Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	life_n	word_n	write_v	5,673	5	5.6270	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65177	A pilgrimage into the land of promise, by the light of the vision of Jacobs ladder and faith, or, A serious search and prospect into life eternal pointing out the way and discovering the passage out of mans mutable state of life, into a state of immutable righteousness and glory, through the knowledg of Christ in spirit / written in the year 1662 by Henry Vane ...	Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662.	1664 (1664)	Wing V73; ESTC R32917	127,958	114

performing This did Christ require and teach as answering the end for which man was at all made by him at first or redeemed since even this that he should not be his owne or at his owne dispose but yeild subjection to the will of another set over him by God who was to be flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone and to be therfore trusted and beleeved on as appointed to feed and guide him to life eternall and who required that he should glorify God in his soule and in his body that were Gods upon the account of al rights and obligations whatsoever Thus was Christ typified to Adam by the tree of life in the midst of the Paradise of God as also by the living water that watered the garden of Eden a river cleer as crystall the streams whereof refresh and make glad the city of God the Holy place of the tabernacle of the most high Mount Zion that cannot be moved in the midst of whom God dwells as the place of his rest promising to help them with his morning appearance or the brightnes and glory of his second comming and fuller communication of himself then Adam receaved in his first creation God was willing Adam should know he was a fountain without botom so deep as not to be drawn dry and would have him open his mouth wide that he might fill it He would have him become a vessel yet more larg capacious and fit for his use then at first he was made For he gives not his gifts all at once but by degrees and after a manner most suitable to his inexhaustible fulnes and infinit wisdom God therefore comes forth in Christ as a light and law to mans knowledg and discerning instructing him to be the hearer and doer of his will in and under a threefold law and rule of righteousnes 1. The law of nature or booke of the creature visible and invisible 2. The law of the Scriptures or written book of the revealed will of God 3. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus written by the living WORD himself in the tables of the heart of the Son of Man taken into hypostatical union with him to be his mouth and spokesman at whose hand angels and men are to receave the lively divine oracles of Gods counsel appointed to be made known unto them This threefold law is as it were so many transcribed duplicates and copies of what is to be found in the living eternall WORD of God the Original In conjunction with this they are lights and good guides They are as a first second and third stream of one and the same river of pure and cleer water that gradually leade into that great Ocean of knowledg light and love that is to be found in the original They are prepared and fitted as the sutable adaequate means to be mans guide and Rule according to his state and measure of growth up into his head in and upon whom he may be borne and made to grow as on his root that may either receave and retein him in an eternal aboad with him or else leave reject and finally cast him off after proof and triall as an unprofitable branch that hath taken Gods name and born his likenes in vain and that shal therfore not be held guiltles but first or last meet with his due reward This is seen and found by the experience of angels and men from the beginning to this present day Of these three laws then we shal treate in their order very breifly 1. First as to the law of nature or book of the creature it is no other then the right fashion and make which is given by the creatour to the works of his owne hands as the creature comes fresh and pure out of the mould into which he cast it in its first creation bearing his image superscription or impression In a more peculiar manner he created man in his owne image Through the power of the enlivening breath from the mouth of the Lord all things live move and have their being such a being and such a manner and measure of operation as God sees fit for them and pronounces to be good though not immutably or perpetually so but subject to spending wearing out and waxing old as also to other changes These are the many things which God creates which being animated with life from him doe speak forth the prayse and excellency of their maker and are as so many kinds of voices and sounds in the world none of which are without their signification and teaching to those that have eyes to se and eares to heare with skil to spel and put together Gods mind out of them as a law and rule for their instruction The reason and discerning given to angels and men does qualify and enable them for this even to spel out the mind of God partly by looking forth into the outward and visible frame of the creation but more especially by consulting the light within them the work or impression of the law in their owne hearts and upon their owne beings which makes them a law and rule to them selves and to one another For by the tongue of man God speaks to angels in the person of Christ By the tongue of angels he speaks in and to men This is the law that was given to Adam in Paradise 2. As to the law of the Scriptures or written word of God it is a second dispensation a voice of words and that by men the Servants and Prophets of the Lord who being inspired with ye breath of Gods living WORD are taught to think and speak as the Holy Ghost moves them or gives them utterance Under these words there is an inward Testimony and writing which is not of private interpretation These words and divine oracles committed to writing are kept by the special influence of Gods providence and recorded for the succeeding ages and posterity of the Church These oracles with the help of the same Spirit that indighted them and alone is able to shew the right meaning and sound understanding of them are able to make men wise unto Salvation by sending them to their Saviour the son and living WORD him self in and with whom alone they may have life eternal All that is thus written and recorded is that which is given for this very end by inspiration from God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction and for instruction in righteousnes that the man of God may be perfect and perfected unto all good works Under this dispensation by a voice of words the seed of faith lies hid It was not given till four hundred and thirty years after the promise and the making known of the law of faith unto Abraham without and before the writtē word And it was not added to make the promise void or as a law that in and by itself could give life especially life immutable not subject againe to wrath and the curse But it

or a threefold cause of the being that is givē unto the creature 1. Of the creatures hidden and secret Being as it subsists and lives in the mind of God by way of his purpose and decree and in his fore knowledg 2. As this seed of creature-being that lives in God is brought into its naturall and proper form of life made a part and member of the first creation in a mutable state 3. As it is changed and translated out of its mutable state and corruptible fashion into a form of being and state of life that is immutable wherein the first creation is not destroyed or annihilated but consummated and brought to its final perfection so as to answer rhe holy end and design of the Creatour who as the potter hath absolute power over his owne clay to make vessels of honour or dishonor as pleases him and in such manner as is exactly consistent with the wisdom and justice of a most holy God The nature of men and angels is formed in Gods likenes wherein they are made with hearing eares seing eyes and working hearts to attend unto and observe the divine oracles delivered to them from the mouth of God as the law under which they are created the rule of their life and actiō to guide them in the passage out of their mutable state into that which is immutable Gods words therefore doe come forth in the threefold dispensation before described visible and intelligible words to their minds or creature-understandings answerable to the state they are found in and to the degree and measure of their growth whereunto they have atteined For there can be no communion or intercourse between God and man but by such divine words as are visible and intelligible to creature understanding signifying such things as their eyes may se their ears heare and that are in themselvs possible and rationall to be obeyed which all Gods laws to man most certainly are Hence is it thar John testifies of the WORD of life itself that it is visible and hath bin heard and seen from the beginning being no new commandement but the old made visible and intelligible first by the book of the creature then by the book of the Scriptures and lastly by the living mouth and heart of Christs manhood assumed into personall union with the eternall WORD and thereby made the brightnes of Gods glory the expresse image of his essentiall mind where the vision at last becomes so plaine to all beleevers that he that runs may read it The humanity or flesh of Christ singly considered is no where in Scripture called the WORD but at most the engraffed WORD For the WORD is that which is made flesh and dwells in us which though after it was born of a woman and found in fashion as a man actually partaking of flesh and blood with the rest of the children it was seen heard and handled as the glory or manifestation of the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth in the form of a man was actually in Being and life from the beginning which the flesh of Christ was not and was Davids Root the BRIGHT MORNING STAR the Lord the WORD which David in Spirit saw Psal 110.1 when he sayd the Lord said unto my Lord sit thou at my right hand till I make thy foes thy footstool These things premised our way wil be much more open and cleer to proceed in what we have propounded as to a serious search and pursuite after life eternall We are hereby naturally lead into the ensuing method and have our matter pointed out to us for our discussion and enquiry in these following particulars 1. What are the things that are the subject matter of the command delivered to man by the divine WORD and oracles of God that are the law of his mouth visible and intelligible to man by the light and law of nature the light and law of the Scriptures the light and law of faith or the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus And if the matter be one and the same that is declared and made knowne in and under these three dispensations wherein is it that they differ from each other 2. What is that state of mutability which by nature man is brought into Is his mutability lost or no by the fall as wel as his natural righteousnes and purity may he not yet be changed back againe at least to a gradual recovery of his natural righteousnes yea and yet fatther into a more excellent state of life and righteousnes then at first he receaved Is his primitive uprightnes in kind recoverable or no Is it actually and universally restored to all mankind by the blood and ransom of the Redeemer as the means to lead men to repentance and bring them all to the practical knowledg of the truth by inwardly cleansing and purging them from their old sins and setting them in the way of that amendment and newnes of life which God by his law calls for and commands from all men every where 3. Is it possible for man is his mutable state considered as either before or after the fall according to the degree of restoration he does arrive unto to hear and obey the things of Gods law and so to keep the commandements and demean himself in his actings conformable thereunto as not to turn from them or let them depart from his heart all the days of his life untill his translation into his immutable state 4. And lastly What is that immutable state in righteousnes and glory which begins in the day of Christs first appearance and is perfected by his second unto which man is fore-ordeined and through effectuall calling and plantation with Christ in his death and resurrection is prepared and made heir of in his mutable state in order at last actually to inherit and possesse it at Christs seconds comming that other day wherein the Son of Man is to be revealed from heaven which hath its MORNING MIDDAY and EVENing also that immediatly precedes the last day of eternity which hath no division or parts 1. First as for the things of Gods law or matter commanded unto man which God wills that he should heare understand and obey as that on which his life and death depends and does therefore with all plaines and certainty set before him that ignorance or other excuse of any kind may not be pretended by him all is reduced by our Saviour who best knows it into a very narrow compasse Luk 10 28. in his answer to the lawyer that came to tempt him saying Master what shall I doe to inherit eternall life The question does plainly intimate first that some things were to be done by man and that by Gods command and instruction in order to obtein or be made heir of eternall life 2. That so doing or working the work of God the inheritance is sure Christ in his answer denies nothing of this but thinks fit to try the knowledg of

of what already they have receaved from him at his command He is a propitiation for the sins of the whole world Both these divine oracles and manifestations of Gods will law and Gospel were made knowne to Adam in Paradise the one typed out in the tree of the knowledg of good and evil fitly resembling the first created liberty and fredom of will man was left to the exercise of under the law the other by the tree of life placed in the midst of the Paradise of God lively figuring out the better fredom and lasting holines which the Son himself makes us partakers of in the Gospel as he is the end of the law to al that beleeve and can be perswaded to trust him as the Gospel requires In both these respects it is that John sayes I write no new Commandement to you but an old commandement which was from the beginning As it first came forth in law and Gospel before the fal it was the law written in Adams heart and the Gospel set before the eyes of his mind by the ministry of angels in lively types and figures This we are to understand by the law of nature by which all natural men shal be judged who never have atteined or lived under the hearing of the written law or word of God given afterwards in the holy Scriptures 2dly The self-same old commandement of God that is both law and Gospel came forth since the fall by divine inspiration in the bookes of the old and new Testament The law was under this dispensation engraven on tables of stone conteining the ten commandements The Gospel was represented in the ceremonial law of Moses ministry under the old Testament Then againe the law is written in the fleshly tables of Christs heart as he was born of a woman and made under the law and the Gospel was represented in the two Sacraments of baptism and the Lords supper instituted during the dayes of Christs flesh the witnesse whereof is left us upon record in the New Testament as that manifestation of Gods wil which the Son himself in and by his first appearance hath brought to light This we are to understand by the law of the Scriptures which are not of private interpretation nor a prophesy that is come to us by the will of man but that which holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost for a sure ground of truth to be relied upon 3dly and lastly the same commandement or word of God which hath bin from the beginning is to come forth once more in and by the son's second and personal appearance in Spirit a fiery and living law call'd in Scripture the law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus which by faith is espied and seen as the Land of promise into which all true beleevers must enter and where they must inherit the immutability and eternal life promised a life from the dead which those that possesse whether in the glory of the first or second Resurrection though as yet but in the seed shal never die more The second death shal not have power over them but all tears shal be wiped away from their eyes and all cause of sorrow or fear This is the Son's Kingdom in Spirit which he receaves and enters upon by the appointement of the father He is pleased to begin it in weaknes and subject it a while to great sufferings but will shortly enter upon and continue the exercise of it in power during the space of a thousand years wherein he is to judg the world in righteousnes effectually causing his wil to be done on earth as it is in heaven The law under this dispensation is found as the tables of the Testimony laid up in the heavenly tabernacle of Christ the Son of Man a fiery law of indignation and vengeance in severity without mercy upon all wilful disobedient sinners The Gospel under this dispensation is as the throne or heaven itself together with the earth that is made Gods footstool or the natural man subjected and brought through faith to Gods foot in a way exclusive to al boasting This is the new heavens and new earth of which the new Jerusalem consists that comes downe from God written in and upon the heart of Christs manhood glorified and made immutably holy shining forth as the living Image of God in a twofold forme to wit in the form of a servant not only made a Son which is the first but exalted to a name above every name and anointed with the oyle of gladnes above his fellows that 's the second Thus Christ is the WORD as is above sayd that is commanded to a thousand generations He that was he that is and he that is to come the Almighty He was both law and Gospel in the day or under the dispensation of the law of nature is the same in the day and under the dispensation of the law of the Scriptures and is to come and wil shew himself to be the same also in the day and under the proper and immediate dispensation of the law of the Spirit of life that is in him This is the spiritual day of the Lord the thousand years Jubilee and Sabbath This third dispensation hastens apace draw's very neer and the faithfull and upright in heart beleeve expect and wait for the comming of the Lord therein both as an Eliah in and by his messengers and Servants elect angels and beleeving men that shal restore all things root up every thing that offends by a swift execution of vengeance on evil doers in the morning of this day and after that in his owne person wherein the man Christ by whom God hath ordeined to judg the world in righteousnes wil shew himself as the great King and bridegroom that hath the bride whose mariage he wil gloriously solemnize on earth in order to cary her up with him into heaven upon the expiration of his thousand years reigne and the Resigning up of his Kingdom into the hands of this father that God may be all in all That the matter of Gods command and mans duty is the same as wel under the law as under the Gospel and in them both under all the three dispensations before mentioned is sufficiently cleered and demonstrated nor is the difference lesse perspicuous wherein each of them vary one from another 1. The law of nature writes the matter of the law and duty commanded upon the nature and in the very heart of man teaching and instructing him also in the nature of the Gospel the new nature by the ministry of angels in most apt significant types and figures suited to his natural understanding 2dly The law of the Scripture first writes the law in tables of stone and teaches the Gospel by the types conteined in the ceremonial law or a sort of ordinances that are worldly rudiments being but the shadow of the good things to come whereof the body is Christ Afterwards therefore Christ coming

the first Resurrection The Apostle does there speak of the time when this way of heavenly converse between the saincts that are on earth and the holy angels shal be frequent and usuall and no such wonder or strang thing as yet by most it is accounted This will be brought to passe by the opening of the door in heaven interpreted by Christ himself Jo. 1.51 in his answer to Nathaniel Because I said unto thee I saw thee under the fig-tree beleevest thou Thou shalt se greater things then these What greater things A door open in heaven as a means of easy and familiar entercourse between the inhabitants of heaven and dwellers on earth The angels are to be employed as messengers of intelligence between Christ and his Saincts before the time of his owne personall converse with them on earth For saith Christ verily verily I say unto you Hereafter you shall se heaven open or the gate and door that is made into it and kept open by me for the ascent and descent of my holy angels between me and my Saincts on earth At that day Christ wil be glorified in his Saincts and honour them in the sight of them that hate them God will answer them before they pray whilst they are yet speaking he will heare and speedily avenge them of their adversaries He will grant them the desire of their hearts But when will this day be that these great and wonderfull things shal be seen The text is plain and expresse Revel 11. T is evidently to begin at the rising of the witnesses who shall immediatly upon their rising be thus in the spirit as John was on the Lords day in the I le of Patmos This wil be the proper and usuall dispensation in that day of the Lord that is to begin at the sounding of the seventh trumpet The spirit of life from God shall then enter into the witnesses set them upon their feet and immediatly qualify them to be in the spirit or have their inward senses awakened and fitted to hear and receave messages from heaven and the knowledg of the mind of their Lord by the immediate impression and inspiration of angels employed by him for that purpose We know this was frequently the case with Daniel and most of the other dear servants and prophets of the Lord. Unto Jacob this great mystery and truth was most particularly and distinctly foretold in the ladder which he saw the feet whereof touched the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the angels ascending and descending upon it and the Lord himself standing above and speaking by that means unto Jacob acquainting him thereby with his mind and giving to him most rich and precious promises The interpretation of this ladder was not only made by our saviour to Nathaniel as we have opened but it was at the same time given to Iacob with the vision itself as appears by the Result that came into his mind thereupon when he sayd How dreadfull is this place It is the very house of God where his throne is It is the very gate of heaven through which by the ministry of angels in the hand of Christ as he is the son of man and hath the use and exercise of all kinds of humane sense in perfection in his glorified manhood the inward and outward man of the saincts shal be so affected changed and transformed as to give them a kind of entrance into and a being in heaven even whilst they are yet here in the body This Christ wrought and obteined the power of when he ascended up above all heavens and as man did come to have a more excellent name then the angels Now that he ascended what is it but that he who was in the forme of God and counted it not robbery to be equall with God did first descend lower then the angels into the fashion of an earthly man the lowermost part of his habitable earth Prov 8 31. even the animalish and sensuall nature of man using and exercising as well the bodily as spirituall senses appertaining to the very naturall man When he had done this by laying hold on the seed of Abraham and receaving it into personall union with himself he set up that ladder in his owne person the feet whereof stand on the earth whilst the top of it enters into the highest heaven For he that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens that he might fill and fulfill all things That therefore which Jacob pronounced in the spirituall interpretation of his vision is most undeniable This is none other sayes he then the house of God the building not made with hands whose builder and maker is God the fathers house wherein are many mansions built by the eternall WORD and wisdom of the father in the person of the mediatour considered as he is the first borne of every creature and the beginning or first begotten from the dead Col. 1. in whom is that life that is the light of men who was before all things and by whom all things consist The way for God that is the high and lofty one inhabiting eternity to descend and come to dwell in the humble broken and contrite spirit as the place of his rest and the way for the humble poor and broken spirit to ascend into the persence and sight of God all this was wrought out in our nature by the WORD that made himself flesh and in that body died rose again and ascended where he was before as in the volume of Gods book it is written of him This he told his owne disciples Jo. 14. In my fathers house are many mansions If it were not so I would have told you Behold I go to prepare a place for you to set the ladder by which the ascent and descent is contrived into my fathers house for such as you are And if I goe and prepare a place for you you may be sure I will come againe and gather you unto my self that where J am ye may be also At his comming again the same Apostle John finds the thing to be true that his Lord had promised For Revel 11.12 19. it appears that upon the rising of the witnesses and sounding of the seventh trumpet the temple of God wil be opened in heaven which is the same opening of the heavens before-mentioned Jo. 1.51 and there wil be seen in his temple the arke of his Testament the law of the two tables written in the heart of Christ the Son of Man from whose presence the fiery law is to be dispensed by the ministry of angels at which there wil be lightnings voices thunderings an earth quake and great haile The door into heaven being thus set open the risen witnesses are spoken to v. 12. saying come up hither or be with me in the spirit in a mind fitted to enterteine converse with me by the ministry of the holy angels And for such a blessing and benefit be not unwilling