Jacob Seed Quotes

Dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves.

Some midwives said that pleasure overheated the seed and killed it. But others claimed that babies only come when women smile. This was the tale she told Jacob to inspire his caresses.

Each cherry took about three seconds to eat. Three seconds to eat, but at least five years in the making. It seemed unfair to the hard-working cherry tree. The least I could do was to devote my attention to the cherry in those three seconds, really appreciate the tartness of the skin and the faint crunching sound when I bite down. I guess it's called mindfulness. Or being in the moment, or making the mundane sacred. Whatever it is, I'm doing it more. Like the ridiculously extended thank-you list for my hummus, the fruit taboo made me more aware of the whole cherry process, the seed, the soil, the five years of watering and waiting. That's the paradox: I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world.

What do the words “plant” and “plan” have in common? Yes, correct, it’s the word PLAN. Mind Gardening is a mindful thinking and planning philosophy.

See how God winked at weaknesses and overlooked failures as He poured upon His servants grace and blessing untold. Let it be Abraham, Jacob, David, Daniel, Elijah, or whom you will; honor followed honor as harvest follows the seed. The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference.

Why does God not declare himself as the God of Adam? For we know that Abraham sinned even as Adam did. Why then did He not call himself the God of Adam? Why did He not say the God of Abel, the seed of Adam? Why instead did He call himself the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob? Why according to the flesh was our Lord Jesus presented in the New Testament as having been born of the seed of Abraham? Why from among all men should God have called himself the God of these three particular persons? Wherein lies the difference between these three and other people? Well, apart from the fact that God had covenanted with these three men, He takes them up as representative personages. He chooses them to represent three types of men in the world. What type of man is Abraham? He is a giant of faith. He is rather uncommon; in fact, he is quite special. As the God of Abraham, God declares himself to be the God of excellent people. Yet, thanks be to God, He is not only the God of the excellent. Were He merely this kind of God, we would sink into despair because we are not persons of excellence. But God is also the God of Isaac. What type of person is Isaac? He is very ordinary. He eats whenever he can, and sleeps as he has opportunity. He is neither a wonder man nor a wicked person. How this fact has comforted many of us! Yet God is not only the God of the ordinary men, He is also the God of the bad men: He is the God of Jacob too, for in the Scriptures Jacob is pictured as one of the worst persons to be found in the Old Testament. Hence through these three persons, God is telling us that He is the God of Abraham the best, the God of Isaac the ordinary, and the God of Jacob the worst. He is the God of those with great faith, He is the God of the common people, and He is also the God of the lowest of men such as thieves and prostitutes. Suppose I am special like Abraham; then He is my God. Suppose I am ordinary like Isaac; then He is also my God. And suppose from my mother’s womb I have been bad like Jacob was in that I have striven with my brother; then He is still my God. He has a way with the excellent, with the common, and with the worst of humanity.

The Dark Ages gradually ended six centuries ago with the Renaissance, which seeded new ideas for a different world. The Renaissance ideal dominated our culture until three centuries ago, from the 14th to the 18th century, when it was superseded by modernism. Not surprisingly, this human ideal has almost been forgotten in our culture. The Renaissance, literally "re-birth", was a revival and rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman culture following the decline of culture, trade, and technology during the Dark Ages.

Fir, cedar, pines, oaks, and maples densely timbered this section. But it was the redwoods that never failed to fill him with awe. Their feathery-looking needles and reddish bark. The way they stretched up to incredible heights and the sheer magnitude of their circumferences. How long ago had God planted their seeds? Hundreds of years? Thousands? As he stood amongst those mighty giants, he realized the land wasn’t his at all. It was God’s. God had formed and planted the seeds. He’d tended the soil and caused it to rain. He’d needed no man. Least of all Joe. Yet over and over Joe had thought of this as his own. My land. My logging camp. My house. My woman. My everything. Picking up his ax, he returned to his work. But in his mind, he reviewed a list of men in the Bible who’d left everything they held dear for parts unknown. Abraham. Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Even a woman. Esther. In every case, their circumstances were much more severe than his. God hadn’t commanded Joe to leave his land, though he’d prayed for guidance. Fasted. Read his Bible. But God had remained silent. Joe simply assumed God was letting him choose. But no matter what he chose, none of it was really his. It was all God’s. And God was sharing it with him. So which did he want? Both. Like a spoiled child, he definitely wanted both. But if he could only have one, wouldn’t he still be a man blessed? Yes. And he’d praise God and thank Him. But that didn’t immediately make the grief shrivel up and blow away. Eyeing where he wanted the tree to fall, he adjusted his stance. I want Anna, Lord. I choose Anna. Yet as long as he lived, he’d always miss this land. He’d miss the Territory. He’d miss the logging. He’d miss his friends. The cypress began to pop and splinter. Jumping away, he braced his feet, threw back his head, and shouted with everything he had. “Timber-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!” The tree wavered, then crashed to the forest floor. Noise resounded through the copse. The ground shook. Debris flew. Before any of it settled, Joe fell to his knees, doubled over, and sobbed.

At the sight of Ruth, singing and crying in the moonlight, they say Jacob Wyld crouched wordlessly and planted seeds at her feet, in the earth between the roots of the gum tree. What grew from that night, where Ruth's tears fell to the earth, was a heath of wild vanilla lilies, and an equally heady love affair between Ruth and Jacob. They met at the river whenever Ruth could get away. He brought her flower seeds and she brought him whatever meager food scraps she could sneak from the house. Soon Ruth had enough seeds to till a small, shaded corner of dirt near the house, where a nearly dead, lone wattle tree stood. The dirt was so dry it took her a month to soften it with whatever water she could carry from the river. Eventually, the wattle tree exploded into flower, a winter blaze of sweet yellow. Ruth fell to her knees at the sight. The scent floated all the way into town. Bees droned around the tree, drunk on its nectar. Beneath the wattle were circles of green shoots. Ruth sketched each one in her small notebook. As they bloomed, so different to the foxgloves and snowdrops of her mother's songs, Ruth noted down what they meant to her, adapting the Victorian language of flowers. The strange and beautiful native flowers, able to flourish in the harshest conditions, enchanted Ruth; none more so than the deep scarlet flowers with red centres the color of the darkest blood. Meaning, Ruth wrote in her notebook, have courage, take heart.

The Big Picture: From Abraham to Armageddon Down through the ages, the sons of Jacob have survived trials, persecution, and thousands of years in exile from their homeland. The Scriptures foretold the dispersion of the Jews and also of their regathering toward the end of the age. After a long absence from a country left in desolation, the Jews have come home to the land that God promised to Abraham: “…a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety.” (Ezekiel 38:8). The other branch of Abraham’s family—the sons of Ishmael— are the Islamic Arabs that inhabit the lands surrounding Israel. Ishmael’s descendants epitomize the spirit and temperament that the Bible predicted more than three millennia ago: “…his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Genesis 16:12). The Prophet Ezekiel tells us that these same sons of Ishmael will be among the enemies who seek to destroy Israel in the end times: “And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land…” (Ezekiel 38:16). The day is soon coming when Ishmael’s descendants will unite as one: “…they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast.” Their ultimate purpose being the fulfillment of a long-held dream: the annihilation of Israel. Muslims have been taught for centuries that the Last Day will not come until they wage a final war against the Jews and rid the world of them once and for all. They believe that only after this is accomplished will Muslims enjoy a golden age of peace, justice, and worldwide Islamic rule. However, the Bible tells us that God has other plans: Before Israel can be destroyed He is going to intervene, and bring to ruin those who seek her destruction. On that day, multitudes of Jews will realize that Jesus is Messiah, and many Muslims will realize that they have made a fateful mistake. Though most are unaware, we, today, are witnessing the fruition of seeds that were planted nearly four thousand years ago with the birth of Abraham’s sons. God promised Abraham that He would make great nations of both Isaac and Ishmael. To be sure, one would be hard pressed to argue that He did not. The Jewish and Arabic peoples have had an immeasurable impact on the world and can now be found at center stage in the arena of world politics and conflict. Thus, the history of mankind will reach its pinnacle, essentially where it began, in a region literally located at the center of the globe; more specifically, Israel and the nations that surround her.

There shall be in the church a fleshly seed of Abraham and a spiritual; a Cain and an Abel; an Ishmael and an Isaac; an Esau and a Jacob; as I have said, a worker and a believer; a great multitude of them that be called, and a small flock of them that be elect and chosen.31

We can follow this covenantal theme like a scarlet thread through the entire Scripture. It began with Adam, and we can follow it through Noah and Shem until the promise is confirmed in Abraham. After Abraham, we trace the thread through Isaac, Jacob, and David and finally to its culmination in the promised seed, in Yeshua the Messiah. In Romans 15:8, Paul said Yeshua was a minister to the Jewish people to ‘confirm the promises made unto the fathers.’ Let me read you what he said to the Galatians:

And when God, in answer to their prayers and succeeding their endeavours, delivers, restores, and advances his church, according to his promise, then he is said to answer, and come, and say, Here am I, and to show himself; and they are said to find him, and see him plainly. (Isa. lviii. 9.) "Then shall thou cry, and he shall say, Here I am" (Isa. xlv. 19.) "I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain." Chap. xxv. 8, 9.) "The Lord will wipe away the tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off the earth. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us: This is the Lord, we have waited for him; we will be glad, and rejoice in his salvation." Together with the next chap." ver. 8, 9. we have waited for thee; "the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early. For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." Isa. lii. 6-8. "Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore they shall know in that day, that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice, together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.

was not through the childish fun and shallow pleasures of youth that a man and woman would become one soul and plumb the depths of intimacy. It was through mutual pain and suffering. It was in sharing hope in the midst of pain that they touched the very presence of God. You who fear Yahweh, praise him! All you Seed of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you Seed of Israel! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to Yahweh, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to Yahweh, and he rules over the nations. His music melted her heart. Not through manipulation or artifice, but through truth. Because the way to capture the heart of a woman of God was to be a man after God’s own heart. He kissed her, as he had never kissed a woman before.

Have you forgotten the allotment at Babel?” She was referring to the act of Yahweh that occurred with the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel in the ancient days. He divided the nations, fixed their borders, and allotted them according to the number of the Sons of God as their inheritance. He had given the nations over to be ruled by the gods. But Yahweh kept Jacob, through the Seed of Eve, for his own inheritance. Molech said, “That is how we received Canaan.” “Yes, that is how we received Canaan,” she mimicked. “But, do not get too settled down little mole man. The Seed of Eve is on their way to Canaan, which means Yahweh intends to dispossess the Seed of the Serpent from their inheritance. It will be a great War of the Seed.

And the faithful were not the only ones privy to the prophecy. Even from the earliest of ages, the heavenly principalities and powers used the Seed of the Serpent to hunt down the Chosen Ones in each generation to try to kill them. Enoch, Noah, Abraham and others were protected by Yahweh from this murderous plan. The oracles of the pagan diviner Balaam and others foretold a divine star coming from the line of Jacob, a kingly scepter from Israel, a lion from Judah who would crush the skulls of the enemy and dispossess his inheritance.

But God commanded Abraham to circumcise both Isaac and Ishmael, i.e., to place the same sign and seal on them. What did their circumcision signify? Obviously, the same thing—it was a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham (and Abraham’s seed). Now was it also a seal of their righteousness which they had by faith? Depending upon whether we are considering Isaac or Ishamael, the answer is yes and no. We see the same with Jacob and Esau. It was, on both of them, a seal of the coming Christ, the coming Righteousness. The meaning of the sign and seal remained the same. But Jacob personally came to this righteousness of faith and Esau did not. Thus Esau bore the seal of “the righteousness of another” hypocritically. The Jews who persecuted the Christ were following in Esau’s footsteps. They thought circumcision was a sign and seal of their own righteousness. But it was not—it was a sign of a covenant made with sinners, and a seal of a Righteousness found in Another. The seal of circumcision was a seal of “the Lord our Righteousness.

Yahweh saved the sons of Israel for himself, through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and claimed the land of Canaan for their inheritance. The only problem was that Canaan was already under the dominion of Ba’al, Asherah and other gods. And Canaan was the land of giants, the Seed of the Serpent. Joshua ben Nun and David ben Jesse had cleansed the land of its unclean inhabitants with the Wars of Yahweh. But Israel’s constant adultery with the gods of Canaan lost them their inheritance, and over the years, they were chastised by one nation after another. Assyria, Babylonia, Media-Persia, Greece, and now Rome.

28:10And Jacob went out from Beer- sheba, and went toward Haran. 28:11And he lighted upon the place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. 28:12And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 28:13And, behold, the LORD stood beside him, and said: ‘I am the LORD, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear Yahweh your Elohim, praise him, glorify him, and fear him, all ye seed of Israel. For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. Neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.

It was a beginning. He was a seed. He could grow.

Hence it appears, that the spiritual understanding of the Scripture, does not consist in opening to the mind the mystical meaning of the Scripture, in its parables, types, and allegories; for this is only a doctrinal explication of the Scripture. He that explains what is meant by the stony ground, and the seed's springing up suddenly, and quickly withering away, only explains what propositions or doctrines are taught in it. So he that explains what is typified by Jacob's ladder, and the angels of God ascending and descending on it, or what was typified by Joshua's leading Israel through Jordan , only shows what propositions are hid in these passages. And many men can explain these types who have no spiritual knowledge. It is possible that a man might know how to interpret all the types, parables, enigmas, and allegories in the Bible, and not have one beam of spiritual light in his mind; because he may not have the least degree of that spiritual sense of the holy beauty of divine things which has been spoken of, and may see nothing of this kind of glory in anything contained in any of these mysteries, or any other part of the Scripture. It is plain, by what the apostle says, that a man might understand all such mysteries, and have no saving grace, 1 Cor. 13:2: "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." They therefore are very foolish, who are exalted in an opinion of their own spiritual attainments, from notions that come into their minds, of the mystical meaning of these and those passages of Scripture, as though it was a spiritual understanding of these passages, immediately given them by the Spirit of God, and hence have their affections highly raised; and what has been said shows the vanity of such affections.

And the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, saying, 24“Have you not seen what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which Yahweh chose, He has rejected them’? Thus they have spurned My people from being a nation any longer ain their sight. 25Thus says Yahweh, ‘If My covenant for day and night stand not, and the statutes for heaven and earth I have not established, 26then I would reject the seed of Jacob and David My servant, anot taking from his seed rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I will breturn their cfortunes and will have compassion on them.’ 

We are in no position to dispute the claim that when you wash your hair, you prefer to dump fifteen bottles of lavender and poppy seed shampoo all over your scalp like some gooey shower freak.

Certainly God was writing an address in history that only his Messiah could fulfill. Approximately forty men have claimed to be the Jewish Messiah. But only one—Jesus Christ—appealed to fulfilled prophecy to substantiate his claims, and only his credentials back up those claims. What are some of those credentials? And what events had to precede and coincide with the appearance of God’s Son? To begin, we must go back to Genesis 3:15, where we find the first messianic prophecy in the Bible: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (NKJV). This prophecy could refer to only one man in all of Scripture. No other but Jesus could be referred to as the “seed” of a woman. All others born in history come from the seed of a man. Other versions make the same claim when they identify this conqueror of Satan to be the offspring of a woman, when in all other instances the Bible counts offspring through the line of the man. This offspring or “seed” of a woman will come into the world and destroy the works of Satan (bruise his head). In Genesis 9 and 10 God narrowed down the address further. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. All the nations of the world can be traced back to these three men. But God effectively eliminated two-thirds of the human race from the line of messiahship by specifying that the Messiah would come through the lineage of Shem. Then continuing on down to the year 2000 BC, we find that God called a man named Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees. With Abraham, God became still more specific, stating that the Messiah will be one of his descendants. All the families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham (see Genesis 12:1-3; 17:1-8; 22:15-18). When he had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, many of Abraham’s descendants were eliminated when God selected the second son, Isaac, to be the progenitor of the Messiah (see Genesis 17:19-21; 21:12). Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. God chose the line of Jacob (see Genesis 28:1-4; 35:10-12; Numbers 24:17). Jacob had twelve sons, out of whose descendants developed the twelve tribes of Israel. Then God singled out the tribe of Judah for messiahship and eliminated eleven-twelfths of the Israelite tribes. And of all the family lines within the tribe of Judah, he chose the line of Jesse (see Isaiah 11:1-5, niv). We can see the address narrowing. Jesse had eight sons, and in 2 Samuel 7:12-16 and Jeremiah 23:5 God eliminated seven-eighths of Jesse’s family line by choosing Jesse’s son David. So, in terms of lineage, the Messiah must be born of the seed of a woman, the lineage of Shem, the race of the Jews, the line of Isaac, the line of Jacob, the tribe of Judah, the family of Jesse, and the house of David.

But in this case of the Edomites' coveting the land of Israel, and gaping for it, there was a particular affront to God, when they said, "These lands are given us to devour, and we shall have our bellies full of their riches." God says, You have boasted against me and have multiplied your words against me; for they expected possession upon a vacancy, because Israel was driven out, whereas the Lord was still there, Eze 35:10. His temple indeed was burnt, and the other tokens of his presence were gone; but his promise to give that land to the seed of Jacob for an inheritance was not made void, but remained in full force and virtue; and by that promise he did in effect still keep possession for Israel, till they should in due time be restored to it. That was Immanuel's land (Isa 8:8); in that land he was to be born, and therefore that people shall continue in it of whom he is to be born, till he has passed his time in it, and then let who will take it. The Lord is there, the Lord Jesus is to be there; and therefore Israel's discontinuance of possession is no defeasance of their right, but it shall be kept for them, and they shall have, hold, and enjoy it by virtue of the divine grant, till the promise of this Canaan shall by the Messiah be changed into the promise of a far better.

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Jacobs saw Constellations all over, especially in thriving cities, with busy and shifting groups of neighbors and shopkeepers and industries making up their own seed pattern of competition and cooperation and co-creation. Like snowflakes, great cities to Jacobs were made up of great neighborhoods, and neighborhoods, in turn, of great blocks. She saw beautiful order in this complexity of life at any scale, while the Pyramid mindset, by contrast, saw chaos. The Pyramid imposed its own idea of order in the form of “superblocks” and big housing projects, which Jacobs saw as nothing less than killing life. Such plans failed the snowflake fractal test.

The act of rebellion is seeded in doubt that SAFER-U is what it claims to be, and the search for some satisfaction outside of us. We can see what life without SAFER-U, lived in rebellion and fear, does to areas where people have not let SAFER-U gain control. The rebellious and non-conforming choose their poverty by rejecting the safety and riches of our U-City’s.

Christ, Abraham’s seed, provided an immortal body for Jesus, a descendant of Jacob and Judah, and will provide immortal bodies for all of Jesus’ spiritual offspring, the sons of God that comprise the Israel of God.

Every place has two characters— every place is double. What is sublime is also fallen. What is clement is at the same time base. In the deepest darkness lies the spark of the most powerful light, and vice versa: where omnipresent clarity reigns, a pit of darkness lurks inside the seed of light.

What, now, of those not elected? Those not elected cannot be expected not to be hurt by not being of the seed of Abraham, whom God loves above all others. The Bible clearly depicts the suffering of Esau. . . . And yet, in recounting the blessing of Jacob and the exclusion of Esau, no careful reader can fail to notice that the sympathy shown Esau is greater than that for Jacob. God shows Esau compassion even if Jacob does not. The consolation of the gentiles is the knowledge that God also stands in relationship with them in the recognition and affirmation of their uniqueness. . . . The mystery of Israel’s election thus turns out to be the guarantee of the fatherhood of God toward all peoples, elect and nonelect, Jew and gentile.34

What do the words “plant” and “plan” have in common? Yes, correct, it’s the word PLAN. Mind Gardening is a mindful thinking and planning philosophy.

We have already seen that the land into which God brought Abraham some four thousand years ago, which He promised by everlasting covenant to him and to his heirs, and in which he and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob lived for centuries thereafter, was not a non-existent place called “Palestine,” as those who erroneously call themselves “Palestinians” today insist. It was the historic land of Canaan: “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee…all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God….8 Be ye mindful always of his covenant…which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; and hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan….”9

That Christ was to be born of a woman, as the seed of Abraham through Isaac and of the fourth son of Jacob is clear. That the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses and a sin-bearer for the race and that he would suffer and die as the means of propitiation are right there. Where he would be born, his earthly poverty, the precise circumstances of his death, and the certainty of his resurrection from the dead are all laid out in meticulous detail.

The negative counterpart of those “good” traits has been defensiveness, distrust, competitiveness, and hostility toward the members of other groups, the seeds of the conflicts and wars that landmark the entire history of humanity up to our day.

Africa is My parentage .... this place Is not my home I abide In a land designed .... by men Who hate my 'tone May the blood of my antecedents Bless my seed .... and may it be Their defense And may that blood Forever protect .... their truth And their innocence *Excerpt from: Jacob's Ascent, New Collected Poems by Mekael © Mekael Shane, 2019

We may be sure of this, and we must pray in the assurance of it, in a full assurance of his faith, that wherever God finds a praying heart, he will be found a prayer-hearing God; though the voice of prayer be a low voice, a weak voice, yet if it come from an upright heart, it is a voice that God will hear, that he will hear with pleasure, it is his delight, and hay he will return a gracious answer to; he hath heard thy prayers, he hath seen thy tears. When therefore we stand praying, this ground we must stand upon, this principle we must stand to, nothing doubting, nothing wavering, that whatever we ask of God as a father, in the name of Jesus Christ the Mediator, according to the will of God revealed in the Scripture, it shall be granted us either in kind or kindness; so the promise is, John 16:23, and the truth of it is sealed to by the concurring experience of the saints in all ages, ever since men began to call upon the name of the Lord, that Jacob's God never yet said to Jacob's seed, seek he me in vain, and he will not begin now. When we come to God by prayer, if we come aright we may be confident of this, that notwithstanding the distance between heaven and earth, and our great unworthiness to have any notice taken of us, or any favour showed us; yet God doth hear our voice, and will not turn away our prayers or his mercy.

The same Christ is Revealed in all the Covenants since the Fall. They are as many Cabinets one within another: but Christ the Jewell within them All. All their Promises lead to him, and Center in in him, All their Commandments refer to him, All their Threats drive to him, All their Ceremonies Typifie him, All their Sacraments signfie him, All their Ordinances magnifie him, &c. But in every of them how differently is the same Christ represented! As the Seed of the woman bruising the Serpents Head; in the First: As the true Noah saving an Elect Remnant by water by his blood, in the Ark of the Church; in the Second: As the Seed of Abraham in whom all the Nations of the earth should be blessed in then third: As the Prophet like Moses raised up from among the People Israel, to be hearkned unto in all things, under severest Penalty: in the Fourth: As the Royall Seed of David, that should sit upon his Throne, ruling the House of Jacob, The Church of God, for evermore; in the Fifth: As the true DAVID, Shepheard, Prince and King of the Redeemed Captives for ever; in the Sixth; And, as God manifested in the Flesh, Crucified, Dead, Buried, Risen, Ascended, and Set down on the Right hand of God, For the actual accomplishment of his Elects Redemption; in the Seventh.