rst_, As the uncircumcised and the unclean were
not admitted into the temple among the children of Israel (Ezek. xliv. 9),
so all that live in the church of Christ are not to be admitted
promiscuously to every ordinance of God, especially to the Lord's table,
but only those whose profession, knowledge and conversation, after trial,
shall be found such as may make them capable thereof: yet as heathens and
unclean persons did enter into the outer court, and there hear Christ and
his apostles, so there shall ever be in the church a door of grace and
hope open to the greatest and vilest sinners who shall seek after Christ,
and "ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward," Jer. i. 5.
_Secondly_, There shall be also somewhat answerable to the court of the
children of Israel: God can raise up even of the stones children to
Abraham (Matt. iii. 9); he will not want a people to tread in the courts
of his house, and to inquire in his temple. _Thirdly_, And as in the
typical temple there was a court for the priests, so hath the Lord
promised to the church: "Yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a
corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers," Isa. xxx. 20; and
again, "I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed
you with knowledge and understanding," Jer. iii. 15. _Fourthly_, And as
there was a secret and most holy place, where the ark was, and the
mercy-seat, and where the glory of God dwelt, so Christ hath his own
"hidden ones" (Psal. lxxxiii. 3), "the children of the bride-chamber"
(Matt. ix. 15), who, "with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of
the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by
the Spirit of the Lord," 2 Cor. iii. 18. There is also a time coming when
God will open the secrets of his temple, and make the ark of his testament
to be seen otherwise than yet it hath been; which shall be at the sounding
of the seventh trumpet, Rev. xi. 15, 19.

Fourthly, The fourth thing wherein Ezekiel's temple represented the church
of Christ is in regard of the great strength thereof: it stood "upon a
very high mountain," chap. xl. 2. The material temple also in Jerusalem,
as it is described by Josephus, was a very strong and impregnable place.
Interpreters think that Cyrus was jealous of the strength of the temple,
and for that cause gave order that it should not be built above threescore
cubits high, whereas Solomon had built it sixscore cubits high, Ezra