I. She asserts herself to be a wall
I. She asserts herself to be a wall
That is, 1. Well walled; God himself is a wall of fire about his people; Christ's salvation is appointed for walls and bulwarks to them; nay, faithful ministers and Christian magistrates may in some sense be said to be so, being placed for the protection and &fence of the church. 2. She is one of those two walls, to which Christ is the comer-stone, as he is called (Ephesians 2:20), the Jewish church is one, and the Gentile the other; which both meet and make up one building in Christ, the middle wall of partition being broken down. 3. She is a wall built up of lively stones, cemented together in love: the elect of God, by nature, lie in the same quarry, are taken out of the same pit, and hewn from the same rock, as others are; but being separated from them by distinguishing and efficacious grace, are hewn and fitted for the building by the Spirit of God, where they are laid by him, and knit together in the bond of love. 4. She was firmly built on Christ, the foundation; which God has laid in Zion, and is sure, firm, and lasting, against which the gates of hell can never prevail; and which will be sufficient to bear up and support the church and all believers, who lay the whole stress of their persons, and the salvation of them upon it. 5. She was well established in the doctrine of faith: the Gentiles received the gospel with all readiness of mind, when the Jews rejected it; and though it was in much affliction, yet it was with much joy in the Holy Ghost; and when they once got it, they could not be moved away from it, by all the frowns and flatteries, promises, and threatenings of men; Which, to their adversaries, was an evident token of perdition, but to them, of salvation, and that of God; so the Targum and R. Solomon Jarchi interpret these words of the steadfastness of the congregation of Israel; in the religion and laws of God. 6. She was constant and immoveable in her love to Christ; she was a wall; she was proof against all temptations and insinuations, and not a door, that easily let into her affections every one that knocked: she loved Christ dearly, and kept her love inviolate and pure for him; nothing could separate her from it; the greatest pleasures and profits of life could not tempt her to desert him; nor the most dreadful sufferings and torments deter her from expressing her affections to him; she was like a wall that stood invincible and impregnable.