34-29 1 of which you have a very fresh Instance in the late King. To return to the manner of the second Coming of Christ by the Holy Ghost observe that as the lightning comes at first out of the East and then shines even unto the West that is enlightneth the Hemisphere all over so his Coming which is not with any observation Luke 17.20 appears first like the Day-spring chap. 1.78 or the dawning of the day or is like the morning Star arising in our hearts 2 Pet. 1.19 for there all our thoughts or first glimpses of Light rise then encreasing more and more to the perfect light or day Prov. 4.18 it comes to be like the Sun at Noon and at the Solstice in reference to both which distinct states Christ is called the Morning Star by St. John Rev. 22.16 20. and the Sun of Righteousness by the Prophet Malachy 4.2 because he both dissipates the Morning Clouds by his light and strengthneth by the power of it a Believer so that he brings him to ripeness or to his full perfection the flash at his appearance shining nothing near so bright and comfortable as the Sun and as itself would do if it lasted for ever or endured a great while without vanishing again For after the same manner Christ the Word or the Wisdom and Light and Power of God 1 Cor. 1.24 within us in our hearts Rom. 10 8. springing out of the centre out of a man 's own darkness 2 Cor. 4.6 first appears to the sad mind like glimmering sparks of light which are a great refreshing to the Soul light or knowledge bringing still along with it great joy as I have said Then encreasing and sending its sweet beams by little and little towards the Circumserence till it shines through the whole Sphere it enligthneth all over and at the same time comforts and strengthneth sick sainting Man in such sort that he may rise from the shadow of death wherein he lay as benumm'd and walk and run and not faint and mount up with wings as Eagles Isa 40.31 Joel 2.7 and going from strength to strength Psal 84.7 both take God's Kingdom by force and rise to the very top or crown or zenith thereof which is God's holy mountain or the highest state of bliss and of glory and of light which Mankind is capable of Dan 12.3 Mat. 13 43 -19.28 Rev. 3.21 continuing all the while springing shining enlightning and refreshing the firy dark Soul to eternal life with the water of that Well that is Wisdom and Knowledge flowing out of a Man's self whereof Christ spake in St. John 4 14-7.38 As an ever flowing spring of living water streaming through a hot and desart place would revive the weary Traveller dying for Thirst so this new Spring of Wisdom revives the dry sainting Soul of Samson and Ishmael that is of Christ's stout Champions Gen. 21.20 the Church Militant on Earth as soon as they begin to thirst after Righteousness Mat. 5.6 as it was typified by the water gushing out of the Asses dry Jaw-bone which Samson after a great Victory being ready to die met with in his thirst Judg. 15.18 19. and by the Wells of water which Israel found at last in the dry and desart Land Exod. 15.27 But before he I mean the said sick Man comes to this he must dye the second death according to God's threatning Gen. 2.17 which because God's Word is true shall not pass away from him before it be fulfilled Mat. 24.35 and this is not so easie a matter for him to do as our learned Divines who pass it over sicco pede teach in their Sermons For to speak of this dying which is the other thing needful for the obtaining the said birth of the Spirit it is really a dying and dying you will grant is a hard thing to Mankind Neither is it only such dying as is that of this body of the flesh which Men easily go through But such as is proper and peculiar to the Soul which is so intolerable that none but the Son of Man or at least the Soul of Man enabled by the virtue and strength of the Son of Man can sustain or bear with it Prov. 18.14 For no man he saith himself John. 3.13 doth ascend up to Heaven but he that comes down from thence to give us power and strength and thus by enabling us to die lifts us up thither and there go along with it the terrors of Hell it self Which thing because it seems new and very strange to the world is what I do here take upon me to demonstrate And first to shew what it is This dying is the same death as that Adam died of after he had transgressed which must be some other thing than the death of his Body for he was surely to die the day that he transgressed Gen. 2.17 whereas his Body did live 900 years after And that was a rising or an exasperation of the Fire of his Soul after he tasted the Apple for he had lost long before viz. before he fell asleep the Light of Life which his Soul enjoyed at his Creation to a very intense or high degree of sierceness raging in him till the time he catcht hold of the promise made to him of the Woman's Seed Christ the Light of the world For Life without Light is but a dark and obscure Fire kindled either here or there in some individual place and burning without shining as do all Acids the Frost and those Corrosives called Ignes Potentiales by Chymical Writers whereby the Life just subsists in a very anxious fretful state or condition as being always feeding upon the thing it is in that is upon the Body which it had formed itself till that Body be consum'd or till this hungry Fire be fully satiated And this Fire thus burning was represented to us by the firy Serpent of God's People in the Desart and by a Worm or Serpent which Christ saith doth never die because it is always renascens reproducing or kindling itself anew viz. in the eternal Souls for there it can as well do it always as for once by reason that its Body or Subject doth not decay and when exasperated it is the Death of the Soul or its Hell burning gnawing and making it for ever anxious and full of pain except it reacheth the Light that makes all things comfortable Here consider the grimness of a dark and frosty Night which chills benums and destroys and burns all things on the ground and what state things would lay in if the Light of the Sun were taken out of the world Would not all the living things lay still like Worms in Winter and be frozen up as hard and stiff as Ice in their place Sure the world itself would be nothing but Death all over And thence conceive if you can how sharp severe and bitter are to the despairing Soul whose dark Fire corroding and biting it like sharp Frost or a fretting Humor or some tart
Salvation and Religion consist in they would give over mumbling of their Beads and casting off their Fryers Hoods Surplices c. embrace and follow the means of Wisdom and Salvation at another rate than you do Now this Light or this Knowledge which Salvation consists in is not a Knowledge in part nor that great heap of Notions fine Fancies Precepts and Rules which many Ingenious Men gather from other Mens Books or bring forth of their own Heads but it is Wisdom it self or the knowledge of all Truth Wisdom being properly an Universal Knowledge or a Light that shews all things Guides a man into all truth John 16.13 and makes all things manifest It is not a bare Nosce te ipsum or the Knowledge of thy self nay of the World that constitutes the Wisdom which makes our Salvation but the true Knowledge of God and of Jesus whom he sends Acts 3.19 20. Because God being in all and through all and beyond all the Heavens Circumference Eph. 4.6 1 Kings 8.27 and all having its being in and out of God himself Acts 17.28 Nature being as it were a Nascitura Dei or God bringing forth a part of himself out of himself God comprehends all Beings Exod. 3.15 And so his Knowledge also includes all other Knowledge not only that of himself and of all the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven but much more that of the World since it is but as it were an Epitome of God which besides is felt and seen John. 3.12 Christ adds John 17.3 unto the Knowledge of God that of Jesus Christ as being sent to refresh or comfort and perfect Men Acts 3.19 20. John 14.18 Because Christ being the Light both of God and of the World which like the Sun in the World both enlighteneth and strengtheneth and brings Life to Perfection so tempering allaying and mitigating the force and fierceness of the Fire which is the Father of Life giving Life its beginning or a principle of Motion that it turns the Wrathful Ardor of God the Father for the Father by himself without the Light of the Son is a consuming Fire from whence he calls himself so and an Angry Jealous God viz. in the Creatures only and by no means in himself for God is Quatenus God that is Three Persons in One nothing but Light Love Meekness Joy and the Summum Bonum into a pleasant Being or Refrigeratory thus bringing to Perfection the anxious Firy Soul or the Life of the Soul which the Father had begun it behoves us to know him for such Savior that is for him that enlighteneth comforteth and perfecteth and brings to a pleasant rest the anxious Firy Souls by introducing his Light into their Fire which is the Life and Father thereof Now this Knowledge of the Truth which saves Man 1 Tim. 2.4 saves him saith Christ John 8.32 34. Revel 2.26 by freeing him from his Lusts and the Slavery of Sin. But to be freed he must sight against them and overcome that by his overcoming he might Reign Victorious Revel 3.21 that is an absolute King who hath all at his command that his Kingdom can afford in God who is the fulness of all things in all places soever where such Man is or finds himself when he dies Psal 73.25 so that he hath where he is without changing his old place to come into a new one all Pleasures for evermore It being nonsence to think that the Kingdom of God is in a particular place For this World shall pass away and when this Body dies the World disappeareth or dies also to the Souls understand the Blessed Souls leaving nothing about them but God the infinite Space who therefore as infinite admit neither quantity nor time nor ubiquity I say that Man must fight and overcome to be freed For as I said Wisdom or the Knowledge that makes Free is not a meer passive Theory or bare Notion but altogether active For as one hath defin'd it Wisdom is Lumen mentis if not rather Mens ipsa which Christ restores to the Soul 1 John 520. Clarè praelucens tribus ill is facultatibus quae simul constituunt humanam creaturam Which Three are Intellect us Voluntas Animus That is A Light shining first to the Intellect to see or perceive and understand in seeing and in hearing Matth. 13.14 every thing perfectly next to the Will directing and inducing him to chuse or determinate it self to desire and appete only what the Intellect shews him to be very good And lastly to the Courage that is to the power force and vertue of the Soul strengthening or enabling it to reduce into Practice and to follow and perform those things the Understanding hath shewed to be very good and which the Will desires appetes and chuseth for such As all things are matured or ripened and perfected by the strength of the Light of the Sun acting in them So Wisdom is compleated and the Soul is perfected by the power and the strength of its Light to act and do what it knows fit to be done A Man's Wisdom is known in the World by his Actions Whence saith St. James I will shew thee my Faith by my Works That is I will shew thee by them my Knowledge of God because Intelligere being ipsum credere as Trisinegistus affirms Faith is an Understanding or an Evidence saith Paul Heb 11.1 of things not seen with the Eye which therefore are evident or as manifest to us as if we saw and felt them So that being convinced of their Truth we believe them and live according to that Conviction doing all that is fit to make us capable of the enjoyment of them Like the Man in the Gospel who understanding full well that there was a great Treasure hidden in a Neighbours Field sold all things parted with all that he had to purchase it Therefore the Just saith St. Paul lives by Faith like Abraham who would not take any thing because he knew that it is God's Blessing makes a Man Rich Gen. 14. 23. and relied on him for it And like Enoch who walked as having God in his sight Chap. 5.24 and the Prophet Elijah who said As the Lord liveth whom I have still present or before whom I stand 1 Kings 17. 1-18 15 and endeavour to please to like a Courtier before him whom he looks for Favour and expects his Fortune from The Faith that saves Man is not an historical Belief of Christ being the Saviour of the World and of his Death Passion and Resurrection but a doing and acting the things that he bids us do viz. to deny our selves and die with him our selves to all the Lusts of the Flesh For he believes not in One who acts point blank contrary to what he saith and prescribes and takes quite another way than that he sheweth and teacheth Not the bare Notion of God but Righteousness and Power makes the Salvation of Man or constitute God's Kingdom Rom. 4.17 1 Cor. 4.20 And Righteousness and
we live again or come to another life and the death of the Body doth bring no life to the Soul therefore the Soul is to die and as the eternal Soul cannot corrupt or decay it is not obnoxious to such dissolution or death as the Body is and so the death of the Soul can be no corruption or dissolution of it but a continual dying agony strugling with death or such an anguishing pain as we may conceive a Man feels when he is a dying And this Fight or Agony must be as I have said with Burning or with Fire For every battel of men is with a confused noise and garments rolled in blood but this shall be with burning and with fewel of fire Isa 9.5 To which he adds ver 6. to shew us that this precedes the Baptism or the New Birth of Water the Water-like Child is born the Son of Man is formed in the Virgin Soul of Man and grows there till he becomes the wonderful mighty God and the Prince of Peace to him Under the Law all those things that could abide the Fire were purified by Fire and those that could not bear it were purified with Water to shew us what was to be the true cleansing of the Soul whil'st as yet in this Body of Flesh under the Gospel And many of the Fathers to shew that this is no new Doctrine speak at the same rate Amongst whom Ambrosius and Origen on the first Chapter of Leviticus and Psal 36. have left us these Passages Christus faith Ambrosius baptizat in Spiritu sancto igne qui Spiritus sancti typus imago est qui ignis instar cor animam fidelium inflammat ut probet eos secundum Apostolum 1 Cor. 3. Nam necesse est at hoc examen perficiatur apud omnes qui redibunt in Paradisum Oportet nos omnes faith Origen at que Paulum Petrum who saith I Pet. 4.17 that the time was come since the Agony of Christ that the Saints were to be tried and that this firy Tryal which he calleth their judgment must begin first at them and at the whole house of God intrare in talem purgatorium ignem sed omnes non eodem modo ac illi transibunt nam non omnes purgantur per ignem qui exit de Altari qui est ignis Domini nam ignis qui est extra Altare Altare autem est Christus qui mittit nobis ignem Spiritus Sancti non est ignis Domini sed ignis peregrinus in peccatorum cruciatum destinatus qui nunquam extinguitur ut vermis qui rodit eos nunquam moritur Nam postquam anima per multitudinem malefactorum in se cumulavit abundantiam peccatorum ista congregatio malorum cum tempore fermentat à poena supplicio interno flammam concipit sicuti corpus febrem ab excessu gulae aut aliarum superfluitatum cum in memorian revocare malefactorum historiam retexere incipiet quae ipsi perpetuus stimulus erunt ad torquendum sui ipsius accusatrix erit testimonium dabit contra semet ipsam ut Apostolus inquit ad Rom 2. inter se invicem accusantibus aut etiam defendentibus cogitationibus in die quâ judicabit Dominus occulta hominum Sed Jeremias cap. 25. Loquitur depotione irae Dei quae effundetur quicunque de illa bibere non volet non purificabitur Vnde discimus inquit quod irae Dei effusio in corda quam amoris Dei effusio sequitur Rom. 5.5 facit ad purgationem animarum Haec ille Whence we learn that the Fire of God's wrath in the Soul is both the Death of the Soul or the Hell of the Wicked and the Purgatory of the Souls of the Faithful of which he that will not drink shall never be purified and so shall never enter into the Kingdom of God Hebr. 12 14-13.11 and that this Firy Tryal is not so violent in some to wit that have led a holy Life before it as in others that have led an ungodly sinful Life whose multitude of sins kindle a greater Fermentation Out of this the Church of Rome that knows but the dead Letter of the Christian Mysteries and hath depraved them to make a sordid gain of them hath drawn her Purgatory And these things suffice to prove that this dying by Fire and this new Birth of Water are the true and onely way or quomodo of Wisdom that is how to obtain the Spirit that gives Wisdom without which all the study for Knowledge is but in vain as they that see in seeing may find to be true in most of the learned at the Schools who never find any thing besides the Opinion they have at first received thô it be never so False whereas a true Learned man brings forth daily out of his ever-springing Well or Stock of Wisdom things new and old Matth. 13.52 and who not only know not that these things are the true and direct way to Wisdom but preferring their Darkness to Light will not justifie or own this truth when told them and will keep for all this sucking the dry empty Breasts of their old Alma Mater so they call Academies and filling thus more and more as Eliphaz saith in Job 15.2 their Bellies with the East wind But here I would not be understood as if I meant that there is no Knowledge at all of Natural Things without this Death and this Birth For surely there is a place for Gold a vein for Silver Iron and Brass by Knowledge got without such means as these are molten out of their Oar Job 28.1 2. That is an implicit Knowledge in part may be had from others in many things But where shall Wisdom be found It is not to be found in the Land of the Living ver 12 13. Now Wisdom as I said is not a Knowledge in part and of one part of the World Enthusiastically inspired in our minds For in the case of Knowledge which is a sight of all the true Causes concurring in the production of such Effect or Phoenomenon as is become the Object of a Man's Meditation there can be no such thing But it is a Light shining or breaking out in the Mind which like a slash of Lightning makes all those things manifest that we could not see before though we were just upon them by reason of our standing in the dark with them so that we can thereby see and perceive what things they are nay read in them and through them by their outward signature per quid quomodo that is in what manner and by what they become such provided we set upon the Contemplation of them For as the Flash makes not Men see what is out of their sight or what they look not upon thô it shines through and gives light over the whole Hemisphere So thô the light of Wisdom doth make all things manifest and expose to our View the hidden Causes of Things yet