and so agreeing with the pure natural heart of man In the exercise of this second and new-covenant-life Christ was enabled to offer up himself in the flesh through the eternal spirit as a Lamb without spot and guile unto God to bring in everlasting righteousness and that subjection of heart and brokenness of spirit in man which God requires by the law of faith or tenor of the second and new-covenant answering to the law of the new-creature-being and life whose original pattern was hereby set up in Christ as the first fruits in that image of the first-born from the dead wrought out in him unto whom all the rest of the adopted children whose names are written in the Lambs book of life from the beginning of the world were predestinated to be made conformable Jesus being thus qualified in the same nature and person even as the son of man to be as well a high-Priest as a sacrifice proceeds to fulfill the will of his father that is herein given him to do even to perform that obedience that is required of him as Surety and Mediator of both Testaments standing in force by vertue of his death This obedience is the second general particular which we have propounded to treat of consisting in the right use and mannaging of those powers and senses of mind that by the WORD were formed and set up in Christ for the performance of the will of God as to all that he required from man in and by the Rule and law of the first and second covenants the righteousness of both which laws he was to fulsil even all righteousness which accordingly he did as himself declares Heb. 10. 7 9. where he saith Lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will O God and this by taking away what was faulty in the first covenant and establishing the good and righteousness of both in the second For he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it so as the very righteousness of the Law which as upon its first bottom passeth away as a morning dew and waxeth old is fulfilled in the new-covenant-obedience by those who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit and was so fulfilled to the utmost in and by the man Christ Jesus who as the second Adam did all that was needful and which God required to be done for the remission of sin and the utter abolishing and removal of it out of mans nature with an absolute incapacity of ever returning more upon the true and right heirs of salvation In respect whereof it is said Rom. 5. 19. That as by one mans disobedience many that is all were made sinners so by the obedience of one many that is all shall be made righteous Having that ransom paid and means provided in him to make them righteous so that there shall be no necessity remaining upon any to perish forasmuch as sufficient provision is made to bring all men to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth that as in Adam all died so in this sense all again in Christ are made alive that is capable of receiving life from God upon the terms of one of the two Covenants For if through the offence of one many be dead and judgement was by one to condemnation much more the grace of God and gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many to the justification of many offences v. 15 16. God esteeming it just that by the righteousness and obedience which is performed according to his will by one man Jesus Christ the free gift should come upon all men unto justification of life as well as that by one mans offence and disobedience death should raign over all This one righteousness and obedience performed by Christ is that which not only answers by way of satisfaction unto all that was occasioned and brought forth by the offence and disobedience of Adam but where sin hath abounded grace hath abounded much more that as sin raigned unto death grace might raign through righteousness unto eternal life by Iesus Christ the second Adam Which eternal life sin shewed it self able to hinder the first Adams attainment of upon his first principles The obedience then which Christ performed we are to consider under a twofold respect First that which is usually called his active obedience whereby he was in his own person legally righteous and perfectly holy according to the tenor of the first covenant as made under the Law and rendred in the natural powers of his mind exactly conformable thereunto This conformity in Christ to the righteousness of the Law qualified him to be the Lamb without spot or blemish which God required to be offered up and slain as a sacrifice for sin which conformity may be considered either as inherent in him qualifying him thus for sacrifice or Secondly as coming into actual exercise by the proper activity of his living soul or natural man if left alone therein or Thirdly as being brought into exercise by the Fathers indwelling presence teachings not suffering him to speak or do any thing of himself or in the single activity of his natural principles as himself saith Ioh. 14. 10. The words that I speak unto you I speak not of my self but the Father that dwelleth in me doth the works In which third and last consideration Christ was made active through the exercise of a newness of life and operation set up in him in the way of faith flowing from that second seed and union begotten in him by the WORD as we have already shewed In which activity he did not only perform the righteousness and obedience required of man by the Law or first covenant but that also which is required of him by the new second covenant Without which second branch of his active obedience there could have been no sacrifice nor shedding of blood no Lamb slain nor feast of passover as it is written 1 Cor. 5. 7. Christ is our passover who was slain for us for there would have wanted the priest or sacrificing power to offer up the same according to the will of God declared in the new and second covenant Heb. 10. 9. For though it be most true that Christ through the righteousness of the Law and this considered chiefly as inherent in him is thereby the pure and spotless Lamb of God the male of the flock without blemish which it was needful for him to be as prepared for sacrifice and to be offered up it being requisite not only to be but to continue Holy harmless and separate from sinners throughout the whole course of his life and sufferings in the flesh yea and in the grave iâ—self not to see corruption otherwise he had not answered and fulfilled the righteousness of the Law nor been in his own person legally righteous such an one as justice it self upon that account could take no exception against yet this made him not high Priest
had followed the directions given him by God For in this natural constitution of spirit soul and body which man obtained by creation his understanding will and affections were all placed in their true rectitude and proper subordinations his rational and his sensual mind were set in right tune and harmony together disposed and fitted to the bringing forth of all manner of righteous and holy operations answerable to the image of God wherein he was created which contained as much of divine light and manifestation as man in his earthly capacity and first make could take in amounting but to a shadowy representation of Gods mind and a sight of it but in part in order to prepare him to receive more by a second and new creation on the seventh day when he should have been admitted within the veil to have beheld Gods very similitude open and bare-faced conversing with him as friend speaks with friend Now man being thus furnished with a reasonable soul and all the excellencies of its operations before described with freedom of will to choose the good and refuse the evil honoured also with a soveraignty over the creatures in this fair posture of preparation to receive more was nevertheless seduced ensnared and made a prey of by Sathan sin and death to the rendring as it were abortive all that work which was already passed upon him and to the letting in of sin and death with the deserved curse and wrath of God through him as through a door upon all his posteritie The occasion of this was twofold First the present enjoyment of good from God under the ministry of the first covenant the fruit of which to the eye of flesh and blood even at its best was so glorious and appeared so beautiful and desireable that man was easily perswaded that it was the best and highest attainment hee needed to look after and thereby through Sathans subtilty rendred secure and negligent as to the use of means given by God to carry him on pass him through and conduct him out of this his corruptible state as from glory to glory into the power of an endless life without the intervening of sin to the full and perfect securing of mans nature from all prevailing power of fins assaults for ever which was not done by creation The second occasion of mans fall was the freedom of his will wherein the judging and desiring faculties of his mind were entirely committed by God to his own free motion and operation upon the terms of the covenant he was brought into with God which was to be dealt with according unto his works to be rewarded with life or with death as he should rightly order or abuse this liberty of action with which God had invested him by way of tryal and probation That man had such a power of free-will as this First the nature and tenor of the Covenant he was taken into doth demonstrate which is conditional in reference to the works of man And God throughout deals with man under that Covenant according to his works strongly thereby asserting them to be mans own so as the very reward which comes thereby is accounted to him of debt even the thing which his own action as left alone unto himself therein hath brought upon him and entitled him unto Secondly without such a power of free-will mans first estate could not have been mutable at least could never have changed into corruption for if it had been necessary to him to have stood he could not have fallen and if it had been necessary to him to fall God had thereby made himself the Author of sin which could not be Now the power itself wherein mans free-will consisted was the free use and exercise of his judging and electing power of mind either in reference to good or evil as it should be presented to him and come before him in a way to be by him decided and determined as his deliberate act and resolution which Paul calls 1 Cor. 4. 3. mans judgement or mans day Adam had then this honour given him by creation to exercise his humane judicature or mans day not only upon all the works of Gods hands already made in the six daies and presented before him in Eden the garden of God but he had also as in prospect and contemplation what was yet behind and to come both which being the object or subject matter that Adam was to pass his judgement upon God was pleased by way of precaution and premonition to forbid him to fix his eye and his desire upon things seen which are temporal and fading there being a reserve of unseen things as an enduring substance to be imparted and communicated to him on the seventh day That which Adam was forbidden was not simply to forbear the use of his free-will but the evil and unlawful use of it as through an unwise discerning and erroneous judging between the present temporary good which he saw and the future durable excellency of the things unseen and but in hope there did spring up an inordinate coveting and desire in him after the retaining of the first to the despising and rejecting of the second preferring the vision of God in part and as under a vayl before the full and compleat view of his glory unvayled To induce man unto this the Serpent employed all his power and subtilty contributing all the influence he could from his and the fallen Angels example herein which together with the aptness in the natural desire of man to be enticed this way to serve his own belly rather then the Law and Command of God and to gratifie his natural appetite rather then shew his obedience to Gods voice did prevail with him to eat the forbidden fruit whereby the door was set open for sin and death to enter upon himself and all his posterity That which remains yet to be declared on this subject is the possibility which Adam had in the state of innocency to have made a right use of his free-will so as thereby to have done what God required him to do by the first Covenant And by the way when we speak of this Covenant in reference to the state of innocency it is to be understood for the same thing with the law of nature under which Adam was created and hath this difference in it from what it was afterward when dispensed by the name of the Law under Moses ministry and called Heb. 9. The first Testament receiving its renewal from the blood of Christ that as it is the law of nature it requires mans personal righteousness and holyness to be continued in even the preservation of mans nature in the sinless state wherein he was created as the condition of keeping up and maintaining that sort of union and communion between God and him though not therein to rest but to be ready to be carried on by God into a sure unmovable and fixed state of life from whence there is no possibility of falling Whereas the
and well pleasing unto him doth fore-determine within himself those Angels and men by name that shall taste of his free mercy and love notwithstanding all they do to make themselves unworthy thereof resolving not to suffer them to destroy themselves by their own will but to apply an effectual remedy to them whereby they shall be saved to the utmost And for the others known also to him by name he doth determine not to shew them the mercy and kindness which he is pleased of his bounty to afford his Elect but upon condition leaving them to the righteous rule set up in the first Covenant to be proceeded with according to their works Wherein notwithstanding he is pleased of his own free accord and good will to give them all the helps and means incident to that dispensation that are requisite to enable them to the discharge of such a condition shewing thereby that he takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner but would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth So that God having thus given a righteous rule to all which nevertheless would be fulfilled by none through their own voluntary default if he left all to stand or fall by that he did none any wrong And who is there now that can reply against God for freely doing with his own what he himself pleaseth and for distributing that which is matter of his love and free bounty upon whomsoever his own good pleasure leads him to In pursuance of these eternal decrees was the righteous judgement of God revealed from heaven against the Serpent and upon fallen Adam and Eve exactly answering unto what was contained in the books or law of the first and second Covenant set up in the person of Christ declaring wrath and severity against those that were found despisers of the riches of his goodness and after the hardness and impenitency of their hearts had been treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath but shewing mercy to those that sinned ignorantly and were beguiled setting before them the sight of the son of man that was to be lifted up upon the Cross and have his heel bruised by the Serpent that whosoever believeth upon him should not perish but have ever lasting life This Christ did First by revealing himself to them as he that was to descend out of that state of glory wherein he now lived in and with the Word of life and was to be made flesh or the seed of the woman by being born of a woman and made uuder the law in which state he was to be subjected to the death of the Cross and to the enduring all that could be brought upon him from the power of the devil or his instruments for the bruising of his heel the putting of him to death in the flesh Secondly by declaring the woman as he was to be her seed the mother of all living or rather by manifesting himself to be him that was to spring up out of her womb to be the new root seed and head to all living or of all natural and spiritual life that was to be derived to the whole creation of God upon a new account and tenure the first having failed and being through sin and disobedience lost so as the whole fabrick thereof might have been dissolved and sunk down into ruine and desolation if Christ now made this seed of the woman had not born up the pillars of it by vertue of his becoming the first born from the dead and had not sent forth his spirit upon the face of the first world to renew it again upon the terms of the first Covenant into fellowship and communion with God as well as from his spiritual headship derived life and being unto his Church the spiritual seed in and through whom he was to make warr with the devil his seed perfectly to overcome them Christ therefore as the head and root unto both these seeds as well that by the law and renewal of the first covenant through the blood of his Cross as that by promise and the making or constituting the new covenant in the vertue and power of the same blood is preached and held forth unto man in the work of the seventh day as the free and voluntary workmanship of Gods hands wherein Adam had cause to rejoyce when the works of his own hands miscarried and failed Psal 82. 5. For this is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes this is the day the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it Psal 118. 23 24. even to see the stone which the builders refused to be made the head-stone of the corner ver 22. both Lord and Christ Lord of the first creation and Gods anointed one made higher then the Kings of the earth in his spiritual head-ship This day is the day-spring from on high that may seem to have visited our first parents to make them Children of the day and of the light of Gods new creation on the seventh day who else were like to have sunk irrecoverably into the lowermost hell by their works of sin and disobedience in a manner as soon as they were created And as a type or figure of these two seeds the natural and spiritual springing both of them up in the beginning from the same womb Cain and Abel are recorded for us to take notice of who for a while were both worshippers and servants of the true and living God approaching unto him by sacrifice in testimony of their owning and relying upon the blood of Christ but the one doing it without faith though he were a man gotten from the Lord acting only upon the account of a life derived from Christ as head of the natural man and restoring him to the exercise of the same life in kind upon the tenure of the first covenant which was conditional Gen. 4. 7. which Adam had before his fall the other doing it through the obedience of faith Heb. 11. 3. or participation of that higher and better union with God in the new and everlasting covenant for which he was envied and hated by his brother who by taking in a bitterness and enmity from the devil against Abel the seed of the promise became thereby the seed of the serpent whose latter end was worse then his beginning and who proved the subject wherein the first enmity was managed by the natural and fleshly worshipper and servant of God against the true spiritual worshipper and son and heir of eternal life and who in that state of fleshly life was permitted to rule over his brother and bring him into subjection unto him as to the exercise of worldly power as it is written unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him Gen. 4. 7. Unto both these seeds Christ as the Redeemer and Saviour prophesyed of to come into the world and be born of a woman is in his own person the begetter and
them to be Abrahams fleshly seed but saith he ye seek to kill me and therefore ver 39. he denies them in effect to be Abrahams spiritual seed or of the faith of Abraham for if ye were thus the children of Abraham saith he ye would do the works of Abraham and this did not he he did not become an enemy and seek to kill men for speaking the truth which they have heard of God ver 40. If therefore you desire to know what Father youbelong to I tell you plainly you are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him when he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyar and the father of it ver 44. So then although God gave to Angels and men at first the goodness and perfection of natural beings and doth freely offer a renewal of the same to men in the blood of Christ by the first covenant made again in force by vertue of his death as the first Testament Heb. 9. 15 16 17 18. yet this image and likeness of God wherein they were made and whereunto they are again renewed as it stands single and alone without the other is a mutable and corruptible seed the children whereof are therefore capable to turn again into degenerate plants and into the wild olive tree For God comes down in the ministry hereof as under a veil to the creatures sight and enjoyment in which man fixing and taking up his abode waiting for no further discovery nor expecting or listning after that second voice of him that speaketh from heaven may for ever stand excluded from entrance into or converse with the glory that is within the veil where God is to be seen and enjoyed by the creature face to face By the blood of Christ then man is first made capable to be taken out of the wild degenerate state of nature and to be planted into the good Olive tree the flesh or natural man in the person of Christ and when he comes to partake of the fatness thereof as it singly gives forth Christ in his first appearance or a knowledge of him only according to the flesh which Paul grew a stranger to as he came to be more acquainted with the Cross he is still but in a capacity to stand or fall again as upon his second proof and trial in the renewed exercise of his free will and rectified natural abilities of mind he demeans himself according to which he proves the womb whereinto is received either a divine seed and birth whereof the mediator in his death and resurrection is the author and parent or else a devilish seed and birth whereof the Serpent and old Dragon is the Father growing up into a wilful and fixed enmity against the Cross of Christ One or other of these two seeds all sorts of men do become by the evil and unworthy or the good and worthy use of Christs blood and the benefits of his death and so are either the seed of the woman and of promise or the seed of the Serpent lying children born from beneath of the father of lyes in comparison of the divine birth of the true seed that in the other sense are born of God and from above This latter is attained unto through Gods bounty and free love the Mediator adopting them into oneness of seed with himself as he is the only begotten Son in whom God is well-pleased The other through Gods just permission and Satans prevailing power and influence upon their lust and natural will at its best are changed and corrupted into likeness and oneness of seed with the old Serpent By reason of which different dispensations the innocent good righteous and perfect state of mans nature communicated to him by vertue of the first covenant comes either to grow up into that which is much better even into the power of an endless life or else to degenerate and sink down into that which is much worse even eternal enmity and opposition of mind unto God which is the second death That then which fixeth man in his unchangeable and permanent state of everlasting blessedness or misery is the bringing him forth out of his first wavering and changeable state into oneness of seed with Christ the Mediator in his second appearance wherein he is made to bear the likeness of his death and resurrection or the leaving him to be transformed into oneness of seed with the destroyer and thereby to become a child of perdition The first of these changes mans natural will at its very best lusteth against as the greatest cross that can be brought upon it until by regeneration and the baptism of fire it be prepared broken and subdued into a meet subjection thereunto And the latter change cannot be obtruded by the devil or forced upon mans will but is brought upon him by and with his own free consent which was not found difficult to be gained in the state of mans innocency and purity in Paradise and is not more since Here then we see the seat and original of this enmity between the two seeds springing up in the manner before expressed in their respective heads and roots who are thus to be found as they are in their heads and first principles before they flow forth in the off-spring and are discerned in their distinct operations in the particular beings of men here in this world as deeds done in the body whether they be good or evil for which all men are rendred accountable when they come to stand before the judgement seat of Christ In order therefore to their own voluntary actings herein they are endued with the exercise of a freedome of will which by creation was perfect absolute and uninterrupted and which by the ballance that God since the fall keeps up by the ministry of the holy Angels with their influence and impressions upon the natural enlightned conscience as also by the work of the spirit himself upon those farther illuminated minds under the first covenant against the power and influence of the devil upon mans corrupted and depraved state is so far and truly exercised by man in the several measures and degrees thereof as will render him inexcusable for not hearkning to the light and means tendred and afforded to him through the blood of Christ revealed by the Gospel in one or other of the three forementioned branches of his kingdome So that now upon Gods making man on the sixth day of the creation forming the first Adam of the dust of the ground and breathing into him the breath of life he became a living soul was set up in the first image of God brought forth in the same kind of mutable perfection with the Angels and in all the glory and accomplishments of this first state was a fit subject brought upon the stage capable to be attempted by both these great
Captains and competitors Michael in the person of the blessed Mediator and the old Dragon in the person of the devil And this last seems to get the start of the other at first on set forasmuch as by means of the womans weakness who was first in the transgression he makes a great advance towards his design supposing he had neer attained his end for he had prevailed so far as to bring Adam and Eve into the transgression and forfeiture of all the natural good they were by creation made possessours of And then further in prosecution of the same design upon this breach made between God and them he endeavours to cast in the seed of alienation and fixed enmity between them and God in order to set up his abiding Throne and seat in the fallen nature of man whereof the first Adam was the earthly head in whom the door was set open whereby sin entred into the world and death by sin Thus things were brought into a most hopeful way in the eye of the devil to disappoint and defeat the design of the Mediator as to the safe conducting the promised seed through all this disadvantage and opposition into the desired place of the true Rest Whence it is that the Mediator and Lamb slain from the beginning did hereupon think it high time to make discovery of himself and of the means for the accomplishing and bringing of his designs to pass in despite of the Serpents subtilty and in downright opposition to the very gates of hell By way of promise therefore he declares and engages himself to set up another man a second Adam Jesus the Son of Mary to be born of the seed of the woman who by being bruised in his heel and undergoing all the rage and enmity that the devil and his instruments could exercise upon him should arrive at such a neerness and intimacy of converse with God in the glory within the veil as that by the joy thereof set before him and the power thereof conveyed into him in the seed of it when he was laid hold on by the WORD in the womb of the Virgin he should be enabled to offer up himself in sacrifice to the Fathers will without spot to God through the eternal spirit enduring the Cross and despising the shame and so through his sufferings entring into the glory that was to follow he is for ever set down upon his Throne at Gods right hand expecting till his foes be made his foot-stool Hence it is that as through man came death so also by man comes the resurrection of the dead and the same man or first Adam who was of the earth earthy becomes the subject matter for both these seeds to work upon the seed of the promise and seed of the Serpent both being to be sown in this earth influenced and managed by these two grand competitors Michael and the Dragon in order to engage and fix the particular men and women of Adams posterity either in their true Rest or in an everlasting enmity thereunto and exclusion from it as they are either begotten of God and born of the spirit whereby they become children of the promise and heirs of salvation or left in the state of their natural beings voluntarily to drink in the seed of the Serpent and thereby to become hardned and prove finally children of wrath and sons of perdition as born after the flesh and as by a fair shew in the flesh they do exercise and manage the fiercest persecution against the true spiritual seed So then according to the birth which they are of they are either measured out with a line of life unto life or a line of death unto death answering the two great ends whereunto we shall find all things serve in this world and in the kingdom thereof This is that being of this world or from beneath spoken of by Christ in the Gospel which though in its rise and beginning as hath been shewed it be of God yet in its progress and end through the unlawful use thereof it comes to be of the devil who is the head and father unto that state spirit and interest which stands in direct contradiction and enmity to that of Christ and the promisedseed as they are the Jerusalem that is from above and are not of this world For in this Serpentine seed there is comprehended an irreconcileable enmity and opposition to the power and excellency of the Cross of Christ In which contrariety and opposition to the Cross all natural perfection and goodness is looked upon by God as considered only in its single seed and as the enjoyers and possessors thereof are left by God to their own natural senses capacities and powers of mind assisted with all needful helps and means proper and suitable to that state without the addition of a higher and more excellent birth reserved by God as a fruit of his bounty and free grace unto his chosen and beloved ones By what hath been said we may plainly see that although Gods own chosen vessels are determined from all eternity and fixed in such a neerness of union with God in their head that they can never be moved but are preserved by the power and influence thereof from all possibility of miscarying so as to fall short of true blessedness yet those that are in the number of the non-elect are not necessarily determined so much as in the means leading them to their destruction but have the free use of their own natural abilities to prevent the same assisted with all suitable requisite helps and means from God to keep them from it who omitteth nothing that is to be done on his part conducible hereunto which is consistent with the freedome of mans will and doth not offer violence to the principles which himself chooseth to joyn issue with God upon besides all which he that is faithful and cannot deny himself is pleased to be in the posture of one that is not yet risen up to shut the door finally upon them but leaves open a possibility of graffing them into an oneness of seed with the right heirs if at his coming he shall find them making a right and lawful use of the blood of Christ required by that first covenant renewed thereby upon them since the fall and not voluntarily rendring themselves uncapable of such favour by their needless provocations in hardning their hearts against the voice and teachings of the Cross and rejecting that counsel of God against their own souls God then is so far from looking upon the fall of man in the first Adam and the act of disobedience by him committed as the fixing of him and his posterity in an incapacity of returning unto God and of being made the true and right heirs of salvation that he is pleased through the blood of Christ to declare himself reconciled to the whole race of mankind as beholding them in a new head in the seed of the woman or second Adam a truth at
the gates of hell to prevail against the very elect themselves that are built on the Rock and are out of his reach to annoy in reference to the certainty of their salvation finding therefore little hopes or likelihood to frustrate them in that he makes it his business to render them of all men most miserable as to any hopes or enjoyments in this life wherein he finds latitude given him in the power allowed to him to bruise their heel Secondly he useth all the means-that lie in his power by subtilty or force so far as Gods permission gives way to him to assault the will and judgement of man how highly enlightned and how far quickned soever upon his single natural root in order to entice and draw him away from his subjection unto God in the natural service and worship that is due from him never leaving till he hath prevailed with and over him to provoke God so highly notwithstanding all his goodness patience and long-suffering to him extended through the blood of Christ as thereby to render himself unworthy of any further love or favour and to move God to swear in his wrath that he shall never enter into his REST. Under these two general heads we shall find as in a constant track throughout the whole Scripture the workings and counter-workings that are kept on foot and maintained between the MAN CHRIST JESUS who would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth and the MAN OF SIN and grand deceiver Satan who would have no man to be saved but all to be made children unto him who is the father of lyes The means used by Christ to produce renew and maintain the workings and operations of light and life from him in the hearts and consciences of fallen mankind is by setting on foot as hath been already shewed the threefold law and government given and erected by him at the beginning over all the sons of Adam upon the fall through the power and exercise whereof First he doth that to and in the hearts and consciences of the very heathen which fits and qualifies them to live answerable if the fault be not in themselves to the law and government they are under according to the measures of attainment which the meer natural man may have The like he doth unto the children of the first Covenant unto whom he is much more bountiful sutably to the state he farther leads them into And thirdly he exceeds what he doth to both these in the communications of himself unto the spiritual seed whom he suffers not to destroy themselves but takes a course to cross their own wils and desires when they are hearkning to the temptation of their own lust or Satan to draw them away This threefold conscience and spirit of man in the proper principles and operations of each of them whether they are to be found single or all of them together as in sweet harmony thus set up in the spiritual seed our purpose is to treat of and that as particularly and distinctly as we can to fall in with the experiences of all that may be therein concerned looking upon this as the best method we can take for the clear opening and stating the several dispensations of Christs three-fold government and Kingdom already entred upon And therefore we shall consider the principles and operations of each of these consciences either First as they are Christs own workmanship in and upon the heart and spirit of man as the beginning and foundation of those holy and righteous actings by him required under the dispensation whereinto each of them is brought by God or Secondly as they are the lawfull and righteous workings of the spirit of man enabled hereunto by free gift from Christ and in dependance upon him yet as the fruit and travel of his own proper judgement and will rectified in the use of those means prepared and laid before him by Christ to bring him to the right end of all motion which is the true REST whilst as yet he is under works and not under grace or Thirdly as they are the unlawfull and forbidden fruit of mans spirit qualified and enabled from Christ as before expressed when through his own lust he is enticed and through the subtilty of Satan he is ensnared so as lust when it hath thus conceived is the root of all evil operation bringing forth fruit unto death even death eternal in the end if the Lord upon the grounds of his new and everlasting Covenant do not pluck such souls out of this danger and lead them to such a state as contains in it a perfect security and freedom from the re-entry of sin with its prevailing power over them Through the right and distinct consideration of these principles and operations of conscience in the sons and daughters of men we may come to find our selves where we are and whose subjects whether Christs or the Devils and to what Kingdom or dispensation we belong in reference to the one or the other to the Kingdom of Christs marvellous light or to the power of Satans accursed darkness and upon what terms we stand in the one or the other whether in a wavering state consisting in a capacity and possibility of removal out of the one into the other or in a fixed determined state upon which it is impossible for any change to be brought either in a good sense or in a bad in which men are reserved and kept fast either in the bonds of perfect love light and freedom that casteth out fear as the elect or in chains of darkness and captivity unto the judgement of the great day as the non-elect who will be destroyed by the brightness of Christs coming when he shall appear the second time without sin to the salvation of his People And this we shall do if God permit as a service to these present times wherein like little children most are tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby men and devils lie in wait to deceive and lead on the ignorant to the Chambers of death CHAP. XV. Shewing more particularly the bounds of that Rule and Government which is set up by Christ in the natural conscience together with the answer of a good conscience thereunto in those that are under this first dispensation IT is most evident by the Scriptures that amongst the nations who are said to be without law as distinguished from the Jews that were under the law there were found doers of the law by nature who shewed the work of the law written in their hearts their consciences bearing them witness and their thoughts mean while accusing or excusing one another Rom. 2. 14 15. Of such Peter speaketh Acts 10. 34 35. where he saith Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him according as David
cutting them again off from his living body as unprofitable branches fit to be cast into the fire Joh. 15. 6. These are they considered in the exercise of this kind of life and holy operations that are as the fruitful married wife unto Christ under the first Covenant and over whom the Law hath dominion while they are in this life short of and unacquainted with an implantation into Christs dead body not having the similitude and conformity unto his death so much as in the seed of it brought forth in them The answer which these have of a good conscience towards God under the Law is particularly stated Rom. 7. where they are in Pauls own person represented as having that workmanship set up in their hearts and minds which stands in an exact conformity to the Law or image of Christs natural righteousness and perfection which is holy righteous spiritual and good and so having that heart-work in them whereby they adhere to and approve the Law and the goodness and righteousness thereof in opposition to the contrary body of sin and death which is still in being and exercise in them and with them ready upon all occasions to return with prevalency whilst they are but upon this tenure of the Covenant of works and in the wavering unconstant principles thereof by reason of which they find by experience no good thing dwelling in their flesh that is abiding and of a continuing residence with them but such as comes to them as a stranger or a sojourner for a night or short duration and is ready upon their miscarriage to be gone and leave them again estating them but in such a wavering condition as whilst with their mind they serve the Law of God they are ready with their flesh to serve the law of sin and the good that they would do that they do not and the evil which they would not do that they do By all which uncertainty and slipperiness of this their state Christ would teach them to see the need of following the Lamb whither soever he goes and to experience themselves to be most miserable if they advance no further but abide here thinking themselves rich and encreased with goods and wanting nothing whilst they are ignorant that they are miserable and poor and blind and naked as wanting that top-stone which must compleat the whole building And therefore the right frame of spirit in the faithful subjects of Christ under this dispensation is to find no Rest here but to see that this Earthly Jerusalem is no abiding City and to cry out miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death wherein is not only comprehended the corrupted but the corruptible state of mans nature after that he hath been renewed in this life of COMMON SALVATION by vertue of the blood of Christ From this experimental sense God would teach us patiently to lie down under the power of the cross of Christ whose saying then we shall acknowledge to be most faithful and true that if we die with him we shall also live with him and if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him our fellowship with him in his death being the only means by him appointed to translate us out of all death into life eternal and to bring us under that Law of the spirit of life Rom. 8. 2. which hath power absolutely to free us from the law of sin and of death in all the branches of it This is the spirit and conscience and these the principles of the children of the first covenant under the Dominion of the law in which while they continue using of it lawfully they are knit unto Christ by his taking unto him his two staves BEAUTY and BANDS Zach. 11. 7. signifying the fruits of his presence with them and amongst them as he is their husband by this covenant until by slighting his greater glory and selling him for thirty pieces of silver they come to discover themselves to be the flock of slaughter and such as he at last departs from and leaves to draw back unto perdition whilst he carries on the poor of the flock that bear him company in his sufferings unto the saving of their souls keeping them through the power of faith unto his Heavenly Kingdom This generation of men are witnessed unto by the Scriptures under a twofold consideration First as they were under the Law as the Law was the figure and shadaw of the good things to come consisting in meats and drinks and divers washings and fleshly rites ceremonies and divine Ordinances under Moses his ministry imposed until the time of reformation or to the coming of Christ in the flesh who in that sense was the end of the Law and of the observance of it as considered in that fleshly commandment and Mosaical administration that pointed at the very image itself that was to be manifested in the flesh of Christ where the same Law was to begin again and become the holy commandment spoken and delivered unto men by the son himself requiring a conformity in and from all men unto the natural righteousness and perfection of man shining forth in his flesh who was made like unto us in all things sin only excepted In this second sense as the Law is now given by Christ the true MINISTER OF CIRCUMCISION Rom. 15. 8. Issued forth by his first appearance immediately written in the fleshly tables of the heart by his spirit whereby the children of it are taken into marriage-union and made one flesh with himself branches of this vine Joh. 15 are we to understand the subjects of this kingdom of Christ that live under this dispensation in the times of the Gospel since his coming in the flesh and putting down the Temple-worship and Service Acts 7. that was in force before his incarnation introducing in the room thereof a spiritual Temple-worship and Service in the conformity which he takes them into with himself in his flesh and living body making them his own Temple house and habitation the first Tabernacle or worldly Sanctuary built up together with him in his natural righteousness and perfection Such principles and such a birth as this of holy and righteous operations and actings are required in him and of him that is made by Christ under the law or a child of the first covenant which Deut. 32. Jer. 3. 21. compared with Chap. 11. 15. and Isa 5. and Ezek. 16. do in express terms testifie shewing how perfect they are as they come out of his hands to whom he is a Father and Redeemer in this covenant planting them wholly a right seed and that together with the choisest vine causing them to grow together for a while in himself the true vine John 15. and thereby renewing in them and upon them a state of holy flesh natural righteousness and holiness and as thus qualified taking them into his own house as his beloved spouse and married wife who yet after all this
so ignorant of and such enemies to as most prophanely to call it a fiction and make little lesse of it then blasphemy We say that the flesh or natural man in the Saint whether considered in the workings of his morall nature or of his renewed enlightned nature under the first Covenant is crucified and rendred a copartner with Christ in his dead body whereby the powers and faculties of the mind in the natural man are neither annihilated nor deprived of their lawful use as lawful refers to the obedience of faith and the rule of the Gospel but only have death passe upon them or a disability and privation as to all unlawful use of them or possibility of acting in rebellion resistance or contradiction to the Law of the heavenly nature and mind set up by faith In this crucified posture of the flesh and broken-spiritednesse into which the powers and faculties of the natural mind are brought by faith the Prophet Isa 54. 1. calleth out to the Saint to sing as intimating that though the natural man be hereby disenabled to bear or bring forth fruit to its first husband Christ himself as made under the Law and head of natural perfection single yet it ought neverthelesse to break forth into singing in regard that by her being become dead to the Law she is married to another even to him that is raised from the dead to bring forth fruit in newnesse of spirit and life and that this its barrennesse is no just cause of reproach to it seeing it came to be lawfully disengaged from all obligation to its first Husband by the dead body of Christ through which her first Husband is become dead unto her so that she is no adulteresse though she be married to another man Rom. 7. 3 4. And therefore Cry aloud for joy saith the Prophet for more are the children of the desolate then of the married wife or she that keeps to her first Husband under the Law Fear not for thou shalt not be ashamed neither be thou confounded for thou shalt not be put to shame for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth and shalt not remember the reproach of thy Widowheod any more for thy Maker is thy Husband the Lord of Hosts is his Name and thy Redeemer the holy one of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called In these two particulars therefore conformity to the death of Christ is made to consist by the Prophet Isaiah in this Chapter First in Christs own refusal to be any longer a Husband unto the natural man in the Saint through his own voluntary departure and withdrawing of himself out of his own fleshly life to go to his Father and be and remaine for ever in the glory of the Father in order to returne againe to the Saint as he that is risen from the dead to marry and espouse the soul that he hath thus grieved by his withdrawing For saith he The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when thou wast refused by thy God for a small moment have I forsaken thee but with everlasting mercies will I gather thee Secondly the Saints conformity unto the death of Christ consists in the desolate forsaken barren state wherein the flesh and natural man is left by Christ as in a dry and barren wildernesse exposed to all temptations and trials from God Angels and Men within and without ready to sink and faile in spirit every moment partly under the appearance of Gods displeasure whose withdrawing and forsaking the soul understands not any more then Job did who was privy and conscious to the faithfulnesse and integrity of his heart to his first Husband whilest he abode with him and partly from the cold dead disconsolate frame of spirit wherein it now finds it self as it measures it self by the life of sense and not by the life of faith under both which pressures the Word of Christs patience is set before the soul by faith to be kept and observed Who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame patiently suffering the bruising of his heele according as he had received commandment from the Father In this posture as a Widow indeed the poor broken-spirited Saint remains mourning and weeping left for a season as an Orphan by Christ brought into that condition which Christ foretold unto his Disciples whom at the present he acknowledged children of the Bridechamber whilest they had no higher knowledge of him then in his fleshly glory and perfection Of whom therefore he said As long as the Bridegroome was with them they could not fast but the dayes would come when the bridegroome should be taken away from them then they should fast intimating thereby the dayes of fasting and mourning and being clad in sackcloth which the true Saints witnesses of Christ were to be exercised with during the time of the trial of their faith upon the Bridegroomes being taken from them and changing that living fruitful frame of spirit which they were fed and nourished up in by him as they were his married wife under the Law into a fasting broken mournful desolate state of Widowhood which they are brought into as they are made one with Christ in his dead crucified body and are planted with him into the similitude of his death Christ then after he hath become a Bridegroome and married Husband unto true beleevers in and by his first appearance shining forth upon them in the life and glory of his natural and fleshly perfection wherein he hath nourished them up and made them fruitful children of that his Bride-chamber is pleased and hath power to take himself away from them and continue no longer with them as a Bridegroome under the first Covenant or in the ministery of his first appearance but wholly dissolve that marriage-band betweene them as refusing any longer to come forth in the exercise of life toward them upon the single root of his natural perfection in order upon the trial of their faith and their dutiful keeping the word of his patience during the time of this his separation from them to return again after a little moment and with everlasting mercies to embrace them and be married unto them in the light and life of his second appearance not only supplying to them again that wherein he was withdrawn from them but adding over and above a fuller and more abundant communication of life and glory which untill this death or withdrawing of his be perfected in them they are not capable subjects perfectly to receive and inherit but according to the steps and degrees of this death doth the approa hand increase of this higher life let it self in upon them and fill them This separation and withdrawing of Christ as a Bridegroome is the more bitter and grievous because this his absence carrieth in it the appearance of his wrath and sore displeasure to the eye of flesh
their own righteousnesse not submitting to the righteousnesse of God and so prove deceived and seduced through an unskilfulnesse of discerning in that which is good to the despising and refusal of that which is a more excellent and enduring substance for the fading glory of flesh and the morning dew of natural righteousnesse wanting that wisdome which teaches to distinguish betweene the lawful and unlawful use that is to be made of the Law and the eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ worthily or unworthly Behold then the evil desire and lust that may and doth spring up in mans pure holy and righteous nature as by being under the dominion of the Law and living in subjection and conformity thereunto he is striving to separate them whom God has joyned together in Christs second appearance and to uphold competition and opposition betweene those that should dwell together as brethren in unity in the communion of the holy Ghost which counsel of God carries much contrariety in it to mans natural desire and lust which would faine get away with Gods first word the word of the beginning Heb. 6. 1. wherewith God at first visits man refusing to stay to the end and to hear and obey the second word which God is pleased to have with him whereby he finishes and compleats his first operations in him declaring to him his whole counsel whereunto the first dispensation is appointed only as a fore-runner and therefore must needs be short as to that which is the work of the second being no otherwise intended from the beginning but as a messenger or preparer of the way Hence we may see what it is Paul means Rom. 7. and ch 8. when he acknowledges that the Law through the weaknesse of the flesh though it have nothing in it which causes or is the author of sin yet it hath that in it which sinne takes occasion by to set up it self anew and blossome forth againe in mans nature when renewed and restored to a conformity with the Law which is spiritual holy righteous and good for lust is capable to conceive in Adams posterity thus renewed and set up afresh as well as it did in himself at first and lust when it hath thus conceived brings forth sinne or an envying and contesting against the glory of Christs second appearance which sin being perfected or come to its fixing of the mind in an unchangeable and implacable enmity thereunto brings forth death even that death which is spiritual and eternal so Rom. 8. such a carnal mind as this is called death as it stands in such an enmity to the spiritual mind that it is neither subject to that Law of God which is the Law of the Crosse and Spirit of life nor indeed can be Thus saith the Apostle by the coming of the Commandment sin revived and 1 died and what was ordeined for life I found unto me to be unto death sin getting into its vigour and strength thereby assuring the soul that it is here out of all danger being begotten againe into Gods own likenesse wherein man was at first created and having the visible characters thereof shining forth in it written not with inke and on tables of stone but with the Spirit of the living God and on the fleshly tables of the heart shewing it self a right change and a real heart-work above and beyond all that is accounted civility and morality and above all notion and spirituality that is but head-work and fancy What is now to be done sayes the Tempter to this sort of men but to perswade them torest here and praise and blesse Gods Word that by this first visit and beginning hath made so beautiful glorious a change in their hearts nature as this is wherof the experiences are so lively and refreshing especially when reflection is made upon what they are changed from when brought to this and the way and means of attaining it which hath also the approbation and praise of visible Churches and Saints and of the best men so judged by mans day which makes them say Let us tabernacle here with Moses and Elias especially if we be upon the Mount and brought thither by Christ himself transfiguring himself there before us In this earthly building of the renewed natural man let us fix and resist all dawnings and approachings of any higher or better state Let this our Ishmael live was once the voice of Abraham himself that afterwards was perswaded to offer up his Isaac that was but according to the flesh If we be prevailed with to fix here and live after the flesh we shall die Rom. 8. 13. or enter and abide in those wayes of death which make us enemies to the Crosse of Christ and cause him in the end to swear we shall never enter into his Rest As man therefore in the purity and holinesse of his natural will may be using the Law of God lawfully as we have shewed so also he may exercise himself in his own holy and righteous operations of mind and nature in such manner as may be quite contrary to the mind of God and the true end of such conformity wrought in him unto the Law experiencing by this means the evil that is incident unto a pure and uncorrupt state of being and that lust that is to be known only by the coming of the Law Which evil desire or lust of man in this state is a covetousnesse which sets up idolatry in the highest streine endeavouring to oppose Christ in the Spirit by Christ in the flesh by exalting the glory of his first appearance above that of the second Sin in this sense hath for the Mother and Nurse of it mans natural righteousnesse wherein he is apt to glory and be puffed up without cause contrary to the true meaning of the Law which requires him indeed to cherish and maintaine the natural righteousnesse and holinesse therein and thereby ministred whether considered as it shines forth in the flesh of Christ or in their own hearts and consciences in opposition to that which is the filth of the flesh or to the resting in our own personal morality and vertue before the Law came to us but authorizes him not or warrants him to oppose herewith the Crosse of Christ and the excellency of the knowledge of him crucified or to resist upon pretence of keeping that up the coming in of the better and more excellent glory When once therefore such a frame of spirit as a root of gall and bitternesse is springing up in men and that wilfully against manifest conviction and long contestation and patience on Gods part to bring them to another mind at last they are brought by sad experience to find that in their flesh dwells no good thing but such as will be leaking out of this fleshly building of the first Adam at its best if rested in and subject to corrupt So that whilst with the mind they serve the Law of God with the flesh
pieces of silver stumbling at that stumbling stone and going about in the meane time to establish and keep up their owne righteousnesse in its credit and authority not only against the filthinesse of the flesh which lawfully they may but in opposition also unto the righteousnesse of faith which is highly displeasing to the Father who calls for this Isaac to be offered up and warns that this earthly Canaan is only to be sojourned in and that therefore a more heavenly Countrey should be in our eye and desire even a City that hath foundations and immutability in it whose builder and maker is God From this legal or first-Covenant frame of spirit as exalting it self in opposition to the life of faith do arise and spring forth the sinnes of unbelief to the resisting of the Ministery of Faith or the new Covenant endeavouring either to keep out the life and light of the Righteousnesse of Faith or if the dawnings thereof break in upon them whether they will or no to crucifie and trample it under foot as an unholy thing and to oppose to the utmost the life and power of Christs second coming though by so much as is witnessed in the first they may discerne as in a Type and Figure that glory that excels and is to follow and that this second dispensation or first appearance of Christ in its proper use and tendency is ordained as a preparatory and forerunning help and furtherance thereunto This sort of sins are properly sins of unbelief or against the life of Faith called the hidden works of darknesse 1 Cor. 4. 5. that may lie undiscovered and unsuspected under the purest forms of godlinesse and a very fair shew in the flesh of a Practical blamelesse Righteousnesse according to the Law By the very good works and consolations such consciences experience under the Law sinne works death in them more easily even a fixed enmity against the righteousnesse of Faith becoming thereby exceeding sinful Of this sort are the sins that revive and get strength by the coming of the Commandment and die not till we become dead to the Law by being crucified with Christ which till the Law come are unknown as to any experimental discerning of them by those that remaine under the first Ministery who in the utmost of their transgressings do sinne only against the Sonne of man or Christ in his first appearance but these sinne against the Holy Ghost or Christ in his second appearance and by such sinning forfeit the benefit of all their enjoyments The third and last Ministery then in and by which everlasting righteousnesse is conveighed and the Image of God set up in the heart in an immutable and incorruptible state is that wherein is exhibited to us the glory that follows that is to be beheld with open face the seed of Promise borne of the free-woman which is the younger and comes after both the former dispensations as the end for which they were given and are kept on foot This Ministery is exercised by the mouth of the Sonne himself speaking from heaven to the shaking and removing of the former heavens and earth as of things that are made that this Kingdome that cannot be shaken may remaine into which Christ is ascended as received up into glory made higher then the Heavens and set downe on the right hand of the Majesty on high in that light and immortality which no man hath seene or can see but those only who are admitted to enter within the veile through their conformity with him in his death Those that are under this Ministery do stand possessed of farre higher and richer benefits and priviledges then any do arrive unto under the first Covenant having also all that they have under that Ministery being joyned so near unto the Lord that they two are but one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. or heavenly manhood the one in the Relation of the Husband the other of the Bride the Lambs wife who hath made her garments the sine linnen which is the righteousnesse of the Saints white in the blood of the Lamb which Robes are neither given unto nor put on by any but the hundred fourty four thousand Rev. 14. that are the true Virgins and followers of the Lamb whither soever he goes leading the true immaculate unchangeable life of righteousnesse which is peculiar unto them from all the world besides The benefit of these Robes they have in a twofold consideration first as they are worne by Christ in his owne person made white by himself in his owne blood when he offered up himself without spot unto God by the eternal Spirit which is imputed to them for justification irrevocable and never to be blotted out over and besides the benefit of his legal righteousnesse for their justification upon the tenour of the first Covenant and secondly as they are worne by themselves for their owne personal inherent righteousnesse and sanctification as washed againe in the blood of Christ by a sprinkling thereof upon every one of their hearts to purge them from all evil conscience as they become planted into a likenesse with him in his death over and beyond the washing of their bodies with pure water from the filthinesse of the flesh which is the first-Covenant-sanctification purging them only from the evil conscience opposite to that Ministery This then is the Righteousnesse of Faith or of the second and New Govenant consisting as we have shewed in that newnesse of life and operation which never leaves untill it hath brought downe mans first activity or way of acting by himself alone into the very grave of Christ And we are farther to consider that this Righteousnesse of Faith may have a hidden and relative Being only in the heart of the Elect separating them unto God from the womb and not yet bring them into reall and actuall union with Christ in his spiritual headship nor appear for a long while in its own proper manifestation or be so much as an operative seed of life taking the soul in any active way into co-operation with it self but at most is only comprehending and preserving it from the evil of falling into the GREAT TRANSGEESSION or sinning the sin unto death So then whilst this holy seed thus lies at the bottome as it were the person in whom it is may be carried forth in the life of other Principles to the exercise of all good conscience from first to last under all the three Ministeries as it was with Paul whether considered as in those Principles wherein he was alive before the Law came or those wherein he lived under the Law in a conformity to it or those wherein he lived by Faith in newnesse of life and operation after he became dead to the Law counting all things lesse and drosse and dung Phil. 3. which he had till then experienced how great and glorious soever his receivings and attainments had beene as fit to be left behind that he might presse forward through a
power and glory shining forth in the beauty of his new name that is above every name either in this world or in that which is to come every knee is appointed to bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and the duty of every tongue shall be to confesse that Iesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father Hence then it is evident that as God or the WORD in Christs first appearance was pleased to be manifested in flesh wherein to condescend and make himself of no reputation by taking upon him the forme of a servant and being made in the likenesse or habit of a man and in this fashion as a man subjecting himself to the doing and suffering all that which was required to be done and suffered on the behalf of sinful mankind and for the bringing many sonnes unto glory so also is he that thus did and suffered all things as a man in the dayes of his flesh for our redemption at this time to see his seed and reap the fruit of the travel of his soul which then he made a sacrifice for sin being now a second time to appeare without any reference to sinne as then he did but instead thereof to declare himself the Sonne of God with power by the resurrection from the dead So as in and by this second appearance the man Christ Iesus in the fashion and forme of his exalted and glorified manhood consisting of spirit soul and body in substantial or personal union with the WORD is to shew and manifest himself in the glory of the Father in the joynt and united exercise of the same divine life and power with him and therein to give a plaine demonstration that he is the Sonne of God as by his being made flesh and becoming obedient to the death of the Crosse he did undeniably demonstrate that he was really and properly the Sonne of Man made of the seed of David according to the flesh living the life and dying the death of a perfect natural man Thus the Sonne of man shall come with power and great glory sitting with the Father upon the same Throne therein shewing himself the only POTENTATE the KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS dwelling in immortality and that light which no man can approach hath seene or can see Christ then considered as thus dwelling in immortality and that light which is invisible and inaccessible in reference to all those that are meer natural men shall at this time declare himself to be the life and quickning of his own dead body and the object of their converse who having been made one dead body with him as planted in the similitude of his death shall now be called and gathered together unto him in one incorruptible immortal glorified state of spirit soul and body be planted into the likenesse of his Resurrection to the attaining of their compleat adoption and the redemption of the body at this manifestation of the sonnes of God and heirs of salvation which is spoken of Colos 3. 4. where 't is said that when Christ who is our life shall appear we shall also appear with him in glory and 1 Iohn 3. 2. we are now sonnes but it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is or as he dwells in immortality and in that light from whence he excludes every natural eye reserving it as the peculiar enjoyment and inheritance of his friends whom he loves that are Heirs of God and Co-heirs with Christ in the things prepared only for them which neither eye hath seene nor eare heard nor have entred into the heart of the natural man to consider This likenesse which the true Saints shall be brought forth into with Christ the beginning and first-begotten from the dead is described in general by the promise Christ makes to them on that behalf And Iesus said unto them Verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me in regeneration when the Sonne of man shall sit in the Throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel Matth. 19. 28. So Rev. 3. 21. To him that overcometh sayes he I will grant to sit with me on my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father on his throne which imports First that as by the Fathers quickning of Christ raising him up and fitting him in spiririt soul and body to exercise in unity with him the same divine life and power to the making his manhood Second with him on the Throne so Christ in like manner will quicken and raise up all the members of his dead body or slaine faithful Witnesses that have beene made conformable unto him in his death and fit them in their spirit soul and body to exercise in unity and association with his heavenly manhood the life and power which he is enabled to exercise as he is the exalted Sonne of man to the rendring them a fit Bride Queene and Second with him in his Throne where they shall neverthelesse sit as upon Thrones of their owne as his Equals and co-heirs yet in subordination unto him judging the twelve Tribes of Israel in a light and glory superiour to the earthly Jerusalem or worldly Church yea to the good Angels themselves who shall be found but standing about the Throne whilst the Saints shall be sitting downe with Christ upon it Secondly as the Father gives authority to Christ in the capacity of the Sonne of man to execute judgement as the only l'OTENTATE KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS under him so Christ also shall give and derive to his body the general assembly of the first-borne whose names are written in heaven authority to be the only Potentates Lords of Lords and Kings of Kings under him whose Decrees and Ordinances shall be binding unto all in heaven or in earth or under the earth next and immediately under Christ their head and this as well in reference to the regulating and well-ordering the service and worship of God in the societies of Saints and all his true worshippers as in reference to the governing and well-ordering the natural and outward converse of men in their humane societies during the reigne of Christ upon earth the thousand years Both these powers and jurisdictions shall be residing in the general assembly of the first-borne whose names are written in heaven who shall then be declared the Bride the Lambs wife the New Ierusalem coming downe from God out of heaven described Rev. 21. 2. as she that is prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband being that Tabernacle of God with men wherein he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and he himself will be with them and be their God wiping away all teares from their eyes so as there shall be amongst them no more death nor sorrow nor crying
yea have no glory at all in comparison of that which excels and is to follow 2 Cor. 3. 10. or else as that which will be swallowed up of corruption and changed into a body of sin and death is the wages of mans disobedience and fruit of Gods displeasure for the same In this sense we are to understand man to be made in a mutable and corruptible state as having that set up in him and given to him through the well or evil ordering whereof he may either lose and justly be deprived of it in a way of Gods displeasure or exchange it for a second and more excellent appearance of God the glory that is to follow wherein this also is comprehended and made perfect and durable And that we may the better understand the nature of this changeable state wherein man is found under the first Covenant and see the weakness and faultiness thereof comparatively with that which is designed by God unto man wherein to fix and rest it will be needful for us to be more particular in describing first what man is in his essential properties and operations in that make and constitution communicated to him by the Trinity in his creation and then to shew what was the nature of the communion and converse with God which he was thereby fitted and qualified unto in order to grow up to be perfected in by the means for that end given him by God if the fault were not his own as it is written Thy destruction O man is of thy self Man then as he bears the image of the Trinity is constituted of spirit soul and body as his essential parts which whatever suspension of exercise or temporary alteration any of them may have do never suffer annihilation but make up the proper discriminating form of man by which he stands distinguished from all other the works of Gods hands in both worlds And thus first man is created spirit and made to subsist in his head Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world as we have already shewed where he stands comprehended in the life of Christs natural perfection as he is the Father of spirits in like manner by way of comparison as in reference to his fleshly seed all the posterity of Adam stood in the loyns of their common parent from the time of his creation Yet this is not the state of mans spirit made perfect but is only a first degree of his being which is the foundation laid by God to mans exercise of a bodily and spiritual life and operation incident and essential to him as a man whether he become a vessel of honour or dishonour So that in this state of a created spirit man had a being in his head before he was brought forth in the exercise either of his sensual or rational life and is rather comprehended in his head then actually and perfectly apprehending or enjoying in respect of which first state and invisibility of being he is a dark shadow of the witness of the Father Secondly man is to be considered in his bodily frame as he is made of the dust of the ground and had the breath of life breathed into him by God through which he became a living soul This breathing of the breath of life by God into mans nostrils doth declare first Gods bringing the soul of man into the actual being and exercise of its sensual life which till then lay hid in mans spirit by the means whereof he is furnished with a capacity of receiving and taking in by the organs of sense the knowledge of things proper to him as a man which though it be his weaker and inferiour part yet is first in motion in order to yield its service and subjection to the rational and superiour part This life which the soul leads and manages by actuating and informing the senses serving herself of them is that whereby the report of things from without is let in upon mans reason which is for the most part so prevalent as if the soul were absolutely and intirely dependent upon and necessitated unto the use of the senses in respect whereof some have thought very groundlesly that it hath either slept or ceased to be upon the laying down of the body By this first exercise of a living soul in man is figured out the witness of the Son Thirdly the spirit of man is the foundation and spring unto a rational spiritual or intellectual exercise of life wherein he is capable of associating with Angels and becoming their equal even in his natural capacity of a man which also was actually set up in Adam by that act of Gods breathing into him the breath of life and was as the superiour ruling part in man obtaining the place of Lord Ruler and Husband unto his first inferiour and sensual part which in its actings was to be dependent upon and subservient unto this in all usefulness and harmony Thus in a mystical sense man was made Male and Female in the same person through the setting up this two-fold exercise of life and operation of soul in him sensual and rational This second sort of operation is mans higher and nobler part and shews most the man in it the other distinguishes the man very little from the beast but that the countenance of man looks upward and the face of the beast downward The exercise of life in this higher and more raised part of man Adam obtained at first in perfection and had it in its compleat stature so far as it was capable during its association with its mortal body and while it was on this side the state of being made perfect in spirit and equal to Angels Luke 20. 36. by laying down the body in the grave either to good Angels when they become the spirits of just men made perfect or to evil Angels when they are the spirits of wicked men grown up to the height of their natural stature in spirit and by vertue of that perfect exercise of the rational and intellectual part which Adam had in the body he had a capacity to take in the knowledge and discerning of things immediatly from the inward vision represented to him by the ministry of Angels he had also an intuitive prospect into the nature of all visible and bodily things in their causes without being beholding to the report given by his senses and as a fruit hereof we do find Gen. 2. 19 20. That Adam gave names to every living creature according to their nature by vertue of this his intuitive knowledge which he exercised in a way independent upon his sensual part the property of this his spiritual and rational part being to act as in the body or as out of the body that is to say to serve it self of the use of its bodily senses or not according as they conduce to the furthering and bettering him in his true and right discerning of things man then hath a perfect compleat intellectual and rational life springing up
in him which is so far from being lessened or interrupted by death and the laying down of the use of his bodily life for a time that it never comes to its full and mature perfection until then and as a consequence hereof the body be re-assumed incorruptible In this property and operation of humane life man bears the figure and image of the witness of the Holy Ghost Thus we have described what man is in his essential parts and operations in order to fit him for that communion and converse with God designed unto him by the two Covenants unto the first of which he was actually and perfectly qualified as he became a living soul and did bear the image of God in and upon his natural man as the first Adam being of the earth earthy But unto the other man by his creation was no otherwise qualified and prepared then as he was set up in such a being as was capable by a farther workmanship of God to arrive unto and attain the glory and everlasting perfection of the new and second covenant without which all that was done unto him yet by what he had received from God in his creation if left to his own freewill would but redound to his greater misery and more righteous condemnation before the judgement seat of Christ through his own default This finishing and compleating work of God upon man was reserved to be Ministred to him on the seventh day whereby a far higher and more exalted capacity of mind and operation was to be added to him for the enabling him unto an everlasting happy and compleat communion with God This is that which in his first state was wanting and could not be obtained by him but as the free gift of God then propounded to him in the tree of life This second and last state of perfection held forth unto man from the beginning in the tree of life in the midst of the Paradise of God is described by the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 15. 44 45 46 47 48 49. where he sets it up in contra-distinction to the first and earthly make of man by his creation shewing it to be that life and immortality which is brought to light in Christ as the last Adam the Lord from heaven and quickning spirit calling it the spiritual body as that in which the power of this endless life was comprehended comparatively with the natural body wherein the perfection of Adams mutable and corruptible life consisted saying plainly that there is this spiritual body and heavenly image in the last Adam as well as that natural body and earthly image in the first howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but that which is natural and afterwards that which is spiritual the first being the life of perfection that was found in the earthly Adam the other being that which was brought to light in the heavenly by his resurrection from the dead and therefore as is the earthly such are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly And in reference unto such as are the right heirs of salvation it is said as they have born the image of the earthly so shall they also bear the image of the heavenly and have their natural or vile bodies changed and fashioned like unto his glorious body by him who through his mighty power is able to subdue all things uno himself And if we desire to be satisfied how this change and translation out of the one perfection and image into the other is to be effected he positively asserts that it is brought upon man as the fruit of Christs resurrection or Ministry of Gods second appearance by and in him which rends the first veil and brings down the first Tabernacle of the natural body into the grave with Christ whence it springs up clothed upon with this house from heaven its spiritual body by means whereof this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality and death and the grave are swallowed up in victory This change and translation was as we have said propounded unto Adam as the end of his creation and was figured out to him in the tree of life and by the twofold exercise of life and ability of mind set up in their perfection in in him by creation he was indued with a power improveable in the use of the means God afforded him to be at least in a tendency unto so glorious an end and disposed in such a posture and frame of spirit as God required in him by the first covenant in order to this farther work which on the seventh day God would make known and impart to him What God herein required from man was signified unto him by the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the prohibition accompanying the same which was not to eat of the fruit of that tree In this tree of knowledge of good and evil man had the sight of himself in the exercise of his natural life and operations appertaining unto him as he became a living soul in the well or evi use whereof he might arrive unto the experience of the supream good held forth to him as the end of his creation the endless life that was to follow or else he might come by the forfeiture of the present good he enjoyed to know the evil of a much worse condition then at first he had for the avoiding of which and to continue in a posture meet to receive the other God required him in the state of innocency to abide in a waiting frame of spirit as a sojourner and stranger in the midst of his present enjoyments in the earthly Paradise that so through his patient forbearance from taking up his Rest or terminating his delight in seen things he might preserve in himself an unengaged unprejudiced spirit to what was yet behind of the counsel of God to be communicated to him as to a more excellent attainment and inheritance to be exhibited to him in the light of the approaching day of the Lord the beamings forth whereof as considered in type were already present CHAP. VI. Concerning the fall of man the steps and degrees to it with the bitter fruits and consequents thereof BY what hath been said of mans Creation it is undeniable that God made him perfect though the perfection of his estate was mutable or subject to change and therefore not the Rest from all eternity designed him by God so that man in this first perfect state had that still wanting which was the finishing and compleating work to what he at present enjoyed howbeit that which was wanting unto man did no way cause or necessitate his fall but that as we shall shew proceeded from the suggestion of Sathan and enticing of his own lust which lust when it had conceived brought forth sin and sin when it was perfected brought forth death although man in this estate was well and sufficiently armed and provided against it if he