of vision. Wherein this did properly consist, and whereby it was distinguished from other ways of the discovery of the secrets of the Lord, I shall not now discuss. In general, visions are revelations of the mind of the Lord concerning some hidden things, present or future, and not otherwise to be known. And they were of two sorts.

(1.) Revelations merely by word or some other more internal species, without any outward sensible appearance; which, for the most part, was the Lord's way of proceeding with the prophets;—which transient light, or discovery of things before unknown, they called a vision,3

(2.) Revelations accompanied with some sensible apparitions, and that either,

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[1] Of things; as usually, among the prophets, rods and pots,* wheels and trees, lamps, axes, vessels, rams, goats, and the like, were presented unto them.

[2.] Of persons; and those, according to the variety of them, of

three sorts.

1 Isa. i. 1.

? Amos i. 1.

Nahum i. 1; Obad. 1.

Jer. i. 11, 13.

⚫ Ezek. i. 5-7; Zech. i. 8, iii. 9, 10, &c.; Dan. vii. 8, 9.

1st, Of the second person of the Trinity; and this either,

First, In respect of some glorious beams of his Deity; as to Isaiah, chapter vi. 1, with John xii. 41;-to Daniel, chapter x. 5, 6,-as afterward to John, Rev. i. 13-15; to which you may add the apparitions of the glory of God not immediately designing the second person, as Ezek. i.

Secondly, With reference to his humanity to be assumed; as to Abraham, Gen. xviii. 1, 2;—to Joshua, chapter v. 13–15, &c.

2dly, Of angels; as unto Peter, Acts xii. 7;-to the women, Matt. xxviii. 5;-to John, Rev. xxii. 8, &c.

3dly, Of men;1 as in my text.

Now, the several advancements of all these ways in dignity and pre-eminence, according as they clearly make out intellectual verity, or according to the honour and exaltation of that whereof apparition is made, are too fruitless a speculation for this day's exercise.

Our vision is of the latter sort, accompanied with a sensible appearance, and is called papa. There be two words in the New Testament signifying vision, öpɑμa and itтasía, coming from different verbs, but both signifying to see. Some distinguish them, and say that irradia is a vision,-xa' rap, an appearance to a man awake; paua,— nad vap, an appearance to a man asleep, called sometimes a dream, Job xxxiii. 15,-like that which was made to Joseph, Matt. ii. 19. But this distinction will not hold, our Saviour calling that vision which his disciples had at his transfiguration, when doubtless they were waking, paua, Matt. xvii. 9. So that I conceive Paul had his vision waking;—and the night is specified as the time thereof, not to intimate his being asleep, but rather his watchfulness, seeking counsel of God in the night which way he should apply himself in the preaching of the gospel. And such I suppose was that of latter days, whereby God revealed to Zuinglius a strong confirmation of the doctrine of the Lord's supper, from Exod. xii. 11, against the factors for that monstrous figment of transubstantiation.

2. For the second, or time of this vision, I need say no more than what before I intimated.

3. The bringer of the message,—ἀνήρ τις ἦν Μακεδὼν ἑστὼς, he was a man of Macedonia in a vision. The Lord made an appearance unto him as of a man of Macedonia, discovering even to his bodily eyes a man; and to his mind, that he was to be conceived as a man of Macedonia. This was, say some,' an angel;-the tutelar angel of the place, say the popish expositors, or the genius of the place, according to the phrase of the heathens, of whom they learned their demonology;-perhaps him, or his antagonist, that not long before ap

1 Zech. ii. 1.

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2 Vid. Aquin. 2, 2, q. 174, art. 3, 4. Scot. in dist. tert. A Lapide, Sanctius in locum, &c.

Mede, Apost. of Later Times.

peared to Brutus' at Philippi. But these are pleasing dreams;us it may suffice that it was the appearance of a man, the mind of Paul being enlightened to apprehend him as a man of Macedonia; and that with infallible assurance, such as usually accompanieth divine revelations in them to whom they are made, as Jer. xxiii. 28,-for upon it Luke affirmeth, verse 10, they assuredly concluded that the Lord called them into Macedonia.

4. The message itself is a discovery of the want of the Macedonians, and the assistance they required, which the Lord was willing should be imparted unto them. Their want is not expressed, but included in the assistance desired, and the person unto whom for it they were directed. Had it been to help them in their estates, they should scarcely have been sent to Paul, who, I believe, might for the most part say, with Peter, "Silver and gold have I none;"—or had it been with a complaint that they-who from a province of Greece, in a corner of Europe, had on a sudden been exalted into the empire of the eastern world-were now enslaved to the Roman power and oppression, they might better have gone to the Parthians, then the only state in the world formidable to the Romans. Paul, though a military man, yet fought not with Nero's legions, the then visible devil of the upper world; but with legions of hell, of whom the earth was now to be cleared. It must be a soul-want, if he be intrusted with the supplying of it. And such this was,-help from death, hell, Satan, from the jaws of that devouring lion. Of this the Lord makes them here to speak, what every one in that condition ought to speak,Help, for the Lord's sake. It was a call to preach the gospel.

The words being opened, we must remember what was said before of their connection with the verses foregoing,-wherein the preachers of the gospel are expressly hindered from above from going to other places, and called hither. Whereof no reason is assigned, but only the will of Him that did employ them; and that no other can be rendered I am farther convinced, by considering the empty conjectures of attempters.

God foresaw that they would oppose the gospel, says our Beda. So, say I, might he of all nations in the world, had not he determined to send his effectual grace for the removal of that opposition;

'Plutarch. in Vit. Bruti.

Calvin, in locum. "Dicebat se discernere (nescio quo sapore, quem verbis explicare non poterat) quid interesset inter Deum revelantem," &c.-Aug. Confes. Acts iii. 6.

Plutarch de Defect. Oracu.

Ἑβραῖος κέλεται με παῖς μακάρεσσιν ἀνάσσων,

Τὸν δὲ δόμον προλιπεῖν καὶ ὁδὸν πάλιν αὖθις ἱκέσθαι.

Respons. Apoll. apud Euseb. Niceph.

"A nullo duro corde resistitur, quia cor ipsum emollit."-Aug., Ezek. xxxvi. 26; Deut. xxx. 6.

besides, he grants the means of grace to despisers, Matt. xi. 21.They were not prepared for the gospel, says Oecumenius. As well, say I, as the Corinthians, whose preparations you may see, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11; or any other nation, as we shall afterward declare: yet to this foolish conjecture adhere the Papists and Arminians.'-God would have those places left for to be converted by John, says Sedulius; yet the church at Ephesus, the chief city of those parts, was planted by Paul, says Ignatius and Irenæus.-He foresaw a famine to come upon those places, says Origen, from which he would deliver his own; and therefore, it seems, left them to the power of the devil. More such fancies3 might we recount, of men unwilling to submit to the will of God; but upon that, as the sole discriminating cause of these things, we rest, and draw these three observations:

I. The rule whereby all things are dispensed here below,-especially in the making out of the means of grace,-is the determinate will and counsel of God. Stay not in Asia, go not into Bithynia, but come to Macedonia. "Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight."

II. The sending of the gospel to any nation, place, or persons, rather than others, as the means of life and salvation, is of the mere free grace and good pleasure of God. "Stay not in Asia," &c.

III. No men in the world want help, like them that want the gospel. "Come and help us."

I. Begin we with the first of these: The rule whereby, &c. All events and effects, especially concerning the propagation of the gospel and the Church of Christ, are, in their greatest variety, regulated by the eternal purpose and counsel of God."

All things below in their events are but the wax," whereon the eternal seal of God's purpose hath left its own impression; and they every way answer unto it. It is not my mind to extend this to the generality of things in the world, nor to show how the creature can by no means deviate from that eternal rule of providence whereby it is guided; no more than an arrow can avoid the mark, after it hath received the impression of an unerring hand,—or well-ordered wheels not turn according to the motion given them by the master-spring,or the wheels in Ezekiel's vision move irregularly to the spirit of life that was in them. Nor yet, secondly, how that, on the other

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Lapide. Sanctius in loc. Rom. Script. Synd. ar. 1.

2 Ὑμεῖς μὲν οὖν ἐστε τοιοῦτοι, ὑπὸ τοιῶνδε παιδευτῶν στοιχειωθέντες, Παύλου τοῦ Χριστο Popov.-Ignat. Epist. ad Eph.; Iren., lib. iii. cap. 3.

3"Qui causam quæ sit voluntatis divinæ, aliquid majus eo quærit.”—Aug. "Voluntas Dei nullo modo causam habet."-Aquin. p. q. 12, a. 5.

· Θεία πάντων ἀρχὴ, δὶ ἧς & πάντα καὶ ἔστι, καὶ διαμένει.-Theophrast. apud Picum. de Provid.

5 "Providentia est ratio ordinis rerum ad finem.”—Th. p. q. 22, a. 1, 6. • Ezek. i.

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