cial grant of it equal and righteous, is lawful conquest. This gives a special right, Gen. xlviii, 22. Now, that Christ should conquer fallen angels, was promised from the foundation of the world, Gen. iii, 15. The seed of the woman, the Messiah, was to break the serpent's head, despoil him of his power, and bring him. into subjection; which he performed accordingly, Col. ii, 15; "He spoiled principalities and powers," divested fallen angels of all that title they had got to the world, by the sin of man; triumphing over them as captives to be disposed at his pleasure. He stilled, or made to cease, as to his power, this enemy (pano) and self-avenger, leading captivity captive, breaking in pieces the head over the large earth, Psal. cx, 6; binding the strong man armed, and spoiling his goods. And the scripture of the New Testament is full of instances, as to his executing his power and authority over evil angels; they take up a good part of the historical books of it. Man having sinned by the instigation of Satan, he was, by the just judgment of God, delivered up to his power, Heb. ii, 14. The Lord Christ undertaking to recover lost man from under his power, by destroying his works, 1 John iii, 3, and to bring them again into favor with God, Satan, with all his might sets himself to oppose him in his work; and failing in his enterprise, being utterly conquered, he became absolutely subjected unto him, trodden under his feet, and the prey he had taken delivered from him. They are subjected unto him as to their present actings and future condition; he now rules them, and will hereafter finally judge them. Wherein he suffers them in his holiness and wisdom to act in temptations, seductions, and persecutions, he binds and limits their rage and malicious actings, disposing all events to his own holy and righteous ends, and keeping them under

chains for the judgment of the great day, when, for the full manifestation of his dominion over them, he will cause the meanest of his servants to set their feet on the neck of these conquered kings.

3. The ends of this Lordship of Christ are various; as, his own glory, Psal. cx, 1; the church's safety, Matt. xvi, 18; Rev. xii, 7-9; the exercising of his wrath and vengeance upon his stubborn enemies.

$10. Secondly, All mankind (the second sort of intellectual creatures) belong to the Lordship and dominion of Christ. All mankind was in the power of God, as one mass out of which all individuals are made, Rom. ix, 21; some to honor, some to dishonor; the (To auro Pupapa) the same lump, not denoting the same substance, but one common condition; and the making of individuals is not by temporal creation, but eternal designation. So that all mankind made out of nothing, and out of the same condition, are destined to several ends for the glory of God; the elect, or vessels from the common mass, unto honor; and reprobates, or vessels from the common mass, unto dishonor: to both is the Lordship of Christ extended, and to each of them respectively. He is Lord over all flesh, John xvii, 2; both living and dead, Rom. xiv, 9; Phil. ii, 9, 10; particularly,

$11. 1. He is Lord over all the elect; and, besides the general foundation of the equity of his authority and power in his Divine nature, and creation of all things, the grant of the Father to him as Mediator, to be their Lord, is founded in other special acts both of Father and Son; for they were given to him from eternity in design and by compact, that they should be his peculiar portion, and he their Savior, John xvii, 2. Of the (ons capuos) all flesh, over which he hath authority, there is (Tav o dedaxe) an, uni

versality of them, whom the Father gave him in a special manner; of whom he says, "Thine they were, "and thou gavest them me," ver. 6. They are a portion given him to save, of which he takes the care, as Jacob did of the sheep of Laban, when he served him for a wife; this was an act of the will of the Father in the eternal covenant of the Mediator. His grant is strengthened by redemption, purchase, and acquisition. These thus given him of the Father, and redeemed by him, are of two sorts:

1. Such as are actually called to faith in him and union with him. These are further become his, upon many other special accounts: they are his in all relations of subjection; his children, servants, brethren, disciples, his house, his spouse. He stands towards them in all relations of authority; is their father, master, elder brother, teacher, king, lord, ruler, judge, husband; ruling in them by his Spirit and grace, over them by his laws in his word, preserving them by his power, chastening them in his care and love, feeding them out of his stores, trying them and delivering them in his wisdom, bearing with their miscarriages in his patience, and taking them for his portion and inheritance; in his Providence raising them at the last day, taking them to himself in glory, every way avouching them to be his, and himself to be their Lord and Master.

2. Some of them are always uncalled, until the whole number of them be completed. But before this happy event they belong, on the former accounts, to his lot, care, and rule, John x, 16; they are already his sheep by grant and purchase, though not yet so by grace and holiness; they are not yet his by present obediential subjection, but they are his by eternal designation, and real acquisition. Now the power that the Lord Jesus hath over this sort of mankind is uni

versal, unlimited, absolute, and exclusive of all other power over them, as to the things peculiarly belonging to his kingdom. He is their king, judge, and lawgiver; and in things of God, purely spiritual and evangelical, other they have none. It is true, he takes them not out of the world, and therefore as to (Tα BIWTina) the things of this life, they are subject to the laws and rulers of the world; but as to the things of God, he is the only law-giver, who is able to kill and make alive.

$12. 2. His dominion extends also to the reprobates and finally impenitent. They are not exempted from that "all flesh," which he hath power over; nor from those "quick and dead,” over whom he is Lord, Rom. xiv, 9; nor from that "world" which he shall judge, Acts xvii, 31. And there are two special grounds that are peculiar to this grant and authority over them:

1. His interposition upon the entrance of sin against the immediate execution of the curse. This fixed the world under a dispensation of forbearance and patience, of goodness and mercy. That God, who spared not the angels when they sinned, but immediately cast them into chains of darkness, should place sinners of the race of Adam under a dispensation of forbearance and goodness; that he should spare them with much long suffering during their pilgrimage on the earth, and fill their hearts with food and gladness, with all those fruits of kindness which the womb of Providence is still bringing forth for their advantage, is thus far on account of the Lord Christ, viz. that though these things, as relating to reprobates, are no part of his especial purchase as mediator of the everlasting covenant of grace, yet they are a necessary consequent of his interposition against the immediate

execution of the whole curse upon the first entrance of sin, and of his undertaking for his elect.

(2.) He makes a conquest over them; it was promised that he should do so, Gen. iii, 15; and though the work itself seems to us long and irksome, though the ways of accomplishing it be unto us obscure, oftentimes invisible, yet he hath undertaken it, and will not give it over until they are every one brought to be his footstool, Psal. cx, 1; 1 Cor. xv, 25. And the dominion granted on these grounds is sovereign and absolute; they are in his hand, as the Egyptians were in Joseph's, when he had purchased both their persons and estates to be at his arbitrary disposal; and he deals with them as Joseph did with those, so far as any of the ends of his rule and lordship are concerned in them. And, Judiciary, John v, 22, 23; as he hath power over their persons, so he hath regard to their sins; and this power he variously exerciseth over them, even in this world, before he gloriously exerts it in their eternal ruin: for he enlightens them by those heavenly sparks of truth and reason, which he leaves unextinguished in their own minds, John i, 9. Strives with them by his Spirit, Gen. vi, 3; secretly exciting their consciences to rebuke, bridle, and afflict them, Rom. ii, 14, 15. And on some of them he acts by the power and authority of his word, whereby he quickens their consciences, galls their minds and affections, restrains their lusts, bounds their conversations, aggravates their sins, (in a scripture sense) hardens their hearts, and finally judges their souls.

And thus Christ is Lord over persons, angels, and

men.

§13. (II.) THINGS. The second part of the heirship and dominion of Christ consisteth in his lordship over all things besides, which, added to the former,