1. That it is so de facto, and hath been so.
the world but perfect his people, and welcome them into glory?
Therefore God principally next to himself loves his church. The whole earth is his, but the church is his treasure: Exod. 19:5, 'If you will keep my covenant, then shall you be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine,' segullah; such a treasure, that a man, a king, will entrust in no hands but his own. 'All the earth is mine' is not a reason why the church was his treasure, but an incentive of thankfulness; that when the whole earth was his, and lay before him, and there were many people that he might have chosen and loved before them, yet he pitched upon them to make them his choicest treasure. And when the blessed God hath pitched upon a people, and made them his treasure, what he doth for them is with his whole heart and with his whole soul. Jer. 32:41, 42, speaking of making an everlasting covenant, he adds, 'Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good,' &c., 'assuredly with my whole heart, and with my whole soul.' As though God minded nothing else but those people he had made an everlasting covenant with, which is the highest security, and most pregnant expression of his affection that can be given to any; not to give them a parcel or moiety of his heart, but the whole, infinite, entire piece, and to engage it all with the greatest delight in doing good to them. That infinite heart of God, and all the contrivances and workings of it, centre in the church's welfare. The world is a wilderness, but the church is a garden. If he water the wilderness, will he not much more dress his garden? If the flights of birds be observed by him, shall not also the particular concernments of the church? He hath a repository for them and all that belong to them; he hath a book of life for their names, Luke 10:20, a book of record for their members, Ps. 139:16; a note-book for their speeches,
Mal. 3:16, 'A book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord;' and a book of providence for their preservation, Exod. 32:32. In the prosecution of this I shall shew,
1. That it is so de facto, and hath been so.
2. That according to the state of things, and God's economy, it must be so.