13. where he is said to be clothed with a vesture dipt in blood whose name is called the WORD of God having on his vesture and on his thigh a name written KING of KINGS and LORD of LORDS v. 16. In the same sense is this WORD presented to the view of Ezekiel Chap. 2. v. 9. 10. under the description of the roll of a book which was written within and without and Rev. 5. 1 2. 3. A book written within and on the backside sealed with seven seals which none whatsoever amongst the Creatures was able to open or loose the seven seals thereof In this book of God David was seen Psal 139. 15 16. by the eye of God in his creature substance yet being imperfect and therein all his members were written which in continuance were fashioned whilst as yet there were none of them The nature and use of this book considered in the several volumes of it is declared Rev. 20. 12. The books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and that we may know what book of life is here meant there is mention made Rev. 13. 8. of the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world having the names of all the Elect written in it which are never to be blotted out And Rev. 3. 5. we find another book of life belonging to Christ from whence he threatens the hypocritical and corrupted members of the Church of Sardis to be blotted out a like threatning unto which we find Rev. 22. 19. which compared with Psal 69. 28. makes it yet plainer Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous or come into thy righteousness to wit which is by faith Thus we see the unwritten and living WORD of God testified by the Scriptures to be Gods writing and Gods book as well as they themselves are so that when we call this living WORD unwritten it is but by way of distinction from the Holy Scriptures in the outward body of them as they are written with Pen and Ink for the WORD that is the Image of the invisible God the brightness of his glory and the express character of his substance may truly and properly be said to be the writing and engraving of the Trinity the Living book and roll of God that is all written within and without consisting of three volumes answering to the threefold power that is in the mind of Christ to read and look thereon We are therefore in both these respects to acknowledge Christ to be the living WORD first as he is he that speaks or the person whose mind and discerning is formed and prepared to look upon this Heavenly writing in all the volumes of it in order to communicate and give forth unto others the reading thereof And secondly as he is the writing itself and doth contain the lively ORACLES OF GOD or witness of the blessed Trinity representing God as to and by himself he is seen as also to and by both Creations according to the two Covenants unto which they relate In which latter sense this book is to be understood Rev. 5. 1. c. where it is said that no man in heaven nor in earth neither under the earth was able to open the book neither to look thereon but it is the priviledge only of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to prevail to the opening thereof and to make the right use that is intended thereby The WORD in both these respects considered by us is a most lively description of the fulness and perfection whcih dwels in Christs person as he was set up in the office of his Mediatorship by the immediate operation of the Trinity before the world began wherein he is the only begotten Son in whom God is well pleased as he that is in himself both Priest and sacrifice abiding a High-Priest for ever at the right hand of God after the order of Melchisedech which is no way proper to him as the second Person in the Trinity simply considered where he is purely and simply God without the least mixture or composition of creature-nature and without shadow of change But now as Christ is the WORD in the person of the Mediator he hath the root of all creature-nature in him being the root as well as the offspring of David and hath this given to him for sacrifice therewith to prepare him to become a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world As thus he is the person of the Mediator he exerciseth a threefold power of mind and discerning by reason whereof this living WORD is said Heb. 4. to be the discerner of the thoughts intents of the heart neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight but all things are naked and opened unto him with whom we have to do of whom we are now treating First all things are naked and opened unto him by reason of the pure all-seeing eye and discerning of God that is in him through which light of his he knows how to read the inward writing of the book or the book as it is all written within in a character that is the form of God himself in the very height of his glory and therefore proper only for the divine eye itself to contemplate and be conversant in requiring the same mind that is in God himself to conceive and understand it as simply and fingly exhibited The Mediator in the exercise of this power of mind is eternally seeing all that God sees perfectly knowing Gods mind and is his Wonderful Counsellor in all the decrees and purposes of his that concern the creatures converse with him from beginning to ending Secondly All things are naked and opened unto Christ this living WORD by reason of the highest and purest natural creature-eye and discerning that is in him as he is the first-born of every creature and is the discerner of the thoughts of the natural heart and mind of all creatures so as Psal 139. 2 4. there is not a thought in the heart nor word in the tongue but this WORD knows it altogether and afar off even before the World began Through this second seeing power of Christs mind he knows how to read the second Volume of Gods book as it is all written without in a manifestation and appearance of God which is commensurate and proportioned to the creatures judgement and discerning as it is natural and of the first building and is the same form of God abasing it self and requiring no higher an eye then what is in the natural mind of the creature to behold it and look thereon This writing is called outward or the book all written without comparatively and in reference to the inwardness of the first whose eminency and height is such as is exclusive to the creatures natural discerning not but that in its own nature it is inward and spiritual being the witness that is given by the
are hearers and receivers of this voice of Gods WORD in the best and highest capacity of any particular natural beings whatsoever And as their natural capacities are high and vast in their receivings from Christ so their readiness and exactness in conforming themselves to the will of Christ is unimaginable and their power to execute is most strong and mighty nothing under Christ being able to resist them or stand out against them in their ministry that is according to the will of Christ And as thus considered they are those that in the hand of Christ are made use of to bear the light or image of Gods first appearance unto all the inhabitants of the first creation so as not only man himself is made lower then they but with the whole world is put into subjection to them and their ministry as we have before expressed Thus in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth he first set up the heavenly fabrick of the angelical nature and in that as in a subordinate head under Christ comprehended the whole earth and visible world as a mass without form and void through the darkness which was as yet upon the face of this great deep as it stood in the waters untill by the brooding of the spirit of life in the Word upon them making his Angels chariots and flying upon those wings of the wind he caused the earth to stand out of the waters and become a glorious visible fabrick adorned and beautified by the remaning works and products of the six daies as is at large described in the first of Genesis CHAP. V. Concerning the Creation of Man on the sixth Day WEE have already treated of the excellency and raisedness of being given unto Angels who in their invisibility shadow forth the glory of the Father And we have considered them as represented under the light of the first day as it stood divided from the darkness like a glorious heaven which light God called day in comparison of that darkness which he called night This darkness or night seems by the coherence of the verses fitly to represent the Earth considered as that Chaos or confused lump without form and void from whence God produced the bodily and visible frame of the first world with all the hoasts and generations thereof precedent unto and ushering in the creation of man after he had set up the Angels in a separatedness of being from it which visible frame of things so produced was to serve as an outward book of the creatures to make intelligible unto man the invisible things of God even his eternal power and Godhead through such earthly characters as so many kinds of voices in the world none of which wanted their signification or proper use for the service of man in his dutiful serving of God shadowing out the witness of the second in the Trinity which is the image of God in a visible administration to the sense and discerning of the natural being of the creature Forasmuch then as by the progress made by God as yet in the creation whilst the intellectual life of Angels and sensual life of other parts of the creation were brought forth and continued in so vast a distance and separation as heaven and earth so that the harmony and consistency of both seemed yet to be wanting God in his infinite wisdom to shadow and type out the finishing and compleating work which the operation of the Holy Ghost gives to the witness of the Father and of the Son was pleased on the sixth day to create man and in his constitution and building to provide a joynt consistency of both these excellencies and perfections together for man in his rational soul was made an associate to Angels and in his bodily or animal life equal to beasts that perish and in the joynt harmonious exercise of both these in one was that in a total sum which the other two were in a separate and divided condition Hence it is that man by his creation is so made in the image of God as to answer and represent the operations of the Trinity who put forth as it were a holy and divine combination in their workmanship to draw the earthly shadow of their perfections upon man in his creation who is made by them to consist of spirit soul and body 1 Thess 5. 25. But man considered as thus bearing the image of God is made simply to be receiving those properties and operations that are essential to him as a man and therefore is in another sense created in Gods image when he is made naturally righteous and holy in all the operations of this his being This we are taught by the Scripture Gen. 1. 26. 27. compared with Gen. 2. 7. if carefully minded by us where we may find man created in Gods image in a twofold respect First in the essential properties and operations that are incident and appertaining to him as he is a man consisting in the life of spirit soul and body wherein he is made to bear the similitude and resemblance of God in the divine essential properties and operations so as in a creature-being to be the earthly figure and similitude of the Trinity who therefore said Let us make man in our image and let him have dominion and soveraignty over the creatures bearing our likeness in his very make and constitution retaining this shadow of us as that which he can never quite lose without ceasing to be a man And for this reason it is that God saies Gen. 9. 5. 6. he will require the blood of mans life at the hands of every beast and at the hand of every mans brother for in the image of God made he man which if it should only refer to that image of God which man bears as he continues holy and righteous it would expose men in their corrupt state to the same fear which Cain that whosoever found them might kill them and be unaccountable Secondly man by the same act of Gods workman-ship is the image of God as he bears the similitude of Gods righteousness and holiness shining forth in Christs first appearance rendering him meet for communion with God in which consisted the puritie and perfection of the first Adam who was the figure and type of Christ himself according to the flesh the promised seed that was to come and to be made like unto us in all things sin only excepted and as such he was the shadowy Temple and first Sanctuary wherein divine worship and service was to be performed according to the tenor of the first covenant This was effected when God breathed into him the breath of life and made him to become a living soul as appears Gen. 2. 7. compared with 1 Cor. 15. 45 48 49. The image of God in this latter sense set up in man may as experience shews suffer change in a twofold respect either as that which as it ought will wax old vanish away prove as the morning dew
a subordinate and subjected way to be inseparably harmonious co-workers with that second and better activity of faith which blessed association of these two in the last Adam is much better then the one that is single and alone in the first making up of twain that one new man and new name which is better then the name of sons and of daughters in the children of the first Covenant Hence it appears that Christ in his active obedience did not only conform to the Law as a legally righteous and holy man doing the work of a servant in the spirit and life of the Son fulfilling the righteousness of the Law by faith but that he did also perform the proper works required by the Law of the new-covenant consisting in the holy observation of the true Sabbath and bringing his fleshly principles into subjection unto and useful co-operativeness with his heavenly and spiritual in the exercise of faith And so Christs active obedience we see distinguisheth it self into the works required to be done by the first and second covenant This hath brought us to the second sort of Christs obedience which is called passive as consisting in that wherein he was a sufferer which also is capable of a twofold consideration First in respect of that which he suffered under the power and activity of faith carrying his natural judgement and will into a voluntary captivity to the teachings of the Father that trained him up to the doing of his Fathers will with the denyal or not doing of his own as properly his in the activity of his fleshly or legal principles or secondly as relating to that wherein he was made a curse for us appointed and delivered up by the Father though still with his own consent to bear the punishment due unto sinners and perform that in his own person wherewith Gods Justice might be satisfied and sin expiated as it is written by his stripes we are healed the just is punished and the unjust is set free Christ was in the first of these respects truly and properly a sufferer as he that submitted himself to be bereaved and deprived of the exercise of these principles in and upon the operation whereof in the judgement of the natural man as single depended the performance of the condition of the first Covenant wherein all mankind was concerned as it is written He that doth these things shall live in them So as the weakness and disability which he suffered to be brought upon himself in this his operation might seem to be the way to expose him to the curse and wrath of God threatned upon non-performance of the condition of the Law as it is written Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them and therefore was hard even for Christs natural man to undergo costing him many a tear groan and cry before his natural judgement was fully silenced and made to yield to it as giving full credit to this report of faith calling for obedience hereunto as to the voice of God Isa 53. And as this seemed hard to Christs natural judgement so nothing was more bitter and cross to the inclinations and desires of his natural will then to have his natural spirit thus broken abased humbled and laid low in such a poor destitute and weak condition as to become a worm no man unable to make resistance or defence for himself by the exercise of that activity that was properly his own which is hereby taken out of his single dispose in order to be brought forth in newness of operation through the power and activity of faith or the seed and principles flowing forth from his second union wherein he and his Father are one and the life he lives and the will he does is not his own exercised single but in conjunction and association with that of the Father Howbeit in this we are not to understand the natural man of Christ as meerly passive or violently bereaved of the use and exercise of this his first operation and activity but are to consider him herein as convinced in judgement and gained in will to the forbearance thereof and cessation therefrom and so voluntarily submitting his own hands in this regard to be bound and his feet tyed upon undeniable reasons and clear demonstrations to the eye of his faith of a far greater good to be redounding to him by the same This Christ asserts Joh. 10. 17 18. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again no man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self who might keep it and exercise it if I would for I have power or freedom to lay it down and also to take it up according to the commandment which I haveh rein received from the Father and because I do it in the way of choice and freely not by compulsion therefore it is my Father loves me Thus also Christ testifieth of himself Joh. 8. where he saith I am one that bear witness of my self or I have a principle in me that can declare it self in the proper life and operation of a natural righteous and holy man as one made under the Law and walking in all the ordinances and commandments of God therein blameless Yet saith he Joh. 5. 30 31. to come forth in the single exercise hereof is not my manner of acting for of my self I can do nothing or I am taught by my Father to do nothing but in association with him as I hear I Judge and I am thereby instructed not to do my own will or go forth in the single exercise of my first activity but to seek the will of the Father that sent me even to the offering up in sacrifice my own proper will and desire For if I should bear witness of my self my witness single were not true or authentique to make out truth according to your law which Ioh. 8. 16 17 18. requires two witnesses for the establishing of every truth therefore saith he there is another with me in association that never leaves me to my single actings and I know that the witness which he gives of me is true and that the testimony which I give flowing from that anointing is truth in the full and compleat evidence thereof That then which in this first sense Christs natural man was a sufferer in consisted in the weakness and disability which was brought upon the fleshly mind to resist the powerful workings of his faith or spiritual mind unto the obedience where of it is voluntarily made captive as the only way and means to be brought into the Rest and Cessation required by the Father in respect whereof it is that he saith he can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do for whatsoever things he doth these doth the Son likewise and so is no loser by this kind of weakness and inability but rather a rich
and righteousness by way of counter-ballance to the works of the devil and his kingdom of darkness in the world or outwardly by the books of the creature and daily discoveries of Gods providences that are teaching and instructing to the lowest and meanest natural discernings of men And to enable them to the receiving hereof they have a further taste of the bounty of Christ the Redeemer who doth freely renew and continue their life breath and all things unto them upon a new tenure even by the ransom procured for them in his blood by vertue of which none of them do fail of partaking in a common enlightning from him when they receive their beings in this world and have the lamp or caâ—â—le of the Lord set up in them to be as a witness for or against every man according to his works being a light which searcheth the inward parts of the belly Prov. 20. 27. Over the nations then and people of the world thus considered we say Christ doth dispense his Rule and government and gives unto them judgements and ordinances according to which they are to walk Ezek. 5. and in the doing or not doing of them their consciences are accusing or excusing of them and Christ in this his government shews himself by his ministers to whom he hath committed the mannaging thereof either in wrath and terrour against all evil works or an Encourager and Protectour of all them that do well The prime Minister of God on this behalf is Christ The hands in which this government is betrusted by Christ are the invisible Thrones Dominions Principalities and powers of the holy Angels as we have already declared and shall yet further enlarge made by Christ and for Christ the chief Lords and Rulers of the first world and all the inhabitants thereof Regard seems to be had to this administration of government Iob 2. 1 2. where the sons of God or these holy Angels in their administration of this kind of government presented themselves before this Lord Christ and Sathan came also among them having been his circuits walking to and fro in the earth and up and down in it unto whom the Lord propounds the case of Iob as of a perfect and upright man so as there was none like him in all the earth and who accordingly had found Christ owning encouraging and protecting of him as the devil himself alledged Chap. 1. at the same kind of meeting between God and the Angels then held also for saith Sathan to God hast thou not made a hedge about him and about his house and about all that he hath on every side thou hast blessed the works of his hands and his substance is encreased in the land intimating hereby the reward that is administred as to the kind of it by the holy Angels under Christ to the very heathens themselves and the punishment of wrath to consist in the contrary dispensations of God hereunto when he declares himself outwardly a terrour to wicked works and puts forth his hand therein for which purpose these excellent spirits are invested with power might and dominion over all the works of Gods hands in the first world to execute Christs commands as the Hosts and Ministers that do his pleasure in all places of his dominion and are alwaies attending and hearkning unto the voice of this WORD speaking to them as he is the root and head of all natural good and perfection Under these invisible Thrones and higher powers there are visible ones also set up and are Christs ordinance and institution in an inferiour and subordinate ministration of this government of Christ over men which are called the higher powers of the world whether contracted in one universal Monarch as in the time of Nebuchadnezar Dan. 2. or dispersed into many several and distinct forms of Magistracy in the world according as the most high is pleased to set them up pull them down or change them in reference to the present work which he hath to do in the world and to the state and condition of his own people in it either for their bringing into bondage and captivity under the worldly powers or for the leading them out of the same into the glorious liberty by him designed unto them in the last of daies whereof Nebuchadnezars image was a notification once for all and was so interpreted by Daniel himself when he said to Nebuchadnezar the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom power and strength and glory and wheresoever the children of men dwell the beasts of the field and fowls of the heaven he hath given it into thy hand and made thee ruler over them who therefore art this head of Gold Which government in the succession of it shall be dispersed decline and corrupt until it quite break asunder and split in pieces before the everlasting kingdom which is intended by God to be set up in the room thereof Which compared with Cap. 4. 17. makes it yet more evident that this visible government in the hands of the higher powers of the world is superintended over-ruled and influenced throughout by the decree of the watchers and the demand by the word of the holy ones or Angels to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will and setteth up over it the basest of men evidently declaring that promotion cometh not from the East or West or South but Christ who bears up the pillars of the earth when else through sin and the fall the earth and the inhabitants thereof had been dissolved he is the judge he puts down one and sets up another Pal. 75. 6 7. And if then in the inferiour visible administration of this government over men in the hands of men the Rule is given and declared whereunto the governed are to be subject not only for wrath but conscience sake Rom. 13. how much straightlier is every soul obliged to the same Rule as it is administred in the hands of the invisible Thrones at the judgement seat of Angels who next under Christ the supream Minister of God are exercising their Ministry in a way of wrath and terrour against all evil workers and in a way of encouragement and protection unto all those that do well and walk uprightly in the earth Thus according to the orders and decrees of these watchers and holy ones whether declared by their inward ministry in the spirits and consciences of the men of the world or outwardly by the wholsome laws and ordinances of man as the product and fruit of the light by them dispensed or by the visible providences of God is the first administration of Christs kingdom managed and upheld throughout the whole earth and over all the world even the nations that are yet aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise And because it is very cleer from Scripture that the holy ones or Elect Angels are intrusted