CHAP. CXVI.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Williams, Roger and Underhill, Edward Bean
Peace. Dear Truth, how art thou hidden from the eyes of men in these mysteries! how should men weep abundantly with John, that the Lamb may please to open these blessed seals unto them!
Truth. Oh that men more prized their Maker’s fear! then should they be more acquainted with their Maker’s councils, for his secret is with them that fear him, Ps. xxv. 14.
I pass on to a second difference.
Second difference. The mystery of the anointing the kings of Israel and Judah.
The kings of Israel and Judah were all solemnly anointed with oil, Ps. lxxxix. 20, I have found David my servant, with my oil have I anointed him. Whence the kings of Israel and Judah were honoured with that mystical and glorious title of the anointed, or Christ of the Lord, Lam. iv. 20, The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was taken in their pits, &c.
Which anointing and title however, the man of sin, together with the crown and diadem of spiritual Israel, the church of God, he hath given to some of the kings of the earth, that so he may in lieu thereof dispose of their civil crowns the easier: yet shall we find it an incommunicable privilege and prerogative of the saints and people of God.
For as the Lord Jesus himself in the antitype was not anointed with material but spiritual oil, Ps. xlv. 7, with the oil of gladness; and Luke iv. 18, from Isaiah lxi. 1, with the Spirit of God, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings, &c.; so also all his members are anointed with the Holy Spirit of God, 2 Cor. i. 21, and 1 John ii. 20.
The name Christian, or anointed.
Hence is it that Christians rejoice in that name, as carrying the very express title of the anointed of the Lord; which most superstitiously and sacrilegiously hath been applied only unto kings.
A sacrilegious monopoly of the name Christian.
Peace. O dear Truth, how doth the great Searcher of all hearts find out the thefts of the anti-christian world! how are men carried in the dark they know not whither! How is that heavenly charge, Touch not mine anointed, &c., Ps. cv. 15, common to all Christians, or anointed [ones] with Christ their head, by way of monopoly or privilege appropriated to kings and princes!
The crown of Christ’s kingly power.
Truth. It will not be here unseasonable to call to mind that admirable prophecy, Ezek. xxi. 26, 27, Thus saith Jehovah God, remove the diadem, take away the crown; this shall not be the same; exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high; I will overturn, overturn, overturn, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. The matter is a crown and diadem to be taken from a usurper’s head, and set upon the head of the right owner.
Peace. Doubtless this mystically intends the spiritual crown of the Lord Jesus, for these many hundred years set upon the heads of the competitors and co-rivals of the Lord Jesus, upon whose glorious head, in his messengers and churches, the crown shall be established. The anointing, the title, and the crown and power, must return to the Lord Jesus in his saints, unto whom alone belongs his power and authority in ecclesiastical or spiritual cases.