The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed and Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered, by Roger Williams CHAP. CXXI. CHAP. CXXI. Peace. Glorious and conquering Truth, methinks I see most evidently thy glorious conquests: how mighty are thy spiritual weapons, 2 Cor. x. 4, to break down those mighty and strong holds and castles, which men have fortified themselves withal against thee? Oh! that even the thoughts of men may submit and bow down to the captivity of Jesus Christ! A fourth difference of laws and statutes from all others. Truth. Your kind encouragement makes me proceed more cheerfully to a fourth difference from the laws and statutes of this land, different from all the laws and statutes of the world, and paralleled only by the laws and ordinances of spiritual Israel. Moses a type of Christ. First, then, consider we the law-maker, or rather the law-publisher, or prophet, as Moses calls himself, Deut. xviii. [15,] and Acts iii. [22,] he is expressly called that prophet who figured out Christ Jesus who was to come like unto Moses, greater than Moses, as the son is greater than the servant. Such lawgivers, or law-publishers, never had any state or people as Moses the type, or Christ Jesus, miraculously stirred up and sent as the mouth of God between God and his people. The laws of Israel unparalleled. Secondly, concerning the laws themselves: it is true, the second table contains the law of nature, the law moral and civil, yet such a law was also given to this people as never to any people in the world: such was the law of worship, Ps. cxlvii., peculiarly given to Jacob, and God did not deal so with other nations: which laws for the matter of the worship in all those wonderful significant sacrifices, and for the manner by such a priesthood, such a place of tabernacle, and afterward of temple, such times and solemnities of festivals, were never to be paralleled by any other nation, but only by the true Christian Israel established by Jesus Christ amongst Jews and Gentiles throughout the world. God’s own finger penned laws for Israel. Thirdly, the law of the ten words, Deut. x., the epitome of all the rest, it pleased the most high God to frame and pen twice, with his own most holy and dreadful finger, upon Mount Sinai, which he never did to any other nation before or since, but only to that spiritual Israel, the people and the church of God, in whose hearts of flesh he writes his laws, according to Jer. xxxi., Heb. viii. and x. Peace. Such promulgation of such laws, by such a prophet, must needs be matchless and unparalleled. Fifth difference. Truth. In the fifth place, consider we the punishments and rewards annexed to the breach or observation of these laws. Temporal prosperity most proper to the temporal national state of the Jews. First, those which were of a temporal and present consideration of this life: blessings and curses of all sorts opened at large, Lev. xxvi. and Deut. xxviii., which cannot possibly be made good in any state, country, or kingdom, but in a spiritual sense in the church and kingdom of Christ. The spiritual prosperity of God’s people now, the antitype. The reason is this: such a temporal prosperity of outward peace and plenty of all things, of increase of children, of cattle, of honour, of health, of success, of victory, suits not temporally with the afflicted and persecuted estate of God’s people now: and therefore spiritual and soul-blessedness must be the antitype, viz., in the midst of revilings, and all manner of evil speeches for Christ’s sake, soul-blessedness. In the midst of afflictions and persecutions, soul-blessedness, Matt. v. and Luke vi. And yet herein the Israel of God should enjoy their spiritual peace, Gal. vi. 16. What Israel’s excommunication was. Out of that blessed temporal estate to be cast, or carried captive, was their excommunication or casting out of God’s sight, 2 Kings xvii. 23. Therefore was the blasphemer, the false prophet, the idolater, to be cast out or cut off from this holy land: which punishment cannot be paralleled by the punishment of any state or kingdom in the world, but only by the excommunicating or out-casting of person or church from the fellowship of the saints and churches of Christ Jesus in the gospel. The corporal stoning in the law, typed out spiritual stoning in the gospel. And therefore, as before I have noted, the putting away of the false prophet, by stoning him to death, Deut. xiii., is fitly answered, and that in the very same words, in the antitype: when, by the general consent or stoning of the whole assembly, any wicked person is put away from amongst them, that is, spiritually cut off out of the land of the spiritually living, the people or church of God, 1 Cor. v., Gal. v. The rewards or punishments of the laws of Israel not to be paralleled. Lastly, the great and high reward or punishment of the keeping or breach of these laws to Israel, was such as cannot suit with any state or kingdom in the world beside. The reward of the observation was life, eternal life. The breach of any one of these laws was death, eternal death, or damnation from the presence of the Lord. So Rom. x., James ii. Such a covenant God made not before nor since with any state or people in the world. For, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, Rom. x. 4. And, he that believeth in that Son of God, hath eternal life; he that believeth not hath not life, but is condemned already, John iii. and 1 John v.