Of the Saints offerings, which God shall accept of, as in the old time, and the yeares afore. CHAP. 26.
To shew that the Citty of God should haue no more such custome, it is said that the sonnes of Leui: shall bring offrings to the Lord in righteousnesse: there∣fore not in sinne, and consequently not for sinne, wee may therefore gather by the words following, viz. Then shall the offrings of Iudah and Ierusalem be acceptable vnto the Lord, as in old time and in the yeares afore; that the Iewes are deceiued in beleeuing the. restaurations of their old legall ceremonies: for all the sacrifices of the old Instrument were offered in sinne, and for sinne, the priest him-selfe (who wee must thinke was the holiest) was expresly commanded by the Lord to offer first for his owne sinnes, and then for the people: wee must therefore shew how these words, As in old time and in the yeares afore, are to bee taken. They may perhaps imply the time of our first parents being in paradice, for they were then pure, and offred them-selues as vnspotted oblations to the Lord. But they transgressing, and being therefore thrust out, and all mankind being depraued and condemned in them, since their fall no (a) man but the worlds re∣deemer, and little baptized infants were euer pure from sinne: no not the in∣fant of one daies age.
If it be answered that they are worthily said to offer in righteousnesse that offer in faith, in that the iust liueth by faith, though if he say, hee hath no sinne hee deceiues him-selfe, and therefore hee saith it not, because he liueth by faith: I say againe, is any one so farre deceiued as to pararell these times of faith with those of the last iudgment, wherein those that are to offer those oblations in righte∣ousnesse are to bee purged and refined: Nay, seeing that after that purgation, there shalbe no place for the least imperfection of sin: assuredly the time where∣in there shalbe no sinne is not to bee compared with any, sauing with the time before our first parents fall in Paradise, wherein they liued in spotlesse felicity. So that this it is which is ment by the old time, and the yeares afore, for such an∣other passage is there in Esaias: After the promise of a new Heauen and a new Earth, amongst the other allegoricall promises of beatitudes to the Saints (which study of breuity enforced vs to let passe vnexpounded) this is one. As the daies of the of tree life, shall the dayes of my people be. This tree, who is it that hath read the Scriptures and knowes not y• God planted it, and where, and how our first parents * 1.1 by sinne were debarred from eating of the fruit thereof, and a terrible guard set vpon it for euer after? some may say the Prophet by that, meant the daies of Christ his Church that now is, and that Christ is that tree, (according to that of Salomon concerning wisdome. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her) and a∣gaine, that our first parents liued but a smal while in Paradise, seeing that they had no children during that space, and therefore when we speake of the time that they were there, we can not speake of any yeares, as this place doth, In old time and in the yeares bofore: well this question is too intricate to discusse at this time, and therefore let it passe.