A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY OF REDEMPTION, REPRESENTING ALL THE NOTED EVENTS OF TIME AND ETERNITY AS PROMOTING IT, AND THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE PERFECTIONS THE redemption of finful men by Jefus Chrift was the principal thing which God fixed in his decree from eternity; in which he intended, (1.) to make his own goodness appear finally triumphing over all the fin and mifery that could enter into the world; (2.) to reftore the ruins of the fall with respect to his elect, by bringing greater bleffings into the earth, and by not only filling the vacant feats of fallen angels, but alfo exceedingly increasing the happiness of heaven; (3.) to gather together all elect creatures into one body, in or under Chrift, to his own glory; (4.) to render elect men happy to the uttermost, in making all things work together for their good, and in caufing them to discern it. A. M. 1. The whole creation was formed for the benefit and use of the elect; the earth to be the place of marrying their nature to the Son of God, and of his paying the price of their redemption, and preaching his gofpel, and to be the place of their spiritual birth, mar riage, and education for heaven; heaven to be the place of his full reward, and of their complete and eternal glorification; and even hell to be a prifon for restraining and punishing his and their enemies. Even the order of creation was fuch as correfponded with the gradual progrefs of redemption in the world, and fouls of men. No fooner had men become finful and miferable, than the redemption work commenced on earth, in Chrift's coming down, perhaps in human fhape, to execute his mediatorial work,--in revealing the gofpel,-appointing facrifices, and in the actual application of redemption, which appears marked in the new name giv en to the woman. A. M. 128. In the cafe of Abel, God typically marked his regard to Chrift and his offering, as well as his fovereignty in beftowing his favour on men. In the rejection and mifery of Cain, was prefigured the fearful and lafting mifery of the Jewish, heathen, Popifh, Mahometan, and, in fine, of fall the perfevering enemies of Chrift. A. M. 300-690. A remarkable effufion of the Holy Ghost directed and determined the profeffors of the true religion to affemble in a more public manner for worshipping of God, by which they maintained an open teftimony against the abounding error and wickedness of the pofterity of Cain, who, for the punishment of his murder of his brother, were now a profane fociety, caft out from the church of God, Gen. iv. 26. A. M. 917-987. God, in Enoch, carried holinefs, typical of that of Chrift, and his glorified faints, to an higher pitch than ever before fince the fall, and, by him, him, foretold the flood, but more clearly the fecond coming of Chrift; and, in tranflating him to heaven, prefigured his afcenfion, and gave an earnest of the complete glorification of all his elect people, Gen. v. 22. — 24. Heb. xi. 5. Judg. xiv. 15. A. M. 1100-1656. God not only preferved for himself a church among the defcendants of Seth, from whom Chrift the Redeemer was to spring, but, in the remarkable holiness of Noah, amidst an exceedingly and universally corrupt, a profligate generation, prefigured the perfect holiness of Christ in his generation, and manifefted the power and usefulness of his faving grace in the world. ·A. M. 1656, 1657.-By fending a flood which covered the whole earth, God fwept off the now prodigiously multiplied feed of the serpent into hell, as the punishment of their enmity against Jefus Chrift and his church; manifeftly difannulled the creation, or old covenant-grant of the earth to mankind, and publicly represented the irresistible, univerfal, and lafting ruin of all the obftinately wicked, particularly at the last day.— By the means of the ark, which was typical of Chrift and his gofpel church, as means of the falvation of men, that family from which he was to fpring was miraculoufly preferved -A new grant of the earth, founded on the covenant of grace and facrifice of Christ, was made to Noah and his feed. That covenant was declared to, and renewed with them in a typical manner; and God's defign of forming his church, first from the pofterity of Shem, and then from that of Japhet, was intimated, Gen. vi.-ix. 2 A. M. A. M. 176,-2080. When fatan had hardened moft of the inhabitants of the new world, and had united them in a rebellious attempt against Christ and his redeemed church, God, by confounding their language, prevented their building of the tower which they intended, and crumbled them into fmall and weak parties; but fo difperfed them about Canaan as beft correfponded with his intended fpread of the gospel and the falvation of the elect by means of it, as well as with the fearful punishment of these in their posterity, who were the most early rejecters of it.—To prevent the rapid increase of wickedness, mens lives were shortened to onehalf of what they had been before the flood, and, with in a few hundred years, to a fourteenth part, Gen. xi: Pfal. xc. 10. A. M. 2080,-2369. While fatan, by the erection of the accurfed pofterity of Ham into the kingdoms of Babylon and Egypt, and by the almost universal prevalence of ignorance and idolatry among mankind, had ftrengthened his own government in the world, in oppofition to Chrift and his church, God counteracted him in this begun execution of his curfe on the Canaanites, in their flavery under Chedorlaomer, and the subsequent destruction of their cities of the plain, for their unnatural wickedness, by fire and brimstone from heaven, as a warning to others, and as a figure of the everlasting destruction of wicked men; and, especially, in feparating Abram from his father's idolatrous family, and bringing him into Canaan, where Chrift was to make his appearance on earth;-in preferving him and his fon Ifaac, and grandfon Jacob, and their F families, families, among the idolatrous Canaanites, &c. when repeatedly in danger, and even rendering them victorious in every warlike struggle;-in preferving them amidst repeated famines;--in repeatedly enlarging his revelations, renewing his covenant with them, promifing Canaan as a figure of the new covenant, a typical, a heavenly reft to be purchased by Chrift ;-in repeated predictions of Chrift, the latter ftill more and more clear;--and, at last, restricting his descent not only to the feed of those patriarchs, but to the tribe of Judah, a defcendant of Jacob;-in raising up Melchizedeck as an extraordinary priest and king among the accurfed Canaanites, eminently typical of Christ, as the Priest and King of finful men, particularly the gentiles, and directing him folemnly to blefs Abram and his promised feed in him, Gen, xi-l. Acts vii. Pfal. cv, Heb. vii. Mean while, by rejecting Ishmael and the sons of Abram by Keturah, as well as Efau the elder and most active fon of Ifaac, God manifefted the fovereignty of his grace, and prefigured the rejection and fearful fate of the Jewish, heathen, Antichristian, and other despisers of Chrift and his gofpel. A. M. 2513,-2552. When fatan had firmly fixed all mations, and almost every particular person of now exceedingly multiplied mankind, in the groffeft ignorance, error, and idolatry, God, after preferving the pofterity of Jacob two hundred years in Egypt, one hundred of them under the moft grievous oppreffion, and had preferved his invisible church among them from the idolatries and fuperftitions of that nation, he, in plaguing their Egyptian oppreffors and their gods, delivered them from |